When his colleague proposed a face-to-face meeting, Lin An hesitated.
He didn’t want to go.
If the invitation had come when they first made contact, he would have been happy to meet, get familiar, and plan their actions.
But times had changed.
Ten days had passed, and now the other party wanted to meet.
It was hard not to suspect something… like…
The other party was already prepared to kill him, then fake an identity leak and flee the sect, ultimately disappearing without a trace.
No body, no proof—perfect.
It wasn’t that he wanted to judge the other person with the worst possible intentions; he had just seen too many people like that.
The ability “Observe Like and Dislike” let him see very clearly that people weren’t always as they appeared on the surface.
Some people wore a warm smile and acted enthusiastic, but in reality, they didn’t have a shred of goodwill toward him—the color of their mist was almost faded to nothing.
Back to the matter at hand: if he went, it wasn’t safe.
If he didn’t go, that didn’t seem right either.
Lin An furrowed his brow and rubbed his temples.
Just as he was agonizing over whether to go, the door slammed open with a loud bang.
Three men walked in, all dressed in Servant Disciple uniforms.
The one in the lead appeared to be about his age, but the man carried a hint of arrogance he couldn’t hide.
Lin An looked up, a cold glint flashing in his eyes, and a sarcastic smile tugged at his lips.
“Who do I think it is? It’s Sun Yao and his two henchmen. That’s a pretty creative way to open a door. You’re fixing it for me later!”
He really did want to keep a low profile and avoid trouble, but when someone kicked his door down, being polite would be too spineless.
Hearing this, the two men behind glared angrily and stepped forward, but Sun Yao raised his hand to stop them.
Seeing Lin An so disrespectful, Sun Yao’s face turned grim, but he still suppressed his anger and said stiffly, “Lin An, lunchtime is already over. Who gave you the right to still be here?”
“Li Guanshi,” Lin An replied very naturally.
“…”
Sun Yao’s face grew even uglier.
In a world where strength reigned supreme, hierarchy was strict, especially in a righteous sect like the Heaven Origin Sect.
Even a minor official was still an official.
All the Servant Disciples were under Li Guanshi’s authority.
Offending Li Guanshi meant there was basically no way to get ahead.
Unless he had exceptional talent—but that wasn’t easy.
“You say Li Guanshi? I say you’re talking nonsense and just trying to shirk your duty!”
Sun Yao didn’t speak, but one of the men behind him suddenly blurted out.
Lin An glanced at him.
“Don’t believe me? Then go ask him yourselves. But let’s make a deal: if he confirms it, you guys… figure out how to fix my door.”
With that, he lay down on the bed, crossed his legs, and acted completely at ease.
Seeing his unflappable attitude, Sun Yao was momentarily uncertain.
“Fine. I’ll go ask Li Guanshi. If you’re lying, I guarantee you won’t stay in the Heaven Origin Sect. Let’s go!”
After leaving that threat, Sun Yao stormed off with his two followers.
Once they left, Lin An sat up and looked at the door hanging crookedly to one side.
He felt a bit speechless.
He could somewhat understand why Sun Yao was targeting him.
It was just because he was a little better-looking, a little more pleasant to talk to, a little closer to his fellow disciples, and a little more able to chat with Gu Yingge.
It wasn’t anything major.
He hadn’t gone looking for trouble.
Couldn’t he just live his own life peacefully?
Maybe… he couldn’t.
Based on the interpersonal gossip Lin An had gathered, Sun Yao had been quite prominent before entering the Heaven Origin Sect.
His father was a wealthy local magnate, and his mother was the only daughter of a family of equal standing.
He had grown up in luxury without suffering the slightest grievance.
After testing positive for some cultivation talent, he studied and trained hard for over a decade, finally reaching the third level of the Mortal Martial Realm.
For a merchant’s son like him, that was enough.
But the problem with people like him was that they valued their pride too much.
Unlike Lin An, who had gotten in through connections, Sun Yao had paid his way in openly.
Among the Servant Disciples, who were mostly at the first level of the Mortal Martial Realm or even below, he was a complete anomaly.
