After the black pot covered the house, a transparent barrier descended along its rim, enveloping the house beneath it.
Once the barrier reached the ground, it sealed shut beneath the house.
From then on, the entire house was perfectly sealed by this black pot. Unless the barrier was broken, escape was impossible, even with wings.
A large black pot suddenly appearing on the roof—if there truly was a cultivator inside, as long as they were conscious, they would naturally know what was happening outside.
Yet, the house remained as quiet as before, with no anomalies.
Was the person inside simply composed, or was Wu Chao not here?
The patrolling cultivators in the inner perimeter had already discovered the situation and were rapidly rushing towards it.
According to Zhou Fei's information, besides those who died in the mass grave, all of Wu Chao's other confidants were here, totaling over thirty people, all at Qi Refining level ten or eleven.
Gu Ningyun and the four others did not remove their Stealth Talismans, maintaining their hidden forms and auras, and intercepted the approaching confidants.
Facing a group of rogue cultivators whose cultivation was higher than theirs, whose combat experience far surpassed theirs, and who killed without blinking, merely obstructing them without killing was actually more difficult than outright killing.
However, due to Zhou Fei's mission requirements, and as stipulated in the contract, their task was to obstruct; these confidants needed to be dealt with by Zhou Fei himself.
Even with the difficulty, Gu Ningyun and her companions avoided inflicting fatal injuries on these confidants.
Gu Ningyun parried a confidant's killing move while dodging sneak attacks from three others, then deflected two long sabers with a flick of her sword.
Her fighting spirit soared, her eyes filled with interest.
The greater the challenge, the more it honed her control over her sword and improved her combat prowess, didn't it?
Sharp sword qi could kill as easily as slicing melons and dicing vegetables.
But meticulously controlling sword qi to merely injure, or even just obstruct without harming, was far more difficult than simply unleashing full-power sword qi without restraint.
As the clash of blades resounded from Gu Ningyun's side, Zhou Fei's side also stirred.
Under Zhou Fei's control, the barrier formed by the black pot rapidly shrank.
The person inside could finally no longer bear it; their iron clawed gauntlet fiercely struck the barrier.
The barrier trembled, then visibly thickened a bit.
The person inside slammed into the barrier and the black pot a few more times, then suddenly fell silent, as if they had finally given up.
Zhou Fei's heart, however, tightened further.
Sure enough, after a short while, a spot on the barrier began to emit dense black smoke, as if being corroded by something.
It was snake venom!
Zhou Fei hastily severed his spirit energy connection to prevent the toxin from spreading through it.
As the barrier was damaged, the black pot's spirit energy stagnated for a breath.
With a sweep of his iron clawed gauntlet, the person inside burst through the black pot and leaped out.
It was indeed Wu Chao.
His severed arm had been reattached, but it looked somewhat stiff, not as flexible as his left arm.
Judging by his scruffy beard, pale face, and unstable spirit energy, he was clearly still recovering from severe injuries.
It seemed he had only managed to expel the yin energy from his body and reattach his severed arm in the past few days, with no time to treat his other wounds.
As soon as he emerged from the black pot, Wu Chao could no longer maintain his grim and cold expression, and he cursed with wide eyes, “Zhou Fei, you truly are a great actor!
For years, Zuo Hu and I fought to the death, each controlling a part of Border City.
You stayed holed up in the City Lord’s manor, doing nothing, and I thought you were a good-for-nothing.
Who would have thought that after all my calculations and precautions, I would ultimately overlook you!”
Wu Chao dodged Zhou Fei's attack and raised his hand to retract the protection array he had set up in the inner perimeter.
After a brief sensing, his hatred deepened. “Wang Che, have I ever treated you poorly all these years?
I treated you like a brother, trusted you, valued you, and even gave you sole authority to open the protection array.
But you? You actually betrayed me and went to side with this good-for-nothing Zhou Fei!”
“Who cares for the esteem of someone like you!”
Wang Che seemed to have endured for a long time, his eyes bloodshot. “You beast, worse than pigs and dogs!”
Hearing this heartbroken roar, Gu Ningyun shifted her sword qi and deflected two more artifacts.
“What did you say?” As if he had never imagined Wang Che would curse him like that, Wu Chao was so shocked he almost failed to dodge Zhou Fei's attack.
“What have you hidden under this house? Do you dare to speak of it?”
Wu Chao's brows furrowed tightly. “What do you mean?”
Wang Che kicked open the house door and sent the concealment array's array plate flying.
When he found the mechanism in the room, opened the secret chamber, and revealed the concealment array plate covering it, Wu Chao finally began to panic.
“How did you know?”
He disregarded Zhou Fei's attacks and lunged towards the house. “Stop it, Wang Che, stop it right now!”
Gu Ningyun had already extended a wisp of her divine sense there, and as soon as the concealment array was moved, she saw the scene in a secret chamber beneath the house.
In the secret chamber, which was as bright as day, illuminated by embedded luminous pearls, three wooden shelves were arranged against three walls.
Each shelf had six layers, and each layer held a glazed bottle.
And these glazed bottles were filled with transparent, viscous liquid, which encased… human heads, arms, hands…
The ground of the basement was a dark reddish-brown, emitting a dense blood fiend qi.
On the wall without shelves, besides the entrance to the secret chamber, there was a wooden table.
On the wooden table, hundreds of torture implements were neatly arranged.
These yellow-rank mid-grade torture implements were severely worn, indicating frequent use.
A prickling sensation crawled up her scalp. Gu Ningyun instinctively withdrew her divine sense, but to maintain control of the battle, she suppressed her discomfort and moved her divine sense back, focusing on the situation there.
“What, now you know fear?”
Wang Che’s voice trembled uncontrollably. “You’re afraid, but weren’t those people you tortured to death afraid? Wasn’t my four-year-old brother afraid!
If not for City Lord Zhou helping me investigate, I might never have found the truth behind my brother’s disappearance.
I spent five years lurking in the Spirit Snake Gang, risking my life to take blows for you, gaining your trust—all for today!
Wu Chao, you are insidious and cruel. To satisfy your special perversion, you arranged for your confidants to abduct handsome and delicate young boys from Border City.
After extreme torture, you cut off the parts of their bodies that pleased you most, like trophies, and collected them in these glazed bottles.
Just for your disgusting perversion, so many boys suffered horrific tortures and died, not even leaving behind a complete corpse.
How can someone like you be worthy of being a gang leader?”
Wang Che had already removed his Stealth Talisman and descended into the secret chamber. From the second layer of the wooden shelf on the wall directly opposite the entrance, he retrieved a glazed jar, holding it to his chest with trembling hands.
“Brother, don’t be afraid. Big brother is taking you home.”
Plop—a clear tear trickled down his chin onto the glazed bottle.
Seeing the scene in the secret chamber and Wu Chao’s reaction, Gu Ningyun understood everything.
A surge of towering rage filled her heart. She gripped her peach wood sword tightly; if not for the contract, she truly wished to strike Wu Chao down with a few swift slashes.
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