“He Lin is… one of us?!”

Yu Changchun could hardly believe his ears.

“How… how could I not know about this?!”

Li Zhi’s eyes filled with amused mockery. “Are you sure you truly didn’t know?”

“If I knew, would I have let the puppet run his mouth like that? Do I look like I have a death wish? That man is a Golden Core Grand Cultivator! If he found out I exposed his identity, a single thought from him could obliterate me!”

Yu Changchun stood up abruptly, pacing back and forth in a manic rhythm. He suddenly whirled around to face Li Zhi. “He Lin… no, Elder He… is he really one of us?”

On Li Zhi’s blurred, indistinct face, a smile resurfaced. “Absolutely.”

“Fuck!”

Yu Changchun cursed violently. “The higher-ups could handle these things easily! I don’t know why they insist on being so mysterious about everything! Even keeping their own people in the dark!”

“Damn it!”

“No! I’m going to kill that laborer right now! And those other laborers who knew about the situation beforehand—they all have to die!”

“The human puppet can’t be kept either!”

As he spoke, Yu Changchun’s hands flew through a series of seals. He chanted a harsh incantation, and the small triangular flags planted around the perimeter immediately began to tremble.

However, to his shock, the flags merely shuddered for a brief moment before falling completely still.

“Huh?”

Yu Changchun’s gaze snapped toward Li Zhi like a bolt of lightning. His eyes narrowed, flashing with dangerous intent.

Li Zhi shrugged, smiling casually. “That’s right. It was me.”

“Why stop me?”

Yu Changchun’s face turned icy cold, his long beard fluttering in the rising wind of his agitation.

“Elder He’s identity isn’t exactly a secret; your rank just isn’t high enough for anyone to bother telling you.”

Li Zhi remained unfazed, sitting there with the tranquility of an old god, seemingly immune to the crushing pressure Yu was emitting.

“Moreover, that poultry-raising laborer… being able to raise over a dozen Spirit Poultry in just a year is no small feat. Even if they are only Low Grade, he is, after all, just a mortal. He has Potential. He is somewhat useful to me… So, you cannot kill him for now.”

Li Zhi paused, his tone shifting slightly. “Of course, if it becomes necessary… killing him is just killing him.”

“You…” Yu Changchun paused, a look of suspicion dawning in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you intend to cultivate the Blood Bone Path? To reforge your true body?”

Li Zhi smiled without speaking.

Then, as if sensing something in the air, he stood up. “We have reached a critical stage. I have no time to babysit him. I’ll leave this kid to you for now. Senior Brother Yu won’t disappoint me, right?”

“Hmph! If you hadn’t called me that, I wouldn’t even know I had a Junior Brother like you,” Yu Changchun snorted coldly.

He flicked his sleeve in irritation and sat back down, turning his gaze toward the water mirror.

Li Zhi smiled one last time and stepped into the rippling air, vanishing.

Watching the spot where the figure had disappeared, a look of deep apprehension flashed through Yu Changchun’s eyes.

“That guy… always pretending to be mysterious. Who wouldn’t recognize him looking like that? But… he clearly abandoned his true body long ago. Why does he feel even more powerful than before? Just now, he suppressed my control over the formation flags in an instant. That pressure… it felt even more oppressive than Master…”

“What realm is he at now?”

“Forget it. For these three days, I’ll just keep a close watch on this guy!”

As soon as Wang Ba entered his room, the look of longing on his face vanished instantly.

Replacing it was a mask of pure suspicion and lingering fear.

“Just now… besides Yu Changchun, who else was watching me?”

“Two drops of Yin Spirit power… consumed completely in such a short time!”

“That pressure was almost comparable to the Foundation Establishment cultivator I encountered near South Lake Village the other day!”

Wang Ba felt a wave of cold sweat.

As he had expected, Old Hou had come to his door and deliberately leaked information. Wang Ba had cooperated, putting on a performance of wariness mixed with greed.

He had completed the scene exactly as planned.

Although this didn’t change his fundamental situation, it was a successful delaying tactic.

For him, as long as he could stall for these ten-plus days, he could escape and disappear. From then on, the world would be his oyster.

