Like a Ray in My Night (Part 4)

696 Ask First, Act Later

Liu Bao Ru followed closely behind so she saw Yun Bei Fen's body just a step after him. Realizing just who was on the ground, she had a bad feeling.

Elder Baili was the person with the fewest disciples in the whole of the Teng Yong Sect. Every now and then, the other Elders would make fun of him for the way he took them but honestly, most felt that while his way of going about things might be uncommon, he had done a splendid job of choosing them. It wasn't just that each of them was remarkable. No, even though that was true, the most noticeable part was that their relationships with each other were incredibly close. It simply couldn't be compared with the disciples of other Elders.

If you looked at the rest of their sect or even the other three great righteous sects, then the difference was obvious to the naked eye: When it came to most of those who learned under the same Master, they would indeed be a little closer than they were with other disciples. But this was only due to the virtue of living in close quarters. You could see that the longer the time between when those disciples had been taken in, the less of a relationship was there.

With Elder Baili's disciples, that was very much not the case. He was the one who took in disciples the most irregular. In fact, he usually found some excuse to leave shortly before the sect opened its doors to accept new disciples. He had only ever brought one home when he accidentally stumbled upon someone he liked outside during a mission. Due to this, the age gap between his disciples was immense but their relationship with each other was still close.

What was even more astounding was that out of his four disciples, three of them had come to the sect at an older age, and none of them at the same. As a result, they didn't share any of the common experiences other disciples had due to growing up in a cultivation sect. No matter how you looked at it, those four were extremely different and had almost nothing in common. And yet ... they were as close as those who joined the same sect under the same Master at the same time. It was something worthy of being jealous of.

This also meant that for Zhi Guan, the current situation was probably the worst he could ever imagine. To find one of his juniors in a state where it was doubtful whether they were still alive and while they were surrounded by demonic practitioners no less ... even he who usually took everything in stride might not be able to deal with it calmly. If worst came to worse, he might accidentally give away their identities.

She furrowed her brows and then hurriedly turned to the demonic practitioner next to her. She had to act faster than Zhi Guan now and try to pull the attention of the people close by to her or to the general circumstances so that any odd reaction he had wouldn't be noticed as easily. "What happened? We heard an explosion and came to check. Did the righteous faction attack?"

The demonic practitioner made a faint sound but shook his head. "No, it's worse."

Liu Bao Ru raised her brows. "Worse than that?" Even looking at this from the perspective of the demonic faction, she couldn't imagine what was supposed to be worse.

The other person sighed and motioned inside. "Apparently, senior martial brother Mu defected. He attacked senior martial brother Wen when they realized what had happened. The explosion was also caused by him when he fled."

Liu Bao Ru's brows rose even higher. "Did he manage to flee? Where is he now? Shouldn't we try to chase him?"

The other person only sighed. "What can we do? Senior martial brother Lu went after him but hasn't returned yet. Senior martial brother Wen has just healed and senior martial brother Song is furious. He told the first person to ask to stay outside and guard this person. He's ... well, you know how he gets when he is angry."

"Oh. Yeah." Liu Bao Ru tried to put on a troubled expression and nodded. She didn't actually know but usually, this kind of thing would only be said about someone who would be troublesome to deal with when in the wrong mood. Coupled with how this person had said that he was furious, it was likely that Song Yu Zheng was the type to make his being angry everyone else's problem. "I suppose nobody else dared to ask after that."

The demonic disciple nodded. "I certainly don't. I mean ... if you want to ..."

Liu Bao Ru hastily shook her head. She was already afraid that Song Yu Zheng or Wen Xiang might hear and recognize her voice if she said too much. She certainly wouldn't go any closer to make the risk higher.

She didn't say more about it and instead motioned toward Yun Bei Fen on the ground. "So ... why exactly are we guarding this ... person?" She wasn't entirely sure how the people of the demonic faction usually referred to their righteous faction. Chances were, the word 'righteous' didn't factor into it. Thus, she didn't want to repeat the word too often and finally used such a vague description.

The disciple didn't seem to care about that but, unfortunately, he also didn't seem to know anything more. "I have no idea. Maybe he's part of the plan somehow? Or maybe he came here to inform senior martial brother Mu about something and that's how he got caught?" He glanced at her robe and then at Zhi Guan's after hers didn't give him any information. Seeing that it was the one from the Yu She Sect and not from their Wu Yun Sect, he figured these two didn't quite understand everything. "Either way, just do what senior martial brother Song asked for. He's the one in charge now until everything has been reported to the Elders and they send somebody new."

"Sure. Thanks for reminding me." Liu Bao Ru nodded as if grateful and then turned to Zhi Guan. Unfortunately, with so many people around, they couldn't talk about what they had heard or what their next steps were supposed to be.

Of course, it was clear that they couldn't stay around. They had to leave and in the best case, they'd be taking Yun Bei Fen along. She just had no idea how to actually do that under the eyes of so many people. But at the very least, they now had some information to work with.