Chapter 581: He Is the Key

"Chen Jiuge!" As I muttered his name over and over, my gaze swept past him. To my surprise, Chen Jiuge was also looking right at me.

He appeared gentle and refined, a completely different person from the one I had seen in the Dream Realm. When our eyes met, he offered a faint, friendly smile.

'Quite the actor.' If I hadn't already known Chen Jiuge's background, his performance might have fooled me. There was a good reason this guy had become the Two-Faced Buddha's pawn to infiltrate the Orthodox Sects; in terms of acting alone, he was absolutely on par with the professionals.

Inside the private room, Huang Boyuan and Jiang Detao were talking endlessly. The two old foxes were trying their hardest to win the support of these hidden sects.

At their level of influence, they were privy to many secrets ordinary people could scarcely imagine. The hidden sects truly existed, but they rarely interfered in worldly affairs. Normally, they were so elusive that the divine dragon is seen its head but not its tail—you couldn't even find them, let alone build connections with them.

Because of this, Qian Ding Pharmaceutical Company and the Jiang family placed tremendous importance on this banquet. To them, it was an incredibly rare opportunity.

Though the two men put on a vigorous performance, the sect members reacted rather coldly.

Watching from afar, I secretly shook my head. The two Jiangcheng business tycoons completely misunderstood why this group had come to Jiangcheng. These people didn't care at all about the worldly assets of the Jiang family or the Huang Family. What they cared about was the Ghost Mother; they cared about the merit that could influence their sect's destiny.

Halfway through the banquet, Huang Boyuan and Jiang Detao finally realized the sect members had little interest in what they had to say. Slightly embarrassed, they remained in their guest seats, chiming in occasionally.

It wasn't until a track of traditional music finished playing that the door to the private room was suddenly pushed open. A man in an armed police uniform walked in.

"Immortals, I have brought the man." This tall, middle-aged man was the armed police captain, Chen Jianguo. He gestured toward the hallway, and two officers walked in, escorting a young man wearing a black blindfold.

Seeing the escorted man, I narrowed my eyes, my fingers unconsciously tightening around my armrest. "Chen Er Gou?"

"The thugs that Daoist Master Lu Chen mentioned have all been apprehended. The rest are in the police cars outside the lobby." Chen Jianguo was tall and possessed a rather commanding presence. After he spoke, several surrounding Daoists nodded in satisfaction.

"Since everyone has arrived, let us begin." Daoist Master Xu Yan, who sat in the central main seat, opened his eyes. From his appearance, he looked around fifty, but he was actually over sixty years old. As his eyes opened, they gleamed with a light as sharp as a sword. "Lu Chen, tell everyone what you saw that day. Do not leave out a single detail."

The Brocade-Robed Daoist Priest sitting to Xu Yan's right cupped his hands in a salute before standing up. He recounted every single detail of his and Lu Jin's first encounter with the Ghost Mother at Xinhu High School.

He hid nothing. He detailed the intervention of the Three Yin Sect, the fact that they had subjected me to the Heart-Slaying Dao Inquiry, and how Lu Jin and Zhong Jiu had captured Wang Yu to use as leverage against me.

Everything he said was the truth. He wasn't biased, nor did he intentionally smear my name. Lu Chen's behavior was a bit beyond my expectations.

'Perhaps this is just his true nature, and he was only misled by Lu Jin that day,' I thought with a frown. When I looked up, I realized I had unwittingly become the focus of everyone in the room.

Although I really wanted to ask why they were all staring at me, on second thought, it was better to keep a low profile.

I remained silent, quietly enduring their stares. After Lu Chen's account, even Huang Lan, who was sitting next to me, saw me in a whole new light. She nudged me gently with her elbow. "So you really are Wang Yu's biological father? You played innocent pretty well. Men really are no good."

I shook my head and smiled bitterly. At this point, no matter what I said, I wouldn't be able to explain myself clearly.

"That is the general situation. I am truly ashamed that this matter started with my Miaozhen temple," Lu Chen said, then sat back down.

"Fellow Daoist Lu, you shouldn't say that. We of the orthodox path have always been sharing the same breath and branches. Moreover, slaying the Ghost Mother is our duty as cultivators."

"The Ghost Mother is brutal and brings disaster to the region. If she isn't eliminated as soon as possible, it will likely be much harder to deal with her in the future."

"We are all here to eliminate a demon, so please do not stand on ceremony. Anyone with a good idea may speak up."

...

After several Daoists finished speaking, Daoist Master Xu Yan in the main seat slowly shook his head, finally turning his gaze back to Lu Chen. "You crossed blows with that Ghost Mother. If all of us join forces, what do you think our chances of winning are?"

