More than just “quite interesting”?

Jian Chou was almost amused to the point of anger by this Judge Minister’s temperament. But setting aside the sudden sense of absurdity in her heart, she found Zhang Tang to be remarkably clear-headed—hedging his bets and avoiding harm while seeking profit with truly first-rate skill.

Because of his past entanglements with her, and under pressure from her “threats,” he had helped her greatly today. Jian Chou was, after all, the Senior Sister of Yashan and one of the great powers of the Nineteen Continents, representing the Nineteen Continents to some degree. So Zhang Tang had shown goodwill toward the Nineteen Continents.

But he hadn’t directly defected to the Nineteen Continents.

After decisively killing Lord Chu Jiang, he actually chose to return to Eight Directions City. His words clearly indicated he wouldn’t take sides or defect before the situation became clear, unless the Nineteen Continents truly had the ability to take Wrongful Death City and attack Eight Directions City.

This way, if the Extreme Domain won, or rather, didn’t lose, and the matter of collaborating with the enemy wasn’t exposed, then Zhang Tang would still be the Grand Judge of the first Underworld Palace in the Extreme Domain. If the Nineteen Continents won, or if the Extreme Domain showed signs of defeat, he could abandon darkness for light at any time. After all, he had previously helped Jian Chou, so the Nineteen Continents had no reason not to accept his defection. Thus, although he might not be able to remain a judge in the end, he wouldn’t have to worry about his life.

All that talk about being a civil official and crude violence…

Just excuses.

This scribe simply didn’t want to get involved in this muddy water!

“Friend Jian Chou truly has extensive social connections—even becoming friends with the Great Xia’s notoriously harsh judge from the past. Quite admirable indeed.”

Xie Buchen’s rarely sarcastic voice sounded.

Jian Chou extracted herself from her complex thoughts and looked at him, seeing Xie Buchen gazing at her calmly, his eyes hiding several traces of peaceful contemplation.

So she smiled.

“Friend Xie flatters me. Whether someone is a harsh judge or not is beyond calculation, but there’s one saying under heaven that remains unshakeable: the enemy of my enemy should be my friend; the foe of my foe is naturally my ally. Why should Friend Xie admire me? I should be the one thanking Friend Xie.”

Undercurrents surged again.

This faintly carried a sense of tit-for-tat confrontation, almost like returning to when they had explored the hidden realm of Qingfeng Nunnery together, with every sentence hiding sharp wit and cold light that only the two of them could understand and truly feel.

Lu Xiangleng’s gaze toward the two of them once again held more exploration.

Qu Zhengfeng casually pointed at Lord Chu Jiang’s corpse at his feet, saying: “Friend Jian Chou’s judge friend may seem eccentric in his actions, but he actually follows extremely systematic principles. Someone who weighs interests so clearly in his heart would never kill suddenly just because he ‘endured for a long time,’ and still dare to return to the Eight Directions Underworld Palace afterward. I think this wasn’t a spontaneous killing, but killing on orders. If so, we needn’t worry about his safety. We should rather plan and calculate what to do next.”

Killing on orders?

This deduction was undoubtedly quite incredible. If others heard it, they would probably show disbelief. But among the few people present who were clearheaded, Jian Chou nodded in agreement, Xie Buchen remained expressionless, and Lu Xiangleng looked thoughtful—not a single person objected.

Obviously, even if everyone wasn’t thinking “killing on orders,” their thoughts weren’t far from it.

What to do next became clear.

The grudge between Jian Chou and Xie Buchen wasn’t something that developed overnight, and the grudge between Zhang Tang and Xie Buchen couldn’t be resolved just by wanting to. There was indeed still a mess waiting for everyone to clean up, so they all tacitly set aside all the surging undercurrents to first properly handle the situation in the great hall.

That Wuchang Clan elder Kong Yin had already fainted when Xie Buchen restrained him. He was inherently a bully who feared the strong—completely useless. Jian Chou woke him from unconsciousness, applied some methods, and scared him a bit, forcing him to comply and making him keep silent about today’s events.

Xie Buchen and Lu Xiangleng, along with Jian Chou and Qu Zhengfeng, split up to act separately.

