Chapter 125: Secured

Zheng Zhuxi thrust out another swift strike, her sword tip hovering at the brow of the man dressed as an inn attendant.

A faint yellow gleam flashed along Autumnwater, and a thread of light sank into the man’s sea of consciousness.

Rather than jolt the still-sleeping attendant awake directly, which might cause terror and do him harm, the young woman used Candlelight Sword Intent to dispel the dream instead.

The man, still standing dazed in place, slowly opened his eyes and looked around in confusion.

When he caught sight of Zheng Zhuxi, he thought he was still in a pleasant dream with a celestial maiden standing before him. But then he noticed Ding Songyan and Yu Jinhong, and the illusion shattered.

"W-why am I here?" He jumped with a start.

"Who are you?" Yu Jinhong answered with a question of his own.

The man glanced to either side, alarmed and baffled.

"I’m the attendant here. It was my turn to take a break!"

Ding Songyan smiled, candlelight hidden in his eyes.

"What did you just dream about?"

"I dreamed that a guest asked me to come to this room and take something." The inn attendant showed no physical anomalies.

"What did the guest look like?" Zheng Zhuxi asked steadily.

The attendant shook his head in a fluster.

"How could I see clearly in a dream? I only remember that he gave me a mask...

"Yes, that one! How can it actually be here?"

He had spotted the Meng Po mask lying on the floor where Zheng Zhuxi had flicked it, and nearly jumped out of his skin.

After pressing for more details and sending the attendant away, Yu Jinhong furrowed his brow.

"What on earth is the Huangliang Sect trying to do?"

You were the ones who commissioned a caravan to gather Fuyu Mountain Cinnabar Grass and deliver it to Qisong Prefecture, and now you’re secretly trying to rob it in transit...

Is this some internal strife?

"It may not be the Huangliang Sect," Ding Songyan offered the honest answer.

Arts with the ability to enter dreams were exceedingly rare, but the Huangliang Sect was not the only lineage to possess one. The Twenty-Eight Divine Ones, for instance, included the Lord of the Long Night among their traits.

"Right. No sleep tonight. Tomorrow I will push straight through to Qisong Prefecture and deliver the Cinnabar Grass. Whatever happens after that is no longer the caravan’s or the bureau’s concern." Yu Jinhong let out a long breath.

He made no suggestion of searching the area for anyone bearing physical anomalies associated with the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years.

Shimen County, where they were now, was a key pass on the northern approach to Qisong Prefecture. Many Huangliang Sect disciples passed through on their travels out into the world. At this moment, there were at least a dozen martial artists in this county bearing serpentine features and fish-scale markings. Without leads or hard evidence, it would be nearly impossible to investigate.

These were all people from an orthodox sect!

The person behind this had likely chosen to act tonight for exactly that reason, so that a failed attempt would not expose them.

Zheng Zhuxi said nothing and led Ding Songyan toward the stairwell.

Escort Leader Yu watched their retreating figures and asked nothing.

Whatever these two Brightnight Sect disciples were after, or why they had involved themselves in this affair, they had helped him twice over. That was reason enough not to press them for answers.

As they descended the wooden stairs, Ding Songyan turned to his senior sister.

"Entering two people’s dreams at once is beyond me, unless I were to use the Celestial Heart imprint to split my mind in two."

Zheng Zhuxi knew her junior brother’s dream-entering ability was already at the level of a perfected Great Proliferation Realm practitioner. She frowned slightly.

"One of the Huangliang Sect’s four Grandmasters? Or more than one person?"

Is the Huangliang Sect on the verge of fracturing?

"A Grandmaster wouldn’t be reduced to such low standards; they could simply take it by force." Ding Songyan thought it over. "Either it’s two or three people working together, or this person has something unusual about them."

He suddenly smiled.

"Senior Sister, the moment Yan Peng failed, that person surely knew something had gone wrong. They’ve been waiting along the route for another opportunity ever since. After tonight’s failure, they might try again soon, or they might fall back to Qisong Prefecture’s city and think of another approach.

"If they head back to the city, might they take the chance to pocket Yan Peng’s silver? It would be easy enough in passing, and anyone with dream-entry abilities would certainly have been privy to Yan Peng’s secrets."

No matter how wealthy, one didn’t simply discard a sum that large.

Zheng Zhuxi felt a surge of urgency.

She had already worked out how to use that money to help people. Losing it would be a real blow.

"Shall we ride overnight to Qisong Prefecture and get there first?" Zheng Zhuxi proposed. "Escort Leader Yu is on alert now. As long as he doesn’t run into a Grandmaster, the caravan should be fine. And traveling at night, we might even run into other wanted outlaws along the way..."

As she spoke, Zheng Zhuxi blinked, her gaze shifting to Ding Songyan.

"Lie in wait for them in Yan Peng’s hidden chamber?"

"Senior Sister, you read my mind." Ding Songyan gave an approving smile.

Zheng Zhuxi perked up and hurried back upstairs to tell Yu Jinhong that she and her junior brother had urgent business and would be leaving that night, so the escort leader wouldn’t feel too secure and let his guard slip.

The moon was bright amid the sparse stars. The two rode along the official road toward Xuande County, where Qisong Prefecture’s city was located.

Mindful of their horses, they stopped at post stations and mountain temples along the way to rest and feed them, keeping an eye out for any suspicious figures abroad in the night.

By the time the sky began to brighten, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi had passed through the gates and entered Xuande County.

Xuande County was less prosperous than Linjiang County. There were none of the towering waterwheels or intricate mechanical contraptions, but many of those passing through wore gold and silver.

The county was known for its rich mineral deposits.

They found a nearby inn to stay at and stabled their horses, then Zheng Zhuxi followed Ding Songyan through winding turns to the back alley of a courtyard.

