Chapter 28 The Venerable
The words Xu You spoke, Xie Xuanyi wouldn't believe a single one.
Sitting in the position of Deputy City Lord in Taian City, serving the Demon Race...
Xu You's heart had long been rotten through.
Every word he spoke, every character, could be false.
Once one chooses to believe, one would inevitably be directed towards a fatally erroneous path.
Therefore, Xie Xuanyi chose to use "Soul Search."
Special times, special characters, special measures.
No room for the slightest mercy.
...
...
Amidst agonizing screams, Xie Xuanyi slowly and resolutely merged his Divine Soul into the depths of Xu You's Purple Mansion Heart Lake.
The disparity between their Divine Souls was too great. Xu You, already depleted, had become a lamb to the slaughter. He struggled desperately, but no matter how he thrashed, it was futile; he could only wail as Xie Xuanyi rifled through his sordid "life."
Xie Xuanyi stood with his hands behind his back, his Divine Soul form suspended above Xu You's Purple Mansion Heart Lake.
Countless images floated before him, ready to be perused with a flick of his hand.
Xu You was talented; at the age of fourteen, he had a stroke of luck and, through meditation, sensed the Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi. After spending a year, he gradually ignited his acupuncture points, becoming a young Cultivator on the right path and earning the heavy reliance of the Dachu Royal Family... That year, the Northern Border Guardian had not yet been dismissed, and Xu You became a disciple of the Northern County Garrison Commander, Zhong Du.
It coincided with the most brutal "You Hai Battle" in nearly a century.
The Demon Race attacked the Northern Border for ten years, with Jia Yong Pass suffering the first blows. The entire battlefront spread nearly a thousand miles—
The intensity of this battle was unprecedented in decades. Of the 108 Garrison Commanders tasked with defending the Northern Border, more than half were killed or injured, but Da Chu forcefully held on to the Northern Border. In the final battle, the Great Chu National Master personally strategized and executed the Demon Country Venerable, Mo Zhen, on the spot!
The chief war planner, Mo Zhen, perished, and the Demon Country's ambition to move south was instantly extinguished.
This prolonged and brutal war ended in a bizarre and dramatic fashion.
The battle was a huge victory!
In Northern County's frontier, the land soaked in Mo Zhen's blood, peace ensued!
This is why the battle was named the "You Hai Battle."
In this battle, Xu You delivered crucially secret reports for Garrison Commander Zhong Du on several occasions, making significant wartime contributions, earning him a commendation; postwar, he was sent to Taian City, where he rose in rank year after year!
But inside the "Soul Search" images, Xie Xuanyi saw the true nature of the commendation.
The first mission to deliver the report was a failure for Xu You... He was discovered by a high-ranking figure from the Demon Country while passing through the border, and was directly intercepted.
In such a situation, death was imminent.
Xu You did not commit suicide immediately; instead, he knelt and pleaded, tearfully begging the other party to spare his life.
The high-ranking Demon official coerced Xu You into making a Divine Soul vow, turning him into a pawn for the Demon Country.
After that.
Xu You gained a new identity.
He served Da Chu, but even more so, he served the Demon Country.
This information was eventually delivered on time to another garrison commander; the Demon Country deliberately weakened their forces, leading to several significant victories in subsequent battles... Xu You became one of Zhong Du's trusted lieutenants, and the last battle's faulty report also doomed this garrison commander from Jia Yong Pass.
Zhong Du died on the day the You Hai Battle ended.
But the Northern Border war was over.
For everyone, it was a great victory.
Xu You, originally intended by the Demon Country to be discarded and destroyed, had survived confusingly and accepted honors that weren't his own. The war was so brutal, too many had died, and following the victory, everyone was pardoned as if by a stroke of divine intervention, or perhaps fate was mocking justice. From start to finish, no one linked the death of Garrison Commander Zhong Du to Xu You. When a discarded pawn landed on a key position, it deserved to be reevaluated.
Thus, Xu You was heavily utilized by the Demon Race, tasked with deeply rooting himself in Taian City, waiting for that call from the north one day.
He was revered by thousands.
The citizens of Taian City hailed him as a hero.
Da Chu Imperial City allotted him stipends.
For forty years, Xu You lived a life of "paper-blind intoxication," although his Cultivation progress had slowed down somewhat...
Over forty years, he remained in the Qi-Controlling Realm.
With his renown and the military honors he earned during the Northern Border war, stepping into the Cave Heaven Realm would officially make him the new City Lord of Taian City.
Over the years, Xu You had laid substantial groundwork for his "promotion to City Lord."
He eradicated bandits for Taian City, solved flood disasters, brought in relief grain, and even fostered an adopted son...
Everyone thought he was a hero.
But ironically, everything he did was just to become City Lord, to better serve the Demon Country.
How absurd!
A spy for the Demon Country, barely a step away from becoming the Human Race City Lord.
Should Xu You succeed,
the damage his betrayal would bring one day, would be immeasurably severe.
"Too good an actor, too capable of deception."
"He deceived his subordinates, deceived his adopted son, even the 'Primordial Instrument' was fooled..."
At that moment, Xie Xuanyi suddenly understood why, at the Taian City night banquet, Xu You displayed such opulence and bravado.
The matter with the Green Yuan Pill had many solutions.
Xu You specifically chose the most troublesome, yet most eye-catching one.
Because he had long been accustomed to "deception."
For years, he had cloaked himself as a paragon of virtue, while the disgraceful shadow of kneeling in the snowfields of the north, betraying his country for glory, had been buried in the deepest part of his Heart Lake.
"Just don't know whether, after deceiving so many people, you can still deceive yourself?"
