The female cultivator was named Chang Sanbao, the youngest junior sister of the group of four. When she learned that Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze were heading to Ice-Soul Snow Mountain, she carefully explained the route to them. “We’re in Xiangqu right now. Another eight hundred li north is the outer edge of the icefield. Ice-Soul Snow Mountain lies at the center of the icefield, and it’s so bitterly cold there that even Foundation Establishment cultivators will freeze to death without special protective magical artifacts.”
“Xuanshuang City is the second-largest city on the icefield, and many cultivators hunting for treasure there use Xuanshuang City as their base. Cold Crow Stronghold sits right on the only route from Xiangqu to Xuanshuang City.”
Chang Sanbao gestured as she spoke. “Seniors, if you want to reach Xuanshuang City without passing Cold Crow Stronghold, it’s basically impossible.”
Xia Yunzhao rubbed his chin. “Sounds troublesome…”
Chang Sanbao nodded vigorously. Of course it was! Every local cultivator knew the master of Cold Crow Stronghold was a lunatic. If they encountered people from the stronghold, they either ran or took a detour. Almost nobody dared kill them.
Xia Yunzhao’s next question almost made Chang Sanbao hiccup from fright. He asked Shang Shuangze, “Are thirty Foundation Establishment cultivators hard to deal with?”
Shang Shuangze smiled faintly. “That depends on what kind of Foundation Establishment cultivators they are.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. “Got it. Ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators aren’t difficult.” Forget Shang Shuangze. Xia Yunzhao himself had already killed two Foundation Establishment cultivators on his own. After thinking for a moment, he continued, “When you mentioned special magical artifacts just now, did you mean clothing made from Fire-Rat pelts? Is the tailor shop across the street the one that can process them?”
Chang Sanbao smiled. “Looks like Senior has already asked around.” Her eyes darted thoughtfully. “Please wait a moment. I’ll call the people across the street over so you can ask them properly.”
With that, she dashed out. Xia Yunzhao was still baffled. Call the people across the street over? Didn’t you just finish fighting with them?
An exaggerated, triumphant laugh soon came from outside as a young male cultivator swaggered in. “Hehehe, Little Sanbao, how about it? Still have to come begging me, don’t you? I told you not to throw pots at me, and you… Ow!”
A spatula flew out of the kitchen and struck him squarely on the head. His forehead immediately swelled into a bright red lump like a balloon being inflated.
The young man flew into a rage. “Pei Yuanxiao! Throw another spatula at me and I’m telling your master!”
A cold-faced female cultivator poked her head out of the kitchen and rolled her eyes at him.
Chang Sanbao grabbed him and dragged him forward. “Quit dawdling. We have customers asking about Fire-Rat pelts! If you refuse business, Uncle Huang will beat you half to death when he gets back!”
The young man swallowed his anger and walked over. Only after seeing Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze did he respectfully salute them. “Greetings, Seniors.”
Xia Yunzhao gestured for him to sit, then asked about the Fire-Rat pelts.
The young man brightened immediately. “If you’re asking about Fire-Rat pelts, you’ve come to exactly the right people. Across the entire northern icefield, we’re the only household that knows how to process them!”
Xia Yunzhao took a strategic sip of tea and shot Shang Shuangze a look. There was no mistake. These people cultivated through clothing. They were garment cultivators.
The young man then frowned. “Unfortunately, the two seniors came at a bad time. Fire Rats have been very hard to find lately.” He explained, “Cold Crow Stronghold has grown stronger year by year. They’ve fenced off every place where Fire Rats appear and won’t let anyone else enter, monopolizing the source of Fire-Rat pelts so they can make money from them. We haven’t seen a Fire-Rat pelt in ages.”
“Now that’s a coincidence.” Xia Yunzhao nodded. “No wonder that bandit said they fought among Fire Rats every day.” Then he asked, “There aren’t Fire Rats anywhere else? They fenced off every place that has them?”
