192: Chapter 192 Like an Old Friend

The night was as dark as ink, completely swallowing the clamor of the Taiqing Sect's Main Peak.

The "Hall of Enforcement Mutiny," which was significant enough to be recorded in the Sect's history, finally came to an end with Zhao Kun being crippled.

In the back mountains of Hundred Herbs Peak, there was a secluded valley.

This was the healing place specially allocated by Si Yuanzhi to "Acting Elder" Gu Changfeng.

The surroundings were filled with Spirit Gathering Formations, and the dense wood Spiritual Qi turned into a faint green mist, nourishing this body that was already "riddled with holes."

Gu Changfeng sat alone in a stone pavilion.

There was no spiritual tea on the stone table; instead, the storage ring snatched from Zhao Kun's hand lay open.

His Divine Sense swept over it; inside, Spirit Stones were piled up like mountains, and there were several High Grade Magical Artifacts of decent quality.

This Zhao Kun was truly a qualified transport captain.

Gu Changfeng's face was pale. Although the wound on his left shoulder had stopped bleeding, the piercing pain still stimulated his nerves from time to time.

He paid no mind to the pain, instead habitually extending his right index finger and lightly tapping on the edge of the stone table.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

This was a very rhythmic cadence.

Two long, one short, followed by a three-breath pause.

Whenever Gu Changsheng was deep in thought or calculating gains and losses, his fingers would involuntarily use this rhythm to assist his thinking.

At this moment, his consciousness was operating at high speed.

[Clone: The Taiqing Sect's prestige has reached its peak. The name Gu Changfeng has become a benchmark for the Righteous Path.]

[Original Body: The Devilish Qi in the Western Desolate Marsh has been temporarily suppressed. The finger bone is being refined. Immortal Golden Nature extraction progress: one percent.]

Everything was proceeding according to plan.

Just as the corner of Gu Changfeng's mouth was about to curve upward, the finger tapping the table suddenly froze in mid-air.

Someone's here.

It wasn't an Aura scanned by Divine Sense, but the keen capture of the surrounding plants' emotions by [Withered Meets Spring].

Three hundred feet away, a century-old vine clinging to the cliff suddenly trembled.

It wasn't caused by the wind.

It was someone "borrowing its eyes"... Upon the cliff, the moonlight was like white silk.

Wen Yuechan, dressed in plain clothes, stood barefoot on a pine branch.

She was originally there to absorb the moonlight and calm her Dao Heart, which had become somewhat unstable due to the emotional turmoil during the day.

Unexpectedly, her gaze fell upon the secluded valley below as if possessed.

That man was sitting in the pavilion.

Even from such a distance, she could still feel the loneliness and exhaustion emanating from his very bones.

It was the desolation after shedding all his blood for the Sect.

Wen Yuechan's heart softened, and she was about to turn and leave, not wanting to disturb this hero's peace.

However.

That crisp tapping sound drifted with the night wind and entered her eardrums.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

Wen Yuechan's body suddenly froze.

This sound... was too familiar.

The gates of memory were instantly burst open.

From decades ago.

With Gu Changsheng, who would shrink back whenever something happened.

The frequency, the force, and even the pause after those two long and one short taps were exactly the same.

A coincidence?

Wen Yuechan's breath hitched slightly.

Reason told her this was absolutely impossible.

Gu Changsheng was just a practitioner of the dao of prudence who had been missing since the Secret Realm collapsed. Given his personality, he was likely cultivating in some corner.

But the Gu Changfeng before her was at the Late Foundation Establishment Stage, an iron-blooded Elder who dared to challenge the Law Enforcement Hall alone and rebuke those in power for his Disciples.

In terms of cultivation, personality, and conduct, the two were as different as clouds and mud.

But that damn intuition was like a thorn, piercing deep into her heart.

"Is it you?"

Wen Yuechan murmured to herself.

If Gu Changsheng wasn't dead... if he had returned with a new identity... once this thought arose, it grew wildly like weeds and could not be suppressed.

She had to confirm it.

Wen Yuechan slowly closed her eyes, her hands forming seals, and a light green leaf-shaped mark on her brow suddenly lit up.

immortal foundation—[Branch-Between-Hearing].

This immortal foundation could communicate with plants and listen to the whispers of all things.

Wherever there were plants, nothing could be hidden from her ears.

"Tell me..."

Wen Yuechan's Divine Sense followed the pine tree beneath her feet, merged into the earth, and extended frantically toward the secluded valley along the root network.

"Who exactly is that person?"

...Inside the stone pavilion.

Gu Changfeng remained in that posture, seemingly unaware of the external prying.

But deep within his Sea of Consciousness, alarms were already blaring.

