Alright—it seemed this so-called Harmonious Joy Sect incident was even more dangerous than Gu Chengming had imagined.
Back when Director Zhou had solemnly declared that this thing affected high-tier cultivators no less than low-tier ones, Gu Chengming hadn't really felt it viscerally.
After all, in his view, a great cultivator who could refine all the way to the fourth or even fifth realm—if not exactly one who had severed the red dust of mortal desire—could at least be called firm in Dao-heart, right?
Surely they wouldn't have their heads swept away by desire to the point of losing all self-control.
But at this very moment, looking at Elder Little Yu—whom he'd strung up on the roof beam, and who was still there trying to bluff her way through with an innocent, doe-eyed look—Gu Chengming finally understood completely.
——This thing's influence really was a bit much, huh.
At the same time, a dialogue box popped up right on cue. But it wasn't Little Yu's.
[The Yin-Yang Creation Strategy sighs in disappointment; once it grasps the situation, it's brimming with the frustration of watching iron fail to become steel.]
[Fluttering Little Yu, we gave you the chance and you still couldn't deliver?]
The Huiyuan Sword Formula sneered: Even I'd do better than that.
[Clear-Heart Formula: ?]
[Clear-Heart Formula: !]
Gu Chengming ignored the contents of the dialogue boxes, let out a sigh, and showed no intention of taking Yu Wenqiu down right away.
Only after truly confirming she was no longer under the thing's influence did he finally let Little Yu down.
With a "thump," Yu Wenqiu fell face-first onto the ground.
She didn't get up either—she just held that sprawled-on-the-floor pose and played dead.
So humiliating.
As a sect elder, to have snuck into a junior's room in the dead of night with improper intentions, only to be caught red-handed and strung up.
If word of this ever got back to the Wenjian Sect, she, Yu Wenqiu, would never be able to show her face again for the rest of her life.
"You awake?" Gu Chengming poured her a cup of cold tea and set it on the floor. "If you're awake, let's talk."
"Talk about what?" Yu Wenqiu buried her head in the crook of her arm, her voice muffled.
"Talk about how you got hit by it." Gu Chengming's expression turned serious. "Director Zhou said this thing is impossible to guard against. I need to know its trigger mechanism."
Hearing him bring up serious business, Yu Wenqiu—though she still felt mortified to death—could only force herself to crawl up and struggle to recall the train of thought she'd had before being affected.
"Actually, at first I didn't feel anything."
Yu Wenqiu cupped the teacup, her gaze wandering. "It was just on the way back—I heard about the Harmonious Joy Sect's cultivation technique going out of control, and at that moment I thought, hadn't you also practiced that whatever-it's-called Yin-Yang Creation Strategy? What if you lost control too?"
"And then?"
"And then I started thinking, if you lost control you'd definitely need someone to help ease you through it."
At this point, Yu Wenqiu's voice grew smaller and smaller.
Gu Chengming understood.
This thing's corrosion was gradual and progressive. It would seize upon the tiniest sliver of a thought at the bottom of your heart—even if that thought was merely "what if, maybe..."—and it would magnify it without limit, until that single sliver became an obsession.
The moment Yu Wenqiu began to fantasize "what if Gu Chengming needed help," her mind had already revealed a crack.
No wonder high-tier cultivators were more prone to getting hit.
The higher one's cultivation, the sharper the spiritual sense, the stronger the perception of the outside world—which, conversely, made it all the easier to catch hold of those stray desires.
And if those desires were genuinely tied to some Dharma-Station, then it truly was impossible to guard against.
Having finished his analysis, Gu Chengming glanced at the sky outside, then took out that rope again and beckoned to Yu Wenqiu.
Little Yu looked at that rope. "You're going to tie me up again?"
"For safety's sake." Gu Chengming wore an all-business expression. "Elder, you may be lucid now, but who's to say you won't fall asleep and start dreaming again."
"I..."
Yu Wenqiu wanted to retort, but recalling how she'd looked just now, she ultimately felt she had no leg to stand on.
"Fine, tie me up then!"
She thrust out both hands in a huff and let Gu Chengming bind her up nice and tight like a rice dumpling, then hopped back to the room next door like a stiff-legged zombie.
Right before shutting the door, she turned her head and shot Gu Chengming a resentful glare.
Do you really have to guard against me like I'm some thief?
Gu Chengming closed the door, expressionless.
