“You…how are you here!?”
Upon seeing Lin Sheng suddenly appear before her, Weiya’s expression changed, but she quickly adopted a piteous look.
“Your Excellency Lin Sheng, what do you intend to do?”
“If you wish to kill me, why go to such trouble? Just do it directly.”
As she spoke, she closed her eyes as if resigned to her fate, her loose, disheveled brown hair falling over her shoulders, which, combined with her fair complexion, couldn't help but evoke a sense of pity in others.
At the same time, she had secretly tightened her grip on the hairpin in her hand.
However, just then, with a ripping sound, the ear-grating noise of flesh tearing apart echoed.
“Ah!”
Weiya cried out in pain, her right arm, which had been gripping the hairpin, was directly torn off by brute force.
Hot, crimson blood splattered everywhere.
Weiya seemed to still be processing what had happened when intense pain surged through her entire body.
“You…you…”
Her eyes widened, her face filled with both shock and anger, as if she wanted to say something.
The next moment, she painfully curled up, like a fully cooked prawn.
Her tall figure flew backward, crashing through several large trees.
Lin Sheng stood with his fist retracted, holding a blood-stained white arm in his other hand.
He removed the black hairpin from the pale hand and toyed with it.
Then, with a slight squeeze, the pale arm exploded.
“Is this what you use to send messages?”
Looking at the hairpin in his hand, or more accurately, the cylindrical jade stone within the hairpin, Lin Sheng showed a smile.
Dozens of meters away, Weiya, sprawled on the ground in a sorry state, struggled to lift her head. A tall boot appeared in her line of sight. Her gaze moved upward, and with eyes full of venom, she growled in a low voice.
“You…you were toying with me…”
“That’s right, I was toying with you.”
Lin Sheng said with a smile.
“You…”
Weiya’s resentment deepened. Soon, she seemed to realize something, and the venomous look on her face suddenly vanished. She grabbed Lin Sheng’s leg, her beautiful face showing extreme flattery and fawning.
“I was forced, I really was forced! Let me live, I don’t want to die. You can have anything you want, my body, everything I have, my skills are very good… I will surely satisfy you, as long as you promise not to kill me…”
As she spoke, she smoothed her messy hair and gave Lin Sheng a seductive smile. Even in her current pathetic state, she still possessed astonishing beauty, like a rose battered by a storm, making one unable to resist the urge to wantonly destroy it.
“I don’t like rotten goods…”
However, Lin Sheng’s response filled her heart with despair.
“But I won’t kill you…”
Upon hearing this, before Weiya could even let out a sigh of relief,
Lin Sheng had already lifted his foot and placed it on her back.
With a series of crisp cracking sounds of bones, almost all of her bones shattered.
The intense pain caused her to let out muffled groans.
Lin Sheng picked up Weiya, who was like a dead dog, and with a few leaps, disappeared from the spot.
Before long, he had caught up with the convoy.
Lin Sheng immediately ordered the convoy to stop moving forward.
Bai Can, Jin Yang, Nong Yu, and others got out of their carriages with some confusion. Upon seeing Weiya in Lin Sheng’s hands, they almost didn't recognize her.
“Young Master, what happened…?”
Nong Yu couldn't hold back and was the first to ask.
Jin Yang was equally confused, but Bai Can seemed to have thought of something and was not too surprised.
“She is a Dark Star of the Tianluo Sect; our whereabouts have been exposed.”
Lin Sheng casually tossed Weiya onto the ground and spoke indifferently.
“A Dark Star of the Tianluo Sect!? How could this be?”
Upon hearing this, Nong Yu’s eyes widened, and an expression of disbelief appeared on her face.
“Young Master, I didn’t expect her to really be problematic!?”
Bai Can walked closer, looked at Weiya, who had lost the ability to resist, and smacked his lips, saying.
When they left Bai Lu City, Lin Sheng had ordered him to investigate Weiya's information. At the time, he was quite puzzled.
After much effort, he only managed to gather a small amount of information, and there were no noteworthy issues among them.
After returning and informing Lin Sheng of the situation, he had initially thought that the Young Master was just being overly suspicious. However, he never expected that this Weiya truly had problems.
“Young Master, what should we do now? Are we still going to Northern Yan?”
Realizing the seriousness of the matter, Bai Can immediately asked.
“Since the matter has been exposed, we won’t go for now. You immediately send a message to Shui Zhi, telling him to hide for the time being. As for us, we’ll change our route and head back.”
Lin Sheng glanced at the unconscious Weiya and spoke indifferently.
