Chapter 303: 303. Chapter 300: Ding Huan's Method

303. Chapter 300: Ding Huan's Method

When it came to joining the Blue Star Sect, Ding Huan noticed that Lou Buzhi's expression was a little odd—there had to be some problem in there.

Ding Huan decided to ask Lou Buzhi in detail when he had the chance.

Ding Huan suddenly spoke up in a clear voice:

"Fellow Daoists of the Triple Heaven Star Land, Jiuyuan and the God Race have wild ambitions and want to scheme against our Triple Heaven Star Land. We will absolutely not allow such a thing.

Right now, four of the Earth Immortals hiding in Li Yuancheng have been slain by us, but there are surely still people from Jiuyuan and the God Race concealed in Li Yuancheng.

Anyone with a lead, go report it at the City Lord's Manor of Li Yuancheng. No matter who reports, there will be a generous reward."

After this matter was over, Ding Huan decided to change the name of Li Yuancheng. He didn't know what Li Yuancheng had been called before; he would ask Geng Qianxing later and find out.

The crowd dispersed. Ding Huan was certain that purging the Jiuyuan cultivators and God Race cultivators from Li Yuancheng would not be an easy task.

Sometimes, the human heart is the most complicated thing of all.

Clearly, the Jiuyuan cultivators had come to Li Yuancheng to strip the Triple Heaven Star Land of its rights, yet plenty of Triple Heaven Star Land cultivators were helping them.

Pinning one's hopes on cultivators of Li Yuancheng reporting one another wasn't very realistic.

To purge the Jiuyuan cultivators and God Race cultivators from Li Yuancheng, he still needed to come up with a sound plan—ideally one that could catch them all in a single sweep.

When Ding Huan arrived at the City Lord's Manor of Li Yuancheng, lost in thought the whole way, Qi Yonghan and the others were just walking out.

"Sect Leader Ding, every Jiuyuan cultivator and God Race cultivator here has been killed. You can stay with peace of mind."

Ding Huan knew that a man like Qi Yonghan would never bother distinguishing who was a Jiuyuan cultivator and who was a Triple Heaven Star Land cultivator—he would certainly let none of them go.

Ding Huan didn't mind such things either; once one chose to join Li Yuancheng, one had to bear the corresponding price.

"Fellow Daoist Mu, I'm planning to go into closed-door cultivation for a while. I'll leave the remaining Jiuyuan Star and God Race stragglers in Li Yuancheng to you. What do you say?" Ding Huan looked at Mu Chengzi.

He knew Mu Chengzi had always wanted to prove himself but had never had the chance, so he simply handed this matter over to Mu Chengzi.

Even though he knew, with a hundred percent certainty, that Mu Chengzi couldn't pull it off.

"Ha ha, don't worry, leave it to me. I guarantee I'll clean out every last one of these trash."

Mu Chengzi was brimming with confidence; he hadn't the faintest idea why Ding Huan wanted to go into closed-door cultivation.

……

With over a dozen Earth Immortal powerhouses holding the fort, plus reports from Li Yuancheng's local cultivators,

by all rights the Jiuyuan and God Race cultivators should have been easy to purge. But five days passed, and not only did Li Yuancheng fail to take down another Earth Immortal powerhouse, it also suffered considerable casualties among its local Triple Heaven Star Land cultivators.

Li Yuancheng had once been home to over a hundred million cultivators; even in its current decline, it still held tens of millions.

Trying to root out every single Jiuyuan cultivator from among tens of millions was indeed very difficult.

The key was that the Jiuyuan cultivators had long since taken root in Li Yuancheng, and many local cultivators leaned toward Jiuyuan.

They didn't think the people of Jiuyuan would destroy the entire Triple Heaven Star Land; instead, they felt it might be even better to let Jiuyuan take control of the Triple Heaven Star Land.

This was despite Ding Huan having deployed a Level-8 Killing-Containment Array and a Sealing Array to lock down Li Yuancheng. Otherwise, the Jiuyuan Earth Immortals in Li Yuancheng—and even the Human Immortals—would have simply walked away.

