Chapter 872

The smoke lingered in mid-air, not dispersing, and transformed into a human face.

Naluotian's stern voice sounded at the same time: "He Chunhua, do you know your crime?"

"Please punish me, Divine Lord." He Chunhua was already prepared, lowering his head and eyes without arguing.

Having known each other for so long, he had some understanding of the personality of this Heavenly God, Naluotian.

Seeing him admit his guilt so readily without making excuses, Naluotian hummed, his anger slightly subsiding: "What happened in the Panlong Secret Realm? Explain it clearly, without missing a single word!"

Since the clone hadn't been able to return, it didn't know what had happened in the lower realm.

He Chunhua then recounted his experiences in the city one by one, without adding embellishments or any subjective assumptions.

He knew that when this Heavenly God didn't want to hear opinions, it was best for others to keep their mouths shut.

He Chunhua also didn't mention his various inferences about He Lingchuan's behavior to Naluotian.

Naluotian listened carefully, interrupting him from time to time to ask questions.

This detailed account took over half an hour, and He Chunhua himself had drunk two cups of water.

As for his injuries, he only said he was wounded by a Que Beast; Naluotian didn't care and didn't ask further.

"Do you think He Lingchuan knew from the very beginning that you had entered the Panlong Secret Realm?"

Anyone who saw the pillar of light in the Panlong ruins would think that was the entrance to the secret realm; besides, although there were sandstorm seasons in previous years, quite a few forces had actually been to the Panlong ruins. Not to mention anything else, He Chunhua had brought over a hundred people with him when he entered the Panlong ruins last time, and these soldiers couldn't keep their mouths shut after returning to the city, spreading the news everywhere.

People who heard the news later would also assume that the pool in the Mitian Temple was the entrance to the secret realm.

If He Lingchuan had known from the start that the secret realm began at the Panlong South City Gate, then the changes in the Panlong Secret Realm were inseparable from him.

He Chunhua said earnestly: "Chuan'er seemed to know that he had a divine mark, and he stopped me from inviting the god several times in the secret realm. I think he might not have known he was in the secret realm either."

Naluotian suddenly raised his volume: "You mean my clone is trapped in the Great Fang Hu, and it has nothing to do with He Lingchuan?!"

He Chunhua had survived a terrifying night and had been reporting for half an hour while injured; he was already exhausted, but had to force himself to stay alert: "As far as it looks, the Great Fang Hu seems to have its own purpose in luring various teams into the secret realm, but this does not mean it is related to Chuan'er."

Naluotian immediately said: "The Great Fang Hu wants to use your hands to eliminate the Que Beasts that rushed out from the red pillar of light. There was chaos in Lingxu City a few months ago, and the Star-Plucking Tower lost a supreme treasure; I just learned that it is related to the Great Fang Hu."

"No wonder strange things have been happening frequently in the Panlong Desert these past few months." He Chunhua secretly despised it. Just learned? The ghost would believe that! Why didn't Naluotian share such important intelligence with him beforehand?

If He Lingchuan was still He Lingchuan, and not Zhong Sheng or the spirit of Panlong City possessing him, it was even less likely that he was the mastermind.

Because the eldest son had no connection to the Tiangong incident that shocked the world.

"If that's the case, the mastermind is trying to deal with the Tiangong, right?" He Chunhua thought as he spoke, "Tiangong Douyun Envoy He Jing did indeed die in General Hong's tomb in an unclear way."

"Mortgaging the Red Cliff trade route and going to the Panlong Desert to seize the Great Fang Hu were all plans we proposed; Chuan'er came reluctantly." He hesitated before saying, "I think it shouldn't be him."

Naluotian laughed: "He escaped the divine descent just because of pure luck?"

He Chunhua said in a low voice: "He is a lucky general; his fortune has always been very good, as you know."

"How do you know he didn't see through your tricks and act accordingly?" Naluotian said coldly, "Didn't you say he had already discovered the divine mark in his mind?"

"I don't know." He Chunhua said truthfully, "There are too many things about this that don't make sense."

The things that happened in the Panlong Secret Realm were too many and too complex; it was hard for anyone to clear their head in a short time, including Naluotian.

And through this accident, He Chunhua also discovered one thing: this God of Fate didn't seem to be able to accurately predict his own fate either, otherwise how could he have let his clone get trapped in the Great Fang Hu? He asked hesitantly: "Divine Lord, didn't you make... uh, make preparations beforehand?" How did it still fail? Naluotian was silent for a while before saying: "The divine object lost by the Star-Plucking Tower when the Xushan changed nearly a year ago is not simple. I assumed it wouldn't be that easy for the Great Fang Hu to refine it."

"You mean...?" He Chunhua thought for a moment, "There is something to be made of this?"

"Correct. The Que Beast you saw in the Panlong Secret Realm is the divine object's resistance to the Great Fang Hu. This struggle should have been going on for a long time." Naluotian said slowly, "That divine object had been worshipped in the Star-Plucking Tower for nearly two hundred years and had long been familiar with the aura of the Eternal Lamp Spirit. Therefore, when I let the clone enter the secret realm, I carried the Eternal Lamp Spirit as a medium, which should have been accepted by the divine object, thereby avoiding the Great Fang Hu's trap."

"No wonder." He Chunhua suddenly realized, "No wonder your clone disappeared after entering the Panlong Secret Realm." So Naluotian's clone had been guided by the divine object, not swallowed directly by the Great Fang Hu.

