"Were you able to meet with General Huo or Eunuch Mo?"
"Yes. They weren't injured or left unconscious, but their minds are clouded—they can't remember certain things. The worst off was Division General Pei; he even forgot the reason we were here."
"Did General Huo say anything?"
"He asked about our condition here, and I told him the same had happened to all of us, and also about the strange behavior of the Five Eternal Seals Sect."
"You did well. I would have punished you severely if you'd said the three of us came out unscathed." Xue Yanluo joked to put him at ease.
"I wouldn't be foolish enough to make that mistake."
"I'd hope not… You can go now—tell Bao Qingcao to come in."
Hua Zhenfeng left the tent and found Bao Qingcao already waiting outside. "The lord asks that you go in." He said and was about to leave when a hand caught his clothing.
"Wait, you impatient. Take these," said Bao Qingcao, handing him three blue vials. "The Lord gave them to us so we can keep cultivating."
Hua Zhenfeng turned around, embarrassed, grabbed the vials from Bao Qingcao's hand, then turned back around and walked off in long strides with his head down.
Bao Qingcao shook her head, watching Hua Zhenfeng's figure blend into the disciples, then entered the tent. Inside, she knelt on the floor and greeted Xue Yanluo.
"There's no need to kneel every time." Xue Yanluo sighed. With a gesture of his hand, he indicated she should take a seat.
"It's no trouble, my lord." Bao Qingcao rose from the floor and sat where Xue Yanluo had pointed. "Now then, I believe I failed the task you gave me."
Xue Yanluo looked at her, surprised, then frowned. "No one talked?"
"No. Many spoke, and though I'm sure they understood the question, they avoided it like a disease and said whatever they felt like—it was like firing an arrow and having someone move the target just as it was about to hit."
What are they hiding? If it were only the sect's leaders, it wouldn't matter so much, but every disciple knows the secret, and not one dares open their mouth… It would be better to inform General Huo about this—it would be dangerous for them to trust this sect completely.
General Huo won't be foolish enough to try to dig into the sect's secret… As long as he keeps an eye on them and can react at any moment, that would be best… If for some reason their intention is to kill our imperial group… Xue Yanluo sighed inwardly and pushed those thoughts aside.
"You can drop your previous task—now I want you to watch the movements of the group's elders. Be careful and don't overestimate yourself."
"Yes, my lord." Bao Qingcao stood from the chair, and before leaving, poured tea for Xue Yanluo and left some snacks.
"Wait." Xue Yanluo stopped Bao Qingcao. "Tell Hua Zhenfeng to come back."
Bao Qingcao nodded and went straight to find Hua Zhenfeng, who arrived just as Xue Yanluo was finishing the tea and snacks.
With one look from Xue Yanluo, Hua Zhenfeng understood he didn't want to be disturbed and sat in a corner of the tent.
Xue Yanluo finished his tea and snacks and turned toward Hua Zhenfeng. "Go back to our camp and inform General Huo about the sect's strange behavior—not to distrust them entirely, just to stay watchful at any moment."
"I'll go immediately." With that, Hua Zhenfeng left the chair he was in and walked out of the tent.
Xue Yanluo sat there with his mouth open, watching the last of his back disappear through the tent flap. "Why did he leave…?" he said seconds later, his gaze still fixed on the entrance.
He still had things he wanted to ask him to do at the camp—but why the hell had he left so quickly? Xue Yanluo kicked the leg of the table, shaking the teacup on top of it and nearly causing its destruction, grabbing the cup just before it rolled off the edge.
Xue Yanluo held the cup in his hand and let out a long sigh. He rolled the cup in his hand while looking at the table, then stepped toward it and carefully placed the cup back in its previous spot, then picked up the plates and returned them to their places too.
From his emblem he took out one with a fully purple cover, radiating extravagance from that alone. Xue Yanluo hated the cover—to the point of nearly tearing it off—keeping it only because it was a gift from his mother.
She had hated the cover too, but the story inside the book was so good that she understood where the author found the nerve to give it such a cover. At the bottom of the book, the author's name was cut directly into the cover itself: Xuan Yi.
Xue Yanluo ran his finger over the author's name—written by the author's own hand for each copy. His fingers pinched the edge of the cover and opened the book; he skipped the first few pages and stepped into the world the author had created.
He was nearly a hundred pages in when he closed the book and raised his eyes toward the tent entrance, through which Bao Qingcao walked in.
"My lord, both camps are marching in half an hour."
"Mm." Xue Yanluo nodded and reopened the book, pressing his finger against the last page, his eyes dropping to the bottom of it. "A hundred and eighty-one pages still left…" he murmured, then closed the book and stored it back in the emblem.
After standing, he began putting away the things he had taken out and stepped outside. There, Bao Qingcao was already prepared to fold the tent with ease and store it back in her emblem, always ready to bring it out again.
The sect's disciples were already organized in lines, making it impossible not to notice their… peculiar way of showing power. In the rows furthest from the front stood the sect's newer or younger disciples, and the further in one looked, the more it seemed as though time had been accelerated thousands of times—each successive person more worn by its passing than the last.
At the very end, the elders leading the group in this world had hair gone fully white, reaching the point where one of the elders' heads resembled a desert, with perhaps a lucky oasis here and there.