Old Ma's seemingly offhand words drifted through the dim shop.
What he had not anticipated, however, was the effect they produced.
Rather than deepening the hunger and greed in Lin Feng's eyes, those words caused it to cool — gradually, visibly.
Lin Feng's narrow eyes drew slightly together. His gaze turned guarded and unreadable.
"Small matters?"
A contemptuous snort.
"If these are 'small matters' that can't simply be solved with Primeval Stones, then whatever lies behind them is the kind of thing that can destroy a man utterly."
He was, after all, an heir cultivated with the full weight of his clan's resources behind him. He was no sheltered fool who had never seen the world.
"Heh."
A cold laugh. Lin Feng did not take the bait. He did not ask another word about the Gu worms or their secrets.
He snapped his sleeve back with a sharp motion, turned without hesitation, and walked straight out of the sundry shop in long, unhesitating strides — leaving the Grey Street Market without a single glance back.
Clean. Decisive. Not a trace of lingering.
Old Ma, who had been sitting there brimming with confidence and composure, was left completely dumbfounded.
The smile froze on his weathered face. He sat there with his teacup half-raised, stunned for a full three or four breaths before he came back to himself.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Old Ma hurriedly set down the cup, reached back, and rapped three times on the wall behind him. Then he stepped quickly to the hidden room's entrance.
He watched Lin Mu emerge from the concealed door, expression as placid as ever, and muttered with visible frustration:
"Kid, that move of yours didn't work either. The fish didn't just refuse the bait — it slipped clean out of the net and swam off."
"It doesn't matter."
Lin Mu walked to the counter and settled into the chair. His tone carried not a single ripple of concern.
"It was only a probe. He hasn't been pushed to the point of true desperation yet."
In truth, Lin Feng had already been squeezed nearly dry as far as Lin Mu was concerned.
Last time, Lin Feng had hollowed out almost his entire reserves for the Red Iron Relic Gu. Before he could rebuild even a fraction of that wealth, Lin Xingyuan had appeared — and that arrival had been less like snow in the cold and more like a hailstorm of ice driving straight into the wound.
What I want from him isn't money.
Lin Mu turned it over quietly in his mind.
What I want is for him to become a catfish — something that stirs the water. Only when the situation is thrown into chaos will I have the chance to fish in troubled waters.
Because Lin Mu had been carrying a deeply unsettling premonition — the peaceful days of Black Blood Stockade were not going to last much longer.
If he could not push his cultivation to Rank 3 before the storm fully broke — then when it arrived, he would not even have the standing to walk away. He would simply be crushed underfoot, like a shrimp caught beneath a millstone.
Rank 3...
Lin Mu held his teacup, a flicker of something complicated passing through his eyes.
It was not only Lin Feng who hungered for power. When had Lin Mu himself ever not wanted it?
Among the three Gu methods Old Ma had just laid out, the Man-Beast Life Burial Gu could genuinely force a Rank 2 peak stage Gu Master through the barrier in a single leap, straight to Rank 3.
If not for that last thin line he still held — he suspected that under this kind of grinding anxiety, even he would have been tempted to start gathering materials and refine it.
"Haah..."
Lin Mu set down the teacup and exhaled a long, quiet breath.
In the end, he could not bring himself to cross that line.
The boundary between man and demon truly was thinner than paper. Once crossed, there was no return.
"What's the matter, kid?"
Old Ma heard the sigh and looked at him with open surprise.
"Now there's something you don't see every day. A man who calculates everything down to the bone, sighing like that — what's gotten into you?"
"Nothing. Just hit a bottleneck in my cultivation."
Lin Mu did not reveal anything more.
He and Old Ma were bound by mutual interest now, and there was a measure of genuine trust between them. But in the Gu world, certain limits and certain secrets were better carried to the grave than spoken to a second person.
Once someone caught wind of them, soul-searching would be the lightest way to die.
Lin Mu deflected with a few vague words and steered the conversation naturally toward the second matter that had brought him to the Grey Street Market tonight.
"I came tonight partly to pick up a few supplementary Gu worms. But mainly, I wanted to sound you out on the current situation."
His expression turned serious.
"I've been in closed cultivation for quite a while, focusing on consolidating my cultivation. My progress has been real — but it also means I've been blind and deaf to everything around me. Has anything shifted in the local situation recently?"
Intelligence was always the first condition of survival.
At the mention of information, Old Ma immediately slipped back into his professional manner. He produced his dry pipe, lit it, took two long draws, and sketched out the recent state of affairs in a few concise strokes.
"Black Blood Stockade right now is riding high — like it has Heaven's own blessing."
Old Ma exhaled a curl of grey smoke, his tone carrying a note of rueful admiration.
"Not only did Patriarch Lin Cang successfully break through to Rank 4 and stabilize the situation, an A-grade genius dropped out of the sky on top of it. That kind of fortune has been pressing down on their old rival White Bone Stockade until they can barely breathe."
"These past weeks, the Black Blood Stockade Gu Masters heading out on missions and supply runs have been insufferably arrogant — walking around with their chins in the air. Conflicts over resources at the border have been happening constantly. But every single time, White Bone Stockade has pinched their nose and swallowed it down, forcing themselves to let it go quietly."
Lin Mu's brow furrowed slightly. He seized on the key point.
"White Bone Stockade just... endured all of that?"
"Indeed. Ever since their defeat at the friendly competition, White Bone Stockade has gone completely quiet. Even when the news of your A-grade genius broke, they didn't make a single sound — silent as a dead grave."
But Old Ma's tone shifted sharply. That lone cloudy eye gleamed with a sharp, seasoned light.
"And yet, beneath that unnaturally dead silence, this old man has caught a whiff of something off — through the flow of goods here on the Grey Street Market."
Old Ma leaned forward and lowered his voice.
