On the way back, Long Feicheng kept looking back, appearing reluctant to leave.
Seeing him like this, Yan Shouyi couldn't help but curse, "Can you have some backbone? Why do you fall for everyone you see?"
Long Feicheng turned his head and chuckled, "Broadcasting your net is the basic operation of a sea king."
"Goodbye, I'm afraid you'll cast too many nets and won't be able to lick them all," Yan Shouyi mocked.
"Senior brother, you don't believe in my abilities?" Long Feicheng straightened his back. Between being a sea king and a lick dog, he had to vindicate himself.
"Alright, alright, I believe you. But that Yi Hehuan, I really advise you not to have any ideas about her, otherwise dying from exhaustion isn't a joke," Yan Shouyi warned.
Yan Nanfei also said very seriously, "Junior Brother Long, this is really no joke. The demon path cultivators of the Wuzhen Sect have killed many people. If it weren't for the fact that we have a common enemy with her, I would have attacked her the moment we met today."
Long Feicheng coughed a few times, "Is that thing they cultivate really that powerful? Perhaps my innate constitution is extraordinary, and I can absorb her cultivation instead?"
"Do you think you have such a constitution?" Lin Zitong asked.
"How will I know if I don't try..."
Hearing this, Lin Zitong raised her hand and waved the soul-summoning bell a few times near Long Feicheng's ear.
Unexpectedly, the crisp bell sound was piercing to Long Feicheng's ears. He immediately covered his ears and screamed, then seemed to snap back to his senses, saying with some confusion, "What were we... talking about just now?"
Yan Shouyi and the others were greatly surprised and looked at Lin Zitong, "Little Long just now..."
Lin Zitong nodded, "He was charmed by Yi Hehuan."
"I was charmed? By that Yi Hehuan?" Long Feicheng exclaimed, "She's not even that good-looking, how could I... Holy cow, am I too weak or is she too strong? This woman is truly not simple!"
Of course, you are weak.
Everyone looked at each other. They had only just met, and Yi Hehuan hadn't done anything special, yet she had already charmed Long Feicheng.
The reason for this, besides Long Feicheng's easily compromised state of mind, was also a testament to Yi Hehuan's skill.
If she had put in a little more effort, it didn't seem impossible to conquer Yan Shouyi, Yan Nanfei, and Chang Shan.
"Do you still want to cultivate dual cultivation with Yi Hehuan?" Yan Shouyi asked Long Feicheng.
Long Feicheng quickly shook his head, "This woman is too strange. I don't want to lose my integrity for no reason."
"Your integrity is already shattered," Lin Zitong quipped.
Yan Nanfei said, "Anyway, we go our separate ways and don't interfere with each other."
"But what about Fukada Ichiro?" Chang Shan asked.
"Fukada Ichiro doesn't look like a good person either," Yan Nanfei said hatefully. "I don't like associating with Japanese people either."
Everyone nodded in agreement. In their hearts, their disgust for Japanese people and demon path cultivators was about the same.
Of course, beautiful Japanese women were an exception.
Yan Shouyi stroked his chin and said, "Fukada Ichiro's Chinese name is Zhao Shentian. Speaking of the Zhao family, I do know one."
Everyone cast curious glances.
"The Zhao family from the Northeast, a small family that split off from a family of shamanistic healers in the Northeast."
Lin Zitong showed a thoughtful expression, "Hearing you mention it, I seem to have heard stories about their family."
"Wait, what are shamanistic healers?" Long Feicheng asked, looking confused.
"You're a Daoist disciple, and you don't even know what a shamanistic healer is?" Yan Nanfei couldn't help but question Long Feicheng's professionalism.
Yan Shouyi sighed, "His mind isn't right. Senior Brother Yan, you must be able to tell. Back when the masters were lecturing and discussing the Dao, this guy's mind was full of eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling, so it's normal that he doesn't know."
"...Reasonable," Yan Nanfei nodded, no longer doubting.
Long Feicheng was speechless. It seemed his dim-witted persona was unavoidable.
Yan Shouyi explained, "Shamanistic healers are the predecessors of primitive shamanistic religions, and they are mainly distributed in the Northeast now. To put it plainly, some animals cultivate to become spirits, and to become immortals, they must do many good deeds. However, their identity as spirits is not suitable for them to operate in human society, so they choose a human to become a shamanistic healer, forming a partnership and possessing the shamanistic healer to do good deeds."
"So, shamanistic healers are good people?" Long Feicheng asked.
"There are good and bad among both spirits and humans. Some spirits can become immortals through unorthodox means, and some shamanistic healers have impure intentions and can even control spirits in reverse to gain evil power."
Yan Shouyi paused, then continued, "The Zhao family from the Northeast was once a very famous family of shamanistic healers. They allied with weasels for generations, making their descendants shamanistic healers, which was quite prosperous. But later, their family's ideology went awry. Instead of doing good deeds, they used their shamanistic healer abilities to exploit and enrich themselves. Therefore, their reputation in the martial world gradually soured, and they went from being a prominent Northeast family to universally reviled demon path cultivators."
Long Feicheng nodded, "Then Fukada Ichiro is also one of the demon path cultivators. He's quite a match for Yi Hehuan."
"Fukada Ichiro being sent here should mean he has some skill. If we have to confront him, we must be extremely careful," Lin Zitong reminded everyone.
Yan Nanfei said disdainfully, "We walk our sunny path, they walk their single-plank bridge, and we won't bump into each other."
