"I'm the boss!"

The senior brother leading the group was in a drugged state, his eyes bleary as if he'd had too much to drink. He even poked at the wound on his body with a finger, just like a child poking at mud.

"There's no one above you?" Su Xuan narrowed his eyes.

If he hadn't guessed wrong, that black-robed person who always mysteriously appeared before him was the real mastermind behind this group.

"No!" the senior brother declared firmly. "I'm the highest-ranking person in the assassination team!"

"That shouldn't be right," Su Xuan muttered, stroking his chin in puzzlement.

"Su Xuan."

Zhong Huilan, who was also in the office, spoke up. "He's probably telling the truth. Our anesthetic gas also has a truth-serum effect."

"Alright!" Su Xuan nodded and turned back to the senior brother. "Then why did you want to kill Qi Li and the others?"

"I couldn't let them take the message back!" The senior brother's gaze turned fierce. "We want the Floating Cloud Sect and the Spirit-Taming Sect to slaughter each other!"

Hearing this, Su Xuan glanced at Qi Li and Lu Dongshan.

They both let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. With the senior brother's confession, their efforts tonight had not been in vain.

"Then where are you from?" Su Xuan asked.

"I... I'm from..." Even in his dazed state, the senior brother still had a sliver of consciousness to protect his identity. "I can't tell you. If I do, I'll die!"

"Are you going to talk or not!" Qi Li stabbed the senior brother again with her dagger.

SQUELCH!

A deep gash opened up.

The senior brother looked blankly at Qi Li. "Why'd you stab me?"

Lu Dongshan, worried Qi Li was acting on impulse, took the dagger from her hand. "We have all the time in the world to torture him," he said. "We need to get him back quickly. He's the key to resolving the feud between our two sects!"

"Alright!" Qi Li nodded, then turned to Su Xuan with a grateful expression. "Thank you, Su Xuan!"

"No need to thank me. We were just helping each other out," Su Xuan said with a slight smile.

"Brother Su, we've captured the key witness, so we plan to leave tonight!" Lu Dongshan said to Su Xuan. "Are you... sure you want to come with us?"

Su Xuan glanced at Zhong Huilan.

Understanding his concern, Zhong Huilan said, "Su Xuan, you can leave with peace of mind. I'll take care of your home."

"Thanks!" Su Xuan said, genuinely grateful.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you," Zhong Huilan said, glancing at the figures on the floor. "Without you, I never would have been able to catch these people."

「That night」

Su Xuan went home, packed a few things, and left the city.

Sitting in a taxi on the way out of the city, Qi Li asked, "Su Xuan, aren't you going to say goodbye to your old friends?"

They were in a taxi because reaching the world of the mountains required passing through numerous inspection stations. From there, dedicated vehicles provided by the stations would transport them. One couldn't just enter the world of the mountains freely, as this was one of the barriers it had established.

"No need," Su Xuan glanced at the increasingly desolate nightscape. "I'll be back soon anyway."

"That's true." Qi Li nodded, though an imperceptible, complex emotion flickered in her eyes.

Lu Dongshan suddenly burst into hearty laughter. "Brother Su," he said to Su Xuan, "I've been waiting for this day for a long time! I can finally treat you to a drink at our place!"

"The alcohol there is very strong, Su Xuan. You'd better not drink too much," Qi Li warned.

"Okay!" Su Xuan nodded. Then he asked, seemingly out of nowhere, "Do you have spirit beasts where you come from? The kind you can ride and fly on?"

Qi Li and Lu Dongshan were both stunned. "Huh?"

"No?" Su Xuan was also taken aback, then asked again, "What about flying on swords, then?"

Qi Li and Lu Dongshan exchanged a look. "Well..."

"Then you can't ascend, either?" Su Xuan pressed, raising his voice slightly.

Qi Li and Lu Dongshan hurriedly pretended not to hear, turning their heads to look at the scenery outside the window.

Su Xuan muttered to himself in disappointment, "Is it different from what I imagined? That's no fun at all. Or maybe you have rules against revealing things about the mountains?"

「The evening of the third day」

After several vehicle transfers and a long hike up many mountain paths, Su Xuan's group arrived before a mountain with a very strange shape, which closely resembled a pig's trotter. In the middle of the mountain, there was a gigantic fissure, as if it had been cleaved in two by a sword from the heavens.

Qi Li led Su Xuan to the summit and pointed toward a village below. "Su Xuan, this is Pig's Trotter Mountain. The village down there is the first waystation for entering the world atop the mountains."

"Oh," Su Xuan said, gazing down at the village. "Are we going in?"

The village was bathed in the afterglow of the sunset, with wisps of cooking smoke drifting into the air, creating a serene picture.

"We can't go in." Qi Li shook her head. "Although that village borders the world below and doesn't look much different from any other, it's a forbidden place. Ordinary people aren't qualified to enter."

"Including you?" Su Xuan asked.

"Including us," Qi Li nodded.

Su Xuan saw nothing special about the village. "How strange," he said, puzzled. "Is it inhabited by people you don't want to cross?"

TAP! TAP! TAP!

Just then, a few farm dogs ran over and surrounded them.

At the sight of the dogs, Qi Li and Lu Dongshan's expressions turned solemn. They even straightened their clothes before looking off into the distance.

COUGH! COUGH!

An old man, smoking a long-stemmed pipe, coughed as he strode along the mountain path toward them. Su Xuan saw nothing particularly remarkable about him.

As he approached, the old man spoke to Qi Li in a familiar tone, "Qi girl, heading back already?"

"Yes," Qi Li replied, taking something out and stuffing it into the old man's hand. "We'll have to trouble you to make things convenient for us, Chief Sun."

"Huh?" Su Xuan's eyes widened. He saw that Qi Li had just stuffed a whole carton of cigarettes into the old man's hand.

"You're too kind, too kind." The old man tucked the carton under his arm and then said to one of the dogs, "Go back and get a car for us!"

WOOF! WOOF!

The dog, seeming to understand perfectly, ran off toward the village.

While the dog was gone, the old man's gaze fell on Lu Dongshan's shoulder. "Big guy, what are you carrying there?"

"We had some trouble in our sect." Lu Dongshan lowered the sack from his shoulder and opened it. "It's related to this man's faction."

Inside the sack was the senior brother who had led the attack.

"Oh, I've seen him before." After glancing at the man in the sack, the old man said, "Keep carrying him. I won't get involved in your grudges."

But then the old man's gaze settled on Su Xuan. "This young man is a new face!"

As he spoke, an incredibly oppressive aura suddenly poured forth from him...

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