“Alright, I’ll go send the message now.”
Upon hearing this, Bai Can and Jin Yang immediately went to make arrangements.
Everyone moved quickly. In less than a quarter of an hour, they had already changed their route and were heading north.
“I never thought that Weiya… she had been deceiving me all along.”
In the carriage, Nong Yu’s face showed a hint of wistfulness, and her mood was quite low.
She had indeed intended to treat Weiya as an older sister, after all, the other party had been truly kind to her.
But now, upon careful reflection, she also recalled some things that seemed off about the other party.
“Girl Yu, you don’t need to think too much about it. Hasn’t the Young Master already found her out?”
Bai Can, who was beside her, now spoke to comfort her.
“And let alone you, even Old Jin and I, neither of us felt that this Weiya had any problems. I have to say, she truly lives up to being a Dark Star of the Tianluo Sect in the military. Her disguise skills are truly impressive.”
Jin Yang also nodded in agreement.
“Old Bai is right. Let alone us, even with so many Grandmasters in the military, didn't they also fail to discover Weiya's disguise?”
Hearing the two of them, Nong Yu nodded, then, as if she thought of something, she asked with some confusion.
“But how did the Young Master see through Weiya’s identity? She’s hidden herself so well, and we haven’t been in contact with her for very long, have we?”
“That’s right, and the Young Master has been in seclusion cultivating for most of the time, and hasn’t had much interaction with this Weiya.”
Jin Yang frowned, also quite puzzled, and his gaze fell on Bai Can.
“Old Bai, didn’t the Young Master order you to investigate this Weiya? What did you find out?”
Upon hearing this, Bai Can shook his head and said somewhat awkwardly.
“I really didn’t find anything in my investigation. It was just some information from when she first joined the military. I looked at it many times and didn’t find anything amiss.”
He scratched his head. In terms of the degree of confusion regarding this matter, he was definitely far more puzzled than Bai Can and Nong Yu.
He truly wanted to know how Lin Sheng discovered the flaw.
Immediately, Bai Can glanced at the two of them and said somewhat hesitantly.
“How about I go ask the Young Master?”
A quarter of an hour later.
Inside the leading carriage, Lin Sheng was toying with the exquisite black jade stone.
He had heard of such communication tools.
Most large forces had them, and they were much faster and more convenient than exotic beasts or birds.
However, such communication tools were generally very expensive, costing at least hundreds or even tens of millions of silver taels, and were often in high demand but short supply.
He had seen similar things in Dark Star, but such items also had flaws: the transmission distance couldn't be too far, with a maximum range of about the distance of a single prefecture.
Therefore, for Weiya to send messages to Rashid through this item, it would certainly require several transfers.
He wasn't sure how often these people contacted each other, but it definitely wouldn't be too frequent, otherwise it would increase the risk.
Suddenly, power surged in his hand, and a dark green Qi condensed as if solid, enveloping the jade stone.
To prevent any tracking methods on this item, he had decided to keep it sealed with Qi until they returned.
As for why the Tianluo Sect hadn't made any moves despite him having left Jushi City for almost half a month, he was also somewhat puzzled.
However, after a brief thought, it was most likely because Rashid was wary of Huyan Ji, or more precisely, that military god, which was why they had not acted for so long.
“It seems the deterrent power of a Great Grandmaster is even stronger than I imagined.”
He murmured, already putting the black jade stone into his embrace.
Of course, to know more, he would naturally have to start with Weiya.
He tried to use the Seed Devil Secret Art to enter Weiya’s spiritual world and search her memories, but unfortunately, he did not succeed. Her mental strength was not low and quite chaotic.
Not to mention how much effort it would take to enter her spiritual world.
Even if he tried to force his way in, it would probably directly destroy her spirit, which was not what he wanted; he needed to keep her alive.
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the door, and Lin Sheng slightly raised an eyebrow.
Bai Can’s voice came in.
“Young Master.”
“Come in.”
The carriage curtain was lifted, and Bai Can had already climbed into the carriage.
His face showed a hint of hesitation.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Sheng asked, puzzled.
Bai Can then lightly coughed twice and spoke.
“Young Master, I want to know how you saw that Weiya had a problem? After all, the intelligence gathered by my subordinates didn’t show any abnormalities.”
After he finished speaking, his gaze was fixed on Lin Sheng’s face, awaiting his reply.
Lin Sheng, however, raised an eyebrow, then shook his head and said calmly.
“I just felt that something was off about her. Many times, no abnormality is an abnormality in itself. So I simply acted, and indeed found that she had a problem.”
