Chapter 174 - The Missing Assassin and the Devoured Corruption
After Su Bai finished speaking, the pressure inside Outpost No. 3 eased slightly.
With his procession entering Outpost, the number of cultivators inside the safe zone had increased greatly.
For the first time in several days, many survivors felt that they were not merely waiting for the next disaster to arrive.
Even if danger came, there were now enough people to form lines, rotate guards, treat the injured, and watch the mist from different directions.
Lin Weiyang’s bronze mechanisms circled the outpost in quiet patterns.
The mechanisms did not make the outpost safe, but they made danger harder to approach unnoticed.
That was already enough to make several exhausted cultivators breathe easier.
Su Bai’s procession also settled down under his order. Those who still had strength helped reinforce watch points.
The weaker cultivators were placed closer to Bai Zhi’s lotus light, while Mu Qing checked the worst injuries among the newly joined survivors.
The four Blood Iron Sect disciples were placed near the outer line, where they could hear orders and remember their new lives clearly.
Su Bai stood near a broken stone wall with Zhuge Jing.
Several jade slips, recorded accounts, and Lin Weiyang’s projected formation sketches lay between them.
Zhuge Jing tapped one point on the map with the closed end of his fan.
"If Outpost No. 1 failed before entry, then the collapse did not begin from the outside after disciples entered," he said. "The Sanctuary had already been unstable. The early opening was likely a symptom, not the cause."
Su Bai nodded, then looked toward the damaged Boundary Pillar. "Outpost No. 2 fell after that. What about Outpost No. 3? What caused that scar?"
Zhuge Jing’s expression darkened slightly. "The last attack."
Su Bai’s eyes narrowed.
Zhuge Jing continued, "Something reached the pillar before we forced it back. "Even my Profound Eye could not see through that figure. It struck the pillar once, then retreated before Brother Yan Lie and Brother Han Yuelin could trap it."
"A Soul-Bloom Returnee?" Su Bai asked.
"Perhaps," Zhuge Jing said. "Or something moving with them. Whatever it was, it did not act like a beast."
Su Bai looked at the long scar across the Boundary Pillar.
"It was testing whether the pillar could still endure."
"Most likely," Zhuge Jing said. "And if it comes again, it may not stop at one strike."
Su Bai sighed as he looked at the map quietly.
Zhuge Jing’s gaze moved toward him. "The best strategy is not to chase every enemy we hear about."
"Yes."
"Good." Zhuge Jing smiled faintly. "Many people with your current reputation would be tempted to become heroic at an inconvenient speed."
Su Bai glanced at him. Zhuge Jing calmly looked back.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Su Bai then said, "Heroes die first."
Zhuge Jing’s smile deepened slightly. "A practical Dao."
Su Bai did not answer.
In his previous life, this would have been called not volunteering for a task without knowing the full scope.
Just then, someone tugged his sleeve.
Su Bai lowered his eyes.
Tang Ziyan stood beside him. That alone was enough to make him pause.
Tang Ziyan rarely asked for attention like this.
If she wanted to speak, she usually spoke. If she wanted to mock someone, she mocked them. If she wanted someone to stop doing something foolish, her poison aura often expressed the first half of her opinion before her mouth did.
But now, she simply tugged his sleeve.
Her expression was still calm, but her brows had drawn together slightly. Her eyes were colder than usual, not toward others, but inward. Even her poison aura, which normally carried a dangerous lazy rhythm, had become thin and tense.
Su Bai’s expression changed.
"Did something happen?"
Tang Ziyan was silent for a moment, then she said, "Sisi is not here."
Su Bai stilled.
Tang Ziyan continued, "The Tang Clan juniors in this outpost have not seen her either."
The words made Su Bai’s face turn ugly.
Tang Sisi.
She was Tang Ziyan’s cousin, close in age, and one of the very few people who could stand beside Tang Ziyan without flinching away from her poison aura.
To outsiders, Tang Ziyan was dangerous, beautiful, and difficult to approach. To the Tang Clan, she was even more complicated. Her poison body made others cautious, respectful, fearful, and distant.
