The Mastermind Behind the Scenes

Chapter 73 The Mastermind

This shout frightened Zhao Fang and he shuddered: "I haven't been in there, I, I've heard of it... My Senior Sister Xi said that when the Sect Master was still there, he once took Senior Brother Liu in there. After Senior Brother Liu came out, he told everyone privately that he originally thought that Ranshan was not as good as the inferior sects with greater power in the surrounding areas, but when he went to the illusion, he found that it was indeed the orthodox sect of Xuanmen, and it really had a solid foundation..."

The crowd became slightly restless, and Feng Ji's anger seemed to have subsided a little: "Then think about it again, did your senior brother say where he went in from? Where did your master take him?"

" Senior brother didn't say where he went... He said he was in the sect. After the master chanted the spell, wrote the talisman, and performed the ritual, he was in a trance and in the illusion. "

Feng Ji stared at him for a while, turned around and said to everyone: "Okay, everyone has heard it. It should be in the sect. I guess it may be some secret room or secret passage. We have already searched for it in the afternoon. This time, we will search carefully and don't miss a single inch. I say one more thing, no trouble! Do you hear me?"

Some people responded a few times, some ignored him, and when Feng Ji said "OK" again, the crowd immediately dispersed.

Li Wuxiang followed the crowd to the back of the screen wall and saw the appearance of the Ranshan Sect.

To be honest, he was a little disappointed. Behind the screen wall was a small square, which was similar to the Chen family's courtyard. On both sides of the square were two rows of low stone houses, which looked very much like the two rows of wing rooms of the Chen family. They were also covered with black tiles, but there were two rows in total. In the middle, in the direction of the main house of the Chen family, there is a two-story house, also covered with black tiles, with a plaque on the top of the door, with the three characters "Taiyi Temple" inscribed on it. There seems to be another courtyard behind the house, but it is not very large from a vague perspective.

From this point of view, the Ranshan Sect, one of the thirty-six orthodox sects, is not even as good as some of the small temples where he came from.

A group of people from the underworld have already rushed into the courtyard and the house in twos and threes to search. Judging from their appearance, they have indeed searched the place thoroughly in the afternoon. This time, they specifically looked under the trees and cracks in the rocks in front of and behind the house. Every time they arrived at a place, they would step hard on the ground to see if it was hollow underneath.

Seeing this group of people start searching, Lao Guo also became anxious. Li Wuxiang glanced at him and said, "If you want to go, go ahead. I didn't say you have to go with me."

Old Guo hesitated for a moment, as if he thought it would be better to search with this young man with a mysterious origin, but he looked at the people who had already gone deep into the courtyard, and he felt a little jealous. Finally, he said, "Okay, I'll go and take a look first. If I'm not sure what I've found, I'll come and discuss it with you. After all, you must have a higher vision than us..."

He walked while talking, and before he finished speaking, he had already rushed into the house on the left.

Li Wuxiang stood by the screen wall and waited for a while. When the group of people slowly walked deeper and the area became quiet, he walked to the door of the wing room on the right.

He walked into each room and looked slowly. He saw that the furnishings in the first row of rooms were very simple. They were basically compacted black soil floors. There were incense tables against the wall, and a few old cushions on the ground. The things on the incense tables were gone, leaving only an empty table, which seemed to have been looted. This should be the place where Ranshan disciples used to meditate and practice.

He went out and walked to the second row. The rooms in the second row were all large kangs, which should be the residences of Ranshan disciples. Naturally, all the bedding and other things were gone, leaving only bamboo mats.

As he looked, he felt on the wall with his hands. It was not like the group of people who wanted to see if there were any mechanisms or something like that - Zhao Kui hid a brick in the stove, and Zhao Qi could use talisman paper to draw, so the illusion of Ranshan would definitely not be a "mechanical secret passage".

But because he felt that the stones used to build Ranshan should be extraordinary. After watching for a while, Li Wuxiang felt that these buildings of Ranshan School seemed to be broken and strong - broken means that the black tiles on the roofs of many houses were missing, but they were not replaced with new tiles, but filled with thatch, wooden tiles and the like. Many stone bricks on the walls outside the house were also broken and incomplete, but they were just left there, and no one repaired them.

In this kind of building, it is likely that a slight push or pull will loosen the bricks.

But there is a brick in front of Li Wuxiang now - at the corner of the outer wall of the house, the top bricks seem to be loose, with large gaps between them, filled with dust and moss. Most of the bottom brick is exposed, and it looks like it can be pulled out with a slight pull. So Li Wuxiang tried to pull it out, wanting to pick it up and take a closer look. But when he tried to move it, he found that the brick was extremely difficult to move. He finally pulled out a knife, hollowed out some of the soil underneath, and pried it out bit by bit, and then pulled the brick out.

