"These patterns..." Li Nanzhu murmured.
Seeing her lost in thought, Rong Yuying reached out to take the token, her fingertips lightly tracing the lines. "There aren't many powers in the Central Plains that use this kind of horned pattern, but we can't rule out the possibility that it's the mark of some hidden organization." She paused. "Why don't I take it back to my sect and ask the elders to take a look?"
Li Nanzhu and Feng Qingping exchanged a look, and Li Nanzhu nodded. "Very well."
Their shared sentiment was that since there was more than just one or two of these black-robed men, they could simply kill another one and take his token later; they weren't lacking this one piece.
That said, Li Nanzhu walked over to the corpse of the black-robed man. With a flick of her fingers, she formed a hand seal, and a fire lotus descended. In a matter of moments, the body was reduced to ash.
The group cautiously inspected the surroundings. Once they confirmed no traces were left behind, Rong Yuying finally spoke. "Let's go. We need to double back."
"Wait a moment," Feng Qingping suddenly said. Under the confused gazes of the others, she tapped her finger lightly, and the residual runes on the ground actually began to swim like living creatures before sinking back into the earth. "This killing array was prepared for those people to begin with. It can be restarted at any time."
Rong Yuying's gaze fell upon Feng Qingping once more. It seemed her evaluation of this woman... was still too low.
When the group returned to the spot where they had first discovered the scrap of fabric, Feng Qingping suddenly stopped. She pushed aside several clusters of stalagmites, revealing a hidden array disk behind them. "Look."
Seven red crystals were embedded in the array disk, corresponding to the seven positions of the killing array. Feng Qingping tapped her finger, and the crystals lit up in sequence. "The first one was triggered by you, but fortunately, it's been patched up and can still be used."
Li Nanzhu noticed that two of the crystals were dim. "This is..."
"Two evil cultivators stepped on them," Feng Qingping sneered. "Pity they were just small fry at the Foundation Establishment stage." As spiritual light flowed between her fingertips, the crystals brightened once more.
"Evil cultivators?" Li Nanzhu suddenly asked, and the others looked toward Feng Qingping as well.
Feng Qingping blinked. "Did I not mention that?"
The group shook their heads in unison.
Feng Qingping cleared her throat and explained, "When my sixth junior brother and I fought those people earlier, I could clearly feel a cold, gloomy aura from them. The evil energy in their spiritual energy was extremely heavy, and the techniques they used were all sinister methods that damage a person's foundations." Her fingers unconsciously rubbed the edge of the array disk. "Specifically, the one at the late Golden Core stage used a technique that consumes the essence blood of others..."
Li Nanzhu's pupils shrank as a flash of insight crossed her mind—she remembered now!
The evil cultivator she had encountered in the Forest of Demonic Beasts had a bone flute for controlling beasts, and it bore very similar patterns! At the time, she had simply thought it was a common decorative pattern, but thinking about it now, they likely belonged to the same evil cultivator organization!
She suppressed her shock. That bone flute had been tucked away deep in a storage bag by Liu Qingyang; she wasn't sure if he had handed it over to the sect for study.
If the two were truly connected, then the appearance of these black-robed men here and the anomalies in the Forest of Demonic Beasts might...
Meanwhile, inside the refinery room of the Water Moon Sect.
"Achoo!" Liu Qingyang suddenly let out a loud sneeze, nearly swinging his forging hammer wide. "Who's cursing me?"
He rubbed his nose and continued muttering as he hammered the sword blank. "I wonder how Brother Duan and the others are doing..."
In that moment of distraction, the fire in the furnace got a bit too hot—
Boom!
A cloud of black smoke exploded out of the alchemy furnace. Liu Qingyang crawled out of the smoke, his face covered in soot, still clutching half a charred sword blank.
"It's over, it's over..." He looked at the pile of scrapped products in the corner with a long face. "That's the twenty-first furnace explosion this month..."
"Little Zhu'er?" Rong Yuying's voice pulled her back to reality.
Li Nanzhu composed herself and chose not to voice her discovery. The priority right now was to rescue her sixth senior brother; she could sort through these clues slowly once they returned.
Feng Qingping had finished re-checking the array disk. "Let's keep moving. I've restarted those arrays; they should be able to kill a few more."
The group walked back along the corridor, but Li Nanzhu's thoughts drifted far away again.
These evil cultivators were clearly capturing people. If it were purely for cultivation, it would be better to just kill them. What on earth were they plotting? And what was their connection to the events in the Forest of Demonic Beasts...
Click-clack. The sound of shifting joints interrupted her thoughts. Suisui was lightly tapping her shoulder with its bone claws, its soul fire flickering with a reminding glow.
Feng Qingping had reached the stone wall from before. She condensed spiritual light at her fingertips and touched the rock face. Following her movements, spiritual energy patterns like spiderwebs gradually emerged on the wall.
"Exquisite indeed," she said softly, taking a green jade array disk from her waist. "The outer layer follows the style of the Xuan-yin Array Manual, but the inner layer is mixed with the Buddhist Vajra Seal..."
Rong Yuying raised an eyebrow at that. "Cultivating both Buddhist and Daoist paths? Could those people be connected to those bald donkeys?"
"Not necessarily." Feng Qingping shook her head, her spiritual light seeping into the array nodes like silk threads. "It's a forced amalgamation. Though the array's creator has a high cultivation, their array attainments are..." She suddenly went silent, focusing all her attention on controlling the array disk.
Feng Qingping's fingertips flashed with spiritual light as she precisely tapped every key node.
Li Nanzhu watched in fascination. She had only briefly looked at some basic arrays in the Library Pavilion—common ones like the Spirit Gathering Array. But compared to her senior sister's exquisite techniques, her knowledge paled in comparison.
Yu'er was even more stunned, whispering in admiration, "So amazing..."
About fifteen minutes later, the runes on the rock wall flared with light before rippling like water, gradually revealing a deep, dark entrance.
"It's done." Feng Qingping let out a long breath, fine beads of sweat appearing on her forehead. "Luckily, we didn't alert them. Let's go in. Remember, stay close to me and don't touch anything."
Rong Yuying's round fan suddenly stopped, its ribs tapping three times against her palm. Every time she thought this female cultivator's array attainments had reached a limit, the other always managed to give her more surprises.
'It seems... I'll need to explain the situation in detail to Grandmother after returning to the sect. The assessment of the re-emerging Five Elements Dao Sect must be raised to a higher level of vigilance,' Rong Yuying thought privately.
After all, with one more sect, the resources the Hehuan Sect could obtain would be further divided. This was not a good thing for the development of the entire sect's strength, especially with the Sect Competition only half a year away...
At this thought, Rong Yuying's gaze darkened slightly. Of course, she wouldn't think of doing anything to Li Nanzhu and her companion. For one, they were still collaborating, and finding her missing junior sister relied on Feng Weilan. Secondly, she felt a certain affinity with these two.
But... if this news were leaked, there were plenty of sects that would be more anxious than them.
These thoughts only flashed through Rong Yuying's mind for an instant. She quickly resumed her smiling appearance, and even Li Nanzhu didn't notice the fleeting change in her expression.
Feng Qingping was the first to step sideways into the entrance, with Li Nanzhu following close behind.
However, when they saw the scene inside, they were all stunned.
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