Tang Sisi had not treated her like a disaster. That alone made her valuable.
Su Bai knew this.
He also knew that when Tang Ziyan became silent instead of speaking poisonously, the situation was probably worse than when she cursed.
After a breath, Su Bai said, "Miss Tang Sisi grew up in the Tang Clan."
Tang Ziyan looked at him.
Su Bai continued calmly, "Someone raised by the Tang Clan will not be simple. If she is hiding, others may be the ones in danger. If she is following someone, that person may not know they are being followed. If she is trapped..."
He paused slightly.
"Then she will still know how to make the trap regret it."
Tang Ziyan stared at him for a moment.
For once, she did not answer with a sharp sentence, but the tension around her poison aura eased a little.
Zhuge Jing, who had heard the exchange, opened his fan softly.
"I am not close with Miss Tang Sisi," he said, "but I have heard enough to know she is not a flower left in the open field. A Tang Clan assassin is more like a shadow behind a lamp. One only discovers it was there after the light has already changed."
Tang Ziyan looked at him.
Zhuge Jing smiled gently. "Perhaps she is somewhere behind another person right now, listening to secrets they never intended to share."
Tang Ziyan was quiet for another breath, then she finally said, "That does sound like her."
Su Bai glanced at Zhuge Jing.
This person was very good at saying things that sounded elegant and useful at the same time.
That’s a troublesome talent.
Tang Ziyan released Su Bai’s sleeve.
"I will ask again later," she said.
Su Bai nodded. "I will help you look for her."
Tang Ziyan’s eyes moved slightly, then she looked away.
"Do not die before then."
Su Bai accepted this as concern.
Probably.
After that, Su Bai left Zhuge Jing and walked toward the injured area.
There were many wounded cultivators in Outpost No. 3. Some had ordinary injuries. Those could be treated by Mu Qing, Bai Zhi, and the other medicine cultivators.
The troublesome ones were different.
They lay under Bai Zhi’s lotus light, breathing unevenly. Faint black-red threads moved beneath their skin. Some clutched their heads in their sleep. Some opened their eyes for a moment, looked at the ceiling, and whispered names no one recognized.
Bai Zhi had kept them stable.
Her Glass-Lotus Saint Root suppressed the corruption enough to let them remain themselves, but it did not erase what had already seeped too deeply.
Su Bai stopped beside the first injured cultivator.
Bai Zhi looked up.
"Brother Su?"
"I will check them," Su Bai said. "With permission."
The injured cultivator nearest to him opened his eyes with difficulty. He was a young man from a smaller sect. Fear flickered in his gaze when he saw Su Bai’s bone mask, but after a moment, he forced himself to nod.
"Please."
The others who were still conscious also agreed one by one.
Some did so because they trusted Bai Zhi’s reaction. Some because they had heard enough about Su Bai. Some because they had no better option.
Before beginning the inspection, Su Bai turned to Bai Zhi.
"Please withdraw your barrier first."
Bai Zhi hesitated slightly, but in the end, she did as Su Bai asked.
After the barrier disappeared, Su Bai extended his spiritual sense.
The moment it entered the young man’s body, he detected the problem clearly.
There was lingering corruption wrapped around the meridians. It’s not like ordinary miasma sticking to flesh, but like wet ash pressed into cracks.
It clung to old injuries and moved faintly whenever the cultivator’s Qi circulated. Deeper still, around the soul sea, several small knots of broken intent pulsed weakly, as if trying to whisper themselves into place.
Su Bai’s eyes cooled. He raised one hand.
Devouring Maw activated silently. The air darkened faintly behind him.
The injured cultivator stiffened, but before he could panic, Su Bai’s voice fell calmly.
"Do not resist."
The young man gritted his teeth and forced himself still.
Su Bai’s Devouring Maw descended.
A thread of black-red corruption trembled beneath his skin, then, it was pulled out. Slowly at first, then all at once.
Streams of foul mist and dark residue emerged from the young man. They gathered toward Su Bai’s palm and vanished into him.
After several breaths, the black-red threads beneath the young man’s skin faded. His breathing steadied.
The outpost stared. No one spoke.