Having sent off this unreliable elder, Gu Chengming sat back down cross-legged on the bed.
After all this commotion, he found he'd lost any urge to sleep.
He was mulling over a question.
Since this thing could take down even a fourth-realm cultivator like Yu Wenqiu, why had he still shown not the slightest reaction up to now?
In terms of cultivation, he was only second-realm; in terms of technique, what he practiced was the genuine, bona fide Harmonious Joy Sect's Yin-Yang Creation Strategy. By all rights he should be the disaster zone within the disaster zone.
[Yin-Yang Creation Strategy: I am a proper technique that points straight at the Great Dao of Cause and Effect—of course I won't be affected!]
[Huiyuan Sword Formula chimes in: Exactly, exactly! Chengming is mine! There's no way he'll be tainted by that kind of filthy thing!]
Gu Chengming looked at the pop-ups before him, and a guess suddenly formed in his mind.
Perhaps it wasn't that his Dao-heart was so firm, but rather that his very cultivation system was fundamentally incompatible with this world's "Heavenly Dao rules"?
The cultivators of this world refined the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and comprehended the laws of the Heavenly Dao.
Once the Heavenly Dao rules shifted, they would naturally bear the brunt.
But he was different. His technique came with affection bars and CG-unlock mechanics—it was based on a system that lay outside the Heavenly Dao.
If things really were as he guessed, then the entire Capital's level of repression had just increased a hundredfold, while he remained unchanged.
The Great Qian's Imperial Astronomical Bureau, the side hall of the Star-Gazing Terrace.
Documents piled up like a mountain, nearly drowning the slender figure seated behind the desk.
Xu Huayi held a wolf-hair brush, her expression intent as she annotated a review report concerning the "Snowfall Pass Heaven-Seeing Earth-Hearing Grand Formation."
Vice Director Song Zhixing stood off to the side with his hands clasped behind his back, watching this prized disciple sent over by the Tianding Sect, his eyes full of admiration.
Not only was her talent in the Dao of Formations exceptional—what was truly rare was this temperament of hers.
In the battle of the Northern Territory, she had turned the tide with mere third-realm cultivation, and had even assisted that Gu Chengming in slaying a fourth-realm demon king.
Merits like these could well have made her proud, yet after returning she was neither arrogant nor rash, and had even volunteered to take on the task of tidying up the aftermath.
"Huayi." Song Zhixing spoke, breaking the quiet within the hall.
Xu Huayi's brush tip paused slightly. She set down the brush, rose, and saluted. "Vice Director."
Song Zhixing waved a hand, signaling that she needn't stand on ceremony.
He casually picked up the battle report on the desk concerning the slaying of the demon king. His gaze lingered for a moment on that line bearing the name "Gu Chengming," and his expression grew somewhat complicated.
Song Zhixing looked at Xu Huayi, in the bloom of her youth, and a fatherly sort of concern welled up in his heart.
"On this trip to the Northern Territory, you did very well."
Song Zhixing weighed his words, speaking earnestly. "However—this refining of the heart amid the red dust refines the heart, not the passions."
Xu Huayi lowered her eyes slightly, hands folded before her, listening.
Seeing how well-behaved she was, Song Zhixing pressed a little deeper: "That Gu... Chief Banner Officer is indeed a dragon among men, but the karma entangled with him runs too heavy. You're still young, and some people and matters are not as simple as they appear on the surface. The road of cultivation is long—do not let a moment of mutual accord throw your Dao-heart into disarray."
He felt he'd already hinted plainly enough.
That man is a founding ancestor! Whatever you do, don't go getting some maidenly springtime crush!!
Xu Huayi nodded, her voice cool and calm. "Huayi understands. Cultivation lies within oneself; one does not seek from without. Fellow Daoist Gu is, to me, merely a passing traveler on the road of seeking the Dao."
Hearing this, Song Zhixing felt greatly comforted.
It seemed he'd been overthinking.
Indeed—a genius like Xu Huayi, whose whole heart was devoted to the Dao of Formations, how could she be as easily moved as ordinary folk?
He offered a few more words of encouragement, then turned and left, leaving Xu Huayi a quiet space to handle her official affairs.
As the hall doors drew shut and the footsteps faded into the distance.
The side hall returned to silence.
Xu Huayi maintained that dignified standing posture until she was certain Song Zhixing had gone far away.
She slowly sat back down in her chair and picked up that wolf-hair brush again.
