Chapter 335: Opportunity to Enter the Inner City

The first condition: After killing Niu Guli, he was to turn Niu Guli’s skull into a wine cup.

‘Is a condition like that difficult?’

If Chu Fan could kill Niu Guli, just taking his head wouldn’t be difficult, of course.

But turning a skull into a wine cup was something Chu Fan was instinctively against.

Killing and desecrating a corpse were two different things.

But Zhen Yang Ascendant’s guidance was tied to his own life and plans. Could Chu Fan refuse?

“When the time comes, I’ll give you Niu Guli’s head. As for what you want to do with it, that’s up to you. Does that count as me agreeing to your first condition?”

Chu Fan asked.

This was as far as he was willing to go.

“Fine!” Zhen Yang Ascendant mumbled the single word while picking his teeth with a chopstick.

“You just said I won’t be able to leave for a while. How long is ‘a while’?”

“At the very least, seven or eight months. As for the longest… that’s uncertain. It could be three years, five years, or even ten.”

“Why?”

“That’s something I can only tell you for the second condition.”

“And what is the second condition?”

“Each of the Eight Golden Families of the Dahar Khan Kingdom has a Profound Iron Order. Help me retrieve them.”

“The Eight Golden Families are scattered all across the Northern Domain. Even if everything goes perfectly, just gathering those Profound Iron Orders for you would take me a year or two of rushing all over the Northern Domain, wouldn’t it?”

“The choice is yours. However, if you agree to this condition, I’ll throw in a free prophecy that will help you avoid a crisis—one that would be almost certain death for you.”

“Fine!”

“Niu Guli has two Saint Realm bodyguards who never leave his side, day or night. Even when he’s in bed with a woman, at least one of them is never more than a hundred feet away. You have the ability to kill Niu Guli, but you don’t have the ability to escape. You’ll just be captured and subjected to countless tortures for, at minimum, eight months, and at most, over a decade. Once your time is up, you’ll die. I can foresee that even after you die, there is a sliver of a chance for survival. As for what that sliver of a chance is, that I do not know.”

‘A sliver of a chance for survival after death?’

‘What could that sliver of a chance be? A Great Returning Pill?’

“So you have a way for me to get away safely after I kill Niu Guli?”

“Eight months from now, Niu Guli will take the Vermilion Bird Divine Sword into the Ancestral Land for a sacrificial rite. Those two Saints will only stand guard outside the nine gates of the Ancestral Land; they won’t enter its core. That will be your only chance to strike and escape safely. The prerequisite is that you must gather all eight Profound Iron Orders.”

Hearing this, Chu Fan’s brow furrowed, and his gaze suddenly sharpened. “How do I know you’re not just using me?”

Zhen Yang Ascendant let out a hearty laugh. “Whether you believe me or not is for you to deliberate. In any case, you have plenty of time, so think it over. But since you’ve heard this much from me today, as long as you’re alive, you must complete the conditions you’ve agreed to.”

After speaking, Zhen Yang Ascendant stood up. Humming an unidentifiable little tune, he lifted the hanging curtain and walked out.

Chu Fan remained seated, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the spot where Zhen Yang Ascendant had been.

Outside, the voices of the waiter and Zhen Yang Ascendant could be heard.

“You swindler! You still haven’t paid your tab from last time! Don’t think you’re running off again.”

“Didn’t I tell you when I came in? The kid’s paying. Just add my last bill to this one.”

“No way! Who knows if he even has the money to pay?”

“Are you brainless? You didn’t know if we had money to pay before, so why did you serve the food and wine I ordered?”

While the waiter was still processing this, Zhen Yang Ascendant took the opportunity to slip away.

The waiter chased after him for a few steps but couldn’t catch up at all, shouting after him from a distance.

At that moment, Chu Fan wasn’t thinking about whether to trust Zhen Yang Ascendant, but about the eight Profound Iron Orders he had mentioned.

Zhen Yang Ascendant was using the eight Profound Iron Orders as the price for his guidance, yet those same eight Profound Iron Orders were also the prerequisite for Chu Fan to escape safely after killing Niu Guli.

