Yun Heng felt as though he had dreamed in a very short span of time.
It seemed like a past life, perhaps this life, or maybe the future. In short, it was a mix of truth and falsehood, ethereal and vague, starting in the clouds and ending in an awakening.
Among the few things Yun Heng could perceive was that when he opened his eyes, his cultivation had already reached Foundation Establishment.
Standing before him, besides Yan Qingli and Jiang Keke, was a demon inspection team of one-plus-twenty-four members.
“Yo, Young Master Yun, you’re awake?”
Xuan Sun stared at Yun Heng, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t tell me that massive commotion just now was actually you breaking through to Foundation Establishment.”
Yun Heng’s expression remained unchanged, and he did not answer Xuan Sun. He merely shifted his gaze slightly to his side.
The young girl was kneeling on the ground, clutching half of his arm tightly. She didn’t look at him, instead burying her face in the small of his back, her entire body trembling.
‘Although I’m not clear on exactly what happened while I was unconscious, Jiang Keke and Yan Qingli wouldn’t have arranged me like a toy block into this cross-legged meditation posture… There’s only one answer…’
Yun Heng roughly deduced the series of events that had occurred. After a moment of thought, he decided it was better not to stand up yet.
“Young Master Yun truly has elegant tastes.”
Xuan Sun rested his left foot on the nanmu chair belonging to the Liuli Valley Sect Master, while his right hand carried a giant ruler over his shoulder. The eyes behind his mask were full of mockery.
“Picking such a prime location just to break through to Foundation Establishment, and even inviting three beauties to accompany you? When will I be able to have such luck with women like you do?”
“Lord Xuan Sun, there is something I need to trouble you with.”
Yun Heng first whispered to the two women blocking him, telling them there was no need to shield him and to leave everything to him. Only then did he speak to Xuan Sun.
“Oh?”
Xuan Sun raised an eyebrow, his gaze slowly meeting Yun Heng’s.
In the next second, he seemed to daze over, freezing in place like a puppet for three full seconds.
**[Taoist Art or Golden Finger · Hypnosis]**
“That’s enough.”
Yun Heng smiled.
“You brat, what did you do to me!”
Xuan Sun snapped out of it, enraged. He lifted his giant ruler, preparing to charge forward and hack the little beast to death.
“I didn’t do much. I was just curious about what kind of grudge you had with my father back then.”
Yun Heng sighed. “As it turns out, my father was simply too charming, causing Lord Xuan Sun’s beloved to have a change of heart.”
Yun Heng shook his head. “Regrettably, my father already had my mother by his side at the time. You weren’t even part of a love triangle; it was just a series of one-way arrows. Truly… a pity.”
Afterward, Xuan Sun had remained bitter and sought a fight with Yun Wangji, only to be kicked away by Yun Wangji like a stray dog on the side of the road. The scar on his face was left from that very time.
“I’ll mince you right now, you little brat!”
Having his hidden scar — one he had kept secret for a thousand years and considered a mark of supreme humiliation — exposed by Yun Heng in such a nonchalant, almost pitying tone, Xuan Sun was beyond livid.
He lunged in front of Yun Heng in a single stride, swinging the giant ruler down with the terrifying power of the peak Integration stage. With just one move, he shattered one of Yun Heng’s life-saving magical treasures.
The speed was so great that not only was Jiang Keke unable to react, but even Yan Qingli failed to respond in time. The mere aftershock sent both women flying.
Yan Qingli was fine; as a peak Integration stage cultivator, she wouldn’t truly be injured by the shockwave. However, Jiang Keke’s injuries had not yet healed, and she was only at the Qi refining stage.
Despite the protection of the defensive treasure Yun Heng had given her, she coughed up several mouthfuls of blood.
Yun Heng’s face instantly darkened.
He looked up, staring into Xuan Sun’s eyes. “May I interpret this attack as a provocation toward the Changsheng Yun family?”
“Twisting the truth.”
Xuan Sun sneered. “Protecting the demon race is an unpardonable sin. I am the one on the side of justice.”
“Oh?”
Yun Heng stood up, first shielding the girl behind him before speaking indifferently, “And the evidence?”
“Who needs evidence?”
Xuan Sun rolled his eyes.
“With such a massive commotion just now, let alone the Demon Inspection Department, even those trash at Foundation Establishment or Qi refining could sense something was wrong.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Yun Heng pulled a long spear from his storage bag. “That was merely the vibration of the barrier caused by my breakthrough to Foundation Establishment.”
The function of the monster hunting mirror was only to locate the direction of a demon’s aura. It wasn’t like a law enforcement recorder; it wouldn’t record that aura.
In other words, as long as the girl successfully transformed, there would be no evidence.
Xuan Sun stared at Yun Heng for a long while before suddenly grinning.
“Young Master Yun, do you take me for a three-year-old child?”
He slowly lowered the giant ruler from his shoulder, the tip of the ruler touching the ground.
“Breaking through to Foundation Establishment? You think I haven’t seen the commotion of a breakthrough before?”
“The spiritual energy fluctuations just now… forget Foundation Establishment, even a Deity Transformation or Void Refinement stage breakthrough would struggle to create such a scene.”
Xuan Sun found it a bit laughable. He didn’t expect Yun Heng to actually use his earlier joke as a serious excuse.
“That’s just your lack of experience.”
Yun Heng remained unfazed. “The breakthroughs of my Changsheng Yun family are just that grand. If you don’t believe me, you are more than welcome to ask my father — oh, that’s right, you don’t dare to ask.”
The veins on Xuan Sun’s forehead pulsed, but he forced himself to suppress his rage.
He truly didn’t dare.
That bastard Yun Wangji could rub him into the dirt a thousand years ago. Now that a thousand years had passed, ghost knows what level the old man had reached.
