Chapter 407: Senior brother, the scapegoat
Under the moonlit night, in a rarely visited dark alley on one side of the street in Tian’an Eastern District, bursts of machine sounds like gears meshing suddenly came out.
Boom boom——
Ten old and inconspicuous stone bricks on the ground of the alley suddenly sunk into the ground, and one after another stone stairs leading directly to the bottom appeared below.
Ye Anping, who was wearing a blue robe and covering his face with a hood, slowly emerged from the bottom of the stairs. Seeing that no other monsters were passing by in the alley at this time, he felt a little relieved and left this secret passage. The entrance and exit were closed again, and then he stepped on the walls on both sides of the alley and jumped to the roof of a three-story residential building nearby.
To catch Xue Tianqiao, the first thing was to find her.
However, looking at the dazzling array of monsters on the streets of the Eastern District, Ye Anping felt a little tired unconsciously. When he had just entered the secret passage below Tian’an City, Ghost Spirit Sect’s late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator had already entered the city with gifts, and he was about to go to Hu Mu to offer gifts.
If he hadn’t caught Xue Tianqiao before the conversation between Mo Xiu and Hu Mu was over, then his success would have been in vain. In other words, he probably only had an hour now – to set up a trap, catch the fox, and escape.
“It would be nice if Hero Xuanji also hung a bell for her, or if we happened to meet her on the street…”
Ye Anping couldn’t help but sigh, but how could he plan such an important matter based on luck or uncertainty?
After moving his shoulders a little, he walked along the tiled roofs of the houses and pavilions, heading toward the top of the tallest tower as far as the eye could see. He stepped on the tip of the cornice, and then called softly:
“Xiao…”
Before the word “Tian” was uttered, Xiao Tian, like a prophet, leaned out half of his body from his soul realm:
“Anping, why did you call me?”
“…”
Seeing Xiao Tian’s face eager to help him work, Ye Anping was stunned for a long time, frowned, and asked:
“Why are you so excited?”
Xiao Tian flew to sit on Ye Anping’s shoulder, touched his face, and blinked, “Anping, it’s so rare for you to call me once. I’m embarrassed to live here for free. Please arrange more things for me to do in the future. So what help do you want me to do? Do you want to borrow the scroll of Heavenly Dao? Or do you want me to deliver a message to you? Or peek into other people’s storage bags?”
“I know everything in the Scroll of Heavenly Dao; you can only send messages to Feng Yudie, so you might as well raise a trust eagle; peeking into other people’s storage bags is barely useful… and are there other things?”
“Ah… and more…”
Ye Anping looked indifferent: “Huh?”
Xiao Tian lowered his eyes and began to think, probably knowing that he was useless, two large tears suddenly fell from his golden eyes:
“Anping, I’m… ugh – I’m…”
Ye Anping didn’t expect that Xiao Tian would be so aggrieved that he started crying. He was suddenly worried that it would make him cry all over his head and make him have a headache. He quickly ignored the topic:
“Xiao Tian, I asked you to come out because…”
However, it was just when Ye Anping assigned it a task. A crisp ringtone rang in his consciousness.
Jingle bells~~.
The ethereal ringing of the Star Returning Bell had no sense of direction, but it gave him a position accurate to the nearest millimeter. Ye Anping frowned slightly and turned to look at the Star Returning Bell’s position. To the east of him, about a hundred feet away on Tian’an East Long Street, a white spirit fox jumped up and down on both sides of the road with a dexterous posture, as if the entire street was its fox climbing frame, dragging people passing by. The heads and shoulders of the demon pedestrians were used as stepping stones to help her jump.
Several red and silver-black spirit foxes chased after her but were tricked into running into pedestrians or smashing into the house through the windows.
“…”
Did the old lady ring the bell for this naughty fox?