“That’s right, Senior,” the young garment cultivator said. “Fire Rats depend on underground magma to survive. The only magma zone nearby happens to be close to Cold Crow Stronghold. They occupied it, so Fire Rats can’t be found anywhere else. Sneaking in to hunt them isn’t possible either. If the two seniors want to go to the central region of the icefield, you’ll need spirit garments made from at least sixty Fire-Rat pelts.”
Xia Yunzhao was startled. “Sixty?”
The young man said with certainty, “At least. If you can use more than a hundred, the insulation will be even better. Even climbing Ice-Soul Snow Mountain wouldn’t expose you to the cold qi.”
That was extremely tempting.
That night, Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze discussed the matter in their room for a long time and did not go to sleep until late.
Xiangqu was not inside the icefield, but the nighttime temperature was still very low. In the middle of the night, Xia Yunzhao felt a little cat head rubbing around his neck. He opened a small gap in the covers and let Xianchan crawl inside.
A dark figure stood beside the window.
Xia Yunzhao knew the figure well, so he was not startled at all. He was merely puzzled. Why was Shang Shuangze standing beside the bed instead of sleeping?
The next instant, he heard a faint click. The tiny sound vanished into the raging wind, almost impossible to hear, but Xia Yunzhao knew he had not imagined it.
He slipped silently out of bed, tugged Shang Shuangze’s sleeve, and gestured: Someone’s coming?
Shang Shuangze nodded. He spread both hands and formed a string of small balls of spiritual power. The balls flew to the bedside, the door, the corners of the walls, and several other spots.
A tremendous crash suddenly erupted, and several figures smashed through the door and walls!
The intruders froze when they saw the two men already standing inside. They raised their blades and prepared to charge, only to realize that the positions Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze had chosen somehow placed every single attacker within their encirclement.
Uh… is that how this is supposed to work?
They could believe the two had heard them coming, but how had they even predicted exactly where everyone would enter from?
Following the excellent tradition of kicking an enemy while he was down, Xia Yunzhao launched a kick before they could recover!
He could not use the Earthfire Art indoors, and the Earthwalking Art was useless here too, so Xiao Xia simply circulated power through both palms. Hundred-Form Palm, go!
The spiritual power of a Foundation Establishment cultivator surged more violently than the northern wind outside. It swept up several men across from him and hurled them straight back through the broken wall, smashing apart the railing before they crashed downstairs. Judging by their breathing, they had very little life left in them.
After that palm strike, even Xia Yunzhao froze. He said regretfully, “Aiya! I should’ve left someone alive!” He glanced over and saw that Shang Shuangze had not finished yet, hurried over to snatch one opponent away, and pinned the man beneath his foot. At least one survived.
The one-sided fight ended in fewer than three breaths. Only then did lights come on downstairs, followed by Chang Sanbao’s furious roar. “Which suicidal bastard dared come steal from my shop?!”
More lights came on one after another. Chang Sanbao, Pei Yuanxiao, and the other two senior brothers came out, took one look at the shop, and instantly gaped. “This…”
Standing on the only surviving Cold Crow Stronghold bandit, Xia Yunzhao looked down and said apologetically, “Sorry. I accidentally demolished part of your shop. I’ll make them pay for it in a bit.” Those bandits ought to have plenty of valuable things on them anyway.
Before Chang Sanbao could speak, Pei Yuanxiao’s expression turned solemn. She checked the corpses downstairs. “They’re from Cold Crow Stronghold.”
Chang Sanbao’s face darkened too. “What? They entered the city?”
Seeing Xia Yunzhao’s confusion, she explained, “People from Cold Crow Stronghold have never entered the inner city before. They don’t enter Xuanshuang City or Xiangqu. Even when they’re chasing someone down, they do it outside the city.”
The other two senior brothers were Liang Baiwei, the older one, and Jiang Yukuai, the younger. Their expressions were ugly as well. Liang Baiwei said, “Could they have learned that Master and Uncle Huang are both away and decided there’s nothing to fear?”
