Find the child
Yu Zhu was startled; what was Shao Zaihuan doing here?
Jing Xu had already come to his senses by this time. He got up and poured himself a cup of cold tea. "What brings you here, Young Master Shao?"
"Is this young master going to let me stand outside and talk like this?" Despite saying this, Shao Zaihuan casually walked into the house, found a place to sit, opened his folding fan and shook it, "This smells bad."
At this moment, Ning Wu and Zhou Nan, who were on the same floor, also arrived.
Ning Wu: "What's going on? What's he doing here?"
Seeing this, Yu Zhu sent a message to Jing Shu on the floor below, suggesting that everyone come together.
Jingxu took the opportunity to take out a light blue outer robe and draped it over Yuzhu.
Soon, Ning Wu and Bai Wei went upstairs, and seven people gathered in the room.
Jing Xu: "Young Master Shao, why are you at my door when you're not busy with your remaining years?"
Shao Zaihuan closed his fan and leaned back, saying, "Because of the fragrance of mimosa flowers on you."
Jing Shu rolled her eyes. "Now that you're here, young master, just say what you need to say. Don't leave anything unsaid."
Ning Wu scoffed, "You're just being deliberately mysterious."
Shao Zaihuan glanced at Ning Wu and said, "You went to the backyard of Xianding Pavilion, didn't you? I've been there before. I think the mimosa tree in the courtyard might develop sentience in another year or two. But today I smelled the fragrance of flowers on the two of you."
He looked at Yuzhu and Jingxu, "When you two returned to Youmenglou from Xianding Pavilion, the fragrance of flowers was still there. I suspect that it has developed sentience. You went to the backyard and it marked you."
Yu Zhu frowned: "Mark? You mean scent?"
"It's a flower."
Following Jingxu's gaze, everyone saw a pink and white flower lying quietly on the ground beside the bed.
Yu Zhu went back into the house, then came back again, opening her palm. "I have some in my room too."
Jingxu: "Perhaps the flowers fell on us."
Shao Zaihuan curled his lips, seemingly implying something, and said, "Perhaps it did it on purpose?"
Jing Shu asked seriously, "A Zhu, what effect do the flowers have on you?"
"I just had a dream," Yu Zhu said, rubbing her fingers together.
"Where is Jingxu?" Jingshu turned to him again.
Jing Xu lowered his eyes. "Me too, I had a dream."
"Albizia flowers can be used in medicine and have a calming effect. If they have intelligence, it's not an exaggeration to say that they can make people dream," Bai Wei said at the right time.
Ning Wu glared at Shao Zaihuan, "How do you know all this? And why are you guarding in front of Fellow Daoist Jing's room? I think this is all your doing, isn't it?"
"Huh?" Shao Zaihuan opened his mouth wide in disbelief. "I kindly reminded you, and you turned around and bit me."
"A reminder? Why didn't you remind me from the beginning? You only jumped out after the dream was over. It's hard to believe your good intentions," Ning Wu retorted.
Shao Zaihuan's brows furrowed.
The room fell silent for a moment.
Yu Zhu: "Young Master Shao, please explain clearly what you intend to do."
"I'm just here to confirm whether it has truly developed sentience." Shao Zaihuan's lips curled into a smile. "Now it seems it certainly has. I wonder what dreams you two had? Can you tell me why it suddenly developed sentience?"
Yu Zhu: "It was just an ordinary dream; we don't know why it developed sentience."
Ning Wu let out a cold sneer and shot his gaze at Shao Zaihuan, "What intelligence? Maybe he's just using the mimosa flower as a pretext to pull this trick himself."
Bai Wei, who had been pondering silently, suddenly said, "I think Young Master Shao's words make sense. Perhaps that mimosa tree encountered some kind of opportunity and suddenly gained sentience."
Jing Shu, Yu Zhu, and Jing Xu looked at her. Bai Wei's eyes were calm. She was going to check on the mimosa tree.
Ning Wu looked at Bai Wei and said, "Miss Bai, this person is a demonic cultivator. Demonic cultivators are skilled in illusion techniques, so the dream is very likely an illusion created by him."
