The group had been walking for quite some time when Yang Kai suddenly narrowed his eyes like lightning, fixing his gaze intently in a particular direction.
"Wait!" Yang Kai reached out and grabbed Leng Shan.
"Stop!" Shen Yi noticed the commotion behind them and quickly raised his hand. The Ghost King Valley disciples all halted immediately, every one of them on high alert.
"What's wrong?" Leng Shan asked in surprise.
Yang Kai didn't answer. Instead, he looked even more carefully. After a moment, his expression turned cold, and he shot forward like a bolt of lightning, True Yuan surging through his body as his large hand reached out and grabbed toward the empty air.
In the void, ripples seemed to spread outward like waves. As those ripples expanded, a figure abruptly appeared within everyone's field of vision.
The person's face showed a trace of shock and horror as he stared at Yang Kai in disbelief, frantically retreating and raising both hands while shouting, "Hey, hey, hey—"
Yang Kai froze, his gaze lingering on the person's deathly pale, colorless hands.
Every disciple of Ghost King Valley had hands of this exact color — as though no blood flowed through them at all. It was an unsettling sight.
"Ah… Brother Yang, stop!" Shen Yi also hurriedly called out.
Hearing the shout, Yang Kai immediately halted.
"He's one of us, one of us!" Shen Yi and Leng Shan rushed over.
"I figured," Yang Kai said with an awkward laugh. He had assumed someone was lying in ambush, ready to strike from hiding. He hadn't expected this person to also be a Ghost King Valley disciple. In that case, the sound from earlier had been this person's signal.
After being forced out of concealment, the man kept staring at Yang Kai in utter shock. It was only when Shen Yi approached that he exclaimed, "Holy crap, who the hell is this guy?"
"Sister Leng's savior," Shen Yi offered with a brief introduction.
Yang Kai now learned that this Ghost King Valley disciple, Cheng Ying, had been scouting ahead.
"Sorry, it was a misunderstanding!" Yang Kai clasped his fists in apology.
"Holy crap, you're insane!" Cheng Ying shouted. "I've got an artifact for concealing my presence, and I used the Ghost Concealment technique. Brother Shen and the others couldn't spot my hiding spot at all. How did you see right through me at a single glance?"
Only after hearing this did everyone realize something was off.
If Cheng Ying hadn't been able to conceal himself perfectly, they never would have sent him ahead alone to scout. The combination of an artifact and a martial technique for concealment was enough to fool even ordinary Shenyou Realm experts — and it was precisely relying on this that Cheng Ying had been able to move freely through the area ahead, gathering intelligence.
Yet Yang Kai, who hadn't even reached the Shenyou Realm, had seen right through him!
How could they not be shocked?
"Seriously, Brother Yang, how did you do that?" Shen Yi asked, his face full of curiosity.
Yang Kai furrowed his brow slightly and said flatly, "Maybe my senses are just much sharper than most people's."
"That's possible?" Cheng Ying clearly didn't quite buy it, but since Yang Kai had said so, he didn't press further.
Leng Shan studied Yang Kai with narrowed eyes, a contemplative look in her beautiful gaze. She didn't dig any deeper, instead steering the conversation elsewhere. "Cheng Ying, you sent a signal — did you find something?"
Cheng Ying snapped back to awareness, wiping his mouth with an excited expression. "I did! Those two girls…"
"What?" Leng Shan's expression instantly turned cold. As a woman, the word "girls" spoken in that tone didn't sit well with her at all.
"Ahem… those two women's whereabouts have been discovered." Cheng Ying grinned and continued excitedly, gesticulating wildly. "But they're ridiculously strong. Their individual cultivation doesn't seem all that high, but when they fight together, their power skyrockets — they must be practicing some kind of special technique. Those morons from the Carefree Sect had no idea what they were up against. A bunch of them died, and that idiot Yu Qing nearly got castrated by one of them. The sight of it… tsk, tsk, absolutely brutal!"
Cheng Ying was clearly an animated sort. As he spoke, he mimed a slashing motion beneath his own groin, then shuddered. "Watching that made my crotch go cold. I'm still terrified just thinking about it!"
"Ahem, ahem… Junior Brother Cheng Ying, watch your mouth!" Shen Yi quickly cut in when he noticed Leng Shan's darkening expression.
"Heh heh…" Cheng Ying scratched his head in embarrassment and then made a show of patting his own mouth. "Right, right, right — big mouth, I deserve a slap. Please don't be angry, Sister Leng!"
Leng Shan let out a soft hmph. She knew that was just his nature — a leopard couldn't change its spots.
Shen Yi's expression shifted to one of pure schadenfreude. "So did Yu Qing actually get… you know… castrated?"
Cheng Ying said with some disappointment, "No. What a shame. But after taking that hit, I'd guess he won't be able to get it up for at least ten days to half a month… Heh heh, heh heh — I deserve a slap, I deserve a slap!"
That last part was directed at Leng Shan with an apologetic grin.
"What a pity!" Shen Yi sighed dramatically for a while. "So what happened after that? What became of those two women?"