Upon receiving the summons, Elder Zhou hurriedly ran over, only to discover upon standing before the mountain gate that the buttons on his outer robe were all fastened incorrectly.
After hurriedly adjusting my appearance, I looked up again and saw two streaks of light on the horizon.
The shadow stopped in front of him in an instant. The one with the ice elemental power was Ji Mofan, no need to think about it. As for the other one in black...
The masked, black-clad cultivator flipped the enormous cauldron in his hand, and a person poured out of it with a gurgling sound.
“Ahem…” Ji Mofan coughed awkwardly, “This is what I was telling you, Master Peng Ruo.”
"This is Elder Zhou Hengyu of the Medical Peak of the Yuncang Sword Sect. He was the one who was in charge of diagnosing the sect leader's illness before."
Zhou Hengyu stared at the grayish-brown thing on the ground, his eyes wide like a goldfish.
He used to be a talented alchemist, so he had a biased view of all talented alchemists and didn't care much about their appearance. Even if someone was ugly or deformed, it wouldn't prevent him from seeing through the surface to the essence.
But can someone explain to him who this person in front of him, who looks like an old scavenger, is?
"Elder Zhou, please forgive me. The gentleman is used to living alone in the mountains and doesn't care much about his appearance," said the strange man wearing a mask.
Zhou Hengyu looked him over curiously, then his gaze drifted to Ji Mofan beside him with a questioning look. "Who is this...?"
“Nanxun just won the top rank in the Dao Asking Tournament,” Ji Mofan said.
Zhou Hengyu gasped.
No wonder they dared to be so presumptuous towards Peng Ruo; it turns out they had powerful backers.
He did not attend the conference; all the information he received was hearsay.
He knew Nan Xun's name, knew he was a rogue cultivator, and knew he was an oddball who wore a mask throughout the competition and refused to show his true face.
The only thing they didn't consider was that he himself had an astonishing background and network of connections.
"Of course, of course. Greetings, Elder Zhou." Nan Xun casually raised her hand and bowed to him.
Zhou Hengyu returned the greeting in surprise, and it took him a while to realize that something was wrong.
Being eligible to participate in the Daoist Inquiry Conference meant that Nanxun must be no older than thirty. There was absolutely no need for him to return the greeting of equal rank to a junior!
But just now he raised his hand and did it so naturally, and inexplicably it felt very natural, as if this person was born to sit in a position of great respect and admiration.
Zhou Hengyu shook his head, dispelling these random thoughts from his mind, and focused his attention on Peng Ruo, who was diagnosing Qi Yuan.
Peng Ruo examined the patient from all angles for a long time, taking her pulse and flipping her eyelids, his technique as crude as that of a second-rate alchemist.
"Deficiency of both qi and blood, and stagnation of the heart vessels, leading to coma and unconsciousness."
Then, Shui Lingling made a similar judgment to herself.
Zhou Hengyu felt that he could do this job too.
"Can you figure out what caused this?" Zhou Hengyu was bewildered. Ji Mofan didn't expect him to come up with any explanation; he had only called him over to be a witness.
"It seems to be caused by Gu worms." Peng Ruo pinched his chin, seemingly lost in thought.
"Gu worms?!" Zhou Hengyu almost jumped up when he heard the term. "How is that possible?!"
"The Yuncang Sword Sect is located in the heart of the cultivation world, far away from the Southern Frontier. How could it possibly be tainted by such filthy things!"
“Elder, there’s no need to be so certain.” Ji Mofan tilted his head and glanced at him. “If it’s a Gu worm, I saw one once recently.”
"Moreover, the person who was infected was a disciple of my Yun Cang Sword Sect."
Zhou Hengyu's mouth gaped open, his surprise seemingly genuine.
Ji Mofan sighed and took out a small ceramic jar from his Qiankun bag.
It was the same Gu worm that was used on Li Geyue before, and he later used it to fool Wu Qi.
In order not to cause trouble for Miao Miao, who still wanted to live in the Demon Realm, Li Jinchu found a way to retrieve the item after the deed was done and returned it to Ji Mofan.
Now is the perfect time to use this to scare Zhou Hengyu again.
"It was too late when I discovered this." Ji Mofan looked at the pottery jar and sighed with regret. "If I had discovered it earlier, my junior brother wouldn't have ended up like this."
Zhou Hengyu's mouth opened even wider now.
Junior brother?
In the entire cultivation world, there's only one person who can be called "junior brother" by Ji Mo Fan without any prefix!
"Li Geyue, he..." Zhou Hengyu asked tentatively.
“Someone has put a curse on him,” Ji Mofan said. “I later found this thing in his yard.”
"If this matter were to be exposed, it would not be good for the sect or for my junior brother himself, so I have kept it a secret until now."
At this point, he looked at Qi Yuan, who was lying asleep on the bed, and said, "I never imagined that besides him, the sect leader would also become the second victim."
Zhou Hengyu was still in shock and couldn't come to her senses.
He knew about Gu worms and had seen them during his travels, but he never imagined that he would see them in the heart of the cultivation world.
It took Zhou Hengyu a long time to accept the matter, and when he came to his senses, he vaguely noticed the incongruity in Ji Mo Fan's words.
"That's not right, Chief Jimo, why do you say that exposing this matter would be detrimental to the sect?" he asked curiously.
What Ji Mofan said next really made him drop his jaw to the ground.
"Because this thing was entrusted to my junior brother by the young sect leader to find," Ji Mofan said. "Just recently, I led a team to the Misty Secret Realm, and Lin Ju'an, a disciple of Elder Yanqishi on the peak, was a witness."
“My junior brother was seriously injured while searching for this thing and almost died in the secret realm. It was Junior Brother Lin who happened to save him and saw the pottery jar that he was holding tightly in his hand at the time.”
Zhou Hengyu knew about this. At that time, Li Geyue was unable to continue training with the team due to serious injuries, so he returned to Yuncang Sword Sect in advance and went to the Medical Peak for treatment.
Zhou Hengyu took the pottery jar from Ji Mofan. His fingertips touched the bottom of the jar and felt an unusual texture. When he turned it over, he saw a line of characters unique to southern Xinjiang.
“This is indeed a jar for containing Gu worms,” he nodded.
"So, the person who injured the sect leader could be the young sect leader?" Zhou Hengyu voiced this extremely absurd idea.
Ji Mofan shook his head. "I don't know."
"The young sect leader has always been impulsive and prone to acting on a whim. Who can guess what he's thinking?"
Zhou Hengyu was speechless.
Qi Fengyu is indeed good at causing trouble, but the troubles are generally harmless, and he always behaves exceptionally well afterward, so most people don't say anything.
But he couldn't bring himself to say these words to Ji Mo Fan.
Because, aside from minor incidents, Ji Mo Fan is responsible for 99% of the serious consequences.
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