Chapter 234 | A Sect Master’s Treason*

Chapter 234: 234 | A Sect Master’s Treason*

Lin Tian passed silently through the hidden boundary stones his figure completely invisible beneath the Abyssal Void-Shadow Empress Art.

The Underground Ghost Market.

Even past midnight, the market was bustling with cloaked cultivators, black-market alchemists, and rogue treasure hunters trading goods that could never be placed on a righteous sect’s counter.

Lin Tian did not pause at the street stalls. Keeping his hood low, he walked straight to Lady Yun’s private domain.

Showing a black-jade lotus token to the guard at the side entrance, Lin Tian ascended to the top fourth floor. Behind a pair of heavy rosewood doors carved with blooming night-orchids lay the personal quarters of the Lady Yun.

Lin Tian Using the token to part the outer isolation array, Lin Tian pushed the door open a crack, slipped inside, and the door shut behind him.

The spacious chamber smelled warmly and sweet night-blooming jasmine. Near the far window overlooking the lantern-lit streets below, sitting behind a wide rosewood ledger desk, was Lady Yun (Yun Qing).

She wore a striking, high-slit gown of midnight-black silk embroidered with golden phoenix feathers. Her dark hair was pinned up loosely with a single ruby hairpin, leaving a few soft curls dangling beside her sleek, snow white neck.

As she leaned over an open ledger with a brush in her hand, the high slit of her black silk gown parted all the way to her hip, revealing a breathtaking expanse of long, ivory thighs crossed gracefully beneath the desk.

Hearing the soft click of the door that no subordinate dared open without three knocks—Lady Yun’s phoenix eyes narrowed sharply. A concealed sleeve-dagger slid halfway into her palm before she turned her head—and froze as the dark hood dropped back to reveal Lin Tian’s calm, smiling face.

"You—!"

The sharp vigilance in Lady Yun’s eyes vanished, radiating instead into a wave of sultry, breathless delight. Setting her brush down so fast it rolled across the ledger, she rose from her chair and swayed rapidly across the plush carpet on her silk-clad heels.

"Well, well... look who still remembers the road to the Underground Ghost Market," Lady Yun purred, her voice rich, low, and dripping with teasing charm as she stopped right in front of his chest.

She raised one slender, jade-ringed hand and traced a single fingernail slowly down the front of his black lapel.

"My shadow scouts returned from Sky-Pillar City this morning saying that the newly crowned Champion broke an Early Core Formation sword genius in half and won three spirit-stone veins," Lady Yun murmured, tilting her chin up as her fragrant body pressed closer to his. "Here I thought a grand hero like you would be too busy drinking celebration wine on the Main Peak to visit a lowly merchant woman in the dark."

Lin Tian looked down into her alluring phoenix eyes, his hands sliding naturally around her narrow waist and resting squarely on the full, lush curve of her hips through the thin black silk.

"The celebration wine on the mountain was too bland," Lin Tian said, a faint smirk tugging at his lips as he pulled her flush against his body. "I came down to see if the Ghost Market had something stronger."

Lady Yun let out a soft, enchanting laugh that ended in a sharp gasp as Lin Tian’s right hand slid straight through the high side-slit of her gown, gripping the bare, satiny skin of her upper thigh and lifting her effortlessly onto the edge of the wide rosewood desk!

Ledgers and spirit-stone tallies scattered onto the carpet. Before Lady Yun could utter another teasing word, Lin Tian stepped between her parted thighs and captured her glossy red lips in a deep, possessive kiss.

"Mmmm...!"

All the shrewd, untouchable composure melted away in seconds. Having been starved for his touch, Lady Yun wrapped both arms around his neck and her legs tightly around his waist, kissing him back with a fiery, mature passion that nearly scorched the air between her and the desk.

Without tearing the delicate black silk gown, Lin Tian freed her full, snow-white breasts to the warm air of the room. Right there on the desk their bodies came together in a fierce, rhythmic union.

Lady Yun buried her face into Lin Tian’s shoulder to keep her cries from shaking the window lattice, her fingernails digging into his back as wave after wave of Primordial Yang poured deep into her core—nourishing her dark yin body and driving her to two shuddering, breathless climaxes against the edge of the desk before he finally released his scorching heat deep inside her.

Half an hour later, Lady Yun sat sideways across Lin Tian’s lap in the wide armchair behind the desk. Her black silk gown was loosely draped back over her shoulders, her cheeks still flushed a vivid crimson and her breathing soft and languid as she leaned her head against his chest.

"Every time you come down this mountain, you nearly break my waist in two before you even say why you’re here," Lady Yun murmured huskily, though her fingers played affectionately with the collar of his robe. "Tell me, my Sovereign... nobody slips out of the Crimson Nimbus Sect at midnight on the very day of their victory just to bully me on my desk. What happened up on the mountain?"

Lin Tian’s expression turned calm and serious.

Reaching into his spatial ring, he first placed two storage pouches on the corner of the desk.

"Inside those two pouches are twenty-eight blood-sabers, four sets of inner armor, and the broken fragments of three Tier-3 blood-iron weapons taken from the Blood-Bone Demonic Cult and the Black-Sun Sect in Sky-Pillar City," Lin Tian said quietly. "Have your smelters melt the outer iron down into raw material and turn them into untraceable spirit stones."

