At those words, the blue-robed Daoist fell into a thoughtful expression, then looked at the middle-aged man for a long moment, "Going there is no trouble on my part. But are you certain that what you have mentioned will actually be enough to get the Imperial Dragon Divine Sword from that Eighth Prince?"
The middle-aged man raised his head slightly and looked at the blue-robed Daoist, a meaningful gleam in his eyes, "If that Eighth Prince is truly as interested in those things as the intelligence suggests, I can say with confidence that he will at least consider Elder Brother's request."
The blue-robed Daoist thought for only a brief moment, then tossed aside the wine jar in his hand and said, "In that case, there is no time to waste. I will go pay that Eighth Prince a visit right now."
...
Great Li Imperial Prison.
Li Ruan'an, with the disguised Huo Xian at her side, passed through layer after layer of iron-locked gates and at last came to a stop before a cell at the deepest end of the prison.
Inside, under the dim yellow light of an oil lamp, Li Zhi sat cross-legged in cultivation as he always did, utterly absorbed, seemingly deaf to everything outside the cell.
Li Ruan'an stood before the cell door and looked at Li Zhi.
At that, Li Zhi slowly opened his eyes, glanced at Li Ruan'an outside, then withdrew his gaze and said, "Elder Sister, what brings you to visit me today?"
At that very moment, Li Zhi suddenly spoke, "Elder Sister has not come to kill me, has she?"
Li Zhi's voice was not loud, but the words struck Li Ruan'an's ears and made her eyes go briefly still.
She recovered quickly, and asked with a perfectly unmoved expression, "What makes you think that?"
In the shadows, she was still checking again and again for any concealed expert.
At those words, Li Zhi finally stopped cultivating. But rather than looking at Li Ruan'an, he simply gazed at the lamp flame before him and said slowly, "Elder Sister's true younger brother has already returned to the capital. He is renowned throughout the world and far more useful than a prisoner like me. Naturally Elder Sister has no more need of me."
Li Ruan'an's cool face showed no change in expression, and she looked at Li Zhi in his cell, "Even so, that would not be reason enough for me to kill you."
Huo Xian, standing beside Li Ruan'an, was also extending his senses through the area around the cell. He looked up and glanced at Li Zhi.
This former "nephew" of his seemed to have already sensed Li Ruan'an's intentions, and yet showed no trace of surprise at all.
At that moment, Li Zhi finally turned his head slowly to look at Li Ruan'an, "Elder Sister and I are, in a certain sense, the same kind of person. Neither of us lacks in strategy or intelligence. The only difference is that you have lacked the opportunity."
"If Elder Sister had been born a man, you would surely have been the greatest rival of my life."
At those words, Li Ruan'an's brow furrowed very slightly. She said nothing, but glanced at Huo Xian beside her.
Seeing this, Huo Xian gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, indicating he had detected nothing unusual around the cell.
In the glow of the dim oil lamp, Li Zhi saw every small movement between the two people outside the cell. Suddenly he shook his head gently and said, "Elder Sister, are you about to act?"
Then his gaze fixed directly on Li Ruan'an, "Before you do, could you allow me a few words?"
At those words, Li Ruan'an's eyes met his without flinching, cold and unyielding, "Since you have already seen through it, I have no need to conceal anything further. Before you die, I also have some things I would like to ask you."
Li Zhi gave a slow nod, his face showing not the slightest trace of surprise from beginning to end.
He only watched Li Ruan'an quietly, "Very well. But before that, let me guess: the reason Elder Sister wants to kill me is surely for Mother's death."
At those words, Li Ruan'an's expression immediately became glacially cold, "Li Zhi, so you do know it is for Mother. Mother treated you generously all her life. Even though you were not her biological son, she regarded you as her own and never showed a trace of partiality toward you."
"And yet you are a wolf raised by hand who repaid her kindness with betrayal, losing all conscience and poisoning her."
"Ask yourself honestly, should I not kill you? And do you not deserve to die?"
Li Ruan'an's voice was cold as ice, and killing intent had already begun to gather and spread throughout the cell and the corridor outside, as though she would have liked nothing better than to tear Li Zhi apart where he sat.
But at that moment, Li Zhi let out a quiet sigh, "If I said that Mother's death had nothing to do with me, and that I have in fact been investigating it myself..."