With such a major event as an Underworld ruler’s death occurring, and having already obtained the Waning Moon Order Token to close the watchtower, Xie Buchen and Lu Xiangleng naturally couldn’t remain here any longer. They took advantage of others not yet discovering anything to quietly leave the great hall and return outside Ghost Gate Pass to report the situation to the Nineteen Continents side.

Jian Chou and Qu Zhengfeng had other plans.

The two were skilled and bold, and trusted Zhang Tang’s ability to smooth over this matter. They weren’t in a hurry to leave, instead transforming back into the appearances of Lian Zhao and Xiao Mou, lying down to pretend to be severely injured and unconscious.

After two quarters of an hour, the judge who had originally been guarding outside the great hall finally sensed something was wrong. When he came in to look, he was frightened by the scene inside, his legs went weak and he directly knelt down! He finally crawled to Lord Chu Jiang’s corpse, and upon recognizing that face, he began screaming in terror.

The matter immediately became serious.

The entire watchtower garrison was alarmed, everyone in panic. Jian Chou and Qu Zhengfeng were carried away in a flurry of hands and feet. After “awakening,” they naturally faced much questioning, but the two had anticipated this situation and answered flawlessly.

When asked what exactly happened, they only said that after they entered, those two Nineteen Continents cultivators suddenly attacked, actually restraining them and injuring them. Before losing consciousness, they only vaguely heard that Grand Judge Zhang Tang had arrived, but they knew nothing about what happened afterward.

After all, the two weren’t particularly important, so after three rounds of questioning, no one asked them anymore.

However, Elder Kong Yin, who had been threatened by them, appeared extremely pained when facing various interrogations. He only obscurely revealed his suspicions about Zhang Tang to the interrogators, but didn’t state things clearly. This way, he could maintain this surge of undercurrents, causing mutual suspicion between the Ten Great Ghost Clans and the Eight Directions Underworld Palaces.

After all, Grand Judge Zhang Tang from Lord Qin Guang’s palace had come to Ghost Gate Pass watchtower and happened to encounter fighting inside, then left as if nothing had happened after Lord Chu Jiang’s death—no matter how you looked at it, it was strange!

Who wouldn’t suspect him?

But their wariness lay precisely in his identity as a judge of Lord Qin Guang’s palace. Everyone had to think: with his level of cultivation, how could he kill Lord Chu Jiang? Was he related to those two missing Nineteen Continents cultivators? Was he someone else in disguise? Or was there some other more shocking possibility…

In any case, at this point, the matter had nothing more to do with “Lian Zhao” and “Xiao Mou.”

Jian Chou and Qu Zhengfeng consulted and also split up to act.

Qu Zhengfeng remained at Ghost Gate Pass watchtower with the Waning Moon Order Token to prevent accidents, while Jian Chou, seeing the timing had matured, decided to use the Wuchang Clan’s matter of supplementing ghost soldiers to make another trip to the eighteenth level of hell to bring out the Yashan and Xinghai cultivators waiting there.

During this period, disputes continued before Ghost Gate Pass.

The Nineteen Continents and Extreme Domain had several more battles, each side winning and losing. This stalemate had continued for a long time, and over the past days, everyone had grown accustomed to it.

Only Fu Chaosheng felt extremely bored.

“Boom!”

While on the battlefield before Ghost Gate Pass, he casually flicked his finger forward, and a grain-sized green fluorescent light flew from his fingertip, falling into the tide-like formation of Extreme Domain ghost soldiers.

It immediately burst like falling into an oil pan!

Centered on where the fluorescent light landed, all ghost soldiers standing within ten zhang were instantly swallowed by the spreading green light, crying out in miserable wails!

Moments later, they actually turned into wisps of bloody smoke and vanished into thin air!

Extraordinary methods!

Cruel slaughter!

Over these days, Fu Chaosheng had quite fully demonstrated his unfathomable power to the other Nineteen Continents cultivators.

At this moment, it was even more striking!

Although the battlefield situation was chaotic, clearing ghost soldiers within ten zhang in one move, and in such a bone-chilling manner at that.

The countless miserable wails of those ghost soldiers were truly heart-chilling.

On the Central Domain cultivators’ side, Fengmo Sword Sect’s sect leader Zhang Yuandai glanced over from afar and frowned, feeling that this mysteriously-originated “fellow daoist” from Yashan had truly too cruel methods of killing. Seeing such tragic scenes, his face didn’t even show half a trace of being moved.

