Inwardly, Bai Ning Bing felt very satisfied with herself for having come to this conclusion on her own. Ordinarily, when it came to their misadventures, it was Fang Yuan who tended to know about the local political situation and how to manipulate other people. She did not do so, mainly because she had no interest in others, only in trying to make herself strong.
But now that Fang Yuan was gone, she had recognized this weakness of hers, and while running around Shang Clan City, she had done her best in order to learn about multiple people as well as their claims to fame, which could have been useful in the future.
'If you could see me now,' she thought to herself. 'I can accomplish things without you, Fang Yuan!'
The Thought Ruler Demon Lord was a famous demonic Gu Master who had lived about five hundred years ago. He had vanished seemingly overnight and his reign of terror ended just as abruptly. Given how long it had been since he had last been seen, many people speculated that he had died. However, no inheritance nor any marking ground for his grave had ever been found.
That is to say, it had not been found until now. It looked like these people had stumbled upon his inheritance.
The Thought Ruler Demon Lord was a mysterious Gu Master who was said to have immigrated to the Southern Border from the Northern Plains. The reason as to why he had left the Northern Plains remained a mystery, but given the fact that he had no stable clan connections within the Southern Border once he arrived, he became a demonic Gu Master, terrorizing many righteous path forces as well as mortal villages.
He was a Wisdom Path specialist and was extraordinarily careful, making it extremely difficult for anyone to make deductions against him. He would strike when his enemies were at their weakest and had concocted numerous convoluted schemes in order to obtain his ends.
The reason why he had earned the moniker of 'Thought Ruler' was because of a special type of Wisdom Path Gu that he had created known as the Thought Detonation Gu.
Thought Detonation Gu was very similar to the Depression Millipede. It was a gu worm that would burrow into an enemy's skull and then feast off of their mental energy.
The Wisdom Path consisted of three aspects: will, thoughts, and emotions. Thought Detonation Gu dealt with thoughts, as its name implied. If the person whom the gu worm had entered into thought about something that had been forbidden by its user, it would instantly detonate, killing the person in question.
It was a way for the Thought Ruler Demon Lord to enslave people without having to use Rank 5 Enslavement Gu. He would find his targets and have that gu worm burrow into their brains, and he would tell them, "If you dare even think about betraying me too much it will detonate, killing you immediately!"
The idea itself was more terrifying that the thought of physical injury. It was like someone telling you, "Don't think about an orange, because if you think about an orange for too long, you'll die!" Naturally, when told not to think about something humans would begin thinking about it even more deeply. Many of his victims simply died within minutes. The idea of someone cutting your head off was terrible; but there was an uncanny horror to the idea of someone policing what you thought at all times. Most slaves were bound physically, but could still think of rebellion. The Thought Ruler Demon Lord though did not even allow his minions this kind of freedom.
Those that survived and were able to control their minds couldn't plot against their new 'master.' There was no easy way to get rid of the gu worm in question either once it was inside your skull without detonating it. Thought Detonation Gu reportedly came in Rank 3 as well as Rank 4 variants, so the Thought Ruler Demon Lord had multiples of each.
The gu worm most definitely had certain weaknesses to it - there was no strongest gu, after all, only the strongest Gu Master. But the Thought Ruler Demon Lord was very meticulous in choosing his targets. None of them had managed to find any weakness or countermeasure to it before they died. The gu worm destroyed itself upon death, meaning that all evidence was already erased by the time the murder would happen and there was nothing left for anyone seeking revenge to study.
As such, his victims could do nothing but go along with his schemes unless they wanted to die. Even the Tie Clan had tried investigating him but this aspect of his work made finding a solution difficult.
Because of this, he was able to secure multiple pawns in the area around where he lived, and he would move them like pieces across a chessboard while he enacted his dastardly schemes. He was so successful at this that no one had ever been able to catch him. It seemed like he would be able to terrorize the world forever.
But when no one heard from him for over a hundred years, many people had simply assumed that he had met the end of his lifespan, as that seemed to be the only thing that could have killed him.
"You truly are more than just a beautiful face," Xiang Xie said, contemplating her words. "So I think it's obvious why you understand that we cannot let you leave."
If Bai Ning Bing left, then she could potentially leak information of the Rank 5 inheritance to the outside world, and once that happened, many people would flock to the area, interested in what was going on. Rank 5 demonic Gu Masters would even be attracted given its nature; forces which these two ordinary villages could not deal with. Many young demonic seeds would've loved to have access to something like Thought Detonation Gu and to become the next terror that would ensnare the Southern Border.
Even the Shang Clan might choose to get involved, given the proximity of the village to their city.
Knowing just for how long the Thought Ruler Demon Lord had been able to run amok, he must have amassed a massive amount of wealth and influence. Other than these resources, there was also his Rank 5 Wisdom Path inheritance, something that in itself would be quite valuable.
Now that these people had discovered it, there was no way that they were going to allow Bai Ning Bing to escape and potentially allow others to come in and swipe it from under their noses.
Granted, it was a demonic inheritance, which was probably why these two village heads had hired Xiang Xie in order to help them deal with it. A demonic inheritance demanded much more from its would-be inheritor than a righteous one. Death was certainly a possibility whenever anyone ventured into a demonic inheritance. There was even a chance that there was nothing left in the inheritance and it had only been left by the demonic Gu Master as a way to torment people even after they had departed this life. Despite these risks, the prospect of wealth would still be enough for many people to willingly stick their hands into the hornet's nest.
Xiang Xie, a wandering mercenary, was likely chosen simply because he was not demonic in and of himself, had a proven track record of cooperating with his employers, and had no strict ties to any other force meaning it was unlikely that he would rat them out.
However, this fact told Bai Ning Bing that there was a way to get out of the sticky situation without having to do anything.
"I know that all of you are worried about the details of this inheritance being leaked out," Bai Ning Bing said, folding her arms across her chest. "However, I have no interest in this matter. I had left Shang Clan City regarding a different issue, and we can all agree that I will not speak a word of this, and I can simply be on my way."