Night has deepened, silence pervades everywhere, with occasional chirping of insects breaking the stillness.
A corner of the dark clouds tears open, and the bright moonlight spills down like rcury, outlining the undulating contours of the wilderness.
Lin Jingzhu is clad in night clothes, her face veil concealing her cheeks, her black and white eyes sowhat sorrowful.
"Mr. Chen, although you are the lead investigator, I should at least have the right to know the basics, right?"
"By acting in secret without informing us, could it be that you’re afraid we’ll steal your thunder?"
Chen Mo does not answer.
After sensing carefully, the wind and thunder surge around him, and he shoots off like lightning towards the west.
Lin Jingzhu huffs a breath, frost forming beneath her feet as she treads the air, firmly following behind him.
As two figures streak across the night sky, Chen Mo speaks:
"The city has been on edge lately, the person behind the scenes will certainly be more cautious. Acting recklessly will only alarm them, we can only wait until he exposes himself."
Lin Jingzhu frowns slightly and says:
"So you’re saying, you’ve known there was sothing wrong with Zhou Jing’an all along and have been monitoring him in secret? There was no need to keep us in the dark..."
Chen Mo shakes his head:
"The Sky Scale Guard has informants everywhere. How clean can the Six Gates be?"
"I trust Lin Catcher’s integrity, but there’s no such thing as a wall that doesn’t let wind through. It’s always right to be cautious."
That’s why he did not assign assistant officers from the Governnt to tail them, but instead chose a more concealed paper man.
During this ti, he had ignored the case deliberately, aiming to lull Chu Zhuo into a false sense of security and let Zhou Jing’an drop his guard completely.
Lin Jingzhu knows that Chen Mo’s words are reasonable; if it were her, she would have made the sa choice.
The resentnt in her heart dissipates, and she says apologetically, "I spoke hastily just now in a mont of urgency, I hope Mr. Chen won’t take offense."
To admit fault and stand firm after being chastised is a lesson she understands well.
Chen Mo smiles and says nothing.
He doesn’t care about personal glory; completing the Empress’ assigned mission is his priority.
However, he always felt that there seed to be so connection between the Demon Clan’s murders and the Zhou Family’s private mining of Spirit Ore...
The atmosphere is quiet for a mont when Chen Mo suddenly asks, "Lin Catcher, how many days have you been surveilling ?"
Lin Jingzhu feels slightly embarrassed and speaks in a low voice, "Counting today, a total of four days and five nights."
?
Chen Mo glances at her in surprise.
This woman had been lurking around Chen Mansion for so long, and he hadn’t noticed at all?
"The Cultivation Technique I practice is rather special. It can suppress my breathing and heartbeat to the lowest level; I can stay awake for days without sleep or rest. Coupled with the Concealing Technique, it’s difficult to detect any anomalies even with Divine Sense scanning," Lin Jingzhu explains.
Chen Mo suddenly understands; it’s practically like turning on a power-saving mode.
Recalling her Black Ice Armor hard as stone, he thinks: The Nine Revolutions Ice Soul Technique is indeed mysterious, worthy of being a technique that can be used into the advanced stages in ’Unmatched Immortal’.
The conditions for practicing this technique are extrely stringent, requiring one to guide extrely cold qi into the body to temper the ridians and bones. An ordinary Martial Artist would not be able to endure a single Cycle without being hard by frostbite.
But Lin Jingzhu has a natural resistance to cold to the max, so she has no such worries, as if it were tailor-made for her.
The two of them fly at full speed towards the west for an hour.
During this ti, Lin Jingzhu has to take out Spirit Stones to replenish her True Yuan, while Chen Mo remains energetic and shows no signs of fatigue, which makes her reassess his strength once again.
Unwittingly, they arrive at a massive mountain range.
West Desolate Mountain, like a giant beast lying across the land, its undulating reaches covered by dense forests.
The thick foliage is layered, and the night winds stir it like waves, producing a "shasha" sound.
