Great Li Martial God

The manor steward’s face lit up with pleasure upon hearing this. He stole a glance at Jing Chengluo, saying, ”Our Manor Master gave his instructions long ago. Now that Zhanliu Manor has joined the Alliance Under Heaven, we are part of the Alliance and should naturally follow its orders and defer to the Grand Alliance Master in all things.”

As he spoke, the manor steward volunteered to take the lead, intending to bring the group into the courtyard.

But Jing Chengluo suddenly raised a hand to stop him, saying, ”There is no rush. To be safe, let’s wait a while longer.”

The manor steward said nothing further and stopped at once. After all, with Heaven-Human experts among this group, an extra degree of caution was entirely reasonable.

At the same time, in the darkness not far from the courtyard wall, two figures stood side by side, one tall and one small.

Watching from a distance, the old man in hemp gave a slow shake of his head, saying, ”They have been poisoned too deeply, and we still have our own business to attend to. We cannot get involved with this for now, or we may alert the quarry.”

With that, he took the little girl in pink beside him and turned away without hesitation.

The little girl in pink said nothing, just gave a light nod and followed close behind.

But after she had taken a few steps, some inexplicable impulse made her turn her head back for one more look.

That one glance made her suddenly stop, and she called out softly, ”Grandpa.”The old man in hemp sensed something different in her and turned his head as well, following her gaze.

He saw that in the dim night, Jing Chengluo and the others, who had been waiting out of caution for the poison to take deeper hold, were still standing in the same spot without moving.

But at some unknown moment, a seventh person had appeared among the six of them.

The person had appeared without any sign at all, catching both the old man in hemp and the little girl entirely off guard.

Before long, however, both of them noticed that it was the young man whom Hu Rui’an and the others had been addressing as ”Sir” during the day, the one who had teased the little girl earlier. She remembered him clearly.

Now, in the field of their vision, that young man was pacing slowly around beside Jing Chengluo and the others, looking for all the world as though he had not been poisoned at all.

”He’s not affected?”

The little girl in pink’s dark eyes went wide and she spoke in her clear, bright voice, looking thoroughly surprised.

The old man in hemp narrowed his eyes slightly, his expression equally unusual.

After all, he had watched with his own eyes as Li Musheng drank cup after cup of the Linglu wine.

And the Drunken Immortal’s Death was an extremely potent toxin. Cao Gaoshan had been brought down into unconsciousness from nothing more than breathing in part of the wine’s fragrance.

By all reasoning, Li Musheng should have had more of the toxin in his body than anyone else at the table, yet here he was, looking perfectly unaffected. It was genuinely beyond explanation.

After a moment of silence, the old man in hemp shook his head slowly, saying, ”We seem to have underestimated them.”

In his estimation, the only explanation was that Hu Rui’an and the others had actually seen through Zhanliu Manor’s poisoning scheme in secret all along.

They had used themselves as bait, feigning that they had fallen for the trap in order to lure out the people behind Zhanliu Manor.

And judging by how things had turned out, one had to admit that they had undeniably succeeded.

For a moment, the face of Hu Rui’an floated into the old man in hemp’s mind, and he murmured quietly to himself, ”This man must be a deeply seasoned angler.”

Hearing this, the little girl in pink furrowed her delicate brows slightly. She understood what the old man meant, but something about it still felt not quite right to her.

”Time to go.”

At this point, the old man in hemp withdrew his gaze and called out.

He turned away from Li Musheng’s side of things and set off once more, taking the little girl along.

The little girl in pink gave a light nod, looked back one last time, and in the end said nothing more, then hurried to catch up.

Tonight, the two of them still had more important business of their own to see to.

...

At the same time, Li Musheng glanced imperceptibly in the direction the old man in hemp and the little girl had departed, then paid them no further mind. His gaze settled instead on the manor steward and Jing Chengluo and the others.

Jing Chengluo’s group of five and the manor steward were all staring at Li Musheng, their eyes filled with terror.

Because even now they had not worked out when Li Musheng had appeared. Nor did they understand how they had all become unable to move.

How had any of this happened? They had felt absolutely nothing.

One moment they had been preparing to enter the courtyard to seize their targets, and in the next they had become fish on a chopping block, with nothing left to do but wait for this young man who carried not a trace of True Qi to deal with them however he pleased.

”You lot are quite capable. That method of poisoning was virtually impossible to guard against.”

Li Musheng raised an eyebrow. He had no particular expertise in poisons and medicinal compounds, but it did not matter. He was immune to all poisons regardless.

As far as he was concerned, it did not matter how much Linglu wine he drank. As long as the wine was good, that was all that counted.

Of course, running into Alliance Under Heaven operatives here was not entirely surprising to him. If anything, it was rather expected.

After all, when they had helped Qin Hao deal with the White Sand Gang and the others earlier, there had been many pairs of eyes watching. Once the news spread, it was perfectly normal for the Alliance Under Heaven to respond.

The one mildly unexpected thing was that a martial world force like Zhanliu Manor had secretly joined the Alliance Under Heaven.

Even so, Li Musheng had no particular interest in looking further into it, and could not be bothered to waste words on the people before him.

He struck out several streaks of Life and Death Talisman light, subjected the six of them to a thorough session of torment, and after that, everything he wanted to know came pouring out of them willingly and without concealment.

What a pity for the manor steward, who had thought that deploying a poison so perfectly concealed as the Drunken Immortal’s Death would allow the Alliance Under Heaven’s people to take down Li Musheng and the others without a hitch.

What a pity for Jing Chengluo, who had just moments ago seen the targets brought down so easily and felt certain he had things firmly in hand, thinking that once he obtained the jade pendant map it would be a great achievement to his name.

Yet once Li Musheng had finished his questions, the Life and Death Talisman took the lives of all six without ceremony, and they did not even have the chance to beg for mercy.

Having done all of this, Li Musheng rubbed his chin with a thoughtful expression.

He found that the manor’s master Shen Liancheng was rather interesting.

From the manor steward’s account just now, he had learned that the man had not merely joined the Alliance Under Heaven, but had also secretly joined Falling God Peak, and on top of that had quietly affiliated himself with the Great Li imperial court as well.

And the remarkable thing was that none of the three parties, the Alliance Under Heaven, Falling God Peak, or the court, knew about the others. All three had been kept completely in the dark by Shen Liancheng.

Aside from a small handful of Shen Liancheng’s most trusted confidants within the manor, everyone else in the establishment, including Shen Liancheng’s wife and daughters, had no knowledge of the arrangement.

And according to the manor steward, Shen Liancheng seemed to be quietly preparing to do something significant. As for exactly what it was, even the steward did not know.

With that thought, Li Musheng let out a sigh. This sort of trifling complication was something he had absolutely no inclination to get involved in.

Even so, he glanced back at Cao Gaoshan and the others still lying unconscious and poisoned in the courtyard.

Then he thought of Hu Rui’an and said to himself, ”By the timing of things, Commissioner Hu should be having a poisonous episode right about now as well. I wonder how that is going.”

With that thought, he shook his head, searched the manor steward’s body for the antidote, and flicked his fingers. The medicinal liquid flew out through the air and landed precisely in the mouths of Cao Gaoshan and the other two, as well as in Murong Xiaoya’s mouth inside the room.

Then he set off in the direction Hu Rui’an had disappeared earlier.