After Wu Jian and Zhou Lihua returned, the ceremony to bestow the Heavenly Ghost Flame upon the winner had commenced.

Zhou Lihua had been forced to present herself before the Zhou Kingdom’s emperor. The man in question had remained seated on his throne, acting all high and mighty like Zhou Lihua was lucky to just be in his presence. Wu Jian did not like Emperor Cì Shā. He seemed like an arrogant jerk with something long and hard shoved up his rectum, but in either event, the man had his servants give her the Heavenly Ghost Flame.

The party had continued well into the night, though Emperor Cì Shā and his eldest son had retired. Zhou Lihua had once more been inundated with people congratulating her, introducing themselves, trying to poach her talents, and even offering their son’s hands in marriage. One old coot had even tried to convince her to marry him. The nerve. It was like they had forgotten that she was a member of the Zhou Clan.

Wu Jian had been beside himself. He didn’t like the fact that all these men kept trying to push themselves on her, but there was nothing he could do. His role that night had been simply as her bodyguard. What’s more, the actions those people had taken was not unexpected. Rather, they would have been remiss if they didn’t at least make the offer. It still bothered him. One of these days, Wu Jian wanted to be able to proclaim to everyone that Zhou Lihua was his and nobody else’s.

He was certain she was waiting for that day to come too.

Yun Che and Ruo Chong had also persistently tried to convince Zhou Lihua to become their apprentice. While they couldn’t do anything without the clan head’s permission, that didn’t mean they couldn’t butter Zhou Lihua up with what they could offer. The pair had persistently tried to outdo the other. When Ruo Chong said she could make her a ruthenium rank alchemist in just ten years, Yun Che said he could do it in five. When Yun Che said he would gift her a high-grade Life Restoring Pill, Ruo Chong said she would gift her with several Life Restoring Pills and a dozen Placid Heart Pills.

Both the Life Restoring Pill and Placid Heart Pill were a tier 7 pill. The Life Restoring Pill was a rare and powerful product of alchemy that could restore a person’s life so long as their heads and hearts remained intact. It was akin to having two lives. However, it was only effective once and a person could only take one in their life time. Placid Heart Pills were excellent supplemental pills for alchemists. Taking one helped stabilize a person’s mind, allowing them to have a greater chance of successfully refining a high tier pill. This one could be taken as many times as a person wanted, but it lost its effectiveness if used too much.

Zhou Lihua had told them both that she would consider it, but right now, her focus was on integrating the Heavenly Ghost Flame and refining the tier 5 Nirvana Soothing Pill. The two alchemists had been shocked when they learned what she wanted to refine.

Wu Jian hadn’t known this until last night, but the ingredients for a Nirvana Soothing Pill were even rarer than the ingredients for most tier 6 and 7 pills. Even Yun Che and Ruo Chong did not have the ingredients necessary to refine one.

For some reason, knowing about her goals had made them even more determined to make her their apprentice. He was fortunate they had at least backed off. It had been easy to see that even Zhou Lihua was getting annoyed by their persistence.

Wu Jian, Zhou Lihua, and Master Wong Jiu were sitting around the breakfast table. They hadn’t gotten much sleep, but everyone present was an Asura Realm cultivator, so they didn’t feel tired yet. A platter of foods lay spread out before them. The group was silently eating. Master Wong Jiu, in particular, seemed somewhat morose.

“I plan to integrate the Heavenly Ghost Flame into my dantian after breakfast. The Alchemist Association has several isolation rooms specifically for this purpose,” Zhou Lihua said before taking a sip of her tea.

“How long will it take to do that?” asked Wu Jian.

Zhou Lihua tilted her head, furrowed her brow, then glanced at Master Wong Jiu. The old man didn’t even realize his apprentice was looking at him. He sat their with his slumped shoulders and dejected face.

“Master?”

“Hmmm? Yes? Sorry, I was distracted. What was it you said?” asked Master Wong Jiu, blinking several times as he focused on her.

“How long do you think it will take for me to integrate the Heavenly Ghost Flame?”

Master Wong Jiu stroked his beard. “Hmmm. The time it takes to integrate a heavenly flame is often determined by your talent. I recall the shortest time in recent history was two weeks, but I suspect it won’t take you that long. I’d give it maybe a little over a week.”

“So I won’t see you for a whole week?” asked Wu Jian.

“I’m afraid not.”

“I guess I’ll have to find something to occupy my time then,” Wu Jian muttered. “Do they have any cultivation chambers?”

Zhou Lihua nodded. “They do. Are you planning to cultivate?”

“I’m going to try.”

“In that case, you should use these.”

Zhou Lihua summoned both Three Layered Red Yin-Yang Pill that she had refined during the competition and the White Flame Ascension Pill that Xaio Wei had given her. She placed them on the table before him and smiled.

“I believe these will let you break through to the next realm.”

“Ah…” Master Wong Jiu looked like he wanted to object. Wu Jian was certain he had intended to have Zhou Lihua consume them to reach the Human Limit Realm which would have made controlling the Heavenly Ghost Flame easier. He said nothing, however, perhaps sensing that his apprentice wouldn’t budge on this.

