Bai Xiaofung and the others couldn’t help but notice that Yang Su’s home was significantly more distant from the village. But even though they were curious why this was the case, they chose not to ask since it might be a sensitive topic.
Yang Su’s heart thumped in his chest as he walked up the steps of his house. It was really surreal to return home after everything he had been through and seen after he left.
The wooden steps creaked under their feet, but before Yang Su raised his hands to knock, Bai Xiaofung suddenly whispered, “Wait, is it necessary for all of us to visit? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for brother Shen to meet brother Su’s parents given their relationship?”
Fang Chen and Fei Yin turned to look at Xi Shen, and Yang Su paused to knock on his door.
“There’s no harm, plus aren’t we already here? If little Su is okay with you guys meeting his parents then it’s fine.”
Yang Su nodded and said, “Junior brother Chen and junior brother Yin are going to be a part of elder brother Shen’s Faction, so that makes us brothers in arms. Brother Xiaofung, you were willing to help junior brother Yin recover his family’s coffins, so I consider you a close friend as well.”
Fang Chen and Fei Yin were happy to hear that Yang Su felt that way, but they just couldn’t get over being called junior brother by someone so much younger than them. They were even a head or two taller than Yang Su so that made the entire situation weirder.
Yang Su softly knocked on his door, and the sound traveled through the home.
After a moment of pause, the sounds of footsteps coming to the door could be heard by the group.
Bai Xiaofung and the others got curious to see what Yang Su’s family was like.
The door then slowly opened to reveal the looming figure of a man that was in his early fifties.
Suddenly opening his door to see so many people the man was momentarily stunned.
“Dad!”
Yang Su said excitedly as he rush to hug the man.
Coming out of his surprise, the man look down at Yang Su and said, “Glow, is that you son? I can hardly recognize you now, I almost thought you were someone else’s son! Hahaha...”
The man was initially surprised to see his son in fancy attire, but after, he let out a laugh and rested his rather large hand on Yang Su’s head.
Yang Su’s father wasn’t the only one that was surprised, Bai Xiaofung and the rest were staring at Yang Su’s father with slightly widen eyes.
He easily dwarf the size of a normal person, and from the looks of it, he had to duck to exit the front door. He was neither muscular nor skinny, but rather he was lean and looked fit despite his old age and appearance.
However, that wasn’t the cause of the group’s alarm, but because of the fact that Yang Su’s father's hair was completely red in color! This included his eyebrows and his facial hair, and even the hairs on his arms.
Xi Shen’s curiosity suddenly peaked when he saw this man’s appearance. Mortals with such distinct looks were extremely rare, he wondered what was the cause.
Yang Su’s father then looked up from Yang Su in this hold, and his gaze landed on the group of youths he had brought with him.
Xi Shen could then see that his pupils were ruby red as well, making his curiosity peak even more.
Something else he and the others noticed was that Yang Su’s father's eyes gave off a strange and sort of mystical feeling. Whether it was due to its unique color or something else, Xi Shen and the others couldn’t ascertain the exact reason.
“Glow, who are these people, are they your friends?”
Hearing his father’s question, Yang Su nodded before he introduce Xi Shen and the others, but left out their surnames and status in his introduction.
Yang Su’s father could tell his son placed more importance on Xi Shen in his introduction of him. And from the letters his son had sent home, he guessed he was the person who his son was speaking so highly about, and was the one that allowed him to enter the Celestial Academy.
“Greetings young nobles, welcome to my humble home. We don’t get many visitors, but I hope you can come in and allow me to show you my hospitality.”
Even though Yang Su’s father didn’t know Xi Shen or Bai Xiaofung's identities, he knew that they weren’t like his son that had entered the Academy from a small village like theirs. They must be from a powerful cultivation family, so he did well to show his respect.
He then stepped aside allowing Xi Shen and the group to enter his home.
….
…
..
Back in the Bai Clan, as soon as Xi Shen’s puppet had broken that illusion, he quickly and seamlessly repaired it so as not to trigger the activation of the other runes.
