Chapter 336 – Sharing Secrets
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“My sense towards the Golden Wing shouldn’t be wrong, only if she didn’t ride the Golden Wing.” Within the five to six men, a short, average looking man spoke out in a low and grating voice. His beady eyes flashed as he stared at the far off army camp.
The Golden Wing that this man spoke about was the golden-winged Heavenly Wind Eagle.
The South Horizon Region was a vast, limitless land. Once one left the Moon Seizing Sect, the horizon was endless and complex, no matter where one went. To the west was the convoluted Southern Wilderness. If one wanted to hide in the Southern Wilderness, they could hide themselves in any small tribe. If one didn’t have a special method of searching, looking for someone there would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
This group of people came all this way to track down Zhou Xinyu. The short man used to be the handler of the golden-winged Heavenly Wind Eagle. Although he was weak, he had been born with a special talent that allowed him to communicate with animals. In order to avoid losing the precious golden-winged Heavenly Wind Eagle, he had developed a special link with it, and was able to sense it in a range of several hundred thousands of miles.
These were all survivors of the Moon Seizing Sect. They had found this small man and had used him as a guide. Together, they had crossed mountains and rivers, crossing the Southern Wilderness, and suffering the countless vicious beasts along the way, and now they had finally caught up to Zhou Xinyu.
“Hehe… I didn’t think she would hide in a city of mortals.” The bamboo hat man licked his lips, seeming extremely excited.
“Second Uncle, although this little girl’s cultivation is only at the peak Pulse Condensation period, Apprentice Uncle Shui Yue may have left her some hidden cards which she can use to escape. Also, there are many people in this army camp. Once chaos breaks out, it will be easy to lose her. First, I’ll put down a barrier formation. Then even if she has wings, she won’t be able to escape.”
“Cough cough…” A middle-aged man wrapped in black fog coughed. His face was unnaturally gray, he had apparently been injured.
“How are we going to deal with these mortals?” The man called Second Uncle casually asked.
“If we can successfully catch Zhou Xinyu without leaking any secrets, then we can let them go. After all, this is the area of the Seven Profound Valleys. If we kill too many people here, it will be too troublesome. But if the secret is revealed, we have no choice but to kill them and blame the beast tide. The beast tide is wreaking havoc everywhere these past days; an army of a few thousand disappearing isn’t anything unusual.” The bamboo hat man sounded extremely cold and indifferent. To a sect martial artist, the lives of a few thousand mortals were simply nothing at all.
“Good, then we’ll proceed as you say.” As the Second Uncle spoke, he took out an array disk, preparing to lay down the array formation. The others also helped him. This array formation wasn’t anything too complicated, it could only hold down a master for a brief period of time; but this was enough to stop Zhou Xinyu and capture her.
Also, this barrier formation had an addition role, and that was to disallow mortals from escaping. As they were disciples of the Moon Seizing Sect, once it was known by the Seven Profound Valleys that they were wantonly slaughtering mortals within their domain, it would be extremely troublesome.
As the bamboo hat man was placing down the barrier array a step at a time, he took off his hat, revealing a very handsome face that was only marred by the fierce and brutal gaze that emitted from his eyes. He sneered as he spoke to himself, “Apprentice Uncle Shui Yue, you were too biased and cruel. Now, do not blame me, Huang Sanping, for being heartless.”
In the middle of the night, the moon was bright in the sky. Lin Ming was meditating in his tent, combining various medicines and a medium-grade true essence stone in order to recover his strength.
At this time, Lin Ming took out the jade slip from the spatial ring that Bu Luo had left behind. He had briefly studied the skills within the jade slip, and found that they weren’t too hard to cultivate.
He was about to enter the ethereal martial intent and ponder the contents of the jade slip, when suddenly, his heart stirred. “Huh?”
Lin Ming quietly and slowly got up from his bed, moving towards the tent’s windows like a dexterous cat. He drew open the curtains and looked out, seeing the deep blue starry sky and the endlessly black hills. He didn’t see anything different, but he had clearly detected an unusual true essence fluctuation just a moment ago.
There was someone lying in ambush.
Lin Ming’s complexion sank. As he was thinking of how to deal with them, at that moment, he saw the silhouettes of four people riding two Heavenly Wind Eagles in the distance, flying over to the army compound at a leisurely pace.
Although they were very far and the light was dim, Lin Ming was still able to clearly see all of their appearances. They were dressed unusually, and their clothing was covered with dust; obviously, they had traveled a long and tiresome journey.
Of these four people, two of them were at the Pulse Condensation period, and the other two were at the Houtian realm. One was at the middle Houtian realm, but the other one, a middle-aged man whose entire body was wrapped in a shroud of darkness was shockingly at the peak Houtian realm, not too far off from Xiantian!
Seeing this, Lin Ming’s expression changed. Looking at the thickness of their true essence, they were most likely martial artists from a sect. As Lin Ming was right now, he was not a match for a sect’s peak Houtian martial artist!
As they closed in, one of the Houtian martial artists took out a purple bead from their spatial ring, and tossed it into the sky without hesitation.
There was a loud explosion, like a thunderclap striking the earth, and then a violent shock wave burst forth with a turbulent surge of wind, lifting up all of the nearby tents in the army camp. All sorts of weapons, clothing, food, bedding, and other items were thrown into the air, and dozens of soldiers that had been fast asleep were blown upwards by the blast, then fell down onto the ground, turning black and blue from the bruises and pitifully screaming out in pain.