"Then... did the Tiangong team not receive guidance from the gods beforehand?" Why weren't they guided? From what he saw, the Tiangong's Lamp-Guarding Envoy and Douyun Envoy had instead borne most of the combat pressure in the secret realm.

Naluotian smiled contemptuously: "The true origin of this divine object is unknown even to the gods of Lingxu. They thought the divine object and the Great Fang Hu were one from the beginning, and that the Great Fang Hu could refine it early on. Little did they know there were so many variables in the pot!"

In a word: the lack and misalignment of intelligence led the Tiangong team to misjudge the complexity of the secret realm inside the pot.

"Besides, the Tiangong team, like you, entered the city directly from the beginning and wasn't blocked outside the secret realm, so why would they need guidance?"

The Great Fang Hu blocked its clone, which was why the latter needed the special guidance of the Qianling Precious Cover.

"Even if He Jing and the others held the Lamp Spirit, once they attacked the Que Beast, it would immediately attract a counterattack; furthermore, the Qianling Precious Cover never communicates with humans. In the two hundred years of worship, the leaders of the Star-Plucking Tower haven't been able to get a single bit of feedback from the divine object."

So that divine object was called the Qianling Precious Cover? He Chunhua noted the name.

The problem was, how did Naluotian obtain the secret of the divine object that even the omnipotent gods of Lingxu didn't know?

What was the significance of this? The relationships between the Heavenly Gods seemed to be intricate and complex as well. Although He Chunhua was curious, he didn't ask further.

He could feel that Naluotian didn't want to say.

Besides, even if Naluotian knew the mystery of the divine object and could communicate with it, didn't that clone end up gone anyway? This showed that Naluotian had also failed, just like the Tiangong team, just like the gods of Lingxu.

From the results, everyone was a loser; no one was higher than anyone else, so there was no need for the fifty-step to laugh at the hundred-step.

Of course, he didn't have the guts to say this.

It was Naluotian's turn to ask: "Who exactly did Tiangong Douyun Envoy He Jing die at the hands of? Did you really not see clearly?"

He Chunhua shook his head: "Bao Guanjie of the Baling Kingdom was closest to him, and then Yue Zhengqing also rushed over; I don't know which of them took out the Great Fang Hu."

"Bao Guanjie could kill He Jing?" Which Douyun Envoy wasn't a character who could hold their own?

"At that time, the Tiangong team was down to only four people, and He Jing was fighting the King of the Que Beasts; he himself was at the end of his rope and couldn't even stand, and he kept vomiting blood."

A dragon in shallow water gets teased by shrimp, not to mention Bao Guanjie was also a famous general in Baling and couldn't be called a "shrimp."

"I highly suspect that the pot you saw wasn't the Great Fang Hu itself." Naluotian pondered, "The Tiangong lost a treasure and became a laughingstock; they must have been holding back anger for several months. He Jing's exploration of the Panlong Secret Realm this time was not only to seize the treasure but also likely to find the whereabouts of the treasure thief who stirred up the Xushan a few months ago; conversely, whoever killed He Jing might be that thief. From this point of view, Bao Guanjie doesn't look like it."

How much courage would a Baling general have to dare to kill a Tiangong Douyun Envoy? He Chunhua's eyes flickered. Did Naluotian think there was something fishy about this, and that Bao Guanjie had become someone else's scapegoat? "Can you still catch up with the Baling people?"

"I can try, but the hope is not high."

"This matter involves the death of Douyun Envoy He Jing, and the Tiangong will not let it go. If you don't want the anger of Beijia to descend upon you, you must push this matter onto the one surnamed Bao."

He Chunhua replied "Yes," as he himself had thought the same.

But what was strange was that Naluotian, who had been furious, was actually offering him advice; were Heavenly Gods really so easy to talk to? He had originally thought that even if he didn't die, he would be skinned alive.

This matter wasn't right; there must be some special hidden situation inside.

"You handled things poorly, causing my clone to fall, and also caused me to lose an extremely important ability! Originally, you would have deserved death a hundred times over." Naluotian's voice sounded gritted, "But when you were in the Panlong Secret Realm, I performed a deduction and found that your fate line was actually clear, and you still seem to have some use."

Hearing the two sentences, He Chunhua's heart tightened and then relaxed.

Naluotian had once said that the worst result of this trip would be the loss of a clone. He Chunhua had been secretly collecting intelligence over the years and knew that for a Heavenly God to send a clone to the lower realm, it required a massive amount of divine power; if the clone was lost in the human world, it was an even more serious loss.

The competition in the divine realm was fierce, and no Heavenly God wanted to bear such a loss for no reason.

But in the end, a clone was just a clone; even if it perished, it shouldn't harm the Heavenly God's origin.

This was also Naluotian's confidence in taking the risk.

But it was now saying that it had lost an extremely important "ability."

What kind of ability could make Naluotian value it so much? He Chunhua could feel its surging, high-pitched anger. If it didn't think he was still useful, it would definitely have vented its anger on him.

He also noticed that Naluotian said its clone had "fallen" rather than perished.

That meant this clone still existed in the human world.

He understood immediately:

This was He Lingchuan's true purpose! A Heavenly God could only send one clone to the human world following the mark. As long as this clone was trapped, regardless of the reason, Naluotian couldn't send a second one.

(End of chapter)