However, within the chambers beneath the mountain, there was a sagely old man that was floating in mid-air over a black pill furnace which was releasing a strange and chaotic feeling. His eyes quickly shot open when Xi Shen broke his Heavenly Entrapment Illusion Formation.
He had secretly weaved a rune inside its structure that would notify him if the illusion was broken, but Xi Shen had immediately reconstructed the Formation as well as the sagely old man’s rune. So now after sensing the signal, the rune had sent to him, but having checked his connection with the rune to see it was still intact, the sagely old man thought he had sensed things wrong.
But his eyes still gleamed with suspicion as he looked around the large chamber that was lit by a few torches of fire on certain positions on the wall.
Not sensing anything out of the ordinary the sagely old man went back to close his eyes, maybe what he sensed was a misperception.
Xi Shen’s figure came through the mountain walls at this time, and enter the underground chamber.
Looking around the chambers, his gaze landed in the middle of the room where the old man was hovering over the pill furnace.
He frowned a bit at this setup, as he realized the sagely old man was at the Soul Transformation Realm and his Divine Will was spread to cover the entire Chamber.
Xi Shen had stopped just out of its range.
‘Well damn, this is going to be a problem. I should have expected that someone would be guarding the pill furnace, but to think it was a powerful Soul Transformation Realm cultivator. How the hell am I going to take that pill furnace from under his nose?’
Xi Shen's frown deepened at this dilemma.
After a few moments, thoughts of backing out came to his mind, but seeing that he was so close to getting his hands on the pill furnace, he was unwilling to leave after he had come so far. He could even sense the familiar Chaos Qi emanating from the pill furnace.
Looking around the chamber, Xi Shen tried to find some way to go about stealing the pill furnace but saw nothing that could be useful. It looked like this place was designed so even if someone had managed to sneak past the runes outside, they would be unable to reach the pill furnace without alerting that Soul Transformation expert.
After a while of Xi Shen standing there in the void, he began measuring the distance between himself and the pill furnace.
It was about sixty meters away from him. From that, a plan began to form in his mind, but he had to go about it carefully. One mistake here and his chances of being discovered were high.
‘Master, what are we going to do?’ Little Snow suddenly asked.
Xi Shen’s runic eyes glowed with craftiness as he responded, “We can't beat this old man in strength, so we’ll use some trickery. As long as my hands can touch that pill furnace, we can take it into the pocket space with us and escape. There are no runes here so the only thing stopping us is his Divine Will.”
After going over the plan a few more times in his mind, he said to Tai and Little Snow, “When I give you a signal, you guys are going to create an illusory clone of Bai Luo, alright?”
Tai and Little Snow nodded their heads in confirmation.
Xi Shen then said, “Okay, I want you guys to create a pocket dimension at the deepest layer of space you can go, and do all you can to conceal its fluctuations with illusions.”
After that, Xi Shen saw the surrounding become grayer and grayer as Tai and Little Snow pulled him further inside the fabric of space. When they reached the 32nd layer, the arm of Xi Shen’s puppet cracked and several fissures started to spread over its body.
Tai seeing this said, “If we go any deeper than this your puppet won’t be able to handle the pressure of the layers of space.”
“It’s fine, if I was flesh and blood at most I could only handle going two or three layers deep.”
Hearing that, Tai and Little Snow continued down to the 44th layer, and with each layer they passed, Xi Shen’s puppet’s body would crack even more.
Only when they reached the 51st layer that Xi Shen stopped them.
Being at this depth everything in Xi Shen’s vision looked black and white.
Xi Shen got ready and then moved at his fastest speed towards the pill furnace. Just before entering the range of the sagely old man's Divine Will, Xi Shen gave the signal to Tai a Little Snow to create an illusory version of Bai Luo.
As soon as Xi Shen entered the sagely old man’s Divine Sense, he felt the faint ripples of space distorting and his eyes immediately flew open, and turned his head in Xi Shen’s direction.
However, the figure of Bai Luo appeared several meters away from Xi Shen’s position.
The old man’s expression changed to confusion upon seeing his Clan Patriarch here.
“Clan Leader?” He asked baffled.
*******
Word Count: 1732
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