The brick was in his hand, and the weight was normal. Li Wuxiang knocked it hard against the corner of the wall, and with a bang, the brick was knocked off in half, revealing the grayish-blue stone core inside - there was nothing wrong with the brick.

But the piece at the corner of the wall that collided with it was a bit strange. There was no damage on it, not even a white mark.

So Li Wuxiang slowly pried this piece off, and used it to knock against another piece - this piece also broke, and the piece on the wall still did not leave any mark.

He slowly exhaled and stood up. When it was part of the building, the stone bricks were extremely strong, but once they were taken down, they became ordinary stones. Perhaps it was because these houses were built with a spell or something?

But the strange thing was not this, but the way these houses were damaged - some of them had loose bricks in the corners like here, some had a few bricks indented in the middle of the wall, and some had a few bricks protruding, as if they had been hit by a huge force. But when you look inside the house, the walls inside are smooth and regular, which shows that it was not hit from inside the house, but from the inside of the wall.

At this time, it was dark, and people in the distance lit torches, so Li Wuxiang slowly walked to the front of Taiyi Hall again. The main hall should be dedicated to Donghuang Taiyi. Looking at the upper body of the statue from outside the door, it is no different from the statues in the temples where he came from. They are all painted clay, dressed in red and green, and covered with a cloak. The appearance is also long eyebrows and long eyes, not as weird as the Kitchen God of Jinshui.

But when looking at the lower body, the statue is sitting on neither lotus nor auspicious clouds, but seven little people with unclear faces. The faces are not eroded by time, but they were not shaped when they were sculpted. Li Wuxiang took a look and felt that the seven below might be the other seven gods of the Eight Divisions of Xuanjiao - no wonder they said that the thirty-six sects were evil.

On the incense tables elsewhere, everything that could be taken away had been looted, but the incense pots, copper bowls and the like on the incense table in front of the Taiyi statue were still good, and there were even some dried fruits and the like.

When Li Wuxiang walked to the entrance of the main hall, he saw four people in the hall. He recognized one of them as Feng Ji, the other two should be his helpers, and the fourth person was Zhao Fang. There was also a person guarding the door outside the hall, who should also be Feng Ji's helper. He looked serious, as if he had already regarded the Taiyi Hall of Ranshan as his own territory.

He was still standing on the steps at this time, and could vaguely hear the people inside talking.

Feng Ji was frowning, holding something in his hand: "...Yes, my precious jade is indeed wrong. Since it is shining, there must be something strange in the Ranshan Sect, but I can't see what's wrong... Alas, the Thirty-Six Sects and the Sword Dao should not be underestimated, the third and fourth brothers--"

Feng Ji looked at the two helpers beside him: "You continue to go out and keep an eye on the people looking for you in the back. If you find anything wrong, come back and tell me immediately."

The two said yes, stepped out of the hall door, and hurried to the back again.

Li Wuxiang stepped onto the steps and walked to the front of the temple. The gatekeeper immediately moved to the middle: "Friend, we have already looked here, let's go somewhere else."

Li Wuxiang looked into the temple: "This is my first time to Ranshan. I want to see what the temple looks like. I'll just take a look and leave."

The gatekeeper snorted and raised his chin: "I said I've already looked."

Li Wuxiang smiled: "I really just want to take a look. Otherwise--"

He walked to one side of the door and looked into the side hall, then walked to the other side: "Is it okay for me not to go in and take a look?"

The gatekeeper took a step forward: "You want to cause trouble, right?"

Feng Ji turned his head inside the door: "Second brother, what's wrong?"

The gatekeeper stared at Li Wuxiang: "This kid said he wanted to go in and take a look."

Feng Ji stepped back and looked at Li Wuxiang from the side. Seeing that he was young, he raised his head to him: "Friend, you look unfamiliar, you are not usually near Deyang, right?"

Li Wuxiang nodded: "I was passing by, just to join in the fun."

Feng Ji smiled coldly: "Some fun is not to be joined casually. Seeing your young age, you must have just built a foundation, and there are many days ahead. I give you a piece of advice, listen to others' advice and live longer, go to other places to watch the fun, Ranshan is not the place for you to come."

Li Wuxiang looked at the side hall on the other side again, and bowed: "You are right."

Then he turned and walked down the steps and walked back to the yard.

Feng Ji and Lao Er frowned and looked at each other, and Feng Ji said: "Go and keep an eye on him and ask where he came from."

Li Wuxiang walked to the door of a row of wing rooms on the west side and sat down on the steps. At this time, it was completely dark, and the surroundings were dark. Only inside and behind the main hall door were there some light.

