Chapter 290: Sealing Off

Su Che’s right hand, which had been on Lu Changqing’s head, slowly moved downward and grasped his neck. He channeled a small amount of energy, using the power of destruction to affect Lu Changqing’s neck up close. With a crack, his neck bones shattered, and his meridians and nerves were completely severed. From that moment on, he became completely paralyzed—no amount of medical skill in the world could restore him. Yet even so, he wasn’t dead; he was still alive. Su Che believed that the Life Soul Card he mentioned earlier must not have broken.
“Guh…” A strange sound came from Lu Changqing’s throat; he had lost the ability to speak, and of course, aside from his mind remaining functional, all his other abilities were gone.
“Retain!” With a thought, Su Che trapped Lu Changqing and the Immortal Prison Team inside the Immortal Prison. After adjusting his clothes, he strode out of the side hall, nodded and smiled at the disciple on duty in the distance to express his gratitude, then flew away from Tianwei Mountain.
Having successfully captured Lu Changqing, Su Che thought everything had gone smoothly—undetected, he believed. Unbeknownst to him, the moment Lu Changqing was taken into the Immortal Prison, the Life Soul Card in the Life Soul Hall of the Spirit Medicine Mountain shattered with a snap, alerting the elders on duty inside.
“Is Lu Changqing dead?” The elder on duty was shocked. By his duty, he immediately activated a communication jade talisman to notify the Yuan Ying cultivator in charge of this matter, “Elder Hongyun,” right away.
Many sects used such Life Soul Cards. Important members of the sect would have a small fragment of their life soul placed within the card. When a person died, the card shattered, allowing the sect’s others to be informed promptly to investigate the cause of death.
According to the basic principles of the cultivation world, a person’s Life Soul Card wouldn’t break unless they were dead. Even if they entered someone else’s Dao artifact space, as long as they remained in this realm, the card would remain intact. Only if the person ascended to the Spirit Realm or even the Immortal Realm would their Life Soul Card break despite being alive.
The last time, in the Qinglan Continent market within the Taiyi Sect, when Su Che trapped the severely injured Feng Huo in the Immortal Prison, his Life Soul Card cracked, alerting Feng Sha, who was in the later stages of the Golden Dan stage. The same thing happened to Lu Changqing today.
This clearly showed that the Immortal Prison space was a special realm entirely separate from the cultivation world. Once Lu Changqing was taken into the Immortal Prison, it was as if he had gone to another realm—no different from the Spirit Realm or the Immortal Realm.

Unfortunately, Su Che was completely unaware of this, as the Tianxuan Sect simply didn’t want to create something like a Life Soul Token. As a result, Su Che had never studied such matters. At this moment, as Su Che flew away from Tianwei Mountain, feeling that everything was settled, he thought to himself, “Lao Hei, things went so smoothly that we caught Lu Changqing. Let’s observe for a while. If nothing unusual happens, I’ll go get that Spirit Herb Doll for you.” “Forget it, master,” Lao Hei replied, not wanting to bring any danger to Su Che due to his own ideas. “It’s just a Spirit Herb Doll. We can talk about it another time if we get the chance.” “It’s fine.” Su Che smiled inwardly, but suddenly his expression changed drastically. Above him, the protective array of Lingyao Mountain was activated instantly—huhuhuhu—as it rapidly shifted from its partially open first form to its fully sealed second form. This wasn’t some small barrier like those found on ordinary mountains; it was a super-large array that covered the entire mountain entrance, all 108 giant mountains, and millions of acres of spirit herb gardens. Once such a large array entered its fully sealed second state, it meant no one could enter, nor could anyone leave. It could be said that even a thousand Su Ches combined wouldn’t be able to break through that barrier. The protective array of a super sect required the combined efforts of tens of thousands of people to break. “Damn it!” Su Che immediately realized, “Lu Changqing’s disappearance has been discovered, which is why Lingyao Mountain is willing to expend vast amounts of spirit stones to activate the array!” “How could it have been discovered?” Lao Hei was also shocked. “When we left Tianwei Mountain, no one noticed anything strange… Could it be due to that worthless Life Soul Token of Lu Changqing?” “It’s possible…” Su Che reacted quickly. With no time to think about other things, he immediately descended and dived into the soil, quickly changing his appearance back to that of Luo Lian, the original inner disciple of Dizheng Mountain at the Foundation Establishment stage. Lu Changqing’s disappearance could easily lead to Han Ying being suspected, and then to Lang Li as well. Only the identity of Luo Lian was relatively safer. But it was only temporary safety. With the thorough investigation capabilities of a super sect, they could still trace back that Luo Lian had gone to Tianying Mountain under the pretext of borrowing spirit herbs the day before. So it wasn’t entirely secure either. Therefore, Su Che planned to capture another outer disciple with no connection to any incidents and disguise himself as him to possibly pass through undetected.