Although he said that, Yan Nanfei might not care, but Yan Shouyi had to.
He took out his phone, composed a text message, and sent it to his "Shadow."
He asked Xue Kai to keep a close watch on Yi Hehuan and Fukada Ichiro.
For some reason, Yan Shouyi had a feeling that Yi Hehuan and Fukada Ichiro were not so easily fooled.
Now he understood the benefit of having a shadow. Although he couldn't see Xue Kai, he could always feel Xue Kai's presence. Xue Kai was like his shadow, his clone. When he couldn't handle things personally, Xue Kai came in handy.
"Encountering two demon path cultivators has ruined my good mood," Yan Nanfei sighed and said, "Let's go back first, wake up Junior Sister Ling, and then properly discuss how to track down Yan Shouyi's whereabouts!"
Yan Shouyi had the same idea. Ostensibly, they were capturing Yan Shouyi, but in reality, they were capturing the赊刀人 (she dao ren -赊刀 meaning credit/loan knife,人 meaning person, possibly a specific title or group). He wasn't that anxious before, but because of Zou Shazi, Yan Shouyi had to capture the赊刀人 as soon as possible to find out the whereabouts of Zou Shazi's child.
...
By the time they returned from the station, it was already eleven o'clock in the morning. Yan Nanfei calculated the time, thinking that it was mealtime and Ling Xiaoxiao should be awake.
However, when everyone arrived outside Ling Xiaoxiao's room and knocked no matter how they tried, there was no response from inside.
Only then did everyone realize something was wrong.
Chang Shan asked everyone to be quiet, then clasped his hands together and closed his eyes to listen for a moment. Afterward, he said,
"There is no heartbeat or breathing sound in the room. Junior Sister Ling is not in the room."
"What?!"
Yan Nanfei immediately became anxious. After coming out of Kunlun Mountain, he had gone directly to Emei Mountain to pick up Ling Xiaoxiao. It could be said that Emei Mountain had entrusted Ling Xiaoxiao to Yan Nanfei. If anything happened to Ling Xiaoxiao, it would be difficult for Yan Nanfei to explain to Emei Mountain!
So Yan Nanfei directly lifted his leg, preparing to kick open the door.
Long Feicheng shouted, "Kicking open this door might cost tens of thousands!"
The next second, Chang Shan grabbed Yan Nanfei with lightning speed.
"Why are you stopping me?!" Yan Nanfei roared.
Chang Shan said weakly, "I can't afford it."
"..." Yan Nanfei originally wanted to be domineering, but thinking that he didn't have much money in his pocket, he could only look at Yan Shouyi for help.
Yan Shouyi quickly found the hotel management and opened the door with a key card.
As soon as the door opened, they saw the messy state of the room. Ling Xiaoxiao's belongings had been ransacked.
There was everything on the floor, but Ling Xiaoxiao was nowhere to be found.
Everyone hurried into the room and searched around, but still couldn't find Ling Xiaoxiao. Instead, they found a service staff member tied up and gagged in the closet.
The management also became anxious. If a kidnapping incident occurred in a hotel like theirs, their reputation would be ruined if it got out!
So the hotel manager quickly called for people to retrieve the surveillance footage.
Yan Shouyi woke up the service staff, gave him some water, and asked about the situation.
The service staff was still a bit dazed and couldn't speak a complete sentence for a long time. In the end, Yan Shouyi had to give up, as it seemed this guy knew nothing.
"Look at this."
Suddenly, Lin Zitong called everyone over. They saw that a kitchen knife was placed on the headboard of the bed in the bedroom.
Seeing the kitchen knife, Yan Shouyi instantly understood what was going on.
It must have been the赊刀人 who kidnapped Ling Xiaoxiao!
"Why is there a kitchen knife?" Yan Nanfei, unaware of the situation, speculated, "Could it be that the kidnapper is hinting that if we don't pay the ransom, they'll use the kitchen knife to kill her?"
"There's the character '赊' on the kitchen knife," Chang Shan reminded.
Yan Shouyi's expression changed. If they continued to speculate, they might figure out that the赊刀人 was behind it.
So he took the kitchen knife and cursed,
"Damn Yan Shouyi, he kidnapped Junior Sister Ling and is trying to frame the赊刀人!"
Yan Nanfei was stunned, "Is... is that so?"
"It must be!" Yan Shouyi gritted his teeth and said, "We injured Yan Shouyi yesterday, and he's holding a grudge. He must have followed us to the hotel and attacked Junior Sister Ling!"
Chang Shan analyzed with a serious expression, "Targeting only women is quite consistent with the style of the Yan family."
Yan Shouyi coughed a few times. If he couldn't expose his identity now, he would definitely have a private chat with Chang Shan.
But the situation was special now, and he could only "sacrifice" himself and shift everyone's anger to the赊刀人.
"This Yan Shouyi is simply not human!" Yan Nanfei cursed fiercely.
"Yes, not human!" Yan Shouyi agreed, adding in his mind, "He's not human, he's electricity, he's light, he's the only myth."
What could be more stimulating than me scolding myself?
Long Feicheng's eyes were sharp, and he quickly noticed a note on the desk in the room.
Presumably, this was the ransom note.
Everyone picked it up and saw that the note only contained a simple and clear message:
If you want her alive, exchange her life for the life of that guy Lin Fan! Tomorrow night at nine, on a red dilapidated boat at Shanghang Pier. If I don't see Lin Fan, I will kill her!