It was, objectively, the best choice.

But from the very start of his performance, an unexpected variable had appeared.

A powerful existence—likely a Foundation Establishment cultivator—had also been observing him!

The massive gap in strength had brought with it an immense mental pressure, almost causing his acting to falter. Fortunately, he had burned his Yin Spirit power to forcibly mold his facial muscles into the appropriate expressions, barely passing the inspection.

But his already scarce Yin Spirit power had taken a hit. Now, only eight drops remained.

“If this continues, I definitely won’t last until the cultivators at South Lake Village leave.”

Wang Ba calculated silently in his heart. Even if he tried hard to reduce the time he spent under Yu Changchun’s surveillance, he still needed to work under the man’s nose for at least three hours a day to avoid suspicion.

Three hours. One drop of Yin Spirit power wasn’t enough to sustain that.

He needed at least one and a half drops per day.

Eight drops would only last another four or five days.

And if a situation like today occurred again—where he was subjected to high-pressure scrutiny—he might only last two or three days.

He was far from the ten-day target.

“Yin Spirit power… I must replenish it as soon as possible.”

Wang Ba’s mind was crystal clear.

The only way to replenish Yin Spirit power was to eat Spirit Poultry. By using the visualization method, he could absorb the Spiritual Qi within the meat and convert it.

The process was cumbersome and the efficiency was low.

But it was the only method available.

Currently, there were still nearly two hundred and fifty chickens in the manor. Forty-six of them were Spirit Poultry that had broken through after surviving illness.

Wang Ba had hidden all of them in the narrow alley between Old Man Sun’s abandoned house and his own. He had enclosed the space with cages and covered it with thick black cloth. From the outside, one could neither see nor hear any movement.

Every day, Wang Ba would secretly feed them by pushing chicken feed through a hole he had opened in his own wall.

He had made this modification while repairing the house, originally just to conceal the true number of Spirit Poultry he possessed. Now, it had become his lifeline—a hidden reserve to replenish his Yin Spirit power.

“But… it’s still far from enough.”

Wang Ba paced his room, calculating furiously.

“Currently, condensing a single drop of Yin Spirit power requires eating six Spirit Poultry. And digesting six Spirit Poultry takes me at least ten days. Time-wise, it’s impossible!”

“If I could obtain a large amount of Lifespan in a short time… based on past experience, I could upgrade the Physique Strengthening Scripture. At a higher layer, the speed of condensing Yin Spirit power should increase significantly.”

“But where can I get that much Lifespan? Even if I drain the Lifespan of every single Spirit Poultry and Rare Fowl in the manor, it only amounts to a little over 600 years.”

“600 years is only enough to push the scripture to the seventh layer. It wouldn’t be that much faster.”

“Unless… unless I could access the other manors…”

Wang Ba’s eyes suddenly lit up.

He abruptly thought of the Avian Plague, the swine plague, and the various other epidemics that had been ravaging the entire Sect recently.

It was these plagues that had caused the rapid inflation of prices in the markets.

Originally, low-level Qi Refining disciples could nourish their bodies and accelerate cultivation just by eating Rare Fowl. Now, with the shortage, they had to compete with high-level disciples for Spirit Poultry, driving the prices through the roof.

Rumor had it that even the Sect’s inner disciples had been affected by this wave of disease. Cultivation supplies were so scarce that the higher-ups had sent teams out to mine for new Spirit Qi springs.

Pull one hair and the whole body moves—the butterfly effect.

Usually, these matters were distant from Wang Ba. The price fluctuations didn’t affect him much; since he traded Spirit Poultry for Rare Fowl, the ratios remained relative. At most, the shopkeepers smiled a bit more when he visited.

But now, the chaos gave Wang Ba an idea.

It was a seemingly risky, yet actually extremely secure plan.

The moment he thought of it, he acted.

That night, he drained almost the entire Lifespan from his stash of 46 Spirit Poultry, harvesting about 330 years worth of time.

Afterward, he grabbed two of the now-lifeless Spirit Poultry, activated his Yin Spirit power to mask his presence, and silently slipped out of the manor.