Mo Yi and Qing Han both scowled in disapproval. How dare a trivial qi transformation cultivator like Lu Yun challenge a host of immortals? They ascribed it to the naivete of a man who knew little of their world beyond the tiny Dusk Province. [1]

As a matter of fact, Lu Yun really did know next to nothing about this brand new world. What little he’d grasped was courtesy of Yuying’s and Feinie’s memories. However, both of them were Dusk Province natives and had rarely ventured into the world at large, whereas Lu Yun came from Earth. For him, the immortal world was a source of both deep awe and unease. It was an unfathomable ocean, as mysterious as it was bottomless.

However, he was able to face it with confidence, thanks to the Tome of Life and Death in his dantian. Thanks to it, he could turn the ancient immortals unearthed from age-old tombs into his envoys and acquire their talents and experience.

In short, nothing but exercising the same talents he’d had in his former life.

……

Mo Yi used her mansion’s great formation to reconstruct an image of what had happened in their absence.

“It’s not Lu Yuanhou or Feng Li, so who is he?” Lu Yun narrowed his eyes when he saw the black-robed man inside the formation. Although it was only a reproduction of the scene, he could sense extreme danger projecting from the man’s eyes.

“Milord, milord, this old servant’s back!” Ge Long ran inside just then, huffing and puffing as he dragged Li Youcai along like a dead pig.

“Why are you soiling my property with his presence? Throw him out.” Profound aversion colored Mo Yi’s face.

The fatty had made her life difficult from the moment she arrived in this city. He’d even betrothed her to another city lord! Lu Yun might’ve solved the matter, but it’d done nothing to lessen her loathing.

“Throw him out. He takes up too much space.” Lu Yun smiled wryly at her vindictive expression.

The fatty was quite strange. Being possessed by an immortal ghost would’ve damaged any regular immortal’s lifeforce and ruined his cultivation, at the bare minimum, or perhaps even scattered his soul and turned him into the living dead in the worst case scenario.

Yet this fellow was just fine and dandy. Other than spending all of his strength in a final attack, no great harm had befallen him. He now lay deeply unconscious, snoring loudly in his sleep.

“Sigh, alright!” Ge Long dragged Li Youcai by the foot as he made his exit. But when he looked up and saw the image in the sky, he froze before shouting in alarm, “Eh? Isn’t that the head of House Ge?”

“What?” the stunned Lu Yun exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

“This old servant served him for many a decade. I could never be mistaken!” Ge Long stated confidently. “But yes, another soul has taken over his body...”

“Servants, find out House Ge’s whereabouts!” Mo Yi wore a somber expression. House Ge was one of the prominent Dusk aristocracies. As a nascent spirit cultivator, the head of the household was one of the province’s leading figures. To her, however, he might as well have been an ant.

She’d always kept to herself in Duskwater City, hiding her strength behind the facade of an origin core cultivator, a level similar to that of the other city lords in the province. Her men were no powerhouses either, being all qi or core realm themselves.

How else would Li Youcai have infiltrated her mansion with such ease?

As a result, it’d been child’s play for a nascent spirit cultivator to force his way inside and massacre nearly everyone, leaving no more than a dozen of the weakest alive.

Both the head of House Ge and the one now inhabiting him saw the city lord’s mansion as nothing more than a playground, where they could come and go as they pleased. And because Lu Yun had been overly relaxed after his return, he’d failed to notice that anything was amiss.

“There’s no need to look for them. If I’m his target, he’ll use Wanfeng as bait to lure me out of the city!” Lu Yun said, unexpectedly calm despite the circumstances.

Sure enough, someone came in and handed him a jade slip as soon as he’d spoken.

“A copse of trees fifteen kilometers north of the city. I’m to go by myself?” He narrowed his eyes as his consciousness scanned through the slip’s content, then turned to the messenger. Where a man had stood now lay a tiny paper charm, clearly a sophisticated puppet talisman.

“This is Exalted Immortal Sect handiwork.” Mo Yi frowned as she studied the charm, now devoid of life.

The Exalted Major was another of the nine majors in the world of immortals. It surpassed Nephrite Major in strength, and that one of its sects had dared use the major’s name for its own sect clearly bespoke of its strength and status.

“The majors rarely step on each other’s toes. Why is the Exalted Major suddenly trespassing on our lands?” Mo Yi drew her elegant brows together.

“Ah, I see. It must be him. What a clingy cockroach,” Lu Yun mumbled under his breath. He’d immediately guessed his foe’s identity at the mention of the Exalted Immortal Sect: the black-robed man who’d been the only escapee from Yuying’s tomb.

“A copse of trees fifteen kilometers outside the city? I’m going with you,” Mo Yi coolly asserted. “Killing my people in my own mansion? As the city lord, I need to take a stand.”

“I-I’m going as well,” Qing Han weakly said.

“Given your condition, it’s better for you to stay here.” Lu Yun gently shook his head. He’d been expressly told to go alone, but it wasn’t right to forbid Mo Yi’s presence. A right and proper city lord like her couldn’t possibly let such an affront go unanswered.

As for Qing Han, Lu Yun would have to give him a piggyback ride again.

“I…” Qing Han worried his lip, then finally nodded.

With a gentle wave of Mo Yi’s hand, the mansion’s great formation rumbled to life. “The active Seven Stars Formation will stop all but the strongest immortals. He’ll be safe here.”

……

Mo Yi and Lu Yun frowned when they reached the fringes of the verdant woods located fifteen kilometers to the north of the city.

“It seems like there’s more than one person after you,” the city lord whispered, smiling mirthlessly at Lu Yun.

“I count a total of eighteen formations. They really think something of me, huh,” he exhaled loudly. His previous self would’ve simply seen a mass of feng shui layouts blending together, but thanks to Feinie’s expertise, he could discern all of the formations within as well.

Isn’t that a little excessive to deal with little ole me? Not even an immortal would come out of that alive. Lu Yun frowned. Unless... Qing Hongchen is here as well!

That young man had once seen the immortals suddenly emerging at the governor’s side, and these formations were laid out precisely to counter those very immortals.

“Feinie, go inside and rescue Wanfeng,” Lu Yun transmitted. Somewhere inside the Gates of the Abyss, the envoy nodded and vanished from her spot.

1. Omg. They think he’s a frog at the bottom of the well lol!

1. Omg. They think he’s a frog at the bottom of the well lol!