“Tang Yuansheng, male, 102 years old, at the Elemental Infant stage of cultivation, currently serving as an inspector for the Immortal Sect. He received a message from Chu Duozhu to come earlier, so he decided to adjust his schedule and first arrived at Qinghuai County, which is only separated by a mountain from Heyanjing County where he was supposed to go.

“Once I cross this mountain, I’ll be at the location mentioned by Xiao Chu.”

“Hmm?” Suddenly, Tang Yuansheng felt a strange fluctuation of energy. “What is this energy?”

He followed his senses to a stable of an inn, where an old horse with dragon scales on its forehead and a brown mare were cuddling together, showing a strong bond.

The stable boy brought in a bundle of carefully selected grass and put it in the manger, but the old horse showed no interest in eating it.

The stable boy muttered under his breath, “Did the white horse leave and this old horse found a new partner so quickly?”

The old horse seemed to understand human language and glared at the stable boy, who quickly ran away, not daring to provoke this strange beast.

The owner of the old horse, who had entrusted it to the inn, had already finished the high-quality grass, and the innkeeper suspected that the owner might have had an accident or died since he had gone to Songshan. The innkeeper had to use the old horse as payment for the grass if the owner did not show up.

The old horse showed no interest in the inn’s grass and didn’t eat anything for a month. The innkeeper was terrified and realized that the old horse was not just a simple strange beast with dragon scales on its forehead but a highly-ranked monster at the Inedia stage.

Strange beasts were a species between monsters and wild beasts. They had monster bloodlines, but their blood was too thin to activate their abilities. They exhibited some atavistic traits, such as scales, feathers, or horns, and were physically stronger than wild beasts but had limited strength.

Tang Yuansheng was overjoyed to see the old horse, which was a rare dragon horse, but he didn’t know the purity of its bloodline.

“If I hadn’t been to the East Sea, I wouldn’t have recognized it,” Tang Yuansheng was excited. “This is a complete surprise!”

Dragon horses were extremely rare, and it was unbelievable that one was in a stable in this remote county. The owner of the dragon horse must not have recognized its value, and the dragon horse had not awakened yet, so it was covered in dust here.

“As a great Elemental Infant cultivator, I have not found a suitable mount yet. This must be a chance given to me by the Immortal God for my devotion!”

Tang Yuansheng prayed to the Immortal God for a moment and then jumped into the stable.

The old horse turned its head and looked at Tang Yuansheng but ignored him and continued to cuddle with the brown mare.

“Poor dragon horse, not knowing its noble identity, and falling in love with ordinary horses. Come with me, and I will let you know how powerful you are!”

Tang Yuansheng reached out his golden hand, intending to take the old horse away, but the old horse kicked back, breaking Tang Yuansheng’s hand. Tang Yuansheng felt a sudden pain in his chest and vomited a large mouthful of blood, instantly weakening.

He looked at the old horse with horror, no longer feeling excited but endless fear, and ran away.

There must be a great cultivator of Xianxia living here, keeping a dragon horse as an ordinary horse in the stable!

His actions just now could not have escaped the notice of the great cultivator of Xianxia. He ran away, hoping that the other party would spare him for his ignorance!

The old horse roared mournfully and showed off its strength to the brown mare.

Tang Yuansheng ran for a while and did not see the great cultivator of Xianxia catching him, so he knew that the other party did not care about his actions.

“Wow!” He vomited another mouthful of blood, found an empty place, sat cross-legged, took some pills, and restored his injuries.”Just now, those two hooves caused him great damage to his vitality.

When he opened his eyes again, he heard a loud noise coming from the other side of the mountain, as if something huge had fallen.

“Is it already night?” Tang Yuansheng was surprised to see that it was already dark outside. He didn’t expect it to take a whole day to recover from his injuries.

After recovering some of his injuries and ensuring his safety, he climbed over the pine mountain and came to the spot where the flying boat had crashed. He saw that Chu, the helm of the boat, had been pierced by Lu Yang’s sword and had no breath left.

“…Is this the surprise Little Chu was talking about?”

