Chapter 1864: Surprise (2)

Chapter 1864: Chapter 682: Surprise (2)

But that sound—Su Mo listened for a long time, yet could hear nothing at all. Aside from lamenting how vicious this human puppet technique was, he was also deeply shocked by the Jinglong Association’s methods.

No wonder no one knows where this place deep in the clouds actually is.

Even someone ranked fifth among the Jing Huang, when going in and out of the place deep in the clouds, has to drink “Calming Tea,” lose his wits, and then be carried in by human puppets.

Even if someone discovers them midway, seizes a few human puppets, and tries to pry secrets from their mouths, that is pure delusion.

Moreover, human puppets are specially made to walk hidden paths; under normal circumstances, they’re very hard to be discovered.

And after that one night, they arrived at yet another location.

This place too had a group of people guarding it.

And there was another group of human puppets as well.

From what they said, once they reached here, they had to switch to the human puppets raised by this group in order to walk the correct route.

They even invited that Longmen Fifth Jing out and gave him a proper feast.

After that, they set out again.

With this one journey, all told, they walked for a full three days.

They changed direction twice along the way.

How many li they actually traveled, whether they walked in circles or in straight lines, was impossible to say.

This made the three people inside the coffin suffer quite a bit.

Xiao Xiao mainly because she was hungry.

Although she had hidden quite a lot of things on her person—pig’s trotters, roast chicken—everything you could think of.

But those things, for an ordinary person, would be more than enough to fill the belly.

To Zhen Xiaoxiao, they couldn’t even fill the gaps between her teeth.

If she didn’t know this trip was of critical importance, she would have burst the coffin open and gone out to find food long ago.

As for Wei Ziyi and Su Mo…

A young man and woman, bodies pressed together, pressed for three days straight.

Yet they couldn’t do anything.

The taste of that, truly, was hard to put into words.

In any case, after three days, the coffin was suddenly set down.

The human puppets scattered and left.

What awaited Su Mo and the others was a long silence.

No one knew how much time had passed, when suddenly there was movement.

Judging from the sound, it should be the coffin of Longmen Fifth Jing being opened.

As the coffin lid scraped aside, Longmen Fifth Jing’s voice came, letting out a long breath:

“Back to old haunts, yet I do not know how many old friends remain…”

After that sigh, he fell silent for a long time.

Only after quite a while did they hear a soft thump; the old man had probably jumped down from the coffin.

He started walking, his footsteps swishing as he headed straight toward Jiang Lan’s coffin.

The sound of a coffin lid sliding open came again, and Jiang Lan’s voice followed:

“Senior Fifth, we meet again…”

“Hahaha.”

Longmen Fifth Jing laughed:

“Your temperament really isn’t annoying.

“Children whose mouths can speak well always tend to be liked by old folks.

“You knew I was coming to open your coffin, and you didn’t plan to hide yourself and strike a vicious blow.

“You still have some sense of your own situation.

“Enough, I won’t say much. Now that you’re in this territory, even if you grow eighteen legs and twenty-four pairs of wings, you still won’t be able to fly away.

“Get out of the coffin yourself. I’ll tell you about this place deep in the clouds.”

As he spoke, there was a crackling sound, followed immediately by the rustle of cloth cutting through air; Jiang Lan flew out of the coffin.

After steadying himself, he gazed around in all directions and said with a smile:

“So this is the place deep in the clouds.

“Imperial Dao and the Jinglong Association have been fighting for years; those of Imperial Dao who were fortunate enough to reach this place are probably not many.”

“Yet not few either.”

Fifth Jing chuckled softly:

“You’re still young. Though you have some reputation, the Taoist Master wouldn’t have told you everything.”

“…Oh?”

“You’re not convinced?”

Fifth Jing shook his head with a smile:

“To be frank, the number of Imperial Dao people who have come to this place deep in the clouds—up to now, there must be at least over two hundred.

“It’s just a pity that most of them are already dead.”

“Most?”

Jiang Lan’s brows knit tightly.

Fifth Jing’s words were not beyond his expectations.

After all, the two sides had been at odds for hundreds of years; the Jinglong Association would always capture some Imperial Dao people and bring them to the place deep in the clouds, either to torture them for information or for some other purpose.

And in Jiang Lan’s view:

Any Imperial Dao disciple who ended up in this place deep in the clouds was surely doomed with no chance of survival.

Yet this old man had actually said “most.”

Which meant there was a small portion who had the luck to live?

“Exactly.”

Fifth Jing said with a smile:

“The Jinglong Association is not the vile organization that that brat surnamed Su described, resorting to every despicable means.

“We have great ambition, great breadth of heart, great boldness, great aspirations.

“Naturally, we are like the sea that embraces all rivers, great because we can contain all things.

“Whether it’s you of Imperial Dao, or that brat’s Jianghu Alliance—heaven and earth, the four quarters, what is there we cannot contain?

“And any of you Imperial Dao who make it to this place deep in the clouds, none of you are simple characters.

“Naturally, we’ll think of ways to have you join us.

“Become one of us.

“It’s just a pity that… over all these years, there haven’t been many who truly catch our eye.

“And of those who do catch our eye, even fewer have been able to abandon evil for good in time…”

“What a fine ‘abandon evil for good.'”

Jiang Lan sneered:

“A pack of traitorous rebels dare to speak such words?”

“Traitorous rebels?”

Fifth Jing glanced at Jiang Lan:

“Then may I ask, who is the current august sovereign?

“Whose traitorous officials are we, and whose rebels?”

“…Outrageous!”

Jiang Lan shouted angrily:

“Under heaven, there is nothing that is not the Da Xuan Dynasty!!”