Han Li followed the direction of Chen Jing's finger and looked toward the southern side of the small city. Sure enough, there was a cluster of buildings that stood out from the rest — tall structures of four or five stories, or at minimum two or three, quite unlike the other houses nearby. At the gates of these pavilions, cultivators could be seen coming and going in numbers far greater than anywhere else in the city.
Han Li nodded, then said something that caught the three people beside him completely off guard:
"No need for an introduction. I'll go take a look myself. You three may leave."
"Yes!" Chen Jing was startled but dared not voice any objection. He bowed deeply in reply.
"I don't want anyone else to know about my visit to this island. You know what to do," Han Li said, casting a glance at the three of them as his voice suddenly turned cold.
"Rest assured, Senior. This junior would never breathe a word!" Chen Jing's heart lurched at the words, though his expression remained one of utmost respect.
"Heh heh. I hope your actions match your words." Han Li let out a low laugh, and a finger hidden within his sleeve flicked subtly. In the next instant, his figure swayed and vanished within a flash of green light.
Chen Jing and the other two paled. They hurriedly looked all around them, but Han Li's shadow was nowhere to be seen.
"Uncle-Master Chen, we—"
"Silence. Let's go back first!"
The young woman couldn't help but start to speak, but Chen Jing cut her off with a darkened expression. He then motioned to the other two, and the three of them changed direction and flew straight out of the city.
The young woman and the two Foundation Establishment cultivators, though riddled with suspicion, had no choice but to follow closely behind.
In the blink of an eye, the group had traveled over a hundred miles and descended beneath an inconspicuous small mountain.
At a hidden spot along the base of this mountain, a small cave dwelling had been carved out.
Chen Jing led the other two inside, activated all the protective restrictions of the cave dwelling, and then sat down in a main hall in silence, closing his eyes in meditation.
The young woman and the white-haired old man exchanged a helpless glance, but neither dared say a word.
A full meal's worth of time passed before Chen Jing finally opened his eyes, let out a long breath, and his expression finally relaxed.
"Now I can confirm that that person's spiritual sense is no longer monitoring this place. Even if his divine sense could easily penetrate here, it would be impossible to do so without triggering the cave dwelling's restrictions. Niece Yan, you wanted to say something earlier — go ahead now," Chen Jing said slowly, turning toward the young woman.
"It's nothing in particular. It's just that this Senior Han's background is truly suspicious. As a Nascent Soul cultivator, we've never heard of such a person before. It seems rather unusual. Should we report this to the sect and investigate him? Perhaps our ancestor might know where he came from?" The young woman replied hesitantly.
The white-haired old man beside her nodded, apparently sharing the same thought.
"Hmph, and what good would knowing his background do us? Your grandmaster is currently in seclusion, attempting a breakthrough to the late-stage realm. Even if this man has problems, nothing could be more important than that. If our grandmaster cannot act, why would we go out of our way to provoke him? Judging by his tone, he seems to have a rough understanding of the affairs of the Scattered Star Seas. He's probably some reclusive cultivator who has just emerged from prolonged solitary cultivation. It's not as if such things haven't happened before in our Scattered Star Seas. The real danger is that, if we casually reveal this person's whereabouts after his explicit warning and word were to get out — do you really think that, just because we bear the name of the Qingyang Sect, a Nascent Soul cultivator wouldn't dare touch us? Even if he killed us all, without our grandmaster stepping forward to address it, the sect would most likely just swallow the loss and pretend nothing happened. Do you think I'd do something so pointless?" Chen Jing snorted and said bluntly.
The young woman felt a chill run through her at these words and could only murmur her assent.
"Besides, if we were to tell any of the other Nascent Soul cultivators, we'd gain nothing and might even—"
As Chen Jing grew more animated, continuing to lecture at length, he failed to notice that on the sole of his shoe, a tiny point of golden light flickered faintly before silently detaching itself from the bottom and sinking straight into the stone floor of the hall, vanishing without a sound.
Moments later, the golden light had penetrated deep into the earth below, when it was suddenly blocked by a pale green barrier of light — the cave dwelling's protective restriction.
The golden light paused, then dimmed its radiance entirely, revealing a thumb-sized golden beetle.
It was one of Han Li's Gold Devouring Beetles.
Once it revealed its true form, the beetle immediately lunged at the barrier and began devouring it in great bites. The restriction was no high-order ward but rather a crude construction, and the beetle seeped through it in an instant, then pierced clean through to the other side.
From beginning to end, it had not triggered a single alarm on the restriction, nor had it alerted Chen Jing and the other two above.
The beetle flickered once and disappeared into the darkness deep underground.
A meal's worth of time later, on a certain street in the southern part of the small city, a tall, thin elderly man who had been walking at a leisurely pace suddenly had a sharp glint flash through his eyes. His sleeve swept downward, and a tiny point of golden light shot up from beneath the ground, silently vanishing into the old man's sleeve.
The old man's expression didn't change in the slightest, but the corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly upward.
This man was none other than Han Li, in a different disguise.
The golden light was, of course, the Gold Devouring Beetle he had just recalled — a beetle that bore a sliver of his divine sense.