Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1051 - 1051: Preparations for a performance

Wu Long came into the abandoned grotto under the city, which looked almost the same as it did back when he first visited it, but there was a hollow, abandoned feeling to it now.

“Can’t we just skip all the prepwork and use my 2nd Dream Realm instead?”, Fen Baihu jumped down from his shoulder transforming into a stunning woman with fox ears and eight fox tails, looking around them.

“Heh, that may be true for when everything gets heated, the soldiers won’t notice the feeling of a dream-like state – it’s not that different from the adrenaline state of fight frenzy, the two can be confused, but the important thing is the start when they are still focused, and even more crucially, the aftermath”, Wu Long’s eyes were inspecting the work he had to do in order to achieve the effect he wanted, “There will be Imperial inspectors combing through this place after Chen Hui is done, so we have to make it seamless, and most importantly, set it in advance since we won’t have time after the ‘fighting’ is done”

“Haa~ alright… still, you left this place practically intact, and saved all corpses and materials collected here, so we have minimal work to do, no?”, Fen Baihu sighed, knowing he wanted a perfect recreation that could fool even the more scrutinizing eyes, “You even got a coroner Medical Daoist you recruited from Feilin Continent to work on patching up the corpses so they don’t look like assassination victims”

“Yes, its good I planned to put this achievement on Chen Hui when I was raiding this place”, Wu Long nodded, since he saved every last bit of everything collected here, “We are also done putting hidden tracking arrays on the Corrupt Path textbooks, artifacts and materials, so we don’t lose track of them and can collect them afterward. Though, now we can perhaps also use them and the money to track the illegal evidence materials trade or smuggling among the Imperial Guards for our new friends at the Treasures of the Sun and the Moon Pavilion”

“Heh, won’t your money guy kick up a fuss about putting back the money we got from here though?”, she chuckled, turning to him.

“He already made a lot more using it, so it’s not like he didn’t already profit from it. Not to mention, it’s not like we’re giving it away forever, we’ll get it back soon enough”, Wu Long smiled as well, as he already heard enough from Kwon Qianhong about it, he then nodded to her as he took out jade slips, his eyes flashing as the jade slips began glowing and heating up, “Alright, it’s time to start”

She didn’t answer, but light mist began drifting around them, and soon a 100 people from Old Yen’s subordinates trained jointly by him and Butler Bang, stood in neat rows and columns, in same poses.

“At your command, Valley Master!”, a 100 voices rose in perfect unison.

“Here are your assignments and materials”, Wu Long nodded, waving his hand as a 100 jade slips he just recorded and a 100 spatial rings containing items collected from this place rose into the air, and then flew toward each of them.

“Orders received”, the same choir of voices came back as a response, and the 100 people spread in an orderly fashion in all directions around the grotto and into the caves.

“So you’ve arrived in Emerald Falls City already”, the next moment, Liang Yuhan appeared from the mist, as she also had a task of setting up the corporeal illusions in the outermost caves – that would give the soldiers a real sense of fighting at the very start, though the later fighting could be disguised with Fen Baihu’s powers.

It was to give those first few minutes the acute sense of realism required when the soldiers were not yet in the fighting frenzy state of mind.

He received her into his embrace, exchanging a kiss, “Sorry Yuhan, I know it’s not a pretty job to envelop corpses with your illusions and make them move around”

“Hehehe, when was I avoiding such things?”, she chuckled, since her job was in the underworld of the Azure Eagle Continent to begin with, and her beginnings in her past life were in a similarly dark and lawless environment, “Now, leave things here to me and go do what you need to”

She gave him another smooch on the lips with a smile, and slightly dusting off his shoulders and fixing his robes a bit with her delicate hands, turned around to go into the entrance caves to begin setting up the scene.

He made a wry smile, and then nodded to Fen Baihu, as they both disappeared into a cloud of multi-colored mist.

—

“I see you arrived first… I had to set things up there so I got delayed”, Wu Long entered the dark and smoky room of the bar in the shady part of town that he and Chen Hui used to discuss things, and saw the latter already sitting there, still pretending as if people around didn’t know he was an Imperial Guard.

