Lonemoon left a part of his divine perception focused on his position. Once he realized that Zuo Shuming was still somewhere in the back of the village, he stopped paying much attention to him. They were following him just to locate the invaders, anyway. They really didn’t care about what Zuo Shuming went about doing.

　　It was four hours later when they realized that Zuo Shuming was headed for the entrance. He seemed to be on the way back, but inexplicably took a right turn to enter a dense forest.

　　“Eh?” Lonemoon paused.

　　Chef, who had been keeping the dishes and cutlery, seemed to sense something as well. He turned and exclaimed, “There’s immortal Qi there!”

　　The two of them exchanged a meaningful glance. In a flash, they dashed out of the apartment and tried to locate the immortal Qi in the dense forest. Indeed, there they spotted Zuo Shuming’s figure from afar.

　　He seemed to have found something. He was pushing a huge rock out of the way, and there was a hint of immortal Qi where he was standing, being emitted from something in the rock. As the rock rolled away, the immortal Qi felt stronger.

　　Lonemoon pursed his lips and recalled something. Could it be that the thing under the rock is…

　　The next moment, Zuo Shuming looked elated. He picked up something black from under the rock. It was filled with immortal Qi and looked to be in the shape of a heart… it was a scale!

　　It really was Little Biao’s heart-protecting scale. This was no coincidence! So Zuo Shuming found the scale at this moment?

　　“There’s someone there!” Chef called out, stiffening.

　　Lonemoon jumped and turned around. Indeed, behind the tree on Zuo Shuming’s left was a black figure. The man was dressed in black robes, and he was hiding some kind of aura in his hands. Lonemoon could hardly believe that this person managed to dodge his divine perception! It seemed that the person had been standing there for a long time. He stared at Zuo Shuming, who was still standing there admiring his newfound treasure. Was he planning to… rob him?

　　Just as Zuo Shuming was studying the scale closely, the person in the black robes rushed out and snatched it.

　　“Who are you!” Zuo Shuming shouted, starting to retaliate. The person slapped him, and Zuo Shuming did not dodge in time. The slap sent him flying through the air, unconscious.

　　“Get him!” Lonemoon shouted. The two of them flew out at once. Father Niu caught Zuo Shuming just before he hit the ground. Chef went after the man in the black robes. He was just about to deal a blow when the person in the black robes disappeared into thin air. Chef’s sword Qi caught nothing. Faintly, they heard swooshing sounds. A white paper doll flew down toward them.

　　“Where’s he? You didn’t catch him!” Lonemoon carried the unconscious Zuo Shuming over to Chef. Chef actually did not manage to catch the person.

　　Yi Qing frowned and picked up the paper doll, not saying anything in response.

　　“What is that? A doll?”

　　“I have no idea. Let’s go back and ask Master.”

　　Lonemoon frowned, but flew back anyway, Zuo Shuming in tow.

　　Zuo Shuming was not severely injured. However, given his low cultivation, the blow broke several meridians of his. Since the injury was not grave, Lonemoon expected that he would recover after just a few days.

　　After helping him into the house, Lonemoon did not bother much about Zuo Shuming. Instead, he focused his attention on the person having supper at the table.

　　“Look at this. – what is it?” He placed the paper doll that Chef found earlier in front of Shen Ying.

　　“Mm?” Shen Ying, who had been gnawing on a duck’s neck, paused. She looked closely at the paper doll in front of her. She reached out to touch it, then retracted her hand. She repeated this several times until her oily fingers were clean. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it!”

　　“Even you have no idea?” Lonemoon was shocked by her reply. He told her what happened in the forest. “That person managed to escape my divine perception and also escaped Chef’s clutches. After stealing the scale, he turned into this paper doll and disappeared.”

　　“It looks like some kind of puppet technique, but it also looks like a disguising technique. This does resemble the ordinary puppet technique – if that’s the case, I think we can turn this doll into a physical body,” Yi Qing said. The key thing was after the man disappeared, they could not trace even a hint of his aura.

