Chapter 622 - 267: Visitors from Tianshui
Chapter 622: Chapter 267: Visitors from Tianshui
’However, not everything he said was necessarily a lie.’
’Celestial Listening... and the way to enter and exit the Dragon Court. He must really know something...’
’I have to get to the bottom of this. I’ll break him, even if it takes all the patience in the world.’
Fang Shuwen made up his mind. The only thing that made him a little uncomfortable was how unexpected this whole encounter had been.
Not only was he completely unprepared, but he was also saddled with a mountain of trouble brought on by Luo Shuqing.
Taking this old man with him was no small burden.
Unfortunately, the course of events rarely bent to his will alone; sometimes, things just happened without warning.
As the saying goes, life is full of disappointments.
It wasn’t possible for every event to wait until he was fully prepared.
All he could do was be as careful as possible.
After all, compared to the situation with Luo Shuqing, this old fellow was every bit as important.
With this in mind, Fang Shuwen went to the bed, sat cross-legged, and began to circulate his energy.
His Inner Strength had grown increasingly vast and profound, which now affected him to some extent when he used the North Nether Divine Technique.
It felt as if a cup could hold no more water.
Lately, he had even temporarily stopped his cultivation of the Nine Qi Divine Technique.
This martial art was indeed extremely difficult to practice. Even with his talent and comprehension boosted fivefold, he still hadn’t broken through to the Eighth Layer.
It was clear the saying "one qi, one heaven" was no mere exaggeration.
With each new layer achieved, the technique’s power would multiply, a feature that alone surpassed the vast majority of Divine Skill Manuals in the world.
Pausing his work on the Nine Qi Divine Technique, Fang Shuwen focused on consolidating his own Inner Strength, refining it to remove impurities and increase its purity.
This was both easy and difficult. It was easy because he could use the combined properties of the Muscle Strengthening Scripture and the North Nether Divine Technique to achieve it.
But it was difficult because it was a task that required slow, patient effort.
If Fang Shuwen could refine all of his Inner Strength in this manner, his future techniques would flow with greater ease and precision, and his martial arts would invisibly ascend to another level.
Time slipped by quietly during this process.
The sun set in the west and rose in the east.
In the blink of an eye, another night passed...
Fang Shuwen cultivated in his room, and no one dared to disturb him. No one even dared to call him for dinner.
But early the next morning, Zuo Xuan had no choice but to steel himself and approach Fang Shuwen’s door. Just as he was about to knock,
he heard Fang Shuwen’s voice from within:
"Come in."
The door swung open with a WHOOSH. Zuo Xuan let out a breath and entered the room, cupping his fist to Fang Shuwen.
"Hero Fang, there’s a situation at sea."
Fang Shuwen opened his eyes.
Zuo Xuan felt the entire room suddenly become unnaturally bright, only to return to normal in an instant.
He froze for a moment.
’Empty room, generates white?’
Looking up at Fang Shuwen’s eyes again, he saw that their divine light was restrained, showing nothing special at all.
He couldn’t help but sigh inwardly, knowing that Fang Shuwen’s level of attainment had long since surpassed the so-called "illumination from an empty chamber" and "deeply hidden" states by an unknown margin.
This minor phenomenon was truly not even worth mentioning.
Fang Shuwen stood up.
"Let’s go take a look."
Zuo Xuan nodded and led Fang Shuwen out of the cabin and onto the deck.
Luo Shuqing, Xia Weiyuan, and the others were already there. When Li Cheng saw Fang Shuwen, he also gave a cautious nod.
Fang Shuwen smiled, his gaze sweeping past him before settling on the surface of the sea.
He raised an eyebrow slightly.
"So it was them following us all along."
"Hero Fang, you know who they are?"
Zuo Xuan asked hurriedly.
Fang Shuwen shook his head.
"I don’t... They’ve been tailing us since the middle of the night yesterday. I thought they would approach, but I didn’t expect them to maintain this distance the whole time."
Zuo Xuan and the others were already immune to Fang Shuwen’s words.
Xia Weiyuan and Li Cheng, however, couldn’t help but be horrified.
’He can detect them from such a great distance?’
’Just how profound is his cultivation?’
Fang Shuwen’s gaze remained on the ship, but he soon shook his head.
"Keep moving forward. Ignore them."
"I reckon we’ll be seeing more and more ships like this."
Zuo Xuan nodded upon hearing this. With Fang Shuwen’s words, his heart was put at ease.
Since Fang Shuwen said to ignore them, they would ignore them.
And indeed, just as Fang Shuwen had said, over the next few days, the number of ships tailing them from a distance grew.
It started with one, and now four large ships were following.
These ships always kept their distance. When Fang Shuwen’s ship stopped, they stopped. When Fang Shuwen’s ship moved on, they followed.
They neither attacked nor left.
Xia Weiyuan couldn’t help but frown as she watched.
"They’re waiting for the right moment... to swarm us all at once."
Li Cheng, on the other hand, looked toward Fang Shuwen’s cabin. For the past two days, Fang Shuwen had neither gone below deck to see the old man nor emerged from his room.
’Is he in seclusion in his room?’
He must have known about the situation outside, yet he did nothing, which was baffling.
He posed this question to Xia Weiyuan, who thought for a moment before shaking her head.
"A man like him... what he’s thinking, what he’s going to do... it’s simply beyond my ability to guess."
Just as she said this, her expression suddenly changed.
"A ship is approaching!"
Li Cheng saw it too. And not just him—Zhou Zhengze’s voice came down from the mast:
"Someone’s coming."
Zuo Xuan let go of the helm and went to the ship’s rail to look, his expression shifting slightly.
"It’s a ship from the Celestial Water Palace!"
By now, however, the name of the Eight Forbidden Lands of the East Sea was no longer enough to intimidate anyone on this ship.
So what if it was the Celestial Water Palace?
Just two days ago, Fang Shuwen had dealt a crushing defeat to the people from the Four Forbidden Lands, including Little Night Valley.
The Celestial Water Palace alone was nothing to fear.
But at that very moment, a voice suddenly spread across the sea:
"Shui Tianxin, Palace Master of the Celestial Water Palace, requests an audience with the Human World Demon God! I ask that Young Hero Fang grant me a meeting!"