Emerging from the shallow layer of soil, Tang Jie stood up, shaking off the dirt.
“Big Brother, how are things?” The little flower next to him turned back into Yiyi, hugging Tang Jie’s neck.
“Everything is fine. The original body has entered the third formation,” Tang Jie replied as he petted Yiyi. “Tang Jiye’s movements have been confirmed, so I can move now and clear my name.”
“Wonderful!” Yiyi excitedly shouted. She whistled, summoning the little tiger back.
The little tiger would need some time to get back, but the pair were in no rush. They casually strolled back up the mountain the same way they had come.
They came to where Shu Mingyang had fallen.
There was nothing there.
It was clear that the sects had discovered the deaths of Shu Mingyang and Jiang Qingsong.
After standing by the stream for a while, Tang Jie sighed. “The three sects should have argued up a storm by now, right?”
Yiyi covered her mouth and laughed. “Isn’t that for the best? It will let us be free and clear from now on.”
Tang Jie smiled. “‘Free and clear’? Where did that come from? I plan to use this chance to counterattack.”
There was a hint of savagery to these words.
As he was speaking, Tang Jie suddenly sensed something. He glanced at Yiyi and then pointed behind him, using his body as cover.
Yiyi immediately understood. While looking around, she loudly said, “Big Brother, I’m tired. Let me down so I can rest a little.”
“Alright,” Tang Jie agreed. Holding Yiyi, he left the stream and went over to a nearby rock.
As he drew close, Tang Jie suddenly threw Yiyi into the air, at the same time taking out the Heartbreak Saber and swinging at the area behind the rock. At the same time, Yiyi waved her hand, summoning her flower formation.
There was a cry of alarm, and there was a flash of pink—a girl in pink clothes.
The moment this girl appeared, she waved her hand, sending out a shower of silver lights.
These silver lights gathered in front of her in a mottled belt of light that blocked Tang Jie’s vicious blow.
She rapidly retreated, her body as graceful as a willow catkin. Those vines that tried to catch her not only failed to entangle her but also sent her higher into the sky. She was like a fairy being held aloft by the flowers, sent skyward.
But a moment later, Tang Jie jumped out, the Blazeraven Ring on his wrist flashing. A large number of Blazeravens charged out at his opponent.
That saber attack had been a feint. The hundred ravens were the real attack, and if this was no good, he could add the golden thread.
But when Tang Jie got a good look at that girl in pink and her familiar face, he realized with a start, “It’s you?”
This was clearly that girl he had encountered when fleeing into that estate the one night he had been chased by An Rumeng.
She clearly couldn’t be someone who had lain here in wait to ambush him, and Tang Jie knew he had made the wrong call. But the Blazeraven Ring had been activated, and that girl in pink paled in shock as those one hundred Blazeravens charged at her.
Tang Jie knew that he couldn’t call back his attack in time, so he lunged forward, grabbing the girl.
Boom! Numerous Blazeravens crashed into his back.
This left Tang Jie quite badly wounded.
Although he had already used the Formless Golden Body before this, the power of more than one hundred Blazeravens could not be underestimated. Let alone shattering his Formless Golden Body, the following Blazeravens even dealt harm directly to him.
It had to be understood that the avatar’s constitution was not as good as that of the original body. His body was at the equivalent of Tang Jie when he had finished cultivating the Visceral Manifestation Classic and was entering Basking Moon Academy for the first time. While it was a little stronger than an ordinary human, it didn’t compare well to the body of a cultivator.
Thus, even if it was only the remainder of the Blazeraven assault, he was still battered so badly that his vision momentarily went dark. But that girl in pink saw him lunging at her and, not realizing that he was trying to save her, instinctively thrust out her palm.
The palm flashed with starlight, imbued with a powerful strike, and Tang Jie was sandwiched between these two attacks, causing Tang Jie to groan in pain.
“Big Brother!” In the air, Yiyi cried out in alarm.
Throwing up blood, Tang Jie raised his saber and placed it on the girl’s neck.
The girl cried out in shock. It was only after attacking that she realized that Tang Jie was trying to save her, but just as she was hesitating and full of regret, Tang Jie placed his saber on her neck. She didn’t understand what Tang Jie was trying to do, so for the time being, she simply stood there and stared at Tang Jie with her beautiful eyes.
