Chapter 2235: Search and Seize

Zu An felt an ominous sensation.

It seems the Doomsday Spirit and the Plague Monarch are the two trickiest ones to deal with after all. They actually schemed to this level.

I have to give some more protective measures to those important to me. Otherwise, it'd be bad if those monsters secretly did something to them.

“Then what are you doing here? You’re not here just to monitor me, right?” Zu An looked at the surroundings. He could tell that there seemed to be an extremely sinister formation here. All of the daoists had been turned into corpse puppets, and the well’s bottom was covered in leftover bones. The once solemn and divine daoist temple was now an eerie and creepy place.

The Thousand-Footed Elder didn’t try to dodge the question. “I set up a Lesser Life Offering Formation, which is the task the Plague Monarch gave me. There are similar formations everywhere in the capital, and when the time is right, the Plague Monarch will merge all of them together into a Greater Life Offering Formation. Then, all the lives in the capital will be refined away.”

He couldn't help but lick his lips as he spoke. “The human race is the most powerful in the entire world, and the capital is full of powerful cultivators. They also have the best talents in the various professions. If this city is refined into blood pills and they're ingested, it'll be enough even for those most powerful monsters to rise to a new level.”

He had no chance of eating them anyway, so he’d rather no one be able to eat them anymore. He was even hoping for this demon Zu An to get rid of all the other monsters, so they could keep him company in his misery!

Sang Qien and Zheng Dan were horrified. This place was just too sinister! If it wasn’t because Zu An had inadvertently ended up encountering this scheme on his way back, who knew how many lives in the capital would’ve been unknowingly refined into pills?

Zheng Dan had been the underworld boss of Brightmoon City and had seen all sorts of sinister methods. But compared to these monsters, she felt as if everything they'd done was as innocent as a baby's playtime.

“If you're here to monitor whether big brother Zu returned, how would you have contacted Plague Monarch if you had discovered something?” Sang Qien keenly sensed the contradiction behind the monster's words. Earlier, he'd said that communication was only one-directional, but if there really was no way of contact, how would they even know if he had discovered something?

The Thousand-Footed Elder immediately panicked. “I wasn’t lying to you! I really don’t have a way of contacting the Plague Monarch or Doomsday Spirit directly. However, I was given other means of contacting them if I discovered that the regent had returned.”

“How?”

“By lighting up the nine special sticks of incense in front of the daoist temple.”

Zu An followed his line of sight and saw nine especially thick sticks of incense. They were all several meters tall and as thick as an infant’s arm. Surprised, he said, “Light the candle now.”

Zheng Dan and Sang Qien were stunned, but Sang Qien couldn't help but ask worriedly, “Ah Zu, wouldn’t that be a bit risky?”

Zu An’s return was a secret. His presence was still unknown to the enemy right now, but if he took the initiative to inform the monsters of his existence, it would definitely be dangerous.

Zu An chuckled. “It’s fine.”

When the Thousand-Footed Elder saw that he wasn’t joking, he quickly began to think to himself. If he burned the incense and contacted the Plague Monarch and Doomsday Spirit, and they came to fight against Zu An, perhaps he would have a chance to escape. Taking a thousand steps back, even if the Plague Monarch and the Doomsday Monarch couldn't win against Zu An and were killed, he would at least be dragging some people down with him, which didn’t seem that bad either.

As he realized that, he felt more and more excited. He sent some corpse puppets to run over to the incense burner outside the main hall and light the nine sticks of incense.

Zu An didn’t move; instead, he closed his eyes, completely releasing his divine sense. He had already examined the candles earlier. Apart from being a bit larger than usual, they weren’t really special treasures. So, if they were meant as a signal, there had to be someone near the daoist temple who could see it. They could even be hiding nearby. That meant as long as he paid attention to when it was lit and who was paying close attention to this location, he could track them down easily.