　　“Have you really never seen something like that before?” Lonemoon confirmed once more.

　　Shen Ying shook her head.

　　“That’s strange!” Lonemoon frowned even more deeply. “The man’s aura did not feel like he belonged to other planes. Was this person who attacked Zuo Shuming an invader or a cultivator who just wanted to rob him?”

　　“An invader,” Shen Ying said firmly.

　　Lonemoon paused and rolled his eyes at her. “Didn’t you say you’ve never seen this before?”

　　“I haven’t.”

　　“Then how are you so sure?”

　　“It’s simple.” Shen Ying pointed to the paper doll. “This is why!”

　　Lonemoon and Yi Qing both stared blankly at her. Awhile later, they took a step closer to the doll and studied it. On top of the white paper, apart from the oil stains from Shen Ying’s fingers, there was nothing else that was different. She freaking used this doll as a paper towel, didn’t she?

　　“What’s wrong with this paper doll?” Lonemoon still didn’t get it.

　　“The words on it.”

　　“Words?” He still was not understanding her. It was normal for dolls like that to have talisman words on it, wasn’t it?

　　Shen Ying raised her head and looked at them as if they were the strangest people in the world. Emphasizing each word, she said, “The words written on it are not words that are illegible to this world!”

　　Strange words = foreign world = invader!

　　Lonemoon: “…”

　　Yi Qing: “…”

　　(⊙_⊙)

　　Shit! Why did they suddenly feel as if they were retarded?

　　——————

　　Zuo Shuming was not seriously injured. Lonemoon thought that just leaving him to rest for two days would do the trick. They didn’t think that he would pass out for three whole days. It was really a mystery how he could be such a loser. How exactly did he make it to the immortal world?

　　The day of Gui Yi Sect’s recruitment of disciples was drawing near. Lonemoon could not take it any longer. He healed his meridians and woke Zuo Shuming up.

　　“Thank you for saving me, Fellow Daoist.” Zuo Shuming looked at him, filled with gratitude. “I-”

　　“Cut the nonsense. We have to hurry. Let’s go!” Lonemoon did not wait for Zuo Shuming to lead the way. Instead, he helped him onto his sword and flew toward Ping Hua City directly. They made it just in time for the recruitment.

　　Since they arrived pretty late, there were not many cultivators left who had not been tested. Perhaps core cultivators were just not that picky. This time, the recruitment test was much simpler.

　　From past experience, Lonemoon knew better. He watched to ensure that Zuo Shuming passed all the recruitment tests and made it to become one of Gui Yi Sect’s disciples before the three of them registered. Then, they followed the group of disciples who had been selected onto a spirit boat and headed toward Gui Yi Sect.

　　Zuo Shuming was obviously excited. He seemed to have completely forgotten about the fact that he had been robbed a few days ago. Maybe it was because he was not even sure what he had picked up in the first place that he did not feel such a great sense of loss. He was more upset at the fact that the other party hit him than the fact that he stole the treasure.

　　Lonemoon could not help but frown as he studied this silly Zuo Shuming closely.

　　The invader finally made himself known. They were right from the beginning – this person was targeting Zuo Shuming. The only thing was they could not figure out why. After stealing the scale, the invaders seemed to have disappeared. It confused them as to his motive. Was Little Biao’s scale really that special? Or was Zuo Shuming the special one? What was the invader after?

　　Since they could not catch the invader directly, all they could do now was to remain passive. The good thing was Yi Qing had already calculated Zuo Shuming’s fate and determined that Little Biao’s scale was rightfully his. He had an invisible connection to that scale.

　　In other words, he would likely come across that heart-protecting scale once again. Either that, or he would come across the man who stole the scale from him. That was why they decided to continue staying close to Zuo Shuming, in the hopes of finding the invader.

　　They thought that this entire process would take awhile. Little did they know, it would be so soon…