Hu—
The two figures land as gracefully as falling leaves.
Chen Mo gestures to the left, Lin Jingzhu nods, and they silently weave through the dense forest.
Along the way, they maintain a distance of nearly a hundred zhang from the two n in black, neither alarming them nor letting them out of the range of Divine Sense perception—
All of a sudden, Chen Mo’s brow furrows.
The aura of the two n disappears into thin air!
His steps quickening, he arrived at a depression deep within the dense forest.
Here, wild grass and brambles profusely grew, and the trail of their presence vanished, with not a shadow of a person to be seen around.
"Lost them?"
Just as Lin Jingzhu was about to search forward, he was stopped by Chen Mo.
He examined the stubborn rocks and thorns before him, and after a mont of contemplation, he stepped forward in a strange gait, moving ahead like a drifting shadow.
Lin Jingzhu seed to have an epiphany, following in his footsteps, matching step for step.
After several hundred steps, the way forward was blocked by a rock face that stretched across their path.
Chen Mo reached out and pressed on the rock wall.
A faint light, thin as a thread, shone from top to bottom.
Boom—
Accompanied by a deep and muffled roar, a crack opened in the middle of the rock wall, slowly parting to both sides like a door.
Gazing at the deep cavern before them, Lin Jingzhu was montarily stunned.
"Mr. Chen, you understand arrays?"
"Sowhat."
"..."
Chen Mo, despite his young age, had already reached the Sixth-Level in Martial Arts, and to think he also possessed such knowledge in arrays... could it be that he started cultivating from within his mother’s womb?
Lin Jingzhu looked at him as if he were looking at a monster.
"Let’s go."
Chen Mo stepped into the cavern.
A flight of stone steps wound downwards, and the cavern walls were embedded with fluorite, which barely lit the way forward.
After an unknown period, the faint sound of clashing tal could be heard.
Cling—Clang—
When they reached the bottom of the stone steps, the sight before them left them frozen.
The entire interior of the mountain had been almost hollowed out, forming a massive cave nearly a hundred ters high!
Rows of ironwood supported the mountain walls, with nurous inclined tunnels and vertical shafts opened in all directions, crisscrossing like a honeycomb!
Black and reddish ore was embedded in the rock walls, and a group of emaciated miners were swinging their pickaxes to excavate.
Their eyes were vacant, their faces expressionless, as if they were tireless machines.
"This is the Red Sand Mine!"
"The Zhou Family has actually been secretly excavating the Red Sand!"
Lin Jingzhu’s pupils constricted, he exclaid in a low voice.
In Chen Mo’s mory, this Red Sand, also known as Fla Sand, would ignite upon contact with fire and was the key raw material for making "Intense Burning Powder"! It was under strict control by the court and listed among forbidden resources!
"Intense Burning Powder, is it gunpowder? No, its power is much greater than gunpowder’s..."
"I originally thought the Zhou Family was privately mining Spirit Ore, but they were actually digging for Red Sand? Are they planning a rebellion? To blow up the Imperial Palace?"
Chen Mo’s thoughts were in disarray.
To stage a rebellion, the Zhou Family did not have the strength, so what exactly was their reason for doing this?
Lin Jingzhu’s eyes were icy, "Secretly mining Red Sand is tantamount to plotting treason. The Zhou Family has quite the audacity!"
Originally, they ca to investigate the Demon Clan but unexpectedly got involved in a major case!
"We must report this to the governnt as soon as possible, imdiately seal off the Zhou Family to prevent the criminals from escaping..."
Suddenly, a chill wind blew through, causing a shiver over one’s entire body.
Lin Jingzhu furrowed her brows.
How could there be wind in the depths underground?
The next mont, a rich and foul stench enveloped them both, and she imdiately felt her True Yuan sluggish, as if she had been struck by Soft Bone Powder!
Chen Mo was all too familiar with this aura—
"Demon!"
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