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1. The “scissors” gesture is formed by extending your index and middle fingers and crossing them over each other. It represents precision, cutting-edge, and aggression. The scissors are meant to symbolize a pair of scissors, a knife, or any other sharp and pointed object.
Thunderbolt!
The dark clouds pressed over hundreds of miles of demonic mountains as blood-colored lightning connected the sky and the ground from top to bottom, illuminating the pale face of the old man standing in front of the window at the five-sided tower on a cliff at the side peak of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
He Buqun looked at the mountains in the distance. His eyes were bright, but his hair, which he used to take care of every day, was now scattered on his shoulders, and the robe of the Great Elder he was wearing was also full of wrinkles.
—He Qingjiao was dead.
To be precise, she had been dead for at least half a month.
However, before the disciple of the Heavenly Demon Sect came in to report, he knew nothing about it.
In order to force Gu Mingxin away, he abandoned his third son, He Jiming, killing him with his own hands...
Before that, the Great Elder of the Ghost Spirit Sect said that Gu Mingxin had been captured, so he sent his second son He Jifeng to bring her back, but he never returned...
And now, his last child, He Qingjiao, was also dead...
He Buqun took a deep breath, turned his head to look at the disciple who was kneeling on one knee behind him, and asked in a calm tone, "Is it true?"
"It is true. I heard it from a junior brother who escaped from Moonfall Gorge by chance. Young Master fought a Nascent Soul cultivator of the Black Star Sect for several hours and finally died... I went to confirm it and found a grave in the nearby mountain with this stuck on it..."
The disciple bowed and took out He Qingjiao's sword from the storage bag, offering it with both hands.
Seeing the sword, He Buqun turned from the window and came closer. He reached out to hold the hilt of the sword and looked at the marks on it.
However, in the next moment, in his bloodshot eyes, which had been quite calm so far, there was a burst of murderous intent.
He Buqun grabbed the disciple's face and exerted a little force. There was a "cracking" sound, and the disciple didn't even have time to feel anything before his head was crushed by the five fingers and exploded.
"Hah!"
He smashed the man's body against a wooden chair beside him, glaring at the Eastern Region map hanging on the wall with gritted teeth.
The last time the immortals invaded the Eastern Region, they spent many years and paid a heavy price before they barely came to fight on the banks of the Blood River.
But this time?
It was only a little more than half a year.
How was this possible?!
He Buqun closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly turned his head to look at the pile of jade slips on the table.
These jade slips were all messages from other demonic sects.
Although He Buqun still thought it was unlikely, the attack of the immortals this time was not normal. Now there was only one possibility to explain why the immortals could cross the Blood River so quickly.
—All these messages were false.
Someone impersonated the leaders of each demonic sect in the Eastern Region, as well as the secret agents infiltrated into the immortal sects, and sent him a series of messages that were deliberately modified.
If that was really the case, then from the moment the immortal sects invaded the Eastern Region, the demonic sects got blindsided one after another.
But...
He Buqun picked up a jade slip and looked at it for a moment.
He concluded that these jade slips could not be false.
Each one carried the demonic aura of the demonic sects' leaders, and it was indeed sent by them.
If there was a false, that could only be the content inside.
In other words, someone controlled the news channels of almost all demonic sects and used true and false news to play all the demonic cultivators in the Eastern Region like monkeys.
He Buqun gritted his teeth. He couldn't figure out who this person was, but if this person really existed, then it should be a demonic cultivator who was familiar with all the sects in the Eastern Region.
Gu Mingxin?
Not likely. Although she had good cultivation aptitudes, she didn't have the ability to manipulate the news of the entire Eastern Region.
He Buqun searched his mind for people who could do this. Then, his expression froze slightly, and he muttered to himself. "Heavenly Demonic Scroll..."
The moment he said these words, a gust of cold wind suddenly blew in from the window, carrying a strong smell of blood that filled the whole room.
He Buqun paused slightly, his face turning pale, and he turned around in a hurry. Not daring to look up, he knelt on one knee. "Greetings, My Lord."
A middle-aged man wearing a white mask was already sitting on a tea chair in the room.
Gu Yu Yan supported his cheek with his right hand, squinting at the red-haired old man in front of him. His eyes were full of disappointment as he whispered, "He Buqun..."
"I know my mistakes." He Buqun hurried to answer, swallowed his saliva, and defended himself. "I really did not expect that someone among the demonic cultivators could intercept the news of so many sects in the Eastern Region, otherwise..."
"Heh..."
Was he laughing?
He Buqun was a little surprised when he heard this contemptuous laugh, but he did not dare to look up and lowered his head even more.
"The last time the immortals fought against the demonic cultivators, although they blocked them for hundreds of years, they were eventually pushed back by the immortals, forcing me to take action myself and drive those immortals back. This time, it took less than a year."
