18: Evaluation

It was already past midnight.

But the room was fully lit as Gu Suihan’s two maids stood nervously next to him and waited for any instructions he might have.

Member of the sect for seven years, at Perfect Physical Realm, cultivates in Jinxed Sun Sword Technique and True Fire Body Training Technique. Allocated to the South Compound when he first entered the sect, made it to the East Compound within three years, known to attack viciously.

His moves are varied, and he is not the most agile, but he has a lot of strength. He is suspected to be cultivating some sort of technique that refines the body and his defense techniques are fairly powerful. According to current estimates, he has at least three magic weapons. His actual fighting prowess could be ranked within the top 50 among his peers.

Gu Suihan frowned as he read through these things, sorting out the information silently and making plans.

Trained in sword techniques, a little clumsy, vicious. Most people with Fire Spiritual Roots have violent tendencies. His magic weapons can be ignored. Nobody knows how many trump cards he really has. If I fought him in my current state, I would definitely lose. If I’m not careful, this body might even be destroyed in the process.

The moonlight shining in through the window was gentle, but the look in Gu Suihan’s eyes was chilling.

He decided that he couldn’t put this off any longer. He had initially hoped to understand more about this world from the lecturers and make plans later, but things didn’t always go as planned.

“Hurhur.” Gu Suihan let out a snort when he recalled what Li Rong said about Li Xianming’s cause of death. “Attacked by a magical beast? Seriously, this was a plan with so many loopholes.”

The powder that Gu Suihan had flicked onto Li Xianming was Shadow Tracking Powder, which was something that could be used to locate one’s whereabouts. Gu Suihan had initially intended to use this powder to keep tabs on Li Xianming, then find a chance to kill him off. He didn’t expect Li Xianming to leave the mountain the very next day.

“If I remember correctly, a Steel-backed Demon Monkey prefers to remain in the depths of a forest where it’s very quiet and they always move as a group. Why would there be only one of them?”

“Young Master, if that is so, could it be that someone wants to frame you for it?” a clear voice rang out beside him.

The two maids who had returned to the residence with Gu Suihan didn’t have names, so he named them Lihua and Taohua.

“I wouldn’t believe it if anyone insisted that this was just a coincidence.” Gu Suihan turned to look at Taohua, the one who spoke up earlier.

“Who is trying to frame you?”

Gu Suihan fell silent for a long time before quietly saying, “The Way Seekers Alliance.”

…

Meanwhile, in a luxuriously built residence.

Miss Mo’s eyes were half closed as she leaned lazily against her chair and casually glanced at the very tense Nan Xingyuan in front of her.

“Look at what you’ve done.” Miss Mo spoke in a quiet and calm manner, but the anger was apparent in her words.

“I was in the wrong.” Nan Xingyuan was feeling pretty terrified right now. It never crossed her mind that her seemingly perfect plan would be uncovered almost immediately by Miss Mo.

“I got a disciplinarian to find out these things for me in secret. You can take a look at it yourself,” said Miss Mo.

Gu Suihan: joined the sect for a little more than a month, Spiritual Root and mental resilience tested to be at high levels. Perfect Physical Realm, expert in knives. Meticulous character, vicious in attacks. Suspected to have heavy involvement in the Royal Court tax ship robbery that occurred some years ago. After that incident, he was often seen going in and out of the black market. In less than three days after he entered the sect, every relative in his father’s bloodline died. No reason was found. Not a single one was spared. On very good terms with Xiexin zhenren’s son, Li Rong. Judging from the incident at Fortune Court, he seems to have cultivated a body refining technique before.

“Then take a look at this as well.”

A mocking smile spread across Miss Mo’s lips as she flung a booklet onto the floor right in front of Nan Xingyuan.

“The evaluation book?” Nan Xingyuan was surprised. After she spotted the smile in Miss Mo’s eye, she quickly opened the booklet.

Spiritual Root at Level Eight, high grade Geng Gold, aloof person. Can be extremely obsessed. Although he knows when to attack and when to retreat, his personality is still very extreme and does not conform to social norms. Has no emotions or attachment to other people. In short, he is someone with no heart.

“Do you know what it means by ‘he is someone with no heart’?” Miss Mo patiently waited for Nan Xingyuan to read everything carefully before posing her this question with a raised eyebrow.

“N-no, I don’t.” Nan Xingyuan was a little confused and unsure.

“No hatred, no greed, no infatuation. No regard for rules, the Way of Heaven or deities. Lives only for his own obsessions. No emotions, no attachment, no morals, no ethics. That’s what it means when someone is described as having no heart.” Miss Mo was a little perturbed as she went on, “In an ordinary persons’ society, such a person would become the favorite of the authorities if he became a court official. If he became a military general, he would be sent all by himself to a territory outside the country. Such a person does not respect nor fear anything at all. They are very frightening people.”

“Nothing is perfect in this world.” Nan Xingyuan’s gaze remained obstinate. “He must possess some flaw.”

“He kills without batting an eyelid, has no compassion, no loyalty and is a very careful person.” Miss Mo didn’t disagree with Nan Xingyuan and looked down at the young and slightly childish girl standing in front of her. “His biggest flaw is how obsessed he can be.”

“I’m not blaming you for doing something you shouldn’t have.” Miss Mo sat up and said emotionlessly, “Such a person should not exist in the first place.”

