Chapter 613: How About That Ride?

It was early summer, and the vicious afternoon sun tormented the streets of Shizhou City. Waves of scorching heat rose from the asphalt. Merely looking at the scene made a restless heat churn inside one’s body.

Yet only a hundred meters from the sun-drenched road lay a place shrouded in shadow throughout the year.

It was a small-goods wholesale market built at the beginning of the century. Rows of residential buildings surrounded a vast shed made from corrugated steel. On those buildings, homes converted into short-term rentals and Mahjong parlors had sprouted signs of every conceivable size like plants growing wild without human care.

One word described the place perfectly: chaotic.

The saying “the greatest hermit lives in the marketplace” was often misused to mean that anyone who knew how to hide should live amid a crowd. Nevertheless, a place like this truly was ideal for evading pursuit.

Because Huá Sāng had delivered the intelligence to Qingxiazi in time, the Great Pure Palace had reacted with impressive speed. Hu Chuan had barely managed to leave the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area before the entirety of Shizhou City was secretly sealed off.

Teams of Great Pure Palace disciples, The Midnight Watchers Society’s contact points, and the city’s enormous barriers interwove into a vast net across Shizhou City, leaving the “big fish” trapped within nowhere to escape.

For that reason, Hu Chuan had hidden here ever since fleeing the Great Pure Palace.

That was right. He had never visited the old apartment block on the outskirts of Shizhou City.

The three murdered Great Pure Palace disciples had been lured there entirely by their beloved junior sister and a series of false reports.

Several years ago, Hu Chuan had been “fortunate” enough to be temporarily entrusted with a portion of the Calamitous Corruption’s power when it briefly awakened. Accomplishing something like this was effortless for him.

Zhang Huainan might be the strongest psychic in Shizhou City, but Hu Chuan was its true master!

…

The curtains were tightly drawn inside the cramped short-term rental. An old television played a health-supplement commercial of the kind that had long made a business of swindling the elderly. Its speakers seemed damaged, lending every voice a harsh, crackling edge.

A faint smell of mildew drifted through the room. In one corner, a cockroach twitched and struggled as a swarm of ants devoured it.

In the dim light, Hu Chuan slowly opened his eyes. A beastlike glimmer flashed through them, and a cruel smile appeared on his unnaturally pale face.

He had taken immense pleasure in the Great Pure Palace disciples’ bewilderment when one of their own attacked them, as well as the terror they had tried—and utterly failed—to conceal upon discovering their companions’ slaughtered remains. The experience had left both his mind and body refreshed.

“Trying to catch a turtle in a jar? I’m afraid you haven’t figured out which one of us is the prey…”

Slaughter. What he needed to do now was create more slaughter.

He would use it to plunge the disciples pursuing him into terror and, more importantly, to make a diversion!

Just as now, after receiving that distress signal, many of the Great Pure Palace disciples participating in the pursuit had already rushed toward the scene or were on their way.

Once most of them reached it, the next massacre would erupt at an abandoned power plant twenty-five kilometers away.

The Great Pure Palace disciple obsessed with electronic cigarettes had already led the other members of his team to “stand by” near that plant…

Twenty-five kilometers was neither too far nor too close. It was exactly the right distance. About an hour had passed since the first “attack,” and it was entirely reasonable for a fleeing psychic to have covered that distance!

Soon, the Great Pure Palace disciples gathered near the apartment block on the outskirts would converge on the abandoned power plant like large fish drawn by the scent of bait.

Hu Chuan would observe the entire process through the unwitting members of the Esoteric Society hidden among those disciples.

It would be like watching a laughable comedy.

Only when most of the disciples involved in the pursuit were exhausted and terrified, racing between one sudden death scene after another, would he have a chance to tear through their “net” and escape.

Before that, however, he needed to make one small change…

Just as he had when Zhang Shuo once hunted him to the very end of his rope.

Buzz—buzz—!

A low vibration suddenly broke the silence of the room.

Hu Chuan followed the sound and picked up the emblem on the bedside cabinet, its surface engraved with a complex polyhedral design. The instant his fingertip brushed it, a slightly panicked voice sounded beside his ear.

“I-I’ve contacted the person you mentioned, but he says the thing you want isn’t ready yet. It’ll take at least another day before he can get it! Wh-what am I supposed to do now?”

“Heh.” Hu Chuan chuckled, contempt flashing through his eyes. “Elder Wang, you sound frightened.”

“Of course I am!” Elder Wang growled hoarsely. “Do you have any idea how serious this has become? If I hadn’t reacted quickly and fled at once, Qingxiazi might already have detained me!”

“And the Dark Emperor rushed to Shengjing early this morning. He organized a meeting about this matter and invited three Guardians!”

“Guardians?” Hu Chuan smiled dismissively. “You must believe that great lord is an existence beyond the Guardians. As long as you do as I say, nothing will happen to you.”

“But…”

“But?” Hu Chuan cut him off. “Qingxiazi sent people after you the moment you left Chenyi Inn. Yet since following my instructions, have you encountered even one person from the Great Pure Palace?”

“…” Elder Wang fell silent for a long while, then gave a heavy sigh. “I understand. What should I do now? Stay here and wait for that person to bring the item you want?”

“Wait,” Hu Chuan replied casually. “I’ll contact you if anything changes.”

And now…

Hu Chuan severed the connection with Elder Wang and set the emblem down. Closing his eyes, he concentrated and moved the “chess piece” he had planted at the abandoned power plant.

————

That afternoon.

A taxi carrying Huá Sāng and Lu Yibei left the apartment block on the outskirts of Shizhou City and headed toward the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area.

The vehicle sped down the highway, crossed the city, and entered the mountain forest. Neither passenger spoke a single word along the way. The silence was almost frightening.

