Chapter 269: Stone Wall

*Whoosh—*

The mountain rock crumbled. Li Miao's claws dug into it, sliding down several feet and leaving five deep gouges in the cliff face.

*Bang! *

Li Miao kicked off the cliff wall, his entire body once again launching like a cannonball toward the bottom of the cliff.

There was not a sliver of light within the cliffside. Even for Li Miao, he could only see things clearly within a range of about ten zhang. Fortunately, that faint scent of blood guided his direction, leading him to continuously advance toward the cliff bottom.

Suddenly, Li Miao abruptly punched into the cliff wall, halting his downward momentum, and frowned as he looked to his side.

Seven or eight zhang away, a withered pine extended from a crack in the stone, swaying slowly in the mountain wind.

The scent of blood was still at the bottom of the cliff, but a trace of another odor had been carried to Li Miao by the mountain wind.

The scent of plant sap.

Li Miao took a deep look at the withered pine and once again dropped toward the cliff bottom.

————————

Hong Chou grabbed Lan Chongyi's arm and pulled him up from the ground.

"You are not yet dead. If your Emei disciples are like you, they should also not be dead! You are the only person awake within this mountain gate. Pull yourself together!"

"First, take me to see Elder Liu. If he is like you, perhaps there is still hope!"

Lan Chongyi slowly stood up, barely steadying his spirit, and led Hong Chou toward the interior of the mountain gate.

As soon as they reached the plaza, Hong Chou followed the doors that had been torn apart by Li Miao and saw the outer sect disciples collapsed in the rooms on both sides.

"Are they also like you?"

Lan Chongyi nodded slowly.

"…Yes."

"What kind of method is this?"

"I do not know…"

Lan Chongyi answered with difficulty.

Hong Chou clenched his fists, pondering to himself.

"Looking at the state of these outer sect disciples, they were clearly in the middle of their own tasks, then lost consciousness and collapsed in an instant. Their arms were not raised to protect their chests, which means they had already lost consciousness before hitting the ground."

"The Emei Sect does not have many disciples, but with the recent turmoil in the Jianghu, most disciples should have returned to the mountain gate. There should be over a hundred outer sect disciples. What kind of method could make so many people faint all at once?"

While thinking, the two walked into the main hall of the Emei Sect.

Hong Chou saw the corpse sitting in the main seat at a glance, then scanned left and right with an ugly expression.

"No resistance. Elder Liu lost his life before his sword could even be unsheathed. The other elders couldn't even stand up."

"The outer sect disciples fainted where they stood, the elders died in their seats, and Elder Liu died only after his hand reached the hilt of his sword."

"This method… is based on Wu Gong."

"Below the second-rate, they lose consciousness instantly; the first-rate die; the peak-level can hold on for a breath of time… It is horrifying."

The gap between the Heaven-Man Realm and the peak-level is like a chasm. If Hong Chou wanted to kill Elder Liu, it wouldn't take many moves, but he could never do it in a way that prevented the sword from being drawn, let alone leaving all the Emei Sect disciples in such a state.

This method of wiping out a major sect silently and without a trace was chilling.

Suddenly, Hong Chou's expression turned stern.

"Something is wrong!"

"The outer sect disciples fainted directly, the elders didn't even have time to stand up, so how could Lan Chongyi, this inner sect disciple, know that Ruan Mei took the true disciples and jumped off the cliff? Shouldn't he have fainted right at the mountain gate!?"

"Everyone else is where they were, so why is he the only one at the entrance!"

Although Hong Chou was stubborn and rigid by nature, his mind was extremely meticulous; otherwise, how could he have detected the suspicious nature of Xue Jinxi's disappearance, or how could he have gone twenty years without the Imperial Court discovering his faked death!

He turned his head abruptly to look at Lan Chongyi.

"You! —"

*Bang! *

A palm strike hit Hong Chou in the chest.

He retreated several steps, and the wound on his chest that he had barely managed to suppress instantly burst open, blood gushing like a fountain.

A figure flashed and instantly disappeared beyond the courtyard wall.

Hong Chou turned and ran toward the direction of the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice.

————————

Li Miao picked up the blood-stained clothes on the ground and sniffed them lightly.

The scent of blood he had smelled was emanating from these very clothes.

Li Miao looked left and right, then turned and walked to the side of the cliff wall.

There was a pair of footprints here, deeply embedded into the ground.

Apart from the bloody clothes and the footprints, there was nothing else at the bottom of the cliff.

Li Miao narrowed his eyes, habitually twisting his fingers.

The footprints, like the bloodstains, seemed insignificant, but in the eyes of Li Miao, this "Heavenly Demon from Outside the Realm," they revealed countless pieces of information that others could not deduce.

For example, these were a man's footprints, and the height was slightly shorter than Li Miao's. And those blood-stained clothes were a woman's garments. This meant that the injured woman who jumped off the cliff and the man who left these footprints were two people who had jumped off the Cliff of Self-Sacrifice.

The woman jumped first, taking off the bloody clothes and throwing them to the bottom of the cliff. Then the man landed, and the force of the fall from the high altitude left these deep footprints in the ground.

There was no second pair of footprints nearby, which meant the woman had not landed at the bottom of the cliff.

Then where did she go?

Li Miao sneered and paused his feet.

*Bang! *

Gravel splashed, and Li Miao's figure soared into the air, shooting straight up more than ten zhang.

*Bang! *

Li Miao inserted his claws into the mountain rock, stopping his momentum, and then kicked out horizontally, gouging a mark half a foot deep into the stone wall like an axe.

Stepping on this "stair," Li Miao's figure once again rushed upward.

A moment later, he smelled that scent of plant sap again.

Li Miao glanced to the side and saw the withered pine once more.

He stepped on a protruding rock and pushed off, using a light-body technique, and his whole body drifted toward the withered pine as lightly as a goose feather.

Upon reaching it, Li Miao looked closely.

Sure enough, several branches and leaves of this withered pine were broken, and emerald green sap was continuously seeping from the broken ends. The scent Li Miao had smelled was emanating from this sap.

Li Miao laughed, but one hand dug into the mountain rock while the other slowly raised, true energy surging, and his fist slowly clenched.

"Attendant Ruan, do you not recognize me?"

He smiled at the stone wall.

"Back then, outside the Imperial Mausoleum, you were among the last wave of attendants to flee, and one of the attendants who only fled after seeing me take away the Guard Commander. You should still remember my voice, right?"

"I will give you three breaths of time to open the stone wall. This is out of consideration for the fact that your Emei Sect worked for me in the Miao Frontier that day and has suffered a great disaster today."

"But after three breaths, I will blast this stone wall open directly."

"One."

"Two."

Suddenly, an extremely weak voice came from inside the stone wall.

"Lord Li… is that you?"

"I have one thing I wish to ask… who was the attendant killed by His Majesty that day?"

Li Miao frowned.

"Wu Zhiheng… why do you ask about this?"

*Rumble—*

The stone wall in front of Li Miao suddenly split open, revealing an aged face.

She opened her already clouded eyes, reached out to shield several Emei Sect true disciples behind her, and looked at Li Miao's face with difficulty. After a long while, she slowly sighed.

"Lord Li…"

"This time, it is real…"

(End of chapter)