Chapter 85: The First Glimpse of a Formidable Foe

After traveling for most of the day, Chen Yao finally arrived at the place Master Jingxin had described. From his phone conversation with Hengxing, he learned that Wenxing seemed to have suffered a soul wound and was extremely frail.

“Master! Master!” Inside the Vajra Demon-Subduing Circle, Hengxing was supporting Wenxing. Seeing Chen Yao rush over, he couldn't help but shout, “Wenxing, Master has found us!”

“My good disciples, you have suffered!” After reciting the incantation Master Jingxin had taught him, Chen Yao also entered the Vajra Demon-Subduing Circle.

“Master, I’m useless. I—” Wenxing looked pale as death, his face twisted with shame.

Chen Yao gently stopped him, “Don’t blame yourself, my disciple. Let me first heal your soul wound. Don’t speak for now.”

Heeding Chen Yao’s words, Wenxing licked his dry, pale lips and slowly closed his eyes.

Seeing his disciple so weak, Chen Yao felt a stab of pain. He began to chant a stream of incantations, sending them directly into Wenxing’s ears. Then, Chen Yao dripped several drops of his own vital blood onto Wenxing’s brow and palms. With a flash of the Threefold True Fire, the blood was catalyzed and merged into Wenxing’s body, helping to stabilize his heart and veins.

After a long while, Wenxing’s complexion gradually regained its color, and he seemed out of danger.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Chen Yao finally looked around at the terrain. “The evil and Yin energy here is unusually dense. What kind of enemy did you encounter?”

Hengxing recalled, “We followed your instructions, Master, and came to investigate whether the ‘secondary tomb’ you and Grandmaster mentioned was here. Unexpectedly, we ran into a sorcerer of formidable power. If Master Jingxin hadn’t arrived in time, we might have been—”

“Let’s set aside why Master Jingxin happened to be here. What did that sorcerer look like?” Chen Yao asked.

Hengxing replied, “He wore a yellow robe decorated with the eight trigrams, a yellow-and-black Daoist crown, and carried an ancient coin sword in his hand. At his waist hung a flute, and behind him was a pitch-black gourd. His eyes were piercing and energetic, and his appearance was so otherworldly it was hard to look at him directly.”

“From that description, he’s not Yuelang. Yuelang never dresses so ostentatiously.” Chen Yao thought for a moment. “I don’t recall anyone with that appearance being famous in the martial world. Could he be a reclusive sorcerer who’s kept a low profile?”

He narrowed his eyes, pondering. “A Daoist in an eight-trigram robe, with a flute and an ancient coin sword—he seems like an oddball. You and Wenxing together are the match of a skilled cultivator, yet you almost lost your lives. That sorcerer must be highly skilled.”

“Did he use the flute as a weapon?” Chen Yao asked.

Hengxing nodded repeatedly. “At first, Wenxing and I could just barely withstand his attacks using our ‘Purple Night True Art.’ But when he started playing the flute, the situation turned dire. Wenxing was thrown off by that eerie melody and struck down by a yellow talisman!”

Chen Yao frowned, not missing a detail. “Did he use the black gourd at his waist?”

“No, he didn’t use the gourd when fighting us. When he was about to kill us, Master Jingxin appeared just in time. They fought for a while, and Master Jingxin slowly gained the upper hand. The sorcerer, growing desperate, used a feint and fled. Afterward, Master Jingxin drew this Vajra Demon-Subduing Circle for us and then pursued him.”

“Where did you encounter him?” Chen Yao pressed.

Hengxing pointed to a sunken area. “Over there.”

“Hmm?” Chen Yao’s heart tightened as he looked in the direction Hengxing indicated. “There?”

He surveyed the terrain again, and suddenly his eyes lit up. He couldn’t help but exclaim, “The coiled serpent is captured by the eagle; the hungry wolf walks into the tiger’s den!”

“Master, from what you’re saying, does the terrain mean—?”

“Exactly,” Chen Yao said abruptly, standing up. “That’s a tomb!”

Hengxing’s face brightened. “Could that be the entrance to the secondary tomb?”