The brush tip hung above the paper, long refusing to fall.
On that sheet of rice paper, originally filled with formation calculations, a blot of ink had appeared at some unknown point.
Xu Huayi stared expressionlessly at that ink blot, while in her heart raged an utterly different attitude.
[Aaaah, I miss Gu Chengming so much, I miss his hands, I miss his collarbones.]
[I miss him so, so much—why, how could there be a person in this world so perfectly suited to my tastes?]
——When on earth is he finally going to come back?
After going a little crazy for a while, Xu Huayi reined in her thoughts, shook her head, and stopped dwelling on it.
Instead she drew a deep breath and opened the next case file.
But the moment her gaze swept across those first few lines, her brows knit together.
The Harmonious Joy Sect's cultivation technique going out of control...
This matter was indeed one of the few major events in the Capital of late—it could rank as a "large cup" on the Capital's registry of big events, and might well develop into an "extra-large cup" affair.
It could be said that the Imperial Astronomical Bureau had been researching a solution to this matter all this while—things like formations, or reverse deduction targeting the technique itself.
As she analyzed the matter, she teased the threads apart in her mind, one strand at a time.
Harmonious Joy Sect technique, carnal desire, loss of control...
Wait.
The brush in Xu Huayi's hand suddenly stopped. With a "crack," the shaft of the fine wolf-hair brush was actually squeezed by her until a fracture appeared in it.
Gu Chengming—hadn't he also cross-cultivated a Harmonious Joy Sect technique?
If everyone who practiced a Harmonious Joy Sect technique became difficult to control, then wasn't Gu Chengming, far away in the Northern Territory, right now...
This is bad—he wouldn't go giving other women a free ride out there in the Northern Territory, would he?
Into Xu Huayi's mind surfaced the several women who so often appeared at Gu Chengming's side.
Luo Jinyao, Yu Wenqiu, Nuo Tao...
Damn it! Why couldn't she be in the Northern Territory, why did she have to come back early!!
If she were still in the Northern Territory right now, she'd only need to bring out the savings she'd accumulated over a dozen years, and Gu Chengming would surely agree to dual-cultivate with her!
Aaaaah, I want to go on a business trip to the Northern Territory right this instant, I want to die.
She usually scrimped and saved, piling up such a vast fortune—wasn't it all for the sake of putting it to use at the crucial moment? Yet now that the time had truly come to "loosen the purse strings for a righteous cause," she was a thousand miles away.
The atmospheric pressure inside the side hall dropped to a terrifying level.
Just then, the hall door was gently pushed open.
A youth dressed in the official robes of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau poked his head in and walked in, a letter in hand. "Senior Sister? Are you busy?"
The newcomer was her junior brother, Zhou Hui.
Xu Huayi drew a deep breath, in an instant reining in the resentment that had nearly overflowed from her whole being, and returned to her usual demeanor.
She tilted her head slightly, her voice calm. "What is it?"
Zhou Hui stepped forward and set the letter on the desk. "Oh, nothing major. It's just that I went to the city gate to run an errand earlier, and I heard a few Night-Watch Bureau lieutenants chatting—they said Gu Chengming has already returned, and by now he should be back at the Jishan Ward..."
Before he'd even finished speaking.
With a "whoosh."
Xu Huayi, who had been sitting calmly in her chair, shot to her feet, the motion so violent it knocked over the teacup at her hand.
The tea spilled across the desk, soaking that case file about the Harmonious Joy Sect.
Zhou Hui jumped in fright. "S-Senior Sister?"
Xu Huayi didn't even look at him; her eyes were shining.
"Senior Sister, are you about to..."
"Prepare gifts."
Xu Huayi was terse, her words rapid-fire. "Take all the spirit fruits and pills I acquired in the Capital, and that jug of thousand-year spirit wine Vice Director Song rewarded me with before—bring all of it."
Zhou Hui was utterly baffled. "Going where?"
Xu Huayi strode toward the hall doors, her steps so light and brisk they stirred a breeze.
"The Jishan Ward."
She said without turning her head.
"To pay a visit to an old friend."
The next morning at dawn.
Gu Chengming rose very early.
After a night's rest, and with his own condition confirmed, his mood was considerably lighter than the day before.
He was practicing his sword in the courtyard when he suddenly heard a soft knock at the courtyard gate.
"Knock, knock, knock."