At the very least, that terrifying peak Ren Cheng stage cultivation was enough to make anyone tremble with fear.
But if he let himself be fooled like this, Xuan Sun would never agree.
The mission of the Demon Inspection Department was one thing, but more importantly — this kid had used that strange Taoist art to pry into his memories and even said it out loud in public!
If word of this got out, where would he hide his face?
“Since Young Master Yun says it was a breakthrough, then a breakthrough it is.”
Xuan Sun suddenly adopted a fake, skin-deep smile.
“However… according to the rules, when the Demon Inspection Department handles a case and encounters a suspicious individual, we have the right to perform an ‘aura verification.’ This young lady —”
He turned his gaze toward the trembling girl behind Yun Heng. “She looks quite unfamiliar. I wonder if you would let me verify her origins?”
As his voice fell, the twenty-four members of the demon inspection team behind Xuan Sun took a synchronized step forward.
A murderous aura instantly filled the entire waterside pavilion.
Yan Qingli’s face turned pale.
She knew that this so-called “aura verification” was actually using a specialized magical treasure from the Demon Inspection Department to detect demon qi at close range. If even a trace of demon qi remained on the girl, it would be impossible to hide.
She knew even better that given Xuan Sun’s personality, the verification was just an excuse. Regardless of whether it was confirmed or not, he would strike on the spot, giving Yun Heng no chance to negotiate.
Xuan Sun’s reputation had always been like this — he would rather kill an innocent by mistake than let a suspect go.
This was why the dragon race had directly approached Xuan Sun to have him conduct the inspection on their behalf.
“Verification?”
Yun Heng laughed.
He laughed with an air of nonchalance, even having the leisure to twirl his spear for Xuan Sun to see. “Sure. However —”
His tone shifted. “Lord Xuan Sun, before you conduct your verification, shouldn’t you first explain why you trespassed onto my private property and injured my book boy and friend?”
Thanks to the memories obtained from **[Hypnosis]**, Yun Heng was now the person in this world who understood Xuan Sun’s weaknesses best, perhaps even better than Xuan Sun himself.
He knew exactly what to do and what to say to make Xuan Sun as uncomfortable as possible.
“Private property?”
Xuan Sun frowned.
“This location is the Liuli Valley Sect Master’s mansion, a temporary cultivation cave I rented from Sovereign Yan.”
Yun Heng pulled a contract from his storage bag. It clearly bore Yan Qingli’s signature and the seal of Liuli Valley.
“The lease is for three years, and the rent has already been paid. According to the customs of the cultivation world, this place is my private property during the lease period. Lord Xuan Sun broke in without permission and even struck people…”
In truth, the contract was fake. It was something Yun Heng had drafted using a random seal before he left Master Rong Yu’s place.
He paused, his smile becoming increasingly gentle. “Tell me, if word of this gets out, where should the ‘impartial law enforcement’ reputation of the Demon Inspection Department be placed?”
Xuan Sun’s expression darkened completely.
He glared at Yun Heng, his eyes so sinister they seemed capable of dripping poison.
This kid… was even harder to deal with than his father!
At least Yun Wangji dealt with things openly; if you couldn’t win the fight, you couldn’t win.
But this Yun Heng only had a Foundation Establishment cultivation, yet every word he spoke stabbed at a weakness, specifically choosing to bring up those tedious, unspoken rules.
Unfortunately, these were rules he couldn’t afford to ignore.
The Demon Inspection Department conducted a risk assessment and evaluation every ten years. The main purpose was to adjust seat assignments and stipends, and to ensure there were no moles among the high-ranking members.
Xuan Sun used to hold the fifty-sixth seat.
Although his performance was excellent, his repeated violations of the laws of the cultivation world and his tendency to kill the innocent had caused his rank to drop again and again. Now, he was at the seventy-first seat.
Xuan Sun had been warned countless times to stop breaking the law while supposedly enforcing it.
Not to mention, the reputation of the Demon Inspection Department had been abysmal in recent years, making many enemies.
If a mess like “trespassing on private property” reached those old fogies at the top, they would certainly use it as an excuse to kick him out of the seventy-two seats entirely and replace him with some of their own juniors.
Ultimately, this was just a request from an external race that bypassed the higher-ups. Xuan Sun did not believe it was worth risking his future.
Silence.
A suffocating silence spread through the pavilion.
Jiang Keke clutched her chest, enduring the sharp pain, and glared at Xuan Sun, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her wolf-tooth club.
Yan Qingli secretly circulated her spiritual power, ready to activate the mountain defense array of Liuli Valley at any moment. Although she knew it wouldn’t stop Xuan Sun for long, it could at least buy some time.
Behind Yun Heng, the girl continued to cling to his arm, her body shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.
After an unknown amount of time.
Xuan Sun suddenly let out a cold laugh.
“Fine. Well played, Young Master of the Changsheng Yun family.”
He retracted his giant ruler and slung it over his shoulder. “I’ll take the loss today. However —”
He turned around, his back to Yun Heng, but his voice was as cold as ice.
“Young Master Yun, you’d better pray this girl really doesn’t have any issues. Otherwise… the next time we meet, it won’t be as simple as a verification.”
As his voice fell, he transformed into a wisp of black smoke and shot into the sky.
The other twenty-four members of the demon inspection team looked at each other and also mounted their treasures to follow, disappearing into the horizon in the blink of an eye.
However, before Lv Wenbo and Ding Huaimeng left, they glanced back at Yun Heng.
Lv Wenbo was fine; his gaze seemed to say “take care, Brother Yun.” But Ding Huaimeng’s gaze…
Yun Heng couldn’t quite tell what she was thinking.