[Warning: Wood-element detection technique detected.]

[Source: Wen Yuechan.]

[Analysis: The target is attempting to read the host's vital signs and spiritual power fluctuations through the plant root network.]

What a sharp woman.

Just a subconscious little movement was enough to arouse her suspicion.

This woman's intuition was more terrifying than a beast's.

If she were allowed to "hear" the truth, even if she only caught a hint of a familiar fluctuation, the layout of the past few years would be completely ruined.

Kill her?

No.

Wen Yuechan was now the Taiqing Sect's only Purple Mansion seed and Si Yuanzhi's beloved Disciple; moving against her would be seeking death.

Then he could only... deceive.

He had to deceive not only her eyes but also her "ears."

"Lunar Concealment."

Gu Changfeng did not withdraw his finger from the table.

But the originally rhythmic tapping instantly became chaotic and disorganized.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

It was like someone distracted and frustrated was tapping randomly.

At the same time.

An invisible and intangible Taiyin Power silently flowed from the soles of his feet into the ground.

This power overbearingly severed the life-force circuits of all the plants within a hundred feet of the stone pavilion.

The originally vibrant flowers and plants fell into a state of suspended animation in an instant.

They went "mute"... Upon the cliff.

Wen Yuechan's brows furrowed.

Her Divine Sense tentacles had already extended beneath the stone pavilion.

Logically, at this moment, she should be able to hear his heartbeat, feel the sound of his blood flowing, and even perceive the route of his spiritual power circulation.

However.

What came back was only a dead silence.

That feeling was like her Divine Sense hitting a cold wall, or falling into a dry well.

No life force.

No fluctuations.

The person sitting in the pavilion seemed not to be a living human, but a piece of withered wood that had rotted for a thousand years.

"How could this be..."

Wen Yuechan opened her eyes, her pupils filled with astonishment.

Gu Changfeng was clearly alive, clearly still breathing, so why did he seem like a dead man in the perception of [Branch-Between-Hearing]?

Was it because of those injuries?

She remembered how, during the day, Gu Changfeng had endured Zhao Kun's poisonous sword strike and burned his Origin essence blood for the sake of the act.

"Flickering out..."

These four words abruptly surfaced in her mind.

Wen Yuechan's heart suddenly throbbed with pain.

So, he was already injured to this extent.

He couldn't even lock in his own life force, and even the plants couldn't sense his existence.

How was this any kind of disguise?

This was clearly a sign that the fire of his life was about to be extinguished!

"Wen Yuechan, oh Wen Yuechan, what exactly are you doubting?"

She gave a self-deprecating smile, her eyes reddening slightly.

He had shed his last drop of blood for the Sect, yet here you were, doubting his motives because of a similar small habit.

What kind of person was that Gu Changsheng?

He was a petty man who would haggle over a few Spirit Stones and run faster than anyone when faced with danger.

How could he be compared to Gu Changfeng?

"Heart Demon."

Wen Yuechan took a deep breath and forcibly severed that absurd thought.

With the Purple Mansion threshold approaching, her Dao Heart was unstable, which was why such groundless suspicions had arisen.

She raised her hand and lightly pressed it against her Dantian.

There, the immortal foundation was throbbing violently, longing to break out of its cocoon and become a butterfly.

"The Great Dao is walked alone."

"In this world, there are no two identical leaves."

Wen Yuechan took one last look at that lonely back. The scrutiny in her eyes vanished, replaced only by a trace of complex respect... Inside the stone pavilion.

Gu Changfeng seemed to have "just" noticed something.

He slowly turned around, his movements sluggish and stiff.

Those turbid eyes pierced through the layers of night and landed accurately on the cliff where Wen Yuechan was hiding.

There was no panic.

No dodging.

He just supported himself against the stone table and tremblingly stood up.

Then, toward that direction, he cupped his hands in a distant salute.

This was a standard salute between fellow Disciples.

It was polite and distant, yet carried the upright air of a gentleman.

It was as if he were saying: The night is deep and the dew is heavy; Senior Sister should rest early.

Wen Yuechan's body jolted.

She hadn't expected that even in this "flickering out" state, his perception would still be so sharp.

She had been discovered.

But the other party did not call her out, simply giving her a way to save face.

Wen Yuechan pursed her lips and returned the salute in the air.

Afterward.

She stayed no longer, her figure turning into a streak of light, heading straight for the summit of Hundred Herbs Peak.

Her back looked determined, carrying an Aura of burning one's bridges.

Since she felt guilty, she would prove her Dao and reach the Purple Mansion.

Only by becoming strong could she protect those who bled and sacrificed themselves for the Sect.