The knocking carried a rhythm—unhurried, neither fast nor slow, with a restrained, well-mannered air to it.
Gu Chengming sheathed his sword, somewhat puzzled.
Who would come visiting this out-of-the-way Jishan Ward so early in the morning? Could it be a colleague from the Night-Watch Bureau?
He walked over and pulled open the courtyard gate.
When he saw clearly who stood outside, Gu Chengming couldn't help being momentarily stunned.
That person wasn't wearing the usual azure formation-master's robe, but had changed into a plain, moon-white long dress, draped over with a pale-cyan cloak. Her long hair wasn't tied up crisply as it had been in the Northern Territory, but was coiled into a bun, pinned with a wooden hairpin.
"Fellow Daoist Xu?" Gu Chengming was a little surprised.
"Fellow Daoist Gu." Xu Huayi smiled, very pleased. "I trust you've been well."
Gu Chengming looked at this friend with whom he'd shared life and death in the Northern Territory not long ago. Smiling, he returned the salute and stepped aside, making a "please" gesture. "You as well, Fellow Daoist Xu—as elegant as ever. I just didn't expect the Imperial Astronomical Bureau's information to be so well-connected. I'd barely set foot back home before you arrived on my heels."
"I happened to be passing by, and hearing an old friend had returned, I came to have a look."
Xu Huayi lied without changing her expression, yet the pace of her steps was swift—she walked into the courtyard practically pressed up against Gu Chengming.
Behind them, Zhou Hui followed in panting, clutching a great heap of gift boxes. Watching his own senior sister's back—as if she wished she could plaster herself onto Gu Chengming—he silently heaved a sigh, set the things down, and tactfully withdrew to keep watch outside the courtyard.
In the courtyard, beneath that old osmanthus tree.
Gu Chengming poured Xu Huayi a cup of hot tea.
Xu Huayi sat upright on the stone stool, her back ramrod straight. Cupping the teacup in both hands, she used the pretense of bowing her head to blow away the tea froth to steal glances at Gu Chengming.
Rosy complexion, steady breathing, clear eyes—Xu Huayi's heart sank halfway.
This wasn't right.
According to the case files she'd seen at the Imperial Astronomical Bureau, shouldn't someone who'd practiced a Harmonious Joy Sect technique, at this moment, be wanting to pounce on any member of the opposite sex they laid eyes on?
Even if Gu Chengming's self-control was superb, he should at least be showing some trace of forced restraint, shouldn't he?
As long as he showed the tiniest bit of anything off—even just a single furrow of the brow—she could immediately, and quite naturally, produce the pills and spirit stones from her storage pouch, and then say in a tone brimming with tender concern: [Fellow Daoist Gu, I know you're suffering terribly. To save you, I'm willing to...]
"Fellow Daoist Xu?" Seeing her spacing out while holding her teacup, Gu Chengming couldn't help calling out.
"Ah, it's nothing."
Xu Huayi came back to herself, took a covering sip of tea, and resolved to go on the offensive.
She set down the teacup and tried to make her tone sound normal. "Fellow Daoist Gu, I wonder—since your return to the Capital, have you sensed anything strange about the qi here?"
Gu Chengming nodded. "That would be the influence of that Harmonious Joy Sect affair."
"Then..." The hand Xu Huayi had resting on her knee tightened slightly as she probed. "What about you, Fellow Daoist Gu? Have you been affected?"
Hearing this, Gu Chengming understood at once.
Director Zhou truly hadn't deceived him.
He said without changing his expression, "Thank you for your concern, Fellow Daoist Xu. Perhaps because I've also cross-cultivated a Confucian mind-method, the Righteous Noble Breath within my body still endures, so evil qi of this degree hasn't been able to taint me in the slightest."
"At this moment my heart is still as calm water—no trouble at all."
Xu Huayi stared at that wrist swaying right before her eyes and felt as though the sky had collapsed.
Still as calm water? How can you possibly be still as calm water?!
Unwilling to give up, she pressed once more. "Really, not a single trace of feeling?"
He shattered her last fantasy:
"Truly none."
"Good." Xu Huayi drew a deep breath and, feigning nonchalance, smiled. "Fellow Daoist Gu, your Dao-heart is so firm—it truly commands my admiration."
For the rest of the time, Xu Huayi visibly wilted, plain for anyone to see.
