130: Chapter 130 An Evil Idea

"We won't go to the imperial city first." Xie Feng slammed his cold crystal blind staff against the sandy ground, sinking the tip half an inch into the dry sand grains. "We're going to Ranhuo City."

Tu Ziguan was squatting on the ground folding and putting away his Spiritual Qi skateboard. Hearing this, he raised his head, his facial expression shifting from confusion to thoughtfulness.

Then it turned into a complicated expression of "I'm going to see that old fogey again." After all, the two of them hadn't argued a little bit back in the day when they were researching gun barrels.

"Master Huo? Should he be in Ranhuo City at this time point?"

"He should be." Xie Feng's blind staff drew an extremely shallow mark on the sandy ground, outlining the general direction from Qingzhou to Yongzhou. "Master Huo is a Voormis, and the Voormis have been squatting underground in Ranhuo City for at least several hundred years. Right now, it is when The Tenth Emperor has just ascended the throne, and Tianque Sect has not yet pressed the Cthugha fragment into the earth veins. That incident happened six hundred years ago, which is several hundred years before this era. Master Huo and the others are already in Ranhuo City at this time."

The few of them had roughly determined how long they had been hurled away. Based on an emperor ruling for at most thirty to fifty years, stretching it to the limit would still be three hundred years ago. Thus, there shouldn't be any major problems over at Master Huo's side right now.

After all, the few of them had discussed on the way that if they really went to look for that emperor in the palace—even though they didn't know whether The King in Yellow was being enshrined yet—if the three of them went over and said they came from three hundred years in the future, they would probably be beaten into minced meat.

Even without The King in Yellow, Xie Feng had a very deep impression of that large group of Eighth Realm old eunuchs in that family.

"Isn't Ranhuo City the territory of Tianque Sect?" Lu Mingyuan interjected.

His understanding of Ranhuo City was only from case files. According to the records of the Hall of Archives in later generations, Ranhuo City was an important Artifact Refining hub of Tianque Sect, and its bronze ingots supplied half of Qingzhou.

"It is now, but Tianque Sect can't reach underground." Xie Feng pulled back his blind staff, the tip tapping the edge of the Spiritual Qi skateboard. "Master Huo and the others have their methods, and at worst, I can teach him the Spacetime Gate."

Lu Mingyuan suddenly looked at Xie Feng as if looking at a fool.

Tu Ziguan also wore a gaze full of tender care for the mentally disabled.

"What is it?"

Xie Feng felt out that Third Rank jade token from his bosom, his fingertips brushing across the Phoenix emblem on the face of the token.

"Let me ask you, does Master Huo know you right now?"

"He doesn't, but we can directly reveal our identities. I have the aura of the God of Toads on my body."

"Then let me ask you again," Tu Ziguan raised another finger, "even if Master Huo and the others learn the Spacetime Gate, can you guarantee that the destination won't have problems?"

Xie Feng stopped talking. If he stood nearby, it seemed there was no difference from a signal jammer.

Lu Mingyuan dealt another blow from the side.

"Can't you teach it to me? I also have magic power."

...

The air fell into a death-like awkwardness.

Brain Matter rolled over deep within the choroid plexus of the lateral ventricle, let out an extremely satisfied sigh, and then used the mental fluctuations unique to the Shaggai Insect to say a sentence in the depths of his consciousness that only he could hear.

"This awkwardness is simply divine nectar~"

Xie Feng's face gradually flushed from a normal human skin color into a very deep red—no, wait, it wasn't dark green anymore.

Lu Mingyuan was a Yithian. Yithians could naturally use mana, and a Spell of the Rank of the Spacetime Gate was completely within the Yithian's capabilities.

Yet Xie Feng had solemnly analyzed the route to find Master Huo in Ranhuo City for a long time just now, completely forgetting that a ready-made candidate capable of learning the Spacetime Gate was standing right beside him.

"Why the fuck didn't you say so just now?" Xie Feng asked, gritting his teeth.

Lu Mingyuan spread his hands: "You kept talking about Master Huo, I couldn't get a word in."

Xie Feng explained the incantation and rune circuits of the Spacetime Gate to Lu Mingyuan a few times. After listening, Lu Mingyuan closed his eyes and sensed for a while, a ball of extremely stable and pure silver-white magical halo lighting up at his fingertips, drawing several rune circuits in the air.

Then his brows furrowed slightly.

"That's not quite right. I can open the gate, but the spacetime coordinates of the destination are blocked by a thick layer of interference. Someone is actively shielding the spacetime exits of this era; this entire era has been sealed off. Someone knew we would come and locked the door in advance."

Xie Feng and Tu Ziguan exchanged a glance.

Great, it looks like Yog-Sothoth didn't bring the few of them here.

Damn Nyarlathotep!

Xie Feng squatted down on the sandy ground and drew a circle with the tip of his blind staff.

"Under the premise of being unable to open a portal, we go to the imperial city, but we can't directly reveal our identities. The Tenth Emperor has just ascended the throne, and three of us claiming to come from several hundred years later running up to him and saying 'Your Majesty, your descendants asked us to borrow a path', those old eunuchs won't even need to be mobilized; any random Imperial Guards could chop us up."

Lu Mingyuan and Tu Ziguan also squatted down.

The three of them surrounded the circle on the sandy ground and began discussing how to survive in this era, how to see the emperor, and how to convince a newly ascended young monarch that three people claiming to come from the future were not swindlers.

The final plan was to be carried out in three steps.

Step one!

First, create fake identities. Tu Ziguan patted his chest and said he could forge the Yongzhou local travel passes and identity documents of this era. As long as there was a sample for reference, he could replicate a set in just a few hours.

Xie Feng really wanted to ask what Tu Ziguan actually did in his past life; at a glance, this kid's specialty didn't look very legal.

Step two.

Erase memories. Lu Mingyuan would use the Yithian's mental projection ability to find a local official who had seen their faces, and clear and replace his memory of them.

Step three.

Implant new identities. Brain Matter would crawl into the target's brain, instill the forged set of identity information, and make that official believe from the bottom of his heart that these three people were indeed Cultivators from a certain county in Yongzhou.

"How do we finally see the emperor?" Tu Ziguan asked.

Xie Feng stood up and patted the sand on his knees.

"Let's get to the imperial city first. We'll take this road one step at a time. If you take too big of a step, you're likely to pull your groin."

He slammed his cold crystal blind staff against the ground and turned to stride in the direction of Yongzhou City.

Returning to Yongzhou Prefecture was definitely out of the question; there were also certain Cultivators in there. The three of them prepared to follow the official road forward and find a smaller town.

Then they would enter the town to carry out this three-step plan.

The targeted goal was determined by Lu Mingyuan. The imperial city was in Yuzhou, so they chose a small city close to the boundary between Yuzhou and Yongzhou.

Fengle City.

Lu Mingyuan introduced that this town had no special local products, very few people, a small government compound, and few officials.

Naturally, Cultivators were also unwilling to reside in this city. The city-guarding Cultivators were managed by a small Sect nearby, and it was said their Realm was around the Third or Fourth Realm. With the three of them exerting force together, taking them down would simply be as easy as flipping a hand.

It was simply committing murder and arson (not really), robbing houses and looting (not really), and sacrificial summoning (not really).

Ahem—

It was simply the absolute best choice for concealing their identities.