But before he could finish, Li Ruan'an produced a small white porcelain vial and demanded sharply, "This is the poison I found hidden in the secret chamber of your residence's study. It is identical to the substance I found in Mother's body. What more is there to argue?"
At those words, Li Zhi glanced at the porcelain vial in Li Ruan'an's hand and shook his head, "That poison is indeed mine, but it was not the poison used to harm Mother."
"Mother raised me for all these years. Though I Li Zhi have always considered myself ruthless and hard-hearted, and knew I was not her biological son, I have not yet reached the point of cutting off all ties. I could not bring myself to harm her."
As he said this, a sharp gleam crossed Li Zhi's eyes, "In fact, it is not only you who suspected something was wrong with Mother's death. I have been investigating the matter from the shadows as well, and the poison in your hands is something I had someone track down in the course of that investigation."
"Furthermore, I found that behind Mother's death there appears to be an invisible hand pulling strings. I have been trying to root that person out, but they are hidden too deep, and I have always fallen just short."
Li Ruan'an gave a cold laugh, as though she could not believe a word of Li Zhi's defense, "Li Zhi, at the final moment you decide to play the devoted son? Do you think I will believe you?"
"Today, no matter how many honeyed words you speak or how you plead on your knees, I will kill you and avenge Mother."
With those words, Li Ruan'an suddenly struck. Powerful true qi condensed instantly before her into a terrifying golden palm print blazing with light, which she drove directly at the cell before her.
In the next instant, the cell door exploded and shattered, and that golden palm print, wrapped in overwhelming killing intent, continued to fall toward Li Zhi sitting cross-legged on the ground.
At that very moment, a shadow slipped soundlessly out of the darkness of the cell.
With a single casual sweep of its hand, the palm print Li Ruan'an had struck dissolved without a trace, without touching a hair on Li Zhi.
At the same time, in the dim yellow lamplight, the shadow that had drifted out swayed gently, revealing the silhouette of an extremely stooped and slight elderly figure.
The old figure's true face was impossible to make out, their outline barely more than a blurred shadow standing upright.
But the pair of cold, sunken eyes lurking in that darkness were not looking at Li Ruan'an at all. They were fixed directly on Huo Xian beside her.
Li Zhi showed no surprise at this, as though he had anticipated this moment all along, and clasped his hands in a bow, "I thank the senior for intervening. Please do not harm Elder Sister."
At those words, the old figure said nothing, only gave a quiet nod, then vanished abruptly from where they stood.
In the next instant, Huo Xian's eyes snapped open and a vast, rolling killing intent erupted from his entire body. He pulled Li Ruan'an behind him with one hand and launched a fierce punch forward.
For a moment, the shadow of ten thousand charging soldiers seemed to surge beneath that punch, a will that advanced without stopping and yielded to nothing, carrying a terrifying rush of true qi vast as a flooding river that cracked open the space ahead in a lattice of rifts and vortices.
The heavy iron cell doors around them and the walls cast from molten iron began crumbling rapidly, and the fearsome force swept forward without pause.
The old figure who had vanished appeared again in an instant, standing before Li Zhi. An intangible killing intent radiated outward from them in every direction.
At the same time, the old figure pressed a pitch-black palm against the space ahead, and the void before them seemed to buckle under a weight it could not bear, collapsing inward in a moment. It became a dark abyss filled with boundless slaughter, which just barely caught Huo Xian's terrifying, unstoppable punch before it.
Where the surging punch and the dark abyss made contact, the two forces intertwined and tore at each other, and the shockwaves that erupted from the collision blasted skyward with staggering force, threatening to blast through the entire underground prison and reduce it to rubble.
"This person is formidable, and is likely a killing-path expert from the Soul Chaser Hall," Huo Xian said with an extremely serious expression, and immediately pulled Li Ruan'an back toward the prison's exit at speed.
In this situation, he could neither overcome the old figure nor kill Li Zhi in any short span of time.
If they continued to drag this out and the experts guarding the prison arrived, they might not be able to leave.
Li Ruan'an said nothing. As she retreated through the rapidly collapsing prison corridor, she looked back toward Li Zhi, who was still seated in his dim cell in the distance.
Li Zhi remained behind the old figure, and from beginning to end had shown no inclination whatsoever to use this moment to escape.
"After letting this chance slip, it may be very difficult to kill him again."
