Hui looked down at his hands and at the black robes he wore. He hesitated, then stripped off the ghoul skin. If the triplets and Huang Yan think I’m dead… I should act dead. At least for now. I don’t want anyone to get suspicious of this small cultivator!

Instead… He closed his eyes and focused, circulating the snake shed skill. In his mind’s eye, he held the image of one of the cultivators he’d spotted in the lotus root room. As he focused, he changed the cultivator’s green robes to a darker shade and gave them black details. I don’t want to look entirely like a Mysterious Heavenly Forest cultivator, nor entirely like a Black Asp cultivator. For now, let’s be neither!

He hesitated, then changed the cultivator’s face features slightly, moving them closer to his ghoul skin’s features. On second thought, I shouldn’t abandon Xie Hao’s identity entirely. I only want Huang Yan or the triplets to hesitate before they attack me. If they give me a moment or two, I can explain myself, or failing that, play dead! But there’s no reason to stop being Xie Hao in the eyes of the Black Asp Sect yet. They don’t have any reason to attack me yet.

But on the other hand, I shouldn’t wear the ghoulskin until I have to. It has a strong death aura, one that can supplement the aura of my own death qi. In the Black Asp Sect where I’m death cultivator Xie Hao, this is an advantage. Here, in the middle of a righteous sect that’s about to be the location of a conference of righteous sects, it’s more advantageous if I can turn my death aura off and on of my own volition.

Ah! It does mean this small cultivator has to sacrifice my best armor for a little while! Mmm… the first time I get attacked, I’ll put it back on! But for now, it’s best this way.

The skin settled against his own. Lighter than the ghoulskin, he barely felt it. Hui touched his hand, then drew out an ice talisman and created a patch of ice in his hand. Xie Hao’s face stared back at him, though slightly off, as if he saw it from a strange angle.

Hui nodded. Like this, Huang Yan might not recognize me, since she only saw me once. The triplets probably won’t recognize me, and if they do, they don’t have it out for me the way Huang Yan does. On the other hand, Gu Tian and the other Black Asp Sect cultivators should still recognize me.

He stretched and looked around, then walked toward the boundary of the garden patch.

Something crunched under his foot. Hui glanced down.

A dry, brittle bone laid under his foot. He frowned and stepped back.

Another crunch. He staggered forward. More dry bone poked out of the earth. Something gave way under his foot, soft instead of dry. Hui caught a glimpse of rotting flesh crawling with insects. I was lying in that?

He knelt and nudged some of the earth away, revealing tattered cultivation robes and a body marked with bizarre tattoos. He furrowed his brows. A demonic cultivator? What on earth is the Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect up to? How far have they fallen, that they nourish their plants with the corpses of cultivators? Shaking his head, he kicked off the ground and leaped away, toward hard ground and out of the soft earth of the garden patch.

The second his feet left the ground, white roots shot out of the earth, lashing out like snakes. Before he could get into the air, they latched onto him and yanked him down. Caught short, he fell back toward earth. Hui drew his sword and slashed, severing the roots. Instantly, another batch of roots shot out of the earth and grabbed onto him once more. They wriggled up his body. Wet, soft roots wrapped around his limbs, prying them away from his body.

Senior plant, I’m not a nubile young lady! I’m a man! You don’t want to hentai me! Hui cried silently. He reached into his sleeve. His hand closed around a fire talisman.

In the midst of pulling it out, Hui froze. Wait! What if these are valuable plants? If I burn them, if I burn them—I’ll owe so much more money! And I won’t even get the joy of eating them!

One of the roots crawled around his abdomen and began to squeeze. The root wiggled downward, toward the belt of his robes.

Hui grit his teeth, then burst upward, shedding his newly-formed skin. The plant roots crushed down on the empty skin and dragged it into the earth, vanishing back out of sight. Hui drew his sword and threw qi into it. He soared away, blasting upward. Rather than risk the ground, he landed on a low branch and crouched there, a hand on the tree’s trunk.

Down below, the garden patch laid quietly, no sign of the vicious roots that had attempted to kill him moments ago. He narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. I would’ve never guessed those plants were so bloodthirsty. Is that the way Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect raised them? Are they raising their entire sect for war?

It struck Hui again, in that moment. He shook his head, wide-eyed. This… is insanity. The Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect… they’re seriously planning to attack the Southern Sect Conference. Down to their budding plants, with every inch of their sect, they’re preparing for war!

Circulating his qi, he recalled the chant from within the snake’s scale and created a second copy of the not-quite-Xie Hao skin he’d created moments ago. The skin responded sluggishly, and Hui’s qi drained faster than it had the first two times. He watched the skin crawl over his hand and clenched it. So it seems three times is my limit right now. But why? I’m not out of qi. Is there some other limiter? Some failure in my comprehension?

Well… clearly it’s a failure of my comprehension! I’m sure Master would be able to take a single glimpse and be able to tell why I can only use it thrice in a row!

He glanced around him, then reined in his death aura. For now… I need to investigate Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect. If they have these mysterious plants as well as the Lotus Pill Blossom and the Qi Seed trees, who knows what else they have?

I can move more freely if I can pass amongst righteous disciples as a righteous disciple. Hmm… to not stand out, I’ll limit my cultivation to the third realm. When Starbound Sect arrives, I’ll swap back to being Xiao Hui and tell them everything I find out! I won’t let Starbound Sect get caught up in whatever Mysterious Heavenly Forest Sect is planning!

He hopped from one branch to another, passing deeper into the sect. The further he moved from the garden patch, the more cultivators appeared, flitting through the trees like him. Hui put a hand on his chin as he flew along. There are few cultivators near both of the… zones Mysterious Heavenly Forest would rather no one saw. Then, should I head in directions where there are few cultivators to find more dangerous zones?

His eyes flashed. Let’s find out! He sped through the sect, racing through the trees. Instinctively, he started to send the death ducks out, but stopped himself at the last second. Now is not the time! If death qi ducks appear in a righteous sect, the sect will riot. Even if they invited demonic cultivators, that doesn’t mean they want demonic cultivators to wander around the sect and use weird, demonic arts.

Not that this small cultivator is a demonic cultivator. But—ah, of course! I stole the death qi ducks from a demonic art. So naturally they are demonic, but I, a pure and righteous cultivator, am not. Right. Clearly.

Nodding to himself, Hui hurtled through the forest, trees no more than a swoosh of brown and green on either side of him.