87: Chapter 87 Willow Alley Wood Carvings: A Game Within a Game

Yunze Immortal City, Outer City, Willow Lane.

This was a gathering place for the lowest-level Loose Cultivators in the Immortal City, where sunlight never reached all year round, and the muddy alleyways were filled with the smell of rotting wood.

At the end of the alley stood a dilapidated, isolated small courtyard.

"Bang!"

The already teetering courtyard gate was kicked open with extreme violence.

Sun Li, the leader of the Black Water Gang, strode into the wood-shaving-filled courtyard with two subordinates at Level 5 Qi Refining.

He released his Qi Refinement Level 6 Spiritual Pressure without reservation, shaking the few unfinished, crude Puppets in the courtyard until they swayed and toppled.

"Puppeteer He Zichuan! Why are you hiding? This month's usury, including principal and interest, comes to three hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones. If you can't pay up today, I'll tear you apart and feed you to the Black Water Crocodiles!" Sun Li snarled, his eyes fierce.

The broken wooden door of the main room creaked open.

A young Loose Cultivator, dressed in a grey-white long robe with a gaunt Face and extremely messy hair, walked out with a hunched back.

He held a carving knife in his hand and erupted into a fit of violent coughing from time to time, as if a gust of wind could blow him over.

This was the rumored last descendant of the Qianji Pavilion, Puppeteer He Zichuan.

"Sun... Brother Sun, please calm your anger."

Puppeteer He Zichuan's tone was extremely humble as he tremblingly fished out a contract stamped with a blood-colored seal from his bosom. "This lowly one truly cannot scrape together the Spirit Stones. But I have already mortgaged the ancestral Incomplete Manual of the 'Soul-Pulling Threads' to the Blood River Dark Assembly. This is the Dark Assembly's Heaven-grade valuation contract. As soon as the auction ends in half a month, I will immediately offer up the principal and interest. I would never dare to owe the Black Water Gang even half a Spirit Stone!"

Sun Li snatched the contract and swept it with his Divine Sense; the unique blood-Qi mark belonging to the underground assembly of Yunze Immortal City could not be faked.

"Hmph! You're sensible."

Sun Li sneered and patted Puppeteer He Zichuan's pale cheek with extreme contempt. "For the sake of the Blood River Dark Assembly, I'll give you another half-month. If you dare to play any tricks by then, even though this Immortal City is large, it won't be able to save your dog's life! Let's go!"

Several members of the Black Water Gang shoved each other and left laughing.

Puppeteer He Zichuan hunched his body and picked up the several kicked-over Puppets one by one. In his downcast eyes, there was no humiliation or anger, only a dead silence like an abyss.

...

Half an incense stick of time later.

Dark clouds gathered, and a drizzling rain began to fall in the Outer City of the Immortal City.

A middle-aged scholar figure, dressed in a grey Confucian robe with a pale Face, held up a worn-out oil-paper umbrella and stopped quite naturally in front of this dilapidated small courtyard.

It was Gu Shen, who had changed his appearance.

"Master, there is only one extremely weak heat source in the courtyard. The vital signs match those of a Spell Cultivator at Qi Refining Stage 4. There is no ambush." The Crab, in silent mode, emitted an extremely weak vibration frequency in Gu Shen's ear.

Gu Shen did not knock on the door immediately.

He stood in the rain, his Qi Refining Level 7 Divine Sense acting like slender tentacles, penetrating the courtyard walls and silently covering the entire courtyard.

The courtyard was piled with wood, and the air was filled with the scent of pine. The young man named Puppeteer He Zichuan was sitting under the eaves, using a carving knife to slowly carve a piece of dark wood.

Everything looked like the life of a destitute, down-and-out Loose Cultivator forced into a desperate situation by usury.

Gu Shen raised his hand, about to knock on the door.

Suddenly, his fingers stopped abruptly in mid-air.

"Something is wrong."

Gu Shen's pupils contracted sharply under the shadow of the umbrella ribs.

After his Bone Refining Art reached Major Achievement, his perception of Qi, blood, and Physical Body had reached a terrifying level of micro-perception.

He stared fixedly at the hand Puppeteer He Zichuan used to hold the knife inside the courtyard. That hand was covered in calluses from years of carving. But every time he dropped the knife, the angle of his wrist's exertion, the pause in his breathing, and even that trace of extremely secretive, sharp edge... tightly wrapped in the deepest part by magic power!

That was absolutely not the physique a Puppeteer who had spent years hunched over carving Puppets should have!

That was an extremely pure, practiced muscle memory!

What made Gu Shen's scalp tingle the most was that he had just seen this fiercely suppressed killing intent three days ago.

"The outskirts of Qingmu Cliff, the dry riverbed. A single sword strike killed a Qi Refining Level 8 cultivator in seconds..."

A bolt of lightning seemed to strike through Gu Shen's mind.

The mysterious Sword Cultivator, Wei Lingfeng!

Although his appearance was completely different, and his magic power fluctuations were perfectly disguised as Qi Refining Stage 4, that killing intent hidden in his bones was like a torch in the dark night to the perception of a pure Body Cultivator like Gu Shen!

"Puppeteer He Zichuan is Wei Lingfeng."

The threads of the story came together in an instant. A layer of cold sweat instantly broke out on Gu Shen's back.

Why would a terrifying Sword Cultivator, capable of killing an elite of the Blood Fiend Sect with a single sword strike, disguise himself as Trash and hide in the slums of the Immortal City to be bullied by street thugs?

Why would he throw out the core Incomplete Manual of the Qianji Pavilion, and even go so far as to mortgage it to the Blood River Dark Assembly, causing such a stir in the whole city?

"A trap within a trap!"

Gu Shen drew a sharp breath in his heart.

Wei Lingfeng had once claimed to be a Loose Cultivator of Qingmu Cliff on the outskirts of Qingmu Cliff. Now it seemed that this person was very likely that Qingmu Cliff True Disciple who carried the Blood Lotus remnants and was being frantically hunted by two major Sects!

He had deliberately released the news of the 'Soul-Pulling Threads' appearing to ignite the underground dark web of Yunze Immortal City. He was using the ancient Legacy as bait to thoroughly muddy the waters of this Immortal City!

"He must be planning to do something earth-shattering at the Blood River Dark Assembly in half a month. That Legacy is a lethal bait through and through."

Gu Shen's hand gripping the umbrella handle slowly tightened.

Originally, he had wanted to sneak into the small courtyard at night to directly force a purchase or secretly steal the Incomplete Manual. But now, facing an extremely dangerous Sword Cultivator who was laying out a massive trap, barging in now would be tantamount to seeking his own death.

Any variable that disrupted his plan would invite Wei Lingfeng's extremely crazy, thunderous extermination.

"Since it is a dead end, I cannot barge in."

A flash of cold determination crossed Gu Shen's eyes.

He did not knock on the door.

Holding the oil-paper umbrella, Gu Shen turned around quite naturally, as if he were just an ordinary passerby escaping the rain, and walked away with steady steps, slowly disappearing into the depths of the misty, rain-drenched Willow Lane.

Inside the courtyard.

Puppeteer He Zichuan (Wei Lingfeng), sitting under the eaves, stopped the carving knife in his hand. He tilted his head slightly and looked at the direction Gu Shen had left through the crack in the dilapidated courtyard gate.

In the depths of his eyes, a trace of imperceptible suspicion flashed, but then it turned back into dead silence, and he continued to carve the dark wood in his hand.

The undercurrents of the Immortal City, at this moment, were pushed to the edge of an extremely dangerous cliff.