She half-heartedly kept up with Gu Chengming's small talk, her gaze drifting now and then toward that heap of resources she'd brought and left outside the courtyard, her eyes brimming with the grief and indignation of "I offered my heart to the bright moon, yet the bright moon shines upon the ditch."
A cup of tea was drained.
Xu Huayi stood up and smoothed out her skirt.
"Since you're unharmed, Fellow Daoist Gu, then Huayi won't intrude any further."
She gave a slight nod, finding it hard not to be resigned. "The Imperial Astronomical Bureau still has official matters to attend to. I'll take my leave."
With that she turned and left, her steps hurried, her retreating figure carrying an air of "defeated yet glorious."
Gu Chengming rose to see her off, helpless in his heart.
What kind of "defeated yet glorious" act is that you're putting on.
The Night-Watch Bureau, the Director's meditation chamber.
That door of aloeswood shut out the clamor of the outside world, yet it could not shut out the heavy, chilling dread emanating from the secret report on the desk.
Zhou Qingmu closed the case file in her hands, her fingertips lightly tapping the armrest of her wheelchair.
Indeed—the very thing she'd feared most had still come to pass.
"The Yin-Yang Fish..."
She murmured those three words under her breath.
That was the founding foundation of the Harmonious Joy Sect, and also one of the most profound and abstruse innate spiritual objects in this world.
By all rights, this object had suppressed the Harmonious Joy Sect's fortunes for several thousand years and had long since become connected to the earth's veins. Yet as it now appeared, the source of all this pink chaos throughout the Capital pointed to the imbalance of that Yin-Yang Fish.
Yin and yang thrown out of order, desires running rampant.
To resolve this calamity, the only way was for someone to penetrate deep into the forbidden grounds of the Harmonious Joy Sect, make contact with the Yin-Yang Fish, uncover the truth of its loss of control, and bring solid evidence back to the Great Qian.
With evidence in hand, the Great Qian court could intervene under the righteous banner of "assisting an ally in quelling a rebellion," mobilizing the nation's fortune and dragon qi to suppress the rampaging of the Yin-Yang Fish.
But the difficulty lay precisely in this "evidence."
In the current Great Qian court, factions stood thick as trees, and those eyeing the fat prize of the Harmonious Joy Sect were far from few.
That Yin-Yang Fish was not only the lifeblood of the Harmonious Joy Sect, but also a supreme treasure coveted enough to make any fifth-realm great cultivator's eyes turn red. To tear off all pretense without evidence would obviously be unwise.
It was a deadlock, and the key to unraveling it lay in obtaining proof.
But this in turn raised a new problem: ordinary cultivators approaching the Yin-Yang Fish would be repelled by those vast twin energies of yin and yang, while those who had practiced Harmonious Joy Sect techniques and could resist such assimilation were now, for the most part, barely able to protect themselves.
Zhou Qingmu let out a sigh, her gaze falling upon Gu Chengming, who had just pushed the door open and stepped in.
"Director?" Seeing Zhou Qingmu's grave expression, Gu Chengming couldn't help asking, "Have you uncovered something?"
"You could say so."
Zhou Qingmu didn't conceal anything, laying out the situation with the Yin-Yang Fish and the current predicament in full.
After hearing it all, Gu Chengming rubbed his chin, musing aloud:
"So in other words, what's needed now is someone who has practiced a Harmonious Joy Sect technique yet hasn't been affected, to infiltrate the Harmonious Joy Sect's interior and act as this spy?"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than he felt a gaze land upon him.
Zhou Qingmu's eyes lit up. "Lord Gu truly is clever—one touch and you grasp it all."
Gu Chengming thought to himself, please don't flatter me to death.
The instant that "Lord" left her lips, he suddenly had an ominous premonition.
"So..." Zhou Qingmu laid her cards on the table at last, her tone full of anticipation. "Could I trouble you to disguise your identity and make a trip to the Harmonious Joy Sect?"
Gu Chengming pointed at his own nose, his face full of absurdity. "Me?"
"It's not that this subordinate wishes to decline, it's just that I—"
His reputation these days was no small thing, and on top of that his looks were outstanding to begin with—it would be hard for him not to draw attention.
If he really went to investigate, he'd probably be recognized as the Night-Watch Bureau's Gu Chengming the moment he appeared at the Harmonious Joy Sect's gate, then get seized and thoroughly wrung dry.
"Rest assured, since this seat is sending you, I naturally won't let you run into trouble."