Lu Chen hesitated for a moment. "Around sixty percent."

"Only sixty percent?" Xu Yan raised an eyebrow. "Explain in detail."

"The Ghost Mother herself is a Grade B Upper Class ghost. She can manipulate Ghost Infants, and her strength depends heavily on the quantity and quality of those Ghost Infants. The Ghost Mother I encountered in Jiangcheng could control hundreds of Infant Spirits. At the time, fellow Daoists from the Three Yin Sect were also present. They set up the Eighteen Yamas Reincarnation Grand Formation—one of the Three Yin Sect's most renowned foundational assets. However, against the Ghost Mother, that formation barely lasted a single breath before it was broken. Perhaps it was because the Ghost Mother utilized the geographical advantage of that natural hazard node, but even so, breaking the Wheel Turning Grand Formation in a single breath is extremely terrifying." Lu Chen furrowed his brows. "I suspect the Ghost Mother has already touched the edge of being a Grade A ghost."

"Grade A?" Wei Jianming of the Golden Mountain Sect rolled his eyes. "A Grade A ghost can only be harmed by an Upper Vehicle Talisman. Even the fierce ghosts in ancient legends were merely Grade A. Isn't Daoist Master Lu exaggerating a bit?"

When facing the Ghost Mother for the first time, Lu Chen had fled in a panic, unable to even care for his junior martial brother's life. If this spread, it would inevitably draw the mockery of the ignorant.

Take Wei Jianming, for instance. Despite his young age, he was already an inner disciple of the Golden Mountain Sect. He didn't hold much reverence for the famous mountains of the world, which was why he felt that Lu Chen was only saying this to cover up his own incompetence.

"Jianming, do not speak nonsense!" The Golden Mountain Sect's senior martial brother, Wei Wenming, immediately scolded him. However, he was still protective of his junior martial brother. After reprimanding Wei Jianming, he shifted his tone. "Please do not take offense, Fellow Daoist Lu. My junior brother is merely curious. The eleven of us joining forces would be enough to annihilate some of the evil sects in the South Seas. Yet, against a mere Ghost Mother, we only have a sixty percent chance of winning? Isn't that probability a bit low?"

To eradicate the Ghost Mother this time, the Golden Mountain Sect had sent their entire younger generation of disciples to participate—a full four people. Under normal circumstances, Lu Chen wouldn't even bother talking to them, but these were extraordinary times. He had no choice but to patiently explain, "This ghost has already gathered its momentum. It is vastly different from an ordinary Grade B ghost. It also seems to possess extremely high intelligence and emotions. I cannot explain the exact reason, but if we treat it like a common ghost, we will definitely suffer for it."

Most of the people in the private room scoffed at Lu Chen's words, believing he was simply making excuses. Only a few took them to heart, myself included.

'Possessing intelligence and emotions?' Recalling the scene where the Ghost Mother leapt from a tall building and broke the formation just to save Wang Yu, I nodded secretly. The Ghost Mother truly was different from ordinary ghosts.

My nod was just a subconscious reaction. I didn't expect this tiny detail to be caught by Xu Yan in the main seat. His gaze landed on me as he spoke to Lu Chen. "Is the man sitting at the end of the table the Ghost Mother's husband?"

"Yes, that's him. This person is a Ghost Cultivator who may have had a conflict with my junior brother Lu Jin in the past. My junior brother has been spoiled since childhood and can't stand losing, so he falsely accused this man of stealing the Profound Truth Dao Method. To verify everything, I was forced to use the Heart-Slaying Dao Inquiry on him. Who could have known it would eventually drag out a terrifying existence like the Ghost Mother?" As Lu Chen recalled the incident, his face filled with exasperation. He had only been following orders, yet he botched the job and nearly got himself killed in the process.

"A Ghost Cultivator?" Xu Yan's gaze swept over me twice. "He is afflicted with illness. Although he does not have long to live and is plagued by misfortune, he is protected by yin energy. It condenses without dissipating, clinging to a thread of vitality. To think this old Daoist's eyes actually failed him earlier. This kid is quite unusual."

The two conversed without any regard for outsiders, so Huang Boyuan and Jiang Detao, sitting nearby, heard everything clearly. "Ghost Cultivator," "Ghost Mother's husband"—these phrases left the two men completely dumbfounded. Huang Boyuan in particular looked positively green in the face when he saw me sitting next to his eldest daughter.

"If we want to eliminate the Ghost Mother, this kid is the key. If he is willing to cooperate, our chances of winning can increase to ninety percent," Lu Chen said bluntly.