Ye Qing replied, “Yes, I heard you the first time. The Earthly Sovereign Hall, right? So what?”

“Aren’t you… afraid?” Yue Wanjun looked truly confused. It was such an innocent, naive expression Ye Qing almost burst out in laughter.

“Afraid? Why would I be afraid?” Ye Qing grinned. “So what if you are disciples of the Earthly Sovereign Hall? It’s not like I haven’t killed one of yours before!”

“What? You killed one of ours?” Yue Wanjun exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yeah. It was a guy named Yue Juejiang. You know him?” Ye Qing asked.

“What?! You’re the one who killed Juejiang?!”

Yue Wanjun cried out in shock and anger. Yue Juejiang was a disciple of the First Hall and, while not the best of the best, was still considered a genius. That was why everyone in the Earthly Sovereign Hall was made aware of his death.

However, since Yue Juejiang had died inside the Earthly Sovereign Coffin, the large majority of them believed that Yue Juejiang had perished to an anomaly and did not think much of it.

Naturally, Yue Wanjun was quite shocked and angered to hear that he had really died to this man.

“How dare you!”

“I’ve always been an audacious one, yes.” Ye Qing’s grin grew increasingly sunny. “So be a good boy and do as I say, okay? Otherwise, you may find out just how audacious I really am.”

“You speak as if you dare to kill me!” Yue Wanjun blurted.

“That depends on your performance, brother.”

Ye Qing gave Yue Wanjun a seemingly harmless pat on the shoulder, and every bone in his body groaned as if under immense stress.

“Alright, that’s enough wasted breath for the day. Tell me, how did you and your group find me?”

“So this is why you captured me,” Yue Wanjun exclaimed in realization. “I guess you already know why we’re seeking you out then.”

“Since you know why we’re here, surrender the Earthly Sovereign Bell already. It is the Earthly Sovereign’s ultimate treasure and the belonging of the Earthly Sovereign Hall. It is not for the likes of you to hold.”

“Surrender it now, and we may yet let you live. If you do not then, death will be your only fate.”

“Hahaha… Are you threatening me?”

A strange smile appeared on Ye Qing’s face. “It looks like you still don’t understand the situation you’re in.”

Before his words faded, Ye Qing tightened his grip and shattered Yue Wanjun’s shoulder blade amidst a series of disturbing cracks. Yue Wanjun let out a muffled groan as cold sweat poured down his forehead like a waterfall. ŕΑ₦ɵ₿ĘS̈

“I ask, you answer. Otherwise, your shoulder blade won’t be the only thing that breaks.”

Yue Wanjun spat on the ground and growled, “Kill me then. I won’t tell you anything!”

Yue Wanjun glared at him with fury. “You’re dead, you hear me? We’ll find you even if you run to the ends of the earth!”

“So this is your choice…” Ye Qing let out a cold chuckle. “Very well then. By the way, you didn’t think that I couldn’t interrogate you just because you refuse to speak, did you?”

“How naive you are, brother.”

Ye Qing placed his hand on Yue Wanjun’s forehead and manifested his demonic lotus. Then, he invaded Yue Wanjun’s headspace.

At first, Yue Wanjun struggled with all his might. But gradually, his struggles ceased, and his eyes became unfocused.

A few breaths later, Ye Qing let out a sudden groan and bled from all orifices. At the same time, his blood began igniting with a strange, dark yellow flame.

Ye Qing let out two big coughs and spat out a ball of dark yellow flame. It extinguished as soon as it hit the ground.

At the same time, Yue Wanjun was leaking dark yellow flame from every orifice including his pores. The flame grew brighter and stronger until he was shining like the sun itself, hot and bright.

Strangely, Yue Wanjun himself wasn’t charred in the slightest despite how hot the flame was.

A few breaths later, Yue Wanjun hit the ground with a thud. The next moment, he and every item on his person crumbled into a pile of yellow soil.

