Xu Mu did not say it right away, because a filial piety value of -1 could not be considered especially low.
That meant he believed the woman had accomplices.
There was no need to alert them prematurely.
“You have a point. I trust your abilities. As long as you secretly follow us to deal with the last World-Breaker here, even if Chi Ting comes in person, he absolutely won’t be able to kill you.”
At this point, Li Chenshuang looked at Zhou Su beside her. “Don’t let Xu Mu’s lower cultivation realm fool you. His abilities far surpass those of others at the same level.”
“I know that, of course. I watched the video of his victory in the Martial Arts Tournament several times.”
Zhou Su nodded with a smile.
Xu Mu turned his gaze toward Zhou Su. “You’re a half-breed. How is it that you look so much like me?”
“My father is from the Jiuli Tribe, and my mother is from the Dragon Nation. I only inherited my mother’s hair.”
Zhou Su pointed at her black eyes. “I’m wearing colored contacts. I have to go out and negotiate business fairly often, after all.”
Li Chenshuang added, “Zhou Su’s father used to be one of my father’s most capable subordinates. The two of us practically grew up together.”
Xu Mu nodded lightly, then rose to his feet. “Take me to see your ruin.”
“All right.”
Li Chenshuang smiled and nodded. She turned to Zhou Su. “Sis Zhou, I’ll leave things here to you. Notify me immediately if anything happens.”
“Sure.”
Zhou Su nodded.
Li Chenshuang got up and headed toward the room next door. Xu Mu followed her and discovered that it was a study.
Li Chenshuang placed her hand against one wall. Ripples like water immediately spread across its surface.
“Come in.”
Li Chenshuang gestured to Xu Mu.
“I’ll disguise myself a little, so they won’t accuse you of colluding with the Sanitation Bureau.”
Xu Mu took out a black robe and covered himself completely with it. Only then did he step into the ruin alongside Li Chenshuang.
Upon entering, he immediately saw a river in the distance.
“Is that the river not far outside?”
Xu Mu looked at Li Chenshuang.
“That’s right. We enclosed one of that river’s tributaries within the ruin. Even an ordinary ninth-level formation master couldn’t accomplish something like this.”
Li Chenshuang smiled.
“Indeed.”
Xu Mu nodded lightly and surveyed the surroundings. The ruin covered a vast area.
Through his perception, all he could see were members of the Jiuli Tribe with silver hair and red eyes.
Judging by the children playing in the distance, the Jiuli Tribe truly deserved its reputation as one of the top alien races in the outside world.
Their overall vitality was far greater than that of the other races.
Take Fu Jinyu’s Sky Demon Tribe, for example. There were only a dozen or so children among them, and their future looked bleak.
But there were plenty of children here among the Jiuli, along with a considerable number of young adults. And this was only a single tribe.
“Chief.”
The guards in the distance greeted Li Chenshuang respectfully.
Xu Mu glanced at them and shook his head slightly. As expected, things were exactly as he had guessed.
Zhou Su, who was outside, was only one of them.
The filial piety value of the guard who had spoken to Li Chenshuang was -2.
By comparison, all the other guards had positive values.
Li Chenshuang gave a slight nod and continued deeper into the ruin with Xu Mu.
Along the way, Xu Mu checked the filial piety values of every Jiuli who greeted her. He discovered that at least two out of every ten had values of negative one or negative two.
That meant nearly twenty percent of the tribe harbored ulterior motives toward Li Chenshuang.
Yet this woman foolishly thought there was merely a traitor among them. The traitor had already infiltrated and taken over her household long ago.
“Who is the tribe’s second-in-command?” Xu Mu asked.
“In situations like this, the second-in-command is usually the most suspicious.”
“The second-in-command is named Li Jiao. He was the second World-Breaker to disappear. He had reached the peak of the second stage of the World-Breaking Realm and was the strongest person here.”
“The strongest person disappeared?”
Xu Mu grew even more curious. Then he said, “Take me to see the last World-Breaker first.”
Li Chenshuang glanced at Xu Mu. “You suspect him too?”
“Of course. Two of the three World-Breakers have disappeared, while he’s the only one still staying in the ruin. Naturally, he’s the prime suspect.”
Xu Mu continued observing the filial piety values of the people around Li Chenshuang and realized that the situation was far from simple.
In terms of numbers, only twenty percent of them were disloyal to her.
However, most of those disloyal people were fairly powerful—in other words, they were members of the tribe’s upper ranks.
For instance, the leader of the guards from earlier was disloyal, while the ordinary Jiuli with lower cultivation realms were loyal to her.
On the surface, only twenty percent of them were against her. In reality, however, Li Chenshuang had practically been stripped of all authority.
Those ordinary people were loyal to her, but they still had to obey the orders of their superiors.
Xu Mu let out a bitter laugh. He had always thought Li Chenshuang was clever. Who would have thought she was just another blockhead?
She was only slightly smarter than Fu Jinyu.
After crossing the mountain ahead, Xu Mu saw a palace at the deepest part of the ruin. The entire palace was golden, as if it were glowing.
A statue stood atop the building. It had a pair of enormous wings.
As they approached the palace, an elderly man with closely cropped hair walked toward Li Chenshuang.
“Chief, how did it go?”
Judging by his age, the old man would have been around sixty by the standards of the descendants of Yan and Huang.
He looked hale and hearty. Judging from his physique, his physical body was likely extremely powerful.
“This is the friend I told you about. I believe he can definitely help us get through this crisis.”
Li Chenshuang patted Xu Mu on the shoulder and continued, “This is Miao Wentian, one of the three great commanders of our tribe.”
“Hello. I’m Chen Xuan.”
Xu Mu nodded at him.
Miao Wentian smiled. “The Chief told us several days ago that her friend would definitely be able to resolve this crisis.”
“You give me too much credit. I only happen to know a little about psychology.”
Xu Mu looked at Miao Wentian and discovered that his filial piety value toward Li Chenshuang was actually 5.
That was a fairly high score.
Xu Mu immediately sensed that something was wrong. Following normal logic, if even the tribe’s upper ranks were disloyal, then there was only one possibility:
Someone whose position was second only to Li Chenshuang was manipulating things from behind the scenes.
Yet two World-Breakers had disappeared, while the only one left had a value of five.
Xu Mu roughly arrived at a possible conclusion: the missing World-Breakers were the ones who had been disloyal to Li Chenshuang.
“Chief Sis, I’d like to speak with Senior alone. Leave the ruin first and go find your good friend. Just tell her I’m talking with Senior.”
Xu Mu suddenly addressed Li Chenshuang.
Li Chenshuang hesitated. At first, she wanted to tell Xu Mu not to alert the enemy.
But after thinking it over, she realized Xu Mu was not the reckless type. In the end, she agreed and turned to leave.
Xu Mu pointed toward a stone table beside the palace and walked over first.
Miao Wentian followed with a smile. Once he sat down on the stone bench, he asked with a smile, “You suspect me?”
“So you already know. But you’ve guessed wrong.”
Xu Mu looked at Li Chenshuang’s retreating figure.
“Li Chenshuang suspects you, but I don’t.”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