Chu Fan couldn’t figure out what the old man was really after.

With Zhen Yang Ascendant’s power, wouldn’t it be far simpler for him to retrieve the Profound Iron Orders himself? Why was he taking such a roundabout approach?

So he sat there, replaying the entire encounter with Zhen Yang Ascendant in his mind, over and over, recalling every sentence and even the expression on the man’s face as he spoke each word.

First, he had to admit the man was an expert of the highest caliber. His Realm was so high it was beyond Chu Fan’s imagination.

After all, the Illusory Body Technique was a Divine Level Martial Technique. Even a Saint like Leng Yingxue couldn’t see through it, yet Zhen Yang Ascendant had pierced his disguise with a single glance.

Furthermore, the man had guessed his intentions for coming to the Northern Domain, as if he could read minds.

After replaying it several times, Chu Fan’s only conclusion was that the more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became.

Whether he trusted the man or not was no longer important. No matter how he planned to approach and kill Niu Guli, he would have to start by investigating the city.

Chu Fan had, of course, heard the exchange between Zhen Yang Ascendant and the waiter outside.

In front of ordinary people, the old man acted like a complete rogue. But now, Chu Fan realized that the old man was a true master, a great hermit hiding in plain sight.

He stood up, lifted the curtain, and walked out, only to have the waiter immediately block his path.

With a sour expression, the waiter held out his hand to Chu Fan. “The total comes to four hundred and seventy-five taels of silver. I’ll do you a favor and knock off the change. Just pay four hundred and seventy taels!”

“That much?”

Chu Fan was surprised but didn’t say anything else. A few hundred taels of silver was nothing to him.

Silver banknotes from the Central and Eastern Domains weren’t accepted here, so Chu Fan casually tossed a large pile of over four hundred taels of silver onto the floor.

Seeing the silver on the floor, the waiter’s expression immediately became fawning.

Chu Fan paid him no more mind and walked straight out of the yurt inn.

The street outside was still bustling, but there was no longer any sign of Zhen Yang Ascendant.

Originally, Chu Fan had planned to eliminate the new Khan, Niu Guli, before news from the South Garden Royal Court reached this place, thereby plunging the entire Northern Domain into chaos.

Clearly, that was no longer possible. So, Chu Fan’s new plan was to wait and see how the Khan Court would react once the news from the South Garden Royal Court arrived.

Then, he would look for an opportunity to investigate the Inner City.

But the immediate task was figuring out how to get into the Inner City.

He walked through the sprawling maze of yurts, and as dusk fell, an opportunity presented itself.

He had been about to find an inn to stay in for the time being when a sudden commotion nearby piqued his curiosity. He went to take a look and saw a procession of people dressed far more lavishly than anyone in the outer city, riding on dozens of Wind Chasing Beasts and heading toward the Inner City.

“Why would the Little Princess of the Lindi Clan, one of the Eight Golden Families, come to Ukolok City?”

“They look like they’re in a hurry. Could something have happened to the Lindi Clan?”

“How do you know that’s the Lindi Clan’s Little Princess?”

“Didn’t you see the Lindi totem on their banner?”

The Dahar Khan Kingdom took the White Wolf King as its totem, but each of the Eight Golden Families also had its own. The Lindi Clan’s totem was the head of a white wolf with two crossed swords on its forehead.

“And the Lindi Clan’s totem proves it’s their Little Princess?”

“Besides Li Haiqin, the Little Princess of the Lindi Clan who is so doted on by their Clan Leader, what other unmarried woman would dare show her face in public so brazenly, riding a Wind Chasing Beast?”

Listening to the chatter around him, Chu Fan looked toward the distant procession. It was only then that he noticed a girl in their midst who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, her face partially hidden by a beaded veil.

A plan to enter the Inner City—and even a plan to seize the opportunity to first get his hands on the Lindi Clan’s Profound Iron Order—instantly took shape in Chu Fan’s mind.

He pushed through the crowd and hurried after the departing procession…