The sun was warm, and Xu Mu saw the green hills.
He also saw those who hoped he would die, or were curious if he would actually die.
"How are you alive?" Ning Yuanchen looked at Xu Mu, exclaiming in shock, then realizing it was inappropriate and quickly changing his words.
"I mean, how were you not executed by a True Person?"
Lan Yu stepped forward with a gloomy expression, saying with disbelief, "Cao Guang wasn't killed by your orders?"
Xu Mu looked at everyone, shrugged, and chuckled:
"Why don't you go inside and ask True Person Taiwu."
"The door isn't closed tightly yet; there's still time."
As soon as he spoke, everyone fell silent.
Lan Yu's face turned ugly, and he backed away two steps in fear. He exchanged a glance with Daoist Wuyin and fell silent.
No one dared to question True Person Taiwu on Tianshi Mountain.
Especially not in the Hall of Enforcement. If they dared to walk in and ask, "Why isn't Xu Mu dead? Was your judgment wrong?" they might as well be dead.
"Hmph, sooner or later!" Daoist Wuyin stared at the gate of the Hall of Enforcement, knelt respectfully, and bowed. The look in his eyes was incredibly sinister, as if contemplating something unspoken.
Yao Song also knelt down. He looked at Xu Mu, who stood beside him with a smile as warm as a spring breeze, and his hatred surged to its peak.
His gaze, for no reason, sent a chill down Xu Mu's spine.
Xu Mu turned his head and looked at Yao Song. A few threads of the Great Dao of Death suddenly surged from his smiling eyes, invading Yao Song's sea of consciousness along with his soul.
"Boom!"
The sudden change made Yao Song's face instantly turn pale. He clutched his head and cried out, collapsing to the ground.
"What's wrong?" Daoist Wuyin turned his head, frowning.
"My head, my head hurts so much!" Yao Song lay on the ground, howling in pain while covering his head. In that instant, his sea of consciousness had been breached. He had seen a hellish scene of a sea of blood, and his soul felt as if it were being torn apart by a mysterious, terrifying force.
That energy had come like a tsunami, sudden and overwhelming, yet it vanished as quickly as a gentle breeze.
Daoist Wuyin cast a suspicious glance at Xu Mu, whose eyes had already returned to their sunny disposition, showing no trace of the terror from moments before.
"Truly useless," he said contemptuously, kicking Yao Song. Then, he led Lan Yu and others away from the scene. The rest also shook their heads and left, sighing.
The curtain fell. The person who killed Cao Guang was not Xu Mu, and the identity of the mysterious attacker remained a puzzle.
In short, no conclusion could be reached today.
Xu Mu quietly watched as person after person departed, until only Li Yuan and the other three remained.
Li Yuan met Xu Mu's gaze. His expression was complex, but he said calmly:
"Congratulations."
Xu Mu was taken aback for a moment, then smiled:
"Thank you, Senior Brother."
Ning Yuanchen and Zhe Hao exchanged sheepish glances. Xu Mu didn't recognize the powerful mysterious attacker, but he had survived because of it.
This left them unsure whether to be happy or sad.
Mu Yunshu looked at Xu Mu and also smiled, saying, "Fortunately, you're alright. Otherwise, I wouldn't know who to ask for my blue-green patterned thunder ore."
Xu Mu walked down the steps, smiling:
"Senior Sister, don't worry. I'll go to the Hall of Merit later to pick up a mission. You come with me, and I'll thank you properly."
Mu Yunshu heard this and shook her head, saying:
"Junior Brother, there's a time limit for accepting missions at the Hall of Merit. Generally, this limit is seven days."
"However, as an inner disciple of Xianyou Peak, this limit should be five days."
Li Yuan nodded upon hearing this:
"It is indeed five days."
"Is that so?" Xu Mu clicked his tongue, then looked at Mu Yunshu and smiled, "Senior Sister, if you're not in a hurry, then please wait for seven days, and I'll return the merit points when I enter the Thunder Pool again?"
Mu Yunshu smiled: "Of course, I'm not in a hurry."
Xu Mu cupped his hands: "Then thank you, Senior Sister."
The gate of the Hall of Enforcement opened, and True Person Taiwu walked out. Ning Yuanchen and the others immediately tensed up.
Li Yuan bowed to True Person Taiwu, then also retreated two steps uncomfortably, turned, and said:
"I'm leaving."
"We're leaving too!"
Mu Yunshu and the others looked uneasy. After bowing, they hurried away from the Hall of Enforcement, their demeanor suggesting they had committed some offense and feared True Person Taiwu would find out.
"Everyone's leaving, so I'll leave too."
Xu Mu glanced at True Person Taiwu, clicked his tongue, then turned and walked onto a mountain path.
Although they were temporarily in a cooperative relationship, Xu Mu himself did not want to have too much contact with the head of the Hall of Enforcement on Tianshi Mountain, lest his identity be exposed.
...
The mountain path wound and twisted, with many forks. Xu Mu descended from memory, but as he walked, he realized he was lost.
"This shouldn't be."
Xu Mu scratched his head. Although he had only walked this path once, there were no more than three turns from beginning to end. How could he be lost?
"Rustle..."
Just as he hesitated whether to turn back, he heard a rustling sound from the hay bale ahead, indicating something was hidden inside.
Xu Mu's eyes narrowed, and he looked in the direction of the sound.
A monkey jumped out from within, holding a plump, juicy peach.
"It's you?" Xu Mu was somewhat surprised. He recognized this monkey; it was the one he had met on his first day on the mountain.
"Why are you here?"
The golden-haired monkey glanced at Xu Mu, chattered a few times, then pointed to the mountain path ahead, and then to itself.
Xu Mu frowned and asked doubtfully:
"You mean, you're going to lead me down the mountain?"
The monkey remained silent, but with a sly look, it tossed the peach onto its back and began to sprint down the mountain path.
Seeing this, Xu Mu had no choice but to follow.
"Left, right, right, right, left..."
Xu Mu carefully noted each turning point and the surrounding landmarks, but in the end, he found it all to be in vain.
Because the golden-haired monkey had led him through too many detours, until finally, it leaped across a broken cliff to another mountain and disappeared.
He looked back at the bottomless abyss behind him, then turned and walked onto the rugged, rocky mountain path before him.
It was less of a mountain path and more of a steep cliff covered in small pebbles.
- This mountain had no path; the paths were all made by Xu Mu's own shaky steps.
He walked downward by instinct. After an unknown amount of time, Xu Mu felt he must be halfway down the mountain, as the mist was thickest here, so dense that he couldn't see anything more than three steps away.
He didn't want to slip and fall off the cliff, as he might encounter something formidable, such as a cave dwelling sealing a strange beast.
Therefore, Xu Mu activated his Eight Trigrams.
Hum!
A ball of fire ignited at his fingertips. The dense fog parted slightly, and visibility improved considerably.
Xu Mu nodded in satisfaction.
Just as he was about to continue downward, looking for a new path, Xu Mu's body suddenly froze.
Because he discovered that a clump of wild grass had suddenly risen from a crack in the rocks ahead.
There was someone beneath the grass.
The person moved with lightning speed, a dagger in hand, placed at his throat. Their eyes were calm, their voice dry and cool.
"Who are you?" she asked.
Xu Mu looked at the beautiful girl before him, who was disheveled and covered in pebbles and mud, and was momentarily stunned.
Then, he said:
"I..."
"I am an inner disciple of Xianyou Peak."
"I'm lost."
"May I ask, Senior Sister, where is this?"
...