Tang Jie coughed up blood. “Don’t move! What are you doing here?”
The girl looked at him. “You know me?”
Tang Jie was taken aback. Only then did he realize that he had met her in the form of You Shaofeng, and he was currently wearing his own face. It was no wonder the girl was confused.
Sure enough, multi-tasking easily led to mistakes. Wasn’t this little mishap a perfect example? Snorting, he said, “I don’t know you, but you know me?”
The girl replied, “The Tang Jie who insulted Heng Wudi of the Beast Refining Gate in broad daylight. Anyone who went to the tournament grounds would know you.”
“Damn!” Tang Jie slapped his forehead.
This girl didn’t know You Shaofeng, but she did know who Tang Jie was, and he had shown that he had seen her before. This had revealed a flaw, and he needed to think of a way to make up for it!
Sure enough, the girl looked at him suspiciously. “Your voice… I seem to have heard it before.”
Tang Jie was internally shaken, and he hastily said, “Didn’t you hear it when I was cursing out Heng Wudi during the day?”
“No…” The girl shook her head. The saber was placed on her neck, so in shaking her head, she caused a thin line of blood to appear on her delicate skin. Tang Jie was forced to take back his saber, and he sternly said, “What’s with all these questions? You still haven’t answered me! What were you doing here?!”
The girl quickly replied, “I was just passing through.”
“‘Passing through’?”
“Right, passing through!” she firmly replied. “That’s how it is, whether you believe it or not!”
Tang Jie hesitated.
The girl said, “I say, how long do you plan to keep pushing me down like this?”
Only now did Tang Jie notice that he was on top of her body while questioning her.
After thinking it over, he finally sheathed his saber. “My apologies for the offense. You know that I am Tang Jie, so you know that I’ve offended a lot of people recently. Thus, I tend to react rather intensely.”
The girl in pink stood back up and looked at Tang Jie. “Since it was a misunderstanding, let’s forget about it.”
She inspected Tang Jie like she would a rare object. The more she looked, the more she found him interesting and strange.
Tang Jie felt his hairs rise, and he did not dare to linger here. After apologizing, he took Yiyi and left.
The girl watched him leave, her eyes growing more and more suspicious. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had seen him somewhere before. Suddenly, she shouted, “I know who you are!”
Tang Jie shivered, but he restrained himself and slowly turned around. “What did you say?”
“It’s nothing.” the girl grinned. “I’m saying that I know that you’re Tang Jie, but you don’t know who I am.”
Tang Jie casually said, “There’s no need to get to know each other off a chance meeting. It’s fine if I don’t know.”
Upon this, he left.
The girl’s smile grew even wider as she watched him go. “Launching a sneak attack the moment you realize that someone is nearby… holding back the moment you saw me… How could you be here… That’s the tone of someone who’s met me before… pretending to be fine even after being so heavily injured, and that reaction just now. He’s definitely got something on his mind. ‘No need to know each other off a chance meeting’… hmph! What a joke!”
The girl in pink could tell from Tang Jie’s last words that he was hiding something.
There were few young cultivators who would say something like “no need to know each other off a chance meeting” after seeing her face. Most of them would tend to say, “Since we had the fortune to meet, even the other end of the world seems close at hand.”
If Tang Jie knew what this girl was thinking, he would undoubtedly plead innocence. He truly didn’t have any lustful thoughts about her, but he hadn’t expected that this would become proof that he was hiding something. But if he had to ask himself, he would have to admit that this argument was not without reason.
As the girl muttered to herself, she stopped paying attention to Tang Jie. Inspecting the ground, she murmured, “Shu Mingyang died here, and Tang Jie appeared here at a time like this. Coincidence… or something else?”
A silver light appeared in her hand, illuminating the entire area. Even tiny clues were revealed by this silver flame.
Tang Jie returned to Red Plum City and went to the Cleansing Sword Garden.
The guarding Basking Moon Academy student saw Tang Jie and said in delight, “You’ve finally showed up! The headmaster is looking for you.”
“I will go and see him now,” Tang Jie said with a smile. He knew why Xie Fengtang was looking for him.