Ye Anping didn’t expect this, but it was very convenient for him. Because Xue Tianqiao could smell the scent of the Heavenly Dao scroll, he originally wanted Xiao Tian to spread his spiritual energy, so that after Xue Tianqiao smelled it, he would naturally run to him…
But now, it seemed that Xiao Tian’s job had been taken over by Hero Xuanji.
“Anping…”
Ye Anping came back to his senses, looked at the aggrieved Xiao Tian, considered for a while, and said with a smile, “I miss you. I haven’t seen you come out these days. Can’t I just ask you to come out and take a look?”
After hearing this, Xiao Tian’s aggrieved eyes disappeared in an instant and turned into a surprised expression. But soon he blushed again, and he landed on Ye Anping’s shoulder:
“Anping, you are annoying~~.”
“…”
Ye Anping couldn’t help but tremble and ignored Xiao Tian. Seeing Xue Tianqiao suddenly stop, chasing her tail, and spinning around in circles, he was stunned again for a moment, but soon came to his senses, pulled down his hood slightly, and took it out Several small insects raised on the way, turned into a black shadow under the night and jumped towards Xue Tianqiao’s direction.
When Xiao Tian saw this, he quickly chased after him, grabbed his long hair tied behind his head, and dragged behind him:
“Why? Anping, where are you going? Wait for me…”
…
Jingle bells~~
Jingle bells~~
The noisy bells came from nowhere. Xue Tianqiao twisted her eyebrows slightly and gained weight. She buried her head directly in the tail and took a look. Her eyes swept over the magic weapons, potions, and weird stuff stored in the tail. However, she discovered that the fox felt that Si Xuanji had made her master’s tail hair tremble slightly at the moment.
She twisted her eyebrows and took out the fox felt in one gulp. She stared at it for a while with a suspicious look on her face:
“Huh?”
And when she stopped to look for the bell, the fox maids who had been far behind her had now caught up with her and surrounded her.
A slightly larger silver-black fox nodded slightly, with a pleading look on her face:
“Miss, I caught you. You lost… It’s already dark today. Please go back with me. If Your Majesty comes to check the room later, you will be scolded again…”
Xue Tianqiao paused. She hadn’t had enough fun yet. If it hadn’t been for the sudden sound of the bell, how could she have been caught by these fox demons?
“It doesn’t count!”
As she said that, she picked up the fox and tried to break out. But the silver-black spirit fox at the head quickly pounced her down:
“Miss! You are going back with my slaves. At dawn tomorrow, your slaves will accompany you to play in the palace…”
However, at this moment, a stinky spiritual energy suddenly passed into the noses of several foxes.
The foxes and Xue Tianqiao all smelled the smell of the poisonous insects in an instant, but Xue Tianqiao smelled a hint of sweet smell like roast chicken from the foul odor of the poisonous insects.
“Hey?”
Just as they were wondering about the origin of the poisonous smell, a black shadow suddenly hit the roof where they were sitting, knocking off all the tiles on the roof.
Boom–
Ye Anping stretched out his hand and pressed the back of Xue Tianqiao’s neck, pushing her down from the roof into the house below, frightening several low-level tiger monsters who were drinking and chatting in the restaurant’s room below.
After crashing through the two-story ceiling and landing on a banquet table in the lobby, Ye Anping glanced around sharply, pressed Xue Tianqiao on his chest, put his right elbow in front of him, and faced the lobby toward the backyard. The window was smashed.
Wow——
The wooden bed was scattered in pieces, but the moment he rushed out, he caught a glimpse of three rays of cold light coming from three directions, the front, back, left, and right of him. Four of the fox maids who were sent flying were biting the hilt of a snake-like spiritual sword with the sides of their fox mouths, and they waved out several rays of spiritual light in a coordinated manner, crossing toward his neck.
“Oh…”
The foxes cooperated almost seamlessly, and with just one move, they blocked all his ways of advance and retreat. If he hadn’t been a sword cultivator, he might not have been able to dodge them all.
“Anping, there are two more behind you!”
