A cold, clear scent of sinking-water incense accompanied by a hint of frost and snow struck him. Ye Xisheng had not expected Song Lianzhou to lean over suddenly, and he froze on the spot, his spine tensed stiffly.
A moment later, he abruptly came to his senses, turned his head unnaturally, and shifted a few inches to the side: “Senior Brother needn’t be like this… we haven’t entered the city yet.”
Song Lianzhou said “Oh,” and sat back in his original position.
The city guards soon checked their carriage. Ye Xisheng presented the Flower Pavilion token, and the city guard, seeing Song Lianzhou’s extraordinary attire, allowed the group to enter the city very smoothly.
Feiyi and Qing Miao were both full of curiosity, peeking around through the carriage window as soon as they entered the city.
“Senior Brother, where are we going!” Feiyi shouted excitedly to Song Lianzhou: “Are we going to find a place to stay first and then head to Qishan Mountain tomorrow?”
“To Flower Pavilion.” Song Lianzhou finished speaking, only then remembering that they still had proper business to attend to: “Oops, I also have matters to investigate with Junior Sister and Junior Brother. Now they’ve clashed.”
“It won’t. The only thing causing a stir in the Qishan area today is the missing persons case. Senior Brother is also here to investigate this matter, right?” Ye Xisheng asked.
“Exactly. Some commoners have already petitioned the Cangling Sect, and Master has sent several of us to search for the people.”
“What a coincidence; my goal this time is also to search for a young girl who went missing at Qishan.” Ye Xisheng drove the carriage, turning a bend, and the crowd in front suddenly became dense: “I have already inquired about all the information that could be gathered from the outside of Flower Pavilion, but there is no useful news. I can only see what information Yu Lingchun holds in his hands.”
“So, Senior Brother might as well come with me.”
Song Lianzhou nodded. In truth, even if Ye Xisheng hadn’t said it, he wouldn’t have been at ease letting him investigate alone.
“Why did you accept such a dangerous task?” Song Lianzhou frowned slightly: “Do you know that the difficulty rating of this task in the Training Hall is Late-Stage Golden Core?”
This meant that only disciples at the Late-Stage Golden Core level could participate in this trial. This standard was not low; even in the Cangling Sect, one of the five great sects, those with Late-Stage Golden Core cultivation were only the elite among the inner disciples. However, Ye Xisheng… Song Lianzhou swept a glance at Ye Xisheng’s cultivation, only at the peak of Foundation Establishment.
Like the original book, Ye Xisheng’s current level was completely insufficient to participate in this trial.
But unlike the original book, Ye Xisheng in the original book was forced to accept this task, while now, Ye Xisheng had come of his own initiative, and there was no mention of Ye Xisheng being related to Flower Pavilion.
The description of this missing persons case in the original book was very brief, perhaps because the author’s brainpower and writing style couldn’t support the details of this case (system sharp critique), so it only wrote that Ye Xisheng went through great hardships to finally find all the missing people, and then returned to the sect to fiercely slap the faces of those who had once mocked him—a standard “Dragon Overlord” setup.
Ye Xisheng answered him with a light laugh: “I was entrusted by others; that elderly couple had once shown me kindness, and now that their daughter is missing, I cannot bear to, nor can I, stand idly by.”
“Senior Brother, rest assured, I can protect myself well. Besides, the difficulty rating for this task in the Training Hall is so high, I think it shouldn’t be because it is dangerous, but because it is strange.”
Song Lianzhou: “How so?”
Ye Xisheng: “Does Senior Brother know the ins and outs of the Qishan young girl missing persons case from start to finish?”
“I don’t quite remember.” I don’t know at all.
Just as the crowd ahead was moving slowly, Ye Xisheng simply let go of the reins, letting the carriage move forward slowly, while gently saying: “Then let me tell you about it, Senior Brother. Senior Brother should know that the continuous mountain range behind Qishan City is called Qishan, and there is a mysterious ancient village on Qishan named Fanggu Village. This village has always been isolated from the world by a formation and is almost unknown to outsiders, but recently, it suddenly withdrew the formation.”
Song Lianzhou nodded feignedly.
“According to the villagers who came down from the mountain, to welcome the saintess who descends once every hundred years, the village needs to hold a memorial ceremony, which is why the village head withdrew the formation to allow the villagers to go down the mountain to purchase supplies, while simultaneously opening the road for others to head to Fanggu Village.”
Ye Xisheng’s voice was moist, clear, and very pleasant, telling the causes of the missing persons case one by one: “The source of the missing persons case begins here. In fact, my visits found that mysterious missing person events would occur from time to time in the Qishan area, but they would always end with nothing to show for it.”
“The situation escalated after three wandering female cultivators entered Qishan by mistake and lost contact. By the time they were discovered again, only two of the young girls were unconscious by the roadside. Strangely, after they woke up, they completely forgot their companion who had traveled with them, and also didn’t remember what they had experienced at all.”
“The third young girl not only went missing, she also disappeared completely from their memories.”
“The families of the missing girls have some power, so naturally, they gathered some people to search, flipping Qishan upside down. But Qishan is just an ordinary mountain; it likely doesn’t have the ability to make people disappear or the power to make them forget, so the greatest suspicion fell on the mysterious village on the mountain—Fanggu Village.”
“That is correct.” Song Lianzhou responded: “The instructions given to us by Master this time also重点 (focus) on investigating the village.”
“Someone has investigated this village from the beginning, but achieved nothing, because the village head and villagers deny that these three wandering cultivators ever came to the village. However, the two wandering cultivators who lost their memories were stained with lotus petals from that village, and were both familiar with this lotus fragrance. There were also people who, through questioning, made the villagers of that village unintentionally reveal that they had seen these three people in the village.”