Zhou Qingmu seemed to have prepared for this in advance. She waved a hand. "I have someone in mind. Her methods are enough to let you move through the Harmonious Joy Sect as though it were an unguarded, empty place."
With that, she took a sound-transmission jade talisman from her sleeve. About a quarter of an hour later.
The door of the meditation chamber was pushed open once again.
A plain-white figure walked in, the scent of medicine arriving on the wind.
The newcomer had a head of hair white as snow and a gentle, gracious face—none other than the chief medical officer of the Imperial Academy's College of Medicine, and an old acquaintance of Gu Chengming's: Li Suizhuang.
"Greetings, Director Zhou, and... Chief Banner Officer Gu?"
Li Suizhuang's gaze lingered on Gu Chengming for a moment, a flicker of surprise passing through it.
"Physician Li?"
"This matter involves medical principles and physical transformation of the body, and Physician Li is an expert in this field."
Zhou Qingmu offered a word of explanation, then looked toward Li Suizhuang. "Well? That matter I mentioned to you before."
Li Suizhuang sighed and cast a somewhat helpless glance at Gu Chengming. "I knew it—this thankless chore would end up falling on my head after all."
She walked up to Gu Chengming, opened the medicine chest she carried with her, and took out a row of silver needles and several jade vials.
"Chief Banner Officer Gu, pardon the offense."
"This is to..."
"Alter your appearance."
Li Suizhuang dabbed some salve on her fingers and gently smeared it over Gu Chengming's face. "Only this way can we deceive the spiritual-sense probing of those high-tier cultivators of the Harmonious Joy Sect."
As spiritual power flowed through her fingertips, Gu Chengming felt a wave of numb, tingling soreness spread across his face, his very bones seeming to shift and reassemble in an almost imperceptible way.
A moment later.
Li Suizhuang put away the silver needles and handed over a bronze mirror.
"There, all done."
Gu Chengming took the mirror and looked.
The person in the mirror had utterly ordinary features—thrown into a crowd, you absolutely wouldn't be able to pick him out a second time.
That razor-sharp aura of a sword cultivator he'd originally had was suppressed by the effect too; he now looked just like a rogue cultivator you might find anywhere.
This craft was incredible.
"Not bad." Zhou Qingmu looked him over and nodded in satisfaction. "This way, as long as you don't draw your sword, no one will be able to recognize you as Gu Chengming."
But Li Suizhuang, gazing at the Gu Chengming before her, still couldn't help marveling.
Even though he'd been completely transformed—and she'd deliberately disguised him to look utterly ordinary, even purposely shaping his aura toward the unremarkable—even so, Gu Chengming still possessed a unique kind of charm.
"Could it be that this world truly has such a thing as an 'immortal's grace'?"
Li Suizhuang wondered to herself in private puzzlement.
This kind of charm—one that disregarded the outer shell and pointed straight at the soul—she had only ever seen recorded in the handwritten notes of the legendary founding patriarch of the Harmonious Joy Sect, the one said to have already ascended.
Yet Gu Chengming was only second-realm.
"Physician Li? Is something the matter?" Seeing her staring fixedly, Gu Chengming felt a bit unnerved.
"No, it's nothing."
Li Suizhuang came back to herself and gave a covering cough, tucking away the astonishment in her heart. "I just feel that even with a different face, Chief Banner Officer Gu still has... a flavor all his own."
Gu Chengming: "..."
Why does that somehow sound a little off?
"Alright."
Zhou Qingmu made the final call. "Since the disguise is complete, then this matter is settled."
She looked at the two of them, her expression solemn:
"On this operation, Physician Li will take the lead, responsible for openly making contact with the Harmonious Joy Sect's upper echelons. As for you, Little Gu..."
She pointed at Gu Chengming, who now sported a passerby's face. "You'll serve as Physician Li's accompanying assistant, responsible for observing in secret and seizing the chance to uncover the truth."
Gu Chengming glanced at the gently, gracefully smiling Li Suizhuang beside him, then glanced at Zhou Qingmu in the wheelchair with her "I'm counting on you" expression.
Things had come to this—apart from agreeing, what else could he do?
"This subordinate... accepts the command."
Gu Chengming clasped his hands in salute, while inwardly he heaved a silent sigh.
The Harmonious Joy Sect, huh...
Let's hope this time it can still be a proper, above-board business trip.