Ding–
Ye Anping twisted around and raised one arm to block one of the swords with the sword hidden in his sleeve. Then he blocked the sword path of the other two demon foxes with his left hand holding Xue Tianqiao. At the same time, he used this force to twist his body and hit him behind with his knees. One of the spirit foxes swung its sword at his back and finally threw out the cup that had been prepared.
These few actions only took one breath. Those fox tribe maids were horrified and confused…
And when Ye Anping finally threw the cup, it connected with the spirit sword in the mouth of the last spirit fox.
The blade light directly opened a gap about the length of a finger in the cup and the dark purple poisonous spirit energy spurted out, and in an instant, Ye Anping and several spirit foxes were enveloped in it.
Ye Anping took the opportunity to catch the thrown Xue Tianqiao back into his hand, protruded from the purple mist, landed on the street, exhaled lightly, and indifferently looked at the diffused mist of Insect Spirits.
Xue Tianqiao, who was holding the back of his neck and blocking him like a shield, also raised his head and looked at the face under the hood.
The watery green eyes blinked, but there was no sense of crisis at all:
“Oh~~You are selling me my master’s tail hair… ugh——”
Ye Anping turned his eyes and immediately pinched her mouth, then wrapped a demon-binding rope around her several times. At that time, the demon maids also jumped out of the purple spirit mist, but they had also transformed into fox fairies wearing immortal clothes.
The leader looked at Ye Anping, her eyes formed a straight line, showing the power of the Fox clan:
“Hey——! How dare you, a bold cultivator…”
Before he finished speaking, Ye Anping quickly raised his right hand and put a spiritual sword in front of Xue Tianqiao’s neck. In an instant, all the demon maids took a step back in fright.
Seeing this, Ye Anping deliberately lowered his voice, pretending to be extremely disdainful, and said mockingly, “It seems that they are sensible. I thought that the monsters were all unintelligent beasts.”
Seeing that Ye Anping seemed interested in talking, the head maid also understood that he probably wanted to exchange something. She bit her lip with her canine teeth and said viciously, “Hey… What do you want?”
“It’s nothing more than a hostage… Tell that stinking fox that his precious disciple Gui Lingzong will accept it. If you don’t want to receive a scarf made of the skin of your precious disciple, then give up the three cities of Donghuang to the Ghost Spirit Sect and hand over the Nine Dragons Heavenly Seal…”
“…”
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“By the way, my master, Elder Xu of the Ghost Spirit Sect’s Soul Calling Hall is already on his way to the palace at the moment. Lord Fox must have an idea of what to do… Hehehe… Hehehahaha—— ”
After laughing wildly, Ye Anping turned his head and looked at the alley not far away from him. After all, Tian’an City was the capital city of the Emperor Sect. When the city was first built, countless secret passages could lead to various parts of the city. He also got the secret passage map from Tong Zilan a long time ago. He originally thought that he would not go to Tian’an City again, but he didn’t expect it to come in handy.
Ye Anping smiled and retreated into the dark alley with Xue Tianqiao, whose mouth was tightly bound and whose tail was raised to cover her belly.
“Don’t chase~~”
The head maid frowned slightly and did not choose to chase. She stopped in front of the alley. After waiting for Ye Anping’s figure to gradually disappear into the shadows in the alley, she immediately ordered several others to contact the city guards in Tian’an City., all the entrances and exits, and the sky above the dark alley where Ye Anping walked were blocked, and the encirclement net was gradually tightened from all directions.
However, when all the monsters finally gathered in the center of the dark alley, they all understood.
Our beloved disciple was kidnapped by a Demonic cultivator from the Ghost Spirit Sect in full view of everyone…
The head maid of the Fox tribe was so frightened that her tail was clamped. The other maids of the Fox tribe, as well as some bull demons and roc demons who were called later, were all looking at her with dumbfounded expressions.
