Chapter 395: Su Mei Is His Master

Yang Xun gripped the yellowing ancient book, lightly tracing the annotated text with his fingertips. His gaze was so grim it looked as if a storm was brewing in his eyes.

“No wonder she asked me out every few days. She was afraid the array would loosen.” He sneered, snapping the ancient book shut and casually shoving it into his pocket.

“Ah Xun, think of a way to destroy the array first, or it will keep stealing your Essence Qi,” Sun Rao said, her tone tense. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this place was exceedingly eerie.

Yang Xun nodded, his gaze landing on the dark red symbols covering the floor. The lines gleamed with a dull luster, their crimson traces seeping deeply into the cracks of the concrete floor. It was a spine-chilling sight.

He squatted down and lightly tapped the nearest line with his finger. The moment his fingertip touched the surface, a cold, piercing pain drilled through his skin, shooting straight up into the meridians of his wrist. Yang Xun instinctively yanked his hand back, a faint purplish-blue ring already bruising his fingertip.

“This array even has a restriction placed on it,” he said, shaking his hand and circulating his True Qi to force the icy energy out of his body. His tone, however, had grown somewhat calmer. “Su Mei put a lot of effort into this. Destroying it directly won’t be that easy.”

Standing behind him, Sun Rao vigilantly scanned the entrance of the secret room, her hand resting firmly on the grip of the gun at her waist. “Then what should we do?”

Yang Xun immediately closed his eyes and sank his Divine Sense into his mind, rapidly flipping through the chapters on breaking arrays in the *Rejuvenation Medical Scripture*. The words turned page by page deep within his consciousness until his focus locked onto a specific passage. He read it over carefully twice before opening his eyes.

“The array core.” He stood up, his gaze slowly sweeping over the complex symbols on the floor. “Every array has a core node. As long as we find the array core and destroy it, the entire array will collapse on its own.”

He walked a few paces along the dark red lines, his eyes following the direction of the symbols while he outlined the entire array’s network in his mind. The Snake Origin Qi had the ability to track auras, so he was exceptionally sensitive to the flow of energy. Even without relying on his eyes, he could pinpoint it accurately.

After sensing it for a moment, he abruptly snapped his eyes open and strode toward a corner of the room.

A rusty iron pillar stood there, looking no different from the surrounding old pipes, but there was a microscopic crack on its surface. Yang Xun squatted in front of the pillar, locking his eyes on the fissure. The crack was about the length of a pinky finger with rough edges. Upon closer inspection, however, it was clearly not a regular fissure caused by rust; it seemed to have been fractured by an impact.

He pressed his palm against the surface of the iron pillar. A wisp of True Qi seeped from his palm, acting like an invisible tentacle that probed deep into the crack. Sure enough, something was buried beneath the pillar. Although it was sealed in concrete, its aura was unmistakably clear.

“Found it.” Yang Xun withdrew his hand, a cold smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Do you need my help?” Sun Rao stepped forward and asked.

“Guard the door for me.” Yang Xun rolled up his sleeves, revealing his well-defined forearms. “Destroying the array core requires intense concentration. I can’t be interrupted.”

Just as he spoke, the sound of footsteps echoed from nearby.

Sun Rao’s pupils shrank slightly as she lowered her voice. “Someone’s coming.”

Yang Xun listened closely for a few seconds. The approaching footsteps were heavy and deliberate, as if the person wanted to be heard. Soon, a figure appeared in the light at the entrance of the secret room.

Scarface staggered in, wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and clutching a long knife. A sinister smile plastered his face. His gaze locked onto Yang Xun, his eyes brimming with hatred and murderous intent.

“Long time no see!” Scarface’s voice was hoarse and low, sounding as though it had been ground by sandpaper. A cold arc stretched across his mouth. “I thought you wouldn’t recover so quickly from the injuries you suffered last time. It seems I underestimated you.”

Yang Xun’s pupils contracted sharply. He hadn’t expected Scarface to be the one to show up.

In a flash, a lot of things suddenly made sense. Back at Sea and Sky Karaoke, when Scarface was gravely injured and on the brink of death, a mysterious person had appeared and rescued him. At the time, Yang Xun had vaguely sensed the fluctuation of True Qi from the rescuer, but because so much had happened afterward, he hadn’t looked further into it.

Thinking back on it now, the person who had saved Scarface was none other than Su Mei.

Sun Rao’s face paled the moment she saw him. She subconsciously tightened her grip on her gun, her knuckles turning white.

“Scarface… why are you here?” Her voice carried a barely detectable tremble—a fear etched deep into her bones.

Scarface’s gaze finally shifted to her, the sneer on his lips deepening. “Sun Rao, I truly didn’t expect you to still be alive, let alone have the Gu worm extracted from your body. It looks like you’ve really followed the right person. Abandoning your old master the moment you found a new one?”

Sun Rao bit her lip, her phoenix eyes blazing with anger.

“Where is Su Mei? She sent you here to die alone?” Yang Xun took over the conversation, looking at Scarface with mockery.

“My master told me to guard the array. I didn’t expect you to actually come knocking on our door. In that case, don’t blame me for showing no mercy,” Scarface laughed smugly. In his eyes, Yang Xun had been tormented by the Technique for so many days that his strength must have been greatly diminished. How could he possibly fight back?

“So Su Mei is your master,” Yang Xun said, gritting his teeth as he glared at Scarface. That wicked woman had actually deceived him!

Scarface raised the long knife in his hand and sneered. “Yang Xun, you ruined my master’s plans. Don’t even think about leaving here alive today.”

Before his voice could fade, he charged forward like a cannonball. The long knife whistled through the air, slashing straight for Yang Xun’s face at such a blistering speed that it left a blurred afterimage in its wake.

Sun Rao instinctively raised her gun, but the distance between the two men was too close. Given Scarface’s current speed, firing rashly could very likely end up injuring Yang Xun. In that moment, she felt incredibly useless. She had claimed she wanted to be Yang Xun’s bodyguard, yet she couldn’t help him at all.

Yang Xun didn’t retreat. As he stepped sideways to dodge the knife, his right palm was already thrusting toward Scarface’s chest. Scarface was clearly prepared; he nimbly dodged Yang Xun’s palm strike and swept his knife horizontally toward Yang Xun’s waist.

Both of their movements were blindingly fast. The exchange of fists and kicks whipped up gusts of wind that echoed throughout the cramped secret room. Scarface’s speed and strength were far greater than when they had last met at Sea and Sky Karaoke. It was obvious that Su Mei had invested a great deal of effort into him.

However, his opponent was an eighth-level Cultivator of the Qi Refining Realm. Even though Yang Xun wasn’t in peak condition right now, he was more than capable of handling Scarface.

After a few rounds, Yang Xun had completely gotten the measure of his opponent and stopped holding back. He delivered a brutal kick to the side of Scarface’s knee, forcing him to stumble backward. Yang Xun instantly closed the distance, slamming his palm solidly into Scarface’s chest.

The True Qi infused in his palm exploded the moment it touched his opponent’s skin. Scarface was sent flying backward as if he had been hit by a heavy truck, his back slamming heavily against the wall with a dull THUD.