"..."
"The Deification and the Nascent Soul cultivators fought each other, but in front of the Void Returning cultivators, they were like children fighting. Tell me, why did I establish this Heavenly Demon Sect, and why did I take care of you children?"
When He Buqun heard this, his heart almost stopped.
He knew what Yu Yan meant.
There was a fundamental difference between the immortal and demonic sects. Most of the immortal sect masters established a sect casually to engrave their names in history, or they really wanted to spread their teachings.
However, the masters of the demonic sects had only one reason to establish a sect.
That was to enable themselves to reach a higher level.
Whether it was the disciples or Elders in the sect, for the sect master, they were nothing more than tools to achieve his own goals...
And since they were tools, as long as they became useless or old, they would be thrown away or melted to make new tools.
Just like in the Heavenly Demon Sect, any demonic cultivator who couldn't prove his value would be sent to the alchemy furnace to be refined into blood pills and assimilated into the cultivation of other disciples.
The same was true for He Buqun. He had never regarded He Jiming and the others as his offspring. From the beginning to the end, he believed that his offspring were his own stepping stones.
And now that Yu Yan came to find him, it meant that he was already a useless person in his eyes.
He Buqun gritted his teeth. Although he wanted to defend himself, he knew that it would be futile for him to say anything now. There was only one word waiting for him.
—Death.
"..."
Yu Yan snorted again. "Heh… nothing to say?"
He Buqun was silent for a while, but in the end, he gritted his teeth, raised his head, and answered him. "I will enter the Heavenly Demon Blood Pool on my own initiative and use my remaining spiritual cultivation to support you, Patriarch, but please, spare my life first. I have already grasped the whereabouts of Gu Mingxin. I can always enter the blood pool after I catch her!!"
Yu Yan narrowed his eyes slightly and stood up. "Then, I will wait for you..."
As he spoke, Yu Yan's figure gradually turned into a streak of blood before disappearing directly in front of He Buqun.
This move left He Buqun stunned for a long time.
Although it couldn't be possible, he actually felt a hint of "kindness" from Gu Yu Yan just now.
Recalling Yu Yan's tone and words just now, he vaguely realized that he seemed to be in a very good mood...
And it was probably because of his good mood that he let him go.
He Buqun waited until Yu Yan's aura completely dissipated before he dared to stand up, walked to the window, and looked at the bloody clouds in the sky.
Although he didn't know why Yu Yan was in a good mood, he had escaped a disaster after all.
Just now he said that he had grasped Gu Mingxin's whereabouts, but in fact, he only said that to save his life.
How could he know where Gu Mingxin was hiding now?
But the words had been said after all. If he failed to bring Gu Mingxin to Yu Yan the next time he saw him, his life would be over.
"Huu..."
He Buqun let out a heavy breath.
However, at the moment of exhaling, a long and distant bell rang out, echoing among the ghostly stone mountains on the horizon.
Dong—!!!
Dong—!!!
Dong...
He Buqun looked at the main peak of the Heavenly Demon Sect in disbelief.
If that bell rang, it meant that the immortals had already arrived at the Heavenly Demon Sect.
Because the news had been manipulated by someone, He Buqun thought that the three regions' immortals were still near the Blood River, and never thought that they had already entered the heartland of the Heavenly Demon Sect...
However, with the sound of the bell, he also understood the reason why Yu Yan was in a good mood.
—Most likely, the leader of the Black Star Sect came to the door herself...
The Heavenly Demon Sect was Yu Yan's hometown.
Although Red Moon and the other leaders of the Immortal Family were Void Returning cultivators, Yu Yan had the advantage of the terrain. Even if the leaders of the four sects of Bright Star Sect, Cold Country, Awareness Sect, and Imperial Sect joined forces, it would be a fifty-fifty fight.
After all, the Patriarch of the Heavenly Demon Sect, Gu Yu Yan, the Supreme Lord of Hell, was one of the rare demonic cultivators in the past ten thousand years who used formation techniques in his cultivation.
What's more, the Bright Star Sect's Zu Yuan had lost his cultivation, and the Imperial Sect's Patriarch Nangong Cheng was killed by the Demon King...
If the Matriarch of the Black Star Sect really came, she was definitely courting death.
But...
Would that Red Moon Matriarch really come to the Heavenly Demon Sect knowing she was bound to lose?
He Buqun looked at the main peak of the Heavenly Demon Sect and turned into a streak of blood, jumping out of the window and heading straight for the main peak…
…
At the same time, at the foot of the main peak of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
The continuous pavilions were neatly arranged on both sides of the street. Many inner disciples were staring at the Heavenly Demon Palace on the top of the mountain with a blank look on their faces, wondering about the bell sound that had just spread throughout the entire sect.