A hint of surprise flashed across Bai Wei's face.
Jing Shu frowned, not because of Shao Zaihuan's identity as a demonic cultivator, but because Ning Wu's bluntness might make things awkward.
Sure enough, anger flared in Shao Zaihuan's eyes. "So what if I'm a demonic cultivator? I'm upright and honest, unlike some spiritual cultivators who sneak around and follow others around, with no idea what they're up to."
He indeed discovered that Ning Wu and Zhou Nan were following them.
Zhou Nan's face flushed red, and he stammered, unable to speak.
Ning Wu, on the other hand, was quite self-righteous, saying, "Who doesn't know that demonic cultivators are of questionable character, despicable and vile, so it's normal for them to be viewed with suspicion?"
Shao Zaihuan snorted coldly, "Are you spiritual cultivators all good people? Aren't you all just scheming and hypocritical?"
Who are you calling a hypocrite?
"Enough!"
Jing Shu slammed her hand on the table, her face cold. "Whether it's a mimosa flower or an illusion, we'll know for sure tomorrow."
"Let's go now!" Yu Zhu and Jing Xu said in unison.
Yu Zhu glanced at Jing Xu, signaling him to continue.
“There’s something fishy about the Immortal Pavilion that we haven’t noticed. It’s very likely they’ve been preparing for this for a while. We must act immediately to prevent them from leaving any loose ends.”
Yu Zhu nodded; she thought the same thing as Jing Xu.
Upon hearing this, Jing Shu immediately made a decision, "Okay, let's go now."
Shao Zaihuan: I'll go too.
Ning Wu disagreed, "Why should I—"
“Alright, Young Master Shao, you can come along too.”
Yu Zhu readily agreed; Ning Wu's extreme aversion to demonic cultivators had already influenced his judgment.
The group hurried to the Immortal Peak Pavilion.
At this moment, night had fallen, the moon was obscured by thin clouds, a few stars twinkled, and all the lights of the Xianding Pavilion were extinguished, the exquisite and magnificent pavilion losing its luster in the night.
Fearing that someone might be walking around in the backyard, the group broke open the front door, went out of the small building, passed through the first-floor hall, and stopped in the veranda.
Several rooms in the back wing were lit up, and two guards under the eaves seemed to be talking.
The mimosa tree stands in the center of the courtyard, which also features some artificial hills, ponds, and flowerbeds, but none of these are enough to conceal the human figure.
Bai Wei pricked her finger, squeezed out a drop of blood, and used a wisp of spiritual power to carry it, trembling as it flew towards the Albizia tree. When the blood drop touched the trunk of the Albizia tree, a faint pink light suddenly appeared and disappeared in an instant.
Bai Wei whispered, "That tree absorbed the blood of the people of Baicao Village."
This seems to be the reason why it suddenly developed intelligence.
"What can we do? There are people guarding it," Yu Zhu said irritably.
"Since there's something fishy going on, let's take action."
Before he finished speaking, Shao Zaihuan leaped out. As soon as he landed, the backyard lit up. The two guards attacked Shao Zaihuan, and another group of people poured out of the house.
Shao Zaihuan manipulated his folding fan, twirling it back and forth among the guards, and the guard closest to him was immediately splattered with blood.
Yu Zhu subconsciously turned her face away.
Shao Zaihuan's cultivation level seemed to be very high. In less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, the twenty or thirty guards were knocked to the ground.
Upon seeing this, everyone's expressions varied, and some of them felt a sense of apprehension, especially Ning Wu, whose face darkened.
The people from Xianding Pavilion have all fled, leaving only these people.
He poured his magic into the ground, and the purple spiritual energy spread out in a spiderweb pattern from the center of the acacia tree. With a wave of his fan, the soil covered by the spiderweb vanished.
Upon closer inspection, the gnarled roots of the mimosa tree formed a barrier, and beneath the roots lay a pit. Through the gaps, one could see more than a dozen children lying inside with their eyes tightly closed.
They broke through the barrier and Yu Zhu and the others moved the child out.
