23: Chapter 23: Pretending to be weak while actually being strong – You have to read web novels!

Some secrets are guarded by the mouth, and some secrets are guarded by the hands.

Wen Yushu and Gu Jian did not mention what happened in the Mirror Tomb to anyone.

Wen Yushu only said three sentences on the way back.

"The mission is complete." "The remains of two batches of Disciples have been found." "Xie Feng's eyes are gone."

Gu Jian didn't say a single word.

The two of them each knew better than the other which words should rot in their stomachs.

But the mission report had to be written.

The rules of the Qingyun Sect: Whenever one goes on a mission, a report must be submitted to the Affairs Hall within three days of return, detailing the mission process, casualty situation, and eerie characteristics.

Wen Yushu held the brush, and the three of them pressed their fingerprints.

On the second day after the report was submitted, it spread throughout the Outer Sect.

At first, an executive Disciple of the Affairs Hall happened to read two extra lines while organizing the archives.

When he saw the sentence "Xie Feng destroyed his own eyes, drawing the eerie entity to look directly at him and be destroyed," his hand shook slightly.

That night, he told his roommate Senior Brother.

The next day, the entire Outer Sect knew about it.

However, it was later said that a certain Young Master broke his legs, and he had to recover for several months.

The rumors were much more exciting than the report.

What was written in the report was "destroying his own eyes," but for a few days, it turned into "Xie Feng dug out his own eyeballs and stuffed them into the mirror."

A few days later, it turned into "An eerie entity lives in Xie Feng's eyeballs, and he released the eerie entity to devour the eerie entity inside the mirror."

By the seventh day, there were already enough versions to compile a book.

"That thing is still living in Xie Feng's eye sockets!"

"The reason Xie Feng wears a hanging veil is because there are no longer any eyeballs in his eye sockets, only two bottomless black holes. Whoever makes eye contact with him will be sucked in!"

Xie Feng ate, slept, and Cultivated in his room every day.

Every day when Tu Ziguan came to deliver food, he would casually mention the gossip outside in a relaxed tone, as if he were talking about someone else's business.

"Brother Feng, today someone said that you are actually a Fourth Realm expert, and you are deliberately pretending to be blind to temper your Heart-Nature."

"Brother Feng, today someone said that an ancient Vicious Beast lives in your eye sockets, and whoever you stare at will definitely be killed."

"Brother Feng, today someone said that you are actually a female, and wearing a veil is to hide your Adam's apple."

When Xie Feng heard the last sentence, the chopsticks in his hand paused for a moment.

"…Adam's apple? My Adam's apple is quite obvious, right."

"They said that was changed using eerie methods."

"Hhahahaha hahahaha"

Xie Feng laughed and reached the chopsticks underneath the hanging veil, continuing to eat.

Tu Ziguan sat by the window gnawing on a flatbread, but after taking two bites, he suddenly stopped gnawing.

He looked at the hanging veil on Xie Feng's face and put down the flatbread.

"Brother Feng."

"Hm?"

"Do you wear that veil even when you sleep?"

Xie Feng finished the last bite of his meal and placed the bowl on the table.

"Just covering my face, of course."

When the rumors spread to the Inner Sect, the version had already been streamlined into one core fact: Xie Feng, the Outer Sect Disciple who was jointly recommended, dug out his own eyes during the Mirror Tomb mission, and used an unknowable means to eliminate mirror eerie entities below the Fourth Realm that could not be broken.

Outer Sect Disciples cared about the sense of terror brought by the four words "digging out his own eyes."

The Inner Sect cared about another matter.

A First Realm Disciple used means outside of cultivation to eliminate a Fourth Realm-level eerie entity.

What was this method, where did it come from, and what was the price?

When Elder Liu arrived, Xie Feng was circulating Twining Strength in his room.

Spiritual power turned into threads, extending from the ends of the six Meridians to weave an extremely thin spiritual net around his entire body.

Xie Feng could not see the spiritual net, but he could feel its existence—a layer of warm substance covering his real skin.

When the spiritual net covered his face and touched the hanging veil, the hanging veil did not react at all.

The door was knocked three times.

It wasn't Tu Ziguan's rhythm; Tu Ziguan knocked twice lightly and once heavily.

Xie Feng put away the spiritual net.

"Who is it?"

The door was pushed open, and Elder Liu stood at the doorway without coming in.

"Elder Pu asked me to give this to you."

Xie Feng extended his hand.

Elder Liu placed something in his palm; it was cool and smooth.

It was a token.

"A credential for the Inner Sect assessment."

Elder Liu's voice was unhurried.

"In the spring, hold this token to participate in the assessment. Elder Pu said that since your eyes are inconvenient, the assessment content will be adjusted, but the standards will not be lowered."

Xie Feng put the token back into his sleeve.

"What else did Elder Pu say?"

Elder Liu displayed the silence of "conveying something one doesn't quite understand."

