Protective Net

Lin Xiao’s breakthrough to the late Core Formation stage was cause for great celebration within the Lingxian Sect.

That evening, Jiang Youfu took charge of the cooking while Liu Shengsheng assisted him, and together they prepared an extraordinarily sumptuous feast. Everyone in the Lingxian Sect ate to their heart’s content.

Of course, the outside world knew nothing about it.

Two days later, news arrived from the capital. Most of the villagers of Huyang Village in Huanyou had recovered, and with the government’s help, they had rebuilt their homes on a stretch of level ground near the original village site.

The message also included the allied army’s decision regarding its future deployment.

Although the mastermind, the State Preceptor, still had not been captured, the allied army had already been stationed in Huanyou for a long time. After all, it was an army assembled from several neighboring countries, and the fact that they had managed to cooperate so closely for so long was already remarkable.

Now that the crisis in Huanyou had more or less come to an end, and the disaster caused by the Jishi would not return in the short term, the allied army had decided to withdraw most of its forces from Huanyou.

Only a few allied military outposts would remain, guarded in rotation by small contingents of elite soldiers.

The Huanyou court, meanwhile, would take full responsibility for controlling its borders—not primarily to keep outsiders out, but to keep someone within.

They had to prevent the State Preceptor from escaping Huanyou.

This was one of the conditions the allied army had imposed on Zhao Yunzhong before handing Huanyou’s government back to him.

After all, no one wanted a man so difficult to capture and so dangerous to slip into their own territory and cause trouble, creating even more headaches for them. Since this man had first appeared in Huanyou, it was best to keep him trapped there and deal with him within the country.

That way, the target would be much clearer and easier to track, wouldn’t it?

What could Zhao Yunzhong say to that? Naturally, he could only agree.

Huanyou had been reclaimed from the usurper only through the allied army’s campaign. It was impossible to expect the allied army to simply hand the country back to him without asking for anything in return.

Besides, he understood that trapping the State Preceptor within his own country would make him far easier to capture than allowing him to escape into the vast world beyond.

Thus, from the moment this decision was tentatively drafted, Zhao Yunzhong had been busy every day arranging Huanyou’s border defenses, doing everything he could to ensure that the State Preceptor would be unable to escape.

Naturally, the allied army’s high-level cultivators—especially the formation masters from the various countries—also spared no effort in assisting Huanyou.

With the Huanyou court investing enormous resources and the formation masters of several countries pooling their expertise, a vast and extremely meticulous defensive network was established along Huanyou’s borders.

Although this defensive network was not as powerful as the sealing formation Lin Xiao had previously set up near the Jishi mine, interrogations of the prisoners captured from the State Preceptor’s followers had revealed that the reason the State Preceptor had been able to enter the Jishi mine silently with his people was that he had refined a Jishi statue he had kept consecrated at his side for years.

Some of the allied army’s more knowledgeable members guessed that it had probably been formed from Jishi essence.

However, Jishi essence was exceedingly rare. Even a ton of Jishi could produce only a palm-sized piece of Jishi essence after refinement.

Based on the amount of Jishi produced over the years, calculated from the statistics provided by the Jishi cultists captured during this period, they could roughly determine that the State Preceptor could not have much Jishi essence left in his possession.

Moreover, the older formation masters had added quite a few safeguards to the defensive network.

Therefore, even if the State Preceptor used up every last bit of Jishi essence on his person to force his way through the network, everyone would still be able to determine the direction from which he had broken through and track him for at least twenty li.

It was a useful precaution, just in case.

After receiving this news from the capital, the matter was considered concluded as far as the people of the Lingxian Sect were concerned.

What happened afterward had little to do with them.

And so everyone once again devoted themselves to their lives of cultivation and sect construction.

Recently, I’ve been dealing with my father’s funeral arrangements and running around to the notary’s office and other places, so I’ve had quite a lot on my plate.

But the New Year is almost here, and all the various departments will be closing for the holidays soon. Before long, they’ll be free from my daily pestering.

This chapter is very short. I just wanted to check in with everyone and thank every reader for your encouragement. I’ll pull myself together. In a few days, once things have settled down, I’ll sort out my thoughts and feelings and begin updating again.

This rookie author bows gratefully to every one of her wonderful readers.