Martial Arts: Starting with Upgrading the Dilapidated Temple

Chapter 147 Laying the Line

"No number." Xu Hao threw the Dragon Roar Guard iron plaque down the hill.

The metal sign tumbled twice in the air before landing in the bushes.

A rough hand reached out from between the leaves and caught the iron plate.

He flipped it over and ran his thumb along the line of small print.

The bushes were cleared away.

The man who came out was a man in his forties.

He was of medium build, with a round face, and wore a typical gray-brown outfit common among herbalists, with an old linen satchel draped over his shoulders.

Half of his left ear was missing, and the wound was old and black, indicating that it was at least twenty years old.

In the middle stage of inner strength.

The blood pressure is so high that it's impossible to detect without careful examination.

The man didn't climb the hill; he stood below, looking up at Xu Hao.

His gaze swept from the hilt of the Devourer's Blade, down to Xu Hao's arm, which still retained a faint golden sheen, and finally settled on his excessively young face.

"I recognize Commander Wu's badge. But I don't recognize him as a person." The man tossed the iron badge up and caught it steadily. "Rules cannot be broken. I'll tell you something only the commander himself knows."

"He likes to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand when he drinks soup. He also always complains that the mutton in Beijing has a strong gamey smell."

The man held the iron plate tightly, his face not even twitching.

Xu Hao sat on the hill and realized that the code was a bit ridiculous.

After all, Wu Qingshan, a veteran who had crawled out of piles of corpses, was someone who, like nine out of ten in the Daheng military camp, used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. This was hardly a unique skill.

"Change it," the man said, his voice hoarse.

"He has a birthmark the size of a copper coin on his left buttock," Xu Hao casually made up.

The man's eyes turned cold, and his hand reached for the short sword at his waist: "The commander never bathes with others. You're asking for death."

Xu Hao ignored his murderous intent and tapped the back of the Devourer's Blade twice with his fingers: "Alright, enough testing. He said there are two spies in Yongzhou, which one are you?"

The man stopped moving.

He tucked the iron plate into his pocket, climbed the stone hill in two quick steps, and squatted down opposite Xu Hao.

Only when he got closer could one see that his right index and middle fingers were joined together, with an extremely thin silver needle held between them.

If I had answered even half a word wrong, this needle would have sealed my throat.

However, whether they can actually defeat him in this area of ​​Zezhou is another matter.

"Ji Sanjin." The man announced his name, and with a flick of his wrist, the silver needle silently disappeared into his sleeve. "I've been based in Yongzhou for eleven years. On the surface, I run a herbal medicine shop in the south of Liuyao Town, which is part of the Gu family's territory. I'm the second oldest of the two undercover agents."

"Where's the boss?"

"It's over." Ji Sanjin spoke steadily, but his words were very forceful. "It happened last month. The last message he sent said that Mu Yunchuan, the eldest son of the Mu family, had set up a secret passage and was constantly moving things into the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest. He investigated, and then there was no further news."

Xu Hao didn't reply. He took out three items from his pocket and laid them out in a row on the rocky surface of the hill.

Bat-shaped bronze medal.

Hand-drawn sheepskin map.

A letter stamped with a vertical pupil mark.

Ji Sanjin's gaze fell on the vertical pupil mark, and his severed ear twitched violently.

He reached out and picked up the letter, turning it over and over twice, his finger pausing on the line "going north via the secret passage of the Mu family in Yongzhou".

"Where did this letter come from?"

"It was stolen from a leader of the Wusheng Sect at the Tongqiao Realm in the heart of the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest."

Xu Hao spoke in a calm tone, as if he had just slaughtered a wild rabbit.

Ji Sanjin's gaze towards him immediately changed.

The Realm of Opening the Mind?

This kid doesn't look very old, yet he can kill cultivators at the Opening Aperture Realm like cutting vegetables?

Xu Hao ignored his scrutiny, flipped his wrist to take out the jade box, and lifted the lid with a flick of his finger.

The dark golden ley line crystals refracted a dazzling luster in the morning light, and an extremely pure aura of the ley line's origin wafted over.

Ji Sanjin gasped, nearly biting his tongue.

He had run a herbal medicine shop in Yongzhou for eleven years. He had seen all sorts of things, from thousand-year-old ginseng to ten-thousand-year-old lingzhi mushrooms, but just smelling something of this caliber made his blood and qi surge.

"The Mu family has built a secret stronghold in the heart of the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest." Xu Hao closed the jade box, sealing off his aura. "A vertical shaft, sixty feet deep. At the bottom of the shaft is a bronze cauldron, which uses a replica formation to extract essence from the veins of Zezhou and refine it into this. It is regularly delivered to Canglu Mountain every month, with the person handing it over wearing a demon mask."

Ji Sanjin clenched his fist tightly, his knuckles turning white.

"This is the lead the boss is investigating." His voice was hoarse, as if it had been sanded. "Canglu Mountain—I know that place. The Mu family has a private cellar halfway up the mountain, which they claim is for storing aged medicinal wine. The boss said that a carriage without a flag goes up the mountain in the middle of each month and comes down before dawn."

"What's your boss's name?"

"Duan Heng. Late stage of the Inner Strength Realm, his swordsmanship is swift and skillful, and he's also quite intelligent." Ji Sanjin gritted his teeth. "If he manages to reach the vicinity of the shaft and is discovered by the Mu family, his fate will likely be—"

He didn't go on.