Ding Songyan glanced at the watchtower in the distance and the lingering dimness of the early sky. He first circled behind a tree with Zheng Zhuxi, as if the two were having a rendezvous, then let a faint shadow seep out around them, blending into the predawn darkness.

Zheng Zhuxi watched attentively and asked nothing.

Shielded by the false darkness, the two executed the Waxing Moon Phantom Form movement technique, flowing over the courtyard wall like darting light and shadows, slipping into a corridor out of the watchtower’s line of sight in the blink of an eye.

Following the details from Yan Peng’s dream, Ding Songyan easily skirted the servants, located the hidden chamber, and slipped inside.

He then activated the mechanism, splitting the wall open to reveal two small chests forged from tempered steel.

"There are gu worms hidden inside the chests," Ding Songyan explained to his senior sister as he drew Frostshade with a ring.

He had no intention of feeding the gu worms with his own blood; there was no telling what complications that might cause.

In Zheng Zhuxi’s view, the moment the crystalline Frostshade made contact with one of the chests and nudged it slightly, misshapen gu worms crawled out from somewhere and raced up the blade toward her junior brother.

An instant later, the gu worms all "froze" on the blade, as if caught in an invisible cage surrounded by a cold that could freeze all motion.

Seeing that her junior brother had the gu worms under control, Zheng Zhuxi moved forward in silent coordination and deftly opened the chest, finding a stack of banknotes and ingots of gold and silver.

"Take everything?" Zheng Zhuxi consulted her junior brother.

Should we leave some behind as bait?

Ding Songyan smiled.

"I half-expected you to insist on going through the local yamen to claim Yan Peng’s assets through proper channels."

Precisely for that purpose, Zheng Zhuxi had arranged for someone to coat Yan Peng’s severed head in lime and carried it all the way to Xuande County.

Zheng Zhuxi smiled, her dimples just visible.

"Isn’t this what you taught me about adapting to circumstances? If we leave the silver here and something goes wrong such as the mysterious figure really taking it away, then all those families who lost their loved ones won’t receive a thing. Better to secure it first and then file the report with the yamen afterward.

"And just now, it was the first time in my life I’ve snuck into someone’s home while evading a watchtower. Isn’t that not because the local yamen is full of Huangliang Sect disciples who might leak word of our presence?"

"Excellent," Ding Songyan expressed his view in a single word.

Zheng Zhuxi tucked the banknotes into a hidden pocket in her clothing and stuffed the gold and silver which wasn’t an excessive amount into the pack she had brought.

Once she had closed the chest again, Ding Songyan gave the blade a gentle tremor, shaking all the gu worms back off.

Only once Frostshade was withdrawn did the gu worms return to normal, but with no target in sight, they wandered in aimless circles for a moment before hiding themselves again.

Following the same method, Ding Songyan and Zheng Zhuxi also retrieved the Miasma Cultivation Manual, the Gu Rearing Scripture, and the cultivation resources.

They then restored the hidden chamber to its original state and each found a place to conceal themselves and wait.

They waited until dusk, when the Chen Merchant Caravan was nearly approaching Xuande County, yet the mysterious figure never came.

Ding Songyan thought it over carefully.

"It seems that the person is confident the silver is safe and certain that no one can find it. They plan to wait until things settle down before coming to collect."

"Right, they don’t know you also know the Great Dream of Three Thousand Years, or that you can use spirit channeling. They probably assumed no one could locate Yan Peng’s courtyard at all." Zheng Zhuxi put herself in the other person’s position.

"Then there’s no point waiting any longer. We haven’t eaten a single grain of rice in a day and a night, and we haven’t rested enough. If we run into a strong opponent, we’d be at a disadvantage." Ding Songyan himself was fine. At the perfected Dharma Realm, he could hold on for seven days and nights, but Zheng Zhuxi was only at the early stages of the Great Proliferation Realm.

As they were leaving the chamber, Ding Songyan, who had planned ahead, let his eyes go dark and drew Frostshade once more, pressing the tip against the mechanism that opened the door.

A trace of phantomlike, deep-flowing light sank into the mechanism.

Noticing Zheng Zhuxi’s questioning look, Ding Songyan smiled.

"My sword intent, combined with qi resonance.

"If the mysterious figure lets their guard down and activates the mechanism directly, it will silently seep into their body, disguise itself as part of their own qi, and settle into their Crimson Palace. When I see them, I’ll know immediately who the culprit is."

This came from Manifesting the Way and its Virtue. It could lie dormant inside the mechanism for three days, similar in principle to the white jade token carrying Tao Wenshu’s qi resonance, but without being crystallized into a fixed form.

Within three days, if anyone activated the mechanism, the sword intent would flow in and take root in their Crimson Palace, where it would linger for six or seven days before fading.

"Rather than hide the sword intent on the chest itself, you’ve hidden it in the mechanism that opens the chamber..." Zheng Zhuxi spoke in the tone of someone who had just learned something. "It’s even more concealed. Impossible to guard against."

Ding Songyan laughed.

"If it’s not because I don’t have brush and ink and because I’m afraid of leaving a trace, I absolutely would have left a note inside the empty chest: ’Many thanks for your generous gift.’"

"The mysterious figure would be furious." Zheng Zhuxi imagined the scene.

Ding Songyan said with a smile, "Fury is exactly what I want. An angry person overlooks details. They wouldn’t suspect there was anything still hidden in the mechanism at the chamber entrance."

"So that’s..." Zheng Zhuxi hadn’t expected that what seemed like a whimsical impulse from her junior brother had a deeper purpose after all.

As darkness fell, the two slipped past the watchtower’s watch and left the courtyard.

They had barely returned to the inn and hidden away the gold and silver when a waiter came to inform them, "Yu Jinhong of the Long Road Escort Bureau requests an audience."

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