He went through the Cleansing Sword Garden to where the masters were staying and saw that Xie Fengtang was already waiting for him in the courtyard. Ming Yekong was not present.
Stopping near Xie Fengtang, Tang Jie said, “Student Tang Jie pays respects to Headmaster.”
“Mm.” Xie Fengtang didn’t even raise his head. “Shu Mingyang is dead. Do you know of this?”
“Is that so…” Tang Jie hesitantly said, his tone that of someone who was both surprised and unsurprised. He sighed. “So he really is dead… It was my fault.”
“Oh? What do you mean?” Xie Fengtang turned around and looked at Tang Jie.
Tang Jie sighed, “During the day, after the matches ended, I went walking around. When I was strolling around outside the city, I ran into Mingyang.”
“You left the city at this time? Don’t you know that the Beast Refining Gate is furious and looking for a chance to kill you?”
“This student understands, which is even more reason that this student had to leave the city. The Beast Refining Gate wants to kill me, and don’t I want to kill them?” Tang Jie lightly said. “Killing the people of the Beast Refining Gate rewards contribution points, and as you recall, Headmaster, I still owe points to the academy.”
Killing a member of the opposing sect offered contribution points. This alone was proof of the grudge between the two sects. If not for the pact between the six sects that forbade conflict outside of the arena, there would have been a huge battle already.
Xie Fengtang narrowed his eyes. “In other words, you were baiting the Beast Refining Gate into attacking you.”
Tang Jie sighed. “Yes, but I didn’t think that Shu Mingyang would be around, which got him involved.”
“Who was chasing you?”
Find the original at Hosted Novel.
“Helian Hu and Jiang Qingsong.”
“So it was the two of them.” Xie Fengtang was unsurprised. “We found Jiang Qingsong’s body in the mountains. Did you kill him?”
“Yes? Back then, Helian Hu and Jiang Qingsong were against me and Mingyang. I saw the chance and ran first, and Jiang Qingsong chased me down, but I turned the tables and killed him. However, I was injured in the effort, so I found a hiding spot to treat my wounds. It’s only now that they’re better that I could come back. On the way back, I had already guessed that Brother Mingyang’s chances of survival were slim, but I didn’t think…”
A look of helplessness and resentment appeared on Tang Jie’s face.
Xie Fengtang coldly snorted, “Yes, I didn’t think that Shu Mingyang would be a spy of Godhead Palace! His death was wonderful and deserved!”
“What?” Tang Jie feigned shock as he looked at Xie Fengtang.
Xie Fengtang wasn’t interested in his “surprise”. He grabbed Tang Jie’s hand and sent energy through it to inspect his injuries.
He managed to find out a lot, and he frowned and said, “Your injuries truly are severe. Shadow energy has assailed your internal organs.”
Xie Fengtang could tell with this inspection that Tang Jie couldn’t have possibly inflicted these injuries on himself, and also that his wounds were quite severe.
But he furrowed his brow and said, “But the Beast Refining Gate isn’t skilled at shadow energy. Why does it seem like you were struck by the Shadow Star Hand of the Wandering Palace?”
“‘The Shadow Star Hand of the Wandering Palace’?” Tang Jie was shaken. “Isn’t that a secret art of the Wandering Palace that’s only passed down in that sect?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen it, though I’ve heard that it’s a powerful art that’s brimming with shadow energy. Those struck by it will seem fine on the outside, but their insides will be in tatters. You’re still alive, so you naturally didn’t get hit by the Shadow Star Hand. It must be some spell art from the Beast Refining Gate.”
There were many spell arts in the world, and the Shadow Star Hand wasn’t the only one that used shadow energy. The Beast Refining Gate was one of the major sects, so even if it wasn’t their specialty, it would still have one or two shadow energy spell arts. Thus, Xie Fengtang didn’t overthink things too much.
But this made Tang Jie finally realize who he had run into.
He was still alive not because the Shadow Star Hand was ineffective, but because the other party hadn’t been proficient enough in it.
The Shadow Star Hand was passed down exclusively through the Wandering Palace, and it was provided to only four people in total. One was the current palace lord, and it was impossible for them to not have properly cultivated it. The second was the father of the young palace lord, but this was a man. The third was a venerable senior of the Wandering Palace, and that could not be a little girl either.
