Chapter 1449: The Unsolved Case of the Holy Merchants
Chapter 1449: The Unsolved Case of the Holy Merchants
The site of the Immortal Hunt fell into a strange, sudden silence.
The members exchanged uneasy glances, but no one dared to be the first to speak.
After a long moment, someone finally asked in a faltering voice, "Brother Dao Yuan, the intelligence we received... the Transcendent World Coffin... it was a fake, wasn't it?"
At his words, everyone turned to Dao Yuan, their faces etched with uncertainty.
A flicker of panic crossed the eyes of the usually composed Dao Yuan. Still, he cleared his throat and declared in a low, steady voice, "Don't lose your heads! Perhaps the two immortals, Xi and Yi, merely concealed the coffin with some inscrutable technique. It might still be right where it was. We..."
Before he could finish, a panicked voice cut him off. "Impossible! It was clearly a fake! How could it actually be used to transcend worlds?!"
As he spoke, the man shot off recklessly, speeding toward the spot where the coffin had been.
It was none other than Nangong Hongzhao, the very one who had been so certain the coffin was a fake!
They wanted to stop Nangong Hongzhao's reckless charge.
But his movements were erratic, his speed unbelievably fast. In the blink of an eye, he had reached his destination.
Everyone held their breath.
Thankfully, the tragedy they had anticipated did not unfold.
But this brought them no relief. On the contrary, their expressions grew even more crestfallen.
"The Transcendent World Coffin... it's really gone."
"And the two True Immortals, Xi and Yi, have vanished along with it."
The situation was clearly far too grave for a group of new recruits to handle. Dao Yuan made a swift decision and reported the incident through the Dao Net.
The reaction from the other end of the Dao Net, however, was beyond anything he had imagined.
"What? The immortal bait is gone? Impossible!"
"According to the Dao Net's observations, it's still right there!"
"Where is Yan Xuantai? Why isn't he the one contacting me?"
The furious voice rippled through the Dao Net, reaching them from the distant heart of Shuo Xinghai.
By the time the last word echoed, the owner of the voice had already materialized before them.
He was a diminutive old man, standing barely a meter tall.
His silver-white hair and beard were so long they flowed past his body, pooling at his feet like a swirl of clouds.
The old man's face was terrifyingly grim as his gaze swept over the recruits.
Without exception, the new members of the Immortal Hunt instinctively lowered their heads, daring not to meet his eyes.
"This is..."
Li Fan, too, could sense the immense power radiating from the old man.
With every breath the old man took, the invisible strings of the Dao hummed with corresponding vibrations. His very presence seemed to make the local Dao Net clearer, more stable.
In Ma Tiande's memories, he recalled seeing this elder once from a great distance.
The elder had presided over the assembly where he had been granted his position as a Dao Net operator.
"Nangong Fusheng, one of the council elders of the Shuo Xinghai Administrative Council."
Nangong Fusheng teleported to where the immortal bait had been. He glared at Nangong Hongzhao, who was still muttering incoherently, and snarled, "Useless!"
A single backhand sent Nangong Hongzhao flying.
Leaving him to tumble uncontrollably through the Star Sea, Nangong Fusheng's fury gradually subsided as he carefully surveyed the area.
Rings of invisible energy rippled out from him, one after another.
Watching from a distance, the Immortal Hunt members felt as if the entire world had transformed into a raging sea during a violent squall. It churned and roared around them. The howling waves threatened to swallow them whole at any moment, and they could only struggle to remain stable by drawing upon the power of the Dao Net.
The Dao Net rippled without end.
Finally, the ripples ceased as Nangong Fusheng reached into the void with his right hand and pulled out a long, black nail that shimmered with an iridescent, seven-colored light.
As he held the nail, Nangong Fusheng's anger gave way to a cold laugh. "Yan Xuantai, what a brilliant move! To actually deceive the Dao Net... a truly grand deception!"
The new recruits stared, mesmerized, at the iridescent black nail in Nangong Fusheng's hand.
Their minds raced.
In their understanding, the Dao Net was synonymous with the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth itself—an unparalleled cosmic force that one could only hope to harness, never defy.
And yet now, on their very first mission after officially joining the Immortal Hunt...
...they had encountered something capable of deceiving the Dao Net itself.
They had even witnessed a flawless escape executed right under their noses.
"Just who is this Yan Xuantai?"
