Unsheathed

Zhu Quan started to drink, but most likely feeling like she was being slightly unreasonable for asking Chen Ping'an for more wine, she also started to drink sparingly and in small sips.

Sure enough, it was City Lord Gao Cheng of Skeleton Wall City, the most powerful heroic spirit in Malicious Ghost Valley.

When deciding to flee from Malicious Ghost Valley before, Chen Ping'an had also had some speculations in his mind. He had carefully filtered through all of the Nascent Tier ghost entities recorded in the Be At Ease Compilation, and he had naturally considered Skeleton Wall City's Gao Cheng as well. However, he had felt like the possibility was slim.

This was because the higher one's cultivation base, the loftier one's gaze. This was the case for White Cage City's Pu Rang, and it was also the case for the two mighty beings from the Great Round Moon Monastery and the Small Mystery Capital Temple in the peach tree forest. When standing on the bank of the Black River, Chen Ping'an's remark of "One needs to have the proper mindset to achieve proper results" had actually encapsulated a very large group of people. Of course, this was excluding vagrant cultivators.

There were also many unexpected surprises in the world, and there wasn't anything that was absolutely certain. As such, even though Chen Ping'an had felt like it was least likely for Skeleton Wall City's Gao Cheng to be the culprit when Yang Ningxing had mentioned a so-called watchful gaze from the north, he was coincidentally someone who was accustomed to preparing for the worst. As such, he had directly viewed Gao Cheng as his hypothetical enemy!

Otherwise, Chen Ping'an had already been staying at Green Cottage Town very close to where Sect Leader Zhu Quan had been cultivating in her thatched cottage, so had there been any need for him to use two gold paper Land-Shortening Talismans and split apart the barrier in the sky to leave Malicious Ghost Valley? Moreover, he had already been sure that there were spies of Skeleton Wall City hiding in Green Cottage Town beforehand, and he had purposely taken one extra trip to Copper Stench City. In reality, Chen Ping'an's escape plan had been silently set into motion the moment that he had tossed the lesser heat coin to the ghost captain at the city gate of Copper Stench City.

Chen Ping'an had, in fact, already figured out a rough vein linking everything together in the depths of his mind.

There were many critical points along this vein, for example, Yang Ningxing voicing his feelings near the suspension bridge between the two cliffs.

On the bank of the Black River, the old monk had gazed at the opposite shore and chanted "Amitabha" before silently saying that there was salvation in repentance, a seemingly offhand remark.

After entering Green Cottage Town, theoretically the safest place in Malicious Ghost Valley, Chen Ping'an had surprisingly been unable to lower his calligraphy brush and draw talismans. At the same time, he had even failed to calm his mind when trying to perform standing meditation. This was extremely rare.

Looking even further back, there was the fated opportunity pertaining to the female heavenly official from Mural City. The Deer Rider Divine Maiden had walked out from her mural and made her way to the dock at the Swaying River, transforming into an old lady to feel out Chen Ping'an.

Mural City was the first place that Chen Ping'an had stayed at after arriving at the Northern Complete Reed Continent!