Thus, the girl’s identity became obvious.
The little palace lord of the Wandering Palace, Shen Qingdan!
Now that Tang Jie knew who she was, Tang Jie relaxed.
Meanwhile, Xie Fengtang placed his fingers on Tang Jie’s wrist and sent some True Essence into Tang Jie’s body. As the energy cycled, the internal injuries throughout his body were pacified, and it wasn’t long before Tang Jie was healed.
In the meantime, Tang Jie used this opportunity to “understand” how Shu Mingyang’s and Jiang Qingsong’s bodies had been discovered.
Sure enough, not long after he had gone, the Basking Moon Sect and Beast Refining Gate had separately noticed that their students had gone missing and started to search for them.
In truth, before finding the two corpses, the two sects had already fought one battle, but they had both restrained themselves, so nobody had died.
When the bodies of Shu Mingyang and Jiang Qingsong were found, both sides became enraged.
Both of them were geniuses of their respective sects. Shu Mingyang had had an eight-cycle Jade Gate, but Jiang Qingsong had been able to participate in the Immortal Fortune Conference, so was he not a highly capable student in his own right?
Both sides were ready to start fighting over their death, but then, the spy emblem had been found on Shu Mingyang’s body.
The situation grew complicated.
Godhead Palace had been dragged in.
When the Basking Moon Sect found out that Shu Mingyang had been a Godhead spy, its tone changed. Rather than being angry at his death, it celebrated, and Godhead Palace could only suffer in silence. While openly denying that Shu Mingyang was a spy, they sent people to question Helian Hu as to why he had killed Shu Mingyang.
The surface conflict had been put aside, and the hatred between the Basking Moon Sect and the Beast Refining Gate evaporated, with both sides ceasing to seek out chances to kill each other. On the other hand, the mood between Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate instantly turned strange.
Since then, the bigshots from Godhead Palace and the Beast Refining Gate had been in talks, and even now, the conference hall was brightly lit.
It was clear that they were quarreling over the custody of Helian Hu.
The Beast Refining Gate could not possibly accept such a thing.
“Now that you’re back, we have further evidence regarding the incident. The Beast Refining Gate is in trouble now. Good job, good job!” Xie Fengtang stroked his beard and laughed.
“It truly was quite the coincidence.” Tang Jie smiled. “The best part is that the second round of the tournament is about to begin. That’s a free melee where sixty students will all be in the same ring to determine who’s the best. Originally, the sects would have paired off into their alliances, but it seems like it will be difficult now.”
“You’re so short-sighted! This is hardly anything,” Xie Fengtang teased. “If the alliance between those two sects falls apart because of this, the entire framework of the Rosecloud Domain’s cultivation world will be shaken.”
Tang Jie grinned. “It’s precisely because it’s a big event that could affect the framework of Rosecloud that this student thinks that such a thing will not happen. No matter how wronged Godhead Palace feels, I believe that it will grin and bear it. But in a minor affair like the tournament, they can give vent to their emotions and use their actions to strike back at the Beast Refining Gate.”
Xie Fengtang was taken aback. “Hearing you say it like that, it makes sense.”
“Godhead and Beast Refining are at odds, so they will find it difficult to work together. Horizon Ocean and Thousand Passions are both disadvantaged due to the gender of the participants, so they can’t utilize their maximum strength. And the Seven Absolutions Sect has always been the weakest of the six sects. So in this tournament, my Basking Moon Sect has the best chance of being the greatest victor. Of course, whether we’re the final victor is still up for discussion,” Tang Jie said.
“‘Greatest victor’? ‘Final victor’? Is there a difference?” Xie Fengtang asked.
“Yes. ‘Being the greatest victor’ means the sect that has the most students in the top ten, in this way showing off its strength and firming up its status. The final victor is naturally the sect of the student that the little palace lord chooses as her husband, but that’s not something we can decide.”
“It makes sense.” Xie Fengtang nodded. “Then what idea do you have to make my Basking Moon Sect the final victor?”
Tang Jie thought it over and replied, “There is one… Kill the most handsome ones!”