Even they, as mere observers, found it too cold-blooded.

Zhang Yuandai shook his head: “After all, not of our kind…”

Standing beside him was Xuanyue Fairy from the Northern Domain’s Yin Sect. Although his words weren’t loud, she heard them clearly and immediately smiled faintly: “Right now everyone is jointly resisting the Extreme Domain. Sect Leader Zhang’s thinking might not be quite right? You should be more careful with your words.”

Zhang Yuandai’s heart grew cold. Although he didn’t think he had said anything wrong, Xuanyue Fairy had considerable authority and her status was a level higher than his. Moreover, she was a female cultivator, so he didn’t argue and simply remained silent.

Seeing this, the others naturally also stopped talking.

But what everyone was really thinking in their hearts, only they themselves knew.

Before Ghost Gate Pass, the surrounding area was rocky desert, flat in the center.

Both sides fought on this plain, going back and forth, yet neither used their full strength. No matter how fiercely the Nineteen Continents attacked, the Extreme Domain wouldn’t expose all their power, preferring instead to sacrifice the ghost soldiers sent to battle.

Small-scale skirmishes continued for two hours.

Fu Chaosheng could clearly sense that as these battles progressed one by one, both sides had gradually figured out each other’s capabilities. The Extreme Domain side had begun increasing the forces invested in battle, and today’s attacking wave of ghost soldiers was obviously several times stronger than usual.

But this wasn’t what he cared about.

After the Extreme Domain retreated, he passed through the crowd and walked back alone.

The brocade pouch hanging at his waist, embroidered with a black carp blowing bubbles, seemed to sense his rare gloomy and irritated mood and said leisurely: “I had the foresight early on to tell you not to randomly open your cosmic dual eyes to look around. Humans have a good saying: with advanced age, use your eyes carefully—what if you damage them from overuse? Calculating by your Mayfly Clan’s lifespan, one day equals one lifetime. You’ve lived how many lifetimes already? Save some energy.”

More nagging!

Fu Chaosheng actually didn’t know how to describe his current mood.

Probably still because Jian Chou wasn’t there?

Although the Yashan people all seemed quite decent, right now he was in the Nineteen Continents formation and not only had to interact with Yashan cultivators but would often encounter other cultivators as well. That feeling of getting along became rather uncomfortable.

These people were truly hard to compare with his old friends.

Whether in perspective, temperament, or words and actions. Perhaps because he had known Jian Chou earliest and cared for her most deeply, when he met her clansmen, he inevitably used her as the standard to measure them, and thus felt none compared favorably.

Fu Chaosheng wasn’t unfamiliar with the ugly things in the human world.

He felt uncomfortable staying among crowds.

Walking in the throng at the moment, he only replied to that dead fish: “Don’t care, I want to leave seclusion!”

“Leave seclusion? What seclusion are you leaving?”

A voice suddenly interjected from behind, both frivolous and filled with astonishment. It was Fudao Shanren, who had caught up while holding a chicken leg and happened to hear him speaking.

“You’re already here as a person—ah no, as a demon—aren’t you?”

Fu Chaosheng didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

After all, that casual voice, casual words, and the drifting fragrance of chicken leg were far too obvious.

He didn’t want to explain much.

Appearing here was only because he wanted to explore the secrets of reincarnation to resolve the Mayfly Clan’s fate of “being born at dawn and dying at dusk,” and more importantly, he had promised Jian Chou to help her see what exactly Xie Buchen was doing.

But now that Xie Buchen wasn’t here, he naturally didn’t need to stay in this place!

Completely reasonable!

So he only replied to Fudao Shanren: “Leaving seclusion means leaving seclusion—I must leave.”

“Huh?”

Fudao Shanren completely couldn’t understand the logic in his words, couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about at all, and was somewhat dumbfounded.

Fu Chaosheng turned to leave.

But unexpectedly, just at this moment, an excited shout rang out ahead, carrying overjoyed excitement and extremely loud: “He’s back! Fellow Daoist Kunwu Xie is back!!!”

The foot he had just lifted immediately froze.

“…”

Nothing to say, suddenly he really wanted to kill someone.