“Very likely!” Chen Yao hoisted Wenxing onto his back. “Let’s go take a look!”

But when the three arrived at the tomb, they found it had already been disturbed—and it wasn’t the secondary tomb connected to the Tomb of Eternal Life, but merely the grave of a certain general, yet to be studied.

Seeing the untouched treasures all around, Chen Yao grew even more puzzled. “It seems the sorcerer wasn’t interested in gold or jewels. So what was he looking for here?”

“Master, were all the ghostly guardians of the tomb cleared out?” Hengxing blurted out.

“Cleared out? Ghosts?” Chen Yao’s eyes widened as he scrutinized their surroundings. “Could it be that this mysterious sorcerer has joined forces with that scoundrel Yuelang, who specializes in collecting wandering spirits?”

As the three left the ancient tomb, suddenly, three black dice caught Chen Yao’s eye in the grass.

“Dice?”

“These probably fell during the sorcerer’s duel with Master Jingxin,” Hengxing said.

Chen Yao’s gaze sharpened as he thoughtfully slipped the dice into his pocket.

“This place isn’t safe. Call Officer Li and ask him to send relic experts.”

...

Chen Yao, troubled, waited in his lodgings late into the night until Master Jingxin finally called.

“Old Brother Jingxin, are you all right?” Chen Yao asked anxiously.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Jingxin sounded frustrated. “I chased that fellow all night, but he still got away. How vexing!”

Hearing that Jingxin was not only unharmed but also full of spirit, Chen Yao finally felt relieved.

Chen Yao chuckled. “You’re not young anymore. Leave the demon hunting to your disciples—they’re more than capable now, aren’t they?”

“That may be, but that yellow-robed eight-trigram sorcerer is too strange. I tracked him all the way from Mount Wutai. After he realized I was onto him, he used a trick to shake me off. I didn’t expect to find your two disciples fighting him on the mountain, so I intervened, but he still slipped away.”

After hearing Jingxin’s account, Chen Yao murmured, “If even you couldn’t catch him, he must be truly formidable.”

“Not so, not so. He’s extremely cunning. Every time I was about to capture him, he’d use some arcane technique to escape. It was infuriating!”

Chen Yao laughed heartily. “Seems his escape skills are a match for Yuelang’s!”

“At first, I thought he was Yuelang, but after several rounds, I’m certain he’s not. This sorcerer knows several schools of magic, and that black gourd at his waist is incredibly powerful. Brother Rihui must take care if he encounters him.”

“Oh?” Chen Yao was intrigued. “What’s so special about that gourd?”

Jingxin murmured, “It’s quite marvelous—capable of trapping people in an illusory array, impossible to guard against. If my cultivation weren’t superior, I’d have been caught myself today!”

“An illusion array?” Chen Yao narrowed his eyes, images of Ye Dong and the others flashing through his mind. “That’s not good at all!”

Anxiety churned in his heart, and he pressed, “Is there any way to counter it?”

Jingxin replied gravely, “Other than keeping your mind steady, there’s no other way for now.”

“Another formidable enemy,” Chen Yao calculated. “This sorcerer must be Lord Wei’s master—both master and disciple are of the same feather, always making a show of things.”

“Here, let’s each have a bite!” Huiyan handed her food to Ye Dong. “The three of them will share one portion; the two of us will share another.”

Ye Dong looked gratefully at Huiyan. “Huiyan, am I really so useless?”

Huiyan consoled him, “You’ve already done very well. If it were anyone else, they’d probably have nothing to eat.”

Looking at Liang Lingzhi and the others, exhausted and collapsed on the ground, Ye Dong murmured, “What’s the point of me surviving when you all were killed by traps or ghosts?”

“It’s our fault—we dragged you down,” Liang Lingzhi panted. “That’s just how the rules are: whoever survives gets to eat.”

Da Chun scoffed, “But the rules say that if you give your food to someone else, you can’t have a bite yourself. That really puts Dong in a tough spot.”

Ye Dong gave a wry smile. “That’s what it means to be your team leader. If you die, it means I haven’t done enough. If I want to eat, I have to keep you all alive!”

In Ye Dong, a trace of leadership had already begun to emerge.