The question inevitably surfaced in each of their minds.
A fake coffin had spirited away two True Immortals who were supposed to be their prey. And worse, there were faint shadows of a conspiracy, implicating someone from within the Immortal Hunt organization.
This was no small matter.
Soon, three other cultivators arrived, joining Nangong Fusheng.
Even though they cloaked their figures and reined in their auras, their arrival still sent tidal waves of power through the local Dao Net. The new recruits could only tremble in their presence. When questioned, they dared not hide a single detail, reporting everything exactly as it had happened.
"Let's return for now."
"I sense there's more to this than meets the eye."
Nangong Fusheng addressed the three figures in a low voice, making no effort to hide his words from the recruits.
His silver hair and beard grew without a wind to stir them.
They expanded, enveloping all the members of the Immortal Hunt.
Just as they were about to depart, Li Fan faintly heard Nangong Hongzhao's frantic shout from outside the silver cocoon, "Great-uncle, wait for me!"
The silver hair enveloped them, then dissipated.
In the blink of an eye, they were all transported back to the heart of Shuo Xinghai.
There, they were taken to separate, pitch-black chambers for a second round of questioning.
Since they were all clearly uninformed newcomers, the organization didn't press them too hard. The questioning ended after a few routine inquiries.
However, there was no sign of their release. They remained confined in the countless pitch-black chambers, which felt more like a prison for the condemned.
Though they were free to move, their freedom was confined to this specific area.
They could not leave.
The endless darkness gradually began to devour their spirits.
At first, the new recruits held onto hope, believing their confinement would soon end.
But as the days bled into one another, it seemed the organization had forgotten them entirely. Since being placed here, there had been nothing but silence.
Slowly, their mental states began to diverge.
"I see now. The hunt, the coffin's disappearance—it's all part of the assessment! We're still being tested! I must pull myself together and not give in to despair!"
"To think, with such a promising future ahead of me, I'd run into something like this. My life... it's probably over."
"The coffin vanishing with two True Immortals is a massive incident. Someone has to take the fall. Don't tell me... they're going to use us as scapegoats?"
...
Most of them spent their days in a state of constant anxiety.
Only the truly exceptional could maintain their composure under such circumstances.
Li Fan sensed the three distinct streams of sword intent from the chamber next to his, which had never ceased, and nodded slightly.
"This Jin Changyue has been nurturing her sword intent ever since she was locked in here. Wrongfully imprisoned, suffering an injustice... such resentment is the perfect nourishment for a sword's edge."
"However, for this sword intent to truly mature, it will need to be christened with someone's blood."
Aside from Jin Changyue, Dao Yuan was also holding up well. After some initial fluctuations in his aura, he had settled down, like a dormant dragon in the abyss, quietly biding its time.
As for Li Fan, he felt no impatience whatsoever. He maintained his cover, feigning anxiety and despair.
In truth, he was constantly replaying the scene of the two immortals, Xi and Yi, activating the Transcendent World Coffin and departing.
The arcane tones chanted by Xi and Yi were slowly fading from his memory with the passage of time. Even the recording on his Dao Transformation Stone was becoming blurred.
Li Fan could only repeat it over and over, trying to deepen the impression.
But the inevitable tide of fading was something he couldn't change.
Li Fan even tried to use the micro Dao Net in his divine sense to reflect the fluctuations from that moment.
However, the tremors in the Great Dao caused by the chant had all occurred within the coffin.
Observing from afar through the Dao Net, Li Fan couldn't record them with any precision.
"That coffin... they said it was fake, but it was actually real."
"Apart from not being able to transcend worlds, it was virtually identical to a real one..."
Li Fan recalled what Nangong Hongzhao had said, and an idea sparked in his mind.
Although Nangong Fusheng hadn't brought Nangong Hongzhao back with them, he had been thrown into this same lightless prison a few days later.
But he showed no signs of anxiety or worry. Instead, he simply looked dejected, like someone who had botched a job.
For the past few days, he had been lying lazily on the ground.
Eyes closed, feigning sleep.
Li Fan silently approached him.
"Brother Nangong, there's something that's been gnawing at me."
"It's like a bone in my throat. I have to ask!"
Perhaps "Ma Tiande's" previous conduct had left a somewhat positive impression on Nangong Hongzhao.
He suddenly opened his eyes and gave Li Fan a cool, appraising look.
