“Yes.”

After hearing what Chu Xiyao had said, Du Chong nodded in apparent agreement.

“Huo Mu was a peak Divine Ability Realm great power. If he wanted to take the Demon Suppression Stone containing the Black Flood Dragon Remnant Soul from Caijun Tower without anyone noticing, then forget a few Lower Three Realms cultivators. Even Middle Three Realms cultivators would have had no chance of detecting him.”

“That is indeed the case,” Chu Xiyao replied.

“Looking at it this way, I also think the people responsible for managing the place bear more blame than those few innocent Lower Three Realms cultivators...”

As he spoke, Du Chong seemed to suddenly realize something. He turned toward Chu Xiyao, clasped his hands, and bowed apologetically.

“Grand Elder Chu, I had absolutely no intention of offending your father...”

He knew very well that the Sword Master Elder of Qingchan Peak at the time had been Chu Xiyao’s father, Chu Chen, who now held an important position in Kongshan Sect’s Supreme Surveillance Court.

“Grand Elder Du, there’s no need to worry about such details,” Chu Xiyao said, shaking her head.

“Then I won’t impose on you any longer today,” Du Chong said.

“Please.”

Chu Xiyao stepped slightly aside to make way for Du Chong to leave the teahouse, watching as he headed for the exit.

Just before Du Chong was about to leave the teahouse, Chu Xiyao, who had been preoccupied with her thoughts, called out to him from behind.

“Grand Elder Du.”

Hearing Chu Xiyao’s voice, Du Chong stopped. He slowly turned around and bowed slightly in her direction once more.

Although they were both Unity realm cultivators, and in terms of seniority were peers who had once participated in the same Heavenly Summit Mountain Dao Inquiry, Du Chong was a Grand Elder of Baili Sect, while Chu Xiyao was a Grand Elder of one of the Five Great Sects. His status was still a notch below hers.

“Grand Elder Chu, is there something else?”

“What was the name of the Offering Elder from Vast Dome Gate of Star Heaven Sect you just mentioned?” Chu Xiyao asked.

Du Chong’s expression showed sudden understanding. Then he bowed toward Chu Xiyao once more and answered frankly:

“Fan Mowen.”

......

At that very moment, in Taiyun City.

A handsome young man dressed in plain white daoist robes was walking slowly along a street in the city.

When the townspeople saw the young man approaching, with his robes and transcendent bearing, they hurriedly stepped aside.

The people of these secular dynasties held cultivators in awe from the bottom of their hearts.

Yet they paid this handsome young man in plain white daoist robes little attention.

There had simply been too many cultivators coming and going through Taiyun City lately. There were so many that the townspeople had grown somewhat numb to seeing them.

The young man in plain white daoist robes lifted his head slightly, his gaze settling on a teahouse in the distance.

A cultivator dressed in the pale cyan daoist robes of Baili Sect was emerging from the teahouse. The cultivators in Qingchan Peak robes of Kongshan Sect gathered outside all bowed toward the Baili Sect cultivator.

Then the Baili Sect cultivator lightly touched his feet to the ground and rose into the air, before flying toward the pitch-black rifts spreading along the horizon. He gradually dwindled into a tiny black speck, growing farther and farther away.

The handsome young man dressed in plain white daoist robes was Chen Yan.

Forty years ago, when Chen Yan faced the Mystic Maiden Statues alone on the Myriad Laws Platform of Du Cang Mountain, he had not met them head-on.

Instead, at the instant the Mystic Maiden Statue brought its palms together, he had activated the Emptiness Annihilation Art, severing all karmic ties between himself, Chenping Continent, and the statue.

Then he had taken the opportunity to flee.

Unlike the time he had activated the Emptiness Annihilation Art through an External Incarnation, which cost him three thousand years of dao rhyme in a single instant, Chen Yan had personally broken through the laws of heaven and earth and used his dao rhyme to activate the art for a brief moment. This had cost him only several decades of dao rhyme.

Everything had unfolded just as Chen Yan had surmised.

The reason the Mystic Maiden Statues in the heavens had launched attack after attack, and why thousands of them had appeared from the spatial rifts to descend all at once, was the resistance put up by the cultivators of Chenping Continent.

After Chen Yan severed his karmic ties and fled, the Mystic Maiden Statue seemed to have determined that it had completed its removal of the “anomaly” at Du Cang Mountain. It soon returned to the spatial rifts.

This meant Chenping Continent could still barely survive.

Although time was growing increasingly short, this had indeed won Chen Yan and Chenping Continent some more time.

But things had not unfolded entirely as Chen Yan had imagined.

The Mystic Maiden Statues, or rather, “that existence” beyond the heavens, had clearly begun paying close attention to Chenping Continent.

At times, they would appear after only a dozen or so days. At other times, three or four years might pass between appearances.

A Mystic Maiden Statue would randomly descend upon Chenping Continent from beyond the heavens. Whenever one appeared, every living being within a radius of ten thousand li of its landing site would be instantly erased.

Not even a corpse would remain, as if they had never existed in this world.

By now, everything happening in Taiyun City, or in Kongshan Sect, Qingque Kingdom, and the surrounding secular dynasties, down to the slightest stir, was entirely within the reach of Chen Yan’s spiritual sense.

This naturally included the entire conversation between Chu Xiyao and Du Chong in the teahouse not long ago.

Chen Yan had no interest in those past events. Given his current experience and insight, he could easily infer that Chu Xiyao must have had some connection to the theft of the Black Flood Dragon Remnant Soul back then.

This became even clearer when he connected it to the scene from the first few cycles of reincarnation, when he had died on his way to find Cheng Ziying. In his final moments, he had seen Chu Xiyao hurrying to the outer court Training Grounds, her face full of guilt and remorse.

But everything behind it could be said to have been part of Li Haoran’s scheme, driven by Huo Mu and his faction’s ambition.

Chu Xiyao, Li Haowen, Lin Xinyang, and the others had been powerless to do anything back then.

Behind all this, amid the conversation between Chu Xiyao and Du Chong, there was only one piece of information Chen Yan truly cared about.

That was Fan Mowen, the so-called Offering Elder of Vast Dome Gate of Star Heaven Sect, who had been traveling the world for hundreds of years.

According to the information Chen Yan had uncovered about Fan Mowen, he was a cultivator of the same generation as Yun Yichen’s master, True Person Kongmiao, Yan Yunhe, who was the reincarnated body of Sage of Imperial Void Bai Chen: Ruan Tingzhu.

Given Fan Mowen’s cultivation and lifespan, he should already have been nearing the end of his life.

But Chen Yan knew very well that Fan Mowen would never die.

There were far too many mysteries still hidden within this so-called “Offering Elder” of Star Heaven Sect.

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