“Such self-contradiction, riddled with loopholes isn’t that very suspicious?”
More than suspicious; it was practically beating a gong and drum shouting “I am a problem!” Song Lianzhou nodded in deep agreement.
Ye Xisheng continued: “However, after this incident, the missing person cases did not decrease, but increased. People gradually discovered that the missing persons were all young girls in their prime, either beautiful in appearance or possessing a certain level of cultivation.”
“Two or three batches of cultivators from other sects had once entered Qishan to investigate, and these cultivators either didn’t return, or returned, but lost the memory of their companions just like those two wandering cultivators.”
Song Lianzhou frowned slightly. This matter was indeed strange; no wonder no one was willing to investigate later, and they needed to seek help from powerful major sects.
“A-Sheng, how many people have gone missing in this area?”
“Conservatively estimated, no less than ten.”
Song Lianzhou’s brows immediately furrowed tighter: “We must settle this matter this time.”
He looked at Qishan in the distance, obscured by mist and clouds, looming in the twilight and smoke, appearing indistinct like the many secrets it held.
Ye Xisheng comforted him: “The reason the previous batches of cultivators failed was still that their understanding of Fanggu Village was not deep enough. So much time has passed, and no one still knows the true face of Fanggu Village. As long as there is enough useful intelligence in Yu Lingchun’s hands, the matter will become much simpler.”
In his previous life, he had suffered from the lack of clear situation.
This time, he had originally wanted to ask for the intelligence he wanted first, then go to Fanggu Village to go through the motions and save everyone.
But having met Song Lianzhou and his group, he was suddenly very interested to see how they would break the deadlock.
Standing in a position capable of looking down on all living beings, watching people busily weaving their fates according to their choices—this was indeed a very interesting thing.
Twilight had gradually surged from the edge of the sky; Qishan City was about to welcome the night.
The group had been stopped here for some time. Feiyi and Qing Miao couldn’t sit still anymore, jumping off the carriage and peeking around: “What’s wrong, why isn’t it moving ahead?”
“Perhaps there are too many people blocking it; you all hurry and get up.” After Song Lianzhou finished greeting them, he couldn’t help but mutter, “Strange, logically speaking, with the missing persons case occurring, everyone should be in fear. Why are there still so many people in this city?”
“Yu Lingchun is here recently, so many people have come for his reputation,” Ye Xisheng replied.
As if to confirm his words, a carriage of extreme luxury suddenly appeared at the end of the long street. The carriage was covered in gold thread embroidery and golden reliefs, and the curtains made of night-luminescent pearls jangled with the bumping, the ultimate in luxury.
The crowd squeezed to both sides of the road, making way for this large carriage.
Song Lianzhou looked at it curiously: To have this level of specifications and treatment within Qishan City, the person inside should be Yu Lingchun.
Before the sound had faded, suddenly a pipa sound rang out, breaking through the air. Sixteen barefoot dancing girls were seen stepping with lotus steps to open the path, their snow-colored skirts surging like a sea of clouds, the golden steps in their hair swinging out thousands of streams of sunset clouds in the twilight. At the same time, a group of people following the large carriage suddenly began to beat drums and gongs, playing zithers and sheng.
In an instant, the noisy street was drowned out by the music, filled with cheerful air inside and out.
Even the system was so noisy that it shrank back into Song Lianzhou’s brain to hibernate.
“What is this for?” Song Lianzhou was stunned: “Is he going to open a music workshop and theater on the street and sit down to listen to tunes?”
“Yu Lingchun is a person like this acting in a weird and unique way, extremely fond of seeking pleasure everywhere. It is said that he once scattered gold leaves on the city tower all night, saying he wanted to listen to the laughter of the people below picking up money as a lullaby.”
“Simply put, it is a bit…” Ye Xisheng considered his wording, “crazy.”
Song Lianzhou: “…Pfft.”
He hadn’t expected Ye Xisheng to say this so seriously, and he looked at him with a suppressed laugh.
This look made even Ye Xisheng feel a bit stunned.
The person before him was smiling with curled eyes, his back soaked in the twilight and somewhat indistinct, leaving only the golden light floating in the depths of his eyes, gentle and bright.
Even after changing his appearance, Song Lianzhou was still stunningly good-looking.
Yu Lingchun leaned against a gold-threaded soft pillow, the intricately carved hollow incense burner before him emitting curling clouds of smoke. He leaned against the carriage window bonelessly, the buttons of his wide, cherry-pink robe wide open, and sliding off one shoulder in a very non-virtuous manner.
He turned his head to look at the unoriginal singing and dancing and the surging crowd outside the carriage window, yawning with extreme boredom.
No interest, truly no interest.
When could an interesting person appear to let him play?
Suddenly, his eyes lit up fiercely. He stood up with a whoosh, grabbed the carriage window to look out, his entire body unconsciously carrying the excitement of a hunter discovering prey.
His gaze locked onto that bright yellow figure; even though he was drowned out by the heavy crowd, he was still like a flash of bright color. The person opposite him didn’t know what he had said to him, making him turn his head and laugh straight out.
Yu Lingchun was fascinated by this smile; by the time he reacted, the two carriages were about to pass each other.
“Ah~ it really has been a long time since I have seen such a handsome person~” Yu Lingchun was in a great mood, “Someone.”
Someone immediately lifted the curtain and walked in, kneeling before him in black clothes: “Master.”
Yu Lingchun pointed at Song Lianzhou: “That person, did you see him?”
“Follow him, find a chance to knock him unconscious and send him to my room.