Chapter 1 Who?

"Who?" I didn't understand what Old Liu meant.

Old Liu said, "Ling!"

"Her?" I quickly realized.

Ling has always been watching the sect. I could tell she was very interested in the Heavenly Pass. With her joining, we might achieve twice the result with half the effort.

I stood up and said, "I'll go try! I don't know if Ling will agree."

After I contacted Ling, she only replied with one sentence: Don't worry about the sect, I've got it!

Ling had accepted my invitation, but she wouldn't be traveling with me. She was planning to go through the sect line on her own.

That's good, at least it can save me from searching for one less clue. I can concentrate on dealing with the evil spirits of the Paper Doll Village.

When I was packing my equipment to head to Paper Doll Village, I suddenly remembered something in the car: "Ye Yang, shouldn't we split into two groups, one to Paper Doll Village and one to San Xie Li?"

I said in a deep voice, "According to Mo Caiwei, the Mo family left the village to solve a Heavenly Pass for a certain sect."

"The Mo family's choice to settle in San Xie Li may not be as simple as hiding their identity. I suspect that the key to stepping through the Heavenly Pass may be near San Xie Li."

"Or rather, there is something special about San Xie Li that can restrain the sect's Heavenly Pass."

"No matter what we do in this business, we have to go to San Xie Li. I think it's better to split into two groups. One goes to Paper Doll Village, and the other goes to San Xie Li."

"Moreover, judging from the places we are going, San Xie Li and Paper Doll Village are located in the east and west, respectively. If we ignore the mountains and rivers in between, the two villages are just at a horizontal level."

"There must be a deeper meaning behind the Mo family's choice of this location. Splitting into two groups can save a lot of time."

Ye Yang said in a deep voice, "I'll go to San Xie Li. You guys go to Paper Doll Village."

I pondered for a moment and said, "Senior Sister, notify Old Liu and have him focus all intelligence on Ye Yang's direction. We'll stay in touch."

After Ye Yang and I separated at the fork in the road, we rushed towards our respective destinations.

According to the distance, Ye Yang would arrive in San Xie Li before me, and Zhao Ci's intelligence would follow.

Butcher Wang held the intelligence and read, "According to the intelligence from Ling, Zhao Ci confirmed that the person who hired the Mo family back then was the Cang Yu Sect."

"The Cang Yu Sect belongs to a hidden sect, and its disciples rarely walk in the mundane world. Only a few术士(shùshì, Daoist sorcerer) sects act as representatives. So Zhao Ci can't collect much intelligence."

"From the clues Zhao Ci has gathered so far, he judges that the Cang Yu Sect has long wanted to abandon the sect's Heavenly Pass. Therefore, they once moved the sect to find another place to settle down."

"The martial world only knows of the existence of the Cang Yu Sect, but does not know the specific location of the sect. Therefore, it is difficult to judge the strength of the sect for the time being. We can only infer from the envoys they have sent out several times that congenital experts can only be regarded as middle and lower-level disciples in their sect."

Ye Yang raised his eyebrows slightly, "In that case, the Cang Yu Sect's strength is not bad."

Congenital experts are enough to support a sect in the术道(shùdào, the Dao of esoteric arts) and act as the head of the sect. In the Cang Yu Sect, they can only be disciples who handle miscellaneous affairs. The strength of the Cang Yu Sect is evident.

Butcher Wang nodded before saying, "Zhao Ci judged that the Cang Yu Sect should have suffered heavy damage at the sect's Heavenly Pass, so they had to lead the crowd to evacuate and recover their strength. Mo Family Village, which is San Xie Li, should be the original site of the sect."

Ye Yang said, "The sect has evacuated, would anyone build a village there?"

There is a saying in the Northeast folk tradition: a temple site is definitely a treasure of Feng Shui, but after the temple is destroyed, you can no longer build a house on the original site. The earth's energy has long been suppressed by the temple, and building a house again will not occupy the Feng Shui.

Of course, there is another saying: the temple leaves, but the gods don't. Moving earth on the gods' territory is easy to cause trouble. Unless, you want to rebuild the temple.

The "temple site" mentioned here does not refer specifically to mountain god temples, but also includes Daoist temples, nunneries, and temples.

Butcher Wang said, "Zhao Ci also investigated this matter. He calculated it back based on local chronicles. The appearance of Mo Family Village has no definite time, and it is likely that it became a village overnight."

"Zhao Ci thinks that Mo Family Village was probably forcibly moved to the mountains by the Cang Yu Sect using秘法(mìfǎ, secret arts) before they evacuated. Deliberately letting people come to be sacrifices."

Ye Yang only said four words: "Despicable and unforgivable."

Butcher Wang continued, "In addition, Zhao Ci also discovered one thing. That is, the Cang Yu Sect has taken away well-known术士(shùshì, Daoist sorcerer)s more than once, nominally taking them into the sect. However, those术士(shùshì, Daoist sorcerer)s never appeared again. Zhao Ci suspects that those people were sent to Mo Family Village."

"Currently, we can only grasp these pieces of information."

Ye Yang nodded slightly and said, "Do you think there are still sect disciples in Mo Family Village?"

"It's possible!" Butcher Wang said, "Currently, it seems that the Cang Yu Sect and the Ao Xue Sect have completely different attitudes towards the Heavenly Pass."

"The Ao Xue Sect has always been strictly guarded, and has even sacrificed several generations of disciples for the Heavenly Pass."

"The Cang Yu Sect, however, has the mentality of avoiding it if they can, and escaping if they can. Moreover, I suspect that the Cang Yu Sect has reached some kind of balance without a contract with the evil spirits of the Heavenly Pass. The Cang Yu Sect has been sending people to die, and the evil spirits have not been coming out."

Intuition told Ye Yang that Butcher Wang's deduction was 90% correct.