Taking advantage of that brief opening, the hemp-robed elderly man and the little girl finally broke free of the two pursuers' locked aura.
In the end it took them less than half an incense stick's time to slip out of Hundred Refinements City before the gates had fully closed.
After leaving the city, however, with the Tin Mountain Blade Sect's group no longer available to cover their movements, and having not yet worked out how to infiltrate Falling God Peak, the two decided to take temporary shelter on a small hill just outside Hundred Refinements City.
Their reasons for this were twofold. One was to think through and adjust their revenge plan going forward. The other was that they were curious and wanted to observe from the shadows what Li Musheng, who had remained in the city, was up to.
"If he used the opening we created by drawing those two experts away and slipped out of the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion immediately, he should have had a chance to leave."
The little girl in pink looked down from the hill at Hundred Refinements City, still blazing with lights in the darkness of the night.
The hemp-robed elderly man was quiet in thought, then slowly shook his head, saying, "He comes from the Great Li court, and his standing is not low. He would not have come without backup, and besides, he did not seem to have any intention of fleeing. I simply cannot tell what his purpose is, or what the Great Li court's purpose might be."
Hearing this, the little girl in pink furrowed her delicate brows and looked at the hemp-robed elderly man beside her with a puzzled, uncertain expression, saying, "Could the Great Li court be planning to take Hundred Refinements City tonight and use it as a base to attack Hundred Refinements Peak from there?"
"Unlikely. The whole way here, apart from his group, we have not seen any sign or movement of any other Great Li court people. Hundred Refinements Peak clearly does not fall within the Great Li court's primary attack objectives."
The city seemed to have finally woken up to something being wrong. On the streets below, which had been dark before, scattered figures carrying torches were now moving rapidly in several directions, and the whole scene looked somewhat chaotic.
The city gates had also been fully sealed off on all sides, and the entire city had become like an iron barrel.
At that point the hemp-robed elderly man's brow suddenly furrowed, and he said slowly, "Honestly, I truly cannot work out this man's intentions. Saying he came here to die does not quite fit, but not fitting the description of someone come to die, and yet stirring up trouble with Falling God Peak in a place like this, amounts to more or less the same thing."
Hearing this, the little girl in pink's eyes flickered, and she said with feeling, "That person is just infuriating. I have always felt there is something very off about him. I expect he has some scheme going on in the background, and probably is not going to lose his life over this."
Then the little girl, standing in the night, turned to fix the hemp-robed elderly man with a direct look, saying, "What we should be worrying about now is how to get into Hundred Refinements Peak going forward. If we miss this opportunity, the chance to avenge Elder Sister becomes even more remote."
The hemp-robed elderly man was quiet, then gave a slight nod, saying, "There is still time before Zheng Yunfeng's birthday. Hundred Refinements City is the only route to Hundred Refinements Peak. Martial world sects will be passing through one after another to pay their birthday respects. If we stay here, we will still have an opportunity."
...
The death of the young master of Hundred Refinements City and the son of the Ninth Peak Master inside the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion sent the entire establishment into a state of extreme panic and chaos.
Many of the patrons, seeing that things had gone badly wrong, hastily climbed out of bed and slipped away, and even the staff of the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion itself were beginning to harbor quiet thoughts of flight.
After all, with figures of this standing dying inside the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion, every person connected to the place would inevitably be implicated. Everyone was worried they might not survive.
News of Zheng Zi and the others' deaths was reported to the City Master's residence at the first possible moment. The City Master of Hundred Refinements City was Zheng Zi's eldest brother.
The Peak Master of Hundred Refinements Peak, Zheng Yunfeng, had taken many wives throughout his life and had twenty-four children in total, but the children he truly valued and entrusted with important roles in Falling God Peak were relatively few.
As City Master of Hundred Refinements City, Zheng Shangzong stood at the top of that list. He was forty-seven years old this year and had broken through the martial Grandmaster level into the Heaven-Human realm four years prior.
With formidable martial cultivation of his own, and control over roughly half of Hundred Refinements Peak's forces, Zheng Shangzong held an extremely high standing within Falling God Peak as a whole, and his temperament was utterly arrogant, even to the point of pig-headedness.
The moment he heard that something had happened to Zheng Zi, he did not even bring any of his residence's martial artists with him, and rushed alone to the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion at the first opportunity.
Barely had he arrived when the two Falling God Peak elders who had lost the hemp-robed elderly man came back on his heels.
The two of them sensed vaguely that something was wrong inside the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion, but had not yet worked out what had happened.
When Zheng Shangzong saw his younger brother's body and was already erupting with fury, he turned on the two returning elders without a single word and attacked, "Dereliction of duty. You deserve death!"
The peak-guarding divine art of Hundred Refinements Peak was the Hundred Peaks Divine Fist. Zheng Shangzong had trained in this divine art from childhood, and by the time he reached the Heaven-Human realm he had already brought it to the level of great mastery, just half a step from full perfection.
When he struck now, the force of his fist technique was boundless, as though a vast and towering mountain range had come crashing down, and the terrifying force of his fist wind threatened to flatten the entire Hundred Fragrance Pavilion outright.
The two Falling God Peak elders were not greatly inferior to him in martial cultivation, but Zheng Shangzong's fist art was a level above theirs.
Beyond that, he was the Peak Master's son, and they naturally did not dare to genuinely fight back against him.
So the two of them channeled their True Qi to defend while doing their best to avoid engaging him directly, retreating toward the outside of the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion.
"City Master Zheng, what exactly has happened? Why are you attacking us?"
Elder Shen said with an unpleasant expression, and the other elderly man, retreating as he went, explained, "Just now the young city master ordered the two of us to pursue a Heaven-Human level martial artist. We were only gone a short time. We had absolutely no idea anything had happened here."
At that point Zheng Shangzong drove out a punch. The night air twisted and thundered within a blazing burst of golden fist light, the True Qi of heaven and earth all around the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion churning and raging, and the impact of the fearsome force erupted like a thunderclap, as though it meant to tear apart the very sky and earth before him.
The two elderly men immediately launched themselves upward, condensing their True Qi as they took to the air and retreated to the upper reaches of the Hundred Fragrance Pavilion to put distance between themselves and the assault.
Zheng Shangzong sent that one punch out, as though releasing some portion of the rage inside him, and was gradually beginning to settle down.
He looked up at the two Falling God Peak elders standing in the air above him, and said in a cold and deadly voice, "My brother and Yuwen Feng have been killed."
At those words, the two elderly men's expressions changed sharply at once, and both cried out simultaneously, "What?"
"How is that possible?"
Elder Shen was visibly shaken, and reflexively asked in a low voice, "Did that Commissioner Miao not protect the young city master and the others?"
Hearing this, Zheng Shangzong's figure flashed, vanishing from where he stood in an instant and reappearing before the two elders, his eyes overflowing with killing intent, saying, "He is dead as well. Someone put a finger through his skull. The same manner of death as my brother."
"You failed in your duty to protect, and my brother has died because of it. You will not escape responsibility for this. But right now there is only one thing I want to know. Who exactly was it that killed him?"
"I swear I will tear that person apart."
Zheng Shangzong's killing intent was overwhelming at that moment. The expressions of the two elderly men were deeply troubled.
Elder Shen opened his mouth and was just about to speak, and at that very moment, a voice reached the ears of all of them, "No need to ask. It was me."