Chapter 7: Seen Through

"Zhao Lan, if you confess now, I may still be able to reduce your sentence accordingly."

Pei Su said.

"What are you talking about?! What on earth are you saying?!"

Zhao Lan's voice was frantic. He then fixed his gaze directly on Liu Zhi.

"Miss! How could you side with him — how could you scheme against me together with him?!"

"Hmph! Against a traitor like you, no method is too underhanded!"

With Pei Su at her side, Liu Zhi showed not the slightest fear, lashing out with sharp words.

"My feelings for you were genuine, I was truly—"

"Enough. The moment you learned that His Lordship had arrived at the provincial seat, you rushed off to tip off your Uncle Xiao! Don't think I don't know!"

"I—"

Zhao Lan choked on his words, then turned to look at Pei Su.

"What happened to my Uncle Xiao?"

Pei Su still wore a faint smile, one brow arching slightly.

"You've trained under him in martial arts and blade techniques for so many years — can you truly say you know nothing of his background?"

Zhao Lan suddenly froze.

Uncle Xiao's background?

Just what kind of person was Uncle Xiao, to have drawn the attention of someone like the Heir of the Northern Marquis?

"Then let me tell you. That old blacksmith who taught you blade arts for twenty years was in truth a member of the imperial palace's forbidden guard — Deputy Commander of the Left Feathered-Forest Guard, a personal military officer commissioned by His Majesty himself."

Zhao Lan's legs went weak, his head buzzing with a dull roar.

He had suspected that Uncle Xiao had an extraordinary past, but he never could have imagined it was this grand.

The imperial palace's Feathered-Forest Guard!

Those were men who stood at the Emperor's side — the most elite, most exceptional force under heaven. And Uncle Xiao had been their deputy commander twenty years ago?!

A close retainer of the Emperor — even a provincial governor-general like Liu Gongyun would have to treat such a person with the utmost courtesy. No wonder Uncle Xiao had always looked down on the imperial inspectors who came from the Imperial Capital.

"There's something even more shocking. He is also the traitor who stole the divine blade Dragon-Sparrow and fled twenty years ago. Tell me — does your foster father have nerve, or does he not?"

The sliver of clarity Zhao Lan had just managed to recover exploded apart again with a deafening roar in his skull.

What had he just heard?

The divine blade Dragon-Sparrow!

The theft of that divine weapon twenty years ago had not merely shaken the court — all seventy-two provinces of the realm had been thrown into uproar.

It was one of the three great treasures of the imperial court — the divine blade Dragon-Sparrow!

It had been stolen during its escort north, and every righteous hero across the land had been outraged, swearing to cut down the thief with their own hands.

He and Uncle Xiao had both trained in the blade. He had even brought up the incident in front of Uncle Xiao more than once, his face flushed with indignation.

How could this be?

How could Uncle Xiao possibly be the thief who stole Dragon-Sparrow?

"Impossible! I don't believe it!"

Zhao Lan cried out.

Uncle Xiao was strict with him day to day, and his words were cold and blunt — but Zhao Lan could see that Uncle Xiao was no villain. He was a man of true chivalry, burning with loyalty to his homeland.

"You know a person's face but not their heart. There is no need for you to defend him."

"Uncle Xiao! Uncle Xiao! Whatever you do, don't come out!"

Zhao Lan shouted, his expression wild with agitation.

Seeing this, Pei Su shook his head.

This Zhao Lan's wits were incomparably inferior to those of his foster father.

Then again, one was a commander of the imperial guard past the age of seventy, while the other was a boy from poverty who had barely reached his twenties.

"There is no point in shouting. Your foster father is not here — how would he answer?"

Zhao Lan's voice died in his throat. He spun around and stared wide-eyed at Pei Su.

"Then where is Uncle Xiao?"

Pei Su smiled without answering, then spoke slowly—

"By the time my investigation led me to your foster father Xiao Lin, he had already vanished without a trace. That was not surprising — with the vigilance of a former imperial guard commander, the moment he learned that the Heir of the Northern Marquis had come here, he would inevitably be alarmed...

"What surprised me somewhat was that he had been living right here in Lin'an Commandery, the provincial capital of Bingzhou, rather than in some deep mountain forest or remote corner of the jianghu as everyone assumed. Could it be that Lin'an Commandery is somehow more concealed than other places?

"At the time I could only speculate — perhaps there was a hidden chamber somewhere in the city, or some Array Formation that suppressed one's aura. And you, as his foster son, might very well be a point of entry."