Jiang Yukuai looked puzzled. “But Master and Uncle Huang are only at Foundation Establishment too. They aren’t even as strong in a fight as these two seniors, and Cold Crow Stronghold never entered the city before even when they were here.”
Xia Yunzhao thought, You’re explaining your master and martial uncle’s weakness awfully clearly. Do they know you talk about them like this? He waved a hand. “No rush. We’ll know once we ask.”
He lifted the only survivor from beneath his foot and smiled. “I don’t know how hard the bones of Cold Crow Stronghold cultivators are, but let me warn you in advance. I’m a pill cultivator.”
The Cold Crow Stronghold bandit’s previously disdainful expression changed, and he shuddered involuntarily.
A short while later, everyone had pried the information out of him.
Chang Sanbao hesitated, but finally could not resist asking, “Senior, may I ask what breaking every bone in his body has to do with you being a pill cultivator?”
Beside them, Shang Shuangze was wiping his hands with a cloth. He gave a quiet laugh.
Xia Yunzhao talked complete nonsense. “Because I’m a pill cultivator. If I break all his bones and he still refuses to talk, I can heal him and break them again.”
The four culinary cultivators: “…”
Not only had every bone in the bandit’s body been broken, Shang Shuangze had also crippled his cultivation. He was still alive, however, so they tied him up with the Spirit-Binding Rope and tossed him aside.
Xia Yunzhao flipped through the information he had just written down. “You said Cold Crow Stronghold has existed for more than eighty years, right? Then why has it changed so much in the last two years? Its strength expanded rapidly, and so did its territory. That evil art called the ‘Cold Crow Feather’ also appeared during these last two years, didn’t it? Did something happen two years ago?”
“Two years ago…” Chang Sanbao scratched her head and looked at her three senior siblings. The three of them scratched their heads too, then exchanged looks.
They were culinary cultivators, and their master was extremely demanding. Their cultivation took a great deal of time, and they practically spent forty hours a day in the kitchen. They genuinely knew very little about what happened outside.
Pei Yuanxiao sighed. “Then we’ll have to ask Master…” Halfway through, she looked puzzled. “Why do I feel like I can hear Master’s voice? Am I imagining it?”
Liang Baiwei listened carefully, then immediately stood. “You’re not imagining it! Master’s back!”
Xia Yunzhao looked at Shang Shuangze. Shang Shuangze nodded, so Xia Yunzhao quieted himself and listened too. Sure enough, amid the howling northern wind came a loud, hearty laugh. “Hahahaha! My good disciples, your master is back! Did you all behave and cook properly while I was gone?”
The four culinary cultivators blew outside like little whirlwinds. “Master!”
“Master, you’re back?”
“Master, why are you so late? You’re two days later than expected!”
Their master laughed loudly. “I brought back something good this time. A pill called the Delicious Fasting Pill has been all the rage in Beiliang City lately. Your master went through hell and high water to get one. It tastes marvelous. In a bit, I’ll split it with all of you…”
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
Their master stepped into the main hall, saw the scene before him, and abruptly stopped mid-sentence. After a long silence, he said, “Good disciples, were you so impatient waiting for your master to return that you decided to renovate the shop yourselves?”
The four disciples pushed and dragged him farther inside. “Stop joking, Master. Look carefully! These are people from Cold Crow Stronghold! They entered the city! They came to kill our guests!”
Only then did Xia Yunzhao get a clear look at their master. He appeared to be a middle-aged man around forty, dusty from travel yet still carrying a strong air of everyday worldly life. His temperament somewhat resembled Boss Lin from Yuexian Inn. In short, he did not look like someone who cultivated immortality at all. If anything, he looked more like a merchant.
This should be Lu Shi, master of Yanhuo Studio. The moment Xia Yunzhao looked at him, he remembered that gossip slip… He hurriedly cleared his throat. Sinful, sinful. Gossiping about someone to his face would be rude.
After his disciples gestured and talked their way through the story, Lu Shi finally understood what had happened. His expression became slightly serious. He pondered for a moment. “Two years ago… something major really did happen on the icefield.”
