Liang Yuhan sighed and decided that it would be a lot more beneficial to keep amiable relationships and have a wealthy client than try to figure out how he found out about them and risk getting on his bad side, losing a potential money-bag client. She could always learn more later. This caution is what kept her alive throughout her long life filled with peril.
The fact that the headquarters of such an influential organization were located in this backwater place in the middle of nowhere was usually their perfect disguise from common people.
Wu Long was also surprised, as he ran into it by pure coincidence. He was astonished to feel the aura of a Seven Profound Realms practitioner for the first time in this world inside a slightly big brothel but soon found many more powerful auras in the Nine Mortal Realms. As he checked the building he recognized it to be a hidden location of the Thousand Eyes Information Branch since he saw a massive underground facility with an archive that sent and received information from all around the continent.
He was a little excited to meet the first person who likely was here before the ‘great calamity’ and thus could fill in the blanks or correct his knowledge and speculations about this world. But he still had to be cautious since she would be much more sensitive to his questions and he did not know her affiliation. She was also cautious of him and seemed to suspect something. So he had to play safe for now. Just being able to confirm her location and overall demeanor, as well as establishing an initial relationship was enough of a profit from this encounter for him.
“So, what could you tell me about the Clear River Pavilion?”
“Depends on how much are you willing to pay?”
A heavy thud resounded as a coin purse full of gold slammed on the table not far from Wu Long, and then a few more followed after that.
She nodded with satisfaction once the amount was enough, and gestured to a seat not far from her as he now was a client.
“The whole sect’s now a puppet, they killed two grand elders and the third one disappeared somewhere as well, but there were witnesses that claim to have seen her not long ago at the border. There was also a massive number of regular elders who disappeared. Those were all upholders of justice and upright people, who were mostly of conservative views. That sect has been the last bastion that separated this country from complete depravity like the one in the neighboring Liugwei Kingdom, but they were slowly bribed and corrupted from within.
Most of the disciples are oblivious though, since the decisions were made in the inner chambers of the upper echelon of the sect. The biggest surprise is that there was no coup, which means that the old sect ancestors as well as the widely renowned for his righteousness current sect master are on board”
She briefly explained the situation while she placed her hand on a communication jade. Soon one of the attendants came with a scroll with detailed information.
Wu Long nodded. The situation was not very surprising, as the sects that were considered righteous were not always so righteous in Wu Long’s experience.
“Are you sure you want to mess with those people?”
While Wu Long was pondering, Madam Liang drew on the pipe in her hands and blew out a new long stream of smoke, looking at it with an introspective gaze, and finally asked in a slightly lower voice.
“Are you worried about me?”
Wu Long chuckled and charmingly smiled while she humphed in response. 𝒷𝓭ℴ𝓋𝓵.𝒸ℴ𝓶
“Of course this Big Sis is worried, are you moved?”
“Very”
She slightly narrowed her eyes at how immovable to her charms he was when he chuckled in response. In truth, he was very much interested in her, who would be against knowing such an alluring and remarkable woman a little closer? But he did not want to give her the impression that he fell for the little tricks she made, as well as was not inclined to play along with her fake flirting. However good she was at this, she was nowhere near skilled enough to fool him as he clearly saw the cold calculating look hidden deep within her green eyes.
“How about Bahshi Assassins?”
“I don’t sell information about them and they do not touch any of my people, that is our agreement, so I cannot sell you this either”
“Heh, looks like all of the best information is off the table”
“It is a small world”
She only ruefully smiled at his light rebuke. It was truly laughable for the biggest information dealing organization on the continent to not be able to sell information freely, but this world was truly too small to be more unrestrained in doing such business. She was widely known among the biggest powers as all people who survived the ‘great calamity’ kept tabs on each other to a certain extent, so there was not much wiggle room, lest she become enemies with them while having nowhere to run since she could not escape further than the three continents.
“I will be visiting you again, Liang Yuhan”
He replied, and she smiled in return. Nothing was better than a wealthy client returning. She did detect subtle different meanings in him calling her by her full name instead of Madam Liang or Big Sister Yuhan as she proposed, but it strangely felt very natural when he said it so she did not object.
There was something mysterious about him, especially since her very powerful illusion arts and charm arts did not work on him.
“It seems I need to research on him some more…”
She said, as she stood in the hall alone and looked toward the view of the city, she puffed her smoking pipe with an introspective look, her eyes now cold and calculating.
‘The fact that his name is Wu Long … and that hatred for Lust Cultivation, as well as resistance to all of my charms and that technique… but…there is no way that person could be in this little place, not to mention appear only now’
She thought to herself, as there was only one notorious hater of Lust Cultivators in the Seven Boundless Worlds by the name of Wu Long.
“The God of Slaughter and God of Pleasure…huh”
She said introspectively as a light spring rain began to fall outside the window she was looking through, coupled with lighting and thunder up in the sky.
She of course did not believe that he was ‘that’ Wu Long, but his name was too resounding when it came to Lust Cultivators, as he nearly single-handedly eradicated an entire practice from the face of the entire cultivation world, leaving only dregs that survive in the shadows. Thus his eradication of them in the Supreme Master Pavilion and then the royal family instantly brought an association.
She also noted a report about Heaven Transcending Lotus from the Ye family banquet which astonished her since it was a widely known signature move of the God of Slaughter Wu Long. Of course, she also never saw the technique, but its description was widely spread, and it matched very well with the description of the technique used in the Imperial Capital.
But since there was no meaning in The God of Pleasure coming here and pretending to be a rookie cultivator, and she did not even know of his demise staying in this isolated world her assumption actually lay in some sort of connection between them, which was why she was trying to learn more about him while being cautious and not using more forceful methods. She also did not sell information about him, or share any of her doubts with anyone, so his enemies still did not know of his name and origins.
“Should I ask Lian Zhiqiu? That little pervert girl has not even visited me in the past decades…”
She said out loud as she thought of Wu Long’s origin being reported as Yin Yang Unity Palace. She then decided to wait and see a little more.
—
Wu Long donned a bamboo hat and a cloak and exited the brothel into the rain. He then left the city, quickly dispatching on the way out several rogue cultivators who decided that he was easy prey since there were many of them and they were all in the same major realm as him, and sped off in the direction of the Clear River Pavilion’s Spiritual Land, as he wanted to get there before Wei Lan, or at least not long after she arrived.