The demons looked at each other for a long time before the head maid finally came back to her senses and said with a trembling voice:
“Hey… Go quickly… Oh… Report it back to Your Majesty.”
…
At the same time, in front of the main hall of the Tianjin City Palace. Dozens of demon cultivators in the Alchemy Stage carrying large and small gold-framed jade boxes, dressed in Ghost Spirit Sect uniforms and wearing masks of demonic totems, lined up neatly in front of the square below the stairs of the main hall.
At the front of these Ghost Spirit Sect disciples, an old man with a beard and compound eyes, hiding his hands in his sleeves, faced the main door of the main hall, bowing and waiting. The old man was Xu Chi from the Ghost Soul Calling Hall, a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, and under the orders of the leader of the Ghost Spirit Sect, he came to discuss matters related to the three cities of Donghuang.
According to his sect master, whatever Hu Mu wants, he can give to him in exchange for the three immortal cities on the eastern border of the Central Domain, or even his own life or head.
In other words, in this negotiation, the bottom line given by Ghost Tomb Seven to Elder Xu was quite high. With nearly unlimited trump cards in his hand, the Demon King had no reason to refuse.
Although the life of his sect leader was not valuable. As one of the few cultivators who had cultivated the ghost path for thousands of years and entered the country, for Ghost Tomb Seven, a life or his head was like a wound from a fall.
Xu Jie never thought that he would fail in negotiations. As long as he remained respectful and politely kept his position to the lowest level, the matter entrusted to him by the sect master would be accomplished directly.
He gently squeezed his hands hidden in Yunxiu, and when he saw the door of the main hall slowly opening, he immediately fell to his knees and knelt outside the threshold:
“Junior Xu Jie, I would like to pay my respects to the Demon Emperor.”
Dong Dong——
The Demonic Cultivators who had been ordered to form the Core Formation stage a long time ago also knelt suddenly after he knelt and kowtowed twice in unison. Hu Mu, who was sitting on the golden dragon chair, held up one cheek with a fist, and his ebony vertical pupils were filled with bursts of power. He looked straight at Xu Zhi, who was bowing his head. Seeing that he didn’t raise his head at all, he couldn’t help it. After understanding it, the gifts given to him by the demon cultivator were probably quite rich.
Maybe even, not at all, giving him a reason not to accept it.
“You came here for Donghuang’s affairs?”
Xu Zhen still didn’t raise his head:
“Your Majesty knows things like a god. This time, the Ghost Spirit Sect figured out how to borrow three immortal cities from the Demon Emperor. For this purpose, they specially sent this junior to Tian’an to pay homage to the Demon Emperor.”
“Borrow?”
“Yes… the Ghost Spirit Sect knows that the Central Domain is now in the possession of the Demon Emperor, so they understand etiquette. Rather than buying it from you, the Demon Emperor, the Ghost Spirit Sect is even more willing to borrow three immortal cities for a hundred years at a high price…”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then this junior can leave Tian’an City after putting down these gifts, but… this junior still wants to mention that if the Demon Emperor is willing to lend you the three cities of Donghuang, the Ghost Spirit Sect is willing to meet all your conditions…”
Hu Mu frowned slightly. Just as he expected, the Ghost Spirit Sect came here with full sincerity and did not give him any reason to refuse at all…
Even a few foxes in civilized robes beside him suggested that it would be better to let the Ghost Spirit Sect spend a lot of resources to buy the three immortal cities in Donghuang. Those three immortal cities were not of much importance to the monster clan at all.
Hu Mu thought for a while and was about to let him enter the palace to continue talking.
Suddenly, a red spirit fox ran quickly from the direction of the Meridian Gate of the palace. When climbing the stairs, she accidentally tripped on the stairs.
“Hu hu……”
The person Hu Mu saw was a fox maid he had arranged next to Xue Tianqiao. Looking at her anxious look, he motioned for the fox to come to him.
“Your Majesty… Miss… something happened to her!!”
…