Xie Xuanyi scoffed coldly.
He no longer looked at this sordid and filthy life—
At the deepest part of the Heart Lake, there were several Divine Soul fragments, shrouded in forbidden black malevolence!
These images were protected by special means!
This was what Xie Xuanyi had hoped to see with "Soul Search." He extended his hand towards a shard of black, reaching for it!
With a loud boom,
the black sinister energy, sensing the tremors of the outside world, instantly turned ferocious, transforming into a fierce beast that charged towards Xie Xuanyi!
Clearly,
the important figure responsible for liaising with Xu You was aware of the "importance" of these memory fragments and had imbued them with a strand of his spiritual power after instructing him on the mission.
Xie Xuanyi's face remained expressionless as he waved his sleeve.
With a mere hand coming down,
it landed upon Xu You's Heart Lake, forming a colossal hand hundreds of feet in size!
The monstrous beast, formed from the swirling black Qi, was instantly seized by Xie Xuanyi!
In this special period, the Dachu Dynasty's scrutiny of demonic Qi had reached an extreme level.
Although this member of the Demon Race had been cautious, he dared not be too reckless; to prevent Xu You's covert identity from being exposed, the spiritual power he left behind was extremely faint!
In Xie Xuanyi's eyes, this shred of Divine Soul Power was almost negligible.
He grasped the memory fragment, forcefully projecting it!
A dark long shadow fell in front of him.
"The information from Qing State has reached the Great Venerate's ears for the second time,"
The shadow was tall and thin.
From a distance, it appeared like a piece of withered wood.
The voice of the shadow was very stern:
"The Great Venerate has confirmed with sacred arts that there are intense fluctuations of Primordial Energy in Lichao City. If the intelligence from Qing State is true, and this Secret Realm belongs to an artifact left by the Saint Bai Ze... then this time, no matter the cost, we must retrieve the artifacts from the Secret Realm back to the Northern Country!"
"Prepare in the next few days; the token to verify the authenticity of the Secret Realm is already en route."
"Once the token is confirmed to enter safely, I will inform you of the next tasks."
Snap.
At this point, the memory fragment suddenly erupted with numerous cracks!
This meant that Xu You's Divine Soul could no longer withstand the pressure of the Soul Search and was on the verge of collapsing; it was impossible to rewatch this scene.
Xie Xuanyi narrowed his eyes.
The information within this dialogue was substantial.
Connecting Xu You, and allocating tasks, this dark shadow... must be one of the Venerables within the Demon Country's borders.
In the hierarchical order of the Demon Country,
above a Venerable, there is the Great Venerate.
"The Secret Realm of Saint Bai Ze is about to appear in Lichao City? The Demon Country Venerable obtained the information from Qing State?"
Xie Xuanyi carefully recalled this phrase, feeling more and more anxious as he did so.
News of the ancient Saint's Secret Realm absolutely belonged to the highest level of secrecy!
If there really were a Secret Realm about to emerge in Lichao City, then those privy to the inside information should only include a handful of individuals, including but not limited to the You Hai King who governed a state, along with a few ancient family practitioners based in Qing State who knew the terrain like the back of their hand.
Normally, those who know such intelligence would keep it strictly confidential.
Once the Secret Realm appeared, it would be an opportunity for aristocratic families and sects to explore and benefit first!
But for the Demon Country Venerable to know beforehand...
meant that someone leaked it to the Demon Country!
This type of betrayal by a Great Practitioner is much more terrible than Xu You's!
Xie Xuanyi already felt cold sweat on his back; he did not hesitate and instantly reached for the second memory fragment.
The familiar reflection appeared again.
This conversation seemed to occur after the first scenario, after some time had passed.
"Yi San, the token is already on its way,"
"If all goes well, this token will be delivered to Tai An City within seven days, and the delivery person will write to contact you."
"After you receive the item and verify its authenticity, bring your identification and immediately proceed to Lichao City... You must complete the second handover before the Saint's Secret Realm emerges,"
"Here are the features of the token and related information."
Xie Xuanyi looked grave; the information from this round of Soul Search was still substantial.
Yi San.
The way this black-clothed Venerable referred to Xu You was interesting... if he wasn't wrong, the Demon Race had laid a vast spy network in the Qing State sector of the Northern County, and the traitors who betrayed the Dachu during the Battle of Drinking Poison were not only Xu You.
And on the Demon Country's end, there was a complete list, with each betrayer having their own title.
Yi San was Xu You's title.
The interesting thing about this title was that based on Xie Xuanyi's understanding of the Demon Race's modus operandi, the black-clothed Venerable in charge of allocating tasks might also not know Xu You's position, name, or specific identity.
That's why he needed the later "bring your identification"—
Dachu has total control over the land within its borders.
A single command.
Qing State would enact an immediate eight-hundred li (Chinese measure, approximately 400km) lockdown overnight.
The spies of the Demon Race must be very careful and cautious to hide their identities.
Those who manipulate the spy network must be likewise cautious.
Each handover is a gamble; the higher the precision of the task, the less the parties know about each other, the greater the chance of completing the handover... even if there is a slight mistake in the process, it would not lead to the complete collapse and eradication of the whole spy network.
Xie Xuanyi carefully reviewed the task information left by the black-clothed Venerable.
What he was truly curious about,
was the so-called token... what exactly was that finger bone?
Opening the last memory fragment,
Xie Xuanyi got the answer he wanted.
"This finger bone of the Saint Bai Ze, once filled with Primordial Energy, can activate the Bloodline Power of the Demon Saint."
"With this token, step into the bounds of the Secret Realm..."
"Activating the Bloodline Power, will verify its authenticity!"