They had agreed on this before entering the taxi.

After what they had witnessed the previous night, they knew that any object visible to the naked eye could become Hu Chuan’s “eyes” and “ears.” There was no way to guarantee that nothing inside the taxi was serving that purpose.

If they discussed the details of their plan inside the car, Hu Chuan might very well overhear them.

Only after they entered the gates of the Great Pure Palace and came under the protection of the Mountain-Guarding Grand Formation would Hu Chuan’s “surveillance” be restrained.

However, their silence felt so unnatural that the taxi driver briefly assumed he had picked up two people with speech impairments and offered them a discounted fare.

When they got out, Lu Yibei gladly accepted the driver’s kindness and thanked him profusely.

Huá Sāng, meanwhile, paid the full fare right in front of the driver’s darkening face.

…

“Hold on. That uncle offered us a discount. Why did you pay the full fare?”

“Something this lucky hardly ever happens, and you actually turned it down? Are you stupid?”

“And another thing…”

Lu Yibei had held himself back for the entire journey. The moment he stepped out of the taxi, words flooded into Huá Sāng’s ears like water through a broken dam.

Huá Sāng glanced at him and replied flatly, “The driver clearly thought we were mute. I don’t like being pitied.”

“That’s all?” Lu Yibei rolled his eyes. “I’m different. I wish everyone in the world would pity me. If their sympathy moved each of them to send me eight or ten yuan, I’d even livestream myself sobbing dramatically for twelve hours every day!”

Huá Sāng was speechless. Did this man have no shame?

————

After entering the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area, they neither took the sightseeing cable car back to the Great Pure Palace nor followed the broad main path. Instead, they climbed the mountain along an abandoned trail that had gone without modern maintenance for years.

Huá Sāng had known Qing Ji inside the ferule for many years and was familiar with almost every deserted trail in the Zhenwu Mountain Scenic Area. That knowledge had been her greatest asset whenever she made a mistake and needed to avoid punishment from her Shifu or Lecturer Elder He Zhuyan.

Walking along the rugged, weed-choked trail surrounded by dense forest, the two finally evaded any spies Hu Chuan might have placed and began discussing serious matters.

“I thought carefully about something on the way here, and one point seems suspicious…” Lu Yibei said. “If the Great Pure Palace’s blockade of Shizhou City is really as tight as you described, Hu Chuan shouldn’t have appeared on the city’s outskirts.”

“That place is almost outside Shizhou City’s limits. Another dozen kilometers or so would bring him to several Great Pure Palace checkpoints and a large number of formation nodes belonging to the city’s barriers. Unless he’s an idiot, he wouldn’t try to force his way through.”

“If it were me, I’d first hide in the part of Shizhou City with the densest population and most complicated buildings and terrain… By the way, do you know how many places like that there are?”

Huá Sāng searched her memory. “I can think of two for now. One is near the old auto-repair district, and the other is the Balitang Small-Goods Wholesale Market. We can consult the records at the Great Pure Palace for more.”

“Mm…” Lu Yibei nodded. “One more thing. I’m sure he’ll find a way to change his appearance and fabricate a new identity. It isn’t the first time he’s done this, after all.”

I’m extremely familiar with using alternate identities! The benefits they offer when evading pursuit are immense. If the conditions allow it, Hu Chuan will certainly find a way, Lu Yibei thought.

“I investigated him in secret before. The person who helped him fabricate identities is already dead, and he no longer needs another person’s help to forge identity documents. So he’ll probably focus only on changing his appearance…”

At that point, Lu Yibei suddenly remembered a detail Lin Nian had uncovered while investigating Hu Chuan for him. He frowned slightly and asked Huá Sāng, “Do you know any method of altering one’s appearance that requires Ziheche?”

Lin Nian had once said that Hu Chuan asked someone to purchase fresh Ziheche. Lu Yibei had found it strange at the time. In retrospect, it might have been a material required to change his appearance.

Ziheche—human placenta—could, at most, be used by ordinary people as a health tonic. For psychics, however, it had many more applications. Not only could it serve as an alchemical material, but certain sinister rituals used to enslave and raise hauntings also required it.

“…” Huá Sāng thought seriously for a while before frowning. “Yes. I once read about a sinister ritual spell formation in an ancient text that could change a person’s appearance.”

When Huá Sāng first arrived at the Great Pure Palace, she had read many books about sinister spell formations in an attempt to discover why her Spirit Pattern had gone out of control. She had found nothing, gaining only knowledge she had once believed she would never use in her lifetime.

“Oh?” Lu Yibei tilted his head and gave her an inquisitive look.

“The material required for that spell formation isn’t actually Ziheche. Strictly speaking, it requires an unformed fetus,” Huá Sāng explained. “If the fetus is used in the ritual before losing all vitality, the caster can steal a portion of the life it would otherwise have lived…”

“I think I understand!” Lu Yibei said. “I’m guessing the cost of the ritual is losing your original appearance and gradually coming to resemble the person that fetus would have grown into. Right?”

“…” Huá Sāng pondered briefly, then nodded. “You could put it that way…”

“Oh, one more thing. I thought of it when we got out of the taxi. If we keep traveling by car while investigating Hu Chuan, we’ll probably face the same problem as before and be unable to talk freely. We need to find a way around that.”

“A problem? I don’t think it is one.” Lu Yibei raised a hand and pointed ahead. “Look. How about that ride?”

Huá Sāng followed his finger and only then realized that, without noticing, they had arrived at the gates of the Great Pure Palace.

In the direction Lu Yibei indicated, beneath the brilliant sunlight, the Shuishu Shou (Water Savage Beast) was happily swimming in the pool before the mountain gate…