"The Grey Street Market sits in a grey zone that neither side controls. All manner of things that can't see daylight pass through here every day. But in the past half-month... there have been a great many unfamiliar faces on this street."
"And the trading of Gu worms has become unusually dense and frequent. Large quantities of materials are being exchanged in secret."
Old Ma rapped the table, enunciating each word deliberately.
"It's like an undercurrent beneath still water. The surface looks calm. But underneath, the waves are already crashing."
At that, Lin Mu's heart sank. So the premonition had not been baseless after all — there were already traces.
"And... Wuxiang?"
Lin Mu's brow tightened as he spoke the name he currently feared most.
In this region surrounding Black Blood Stockade, the only force capable of turning the tide of battle — aside from Lin Cang — was that Rank 4 demoness lurking beneath the Grey Street Market.
"Oh, my living ancestor!"
The moment Lin Mu spoke the name aloud, Old Ma flinched so hard his whole body shook. He lunged forward and clamped both hands over Lin Mu's mouth.
He looked around in wide-eyed alarm, cold sweat breaking across his face instantly, and hissed in a trembling voice:
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?! Never call the Lady by name! Have you forgotten her Spider Web Gu?!"
Seeing Lin Mu give a calm, unhurried nod, Old Ma finally released him with a shuddering exhale of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.
He leaned close to Lin Mu's ear and breathed out a closely guarded secret in a voice barely above a whisper:
"The Lady seems to have made some kind of breakthrough in her cultivation recently. She slipped away quietly a few days ago on a long trip. She won't be back anytime soon."
Deep worry showed in Old Ma's eyes.
"Don't you dare breathe a word of this to anyone. The order of the Grey Street Market is fragile at the best of times — it only holds because the Lady's fearsome reputation keeps it in check. If the desperate and the reckless find out there's no one at the top right now, this street will be in complete chaos before tonight is over."
"I see..."
Lin Mu's expression remained still on the surface. He had no intention of stirring up the Grey Street Market.
But from Old Ma's scattered words, he had already managed to piece together a rough picture of the situation.
This was not a good sign. Perhaps Lin Feng would not even be needed as a catfish — this region might descend into chaos entirely on its own.
And so it was, exactly as Lin Mu had sensed.
Beyond the layered mountain ranges, far from Black Blood Stockade, inside an abandoned and gloomy mountain manor — phosphorescent flames flickered dimly through the great hall.
Several Patriarchs from the surrounding stockades sat in rigid, solemn postures, their expressions grave.
Through weeks of covert preparation and the careful exchange of interests, these small factions — which had once been united in name only — were now bound together on the same war chariot. A clear hierarchy had taken shape, with the man in the seat of honor as their undisputed head.
And seated in that position of honor was Li Mang, Patriarch of White Bone Stockade.
His face, compared to a month ago, had grown even more gaunt and sinister. The dry skin clung tight to his cheekbones, withered and hollow — like a corpse that had crawled out of its grave.
"Old Brother Li!"
A short, heavyset Patriarch beside him leaned over with a face full of fawning flattery, cruel excitement glittering in his eyes.
"That chain of schemes of yours — devious enough, vicious enough! I refuse to believe that even if Lin Cang had three heads and six arms, he could defend against a killing formation like this!"
"Quite so, quite so!" Another Patriarch chimed in eagerly, greed thick in his voice. "Three interlocking stratagems, each one triggering the next — seamless and airtight! Black Blood Stockade's century of accumulated foundations — all of it will belong to us brothers!"
Watching the flattery and the eager, usable morale around him, Li Mang's withered lips pulled into a thin, satisfied curl.
His bone scepter tapped lightly against the floor. His voice was hoarse.
"Brothers. This old man knows full well how difficult it is to maintain trust of this kind. That is why I have not hesitated to spend from my own foundations — men, resources, everything — to ensure that our great undertaking of eliminating this scourge can proceed without obstacle."
Li Mang paused. His gaze swept the room like a viper's.
"However. This matter is of the gravest consequence, and a Rank 4 cultivator stands in our way. We cannot afford the slightest carelessness. We must advance step by careful step."
"Furthermore!" His voice sharpened. "Now that our alliance is formed, we must see it through to the end. Cut the weeds but leave the roots, and they will grow again with the spring wind. This operation will leave Black Blood Stockade not a single path of survival. Not one."
As he spoke those last words, Li Mang's eyes turned utterly glacial.
His withered hand turned over. Resting in his palm was a Gu worm radiating a sinister, unsettling light.
"This Gu is the Poison Vow Gu."
Li Mang's voice resonated through the hall, carrying an unmistakable killing intent that brooked no argument.
"If anyone present feels the risk is too great and wishes to withdraw — speak now. This old man... will not make things difficult for you."
The words were generous. But those pale green eyes carried the naked threat of death, locked onto every single person in the room without exception.
They had boarded this ship. Preparations had come this far.
There was no such thing as retreating at the last moment. Anyone who dared say the word no would not walk out of this hall alive today.
The Patriarchs' expressions shifted and churned. In the end, one by one, they bit down and forced out drops of their essence blood, letting the Poison Vow Gu feed.
A strange light flashed at each man's brow and vanished.
The Poison Vow was sealed. The iron chain binding them in life and death was welded shut.
With the matter settled and the die cast, the great stone that had been suspended in Li Mang's chest finally dropped into place.
An ambition and a madness unlike anything before ignited in his eyes.
He rose slowly to his feet. One hand swept forward in a broad, sweeping gesture, the bone scepter leveling toward the direction of Black Blood Stockade.
"Then..."
Li Mang's voice carried a venom that had been compressed across countless years, distilled to its purest and most lethal form.
"The first step of the plan to annihilate Black Blood Stockade."
"This old man will handle it... personally."