He knew this himself, so he was desperate to leave here, join the Outer Sect, and officially become a disciple of the Heaven Origin Sect.
But as the saying goes, you can water a plant with care and it won’t bloom, but a willow planted carelessly will provide shade.
Lin An, who was as lazy as a salted fish, grew closer to Gu Yingge day by day, while the busy Sun Yao had no way in at all.
That naturally made him extremely jealous and resentful.
Lin An rubbed his chin.
So it was because of a woman after all?
Tsk… so troublesome.
Before long, the three returned.
Judging by their expressions, they had probably been chewed out by Li Guanshi.
They didn’t say anything.
They came in and started fixing the door while Lin An sat there watching.
He suddenly wondered what their current favorability toward him was.
He activated “Observe Like and Dislike” and focused his gaze.
The white mist around the two followers had almost faded to nothing.
As for Sun Yao, there was no white mist at all…
No!
Lin An narrowed his eyes and looked more closely.
Was that… black energy?
As he observed, wisps of black energy were seeping out of Sun Yao and unconsciously drifting in his direction.
Malice—unquestionably malice.
This was the first time Lin An had seen substantive, directed malice aimed at him.
Before this, he had had conflicts and arguments with others, but he had never seen black energy.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have misunderstood Lu Mingyue’s state earlier.
The door was almost fixed.
Sun Yao came over and said with a friendly smile, “Brother Lin, I really didn’t know the situation earlier. If I offended you, please forgive me.”
His attitude was so different from before that Lin An sneered inwardly.
He stood up and cupped his hands.
“No problem. It’s just a misunderstanding. We’re all colleagues; we should help each other.”
“Naturally.”
Sun Yao also bowed with cupped hands.
The door was fixed.
The three said a few words of apology and then turned to leave.
After they left, Lin An went to the window and peered through the gap.
Sure enough, Sun Yao kept looking back as he walked, and the black energy around him increased bit by bit.
This was not good.
Having no goodwill was fine, but malice was bad.
Lin An himself was already not clean, and now he had a person who saw him as a thorn in his side.
After thinking for a moment, he suddenly had an idea.
Since you started this, don’t blame me for playing dirty.
…
…
Late at night, outside Lin An’s residence.
“Boss Sun, do we really have to do this? Maybe we should report it to Li Guanshi.”
“Shut up!”
Sun Yao shot a cold glare at him.
“That old bastard is a fence-sitter. If we tell him this, who do you think he’ll believe—us or Lin An? More likely, he’ll say we’re slandering him.”
“Ah, this…”
Remembering Li Guanshi’s attitude during the day, the man fell silent.
Sun Yao stared intently at the window of the small room.
The light inside turned the paper white.
After finishing his afternoon tasks, he had returned to his own room and found a note on the table. It read:
“Lin An is a mole for the Demon Soul Sect. He’ll go to the Sword Testing Platform outside the Game of Swords Pavilion tonight to meet his superior. If you want to enter the Outer Sect, catch him. This is a test.”
The note appeared too coincidentally—right on the evening of the day he and Lin An had clashed.
Any normal person would find it suspicious, and Sun Yao was no exception.
He thought a lot.
If this was a trap set by Lin An, then reporting him and finding out it wasn’t true would mean he himself would suffer.
But if it was true, why didn’t the person who left the note go themselves?
Was it really a test?
He couldn’t be sure.
On top of that, his desire to enter the Outer Sect and his jealousy toward Lin An drove him to finally decide to investigate personally.
As for the option of pretending not to see it, that simply didn’t exist.
His pride wouldn’t allow it.
“Boss Sun, the light went out,” the man beside him suddenly said.
Sun Yao looked up.
Sure enough, after the light went out, a figure opened the door, furtively checked that no one was around, and then quickly slipped toward the Game of Swords Pavilion.
Sun Yao immediately pulled out three Conceal Breath Talismans and handed them to his two underlings.
“Follow him. Damn sect mole—we can’t let him run wild in the Heaven Origin Sect!”
Hearing this, the two underlings felt a surge of righteous enthusiasm.
“Got it!”
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