Li Ruan'an's face was expressionless. She had anticipated from the start that Li Zhi likely had powerful guardians protecting him.
What she had not anticipated was that the old figure's concealment technique was this remarkably deep. She and Huo Xian had been separated from them by nothing more than a cell door.
Yet even after thorough searches, they had found absolutely no trace of the person.
"A Soul Chaser Hall expert is not to be underestimated. This also tells us that Li Zhi's relationship with the Soul Chaser Hall may run far deeper than we imagined."
Huo Xian took Li Ruan'an with him and turned into a blur, shooting out of the prison at great speed. As he went, he glanced back once.
The clash between himself and the old Soul Chaser Hall expert had already caused the entire prison floor to shake violently, shaking the streets and buildings above as well, drawing row after row of armored guards rushing in from every direction.
But Huo Xian simply flicked his figure, taking Li Ruan'an with him, and in the blink of an eye had slipped clear of the guards' encirclement and vanished.
"I keep feeling that Li Zhi did not seem to be lying. Perhaps he truly had nothing to do with my sister's death."
Huo Xian looked back for a long moment, then withdrew his gaze and looked at Li Ruan'an with a furrowed brow.
Li Ruan'an said nothing, a subtle shift of expression crossing her eyes, and she only shook her head and said, "Do not be too easily swayed by words he has nothing to back up. And furthermore, even if he had nothing to do with Mother's death, he still must die, if only for my younger brother's sake."
At those words, Huo Xian let out a quiet sigh, said nothing further, and continued leading Li Ruan'an away.
...
At the same time, deep inside the imperial prison.
The stooped old figure that looked like nothing more than a shadow casually swept away the remaining shockwaves before them.
Sensing several powerful auras from different points throughout the prison converging rapidly in this direction, they once again dissolved into shadow and melted into the darkness of the surrounding cells, disappearing from sight.
At the same time, while the experts guarding the prison had not yet arrived, the old figure unhurriedly let a raspy voice drift out, "My lord, you are still far too soft-hearted. Someone who wants to kill you must be exterminated completely, otherwise the trouble they bring will never end."
At those words, Li Zhi simply remained seated cross-legged where he was and closed his eyes, continuing his cultivation, utterly unbothered by the cells collapsing around him, "What person can be killed and what person cannot, I have my own judgment on the matter."
"Setting aside the many years she and I spent as elder sister and younger brother, with some measure of feeling between us on both sides, more importantly, she now has a younger brother whom no one dares touch. If I truly killed her, I would likely not make it out of Shangyang City alive."
At those words, the old figure hidden in the darkness was quiet for a moment, then said in a measured voice, "That is also true. That Eighth Prince truly is an extraordinarily thorny figure to reckon with."
In the old figure's estimation, Li Musheng's terrifying martial cultivation was by now known to the entire capital, and honestly speaking, they did not believe themselves capable of stopping him either.
At that, Li Zhi let out a quiet sigh, "And moreover, I genuinely did not poison Mother. If I killed Li Ruan'an, the schemes of whoever is behind all of this would only succeed."
The moment those words fell, three powerful figures arrived with great speed from a distance, appearing in the area of Li Zhi's cell.
"What happened here?" an elder-looking middle-aged man asked Li Zhi, while the other two experts swept their eyes around the surrounding area, clearly searching for further signs of whoever had been here.
Li Zhi glanced at the middle-aged man and said calmly, "Elder Sister came to visit just now, but it happened that someone was attempting to assassinate me at the same time. Elder Sister and the expert with her intercepted the attacker and chased them out of the prison."
At those words, the middle-aged man narrowed his eyes and studied Li Zhi.
But Li Zhi, having said what he had to say, closed his eyes of his own accord and resumed his cultivation, saying lightly, "As for anything else, I do not know. Asking me will get you nowhere."
He then added another line, "Also, this cell appears to be uninhabitable now. I would trouble the gentlemen to arrange a new one for me."
The middle-aged man's gaze shifted, then he looked at his two colleagues.
Seeing them both shake their heads, having found nothing, he then turned and bowed slightly toward Li Zhi, "Master Li has been through a fright. Someone infiltrating the prison is a dereliction of our duty. I will have someone move you to a safer location immediately."
With that, he gave instructions to one person to escort Li Zhi to a different cell, then departed with the other expert toward the outside of the prison, in pursuit of the assassins Li Zhi had described.