Hui extended his mental energy into the room, searching for qi. Almost instantly, he found it. The room burned with qi, blindingly brilliant. Ah! So much qi!

He flinched back, retracting his mental energy into himself, then slowly pushed it out again. This time, he observed the room slowly, with the absolute minimum of his mental energy.

Qi glowed everywhere. All the people in the room, servants and ladies alike, leaked qi, too low level to sufficiently contain their qi inside their bodies. The food and drink shone with light, beaming with a thick, though low-quality qi. The building materials glittered, too, the floor, the walls, the roof. Everywhere he looked, light, qi.

Hui rubbed his mental eyes and frowned. Cultivators are so gaudy! Is it necessary to use spirit bricks and spirit plaster to build something? Does everything we eat have to be full of spirit qi? Even the clothes… My eyes hurt! Be a little more conscientious about your qi usage, okay? Unlike me. This small cultivator…

Hui looked down at himself and almost blinded himself. The snakeskin burned with light, and his own internal energy, even suppressed to less than the rest of the cultivators in quantity, still far outshone them in sheer luminous quality.

At that, Hui frowned. He fully killed his qi, and both the light inside him and the light in the snakeskin faded, vanishing entirely when he masked his qi with death qi. Still, even if my death-playing is sufficient, I need to be more careful about my customary disguises. Although it isn’t as if people go around looking at qi with their mental energy all the time, especially if it’s so blinding most of the time, it’s still dangerous for me to be careless about such a clear risk.

Curious, he lessened his playing-dead and lowered the amount of death qi that circulated his dantian. Using the death qi as a sort of curtain, he managed to mask the high-quality glow of his qi down to a more common level of glow. His whole body still glowed faintly from the snakeskin, but… Hui cast a look at the women around the room. Half the girls here glow the same amount, either from spiritual makeup or cosmetic techniques, I can’t tell which. Either way, it should be fine to continue carefully using my snakeskin, since using spiritual makeup and cosmetic techniques is common amongst lower-level cultivators. If I ever run into anyone with strong mental energy or a visual technique, though, I’ll have to remember to be on guard.

He extended his fingers, then closed them into fists. I wonder what this looks like under my third eye?

Even at the fifth stage, I can’t willingly activate that technique. What kind of technique is it, ultimately? That I’m able to see life and death… obviously it’s no ordinary visual technique. In fact, I haven’t met anyone else who’s able to see the threads of life and death that I can see with that technique. Maybe All-Heavens Sect’s life cultivators might hold the answer, but…

Well, I guess I can only rely on the rogue cultivator clone and hope he successfully infiltrates All-Heavens Sect! His goals should be the same as mine, but I should make sure I remind him about the third eye the next time we meet up. It isn’t as if I think about it all the time, after all.

Ah, don’t get distracted, Hui! Focus, focus. The soul array. Are there any hints of an array in the qi around me? All this qi is only a distraction. Focus! The array. The spell. Where is it?

Hui’s brows furrowed. He searched around, but came up empty-handed. I don’t see any arrays anywhere. Not even inside Fu Liyu. That’s to be expected, though, since hers was hidden inside her.

Hidden… inside…

Hui put his hand on the bottle of alcohol he’d brought over and sent a pulse of qi inside. Nothing leaped out, not even when he called out for an array to appear. He frowned. Hmm, not there? I thought there was a good chance… but I guess that would be too advanced for a single fifth stage cultivator to pull off. Where, then? Embedded in the floor? The ceiling?

Wait. The seal was inside Fu Liyu. Could it be? Is it somehow… implanted inside the participants?

Hui quickly swept his qi through himself, but found nothing. His brows furrowed. But… I’m a servant. I wasn’t invited. Maybe it’s different if I received an invitation, or came here through the official routes, or…

He turned and looked at Bai Xue.

Bai Xue tilted her head. “Eh? What is it, Xiao Hui?”

Hui lifted his hand. “Elder Sister, can I search inside you?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Bai Xue replied, flashing a smile.

Hui frowned at her. “This is important. There’s something wrong with this banquet, and—”

“I noticed. Go ahead.” She threw her hair back and extended her delicate neck, revealing a patch of skin between her veil and her collar.

Hui’s frown deepened. “Elder Sister…”

Bai Xue laughed. She extended her hand. “You prude.”

Hui shook his head at her and took her hand delicately. He closed his eyes and sent a trace of his qi into Bai Xue. Moving quickly, he swept his energy through her, searching for any abnormalities.

Nothing? I didn’t check her dantian, though. He surged deeper, circulating around her dantian.

“Ahn!” Bai Xue cried out.

Ying Lin jumped, startled.

Hui opened his eyes and stared at Bai Xue disapprovingly.

“You went so deep, so suddenly,” Bai Xue said, giving him an innocent look.

“Eh… eh?” Ying Lin asked, glancing from one to the other.

“Bai Xue,” Hui grumbled. You know what you did.

Bai Xue smirked at him, innocent look evaporating. “Eh, Xiao Hui, is that it? You aren’t moving.”

“I… naturally… do not intend to stop halfway…”

Bai Xue waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Bai Xue, can you stop talking for a minute so I can focus?” Hui requested firmly.

“Mhm, I’ll be quiet so you can finish,” Bai Xue replied, nodding studiously.

Hui narrowed his eyes again. Internally, he shouted at himself, Xiao Hui, don’t engage her. You can’t win! She’ll drag you down to her level and make it horny no matter what you say.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes once more and carefully examined her dantian. The beginnings of a golden core swirled inside her, nearly finished. Mmm, she’s almost ready to ascend. Just a little more and it’ll push her over the edge…

Ah, dammit! I’ve been infected by her lascivious language!

He spun around her dantian, examining it from every angle. No obvious arrays or spells appeared, no matter how he looked at it. His brows furrowed. Even with Fu Liyu, it wasn’t obvious at first. I had to call out to it…

Array, appear!

On cue, an array appeared on the surface of Bai Xue’s dantian.

Hui blinked. Is it really that easy?