“Thank you. I’ll gratefully use them,” Wu Jian said.

Zhou Lihua beamed. “You had better. I expect you to protect me properly on our journey home.”

***

Hua Xue had traveled a long ways to reach her destination. The Burning Hands Sect several thousand lî south-west of Shang Imperial City--and she had journeyed here from the Ice Phoenix Mountain, which was another several thousand lî north of the Shang Kingdom’s capital. It wasn’t quite close to Zhiong Pass--through which a person could reach the Ming Province--but it was close enough to be concerning.

There weren’t any places for her to hide, so she was currently at an altitude of several hundred lî, standing on an ice phoenix. The Burning Hands Sect’s complex lay before her. It was a sprawling complex that could have passed for a city. She could sense over twenty thousand people living within it, making it one of the largest sects in the Shang Kingdom.

That made her even more concerned.

Sects were required to send the Imperial Royal Family a census each year detailing how many members they had. This was only done to create an accurate estimation of a sect’s power, but it also let the Imperial Royal Family know how much taxes the sect should pay. More members meant more taxes. The only sect exempt from this was the Saintly Sword Sect, and that was because they were a branch of the Heavenly Sword Sect, whom the Shang Kingdom was allied to.

The Burning Hands Sect’s last census showed they had 5,000 members, a whole 15,000 thousand less than what she was sensing. This was more than just fudging numbers. Hua Xue was certain they did not have this many cultivators last time.

Every census was carried out by a member of the Imperial Guard. They were the Shang Kingdom emperor’s most powerful cultivators at the peak of the Asura Realm. Each year, they would travel to different cities and sects and use their unique sensing abilities to get an accurate estimation of the area’s population. While it was possible to hide from their senses, you could not hide so many.

Which means the Burning Hand Sect brought these people here after the census last year, or they bribed the Royal Guard to keep quiet. I’m not sure which I’d like to believe more likely. But both are bad.

Hua Xue was here because of her deal with Princess Hou Jingshu and Jian Wu. She had agreed to gather information for them in exchange for their help in finding someone who can create the pill she needed. It would likely be many years before they ever found someone who could refine the pill she required, but that was okay. She could wait.

I need to get closer, but there’s nowhere to hide--and I’m not very good at stealth.

What Hua Xue wanted to find out was whether the Burning Hand Sect was colluding with the Burning Flame Pavilion of the Ming Province. She had reason to suspect that would be the case. Not only had she noticed the increasing unrest in the Ming Province during her journey for alchemy ingredients, but the head elder of the Burning Hand Sect was at the Deva Realm. He might have been trying to hide it with an artifact. However, Hua Xue could not be fooled by such a basic artifact.

There should not have been a single Deva Realm cultivator in the Shang Kingdom. The Human Limit Realm was the highest level anyone here had, which meant this person was an outsider. What’s more, she had once met the Burning Hand Sect’s head elder when he asked for a favor, and the person she had seen during the tournament had not been him. Nobody knew about their meeting. Yi Fu had not seemed wary of her at all, which further showed he hadn’t known about her meeting with the real head elder.

Perhaps I should try to find the head elder.

“Stay here,” she said to her companion.

The ice phoenix let out a shrill chirp as she summoned an item from her storage ring. It looked like a small snowflake attached to a metal string. She slipped the necklace over her head, took a deep breath, and stepped off. Hua Xue did not fall. With judicious use of her chi, she slowly glided down. Ice Crystals appeared around her, so many tiny particles they would have looked like fog had she not passed her chi through them.

[Ice Crystals: World’s Reflection]

The technique she used was one that hid her from the world. It essentially made her transparent. Anyone looking at her would not have seen her, but whatever was behind her. At the moment, that meant they would see the sun and clouds. The only weakness this technique had was it created distortions when she moved. If someone looked too hard, they would see the distortions and realize something was wrong.

As she got closer to the Burning Hand Sect, she looked for a place to land. She wanted somewhere that had few or no people present.

The walled-in complex was shaped like a rectangle. Many of the buildings shared a similar shape. They were square, big enough to house maybe a dozen people comfortably, and contained their own inner courtyards. Gardens located between the various buildings were filled with streams, ponds, flowers, and sand. A giant fifteen-story pagoda stood on an island in the center, surrounded by a chasm with bubbling lava at the bottom. They must have hit upon a subterranean lava vain, which was why they had made this place their sect headquarters,

Hua Xue set down behind a building located near the northern wall. There were guards in this area, but the wall was like a small alley. No one would check here.

She crept out from behind the building and glanced in all directions. Several disciples were walking through the garden. They were too far away for her to hear their conversation, but she was focused more on their hanfu than what they were saying. The dark red and black outfit was not one worn by the Burning Hand Sect. Hua Xue narrowed her eyes. She had spent enough time in the Ming Province to recognize the Burning Flame Pavilion’s uniform when she saw it.

That all but settled it. She was certain the Burning Hand Sect was in league with the Burning Flame Pavilion. However, she wanted to find incontrovertable proof. It was still possible the Burning Flame Pavilion had taken over, though she found such an event unlikely.

She slipped away from the building with narry a rustle.