Chapter 54: The Finest in the World

The sound of carriage wheels and horses gradually drew closer.

Those carriages, bearing the small, finely carved characters "Harmony and Wealth Brings Prosperity" on their panels, traveled without lanterns, forming a dark, solemn procession as they approached.

Not stopping until they were about ten paces away from the campfire, the leading carriage finally came to a halt.

The driver leaped down with agile grace and stepped to the side. While all the carriages behind also stopped, their drivers remained in their seats.

The door curtain of the leading carriage stirred, and two figures stepped out.

One was a middle-aged man with a stern expression, dressed in luxurious brocades. The other appeared to be a steward in his fifties, who kept his head bowed beside the middle-aged man throughout, maintaining an attitude of utmost respect.

Observing Gu Liubai and the others still seated leisurely by the campfire, the stern-faced middle-aged man furrowed his brow slightly and asked, "Which one of you is Master Xining, who sent us the message?"

"Master Xining?" Chen Tu was momentarily stunned, only to see Gu Liubai extend his uninjured hand and say with a smiling expression, "That would be me."

Seeing that it was merely a youth, the middle-aged man could not help but be surprised. "I am Zou Suoyi. The one you mentioned—Zou Jianan—is it him?"

As the three characters "Zou Jianan" left his lips, his gaze suddenly turned razor-sharp, piercing into Zhou Luer like two glinting sword beams.

Gu Liubai said nothing, merely casting a calm glance at Zhou Luer.

Zhou Luer puffed out his chest and said with a grin, "That's right, I am Zou Jianan."

Zou Suoyi stared at him for a moment and softly asked, "Do you have proof?"

Zhou Luer began rummaging through his robes. Just as Chen Tu feared he might produce that snake again, Zhou Luer pulled out a white, fish-shaped jade pendant instead.

"I've carried this with me since I was a child," he said, looking earnestly at Zou Suoyi.

Zou Suoyi reached out to take the jade pendant, but Zhou Luer pulled his hand back, saying, "You may look, but you may not touch."

Frowning slightly, Zou Suoyi halted and asked, "How can you prove that this pendant has always been with you?"

Zhou Luer grinned and replied, "If it's not with me, could it possibly be with you?"

Chen Tu had always worn the expression of a smiling tiger, but upon hearing Zhou Luer's retort, his mouth split into a wide grin.

Still attempting to reason with Zhou Luer, Zou Suoyi said patiently, "My point is that this jade pendant alone is insufficient to prove you are Zou Jianan. Even if it has been with you since childhood, it is entirely possible it was acquired from someone else and given to you."

Zhou Luer looked somewhat bewildered. "You're a strange fellow. A moment ago, you asked me to prove the pendant had always been with me; now you're saying it might have been handed to me by someone else. I don't care about all that—doesn't this mean it's been with me since I was little? I don't know how to carve jade, so if someone didn't put it on me, are you implying I was born with it in my mother's belly?"

Chen Tu was so amused he nearly burst into applause.

Anyone with half a brain could see that something was amiss with Zou Suoyi; there was not the slightest trace of emotion upon meeting a long-lost relative, and instead, he was deliberately and coldly picking faults.

Logically speaking, if Zhou Luer was indeed the Zou family's child lost in the outside world, this was the moment to verify his identity. Shouldn't he secretly be hoping that Zhou Luer was the real deal?

In no way should he be treating him like an interrogated criminal.

And arranging a meeting in such a remote place—could they actually be harboring thoughts of silencing them permanently?

Chen Tu turned his head to glance at Gu Liubai.

Gu Liubai smiled back at him, as if he had anticipated this outcome all along.

Zou Suoyi's expression stiffened slightly, and for a moment, he did not know how to respond. After a brief silence, he turned to look at the steward-like man beside him.

The steward-like man, who had kept his head bowed and maintained a humble posture all this time, suddenly smiled and remarked, "This is truly quite interesting."

Zhou Luer, however, felt a bit displeased. "We are all family, yet you two speak as if we belong to different households."

The steward-like man scrutinized Zhou Luer closely.

He could not tell whether Zhou Luer was genuinely simple-minded or merely putting on an act of foolishness.

"Little brother, logically speaking, you should have a birthmark on your left buttock, shouldn't you?" he suddenly asked with a smile.

"What a hassle! Why didn't you say so earlier!"

Zhou Luer bounded to his feet, lifted his heavy padded jacket with practiced ease, pulled down his trousers, and shook his two mud-stained buttocks directly at the steward-like man. He even gave his left buttock a slap and declared, "A little red turtle! Do you lot have one?"

Neither Zou Suoyi nor the steward-like man spoke. They stared fixedly at the mark on Zhou Luer's backside, their expressions gradually turning cold and stern.

"To think that you are still alive."

The steward-like man slowly straightened up, his tone laden with deep emotion. "A child of a year and a half, afflicted with illness, abandoned beyond the frontier—yet more than a decade later, you tell me you're alive, and you actually appear before my very eyes in the flesh. Your tenacity is truly formidable."

