Volume One: Youths Meeting in Obscurity - Chapter 147: The Path of Faking Death 2

When another group of people arrived at Shen Tang’s residence, they were greeted by the sight of Li Yu and Shen Tang sitting upright in the main hall, looking as if they had long anticipated their arrival.

The leaders of this group were Elder Lian of the Thousand Beasts Sect and Elder Huang of the Shadow Mountain Sect. When they were assigned to search Shen Tang’s home for Li Yu, they were actually quite reluctant. In their view, even if Li Yu had not yet managed to escape Tianmen Town, the most likely place for him to hide would be the Yetan Temple, rather than cowering elsewhere while waiting to be hunted down. If they were in his shoes, they would only seek refuge in a place that offered the utmost sense of security.

This was the instinctive human tendency to pursue benefits and avoid harm, especially after witnessing the formidable power of Daoist Lin. They shared an unspoken consensus that Yetan Temple must still hold backdoors or protective measures left behind by the Daoist, shielding Li Yu and any potential inheritance he might carry.

Therefore, despite their reluctance to be assigned to Shen Tang’s house, they had no choice but to obey the arrangements of those higher-ups.

So far, the heaviest losses had been suffered by the Li family. Not only had they lost three of their ancestors, but their overall strength had also been halved, leaving only a fraction of their former might. One could easily imagine the brutal and furious interrogations awaiting them upon their return. To them, Daoist Lin represented the most vital asset for recouping their losses. Even though Daoist Lin had vanished, as long as anything associated with him still existed, they retained a chance at redemption.

Consequently, upon returning to the City Lord’s Mansion, they had not even spared a moment to rest before frantically dispatching the remaining personnel to hunt down Daoist Lin’s closest young disciple. Fearing that he might have fled in advance or concealed himself elsewhere, they had sent search parties not only to Yetan Temple and Shen Tang’s home, but to all other corners of the town as well.

In truth, everyone could have simply refused this directive. The Li family no longer possessed their former strength; even with Li Xiyan, who had just stepped into the Dao Realm, a single pair of fists could not ward off four attackers. If everyone rushed them at once, Li Xiyan alone would never be able to cope.

Just as they were contemplating refusal, however, the members of the Li family had quietly and imperceptibly planted the Spirit-Control Gu upon them all. It was only when they discovered that they had been infected with the Gu that they understood why the calculating Li family members had waited until they reached the City Lord’s Mansion to issue their commands. Planting this specific type of Gu required time, and with Cao Xihe and Xie Tong present in the crowd, the only way to infect everyone without alerting them was to proceed with extreme caution. Fortunately, they had succeeded in the end. Powerful as they were, none of them had detected the silent infiltration of the Spirit-Control Gu.

Once implanted, the Spirit-Control Gu demanded absolute obedience to its master; otherwise, the parasite would slowly devour the victim’s inner spiritual essence. Moreover, planting the Gu required embedding the mother parasite within one’s own spiritual core, meaning that even if the parasites afflicting others could be cleansed, the one within the master’s own body could never be removed, ultimately resulting in the same fate of having their spiritual essence devoured.

The Spirit-Control Gu was considered far too heinous and contrary to the natural order of heaven. Once the outside world discovered its existence within the Li family, it had been forcibly outlawed and ordered to be exterminated by the major cultivation factions led by the Imperial Zenith Palace.

Yet, unexpectedly, the Li family had paid lip service while defying the ban in secret, smuggling away the strains of the Gu and bringing them along on this expedition to Tianmen Town.

In fact, upon realizing they had been infected with the Spirit-Control Gu, everyone was struck speechless with fury. Having already suffered the devastating blow of plunging cultivation levels, they now had to submit to coercive enslavement. Any normal person would have found such a relentless cascade of calamities entirely unbearable.

After calming down, Elder Chen of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect asked with an icy expression, "Was the Spirit-Control Gu not completely eradicated? May I ask where you managed to acquire it?"

Hearing this, Li Zhonghong felt no sense of remorse. He knew very well that stripped of his peak cultivation, despite the others also suffering drops in their realms, the Li family held no overwhelming advantage over them in the stages preceding the Dao Realm. Furthermore, with the opposition outnumbering them heavily, fighting them head-on was utterly out of the question.

Under the current circumstances, resorting to the despicable tactic of planting the Gu was the only way to compel these people to willingly obey the Li family.

He was also well aware that once the Gu-planting process was complete, he himself would eventually die. But compared to the interests of his lineage, what did his personal survival matter? This deeply ingrained belief was rooted in the minds of the Li family: the survival and interests of the clan outweighed those of a single lineage, while the survival and interests of a lineage outweighed those of the individual. Personal fate ranked last, appearing trivial by comparison.

With his back against the wall, Li Zhonghong could not afford to show a shred of cowardice. Doing so would only make him look like an easy target, a mere paper tiger whose Gu-threatening was nothing more than a bluff. Driven by his objectives, he could only reply in a cold, rigid, yet perfunctorily courteous tone, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. I admit that my actions today have wronged everyone, but I had no other choice. To track down all the lingering connections Daoist Lin left behind in Tianmen Town, we can only rely on your collective strength. The Li family alone could never accomplish this."

