Chapter 108: The Empty Taoist Master

That night, Ye Feng stayed awake the entire time. Various scenes kept flashing through his mind—mountains of dead bodies in the valley, fresh red blood splattered everywhere, flames glowing atop the piles of corpses, and the grotesque faces of the dead, all appearing clearly in his thoughts.
Then the scene changed to a butterfly nailed to the wall, its warm blood staining the entire wall and flowing continuously…
The scene shifted again to Ed’s scolding of him, those words echoing in his ears: “Luck will run out one day. Be careful!”
A strong sense of crisis kept surging, stimulating Ye Feng’s nerves. Lying in bed, under the soft moonlight, he looked at his own hands. “I’m too weak now… Without the photon cannon, I’m not even as strong as those at the Golden Core stage… If this continues, even if I don’t become a sacrifice to the Void Realm, I’ll eventually be killed by true strongmen… Not to mention protecting those around me… If I were strong enough to make that vampire wary, Yi Ge and the others wouldn’t die… I’ve kept Kelly by my side now; if I don’t get stronger, I’ll lose her someday… And Long Ge too—if the enemy is stronger than the Nascent Soul stage, he’ll be killed too… I must get stronger. I can’t lose them again, absolutely not!!!”
Ye Feng clenched his fists, suddenly sitting up in bed. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and frantically guided the vital energy in his body to flow along the pathways shown on page two of the “Wu Dian.”
When the alarm on the bed went off, Ye Feng didn’t stop the flow of energy in his body. He slowly opened his eyes and glanced at the alarm. Then he slowed down the flow of energy and reached out to turn off the incessantly ringing alarm.
“Huh, it really works?” Ye Feng was surprised. When the alarm went off, his internal energy had already reached the final stage of the fifth cycle, and it would take about five minutes to complete it fully.
Ye Feng was worried that the alarm noise might disrupt his cultivation, but he didn’t want to give up an extra cycle of practice. So he deliberately slowed down the flow of energy. With a little attention, he could ensure the fifth cycle wouldn’t fail. He never expected he could do it so easily.

After pressing the alarm, Ye Feng suddenly realized that this energy operation method didn’t have to be done while stationary. In other words, as long as he mastered it well, he could practice this technique anytime, anywhere. If that were the case, his practice time could increase several times over. After all, currently he could only practice one or two cycles per day after finishing his daytime tasks and before going to bed. Since he wasn’t very proficient yet—although the time per cycle had increased from twelve hours to over two hours—he only had enough time to practice two cycles a day after accounting for all his daytime responsibilities and sleep time.

After completing five cycles, Ye Feng continued to drive the energy in his body to push forward to the sixth cycle. At the same time, he slowly stood up, took a toothbrush and toothpaste, and went to the milky white porcelain sink. While brushing his teeth, he carefully controlled the path of the energy in his body.

After a long period of washing up, the flow of energy in Ye Feng’s body wasn’t interrupted and continued moving forward at a slow pace. Ye Feng felt a sense of satisfaction.

Just then, he heard a doorbell ring at the entrance of the apartment. He calmly walked over and opened the door.

It was two strangers. Ye Feng could clearly sense that the man standing behind was at the Golden Core stage, and from his expression, it seemed he was quite wary of Ye Feng. Ye Feng found the man somewhat familiar but couldn’t recall who he was at first.

As for the spirited white-haired old man standing in front of him, Ye Feng found him hard to read. The old man just smiled at him without saying a word.

“May I ask who you are?” Ye Feng finally couldn’t help but ask.

“I am the head instructor of the Wudang Inner Council, my Dao name is Kongxu. The person behind me is my disciple Jimo…”

“Pfft…” Ye Feng almost spat out the glass of water he had just taken after hearing their Dao names…

“It’s the ‘ink’ in ‘ink’, not the ‘loneliness’ in ‘lonely’!” Jimo clearly wasn’t new to this kind of situation. Though annoyed, he didn’t show it on his face.

“We’ve come here to verify something!” The old man’s expression remained calm.

“The Dragon Group is really efficient. I asked them last night, and you guys arrived right away this morning!” Ye Feng wasn’t expecting Su Hao to be so efficient. With reinforcements arriving, he felt somewhat pleased.

“The Dragon Team? We don’t know what you’re talking about, nor have we received any notice.” The man at the Golden Core stage wore a surprised expression, while the old man appeared pensive and remained silent.
“Aren’t you the reinforcements sent by the Dragon Team after they were informed about what happened last night?” Ye Feng asked doubtfully, feeling a hint of wariness as well.
“Master Ye, would it be convenient to talk inside?” The old man still wore a smile, giving off an irresistible impression.
Ye Feng hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Alright then!”
“Please, sit down. It doesn’t matter!” Ye Feng pointed to the sofa.
“Master Ye, what do you mean by reinforcements?” The old man finally asked his question after entering the room.
“Tell me first what brings you here. What do you want from me?” Ye Feng wasn’t planning to reveal anything about the reinforcements until he understood their intentions.
“Do you still remember what happened at the Ghost Market last night?” Ji Mo asked seriously.
“Weren’t you supposed to have received no notice from the Dragon Team? How do you know about this?” Ye Feng looked at the man in confusion. The more he looked at him, the more familiar he seemed. “Are you… the person who entered later than us yesterday?”
“That’s right, it’s me. I saw you and Long Tian flee the scene with my own eyes!” Ji Mo stared intently at Ye Feng, trying to read something from his expression.
“I was going to explain to you yesterday—that those people weren’t killed by us. We arrived only about a minute earlier than you. By the time we got there, those people were already dead. It was exactly the same scene you saw.” Ye Feng knew they had indeed misunderstood him and Long Tian.
“Then why did you run away when you saw me?” Ji Mo still held to his belief.
“If we were the murderers, we could have killed you too, so that no one would ever know about this! What do you think?” Ye Feng shook his head helplessly. “We left yesterday because I noticed that the aura of a friend living not far from the entrance of the Ghost Market suddenly disappeared. We knew something had happened to her, so we rushed over in panic. All we found was her body.”
“You mean a butterfly demon? She’s dead?” The old man’s expression finally changed, clearly showing sorrow.
“How do you know it was her? You can only encounter her at the entrance of City H!” Ye Feng was surprised.
“She was an old friend of mine…” The old man let out a long sigh…