Qingge was freezing. That wasn’t a problem cultivators usually had to deal with, but with how cold it was down here, combined with the fact that she had spent a considerable time without moving at all, it had started to get to her. Of course, the bucket of icy cold water that asshole of a guard had thrown in her face to “wake her up” hadn’t helped at all.

At least she didn’t have to pretend to be unconscious anymore, so she was now sitting in a corner of the small room. Well, if one could call it that. In reality it was much closer to a cave, the only halfway straight wall being the wooden boards haphazardly thrown together to form a barrier keeping her inside. The door wasn’t any better and if there was no one guarding this place, Qingge had no doubts that she would be out of here in a jiffy.

Sadly, a glance through the gaps had already confirmed that that wasn’t the case, at least two people standing outside, spears in hand to make sure she didn’t go anywhere.

So Qingge waited. As bad as her current situation was, it wasn’t the total disaster she had first made it out to be. Getting out of here by herself would be anywhere between difficult and impossible but luckily, she wasn’t by herself. The others would almost certainly have noticed her absence by now and it didn’t take a genius to figure out where to look for her.

If she could just wait this whole thing out, it still wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. After looking at it like this, her nerves had calmed down considerably, which gave her mind room to go to work analyzing what she had learned and fitting it into the picture of what she already knew.

First off, these guys were hiding in the old catacombs of the city. With how expansive these seemed to be, this was likely the best hiding place one could ever wish for, but it was also extremely inconvenient. They had to make do without daylight, fresh air or any of the other myriads of things that could be found aboveground.

For Qingge, this was clear proof that this wasn’t just a ragtag group of thugs. There had to be someone strong and either respected or feared enough to keep bandits like the ones she’d heard earlier in check, otherwise they wouldn’t submit themselves to something like this.

There also had to be someone from the sect involved in this, someone influential enough to organize things on that side, because there was no way they were doing it from here. Not just a subordinate, but a proper partner who had probably been the one to approach them in the first place. Qingge had already suspected as much back in the sect.

If she had to guess, one of the pillar families or at least one of their higher functionaries had orchestrated this. Perhaps to sow chaos within the Enforcement Hall, perhaps to misappropriate funds from other areas of the sect, perhaps for some other reason.

The question then became who exactly it was. Off the top of her head, Qingge crossed the Zhao, Xia and Zhong families of the list. Patriarch Zhao and his family were pure warriors who gave a great deal of importance to personal and family honor, while Meixiu Xia just seemed too good-natured to come up with a plan like this.

Qiao absolutely wouldn’t put it past the Zhong Family to pull such a move but if they did, she doubted that anyone would ever get wind of it.

The Alchemy Hall hadn’t been the primary target of the scheme, so Qingge was also rather certain that Zheng Rong was not involved. That left three likely culprits. Between Sun Liang, Ning Bai and Jiang Peng, Qingge could imagine each as the initiator of a plan like this.

Thought out like this it was pretty sad, after all these were supposed to be the shining examples for young cultivators to follow after but working in the Enforcement Hall had robbed her of those illusions.

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Working out who actually was behind it all would have to wait until she could properly negotiate someone, but having a working theory might help her build pressure in such a situation.

She hoped they’d be able to catch the leader alive, he ought to know the answers to quite a lot of her questions. The guards had called him the ‘big man’ so he ought to be rather recognizable, hadn’t he?

Qingge’s question would be answered far sooner than she’d expected because just as she had finished the thought, she heard the sound of heavy steps approaching.

“Hey there, what is it?”

“Is this where the girl is?”

“The one Granny caught? Yes, she’s here.”

“Did you wake her up already?”

“Sure did.”

“That’s good. The boss wants to see her.”

“Oh my. If I wasn’t such a heartless bastard, I’d probably pity her.”

At that, both men broke into laughter. The second guard interrupted them.

“I still have a heart and if you don’t want me to have to pity you two, get to it. The boss doesn’t like being made to wait.”

“Don’t worry, smartass. We’ll start right away.”

With that, the door to Qingge’s cell opened and two of the men entered.

“You there, get up. You’ll have to say hello to the boss now.”

Slowly, making sure to pretend it was a taxing task, Qingge rose to her feet. She looked at the two guards in a neutral expression but chose not to speak.

“There, there; you almost got it!”, the guard encouraged her, a wry grin on his face and his tone dripping with sarcasm.

“The stuff Granny gave you really did you in, didn’t it? Don’t worry, just follow us one step at a time.”

Qingge did just that. Not only did she have to keep up the act, walking as slow as possible actually suited her purpose as she could try and subtly look around, memorizing as much of the place’s layout as possible.

They were indeed in some kind of old mine, though its new inhabitants had outfitted it with makeshift walls, doors and furniture.

After passing through several shafts, Qingge started hearing a buzz of voices in the distance that they were closing in on. Then, two turns later, they suddenly entered a large open hall with several dozen people in it. They were laughing, drinking and playing dice on several tables throughout the room, but Qingge barely took notice of them.

Her entire attention was drawn to the center of the room where, perched on a wooden seat too crude to call a throne but too grand to call a chair, sat a person whom the description of ‘mountain’ would have done much more justice than that of ‘man’.

A colossus of bulging muscle, he was easily more than two meters tall even while sat down and the broadness of muscle-bound his frame was such, that it was hard to determine where the torso ended, and the arms began. His bare laying upper body was riddled with deep scars, old and new, and the one eye that remained functional, the other having left nothing but an empty socket in its place, gleamed with a sadistic confidence that was almost strong enough to hide the subtle gleam of cunning beneath it.

When he noticed her, a wide grin exposed many missing teeth beneath his massive, wild beard. He then knocked on the armrest of his seat and the whole hall went silent. After relishing in that silence for a while, he began to speak, his voice rough and deep like an abyss.

“Would you look at that! Is that the mighty soul cultivator you spoke of?”

Only now did Qingge notice that the old woman stood right by his side, obscured by the shadow of his massive frame.

“I told you she is poisoned.”

“I’m just messing with you; I can see that myself.”

“As I said, we need to interrogate her. We don’t know who sent her to snoop around.”

“I’ve got to say, you’re quite naïve for your age.”

The giant let out a bellowing laughter, the low baritone reverberating through the hall.

“There is only one group that sends around soul cultivators like it’s nothing. She’s from the sect.”

At that declaration, a murmur swept through the crowd. The giant’s grin only widened.

“I smell fear in here… Anyone who wants to run?”

He let his gaze wander around.

“Thought so.”

“You need not worry. We have a guarantee of protection from our partner. The sect isn’t going to do anything, even if some idiot from there tries to look into us.”

A partner who protected them, huh? So Qingge’s guess had been exactly right.

“In fact, I think we just did them a huge favor. Someone get me the envoy over here! I think he might be more than a little interested in this girl.”

Someone from the sect was here? That wasn’t good. It was in fact terrible news for Qingge’s continued safety, but before she could spend too much time thinking about the implications, a man burst into the halls in full sprint.

His clothes were covered in splatters of blood and drenched in sweat. Once he had made it before the throne, he cried out:

“We’re under attack! The warehouse has been breached!”