The flying vessel bound for the Harmonious Joy Sect was not large, cleaving two white streaks through the sea of clouds.
Gu Chengming leaned against the railing and reached up to touch that face of his, now grown utterly ordinary.
Li Suizhuang's craft was truly beyond reproach. That aching soreness from the displaced bones had already faded, replaced by a sense of fit so natural it was as though he'd been born this way.
"Lord Gu, still getting used to the new identity?"
Li Suizhuang came over carrying a pot of warmed medicinal tea, the hem of her moon-white skirt billowing backward in the wind.
She wore no powder or rouge today, her hair coiled up with only a plain silver hairpin, making her look a few shades more transcendently cool and detached than she had in the Capital—only, deep in her eyes, a few faint threads of bloodshot red lay half-hidden.
Gu Chengming took the teacup, offered his thanks, and said with a smile, "It's not really about getting used to it—I was just thinking that going to the Harmonious Joy Sect with this face, coaxing information out of the disciples over there might prove a bit tricky."
"Lord Gu is too modest."
Li Suizhuang sat down beside him, her gaze lingering for a moment on that featureless face of his. "The outer shell is but appearance—wouldn't you agree, Lord Gu?"
She seemed to be implying something, but she quickly shifted her gaze away, looking down at the mountains and rivers flashing by below.
Gu Chengming didn't dwell on the topic, instead asking, "Come to think of it, on this trip to the Harmonious Joy Sect, I wonder how Senior Sister Fu has been faring lately?"
He still remembered that petite Harmonious Joy Sect elder.
Back in the Capital, though Fu Xiaoxiao had been a touch ostentatious in her conduct, she'd genuinely been good to him—not only had she passed on the Red Dust Art, but before leaving she'd also stuffed him with a whole pile of odds-and-ends life-saving items.
Now that the Harmonious Joy Sect was in great turmoil, given Fu Xiaoxiao's temperament and cultivation, she was probably...
Hearing the three words "Senior Sister Fu," the fingers Li Suizhuang had wrapped around her teacup stiffened slightly.
She lowered her lashes, watching the tea leaves bobbing in her cup, her eyelashes trembling faintly, veiling the worry that flickered through her eyes.
"Senior Sister Fu, she..." Li Suizhuang paused, her voice a few shades lower than before. "Her cultivation runs deep, and she has the sect's grand formation to shelter her—she ought to be fine."
Ought to?
If she truly were fine, then given the relationship between Li Suizhuang and Fu Xiaoxiao, she should at least be tossing out a couple of teasing remarks right now, not speaking in this vague, equivocal tone.
"Is there something you can't conveniently say?"
"It's not that it's inconvenient." Li Suizhuang raised her head and sighed. "It's just that the sect has been sealed off for a long time, and passing messages is difficult. I've been away from the sect for years—I won't know the specifics until we arrive."
She clearly had no wish to say more, and using the excuse of going to check the calming incense in the ship's cabin, she rose and hurried off.
Gu Chengming watched her slightly hurried retreating figure, deep in thought.
It seemed the situation at the Harmonious Joy Sect was even worse than what the case files described.
Nightfall.
The flying vessel hovered above a layer of clouds, all around silent and still, with only the high-altitude air currents occasionally striking the protective formation and giving off a faint sound.
Gu Chengming sat cross-legged inside his cabin.
Though he was merely an accompanying attendant, the room Li Suizhuang had arranged for him happened to be right next to hers, separated only by a not-particularly-thick wooden plank wall.
He chatted a few idle words with several of his techniques and was just preparing to enter meditation to regulate his breathing.
Thud.
A muffled sound suddenly came from next door.
It was like some heavy object slamming against the wall, immediately followed by a stretch of suppressed, gasping breaths.
The other side of the wall was quiet—quiet to an excessive degree. But precisely because Gu Chengming's five senses were so keen, that deliberately suppressed commotion came through all the more clearly.
"Mm..."
A muffled moan came through the wooden plank.
That voice carried a scalp-tingling, cloyingly sweet quaver.
Following it came the sound of fabric rubbing, the ear-piercing scrape of fingernails clawing at the wooden board, and ragged, intermittent panting.
Gu Chengming instinctively wanted to get up and check on the situation, but as his hand pressed against the door handle, his motion suddenly froze.
It was only in that instant that he suddenly realized one thing.
What Li Suizhuang cultivated was also a Harmonious Joy Sect technique.
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