“You said you were in a hurry, so I moved as quick as I can”, Chen Hui shrugged his shoulders as he looked at Wu Long sitting down opposite him and activate the sound protection talisman.

“Why are you looking at me that way?”, Wu Long raised his eyebrows seeing the strange look in Chen Hui’s eyes.

“I still can’t believe you really were in Mortal Transcendence Realm… but, that aside, I’m also slightly baffled because… I actually assumed that we missed the timing of making that raid since I was so slow with my cultivation speed…”, the latter admitted with a slightly awkward look.

“Heh, ah~, I forgot I told you we had a limited time window opportunity to do it”, Wu Long chuckled, and then added, “Yeah I lied”

“Wha-…”

“Well, it was a white lie. I didn’t even lie lie, it was partially true, more than a year after might’ve been problematic to do it, I just shortened the time window to give you some motivation to work harder”, Wu Long chuckled, “And it worked, didn’t it? You might’ve strained your foundation a bit, but we can fix that later”

“You… ! I… ! D-do you know how much I…?”, Chen Hui was choked up with exasperation, seemingly not able to find the right words to express it and thus vividly showing it with his facial expressions and overall body language, but then sighed looking at Wu Long’s carefree smile, “Haa~… I guess… it doesn’t matter”

He then turned a different weird look to Wu Long, “But still, how did you… I mean there’s corpses, blood, all that… it all dries up and rots and decomposes~…”

“You don’t want to know”, Wu Long shook his head with a smile, and genuine goodwill.

“Yeah, you’re probably right”, Chen Hui immediately nodded in agreement, “Fair enough. My job is to just claim the achievement”

“The time constraint wasn’t even from that though. I could keep the corpses and everything in good shape for our plan basically indefinitely”, Wu Long explained a bit, “The problem is the activity of the Corrupt Path lair itself. If it stayed inactive for far too long it would’ve been hard to conceal from other Corrupt Path practitioners. You’ve arrested anyone trying to make contact with that place as I said, right? You didn’t miss anyone? Li Weifang’s report was a bit vague on that since he only heard from you about it”

“Yes, we maintained strict surveillance. I’m confident we got everyone who wanted to contact that lair, and kept everything under wraps. They’re confined and secure with my men guarding them at all times”, Chen Hui nodded, “Although I’ve been getting a bit of backlash for those arrests recently, especially now that people of the 8th prince are looking to nitpick something about me, none of those I arrested were even remotely connected to the Corrupt Path, and there are some minor nobles among them”

“Good”, Wu Long nodded, “The fact there are no Corrupt Path practitioners is the best scenario, it means no other branches of Corrupt Path have noticed the irregularity or absence yet. As for those you captured, they are clients seeking their shady services, of course they wouldn’t have Corrupt Path cultivation – those are the people you arrested while ‘investigating’ this whole thing though”

“Oh~~!!! So~ they~… led me to that lair~!”, a sudden look of realization appeared on Chen Hui’s face as he seemed to have an epiphany.

“And you thought the excuse that a fortune teller told you it was there would fly in the Imperial Court?”, Wu Long made a light laugh, shaking his head.

“How the hell would I know? I thought we’d make up some story of me passing by the place or something like that…”, Chen Hui grumbled, belatedly realizing the investigation through clients seeking Corrupt Path lair’s services, that he was actively arresting the past months, was indeed a perfect story for how he discovered the lair, and that he has been preparing his own evidence all this time without knowing it.

“Hahaha~!”, Wu Long laughed out loud now, genuinely amused, “Oh~, what a wonderful day it is to stroll through the Harbor District that I almost never visit after we swept through it, through a route that is so obscure people rarely know it’s there at all, I think I’ll pick this way on this day~ just out of random~ Hm? What’s that? A closed ordinary door? In the middle of an alley full of similar doors? Suspicious~!!! There must be a secret passage going underwater disguised as one of the pillars holding up the Harbor District through there! And a Corrupt Path lair underneath!!!”

“Alright, alright~ mock all you want~”, Chen Hui shook his head, also smiling from the absurdity as his shoulders shivered from the soundless laughter he tried to hold back, but eventually couldn’t as they both laughed in loud voices concealed by the sound talisman barrier.