Then, without a word, he closed them again.
Li Fan knew that since he hadn't been explicitly rejected, it was an invitation to speak.
He immediately sent a mental message, "What exactly happened with that fake coffin suddenly turning real? Brother Nangong, do you have any inside information?"
Nangong Hongzhao replied irritably, "Didn't you see me get swatted thousands of miles away like a piece of trash? What inside information could I possibly have?"
Li Fan quickly tried to placate him. "Don't say that, Brother Nangong. That was Council Elder Nangong himself. Countless people would kill for the privilege of being swatted by him."
Hearing this, Nangong Hongzhao opened his eyes again.
He squinted, studying Li Fan thoughtfully. "I almost forgot. You were a Dao Net operator, so you're from the Administrative Council's side. No wonder you understand my great-uncle's power."
Li Fan nodded eagerly. "Of course, of course."
Seeing Nangong Hongzhao's attitude soften, Li Fan quickly got to the point. "These past few days, with nothing to do, I've been thinking. There are several possibilities regarding the fake coffin."
"One is that the fake was modeled after the real one. Aside from certain key conditions, it was identical to a true Transcendent World Coffin. And the two immortals, Xi and Yi, who came all the way from the Star Sea, just happened to possess those key conditions. Thus, they naturally used the coffin to escape to another world."
"But there's a hole in that theory. It was just bait to trap True Immortals. It only needed to look the part; there was no need to make it so authentic. So, I have another theory: Yan Xuantai secretly tampered with it, or pulled a switcheroo, replacing the fake with another one that was much closer to the real thing. He then hid inside, waited for Xi and Yi to enter, explained the situation, and escaped with them."
"But..." Li Fan's tone paused for effect.
"This Yan Xuantai, I don't know who he is. Being assigned to secretly monitor and protect new recruits on their first hunt is not a major assignment, so his status and position shouldn't be too high. How could he possess such a supreme treasure?"
"And then there's that black, iridescent nail that could deceive the Dao Net. No matter how I think about it, I just can't figure it out!" Li Fan sighed heavily.
"It looks like we might be stuck here forever, with no hope of getting out. Brother Nangong, could you enlighten me? Don't worry, I won't tell a soul," Li Fan promised earnestly.
After a long silence, Nangong Hongzhao's faint voice finally came. "Your mind is quite sharp. Some of your guesses align with my own. But I know a few things you don't."
"It's not really a secret, so telling you is no great matter. That Yan Xuantai originally joined the Immortal Hunt as a member of the Holy Merchants. A century ago, the Holy Merchants suddenly vanished from Shuo Xinghai, top to bottom, leaving behind only some remnants and abandoned members."
"We thought he had long since cut ties with the Holy Merchants. But who would have thought..." Nangong Hongzhao snorted coldly.
"Speaking of which, the Holy Merchants were one of the founding groups of the Immortal Hunt. Many of the techniques for capturing immortals were provided by them. Moreover, the members of the Holy Merchants had no interest in conflict or power. Their sole aim was hunting immortals, so they held a transcendent status in the early days of the organization. After the Holy Merchants abruptly left without a word, disappearing to who knows where, Yan Xuantai, as an abandoned member, wasn't treated too harshly. He was even given an important post..."
When Li Fan heard the words "Holy Merchant," his mind stirred.
He pressed on, "From what you're saying, Brother Nangong, the Holy Merchants are a thing of the past century. In that time, our Dao Net techniques have advanced by leaps and bounds. Even if Yan Xuantai was a Holy Merchant, how could he possess the means to deceive the Dao Net? Could it be that the Holy Merchants were that far ahead of us? Or perhaps..."
As if realizing something, Li Fan lowered his voice. "Could it be that Yan Xuantai recently re-established contact with the Holy Merchants in secret, and that's how he found a way to escape?"
"But that doesn't make sense either. Unless... the fake coffin didn't escape to another world, but to another part of the Star Sea. Where the Holy Merchants are?"
Nangong Hongzhao shook his head slightly. "That is beyond my knowledge. This whole affair is shrouded in mystery. Yan Xuantai was a solitary man who always acted alone. Investigating him will be difficult."
"But rest assured, we won't be locked up here forever. Once they have a general idea of what happened, we'll be released," Nangong Hongzhao added, offering a small bit of comfort.
(End of Chapter)
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