Chapter 362: The thousand dao city 31.

The merchant shrugged.

"Supply problems."

"There is no supply problem. Look around."

The merchant’s face tightened.

"The price is what it is."

Mo Yuxin looked at the bottles.

She did not need to inspect them for long.

She picked one up.

"These are low quality."

The merchant became angry.

"Do not insult our products."

Mo Yuxin opened the bottle and poured a drop onto her finger.

Su Yubing looked at it.

"There is almost thirty percent less spirit concentration."

Qinghe’s face hardened.

The merchant tried to take the bottle back.

Mo Yuxin moved it out of reach.

"Where did these come from?"

The merchant said nothing.

Ning Shuyue stepped forward.

The merchant immediately became nervous.

"I buy from a wholesaler."

"Who?" Ji Ruyan asked.

The merchant gave a name.

Luo Qinghe wrote it down.

They left the shop.

Su Yubing looked at Mo Yuxin.

"Do you think it is connected?"

"Probably."

"You really like that word."

"It is useful."

The wholesaler was located in the next district.

By the time they arrived, the warehouse was empty.

Not abandoned.

Empty.

Every shelf had been cleared overnight.

Ji Ruyan examined the floor.

"There are wagon marks."

Su Lian crouched beside her.

"Three wagons. One went east. Two went north."

Mo Yuxin walked to the doorway.

She touched a black mark on the wall.

"Same spiritual residue."

Su Yubing came closer.

"Azure Cloud?"

Mo Yuxin nodded.

"But mixed with something else."

"What?"

"I cannot tell yet."

The missing disciples had followed a similar route.

That was enough for them to continue.

The trail led toward an old transport station belonging to Azure Cloud Sect.

The station manager was polite.

Too polite.

He brought tea.

He offered seats.

He insisted the station had no record of missing Battle Maiden disciples.

Mo Yuxin said nothing.

She simply looked around.

There was a damaged communication pillar behind the manager’s desk.

It had been repaired recently.

Su Yubing noticed it too.

She leaned toward Mo Yuxin.

"That looks familiar."

"It is."

Mo Yuxin stepped forward.

The manager immediately blocked her.

"Senior, that formation is private property."

Mo Yuxin looked at him.

"Move."

The manager’s smile disappeared.

"I am afraid I cannot."

The air became tense.

Ning Shuyue’s hand moved toward her sword.

Ji Ruyan shifted her stance.

Su Lian quietly touched the formation beside her.

Then Su Yubing placed her hand over Mo Yuxin’s wrist.

"Do not break the wall."

Mo Yuxin looked at her.

"I was not going to."

Su Yubing smiled.

"You were thinking about it."

"Maybe."

She turned back to the manager.

"We want to see the records."

The manager refused.

Mo Yuxin sighed.

A thin wave of spiritual pressure spread through the room.

The manager’s knees weakened.

He immediately understood the difference between their cultivation and his.

Mo Yuxin’s pressure disappeared before anyone else in the station could even react properly.

"Records," she repeated.

The manager swallowed.

"Yes, Senior."

The records showed something very strange.

Seven Battle Maiden disciples had been registered at the station over the past month.

Six had departed.

One had never been recorded as leaving.

But the person who had entered her name had used an identification token that should have belonged to an Azure Cloud clerk.

Su Lian stared at the record.

"That is impossible."

Qinghe said, "Unless somebody copied the token."

Mo Yuxin looked at the manager.

"Where is that clerk?"

He began sweating.

"She... she took leave."

"Where?"

He gave them an address.

They found the clerk’s home empty.

The neighbors said she had left in the middle of the night.

Again, someone had moved faster than them.

But now the pattern was becoming clearer.

The people behind the conspiracy were not merely attacking supply routes.

They were manufacturing records.

They were changing identities.

They were making it look as though Battle Maiden disciples had gone places they never visited.

Someone wanted them to become suspects in something bigger.

That realization sat heavily with Ji Ruyan.

She stopped in the middle of the street.

"Why us?"

Su Yubing looked at her.

Ji Ruyan’s eyes were fixed on the crowd.

"Why put this much effort into destroying our sect?"

No one answered immediately.

Then Mo Yuxin said, "Because they think you are valuable."

Ji Ruyan looked surprised.

"Valuable?"

"You are one of the oldest female combat sects in the Southern Continent. You have territory. Resources. Reputation. Connections. And you are the one major sect that refuses to answer to the same political structure as the others."

Su Yubing added, "A sect does not need to be weak for someone to want it removed. Sometimes it just needs to stand in the wrong place."

Ji Ruyan nodded slowly.

Su Lian stepped beside her and hooked their fingers together.

"We are still standing."

Ji Ruyan looked down at their hands.

Her expression softened.

"Yes."

Mo Yuxin quietly looked at Su Yubing.

Su Yubing smiled.

The two women continued walking.

Later that afternoon, they arrived at an independent spirit-material store in the merchant district.

The sign above the door read White River Treasury.

A sharp-looking woman in dark blue robes stood behind the counter, counting spirit stones.

She looked up immediately.

"We are closed."

A woman beside her, dressed in pale yellow robes, looked up too.

"Ruxue, you said that to the last three people, and the shop was still open."

The dark blue-robed woman sighed.

"Because they were suspicious."

The pale-robed woman smiled at Mo Yuxin and Su Yubing.

"Come in. She will complain, but she will sell things to you."

Bai Ruxue glared at her.

"Tang Yuer."

"Yes?"

"Stop talking."

"No."

Su Yubing smiled.

She liked them immediately.

The two women introduced themselves.

Bai Ruxue was the serious businesswoman who managed the store.

Tang Yuer had known her since childhood and had been her partner in both business and life for many years.

They were married.

Unlike Ning Shuyue and Luo Qinghe, their relationship was not hidden at all.

The merchant district knew them as a pair.

Bai Ruxue

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TO BE CONTINUED.