Hope slowly filled Nan Xingyuan’s face.

Miss Mo scoffed. “What makes me angry is the fact that you don’t understand who you’re up against, yet you went ahead to do something that raised the alarm, thinking you were very clever. So, you thought you had a perfect plan? Did you know that Steel-backed Demon Monkeys are actually magical beasts that only move in groups? Did you know that these beasts naturally stay in the depths of the forest and hardly come so far out? Did you know that even though someone might be dead, there are countless ways to gather the pieces of his soul together and search it for things that happened during his lifetime?”

Her tone and expression were very harsh by the time she got to the last sentence. There were many times she wished she could just slice Gu Suihan to pieces. That fearless and complacent look in his eyes, his willingness to kill without hesitation and the brazen way he extorted those things from her back in the East Compound made her gnash her teeth in anger.

She was already at the Mid-phase Foundation Establishment, owned plenty of magic weapons and the like, and she had mastered a few dozen spells and techniques too.

But what was the use of all that? She was merely an internal disciple of the Seven Kill Sect. She didn’t dare to go against the sect rules at all.

“Rules 21, 31 and 37 of the Seven Kill Sect state that internal disciples cannot protect external disciples, cannot interfere in a fight between external disciples and cannot use their status to pressurize external disciples.” Miss Mo let out a long sigh and said quietly, “That’s why I didn’t dare to do anything the last time.”

“Then…Miss Mo, what should we do?” asked Nan Xingyuan after she had wiped her tears away and calmed back down again.

Miss Mo gave Nan Xingyuan an approving look and said, “Now that this has happened, there is no way we can come to a truce with Gu Suihan. I’ve already sent compensation to Li Xianlong for the failure of your plan, and he has also agreed to challenge Gu Suihan next month and kill the boy.”

“What if he fails?”

“What if he fails?” Miss Mo raised an eyebrow. “He won’t fail. You only live once. Do you think he’ll still be alive if he fails?”

“Besides, even if he fails, we will have many chances to try.” Miss Mo smiled faintly.

In short, Li Xianlong was merely going to serve as a yardstick to measure Gu Suihan’s abilities. It would be best if he succeeded in killing Gu Suihan, but it didn’t matter if he failed either.

“Go back and continue cultivating, all of you don’t have much time. It’s almost time for that thing…” She looked rather tired after saying so much and waved a hand to dismiss Nan Xingyuan.

But Nan Xingyuan was still thinking about Gu Suihan and hadn’t noticed exactly what Miss Mo was saying at the end.

After Nan Xingyuan left, the maid next to Miss Mo asked, “Miss, why do you pay Nan Xingyuan so much attention?”

“Nan Xingyuan?” Miss Mo smiled faintly. “I’m not concerned about her. I’m concerned with what Gu Suihan is holding onto.”

“Gu Suihan?” The maid was confused and didn’t understand how this was somehow connected to Gu Suihan again.

“Xiaomei, think about it. The fleet that was robbed back then had a total of eight ships, but only two were actually robbed. Why just those two? And the craziest part was that nobody else on the other boats noticed anything.” Miss Mo closed her eyes and enjoyed letting her maid massage her back. “More importantly, how did the things on those two boats get shipped away? And why did the old fellow in the royal palace get so angry when he heard that the ships had been robbed?”

“Because cultivators were involved. That’s how the things got shipped away. As long as they set up a formation, nobody else on the other boats would detect anything, right? As for why that old fellow would get angry…I’m sure it’s because he feels that the robbery of a tax ship is an embarrassment to the monarchy.”

“Hoho.” Miss Mo made a few pleased noises, then said with a laugh, “High level martial artists must have been protecting those tax ships, so it’s not possible for anybody to have set up a formation without anybody noticing at all. So, it’s impossible that a cultivator was involved, since martial artists can sense Qi movement as well and would have smelled something fishy.”

“As for why I’m very certain that this thing is with Gu Suihan, it’s because my cultivation technique surprisingly has zero effect on him, so I’m sure something is protecting him. He was merely an ordinary person before joining the sect, so how could he be able to deflect my Mara Charm Spell completely?”

The maid didn’t know what to say after hearing Miss Mo’s analysis. She stuttered as she said, “But…but isn’t that a bit of a reach? Maybe he got lucky and managed to buy some magic weapon from the black market?”

“The Mara Charm Spell is silent and almost impossible to detect. To hold up against it, you must either have one of those magic weapons that only an Origin Core cultivator is able to use or a rare spiritual item that is meant to defend oneself from this particular type of spell. Otherwise, you could also be born with some technique, or you have incredible willpower, or…you have Vow Power from the masses.”

Miss Mo continued to analyze the situation carefully, “Even if that boy has very good luck, the chances that he finds a magic weapon of sorts is almost zero. He’s only at the Perfect Physical Realm, so he wouldn’t have any techniques that would help him. Willpower is something that works only on someone at the same cultivation level as yourself. In that case…it’s got to be the last one.”

“Miss, you still haven’t told me how Gu Suihan managed to rob the tax ships,” said Xiaomei mischievously.

“You naughty little girl! How dare you laugh at me!” Miss Mo looked a little upset as she pressed her maid against the floor, and they continued to tease one another.