chapter 3

Upon returning to the inn, Su Chen found that everyone was already there waiting for him.

When Su Chen arrived, Kong Cheng unhappily harrumphed, “What a grand reception! We can’t even start until he gets back.”

Shi Mingfeng directly said, “Su Chen is one of our most important allies and is a good friend of the Immortal Temple. The Immortal Temple doesn’t have many such friends, so please show a little respect for our allies.”

Su Chen knew that Shi Mingfeng was definitely secretly recording all this, which was why he was speaking so politely.

Kong Cheng rolled his eyes. “This is the first time I’ve heard of an ally that harms his own teammates.”

Even though Yue Longsha took on the responsibility of killing Ma Renze, everyone knew that Su Chen had manipulated things behind the scenes. The only reason he needed Yue Longsha to take responsibility for him was to give both sides a way out of the situation.

By the same principle, even if Kong Cheng died, everyone would know that it had something to do with Shi Mingfeng.

However, conjecture was always conjecture. If you didn’t have enough evidence, you would never know how deep the connection actually was.

As such, Kong Cheng’s disagreements with Su Chen were blatant, but it was impossible for him to do much more than that.

However, things would be made clear very quickly.

Su Chen walked over and replied, “Are you an idiot? Being someone’s ally isn’t the same thing as treating someone like you would yourself. It’s more like being partners and having a common interest. I’m allied with the Immortal Temple. Do you know what that means? That means that only the Immortal Temple can offer and define a cooperation with me. As for people below that, they’re only insignificant ants. If I crush an ant underfoot, I don’t necessarily need to care about the reputation of the master. If our cooperation runs deep enough, I can even beat the master’s dog to death.”

“What did you say?” Kong Cheng stared at Su Chen with rage.

“I said…… in my eyes, you’re just an ant. I am a person who can bring the Immortal Temple great rewards. Oh, speaking of which, the last time I cooperated with the Immortal Temple, I made them a tidy sum of about seven or eight hundred million Origin Stones. How many times is that more than how much your pathetic life is worth?”

Kong Chen said darkly, “I know that if we had killed you back then, the billion or so Origin Stones you earned would have gone to us.”

“No, you wouldn’t have gotten anything. Did you really think I would dig out that kind of loophole for you? This is why you’re still only a nobody even though you have your sister’s prestige backing you up. It’s because you’re so stupid that it’s scary!”

“What did you say?” Kong Cheng fury deepened even further. He hated people saying that he had relied on his older sister to get to this position more than anything.

“Want to fight me one-on-one? I promise that I’ll leave your corpse intact,” Su Chen said casually.

Su Chen wouldn’t place this kind of trash in his eyes even if it had a pure bloodline, much less a mixed-bloodline.

For him to take an opponent in the same cultivation realm as him seriously, they would need at least a Demonic King bloodline or above, and they would also have to be an elite of elites as well.

A Kong Cheng was worth no more than a fart.

Kong Cheng also knew that he wasn’t Su Chen’s opponent. This was someone who had massacred the Lian Clan single handedly. However, the fury in his heart wouldn’t subside, and neither was he willing to show weakness. He could only stare fiercely at Su Chen, as if he were trying to kill him with his gaze alone.

Finally, Shi Mingfeng made a move to alleviate the atmosphere. “Alright, we’re all on the same team, so there’s no need to fight like this. Kong Cheng, Su Chen is the Immortal Temple’s important guest. Like he said, we wouldn’t have earned those eight hundred million Origin Stones without his help. There’s a reason our lives these past few years have been quite good — the amount of cultivation resources available has almost doubled because of Sir Su’s accomplishments. Don’t try to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

Kong Cheng yelled, “But we also helped him earn an oceanic sum of money.”

“That’s all because of Su Chen’s ability. If you continue to argue with him irrationally, don’t blame me for reporting it to the higher ups!”

Shi Mingfeng was getting angry, so Kong Cheng could only endure.

Shi Mingfeng pulled out an item. It was an Origin Formation Disk.

After activation, it projected an image of a massive, ancient castle.

Shi Mingfeng pointed at the castle and said, “This is West Laina Castle, one of many castles belonging to Pall. Our mission is to infiltrate the castle without alerting Pall and search it from top to bottom for any secrets regarding the Spirit Race.”

“You said that this is one of many castles belonging to Pall? In other words, he has more than one?” Su Chen asked.

Shi Mingfeng replied, “Here in Abyss Island, Pall has six castles in total. This is just one of them. Every summer, Pall will spend a bit of time here, but most of the time he lives in the Ali Palace in the Western region of Island Abyss. That’s where the Sand Race elders all live.”

“In other words, we won’t need to face Pall and a bunch of other Sand Race individuals?” Night Demon asked.

Even though the plan of attack had been drafted up a long time ago, only Shi Mingfeng knew the details. This was the first time that he had revealed a more detailed plan to everyone.

“Yes. If everything goes according to plan, we won’t run into Pall or too many other Sand Race individuals,” Shi Mingfeng replied. West Laina Castle houses roughly 150 Sand Race individuals, most of them servants. Only a few are warriors, and their strength isn’t even worth mentioning. The only somewhat strong person there is the captain of the guards, Culler. The Chaotic Soul Medicine will be used on him.”

One of the subordinates stuck out his tongue. “I thought we were using it to deal with Pall.”

Shi Mingfeng laughed, “Pall is an expert with five Lotus Platforms. His consciousness is extremely powerful, and the Chaotic Soul Medicine might not have any effect on him. He also has a lot of experts with him, so getting close enough to him to use it on him might not be possible. This type of medicine has to be drunk in order to be effective.”

“So how will we have Culler drink the medicine?” Su Chen asked.

“I’ll do it,” one of Shi Mingfeng’s subordinates offered.

He was called He Xu.

He Xu said, “My bloodline is the Thousand Faces Beast Bloodline. I can disguise myself as a Sand Race individual and infiltrate the castle.”

The Thousand Faces Beast was an extremely crafty Demonic Beast. It had the ability to shapeshift into anything as long as it was roughly the same size as it.

According to Shi Mingfeng’s plan, He Xu would first get close to Culler by pretending to be one of West Laina Castle’s residents, then secretly put the Chaotic Soul Medicine into his food and use it to control Culler.

As soon as Culler was under their control, the Immortal Temple would be able to openly enter the castle and search the place.

Simple and practical.

The best plans didn’t need to be complicated. Actually, it was the exact opposite — a simple, practical plan was often the most useful.

Simple meant that the difficulty and number of variables would both be low.

This was the case for Shi Mingfeng’s plan.

The only issue with the plan was that they didn’t know how long they would need to search for.

Their lack of information about the Spirit Race’s hidden treasures was the plan’s greatest flaw, and it was also the variable that would make the largest difference.

However, you didn’t need to have a 100% chance of success to do something in the real world.

This was why Shi Mingfeng and the others had to prepare to the best of their abilities.

“What if that fails?” Su Chen asked.

“Then we can only do our best and leave the rest up to the Heavens. Failure is nothing out of the ordinary and isn’t something to be surprised over,” Shi Mingfeng said with a slight smile.