Elder Huang, whose temper was already notoriously foul, saw her remaining veneer of poise and dignity entirely shatter after her precipitous drop in cultivation. She roared furiously, "What the hell does that have to do with me?! If you want to go looking for traces of Daoist Lin, go find them yourselves! Why the hell should you use us as your lackneys? If you have a death wish, go die on your own; I’m not playing your games. I’ll say this only once: lift this damn Gu from me immediately, or I swear I’ll burn through my life force and drag you down with me to our mutual destruction. Dammit all, I might not be a match for Daoist Lin, but am I supposed to let you bullies walk all over me? Everyone’s strength is roughly on the same level now; there’s no talk of Dao Realms anymore. If we really fight, who lives and who dies remains to be seen!"

Incited by her outburst, the others grew restless as well, breaking out into loud murmurs of protest.

At this critical juncture, Li Zhonghong watched their reactions with cold eyes. Shifting his gaze, he locked his sights onto Xie Tong and Cao Xihe, the wariness in his eyes unmistakable.

Indeed, what troubled Li Zhonghong the most was not the resistance of the crowd, but the attitude of Xie Tong and Cao Xihe.

While he had confidence in the Li family’s Spirit-Control Gu, he was not arrogant enough to believe he could slaughter everyone present right under the noses of two Dao Realm powerhouses.

Just as public indignation reached its boiling point and the crowd was on the verge of attacking the Li family, Li Zhonghong finally made his move. With a single hand, he formed a hand seal, chanted an incantation, and instantly, everyone afflicted with the Gu collapsed paralyzed to the ground.

Li Xiyan had only just learned that his senior relatives had secretly planted the Spirit-Control Gu on everyone. He had wanted to intervene and speak out, but was suppressed by their seniority. The moment he tried to act, a single warning glance from them stopped him in his tracks. That look seemed to say: "Do not meddle. This is a matter of life and death for our lineage. If you still consider yourself a member of the Li family and of our lineage, lock away your conscience and your pride. What we need right now is not your grace, but your coldness and ruthlessness."

Li Xiyan knew in his heart that there was truly nothing he could do. When matters concerning the Li family's interests were at stake, individual interests and emotions were entirely insignificant.

Lu Ming had intended to step in as well, but just as he moved, Xie Tong instructed him, "Do not move. If you want to save Li Yu, let them search. Once they find him, with the strength of our Greater Sword Green Mountain and the power you and I possess, are we afraid of failing to snatch him away from these good-for-nothings?"

Hearing this, Lu Ming was momentarily stunned before a thought struck him. "Elder, do you mean to say that Li Yu is no longer in Tianmen Town?"

Xie Tong transmitted his voice, "He should still be in Tianmen Town. According to what you've told me, given his personality, he would never choose to run away when his master is facing a life-and-death crisis. Moreover, my spiritual sense has actually been monitoring his aura; I could sense it clearly until just a short while ago, but now I can no longer pinpoint it accurately. I suspect he has concealed himself. Yet remaining in hiding indefinitely is no solution. Under the circumstances, the only way forward is for him to be found by these people, after which we can wrest him from their hands and bring him back to Green Mountain. That is the only viable resolution."

Lu Ming asked, "Even you cannot find him, Elder?"

Xie Tong replied, "Otherwise, why do you think I would tolerate such petty and despicable behavior from them?"

Consequently, Lu Ming also held his ground. What baffled them, however, was why Cao Xihe, the head of the Academy of Harmony who had always advocated for universal harmony, had not expressed any reaction whatsoever!

Suppressed to the ground by the Spirit-Control Gu and unable to move for a long time, Elder Chen of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect was finally the first to speak after confirming that he truly could no longer mobilize his spiritual essence: "I yield. What do you want me to do?"

In truth, Elder Chen had deliberately stirred up the commotion earlier because he refused to believe that the other party genuinely possessed the Spirit-Control Gu. He had sought to fan the flames of public anger to trigger the uprising, testing whether the legendary Gu was real and what capabilities it truly possessed.

The result, naturally, left him feeling powerless. While he could not verify if it was an authentic Spirit-Control Gu, he could confirm with absolute certainty that his cultivation and mobility had indeed been suppressed—a total suppression that prevented him from mobilizing any power to fight back.

Compelled by this reality, he had no choice but to bow his head. Although powerhouses from Greater Sword Green Mountain and the Imperial Zenith Palace were standing nearby, he could not guarantee that they would actually step in to save everyone. Therefore, for the sake of his own life and to prevent the desperate Li family from doing something catastrophic, he had to swallow his pride first.

Watching him yield, Li Zhonghong felt no sense of triumph; only a chilling numbness remained within him. He knew that if he were to return to the Li family, he would likely be forced to lower his head in this exact same manner.

When all was said and forth, how different was he from these people?

With the first submission came the second. The crowd’s initial rebellious urge had never been robust—it was mostly resentment after being tricked and a vent for their frustration over being manipulated by the Daoist. Once they had vented and tested for themselves that there was truly no way to break the Spirit-Control Gu, only a single outcome remained for them: acceptance, or passive acceptance!

After exhausting numerous methods in vain, Elder Huang of the Shadow Mountain Sect finally recognized her grim reality. Her heart felt utterly desolate, never imagining that she, who had always looked down upon everyone from on high, would be beaten right back to her former self, forced to face the very version of herself she despised the most.

Such was life—their long, challenging lives.

Worldly affairs changed in the blink of an eye, and positions were forever fickle and impermanent!