Chapter 148: The Spoiler "Mr. Bai" (Part Two)

It was already night when Bai Qi made his way back to the Wusha Sect. He felt his way forward relying on his memories. Although he had not stayed in the Wusha Sect for very long, he could still clearly remember some of the smaller paths. After all, whenever he had nothing to do at night, he would wander around to take in this new world, viewing it as a sense of belonging.

Walking along the old trails, Bai Qi was surprised to discover numerous patrols and sentry posts along the way. From the memories of Liang Sui’s subordinate that he had previously absorbed, he knew these people must belong to other allied forces.

After meandering through the paths, Bai Qi did not head straight to his own quarters. Instead, he first made his way to the dwelling of his fellow sect friend, Liu Xiaojie.

Without knocking, Bai Qi first observed the surroundings to ensure there were no other people nearby or inside the house. After confirming this repeatedly, he hunched his body and softly tapped on the door.

Liu Xiaojie certainly never expected anyone to be knocking in the middle of the night. He called out, "Who is it? Not sleeping in the middle of the night?"

"Screech."

Liu Xiaojie opened the door, his eyes still heavy with sleep. In recent days, acting under his master's orders, he had been managing affairs within the sect. Even a cultivator could hardly endure such continuous, relentless work. Therefore, when he opened the door, he failed to notice Bai Qi, who was crouching low.

Seeing Liu Xiaojie's drowsy appearance, Bai Qi couldn't help smiling and said, "Brother, it seems you've been quite busy with business lately!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Liu Xiaojie, who had been dozing off, immediately recognized the familiar voice and tone. His eyes instantly cleared up. Looking down, he spotted Bai Qi crouched on the ground. Thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him, he was genuinely startled. If Bai Qi hadn't immediately stood up and clapped a hand over his mouth, he would have long since alerted the patrols.

A single exchange of glances between the two men was enough for them to understand each other's intentions.

The two stepped inside and closed the door. Bai Qi waved his right hand, sealing the room with spiritual power to prevent anyone else from discovering them.

Seeing Bai Qi, who had been missing for so long, suddenly appear before him, Liu Xiaojie's joy was plain to see. He immediately showered him with a flurry of warm inquiries, most importantly asking about the elders and disciples who had been sent out on that fateful day.

Recalling the past, Bai Qi was also filled with some lingering doubts. When they first entered the Binhai River Valley, strange and bizarre things had been happening all around. During their battle with Xietu, his group had fought those puppets. Logically speaking, even if those elders and disciples were no match for them, they should have been able to flee. After the battle, he had been injured; from that very moment, the members of the sect had vanished completely, leaving not even a trace of the puppets controlled by Xietu behind, as if they had dissolved into thin air.

Bai Qi did not mention his battle with Xietu to Liu Xiaojie. Instead, he claimed that upon first entering the Binhai River Valley area, he had encountered bizarre flowers and been hunted down by a fourth-tier spirit beast, the Demonic Sky Wolf. The group had scattered in all directions to escape, and he never saw them again after that. In the end, he had been blasted unconscious, fallen into a river, and upon waking up, encountered a strange crow...

Piecing together a fabricated story, Bai Qi recounted the events of the past two months to Liu Xiaojie. Naturally, there were certain details he chose to keep to himself; the fewer people who knew about such matters, the better.

Hearing about Bai Qi's harrowing experiences, Liu Xiaojie felt his heart leap into his throat, experiencing a roller coaster of emotions. He had never expected that the quest to explore the existence of the Bronze Palace would result in such heavy casualties for the sect.

For any sect, the loss of high-level backbone members was tantamount to breaking its bones and injuring its tendons. Furthermore, having nurtured such promising talents only for them to perish halfway meant that the sect had to watch helplessly as the resources poured into them simply evaporated. Who could truly comprehend such heartbreak?

The two of them traded questions and answers about recent events. According to what Liu Xiaojie shared, Bai Qi learned about the establishment of the two major alliances. To his dismay, his arch-rival Liang Sui had still chosen a hostile path.

What drew Bai Qi's attention the most was that Liu Xiaojie had mentioned several times an old Daoist priest who went by the name "Fellow Daoist Bai." This was the exact same moniker used by the individual Liang Sui's subordinates had mentioned when Bai Qi emerged from the Bronze Palace.

According to Liu Xiaojie, this Fellow Daoist Bai was a fraudulent, charlatan Daoist priest. However, one notable thing was that his fortune-telling was occasionally remarkably accurate—or so Liu Xiaojie had heard from others.

Hearing this, Bai Qi grew even more curious. He genuinely wanted to cross paths with this self-proclaimed "Fellow Daoist Bai" and see what he was made of.

At that exact moment, Fellow Daoist Bai, walking through the snow, suddenly sneezed.

"Achoo! Who is talking about me, Fellow Daoist Bai? No, I must calculate this," Fellow Daoist Bai rubbed his nose, sniffed, extended his right hand, rolled up his sleeve, and formed an orchid finger gesture in the air at a 180-degree angle. He then began tapping his thumb against his finger joints, moving them up and down while closing his eyes to sense deeply.

"Eh? How can this be? Why won't the divination show anything? Why is there a shroud of fog blocking my divine eyes?" Fellow Daoist Bai gasped in the cold air, muttering to himself. Ever since he began practicing divination, he could not recall a single failure in his memory; this seemed to be the first time.

Refusing to accept this, Fellow Daoist Bai felt a surge of depression. For someone like him—a meticulous person who actually believed the fortunes he cast for others—this "sneeze" was definitely bound to him by some invisible karmic thread. A sneeze released, a karmic line connected, and what this connected was none other than himself. To Fellow Daoist Bai, this kind of intangible karma was the most terrifying thing of all, because it was beyond his grasp and control. Therefore, refusing to yield to this mystery, Fellow Daoist Bai simply sat down right where he was and pulled three copper coins from his bosom.

The copper coins looked extremely ancient. Had Bai Qi seen the patterns engraved upon them, he would have been utterly astounded—aren't these the exact patterns he had been searching for? These were vital clues to finding his way back home.

Apart from his master Wushan Que, the only other clues Bai Qi knew of were "Kun," the surface of the mysterious blue lantern within his body which also bore these patterns, and of course, one other person: Liang Sui's subordinate, Hun Que.

Earlier, back in Nanyang Commandery, Bai Qi had encountered Hun Que, though he didn't know that Hun Que had witnessed the presence of the azure Qi inside his body. Naturally, Hun Que was a sensible man and knew this matter could never be leaked; otherwise, those in the know would relentlessly pursue the truth. Lacking the necessary leverage and strength to assist him, Hun Que could only bury the secret deep in his heart.

"Clatter, clatter..."

A series of crisp jingles rang out as the copper coins rattled endlessly in Fellow Daoist Bai's hands. After a frenzy of shaking, Fellow Daoist Bai abruptly stopped and neatly lined up the coins in the palm of his hand according to their sequence.

When Fellow Daoist Bai laid eyes on the resulting divination hexagram, his heart grew even more unsettled, and a gasp of sheer terror escaped his lips: "No, this... how can this be? Just who on earth is this person? To make my divination hexagram turn out like this..."

Before Fellow Daoist Bai could even finish his sentence, a mouthful of blood violently surged up his throat, spraying directly onto the snow in front of him. Reflected in the moonlight, the crimson stain emitted a chilling hue fraught with dread.