"That goes without saying," Zhou Luer replied, seemingly completely oblivious to the sinister chill on the man's face, as he answered triumphantly, "My master always said my life was exceptionally tough, and that the Eternal Sky would bestow upon me great blessings."

"Great blessings?"

The steward-like man laughed with a hint of irony. "Perhaps so, but you won't have any in this lifetime. We don't believe in the Eternal Sky around here."

"You may not believe, but I do," Zhou Luer said with a grin. "I am bound to receive blessings in this life."

The steward-like man shook his head. "There will be none. You are going to die tonight."

Just as he finished speaking, he noticed that Zhou Luer showed no reaction whatsoever.

The one-armed fellow roasting dog meat by the campfire also remained entirely unresponsive, while Gu Liubai and Chen Tu seemed to have their minds solely occupied by the dog meat nearing completion, their expressions completely unchanged.

A fleeting sense of disorientation washed over him. Could it be that the visual impact of that red birthmark had been so overwhelming to his mind that he had merely thought the words internally without actually speaking them aloud?

Unable to help himself, he turned to look at Zou Suoyi beside him, only to find Zou Suoyi's expression just as bewildered as his own.

He had clearly spoken the words aloud, hadn't he?

Why did these people look as if they hadn't heard a thing?

While Gu Liubai continued to play dumb, Chen Tu could no longer hold back. With a chuckle, he asked, "Well then, what are you waiting for?"

The steward-like man drew a deep breath.

Without a word, he took a step back.

The instant his foot lifted, the curtain of the second carriage was silently blown open by a gentle wave of churning qi.

The instant his foot touched the ground behind him, a figure had already materialized right before him.

No one had time to discern the person's features; they saw only dozens of black sword rays resembling twisting, venomous serpents, weaving toward Zhou Luer.

Zhou Luer did not move.

Gu Liubai did not move either.

Just as Chen Tu made a motion to intervene, he realized it was already unnecessary.

Heluoluo, who had been intently roasting the dog meat, did not even raise his eyelids as he simply threw a single punch toward those dozens of sword rays.

Boom!

The campfire before him was compressed by a terrifying force, causing all the flames to vanish instantly, leaving only the wood coals glowing an even deeper, fiery red.

It looked as though golden liquid was surging beneath Heluoluo's skin, and his entire body seemed to radiate a faint golden light.

Those dozens of black sword rays were still twisting in mid-air when their master was already sent flying backward through the air.

Crack, crack...

A continuous series of bone-shattering explosions rang out from that person's chest.

Thud!

The figure plummeted like a kite with a broken string beside the rearmost carriage. The moment they hit the ground, a mist of blood burst from their mouth, followed by a muffled plop, after which there was absolute silence.

A long black sword dropped heavily in front of the steward-like man.

Half of the blade easily pierced into the soil without making a single sound.

Ignoring the steward's pale complexion, Chen Tu stared at Heluoluo, the eyelids of both his eyes twitching wildly.

From what Zhou Luer had told him, he knew Heluoluo must be immensely formidable, yet he had never imagined Heluoluo could be terrifying to this extent.

Heluoluo had already resumed roasting the dog meat as if that punch had nothing to do with him at all.

Only the scars on his face and neck, illuminated by the newly rekindled flames, appeared exceptionally gruesome.

The Eighth Rank?

Sensing the lingering resonance of true qi around Heluoluo, Chen Tu's mind descended into utter chaos.

A flurry of overlapping visions flashed through his head.

In Peshawar, when Yin Shiniang had rendezvoused with him, she mentioned that Dragon Grandmother had decided to impart her saber techniques to Gu Liubai.

Then the scene shifted, showing Yin Shiniang and Feng Shuqing exchanging sword strikes.

Following that, the vision jumped back many years to the foot of the Yin Mountains, where Yin Shiniang looked longingly toward the direction of Chang'an, remarking that Guo Beixi might be somewhat stronger than her.

These fragments rapidly contracted, converging ultimately upon the scars on Heluoluo's face and neck.

He snapped back to his senses.

He finally understood why his mind had been jumping erratically between Yin Shiniang, Dragon Grandmother, Guo Beixi, and Feng Shuqing.

It was because all of these individuals were undoubtedly Eighth-Rank practitioners.

"In our little group, there are actually three Eighth-Rank experts in total?"

"No wonder Heluoluo was lying in ambush atop the city gate tower. If that Tsenpo had approached the gate, he probably wouldn't even have made it into the city before being killed by him."

"No wonder Gu Liubai dared to guarantee that our trip to Chang'an would be completely safe..."

Chen Tu's mouth twitched uncontrollably.

Brother Heluoluo, I knew you were fierce enough to smash a millstone with your head, but I never expected you to be *this* terrifying!

He inwardly reflected that his previous attitude toward Heluoluo had been far too lacking in respect.