The Mountain Protection Formation remained in its second form, constantly consuming large amounts of spirit stones, so it couldn’t last long. Su Che estimated that such a sealed state couldn’t last more than three days.
“As long as we can get through these few days, we can leave safely.”
Su Che hurried back to Dizheng Mountain, knocked on the door of a mid-stage Qi Cultivation outer disciple at random, captured him, took his appearance, and patiently waited inside for further developments…
Although the number of outer disciples on Lingyao Mountain was smaller than that of Tianxuan Sect, it still numbered over a hundred thousand. Those four Yuan Ying ancestors couldn’t possibly examine each one of them individually.
As long as it wasn’t the Yuan Ying ancestors, Su Che was confident he could handle the questioning from those Golden Core cultivators.
Meanwhile, all the high-ranking figures on Lingyao Mountain had gathered on Tianwei Mountain, thoroughly investigating Lu Changqing’s “death.”
The four Yuan Ying ancestors were also there: Sect Leader Haotian, Elder Hongyun, Second Elder Chenxu, and Third Elder Yuanyue.
“It’s me, it’s me… But I really don’t know!”
At that moment, faced with the questioning from the several ancestors and many noble masters, the disciple who had once spoken with Su Che was terrified, trembling all over, unable to speak coherently.
“Don’t be afraid. This isn’t your fault.”
Elder Hongyun, who was in charge of internal sect affairs, first cast a minor spell to calm the disciple’s mind, then said kindly, “As long as you explain everything clearly, you’ll have done a great service. Understand?”
“The disciple understands.”
After all, the duty disciple was only at the early Foundation Building stage, so he quickly steadied his mind and recounted in great detail how “Uncle Han Ying” found him…
Later, everyone went to a side hall, where the four ancestors each used their most skilled detection methods and tools to examine the situation carefully.
“Tianwei, Tianyong, Tianxian,” Elder Hongyun called them one by one.
“The disciple is here,” the three mountain lords replied in unison.
“Changqing was murdered in this hall. Really, you didn’t notice anything?” Hongyun asked sternly.
“Not a hint of anything unusual,” the three from Tianwei replied. Among them, Lord Tianxian added, “There were isolation barriers inside and outside the hall, so we couldn’t hear any sounds. But when Han Ying left, I saw his back in front of the main hall’s entrance. I’m absolutely sure he left alone, with no accomplices.”
“Hmm.”

Hongyun let out a low sound and then said to the other three elders, “Elder Master, and my two younger brothers, I believe that the real Han Ying definitely doesn’t have the ability to kill Changqing silently. Even if he tried to attack suddenly, it would be impossible!”
“That’s right.”
All three elders nodded, agreeing that this so-called Han Ying must be someone with great strength pretending to be him, possibly even a Yuan Ying cultivator. Otherwise, it would be impossible to silently kill Lu Changqing, who was already at the late Jin Dan stage.
Elder Haotian, the sect leader, said, “Upon receiving Hongyun’s message, I immediately activated the mountain protection formation. No matter how fast the opponent is, they won’t be able to escape from the mountain. So, this person must still be hiding inside the sect. We need to investigate thoroughly; perhaps we can catch him.”
Elder Chenxu transmitted a message, “Could it be Mu Ye from Tianxuan Sect?”
“It’s possible,” said Elder Haotian with a nod.
Some time ago, Chenxu had infiltrated Tianxuan Mountain with the Yuan Ying elders from six other sects, so it wasn’t out of the question that Tianxuan Sect might be seeking revenge. Especially that Mu Ye, who was extremely skilled in evasion, assassination, and disguise—both in terms of motive and ability, he was a major suspect.
At that moment, the head elder of Tianying Mountain’s pill kitchen came outside and reported loudly, “Reporting to Elder Master, Han Ying and Ming Lian have disappeared from the pill kitchen, and the ninth-grade pill furnace in that room is also gone. Moreover, the inner sect disciple Lang Li has also vanished…”
“I understand.”
The four elders exchanged glances. Without further words, they could guess that the real Han Ying and Ming Lian had been killed, and the murderer must be the impostor Lang Li, who later disguised himself as Han Ying to assassinate Changqing…
“There’s one thing that’s strange,” said Elder Chenxu. “This person clearly has extremely advanced disguise skills, capable of passing off as anyone from our sect. So why go through such a complicated process, starting from the lowest rank and moving up step by step? Is it really necessary?”
Inner sect disciple Lang Li—Jin Dan elder Han Ying—mountain lord Changqing.
What kind of relationship exists among these three?
This question momentarily stumped the four elders.
“Don’t get stuck in a misconception. Change your thinking…” Elder Hongyun waved his hand. “Let’s assume that this person’s ultimate goal is Changqing. Then why would he want to kill him? Once we understand that reason, I think everything will become clear.”
“Mm,” the other three nodded in agreement.
“Investigate!”

Elder Hongyun turned to the Golden Core elders from departments such as the Punishment Hall, Internal Affairs Hall, and Secret Hall and said, “Who has Lu Changqing had conflicts with? What treasures does Lu Changqing possess that make him desirable? What are Lu Changqing’s traits that have drawn attention…” He outlined six or seven investigation directions at once. Many Golden Core elders took orders and set out to mobilize all their subordinates to investigate these issues. The four elders were well aware that finding a master of disguise among over a hundred thousand disciples in the sect was as difficult as searching for a needle in a haystack. The only way to have a chance of catching him was to investigate the reasons behind his actions and pursue them targetedly. After all, the sealing array couldn’t be kept active indefinitely; maintaining it for just three days already posed an extremely heavy burden on the sect.