As Zhao Lan listened to Pei Su reach this point, his fists clenched tight, and he understood in an instant.

So... Liu Zhi had been working with Pei Su all along!

Pei Su paid him no mind and continued speaking at his own pace.

"Things went even more smoothly than I had imagined. You actually let slip the location of a certain hidden place. But in the very next moment, my suspicions surged — with Xiao Lin's intelligence, how could he have left behind such a loose end as you?

"Unless... it was deliberate."

By this point Zhao Lan was completely dumbstruck. He watched as the corner of Pei Su's mouth curved into a mocking arc.

"Given Deputy Commander Xiao's strength, the only people in all of Bingzhou capable of killing him would be members of my Pei clan. In order to escape pursuit, he turned the scheme against its schemers and went along with the current — allowing you to be investigated and tracked by us, leading us to this place... which is completely cut off from the outside world."

Pei Su glanced at the peach grove nearby and the sky veiled in cloud and mist.

"And at this very moment, it is the perfect opportunity for him to force his way through the northern border pass. By the time we realize we have been deceived and make our way out, he will long since have flown free as a bird — recapturing him would be far more difficult."

Zhao Lan stood there in a daze, unable to believe that Uncle Xiao had devised such a scheme.

Wait — wait a moment!

If Uncle Xiao's plan was truly as Pei Su described, yet the Heir of the Northern Marquis had just laid it all out in full — then what about Uncle Xiao?

Pei Su cast a sidelong glance at the sky and gave a quiet laugh.

He had naturally prepared for both possibilities. If Xiao Lin was hiding in this place, he would use his trump card to capture him here. But judging by the situation, it was exactly as he had anticipated — Xiao Lin intended to seize this opportunity to break through the pass and escape.

"By my reckoning, Elder Wu should be meeting with Deputy Commander Xiao at the border pass right about now. What a pity — I would have loved to see the look on his face..."

* * *

The northern border pass of Lin'an.

High in the sky, two figures stood facing each other from a distance, both radiating transcendent power, their presence scattering the clouds in all directions.

The figure on the left was shrouded entirely in black robes, his body emanating a deep, deathly aura mingled with a poisonous miasma that chilled the soul.

The figure on the right wore coarse hemp cloth and straw sandals, with a battered, ash-stained hat. Beneath the hat, his face was an unsettlingly dark complexion.

"Seen through completely by the Young Lord — and yet the mighty Deputy Commander of the imperial guard amounts to no more than this..."

The black-robed elder's laughter was hoarse and grating, yet every word cut like a blade.

"You are not a man of the court. You are... a death warrior of the Pei clan!"

Xiao Lin enunciated each word deliberately. When he spoke the words "Pei clan," it was as though something had surfaced in his memory — a flicker of fear appeared in the depths of his eyes.

"Hmph!"

The black-robed elder let out a cold snort and gave no reply. He extended a withered palm and pushed forward with a single, unhurried strike.

In an instant, wind howled across heaven and earth, the cloud layers surged like great waves, and a torrent of black killing energy came rolling forth.

Xiao Lin's expression grew grave. With a sharp shake of his sleeve, he was forced back nearly ten steps, a sharp pain flaring in his chest.

The dispersing force rippled outward into the distance, snapping countless trees and plants, shaking the very ground.

Below, many of the garrison soldiers stood slack-jawed, as though witnessing a myth.

"Just who are those people?!"

"What terrifying power — they must be among the absolute pinnacles of the entire Great Jin Dynasty!"

"To think that a small place like Bingzhou could witness a clash between such powerhouses!"

The captain of the guards, clad in black armor, stared blankly at a peculiar stone within the compound. It was now blazing with a brilliant, mysterious light.

He murmured under his breath: "Two... two Heavenly Palace Realm cultivators?!"

And neither was an ordinary Heavenly Palace Realm practitioner. Xiao Lin had already been at the eighth tier of the Heavenly Palace Realm twenty years ago. Twenty years on, though he had not yet broken through to the ninth tier, his aura had grown ever more dense and consolidated.

As for the black-robed elder — Pei Su had said he was unmatched below the Heaven-Man level, and the reason was this: he had originally been a Heaven-Man himself, only to fall back half a step to the Dharma Manifestation Realm after suffering a grievous poisoning.

But regardless, he had once briefly set foot in the Dharma Manifestation Realm. Within the Heavenly Palace Realm, no one could match him.