"He said the veil suits you very well."

The footsteps faded away, and the door was gently closed.

Refusing was already impossible at this point; either he would be played to death by Nyarlathotep, or he would survive.

Xie Feng pushed open the door and walked toward the Affairs Hall.

When he walked to the entrance of the Affairs Hall, he heard someone talking inside.

He pushed open the door, and the voices stopped.

"I need a blind cane."

The executive Disciple was stunned for a moment.

He looked at the hanging veil on Xie Feng's face, looked at the two hollow eye socket positions beneath the hanging veil, and looked at Xie Feng's empty hands.

He didn't even have a blind cane, so how did he walk here?

"A bl... blind cane? What material?"

"Whatever."

"Wait, you are Xie Feng!?"

The executive Disciple let out a startled cry and quickly searched through the storeroom.

Xie Feng heard the sound of metal colliding, the sound of wood rolling, and the sound of a booklet being pulled out from the shelf and shoved back in.

"Coward."

Finally, the executive Disciple walked over holding something and placed it beside Xie Feng's hand.

"Will this one do? A bamboo stick for Qingyun Sect Disciples, the bluestone bamboo has an iron core embedded inside, so it won't break."

Xie Feng grasped the blind cane.

The touch of the bamboo was smooth.

He felt that the bamboo cane had a circle of metal hoops to prevent the bamboo pole from splitting.

He tapped the blind cane on the ground twice; the sound was very light and very clear.

"Just this one."

Xie Feng held the blind cane and walked out of the Affairs Hall.

The blind cane tapped the ground left and right in front of him, with an even and unhurried rhythm.

"pretend to be a pig to eat the tiger, web novels truly do not deceive me."

When Tu Ziguan first saw Xie Feng holding a blind cane, he was gnawing on a flatbread.

He watched as Xie Feng held the blind cane in his left hand, the end of the cane lightly tapping the ground, walking steadily from the other end of the corridor.

A hanging veil covered his face, and the blind cane tapped the ground.

"Brother Feng, with this look of yours, why are you increasingly resembling a certain character I dare not quite mention?"

Xie Feng stopped in front of him, the blind cane tapping on Tu Ziguan's instep.

"What character? Elaborate in detail."

"It's nothing. Just… forget it, it's nothing."

Xie Feng moved the blind cane away from Tu Ziguan's instep and continued walking forward.

Tu Ziguan watched his back.

Tu Ziguan stuffed the remaining flatbread into his mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed it.

"It really is similar."

Tu Ziguan said softly.

Springtime passed very quickly, like withered flowers falling.

Xie Feng's cultivation broke through from the First Realm Nine Heavens Peak.

Spiritual light covered his entire torso, gathered into a ball at the Dantian position, and then exploded.

Second Realm.

Mirror-Breaking Finger Third Layer, Twining Strength Second Layer.

Tu Ziguan's Copper Coin Path-Finding struck the spiritual net, the projectile core piercing through two layers and getting stuck by the third layer.

Tu Ziguan took back the copper coins and said something whose expression Xie Feng couldn't see, but could hear the displeasure in his tone.

"Why is this spiritual net of yours like reactive armor?"

"Twining Strength, a Qingyun Sect Yellow Rank High Grade defensive Cultivation Technique. What reactive armor." Xie Feng said.

"Yes, yes, yes, Twining Strength."

On the day of the Inner Sect assessment, Xie Feng sat up from the bed, the hanging veil covering his face, and he pressed the edge of the veil even tighter by a fraction.

He gripped the blind cane with his left hand and pushed open the door.

Tu Ziguan stood outside the door, holding two oil-paper packages in his hands.

He handed one to Xie Feng, and with a baseball pitcher's throw, Xie Feng threw that damned flatbread out.

Tu Ziguan hurriedly used spiritual power to pull the flatbread back.

"If you're not going to eat it, don't waste it."

"Were you really a person from Suzhou or Hangzhou in your past life? I think you look like you come from a place whose specialty is donkey meat fire."

One had to say that human adaptability was simply too strong. When Xie Feng first went blind, he had even prepared to mold an emo, cold, and mysterious male persona for himself, but it broke within a month. Now he had turned into a blind man with a very vicious mouth.

"So what do you plan to do?"

"Go up, fight twice, and then forfeit. That way I won't have to discuss it with Pu Huai, and I can linger in the Outer Sect."

The two of them walked side by side toward the Martial Arts Arena.

"That is Xie Feng."

"The one wearing the veil? Is there really something in his eye sockets?"

"Don't look at him. I heard that if he glances at you, you will be pulled into the mirror."

"Isn't he blind? How can he look?"

"What do you know? Being blind makes it even scarier. You don't know where he's looking."

Xie Feng took a bite of Tu Ziguan's flatbread, tapped the blind cane on the ground, and walked into the Martial Arts Arena.