Which One Are You Planning to Close

Hearing this, Liao Pantu nodded. “That does make sense.”

“So, temporarily capturing Wanwantong’s informants shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Lin Xiao continued. “As for those cultivators from the major sects…” He cleared his throat theatrically twice before calmly saying, “Senior, there’s something you don’t know. Someone new recently joined our sect. His name is He Yi.”

Liao Pantu had no idea why he had suddenly brought up a new disciple. “I know about him. Isn’t he rather skilled at making talismans? Come to think of it, you never told me where he came from. A Golden Core talisman master suddenly joined the sect.”

Lin Xiao wagged his eyebrows at him. “You don’t remember? The Talisman Master Tournament—He Yi, first place.”

Only then did Liao Pantu recall something. “This He Yi is the same He Yi who won first place in the Talisman Master Tournament?”

It was no wonder that he had not remembered clearly. Back then, he had been holed up inside the Soul-Nurturing Pendant and had never come out to properly watch the tournament. Naturally, he had no impression of He Yi’s appearance. All he remembered was hearing that the person who had won first place was named He Yi.

Thanks to how busy he had been lately, Lin Xiao had never found the time to introduce He Yi’s identity to everyone in detail. He had only given Liu Yunan a rough explanation, and even that had been quite vague. As a result, most people in the sect only knew that a disciple named He Yi had suddenly appeared. He seemed to have come from the cultivation world, and that was about it.

Lin Xiao nodded. “And he came here together with those cultivators from the major sects. He’s from the Talisman Sect. So I was thinking that, if the major sects are about to realize that something is wrong, we can have He Yi return and talk to them. He can say that we’ve found a few clues here, but not many, and that we still need time to investigate. That way, we can drag things out for quite a while longer.”

Liao Pantu was speechless at this hastily cobbled-together plan. After a long pause, he finally said, “Where are you planning to keep all those people? You can’t put them in the sect. Just taking that many people through the Heart-Questioning Path would be troublesome enough.”

At the mention of this, Lin Xiao became as excited as if he had been injected with stimulants. “Why imprison them? That would be so dull. I’m actually planning to invite them to visit Xiushui City. We can assign them a few vacant houses to stay in. We’ll only restrict their movements temporarily and prevent them from leaving the city.”

Liao Pantu stopped and asked incredulously, “That’s it? You’re bringing them to Xiushui City and having them sit around here?”

How could something this simple possibly be all there was to it?

Lin Xiao spread both hands. “Of course not. The houses in Xiushui City can’t be occupied for free, can they? Besides, I was thinking that cultivators like them can’t possibly spend all their time without cultivating, right?” He gave a sly grin. “So I’m planning to have them clear land behind our trading center.”

“The spirit fields in the sect have been producing very well recently, and we also have many more high-quality seeds. Even after setting aside what we grow ourselves, as well as the portions we sell or lend out, we still have quite a surplus. Our existing fields aren’t large enough anymore. Since these people are coming to visit and won’t have anything else to do, they can help us clear some new land. We’ll deduct their rent and then give them a little pay. That way, their time won’t be wasted, right?”

The hundred mu of land the village had given them earlier had long since been fully planted. Beyond those hundred mu stretched boundless wilderness, deep mountains, and dense forests.

For ordinary mortals, reclaiming those places would naturally be harder than ascending to heaven. But for the spies and informants of Wanwantong, as well as the cultivators from the various major sects in the cultivation world, it would not be easy, but it was by no means impossible.

Lin Xiao considered his arrangement perfectly reasonable.

After hearing him out, Liao Pantu actually cupped his chin and seriously pondered for a moment before saying, “It’s not impossible.”

Over the past few years in Lingxian Sect, he had gradually begun paying more attention to farming and had come to feel more and more strongly that land was important. As for food, of course the more they had, the better.

Seeing that he approved, Lin Xiao said with a beaming smile, “Of course, all this is still only my preliminary plan. We’ll have to communicate with those sects and royal families, learn the details, and then decide how to implement it.”

Liao Pantu was not the sort to hesitate once he had made up his mind. Since he thought the plan was feasible, he slapped his thigh and declared, “Then we’ll settle it for now. Once the plan is confirmed, let me know. I’ll go capture the difficult ones myself!”

And so, amid the beautiful sea of flowers in the medicinal garden, the two of them provisionally finalized their plan to capture the spies.

After receiving Senior Liao’s approval, Lin Xiao first contacted several sects and royal families with which he was familiar.

When these sects and royal families heard that Lingxian Sect was asking about the informants from the cultivation world, they were somewhat surprised. They did not understand why Lingxian Sect had suddenly brought up something that everyone knew about but had tacitly agreed never to mention.

However, they were currently doing business with Xiushui City and were counting on the city to fulfill their future orders in full so that they could receive their spirit stones. Since this was merely something everyone understood without saying, there was no reason they could not discuss it.

As a result, they told Lin Xiao everything they knew and answered every question he asked.

Although the sects and royal families of the mortal world had never heard of “Wanwantong,” they naturally knew a great deal about the unfamiliar cultivators who had appeared within their territories. In fact, they could be said to have the movements of these people under constant surveillance.

This was largely due to Wanwantong’s contempt for the mortal world. Because they looked down on it, they did not pay much attention to whether their actions or the identities of their informants had been exposed.

In the eyes of Wanwantong’s informants, the mortal world was a place they had completely enclosed and controlled. If Wanwantong wanted the mortal world to live, it would live; if they wanted it to die, it would die. The mortal world could never escape their grasp.

It was precisely because of this contempt that the sects and royal families of the mortal world knew almost exactly how many informants there were and what their identities were.

Thanks to that, Lin Xiao gained a general understanding of the number and cultivation levels of Wanwantong’s informants around the neighboring nations and sects.

Afterward, Lin Xiao contacted Ancestor Li, Li Zhanying, separately.

He hoped that Li Zhanying could investigate, as thoroughly as possible, the number, cultivation levels, and bases of all the informants from the cultivation world throughout the mortal world.

For that purpose, he even made a special trip to the capital of the Pusi Kingdom and gave Li Zhanying ten jade slips. He asked him to record the specific distribution of the informants in those jade slips. If ten were not enough, he could contact Lin Xiao, who would arrange to have more delivered.

Holding the ten jade slips personally delivered by Lin Xiao, Li Zhanying was somewhat bewildered. He had no idea what Lin Xiao intended to do with them, especially since he wanted information on the entire mortal world all at once.

However, his instincts told him that Lingxian Sect seemed to be preparing to make a major move.

As for these informants, all the sects and royal families of the mortal world knew perfectly well that their purpose was nothing more than to serve as the cultivation world’s means of controlling them. Naturally, they had no favorable impression of them.

But faced with the overwhelming disparity in strength between themselves and the cultivation world, they could only seethe in silence, let alone make a move to eliminate the informants.