Normally, that would be completely impossible. Even though this daoist temple was in a desolate and remote place, it was still in the capital, making it extremely difficult to track everyone who came and went. Still, it wasn’t too hard for the current Zu An. His divine sense silently covered everything in the vicinity, from the widest street to the narrowest alley, from the peddlers to the passing children, the vagabonds hurrying to and fro... Even the chickens, dogs, and cats didn’t escape his monitoring.

Soon after, he saw a dozen suspicious individuals looking toward the giant burning incense. He split his divine sense along multiple paths to follow them.

Just like that, an hour passed before he opened his eyes again.

“So?” The Thousand-Footed Elder gave him an expectant look. Right now, he was actually the one who hoped for Zu An to find the Plague Monarch and the others more than anyone else.

“You were fooled,” Zu An said indifferently.

The Thousand-Footed Elder was stunned.

Just then, Zu An explained to the two at his side, “I noticed that there were a dozen or so individuals who looked in this direction after the candles were lit. But when I carefully looked into them, they weren’t monsters, and were just purely interested in the size of the candles. I also searched even further, but I didn’t sense anything strange.”

“Then what was the purpose of these candles?” Zheng Dan asked in confusion.

“They were just a trick to make the Thousand-Footed Elder seem more believable. If I'm not mistaken, their true method of monitoring should have been in the bodies of the corpse puppets that the Thousand-Footed Elder used. If something happened to those corpse puppets, they would know that I’d returned,” Zu An explained.

The Doomsday Spirit and Plague Monarch were probably scared of his power, worried that the Thousand-Footed Elder wouldn’t be able to escape from Zu An at all, and thus they had arranged all of these things.

Zu An sighed.

The Doomsday Spirit and Plague Monarch really hid themselves damned well. They even fooled their own colleagues.

The Thousand-Footed Elder also realized that something had happened. He immediately began to passionately curse the families of those two.

Since the monster was already of no use, Zu An waved his hand and erased his soul. In a way, this was a form of revenge for the pitiful people who had previously used this daoist temple.

Just then, Sang Qien and Zheng Dan said with worried expressions, “Since we’re already exposed, we’ll be out in the open, vulnerable to attacks, while they can scheme freely in the dark. We can’t do anything but react passively.”

“There’s no need to be that worried, though. The most dangerous situation is when you don’t even know who the enemy is.” Zu An gave the two a reassuring smile. “I’ve now at least gained a lot of useful information about them, and I’ve personally experienced how cunning and crafty they are. I’m much more prepared to deal with them now.”

Sang Qien’s eyes shone brilliantly.

Big brother Zu is always so calm. That natural confidence really is enchanting.

Zheng Dan also blushed. However, when she noticed Sang Qien’s expression, she thought,

Is this woman in heat again?

Do you really have to go that far? Isn’t Ah Zu just... Well, he is pretty handsome.

...

Soon after, Zu An brought the two women back to the Sang manor. He set up a few formations around them and thanded them several protective treasures. “Those monsters are still hiding, so you need to protect yourselves and Sisi.”

These formations and treasures wouldn't be able to resist the strongest monsters for too long, but it would still be long enough for him to rush back as long as he was still in the capital. The Thousand-Footed Elder incident had reminded him of something, which was that the monsters were completely unscrupulous. He thus had to prepare some countermeasures.

When she sensed that he was going to leave again from his tone, Zheng Dan was a bit reluctant. She asked, “Are you going to leave again?”

“Yeah. While I was searching for the Plague Monarch and Doomsday Spirit, I noticed something else that was urgent. I need to head over to save someone right now,” Zu An quickly said.

“What happened?” Sang Qien and Zheng Dan hurriedly asked.

“Something happened at the Jiang manor. King Wu is leading troops to search the place and seize the entire clan.” Zu An’s voice was cold.

“What?!” Zheng Dan and Sang Qien were both shocked. Sang Qien said, “Uncle Jiang is now the Chief Grand Secretary and he has always had extremely high prestige. He’s also connected to the various clans in marriage. Is King Wu trying to start a rebellion?”

She had received a lot of care from Jiang Luofu while she was in the academy, and was full of gratitude. How could she not panic when she learned that something so serious was happening to the Jiang clan?