He sat down and adjusted his skirt a little, and the second brother came towards him aggressively from the darkness and stopped three steps away from him. Just as he was about to speak, Li Wuxiang looked at him: "What's your name?"

The second brother was stunned for a moment: "What?"

"Feng Ji calls you the second brother, so I'll call you Feng Er." Li Wuxiang raised his chin towards the back of the palace, "We've searched everything, there's no secret room or dark room, right?"

Feng Er stared: "You ask me? Who are you?"

Li Wuxiang smiled: "Just now your boss clearly said that everyone came together to search for treasure, but now he's staying in the palace, asking you brothers to keep an eye on everything. Isn't this like someone else doing things for him? Since you've saved some trouble, why not let me save some trouble too?"

Feng Er stared at him for a while, then turned his face, laughed in anger, and strode forward: "Where did you get this little thing who doesn't know how high the sky is and how deep the earth is, saving trouble? Are you worthy? I call you-"

"What if I say I'm Xu Xianren? Is Xu Xianren worthy of asking you this?"

Feng Er took only one step and stopped immediately, blinking quickly: "You... you're Xu Xianren?"

"So is it?"

Feng Er turned and glanced in the direction of the main hall, but Feng Ji seemed to be talking to Zhao Fang. He could only turn his face: "Well...yes, I have searched it several times, but I can't find a darkroom or anything like that. Well, Xu Xianren, why didn't you show up before? Our brothers..."

"Oh, I'm not Xu Xianren." Li Wuxiang couldn't help laughing, "I'm just asking you if you are worthy of being Xu Xianren."

Feng Er was stunned again and raised his eyebrows suddenly: "You!"

He was about to have an attack when he saw Li Wuxiang's eyes suddenly turned white. He was startled, and saw that his mouth opened again, occupying half of his face at once, but there were layers of mouths inside it - and a ball of white beard suddenly spurted out!

Feng Er was so frightened that his whole body went numb, his head buzzed, and he almost sat down on the ground. But when he looked again - the young man in front of him was still a handsome young man, but his expression became colder, as if what he just saw was an illusion: "Do you think I look like an immortal? Haha, go back!"

After he finished speaking, he jumped towards the roof and disappeared.

Feng Er took a few deep breaths, took a few steps back and looked up at the roof - no one was in sight, and he immediately ran back to the main hall.

Li Wuxiang leaned against the black tiles on the roof. When he saw Feng Er go in first and say a few words to Feng Ji, Feng Ji's expression changed, he strode out of the palace door and looked around, then hesitated for a moment and left again. go back.

Li Wuxiang could roughly guess what the two people said - the young man seemed to be a strange thing, and he didn't know where he came from. But Feng Ji would not want to cause more trouble at this juncture. Firstly, they want to hunt for treasures. Secondly, as Zhao Qi and Zeng Jianqiu said, they have seen along the way that it is troublesome to provoke enemies with unknown origins in this world. It is better to do more than to do less. It is best to take care of the immediate things first.

But what he wanted to see was not Feng Ji's reaction, but that of Zhao Fang beside him.

Feng Ji said that Xu Xianren might be among their group. Li Wuxiang didn't know if he really thought so, or he planned to use Xu Xianren's influence to tell the Jianghu guests to behave themselves and not cause trouble. But as far as he is concerned, there are really two objects of suspicion - the mastermind behind the scenes is observing secretly among the crowd. He has heard too much about this kind of thing where he comes from.

One is the person who brought Zhao Fang. But when the crowd dispersed, he saw that man greeting the other two people. He should be acquainted with them, so he ruled them out for the time being.

The second one is Zhao Fang. Because of what he said before, Li Wuxiang felt something was wrong. "After the master casts the spell, writes the talisman, and performs the method" - Ranshan's talisman paper does not need to be written, it is drawn. This statement may be that his senior brother described the painting as writing, but Ranshan's talisman does not seem to require "making method".

And now, when Feng Ji walked to the door and glanced in his direction, Zhao Fang, who had been standing submissively behind him, also turned and glanced in this direction - his expression was solemn and his brows were slightly furrowed, completely different from before. That Zhao Fang expression changed.

Li Wuxiang felt that he was sure that he was Xu Xianren.

In fact, after meeting this group of people before and hearing what Zhao Fang said, he knew what the "Ranshan Fantasy" might be and where it was.

He originally planned to wait until the group of people dispersed before quietly taking what he wanted, but since "Xianren Xu" might really be here, he didn't want to delay it any longer. It's a pity. He had planned to learn more about the customs and customs from these strangers.

Two chapters merged into one