Bai Wei was skilled in medicine. She examined several children who had been given medicine and fallen into a coma. Strangely, some of them had disordered meridians, and others had poison in their bodies. In short, their condition was not good.
"Senior sister, we can't handle these children," Yuzhu said to Jingshu.
Jing Shu pondered for a moment, then took out the jade token, flipped it over, and channeled her spiritual energy into it. "I'm calling for help."
"Help? Who is it?"
"Just call them whoever's turf you're on."
Seeing Bai Wei examining the children's faces, Jing Shu asked, "Miss Bai, have you found the children from your Baicao Village?"
After checking on the child, Shao Zaihuan then injected his magic into the foreheads of several guards.
A look of doubt appeared in Yu Zhu's eyes, and Jing Xu said softly, "He might be using a soul-searching technique."
The sect leader had previously used a similar method when probing his soul.
Yu Zhu walked over: "Do you know what Young Master Shao wants to know?"
Shao Zaihuan clapped his hands and cast a cleansing spell. "These guards have had their memories erased. It's late and the dew is heavy, so I'll take my leave now."
After saying that, he turned and left.
"Fellow Daoist Yu, are you just going to let him leave like that?" Ning Wu asked, his tone filled with dissatisfaction.
"Since Fellow Daoist Ning doesn't want to let him go, why don't you stop him yourself?" Jing Xu looked at him with a hint of coldness in his eyes.
Ning Wu fell silent, seemingly realizing after what had just happened that he was no match for Shao Zaihuan.
“There are only two children from Baicao Village here,” Jing Shu said solemnly.
Looking at the children lying on the ground with their eyes closed and faces pale, Yu Zhu felt the idea that the Immortal Pavilion was conducting human experiments growing stronger.
Ning Wu seemed reluctant to admit it, and said, "Perhaps the other child is like the one we found before..."
The words were left unsaid, but everyone could understand their meaning.
Bai Wei almost bit her lower lip until it bled. The cultivation world had been turbulent for years, and Baicao Village had finally produced a few children with good aptitude. They were about to begin their cultivation in a few years when this happened.
Several streaks of light flashed across the night sky and fell into the backyard of the Immortal Pavilion.
It turned out that a group of people had arrived on swords. All of them were dressed in gray robes with landscape patterns on them—they were from the Yinshan Mountains.
The leader gestured, and the others went to check on the children. He looked at Jing Shu and said, "I brought a healer with me. These children can be placed in my house in Fangcaozhou."
"Thank you for your trouble."
"No need. This happened within the Yinshan territory, and the Yinshan Mountains will not stand idly by."
After exchanging a few polite words, the two stood on opposite sides, watching the others act.
There was a place in the Yinshan Mountains, so Bai Wei decided to go with the two children who were still unconscious. Ning Wu also volunteered to take care of the children from Baicao Village. The people from the Yinshan Mountains that Jing Shu had called over, who were also the team leaders for this operation, naturally had to accompany them as well.
In the end, only Yu Zhu, who was of a higher generation, led Jing Xu and Zhou Nan, who had lower cultivation levels, back to Youmenglou.
Yu Zhu pulled the two of them into Jing Xu's room. "Do you also think that the child we haven't found is dead?"
Zhou Nan was taken aback. "That's also possible."
Jingxu: "Senior sister, do you have any thoughts?"
“I suspect that the Immortal Pavilion is conducting human experiments.” Seeing that the two didn’t quite understand, Yuzhu changed her approach. “They might be researching some kind of evil magic. Look at those children, they have poison in their bodies and their meridians are disordered. Doesn’t the Immortal Pavilion seem to be using them for experiments?”
Jing Xu quickly understood, his brows furrowing slightly. "The child they haven't found might still be useful for their research."
Zhou Nan: "Then it's been moved again. How are we supposed to find it?"
Jing Xu took out a communication jade token. "We need to seal off the city to search. Just an hour or two ago, the Immortal Pavilion was still open as usual. They must have just set off, and they might not have left yet. I'll send a message to Senior Sister Jing Shu now."
Yu Zhu turned to Zhou Nan, "Did you notice anything strange about Ning Wu when you were with him today?"
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