Chapter 176 - 123: Nan: You Really Are the Black Cat Martial Artist!

Chapter 176: Chapter 123: Nan: You Really Are the Black Cat Martial Artist!

Zeng Anmin took a deep breath and said, "I suspect there’s a conspiracy behind all this. When you intercept those two, remember to find a Black Cat hood to wear. Don’t expose yourself."

Zeng Anmin’s words conveyed deep concern. Hearing this, Bai Ziqing instantly felt a warm current surge from his heart.

"Brother Quan Fu..." His voice even carried a hint of a choke.

Zeng Anmin ended the call and looked faintly out the window.

Of course, the other reason was to avoid exposing himself. However, there was no need to tell Bai Ziqing that.

Liangjiang Commandery.

After Zeng Anmin ended the call, Bai Ziqing’s gaze turned incomparably sharp. He pulled out a bamboo tube resembling a half-cut bamboo joint from his robes. Closing his eyes, he slowly sensed the aura within it. After a long while, his eyes snapped open.

"They really headed south!"

Bai Ziqing took a deep breath, keeping Zeng Anmin’s words firmly in mind. He found a secluded spot and pulled a black cloth over his head.

He hesitated for a moment.

"MEOW." A sound escaped his mouth.

"I have a black hood, and I’m meowing like a cat," he thought. "This should count as a Black Cat hood, right?"

The situation was urgent, so he didn’t have time to overthink it. He immediately pushed off his toes and darted off into the distance.

Jishui Dam.

As the number one dam of the Great Saint Dynasty, it stood like a massive city wall, firmly holding back the turbulent river waters.

When the Jishui Dam was first constructed, Mr. Zeng Shilin and Mr. Zeng Fengqi worked alongside countless conscripted laborers for a full half-year. Braving the wind and rain, they finally completed this behemoth of a structure. It provided the best possible protection for all the people of Jiangnan, ensuring that the citizens no longer had to worry about floods.

It could be said that Zeng Shilin’s name was permanently bound to this great dam! Even if he never achieved any monumental merits in the capital, this single feat of taming the waters and building the dam would be enough for his name to go down in history.

In the darkness, a figure slowly advanced along the Jishui Dam.

The figure appeared somewhat elderly. His strides were extremely short, yet he moved as if he were weightless, drifting forward like a falling leaf with every step. He moved at a very fast pace, perfectly evading the entire Garrison. Wandering the mortal realm like a lonely ghost, he treated both the open and hidden sentries garrisoning the Jishui Dam as if they didn’t exist.

It didn’t take long for him to reach the center of the Jishui Dam.

He looked up at the fortress-like dam before him, the sound of the surging river water echoing in his ears. A smile crept across his aged face.

"Empress, oh Empress, today I shall reduce all your years of meticulous planning to nothing!"

His smile was incredibly eerie, as uncanny as a corpse—pale and fraught with dead silence.

"However, I still have to wait for my junior brother right now," he muttered.

He glanced toward the moon, then lowered his head to look at the nearby riverbank. Finding a deserted spot, he sat down cross-legged and waited quietly.

Time trickled by.

Finally, an extremely faint sound of a night owl echoed.

"HOOT."

This sound was so subtle that an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to hear it at all without careful attention. Yet, the moment it rang out, the eerie old man sitting on the ground suddenly opened his eyes, his face flashing with excitement.

"Junior brother!"

Looking in his direction, a figure was rushing over from the distant dense forest at top speed.

The figure was emaciated with a gloomy complexion, and his stature was extremely short, looking exactly like a child.

"You old geezer! I knew you weren’t dead!"

Not only did this person look like a child, but his voice also sounded like an infant’s. However, paired with his two extremely thick arms, it made for a very bizarre sight.

"Junior brother!" The old man’s face broke into an affectionate smile. He slowly stood up and took two steps toward the child.

The child-like figure also drew near. The two stood less than ten feet apart, one tall and one short, simply looking at each other. Both of their eyes were somewhat red.

After a long while, a choked sob broke the silence.

"Senior brother! It’s been seven years, and you’ve aged so much." The child’s voice had lost its earlier brazenness, leaving only excitement and emotion.

The old man turned his head away. After several breaths of silence, he finally spoke slowly. "Junior brother, serving as a sleeper agent for seven years... it must have been incredibly hard on you."

"It’s fine. For the grand cause of Prince Yong, we would have no regrets even if we died!" The child chuckled thinly. He slowly walked over to the old man’s side, his voice turning serious. "Now is not the time to catch up. Did you bring the item?"

"Mhm," the old man nodded heavily. He then took a necklace off his neck.

The necklace gleamed with a ghastly pale light under the moonlight. Every single bead on it emitted a chilling whiteness. Looking closely, each white bead actually resembled human bone!

Counting them carefully, there were exactly six of these bone beads!

"Even with all my might, I could only open one bead of this Extreme Void Necklace," the old man said. "But even within this single bead, there are thousands of Spirit Stones! There’s also a massive amount of empty space left over to store three thousand pounds of Thunder Powder."

Hearing this, the child’s eyes flashed with reverence. "The Ancestral Relics are truly extraordinary."

"As for what lies in the remaining five beads, I’ll need your help, junior brother!" The old man looked at the child with intense excitement. "If we can crack them open and obtain all the treasures inside, who’s to say we can’t be like the Sect Leader back then—entering the Celestial Human Realm and sharing eternal life together?!"

The child was also fired up by the old man’s words, a flush of red coloring his face. However, he didn’t let the excitement get to his head. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the massive Jishui Dam.

"Let’s bury the Thunder Powder first. There are quite a few patrolling guards here. I observed for a long time on my way over, and the next patrol squad should be arriving in less than half an hour."