After Ji Xuwen was injured and Cen Huan was besieged by four Earth Immortals using a formation, Mu Chengzi, who was overseeing this purge of Jiuyuan cultivators, felt they couldn't keep going on like this.

If things went on this way, their side was very likely to be carved up and encircled and killed.

In his view, they should concentrate their strong cultivators and encircle and annihilate the Jiuyuan cultivators.

Li Yuancheng still had at least four or five Earth Immortal cultivators. Once his people split up, they were very likely to be carved apart by Jiuyuan's strong cultivators.

But Ding Huan had been in closed-door cultivation all this time, and Mu Chengzi didn't know whether his own plan was right either, so he gathered everyone to the City Lord's Manor.

"Everyone, we can't keep going on like this. If we do, we're bound to lose people." A note of helplessness crept into Mu Chengzi's tone as well.

He had always wanted to do something for Ding Huan. This time, before going into closed-door cultivation, Ding Huan had handed him the big task of wiping out the Jiuyuan cultivators in Li Yuancheng—and he had botched it completely.

This left him deeply ashamed.

"All these people have disguised themselves as ordinary cultivators of Li Yuancheng and are hiding in the city. Singling them out is very hard." Cen Huan said with some helplessness.

Three days ago, she had been ambushed by four Jiuyuan Earth Immortals plus a Killing-Containment Array. Fortunately, Xun Youshan arrived in time and saved her.

"Senior Mu, how about we wait until Sect Leader Ding comes out of closed-door cultivation?" Liu Yinyu spoke up.

She always felt Ding Huan had a way, so it would be safer to ask Ding Huan about such matters.

"No need—before we had no way, but now we do." Ding Huan's voice came through just in time.

Everyone saw that Ding Huan looked utterly haggard, and they were all a little surprised.

Would closed-door cultivation really wear one down to such a haggard state?

Ding Huan smiled, took out several formation disks and said: "These are Heart-Questioning Formation Disks. We are going to establish a real-name identity system throughout all of Li Yuancheng.

Any cultivator in Li Yuancheng must possess a real-name identity. Every cultivator who participates in the real-name identity verification will undergo a Heart-Questioning screening inside our Heart-Questioning Array…"

From the very beginning, Ding Huan knew that trying to wipe out every single Jiuyuan cultivator in the tangled mess of Li Yuancheng was almost impossible.

Not to mention they also had to root out the God Race cultivators.

So he had gone into closed-door cultivation right from the start to research the Heart-Questioning Grand Array.

Ding Huan's formation dao had originally been at the peak of Level 7. After these days of closed-door cultivation, he had not only raised his formation dao to Level 8, he had also successfully constructed the Heart-Questioning Formation Disk.

"Heart-Questioning Array?" Even Mu Chengzi was stunned.

He had extremely deep research into formation dao, and he himself was a Level-9 Artifact-Refining Grand Master.

Even he couldn't lay down a Heart-Questioning Array. Ding Huan's cultivation was clearly lower than his—how had he constructed a Heart-Questioning Array?

It wasn't only Mu Chengzi who couldn't understand; everyone else was equally baffled.

Lou Fenyan, Liu Yinzhu and the others, however, didn't know how difficult the Heart-Questioning Array was, and so felt there was nothing remarkable about it.

Ding Huan naturally wasn't going to explain about the skin scroll and his Grand Cosmos Art.

He only said he had been inspired by the Immortal-Fanqiao simulation space of Wu Zhanxia, and that through these days of research he had successfully come up with the Heart-Questioning Formation Disk.

In fact, Wu Zhanxia's Immortal-Fanqiao simulation space really had given Ding Huan some inspiration, which was what made him think of creating a Heart-Questioning Array.

Ding Huan pointed at the Heart-Questioning Formation Disks he had taken out and said: "These Heart-Questioning Formation Disks also have a limitation. If the other party's Dao is higher than my understanding of the Dao, then it's very likely the questioning won't work."

There was also the fact that if the opponent's cultivation far exceeded the Earth Immortal realm, his Heart-Questioning Formation would likewise be unable to extract anything.