The whole "Ten Thousand Poisons Forest" thing is in a really mess right now.

The underworld agents of the Observatory, the Mu family's private army, and the madmen of the Wusheng Sect were all involved in this mess.

If someone in the late stage of the Inner Strength Realm falls in, they won't even make a splash.

"I've interrogated Mu Fang, the steward of the Mu family." Xu Hao dusted off the hem of his clothes. "He's just a gofer; the core instructions are all with Mu Yunchuan. He's responsible for liaising with the masked men of Canglu Mountain. If we want to uproot this connection, we have to start with Mu Yunchuan."

Ji Sanjin rubbed his chin, suppressing his emotions as he began to plan.

"I've investigated Mu Yunchuan thoroughly. He just broke through to the Inner Strength Realm last year, making him one of the top young members of the Mu family. But his father, Mu Chenyuan, is the real old fox. The Mu family has been entrenched in Yongzhou for six generations, and their influence runs deep. Their apparent strength is just the tip of the iceberg; they secretly maintain at least two guest elders at the mid-Inner Strength Realm, who rarely show their faces."

"Two mid-stage Inner Strength Realm cultivators?"

"Including Mu Yunchuan and his cousins, the Mu family has no fewer than five experts at the Acquired Realm. In a remote and impoverished place like Yongzhou, this lineup is more than enough to make them invincible." Ji Sanjin sneered, "It's no wonder our eldest brother died at their hands."

Xu Hao nodded. The Tongqiao Realm was legendary in Yongzhou, and the Inner Strength Realm was the ceiling. The Mu family's ability to harbor five acquired experts certainly gave them the confidence to stand on equal footing.

"Besides the Mu family, have the other two families made any moves recently?" Xu Hao asked.

"The Gu family is a bunch of good-for-nothings, always hanging around those big shots at the Observatory. But the Qin family is restless." Ji Sanjin pulled a bamboo tube from his satchel, unscrewed the lid, and poured out a thin piece of paper. "After the eldest brother disappeared, I took over some of his undercover contacts. The news that came back the day before yesterday is that the Qin family is currently on a shopping spree."

Xu Hao took the note.

The text above contained only one line: "The Qin family purchased Xuan Yin Cold Iron from the Shengzhou black market at three times the market price. The total amount was no less than 200 jin, and it was transported to Yongzhou in three batches. Two batches have already arrived."

Mysterious Yin Cold Iron.

Xu Hao tightened his grip on the note.

The second condition for repairing the seal on the secondary nail in Zezhou is to require 100 jin of Xuan Yin Cold Iron to recast the array base.

He was worried about where to find materials with extremely cold properties in this godforsaken place, but the Qin family was considerate and brought him two hundred catties directly from Shengzhou.

This eagerness to deliver goods to his door saved him a lot of trouble.

"Why would the Qin family buy this piece of junk?" Ji Sanjin frowned. "This stuff is only good for making weapons; it's not even fit for medicine. The Qin family's trade routes are tightly sealed off, and their informants are cut off once they reach Yongzhou. But there's something very strange—the Qin family bought the Xuan Yin Cold Iron around the same time the first batch of people from the Surveillance Bureau entered Yongzhou."

It's the Observatory again.

These eunuchs in their flying fish robes are really persistent.

Xu Hao folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket, then stood up, carrying the Devourer.

The dark gold scabbard gleamed with a cold, hard light in the morning glow.

"When is Mu Yunchuan going up to Heron Mountain?"

Ji Sanjin counted on his fingers.

"Mid-month," Ji Sanjin answered crisply. "Mu Yunchuan goes to Canglu Mountain every month on the fifteenth without fail. But this time it's different. Mu Fang has lost contact, so he will most likely make his move earlier."

"How far in advance?"

"Two days at most. If he finds out something happened in Mushroom Valley, he'll have to head to the border tonight." Ji Sanjin rubbed the old scar beside his broken ear.

"I didn't kill Mu Fang."

Ji Sanjin was stunned for a moment.

"Release them?"

"Release them."

"It will take him time to get back to Yongzhou." Xu Hao spoke slowly, summarizing the whole story in one sentence. "Mu Fang, a peak-stage Yi Jin Realm cultivator, would normally take a day and a half to crawl out of the Ten Thousand Poisons Forest and run back to the Mu family's main residence. But he was injured and had ingested a deathly aura underground, so it will take him two days."

Two days later, Mu Fang returned to the Mu family and said that the Mushroom Valley had been raided and the earth vein crystals were gone. What will Mu Chenyuan do?

Ji Sanjin continued thinking, his eyebrows furrowing into a knot.

"First, suppress the news. Second, investigate the area around Mushroom Valley to find out who did it. Third..."

"Urge Mu Yunchuan to hurry up to Canglu Mountain to report the news and keep the other side calm," Xu Hao continued.

Ji Sanjin's pupils contracted.

"The masked man won't wait if the crystal supply is cut off. If the Mu family doesn't give an explanation, that guy from Heron Mountain will come down in person." Xu Hao scratched a mark on the rock surface with the tip of his knife.

"You deliberately let Mu go back so he could act as a messenger." Ji Sanjin understood.

"Dead people can't send messages."