It was at this moment Feng Qingyou’s voice rang beside his ear. “Congratulations, you have earned yourself the Profound Yellow Divine Restriction of the Earthly Sovereign Hall.”

“How did it go?” Ye Qing asked.

“Everything went smoothly,” she answered.

The duo had split up after they left the city. Feng Qingyou was responsible for luring Yue Songhe’s group, whereas he was responsible for trailing Yue Wanjun.

“Cough! Cough… that’s good.” Ye Qing coughed twice before continuing, “What is this Profound Yellow Divine Restriction?”

“A divine restriction secret art practiced by the Earthly Sovereign Hall. All members of the Earthly Sovereign Hall are protected with the Profound Yellow Divine Restriction to prevent others from stealing the Earthly Sovereign Hall’s secrets via soul searching. If activated, the divine restriction would burn the disciple’s mind at first notice and of course, the enemy who dared to search their soul in the first place.”

Feng Qingyou continued, “However, the Profound Yellow Divine Restriction is a spell in the ‘Profound Yellow Art of Heaven and Earth’ and shares the same origin as the ‘Earthly Sovereign Scripture’. Therefore, you of all people are resistant to it.”

“Cough! Cough! Yeah, I figured that would be the case,” Ye Qing replied while covering his mouth and coughing. Even now, there were still wisps of flame leaking through his fingers.

There were two reasons he hadn’t used the “Paranirmita Boundless Heavenly Demon Dependent” to take control of Yue Wanjun. One, his mind was damaged, and the Magia was much weaker as a result. Since Yue Wanjun was a Trueman, it was unlikely he would be able to brute force his mental defenses and succeed. Two, it was because he was worried that Yue Wanjun’s mind was protected by a restriction.

To deal with this, Ye Qing prepared two countermeasures. First, he threatened Yue Wanjun and secretly planted the demonic lotus in his mind while the man was distracted. By doing this, he was corrupting his foe’s mind and subverting his foe’s mental defenses.

If Yue Wanjun proved to be a coward and answered his questions, then all was well. If not, then he would take a gamble and cast “Paranirmita Boundless Heavenly Demon Dependent” to search his mind.

Unfortunately, Yue Wanjun was strong-willed and would rather die than betray his comrades. So, Ye Qing stopped wasting time and used the “Paranirmita Boundless Heavenly Demon Dependent”. The outcome was exactly as he predicted.

It wasn’t all bad though. He ultimately found out what he needed to know.

“So? Did you find out how they were able to track you?” Feng Qingyou asked.

“Yeah.”

Ye Qing stomped the ground, and the pile of yellow soil instantly broke into pieces. A bronze chime flew out of it.

Ye Qing caught the chime and declared, “This is the Earthly Sovereign Chime. The Earthly Sovereign Chime is forged using the Earthly Sovereign Bell’s fragments. The two are linked to each other, which is why they were able to use it to track me down. However, this chime could only pinpoint the general direction of the Earthly Sovereign Bell. The only reason they managed to find me was because I used the Earthly Sovereign Bell a lot a while ago.”

This was the information he pried from Yue Wanjun’s memories. As for why the Earthly Sovereign Chime was with Yue Wanjun, it was because Yue Songhe was afraid that Yue Wanjun would lose track of Ye Qing.

Jianghu

warriors were proficient in disguising themselves after all.

“Now that I have this chime, the Earthly Sovereign Hall would not be able to locate me for a while,” Ye Qing remarked while putting away the chime.

“But only a while,” Feng Qingyou added.

“Yeah. How troublesome.”

Ye Qing scratched his nose. The Earthly Sovereign Hall was a powerful sect with a long history. The amount of treasures and secret arts in the vaults must be countless. They must possess other potent treasures like the Earthly Sovereign Chime, and even if they didn’t, there was no way they would ever let him go. Therefore, this matter was only temporarily resolved.

“It looks like we need to create more work for Yue Songhe and his goons.”