The army camp was in immediate chaos. Many soldiers assumed that the beast tide had come again, and hastily grabbed their weapons and rushed out to meet the beast tide. With the ever-present threat of the beast tide, the soldiers hadn’t taken off their armor, but in the rush, many of them had taken the wrong weapon, wore the wrong shoes, or wore the wrong helmet.
After the second beast tide and been repelled, Zhou Xinyu had stayed in the army camp because she wanted to speak to Lin Ming more. As she heard the loud thunderous roar, she immediately dressed and came out from her tent. As she looked into the sky, she was immediately stunned.
“Huang Sanping, Huang Zixuan… why are they here?” Zhou Xinyu was confused for a brief moment. Huang Sanping was the other genius from the Moon Seizing Sect that had been selected for Divine Phoenix Island’s joint talent training program. He didn’t die? Why would he be here with Second Uncle Huang Zixuan? Were they looking for her?
Thinking of the possible reasons, Zhou Xinyu seemed to suddenly realize something, and her expression immediately changed.
“This is bad!”
She was frightened like a squirrel and immediately retreated back to her tent, her face draining of color.
Although Zhou Xinyu had grown up since childhood at the Moon Seizing Sect and was inexperienced about the ways of the world, she was no fool. She didn’t think that Huang Sanping came here looking for lost disciples of the Moon Seizing Sect in order to rebuild the sect together. Huang Sanping must have known what she had on her body, and was eyeing the treasures of her master all along.
“What should I do?”
Zhou Xinyu panicked. She didn’t know why Huang Sanping hadn’t died, or why he knew what treasure was on her, or how he had pursued her all the way to Green Mulberry City. But what she did know was that the man with Huang Sanping was their Second Uncle from the Moon Seizing Sect, an outer court elder, and a master who was only a step away from reaching the Xiantian realm.
Such an existence could crush her to death with just a few fingers.
Zhou Xinyu bit her lips and quickly changed into a black set of clothes. She quietly touched the edge of the tent, wanting to mix into the chaotic crowd and flee in the whole mess. To her, this was the only possible way out.
“Who’s the boss here, come out!” Huang Sanping shouted loudly as he glanced at the crowd beneath him with a contemptuous gaze.
The man in charge was originally Zhu Ping, but Zhu Ping had been killed just an hour ago by Lin Ming, with not even his skeleton remaining. The guards that protected the commander didn’t know, and only thought that their lord had disappeared somewhere, though they didn’t know why or what he was doing. At this time, the entire army camp was in total confusion. With Zhu Ping dead, no one stood up.
However, with this shout, the soldiers quickly realized that a vicious beast tide wasn’t coming. Like this, they soon calmed down.
Since Zhu Ping wasn’t present, Lin Wanshan walked out. As he saw the cultivation of the several people in the sky, his heart thumped. If these people came here with ill intentions… and sure enough, one of them was a peak Houtian martial artist.
He cupped his fists together and said, “I wonder what brings several masters here, is there a matter?”
“You have a young girl here that came riding a golden-winged Heavenly Wind Eagle. Where is she?” As Huang Sanping spoke, he pointed to a corner of the army camp where a golden-winged Heavenly Wind Eagle was lying.
Lin Wanshan’s eyes widened. These people most likely didn’t have any good intentions looking for Lan Yi. However, this had nothing to do with them, and he didn’t want to block this danger for Lan Yi.
Lin Wanshan was about to tell them where Lan Yi was, when suddenly Huang Sanping’s Second Uncle, Huang Zinxuan’s eyebrows rose. He hoarsely said, “Over there, she just touched my array formation.”
“Hey! You want to run?” Huang Sanping licked his lips and immediately directed his Heavenly Wind Eagle towards where Zhou Xinyu was.
When Zhou Xinyu touched the array formation, in that moment she paled, her entire body trembling. She knew that she had been discovered, and immediately turned to run back into the crowd. The army camp was huge, as it was able to hold 10,000 soldiers. In addition, it was night and she wore black travelling clothes, so it was easy to quietly mingle into the crowd, rushing through the tents. Like this, it wouldn’t be easy to immediately find her.
“Haha, Junior-apprentice Sister, if you keep hiding then I’ll make my own move. Do you want these mortals to be buried along with you?” Huang Sanping brazenly laughed, completely like a cat that was playing with a mouse. Everyone within the Moon Seizing Sect assumed that he and Zhou Xinyu were like a dragon and phoenix that loved each other. However, they didn’t know that because of the struggle for resources, they had extremely bad relations with each other, to the point of hating the other.
And now, he had brought masters with keen eyesight to look for his formerly haughty and lofty Junior-apprentice Sister. There was nowhere to run for her, no way to escape; she was just like mouse scurrying through the streets. With this, his mind was incomparably comfortable, and he laughed with self-satisfaction.
At this time, Lin Ming stood in the shadows and watched the four people in the air, silent. With his keen perception, he could see that the peak Houtian master whose entire body was covered in a black fog seemed to be injured. Even so, that peak Houtian master wasn’t someone he could deal with. He and Zhou Xinyu weren’t relatives, nor were they friends. There was no reason to risk his life against such a master in order to save her.
But at this moment, a sobbing, tearful true essence sound transmission sounded in Lin Ming’s ears. “Sir Lin, I beg you to save me! If you save me, I have secrets of the Moon Seizing Sect on me. Save me and I’ll share them with you!”