Anti-fraud manual for the cultivation world

Zheng Xiaodong lowered his voice: "What do we do now? Cover up the exit, and tomorrow night we'll call Junior Sister Zhang and Junior Sister, and escape together?"

Li Gu said in a low voice, "No! We don't even know what's outside the defensive formation. We need to find out the outside environment first before we can actually start our operation."

Zheng Xiaodong was clearly not a very opinionated person, and he immediately felt that Li Gu's words made sense.

Li Gu found another wild rabbit, lifted it out of the burrow, and as soon as the rabbit left his hand, it darted forward like lightning and ran far away in an instant.

Li Gu whispered, "It's safe, let's go!"

The two men poked half their heads out of the tunnel and looked around.

Before them stretched a continuous mountain range, peak after peak, the view blocked by the surrounding towering mountains, making it impossible to see beyond the mountains. The location where Li Gu and Zheng Xiaodong were now was just one of the many peaks, not even the highest one, but an inconspicuous little mountain.

Looking back, they were surprised to find that there was no flower valley behind them. Instead, they saw an empty, dark valley filled with black rocks. Not a single flower could be seen, let alone the houses where the disciples of the Hidden Flower Sect lived.

Zheng Xiaodong was utterly astonished.

Having watched many movies and read many novels, Li Gu immediately understood: "The defensive formation has two functions. One is to kill anyone who tries to pass through; the other is to create a mirage, distorting light and shadow to produce illusions so that people outside cannot see what's inside the flower valley."

"Hidden from the outside, imprisoned internally." Li Gu snorted and said, "Hua Qianfang is definitely not a good person in the martial arts world. I guess his name is not Hua Qianfang at all, but a demon that everyone hates."

"What we're practicing definitely isn't some kind of 'Hidden Flower Heart Sutra,' 'Hidden Flower Blade Technique,' or 'Hidden Flower Body Technique.' They must have other names, and might even belong to different sects," Li Gu said in a low voice. "I've always had a question: when practicing the Heart Sutra, you clearly attract all the pollen around you, but when you use the Blade Technique, you blow the pollen away. This shows that the Heart Sutra and the Blade Technique are completely incompatible and not from the same lineage."

Zheng Xiaodong's mouth dropped open: "I never thought of that."

Li Gu said in a low voice, "That's why Hua Qianfang only adopts orphans, children without fathers, mothers, or backgrounds, who have no experience in the martial arts world and therefore cannot see through his low-level methods."

Zheng Xiaodong's mouth gaped open even wider: "Why is he doing all this?"

"It's still unclear. Let's start scouting. Time is running out; we need to get back before dawn."

The two slid down the slope ahead...

Li Gu silently calculated his location. He had dug the tunnel on the southern slope of Hidden Flower Garden and was now heading south. The sun would rise from his left tomorrow morning. These things were small, but he couldn't afford to get them wrong, because if he got lost even once during his escape, returning to the starting point would mean certain death.

We walked carefully on the steep hillside for half an hour.

"what!"

Suddenly, Zheng Xiaodong, who was in front, let out a suppressed gasp, pointed to a large mud pit beside the hillside, his eyes filled with horror, as if he had seen something terrifying.

Li Gu quickly stepped forward and followed Zheng Xiaodong's gaze into the pit.

The pit was huge, several dozen feet in circumference and two or three feet deep. In the pitch-black night, visibility was extremely poor, and Li Gu and Zheng Xiaodong had to concentrate their inner energy on their eyes to see even a small part of the pit.

This small section alone was densely packed with withered bones, piled up in countless layers.

The skeletons at the bottom of the pit were obviously quite old, already gray and decayed, while the skeletons on the top layer were still very fresh. At the very top of the pile of skeletons lay a naked corpse, which, although severely decomposed, still contained flesh and blood and could be identified.

Li Gu recognized him at a glance: "It's Senior Brother Sun!"

Zheng Xiaodong looked closely and realized that it was none other than Sun Xing, the junior brother who had successfully graduated from his apprenticeship on the day Zhou Shijie was paralyzed by Li Gu's scheme. On that day, Zheng Xiaodong's meridians had not yet been healed by Li Gu. He lay in bed, watching Sun Xing successfully graduate, and couldn't help but feel a little envious.

Little did he know that the person he admired had already become a corpse several days earlier, lying in this terrible pit.

A few days ago, Li Gu and Zhang Yi both told him that there was a problem with Hidden Flower Pavilion, and that none of the disciples who had graduated had been able to leave the mountain. He chose to "trust them as much as possible," but deep down he had a slight doubt. Now, he was certain that his intelligence was far inferior to that of Li Gu and Zhang Yi.

Listening to them is the right thing to do!

Zheng Xiaodong felt a chill run down his spine. His gaze swept over the large pile of bones beneath Sun Xing's corpse, and his tone was chilling: "These...are they...the senior brothers who graduated from their apprenticeships?"

Li Gu nodded: "It seems Hua Qianfang has been doing this for decades, even centuries. Look at how decayed the bones at the bottom have become!"

Zheng Xiaodong felt a chill run down his spine and couldn't help but recall the situation when he first entered the sect. At that time, Bai Yan had only been a disciple for a few years and was not even ranked. There were dozens of senior brothers and sisters ahead of him. Some of them were gentle, some were kind, and some had some minor flaws, but most of them took good care of their junior brothers and sisters.

Under Zheng Xiaodong's envious gaze, they graduated one after another and left Flower Valley.

Zheng Xiaodong still remembers holding the hand of a senior brother, wishing him success in the martial arts world. The senior brother smiled broadly and patted him on the shoulder, saying, "Hurry up and graduate and come find me in the martial arts world. I'll protect you!"

My beloved senior brothers and sisters... are they all here now?

Zheng Xiaodong felt a sudden dizziness and almost fainted.

Li Gu quickly reached out to support him, preventing him from falling, because the sound of a fall in the middle of the night could travel very far in the mountains...

"Junior Brother Li, you're right!" Zheng Xiaodong said blankly, "Luckily we came to scout ahead first and didn't bring Junior Sister out directly. If Junior Sister had seen this, she probably would have screamed. The echo in the mountains would have been heard by Hua Qianfang."

Li Gu nodded, secretly memorizing the location of the large pit. He was determined to avoid it during his escape and not let his junior sister see it.

Zheng Xiaodong was somewhat distraught: "Why did he do all this? Why did he kill these senior brothers and sisters?"

Seeing Zheng Xiaodong's condition, Li Gu knew that they couldn't continue exploring tonight, so he decided to head back. He half-supported and half-dragged Zheng Xiaodong back to the tunnel entrance as quickly as possible, grabbed some branches and leaves to cover the entrance, and then helped Zheng Xiaodong quickly back into the flower valley.

The two lay down on the bed. Zheng Xiaodong's chest was still heaving rapidly, and his breathing was quite rapid, indicating that he had suffered a great blow.

Li Gu was slightly better off, but he also felt short of breath. Humans naturally feel uncomfortable when they see the remains of their own kind. This is a biological characteristic ingrained in their genes. No matter how strong-willed Li Gu was, he had to take deep breaths for a while to suppress all the discomfort.