"I must say, if she is being forced by any of our competitors to deliver that map in their hands, she's doing a very sloppy job. She asked you for the map as soon as they left, admitting openly that she needs something that is for my eyes only...how intriguing!"

Xuan Zi's casual remark got Han Xuhan thinking up all sorts of complicated scenarios again.

"Disciple Xuhan, does this lass know of your frequent visits to my residence?"

Han Xuhan nodded hesitantly. "Possibly. I don't exactly hide from curious eyes on my way here."

Of course he didn't. Throughout his stay at this sect, Han Xuhan had openly flaunted every connection he had made. He was known for having close ties to the sect master, elder Shen, elder Kong Ye, cultivation genius Mu Ran and Yuen Zhou, and many senior disciples holding important jobs.

He had also gotten a model disciple medal, which had only added to his fame. Even those who he didn't have a good relationship with for various reasons seldom focused their aggression on him.

"If she isn't an idiot, she will obviously be aware that it's impossible for you to somehow figure out where such a random object will be and steal it without me knowing. Then do you think she knows you're going to snitch on her as soon as you get the opportunity? After all, it's a decent way to make me put more trust in you."

". . ."

Heavens! This sect master of his is too good at scheming!

If Han Xuhan hadn't hung around Mu Ran frequently, he wouldn't have cultivated the considerably thick skin he owned right now. So he didn't even blush at being seen through so easily. Rather, facing someone so perceptive and cunning, the speed of his thoughts got a speed boost.

Did Yuen Zhou have such foresight?

He couldn't be sure, but that only meant he had to assume she could predict his actions.

Does that mean...she wanted to be caught betraying the sect?

What the hell was even going on here?

Han Xuhan was lost.

Xuan Zi, meanwhile, finished his meal steadily in silence.

"Disciple Xuhan."

"Yes, sect master?"

"Have you figured anything out?"

"No, sect master. I am very confused right now."

"Good."

"What?"

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"If you were able to figure something out miraculously out of this mess, that would be quite suspicious."

"...I see. Good thing I'm so stupid, then. Ha ha ha"

Han Xuhan laughed mechanically.

"Worry not, and stop thinking so much. Let's have some fun instead, eh?"

". . ."

The leap in the sect master's thinking once again rendered him lost for words.

"Say, disciple, why don't we dig ourselves into a hole?"

". . ."

"Metaphor, it was a metaphor." Xuan Zi clapped his palms together cheerfully. "I'll hand you the map she wants. You're going to deliver it to her. She is going to deliver it to our opponent. Our opponent, of course, will be suspicious of its authenticity. So they are going to test it. Maybe they'll choose specific disciples to attack and see whether their cultivation level and foundation weight match the data on the map, maybe they are going to use divination to check if it's authentic, or maybe they're going to use a method beyond my knowledge."

"So, we should give her a false map?" Han Xuhan wondered aloud.

"Mmm...No. We give her the true one, the one and only legitimate map."

Once again, Xuan Zi cheerfully clapped his palms together as if he had solved a huge problem just now.

Han Xuhan felt his eyes losing focus from sheer befuddlement. Try as he might, he couldn't figure out ANYTHING!

The intelligence he had been always so proud of having seemed useless suddenly. Unable to keep his thoughts wandering any longer, he had to ask, "Sect master, may I know why?"

"Why what?" Xuan Zi asked, looking surprised for some reason.

"Why are we letting our enemy get ahold of the real information?"

Xuan Zi leaned in, smiling so wide that Xuhan could see a fishbone stuck between his upper left molars.

"Because, disciples, when false becomes true, truth becomes false, and information becomes meaningless."

"...???"

* * * *

"Here you go. This is the map." Entering the room, Xuan Zi threw a sealed bamboo tube at him. Han Xuhan had been waiting patiently like he had been told to do. Catching the tube, he examined the seal.

Huh...normal wax.

Xuan Zi really didn't treat this thing as important.

"Can I take a look at it before I give it to her?"

Xuan Zi fixed an unreadable gaze on him, not blinking for nearly half a minute. Han Xuhan felt quite aggrieved. Sect master Zi's behavior today was way off the unpredictable category. Fang Xie's conduct made more sense than his.

"You know what, that's a good idea."

"Really?" Han Xuhan said, caught off guard again.

"Indeed. It's better if we can force our opponent to fall into a tight schedule. Hold on to the map for a week's time, or more if she appears patient enough."

The permission to peek into the map implied, Xuan Zi very politely asked him to excuse himself. Han Xuhan offered to clean up the dishes, making Xuan Zi look rather gratified.

The walk back to his house was uneventful. The rate at which floods were striking had slowed down by a notable margin. The calm before the storm, perhaps.

Zhanxian had cooked lunch, while Tun Shi Tian had shirked off his share of the labor. Han Xuhan didn't have the heart to tell him that he had already had a meal. As a cultivator in the fourth layer of the Physique Transformation realm, it was hardly a task for him to stuff a second meal into his stomach. He planned out his evening schedule while eating.

He had to speed up his personal advancement rather than focusing on so many miscellaneous issues. He hadn't cultivated at all since reaching the doorstep of the fourth layer, as the creation of Hai Yin Zhe had damaged his dao foundation terribly.

Something had to be done to repair his Dao foundation. The Astral Column form of Kong Ye's tentacle sprouting technique came right in time.

For the next few hours, Han Xuhan decided to try his best to educate his minions on the concept of astral cultivation. They had listened to Kong Ye's lecture on the technique already. So he approached the task a bit differently. Taking out the manual Kong Ye had given him, he went through each line himself first, comprehended its meaning, and then translated it in a simpler way to his minions, a process that used to help him earn passable grades in college.

However, it wasn't particularly effective in mastering cultivation manuals, which were just instructions on the practical application of magical elements. One of the most common features of cultivation manuals was that the more one practiced the technique, the more they realized how layered, twisty, and vague the instructions were. Different cultivators had different perspectives, and most cultivators who created new techniques tended to be geniuses with unique mental states. Regular cultivators like him generally found themselves in a maze of inconsistencies and fog whenever they practiced the techniques of these geniuses. Every few layers of advancement provided them better insights, evolved outlooks, and an increasingly twisted view of the technique they were learning, making them lament how horrible their prior comprehension of the technique was.

Natural enlightenments were one of the common factors that induced such realizations. In Han Xuhan's case, however, his natural enlightenment was not in his cultivation techniques but on his dao heart. But repeated studying and practice of technique were still enough for him to understand this phenomenon.

This was one of the reasons why so few cultivators could successfully teach younglings. The method of explaining delicate magical concepts was an intricate art one had to master. For some, like Kong Ye, talent played a bigger part than experience.

Han Xuhan's approach contributed more to his interest than the minions this way. But the minions were very grateful that their summoner was sacrificing his precious time and effort behind educating them.

In the end, they were all the biggest benefactors in their own eyes. Who knows, maybe someone else was benefiting more than them behind the scenes. But Han Xuhan was a self-centered man fully taking the biggest advantage he could. Nothing else mattered, really.