He looked at Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze and first asked, “Did the two Fellow Daoists travel all this way to the icefield in search of treasure?”
Xia Yunzhao answered frankly, “Yes. We’re looking for a particular spirit medicine.”
Lu Shi nodded. “Then you came at both a fortunate and an unfortunate time.”
He continued, “Two years ago, around this same season, the icefield suddenly trembled and its spiritual energy fell into chaos. Many cultivators went to investigate, but none of them returned. Another two months passed before news finally came from Xuanshuang City: a small secret realm had appeared above Ice-Soul Mountain in the center of the icefield. After that, Ice-Soul Snow Mountain began producing fewer and fewer spirit medicines, as if the secret realm were absorbing all the spiritual energy.”
Forget Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze. Even the four disciples were stunned. “A small secret realm? Why didn’t we know about it?!”
Lu Shi said helplessly, “Xuanshuang City would obviously keep news like that to itself. How could you possibly know?”
The four disciples said, “Then how do you know, Master? Aren’t you just an ordinary unaffiliated cultivator?”
Lu Shi replied, “Your master naturally has his own channels… All right, all right. Go to bed, all of you. Stop disturbing me while I catch up with these two Fellow Daoists.”
The four disciples were speechless. We’re the ones who introduced you. What old friendship are you catching up on?
Xia Yunzhao watched him chase the disciples away and said, “Fellow Daoist, you hid it because you don’t want them entering the secret realm, right?”
Lu Shi smiled. “The two of you are clever. As far as I know, nobody has managed to enter that secret realm since it appeared. The north is bitterly cold and sparsely populated, yes, but even with few cultivators, a small secret realm shouldn’t remain impossible to open. There must be something unusual about it. Me, I have no grand ambitions. I don’t expect those few foolish disciples of mine to achieve greatness and ascend. I only hope they can cultivate in peace, stir-fry a few dishes every day, drink a little pot of wine, and live days better than immortals.”
Xia Yunzhao understood the meaning behind his words and smiled. “Don’t worry. We won’t drag you into this. We’ll resolve the matter as quickly as possible.”
Lu Shi chuckled and finished telling them what he knew. “Ever since that small secret realm appeared, Ice-Soul Snow Mountain has produced fewer and fewer spirit items. No matter what spirit medicine you’re looking for, your chances of finding it on the mountain have dropped considerably. However, some people suspect the secret realm has not opened for several hundred years, so it should contain plenty of hidden treasures. Perhaps there’s something inside that the two of you need.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded, thanked him for the information, then took out two pills. “I smelled that Fasting Pill of yours ages ago. Yours is fake. Mine is the real thing.” With that, he entered the room with Shang Shuangze.
Lu Shi stared at the closed door, then at the Delicious Fasting Pills in his hand. Their fragrance was completely different from the pill he had bought, yet far more tempting. He froze.
The two had entered a new room. Their previous room had several enormous holes smashed through it and could no longer be used, so Chang Sanbao had opened another room for them. Xianchan, Xiao Qing, and Mingyun were already inside.
Shang Shuangze asked, “What do you want to do?”
Xia Yunzhao smiled mysteriously. “Do you remember what I got from that old cultivator?”
Shang Shuangze thought for a moment, then sighed and covered his forehead. “…”
The next morning, the clang and clatter of work began early inside Yanhuo Studio.
The four disciples were hardworking. At dawn, they had already cleaned the shop, disposed of the bodies, and even repaired the damaged room.
Chang Sanbao was directing one of her senior brothers to scrub the floor when she heard the upstairs door open. She immediately raised her voice in greeting. “Good mor… ning…”
The person who came out was not one of the two seniors. It was the Cold Crow Stronghold bandit they had captured!
Chang Sanbao’s scalp went numb. She was just about to scream when the bandit winked at her and revealed a familiar, bright smile.
Behind him, Shang Shuangze walked out while carrying a bandit who looked like a blood-soaked gourd.