Two disciples were resting in front of an old well. "What happened? I've been in the Heavenly Demon Sect for more than fifty years, and this is the first time I've heard the bell of the Heavenly Demon Palace ring."
"I don't know, wait for the Elders to come and give instructions."
"By the way… which Elder is still in the sect now? I thought Elder Mu and the others went out to deal with the immortal cultivators?"
"Elder He has been here, and it seems that Elder Chen from the Insect Hall is also here... I don't know about the others..."
...
As the two chatted here, they suddenly felt that they saw something white in their peripheral vision. They froze, and then they both looked in that direction.
What they saw was the head of a girl with silver hair poking out of the well that had been abandoned for decades.
The silver-haired girl held the edge of the well with both hands, looked at the two Heavenly Demon Sect disciples who were only in the Foundation Building stage, blinked, and then turned her head to look at what was under her.
The well was about one hundred twenty feet deep, and at the bottom, Ye Anping, who was wearing a dark blue robe, silently looked up, watching Feng Yu Die's exposed skirt. Seeing her crawling to the well mouth and looking out, then turning her head to look down at him, he asked, "Is there anyone up there? If there is, just finish them."
Feng Yu Die nodded, made a scissors* sign to him, and then flipped out of the well. Ye Anping watched from the bottom of the well for a while, counting silently in his heart.
Three.
Two.
One.
As soon as he finished counting, Feng Yu Die once again poked her head above the edge of the well, and there was a trace of blood on her forehead. She nodded to Ye Anping, indicating that she had finished cleaning up.
"Hmm..." Ye Anping nodded in response, then raised the lantern in his hand and turned to face behind him.
Gu Mingxin was pushing Mo Chi Ling's wheelchair, waiting behind him.
Ye Anping looked at them and reminded them again. "Don't use your spiritual sense or power for the time being. The main peak of the Heavenly Demon Sect is above. I don't know if Yu Yan has been lured out by the Red Moon Matriarch. If we don't lure him out, once we're discovered, all our previous efforts will be wasted. Got it?"
Mo Chi Ling puffed up her cheeks and complained. "Master Ye, I'm not stupid..."
"I was telling Sister Gu."
?
Gu Mingxin was stunned for a moment, and she felt as if her sister Mo was calling her stupid. She glanced at her unhappily and replied, "Okay~~"
"Then, I'll say it again. As long as it is confirmed that Yu Yan has left the Heavenly Demon Sect, we will act immediately, just as I told you and Feng Yu Die before. I will take Senior Mo to the forbidden area while you and Feng Yu Die will divert the attention of the other Elders in the sect."
"Ye Anping, on the way here, you have told me at least ten times~ I'm not deaf~~"
"Hoo..." Ye Anping let out a long breath. "The plan is one thing. What I mean is that I won't have time to watch you guys later. Don't fight with Yu Die. You're dealing with a late-stage Deification cultivator, and I don't know how many Elders above the Nascent Soul stage..."
"I know~ I know~"
Looking at Gu Mingxin's careless appearance, Ye Anping was really worried.
However, seeing the uneasiness in his heart, Xue'e, who was lying on Gu Mingxin's head at the moment, hurriedly said, "Ye Anping, don't worry. I will help you keep an eye on Mingxin..."
Xue'e's words made Ye Anping relax a little, but then he glanced at Xiao Tian who was now lying on his shoulder, and suddenly became nervous again.
"Xiao Tian, you too. Think about the scar on your left eye now..."
"Ah... I know."
Xiao Tian raised her hand and touched her left eyebrow, pursed her lips, and nodded.
Then, Ye Anping looked back at Mo Chi Ling. "I'll go up first… Sister Gu, you carry Senior Mo and the wheelchair up. Don't touch her body."
Mo Chi Ling looked at Ye Anping's right shoulder and blinked without any expression. She just saw Ye Anping say "Xiao Tian..." to his shoulder. Could it be that there was something she couldn't see on Ye Anping's shoulder now?
After hesitating for a while, Mo Chi Ling asked, "Mr. Ye."
"What?"
"What color is my underwear now?"
"......?"
Ye Anping was confused, not knowing why she asked this question, but after a pause, Xiao Tian flew down from Ye Anping's shoulder without saying a word, poked her head inside Mo Chi Ling's skirt, turned her head, and said:
"Black thong!"
Ye Anping curled his lips and replied, "White?"
"...Wrong guess."
"Why do you ask this?"
"When I heard you talk about Xiao Tian, I was wondering if you are using some help to see what color my underwear is. If that happened, your image in my heart will plummet~"
"..."
Mo Chi Ling covered her mouth and smiled. "It's just a joke to ease the atmosphere. Okay, let's go up... Sister Gu, thank you..."