Lady Yun glanced at the pouches and nodded effortlessly. "Easy enough. And the second thing?"

Lin Tian reached into his ring a second time.

With a soft clack, he placed the ornate, crimson-lacquered jade box bestowed by Sect Master Hong onto the rosewood desk in front of her.

Lady Yun raised a shapely brow, leaning forward slightly in his lap as she unfastened the golden clasp and lifted the lid. Seeing the pair of glowing emerald Three-Leaf Core-Condensing Spirit Herbs resting on the red silk lining, she let out a low whistle of appreciation.

"Top-grade Three-Leaf Core Herbs, aged at least eight hundred years," Lady Yun appraised with the sharp eye of a master merchant. "Even in my Ghost Market, a pair this fresh would fetch eight thousand middle-grade spirit stones at auction. Who gave you such a generous gift?"

"Don’t touch the leaves with your bare hand," Lin Tian warned calmly, catching her wrist before her fingertips could brush the stem. "Use a testing needle and look inside the central vein at the base of the root."

Lady Yun’s eyes narrowed at once. Slipping a thin needle forged of Black Jade from her hair, she pricked the bottom of the right herb’s central stem and drew the needle back.

Where the tip of the black jade needle had touched the inner sap of the herb, a tiny, almost invisible ring of dull grey-black ash slowly corroded the smooth surface of the jade!

Lady Yun’s breath caught sharply. Her seductive languor vanished instantly, replaced by the cold, razor-sharp focus of an underworld ruler.

"Corpse-Marrow Stagnation Ash?!" Lady Yun whispered, her phoenix eyes widening as she looked from the needle up to Lin Tian’s calm face. "Someone injected straight into the living root-vein of a Core-Condensing Herb?!

"So you recognize this ash?" Lin Tian asked quietly.

"Recognize it?" Lady Yun set the needle down carefully and closed the lid of the box, her voice dropping to a low, grave murmur. "In the entire northern region, only the inner blood-altars of the Blood-Bone Demonic Cult refine this specific ash by burning corpse-beetles inside human marrow! It is never used for battlefield assassination—it is only used by demonic spies to cripple high-ranking targets from within so they appear to decline from natural cultivation flaws!"

Lin Tian’s eyes gleamed coldly. Everything Elder Liu, Instructor Qing, and even Madam Shen had suffered over the years matched Lady Yun’s words.

"where did you get this Lin Tian?" Lady Yun asked, her fingers tightening on his sleeve.

"Sect Master Hong," Lin Tian answered calmly. "In front of disciples as a winning reward."

Even someone as worldly and unshakeable as Lady Yun stared at him in stunned disbelief.

"Hong Xuan?!" Lady Yun breathed out. "The Sect Master of the Crimson Nimbus Sect. Is he working with the Blood-Bone Demonic Cult to poison his own sect’s pillars and now he wants to plant a flaw inside your Golden Core before you even break through?!"

" I don’t think he started today," Lin Tian said evenly. "Elder Liu’s, Instructor Qing’s Poison, and half the defective resources in the sect dispensary over the past ten years all carry the same handiwork. Even the demonic ambush on our flying ship on the way to Sky-Pillar City knew our exact schedule and flight altitude."

Lady Yun’s mind raced at lightning speed, her underworld memory connecting threads she had never had a reason to link before.

"Hmm..." Lady Yun eyes flashing sharply. "Wait. Ten years ago—just three months before the previous Sect Master of your Crimson Nimbus Sect died of a sudden ’cultivation deviation’ during closed-door seclusion—my scouts reported that a high-level courier from the Blood-Bone Demonic Cult has increased his activity near sect.

Lin Tian nodded slowly. Coming down to the Underground Ghost Market tonight had paid off ten times faster than searching blindly inside the sect.

"Inside the mountain gates, Hong Xuan controls the deacon patrols and the outer surveillance arrays," Lin Tian said, his hand resting warmly against Lady Yun’s cheek. "Tomorrow I am going to break through to the Core Formation Realm. While I am inside seclusion, I need your shadow scouts to watch the situation from the outside."

"You want me to find their next activity who comes down from the Crimson Nimbus Mountains," Lady Yun finished instantly, a sharp, dangerous smile curving her red lips.

"Watch from a distance and record the trail with shadow-jade, but do not intercept them alone," Lin Tian instructed firmly. "Whoever runs errands between Hong Xuan and the Blood-Bone Cult will be at least at the Core Formation Realm. Stay inside the Underground Ghost Market where your arrays are strongest, and never step foot inside the Crimson Nimbus Sect’s territory where Hong could connect you to me."

Seeing that his first concern was still her safety even while plotting against a Sect Master, Lady Yun’s heart warmed deeply. She leaned forward and pressed a slow, lingering kiss against his lips.

"Don’t worry about your woman," Lady Yun whispered against his mouth. "In the shadows of this market, even a Late Stage Core Elder can’t find my trail unless I let them. Go back up the mountain and condense that Golden Core of yours."

Lin Tian smiled, held her close for one last warm moment, and then slipped back out into the midnight, returning safely to his Cloud-Sea Pavilion before dawn.