Only then did Chang Sanbao realize the obvious. Right! The bandit had already had his cultivation crippled and every bone crushed. How could he possibly have recovered this quickly?
So… “You are…?”
The bandit opened his mouth, and sure enough, Xia Yunzhao’s voice came out. “Well? Do I look like him? It’s a Disguise Art. Isn’t it amazing?”
Chang Sanbao honestly nodded. “You don’t just look like him. Even his own father or son probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
Xia Yunzhao struggled not to laugh, while Shang Shuangze behind him continued sighing.
Lu Shi strolled over with a small teapot, taking tiny sips of palate-cleansing tea. “Are the two Fellow Daoists planning to sneak into Cold Crow Stronghold and have a look?”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. “Know yourself and know your enemy! Do you have an iron chain in the shop?”
“Yes!” Chang Sanbao hurried off to search and soon returned with an iron chain as thick as a wrist.
Xiao Xia was very satisfied and immediately started fastening it around Shang Shuangze’s hands. “Right.” He took out another storage pouch. “Compensation for you.”
After the Fang family, Cold Crow Stronghold had become another major supplier of storage pouches for Xiao Xia. They had interacted only twice and already contributed sixteen storage pouches: seven bandits who tried to rob them the day before yesterday, and another nine who came last night.
Among last night’s nine attackers, however, only one was at Foundation Establishment. The other eight were at Qi Refining, so their storage pouches held nothing particularly good. They had only a little over eighty thousand spirit pearls, and the rest of the assorted materials were worth perhaps another twenty or thirty thousand.
The good news was that Cold Crow Stronghold’s storage pouches had no identifying marks. They could use them freely!
Cold Crow Stronghold was clearly much more generous than the Fang family.
Xia Yunzhao had sorted everything the previous night and now picked out some materials to compensate the shop.
Chang Sanbao opened the pouch and found common icefield slaughter beasts and ingredients. She immediately brightened. “This is great! Seniors, please wait. We’ll cook you a proper feast right away!”
The four disciples really did prepare a table full of spirit cuisine, and the two men, mainly Xiao Xia, ate until their stomachs were round.
Xiao Xia held the chain attached to Shang Shuangze’s wrists as they walked outside and explained the plot to everyone. “Shang Shuangze is my captive. I’m planning to kidnap him and demand ransom. That way, both of us can enter Cold Crow Stronghold together.”
The four disciples nodded. “Reasonable, very reasonable.” They also felt bad accepting so many ingredients without helping, so Chang Sanbao asked, “Why don’t we help with the disguise? Senior Shang looks so neat and tidy. He doesn’t really look like someone who was captured.”
Pei Yuanxiao suggested, “Rub some wood ash on his face. He’ll look more bedraggled.”
All four simultaneously grabbed handfuls of ash and reached for Shang Shuangze’s face. Xia Yunzhao hurriedly blocked them. “No need. He can just keep his head down. Nobody will see his face.”
Liang Baiwei thought for a moment. “Then how about sticking a few pieces of straw in his hair? There should at least be some sign that he was captured.”
The four grabbed straw and reached toward his hair. Xia Yunzhao blocked them again. “Th-that isn’t necessary either. Nobody said a captive’s hair has to be messy!”
Jiang Yukuai reached for Shang Shuangze’s sleeve. “Then maybe smear a little on his clothes…”
Xia Yunzhao squeezed his whole body between them to block him, arguing with perfect conviction, “Clean clothes make him look rich!”
Everyone: “…”
A deep laugh sounded beside his ear. Xia Yunzhao’s face warmed slightly. He raised a hand and scratched his cheek. “Th-that’s enough. We’ll go like this. We’re leaving first.”
The four disciples watched their backs. After a long silence, Chang Sanbao cursed under her breath. “Serves me right for talking nonsense!”
Pei Yuanxiao and Liang Baiwei both patted her shoulder, then went into the kitchen.
Only Jiang Yukuai looked left and right, scratching his head. “Huh? What? What happened?”