Even the injured cultivator seemed unable to believe what had happened. He looked down at his own hands, then touched his throat, then stared at Su Bai as if he had seen a ghost remove another ghost from his body.
"It is... gone?"
Su Bai checked once more with spiritual sense.
"Most of it. Rest and do not circulate Qi too aggressively."
The young man’s eyes reddened. He tried to sit up and bow, but Bai Zhi pressed him back down.
"Do not move."
He immediately lay still.
Su Bai moved to the next person, then the next, and the next.
The survivors watched in stunned silence.
Zhuge Jing’s eyes widened despite himself.
For the first time, his calm expression almost failed completely.
Bai Zhi was even more shocked.
She had spent days suppressing this corruption, exhausting her spiritual energy to keep people from slipping away from themselves. She knew better than anyone how difficult it was to touch without worsening it. Purification burned too hard, healing fed the wrong thing if applied carelessly, and ordinary medicine could only treat the flesh around the problem.
Yet Su Bai was drawing it out, absorbing it, and he was still standing there as if nothing had happened.
The cultivators of Su Bai’s procession watched the reactions of Outpost No. 3 and felt a strange sense of pride.
Yes. This was the correct expression. They had worn similar faces before.
One cultivator whispered to a new Outpost No. 5 member, "See?"
The new member whispered back, "I understand now."
"What do you understand?"
"That if Brother Su says he will handle the rest, we should let him handle the rest."
The first cultivator nodded solemnly.
"You have learned quickly."
Nearby, one of the Blood Iron Sect disciples heard this and lowered his head further.
He had also learned quickly... in a different way.
After Su Bai treated several of the most unstable injured cultivators, Bai Zhi finally stepped forward.
Her eyes were no longer merely gentle. They were bright with shock and intense curiosity.
"Brother Su, how did you do that!?"
As she spoke, she reached toward his wrist, likely wanting to examine the flow of energy around him.
Su Bai’s body reacted before his thoughts finished.
Frictionless Phantom Step.
His figure blurred and vanished from where he stood.
Bai Zhi’s hand caught empty air. For a moment, she remained frozen in that posture. Her mouth opened slightly.
Su Bai reappeared several steps away, calm but distant.
The entire injured area fell silent. Then several people looked at Bai Zhi, then at Su Bai, then back at Bai Zhi.
Bai Zhi slowly lowered her hand.
Her expression was still gentle, but there was now a rare blankness in her eyes.
She had just been avoided... very thoroughly.
Lin Weiyang walked over and patted her shoulder with great understanding.
"Do not take it personally," she said.
Bai Zhi turned toward her.
Lin Weiyang glanced at Su Bai, then lowered her voice. "Brother Su is very fast when he does not want to be touched by strange things."
Bai Zhi was silent for a moment.
"My light is not strange."
Lin Weiyang considered this.
"To you."
Bai Zhi looked at her.
Lin Weiyang added seriously, "That was meant as comfort."
Bai Zhi did not look comforted.
From a short distance away, Tang Ziyan watched the scene and felt slightly better for reasons she did not explain.
Su Bai pretended not to notice.
He had not meant to embarrass Bai Zhi, but the moment her Glass-Lotus light approached too closely, the uncomfortable feeling inside him had sharpened.
Avoiding it had been instinctive.
He returned to the Radiant Sky Sect group first.
Liu Meng, Qin Baoshan, and Han Yuelin cooperated without complaint when he checked them with spiritual sense.
After checking them, Su Bai confirmed there was no hidden corruption in their bodies or souls.
Su Bai felt the tightness in his chest loosen further.
After the treatment and inspection, the atmosphere inside Outpost No. 3 changed again.
The injured were more stable. The survivors had seen hope. The major faction geniuses had seen something they could not easily explain.
Bai Zhi kept glancing at Su Bai with a complicated expression.
Zhuge Jing looked as if he wanted to calculate something but had already remembered that calculating Su Bai usually ended in silence.
Lin Weiyang’s mechanisms hovered nearby, clearly wanting to record more but not daring to appear too obvious.
The atmosphere became strangely peaceful.