Hearing the answer he had been waiting for, Bai Can was stunned, as if he hadn't quite processed it.
After a long while, he finally came to his senses, looking at Lin Sheng with a strange expression and softly saying.
“But Young Master, Weiya is, after all, a high-ranking official in the military, and she has the potential to become a Grandmaster in the future, highly valued by the military. If you directly acted against her, didn’t you consider that if she had no problems, wouldn’t things become troublesome? How would you explain it to the military then?”
Upon hearing this, Lin Sheng looked at Bai Can with surprise and said.
“If there were no problems, then the Tianluo Sect was responsible. The Tianluo Sect remains unrepentant, ambushing us in secret. Viya Protector bravely stepped forward and unfortunately perished. What does that have to do with us?”
“Uh…”
Upon hearing these words, Bai Can’s eyes widened, and his mouth hung open, unable to utter a single word for a long time.
Until he left the carriage, he remained in a state of utter bewilderment.
He had initially thought that Lin Sheng’s ability to discover the problem must have been due to his meticulous mind and keen insight, finding Weiya’s flaws from subtle clues.
Even when he came back, he had thought about the possible flaws Weiya might have revealed and how Lin Sheng could have detected them.
He never expected such a result: simply feeling that something was off, and then acting directly after the investigation yielded no results?
Thinking of this, Bai Can couldn't help but shiver, only then remembering that before this mission, he had specifically looked up some information about Lin Sheng.
Ruthless methods, audacious, brutal actions…
He hadn't felt much when he first interacted with him, but now he realized that the intelligence reports were completely accurate.
“Fortunately, we’re on the same side…”
Bai Can mumbled to himself, then quickly clutched his head in distress, wondering how he would explain it to Jin Yang and Nong Yu, who were eagerly awaiting the results.
Not caring how Bai Can felt, Lin Sheng retracted his gaze in the carriage.
He had indeed not found many problems with Weiya, nor had he discovered any flaws.
It was just that when he had a Breakthrough in Bai Lu City and came out of seclusion, upon seeing Weiya, he felt a fleeting trace of malice from her.
At the time, he was somewhat puzzled, so he asked Bai Can to investigate.
It was a pity that not much useful information was found, but he trusted his own feelings implicitly. That malice could absolutely not be fake. Too lazy to search for evidence, he simply acted directly, and whether there was a problem would naturally be known.
As for whether he would be wrong, he didn't care. He had come this far and lived until now; even if he was wrong, it was still right.
And the facts proved that he was indeed not wrong.
*
*
Southern Qi, Central Province.
Flying Flower City.
As one of the Five Cities of Central Province, its scale was no less than that of a prefecture, and it was quite prosperous and bustling.
Inner city, Yuechun Tower.
As the largest brothel in the city, it was even more lively.
At this moment, in the main hall of the back courtyard.
The main hall was filled with spring scenery, and occasionally, sounds of delicate cries and painful groans could be heard.
A strong, ugly man like a black bear, embracing two women, was shirtless, his body covered in thick black hair, like a wild beast.
On the other side of the main hall, a hunched, short old woman had several fair-skinned, handsome young men respectfully attending to her.
However, as the old woman’s withered hands glided over the young men’s tender skin, they left blood marks, causing the young men to let out suppressed groans of pain, yet they dared not dodge in the slightest. Instead, they feigned expressions of enjoyment.
Just then, a hurried figure entered from outside the main hall. After seeing the scene inside, he hesitated slightly.
“Come in.”
It wasn’t until the old woman’s voice sounded that the figure hurried forward, bowing respectfully to the two of them.
“Puji greets the two Protectors.”
“Speak.”
The old woman slightly raised her eyelids, somewhat impatiently.
“There’s news from Northern Yan; they’ve already set off and are expected to arrive tomorrow.”
Puji said respectfully.
“Oh!?”
Upon hearing this, the old woman and the black bear-like man opened their eyes, immediately becoming energized.
“Are they finally coming? This Lu Qing is really slow, he’s been delayed for so long.”
The black bear grinned, speaking in a booming voice.
“Black Bear, watch your words. That Lu Qing is a Grandmaster. Be more respectful when you meet him.”
The old woman frowned and said.
“Got it, what’s the big deal? He just crossed that step, I’ve decided I can cross it too in a few days…”
The black bear said somewhat unhappily.
“Alright, since Lu Qing has already set off, then contact Eva and confirm the location.”
The old woman gave a sinister laugh and slowly said.
The black bear pushed away the woman in his arms, and a black jade stone already appeared in his large hand.