Lu Shi looked at his four foolish disciples and chuckled. Beside him lay the genuine Cold Crow Stronghold bandit, breathing out far more often than he breathed in.
Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze traveled all the way to the foot of the mountain where Cold Crow Stronghold was located.
Because of that strange Cold Crow Feather technique, they were afraid the stronghold master might be able to sense whether his people were dead, so they had not killed the captured bandit. They simply left him with Lu Shi to watch over.
The two reached the stronghold halfway up the mountain. Instead of entering immediately, they hid behind a boulder and observed it for a while.
After about fifteen minutes, Xia Yunzhao frowned. “Is their security really this loose? I feel like we could get in without even disguising ourselves.”
There were barely any proper patrols from the bottom of the stronghold to the top. The small fry were only around the third or fourth layer of Qi Refining and were either drinking, sleeping, or boasting and chatting. Even the guards who were supposed to be stationed at the stronghold gate were nowhere to be seen.
Farther uphill stood a cluster of crude tents. The cultivators inside seemed to range from the seventh layer of Qi Refining to Great Completion of Qi Refining.
At the very top stood several wooden buildings that presumably housed the Foundation Establishment cultivators. Three buildings were particularly conspicuous. According to the captured bandit’s confession, those should be the residences of Cold Crow Stronghold’s three leaders.
The Second Chief and Third Chief were both at late Foundation Establishment, while the First Chief, who was also the master of Cold Crow Stronghold, was at Great Completion of Foundation Establishment.
Nobody had ever seen him fight. As the stronghold members liked to boast: everyone who had seen their master make a move was already dead.
If Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze wanted to wipe out the stronghold, this master would be their greatest obstacle.
“We’ll have to break them apart and deal with them separately.” Xia Yunzhao shook the iron chain. “Come on. Let’s go inside and test the waters.”
Shang Shuangze obediently allowed himself to be pulled forward.
They entered through the stronghold gate. The members who heard them looked up once, then lost interest. A few who knew the bandit even teased, “Yo! Second Brother, nice haul today! You caught yourself a fat sheep this big!”
Xia Yunzhao gave a vague response and did not say much.
The bandits were utterly unwary. They merely assumed he was unusually quiet today and never imagined an impostor had taken his place.
The two reached the rear mountain where nobody was around, immediately threw away the chain, and vanished in a blur.
They slipped past the crude tents and, with perfect tacit understanding, headed straight for the stronghold master’s room.
Before entering the mountain, they had both taken Aura-Concealing Pills. Now they suppressed their auras and lay flat on the roof like two leaves, making no sound at all.
They pressed their ears to the roof and listened for a long time, but heard nothing.
Xia Yunzhao mouthed, “The bandit said the stronghold master has spent a lot of time in closed-door cultivation these past few years and is rarely seen. Could he be cultivating right now?”
Shang Shuangze sensed the room for a moment, shook his head, and mouthed back, “No spiritual-energy fluctuations.”
Xia Yunzhao thought for a moment, then decided to take a risk. “Come on. Let’s go in and look.”
The two silently dropped from the roof, opened the window, and slipped inside.
Clack-clack-clack…
The sound was strangely familiar. Xia Yunzhao closed the window and turned around. Cold sweat instantly broke out across his body. A person was staring fixedly at them, and the unmistakable pressure of Great Completion of Foundation Establishment rushed straight at him!
Shang Shuangze immediately turned and pulled him into his arms. His lips brushed the rim of Xia Yunzhao’s ear as he said softly, “Don’t be afraid. It’s a puppet.”
“A puppet…” Xia Yunzhao’s heavy, rapid heartbeat thudded through flesh and bone against Shang Shuangze’s chest, one beat after another. He leaned out to look. The figure’s eyes were completely lifeless, and it stood perfectly still. Sure enough, it was a puppet at Great Completion of Foundation Establishment.
…The master of Cold Crow Stronghold is a puppet?
No. More accurately, who replaced the master of Cold Crow Stronghold with a puppet?