However, Ding Huan believed that in this universe, there were very few who could surpass his Great Dao, and those whose cultivation far exceeded Earth Immortal should also be nonexistent.

Above Earth Immortal would be the Immortal-Fanqiao, and doesn't the Immortal-Fanqiao require ascension to the Immortal World?

"Then what do we do now?" Mu Chengzi no longer dared to take everything upon himself.

Ding Huan said, "Our people will be divided into four groups, carrying out identity verification registration at the four directions of the main city. Anyone who lies—register them first, then quietly take them away."

The matter of identity registration in Li Yuancheng immediately spread throughout the entire Li Yuancheng. All cultivators in Li Yuancheng who wished to prove they were not people from Jiuyuan or the Divine Race had to go to the main city for identity registration.

During the period from the start of registration to its end, no one was permitted to leave the main city. Anyone who left the main city was from Jiuyuan.

Those unwilling to go to the main city for registration would be killed without mercy.

The moment this news came out, Li Yuancheng immediately erupted into chaos.

A group of people stood up to protest. After Yi Qianxing led people to behead over a hundred of the leading protesting cultivators, the entire Li Yuancheng fell silent.

All obediently went to the main city of Li Yuancheng for identity registration.

Watching one after another cultivator from Jiuyuan and the Divine Race being identified and taken away—including even one at Earth Immortal Seventh Layer—Mu Chengzi and the others were all immensely shaken.

The method of the Heart-Questioning Formation was not unusual; some great sects had used such methods when recruiting disciples or interrogating them.

But that was generally only a method for questioning low-level cultivators. Once a cultivator's strength reached the True Pill realm, it would basically lose its effect.

Yet Ding Huan's Heart-Questioning Formation could even root out Earth Immortal cultivators, let alone those below Earth Immortal.

Over a full ten days, the cultivators from Jiuyuan Star uncovered in Li Yuancheng numbered over 2,600 in total, with 763 from the Divine Race.

Not only that, there were also over a hundred thousand native cultivators of Li Yuancheng who were determined to join Jiuyuan, doing everything they could to help Jiuyuan's cultivators escape.

Under the Heart-Questioning Formation, there was simply no escape.

All cultivators from Jiuyuan Star and the Divine Race were executed, including some who did not dare to come to Li Yuancheng to register their identities—they were likewise cleaned out completely.

As for those over a hundred thousand star-traitors of Li Yuancheng, they were all sent to the mining district to mine, never to翻身 again for eternity.

Ding Huan and the others spent a month completely purging Li Yuancheng.

The time taken was a bit long, but throughout the entire process, not a single message leaked out.

Everyone clearly knew the Jiuyuan people in Li Yuancheng definitely had issues, yet no useful information could be extracted through interrogation.

Whether low-level cultivators or Earth Immortal powerhouses, they all stuck to one story—none of them knew why Jiuyuan wanted to occupy the Triple Heaven Star Land.

"Sigh, it's a pity our cultivation is still a bit too low. If our strength reached the Immortal-Fanqiao, we could definitely extract it through soul-searching." Even Xun Youshan couldn't help but sigh.

"I estimate soul-searching would also be useless; these people very likely truly don't know." Ji Xuwen shook his head.

"We just need to keep the Triple Heaven Star Land in our own hands. Yi Ta Immortal, send the message out immediately. One month from now, a grand assembly of the Triple Heaven Star Land will be convened in Li Yuancheng.

All sects, families, and so on of the Triple Heaven Star Land must attend." Ding Huan gestured for everyone to stop thinking about this matter.

Ding Huan also knew that the Jiuyuan people's occupation of Li Yuancheng would not be that simple. Since he couldn't extract it through questioning, he would deduce it.

Now was the time to strike while the iron was hot—he had to make a trip to the Divine Race before they could react.

As for Jiuyuan's purpose and wiping out Jiuyuan, that could wait until after the Divine Race was dealt with first.

These backstabbing Divine Race surviving in the Triple Heaven Star Land and colluding with Jiuyuan people to take down the Triple Heaven Star Land—if this trash wasn't eliminated, he wouldn't be able to sleep.

……