It’s hard to say whether it’s a good surprise or not, but Tang Yuansheng is definitely surprised.

Before he came, the high-level officials of the Immortal Teaching asked him to pay attention to Lu Yang, Meng Jingzhou, and Man Gu, and even gave him their portraits.

Now he had to pay attention to them whether he wanted to or not.

“Who are you!” Lu Yang held his sword warily and looked at Tang Yuansheng.

Tang Yuansheng looked at Lu Yang with a smile: “Lu Yang, do you dare to point your sword at this official? This official is Tang Yuansheng, the inspector of the Immortal Teaching.”

When Lu Yang learned of Tang Yuansheng’s identity, he made a gesture behind his back, urging Lanting to leave quickly. Lanting’s presence was not easy to explain to Tang Yuansheng.

“So, you’re Inspector Tang.” Lu Yang was polite, but still suspicious of Tang Yuansheng, obviously not completely trusting the other’s identity.

Tang Yuansheng didn’t bother to explain to Lu Yang and asked, “Why did you kill Li Shouyi?”

Li Shouyi, the prefect of Yanjiang County, was the real name of Chu, the helm of the boat. Tang Yuansheng was used to calling him Little Chu.

Lu Yang said in a deep voice, “Because he almost exposed the identity of the Immortal Teaching’s disciples!”

“Oh?” Tang Yuansheng looked at Lu Yang with interest, wondering what kind of explanation he could give.

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the foot of the mountain, as Fang Qingyun led a large group of people to investigate the crash of the flying boat. There were also doctors among the group responsible for rescue.

“Let’s leave first!” Tang Yuansheng was still seriously injured and didn’t want to meet with the officials. He swept his sleeves and took Lu Yang and the others far away.

Tang Yuansheng led the three of them into Yanjiang Helm, the safest place in Yanjiang County.

“Now, tell me, how did Li Shouyi expose his identity when he was so cautious?”

Lu Yang revealed the whole thing about the Reverse Longevity Array and said, “Chu…I mean, Li Shouyi’s plan was impeccable. First, he let Yijiang Hong be the scapegoat, and then secretly arranged the Reverse Longevity Array. As long as he destroyed the small flag afterwards, there would be no trace left.”

Tang Yuansheng nodded. Li Shouyi was always cautious and used an extremely obscure Reverse Longevity Array. This plan was flawless.

“But accidents still happened. We opened a barbecue shop here to collect local intelligence. We noticed that a disciple of the Laurel Immortal Palace happened to pass by here. She seemed to be proficient in the formation and saw through the Reverse Longevity Symbol on the small flag!”

“Disciples of the Five Great Immortal Sects cannot be touched. We were afraid that Li Shouyi would be exposed and implicate the entire Immortal Teaching. We advised him to hide, but he said that it was a critical period and he had to use the Reverse Longevity Array to advance to the Elemental Infant stage. He absolutely could not hide. We had no choice but to kill him before Fang Qingyun caught him and prevent future troubles!”

“Did you notice the officials just now? The leader was Fang Qingyun, the chief catcher. Why did he bring so many people? He must be trying to prevent the Reverse Longevity Array from being activated and arrest Li Shouyi!”

Tang Yuansheng nodded. He thought Lu Yang and the others had done the right thing. The disciples of the Laurel Immortal Palace could investigate this matter in Yanjiang County, and Li Shouyi did indeed attach great importance to advancing to the Elemental Infant stage.

The helm of a small county like Yanjiang County would only be at the Golden Elixir stage, and Li Shouyi wanted to be promoted to helm in a more developed area of cultivation. He had to advance to the Elemental Infant stage now.The official status on the surface is the same, with insufficient realm, promotion is difficult and full of obstacles.

Man Gu looked at Lu Yang in surprise. In the plan, there was no mention of encountering Tang Yuansheng after killing the Chu helmsman, let alone thinking about the reason for killing. How did Brother Lu manage to come up with it on the spot?

Meng Jingzhou secretly gave Lu Yang a thumbs up, as the reason Lu Yang came up with was not much different from the one he had improvised.

(End of this chapter)