FIMA Ch72: In the Water

Only Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing went to N City to execute this special mission. Since they didn’t have to accommodate Old Man Xie’s quirks like when they went to the capital, they took a plane directly over.

They bought tickets for the earliest flight that day. By the time they dragged their suitcases out of the N City airport, the sky hadn’t yet turned dark.

Just as they were about to hail a car, a young girl with her hair tied in a bun came up to them: “Are you Mr. Gu and Mr. Xie from the General Special Control Bureau?”

Gu Siyuan glanced at her.
Xie Xuanxing nodded.

The little girl immediately revealed a brilliant smile and practically bounced as she spoke: “My name is Chen Ling. I was sent by the Director of the South China Branch to pick you two up. The car is over there.”

Chen Ling led them toward the parking lot while clutching her wildly pounding heart.
She remembered the teasing words the General Bureau had given along with their contact info before she came to pick them up, saying something about how, with the looks and auras of these two, they guaranteed she would spot them at a glance in the crowd and never forget them.
It was indeed true.

Gu Siyuan looked at the so-called car. It was probably this little girl Chen Ling’s private car—light green, very suited to a young girl’s taste.
Gu Siyuan walked to the driver’s seat and said faintly: “The mud on this car indicates it just drove over from Hongtan Villa. I’ll drive on the way back.”

Chen Ling’s eyes grew even brighter. The gentleman from the General Bureau is not only devastatingly handsome but also such a gentleman!

Hongtan Villa (Red Altar Villa) was a private resort, occupying a vast area nestled against mountains and water. Naturally, such a place couldn’t exist within the city center where land was worth its weight in gold; rather, it was situated in a small town in the southern suburbs of N City.

The headquarters of the South China Branch Bureau was in N City’s downtown. However, due to the recent incidents, the Branch Director was under immense pressure and had permanently stationed himself in the small town where Hongtan Villa was located, accompanied by two people, to easily monitor the incident’s progress at all times.

Following Chen Ling’s directions, Gu Siyuan reduced his speed and drove into the town. When they parked in front of a certain hotel, they saw two men—one middle-aged, one young—who looked quite tall for Southerners, returning from outside under the dim setting sun.

Chen Ling immediately rolled down the window and waved at the middle-aged man: “Dad… ah, wrong, Director! Director!”

The two men immediately walked over.
The group gathered at the hotel entrance.

The Director hurriedly welcomed them, first scolding Chen Ling: “I asked you to pick up people, and you ended up sitting in the back, making the special envoy drive!”
After his scolding, he looked at Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing with an apologetic, ingratiating smile: “I’m truly sorry, the young people under me are insensible.”

Xie Xuanxing shook his head: “Your daughter is very lively and adorable.”

Director Chen smiled.

Gu Siyuan also spoke: “No need for extra words. Tell us the specific situation inside the villa!”

Director Chen nodded and sighed heavily: “Sigh, we’ve finally managed to wait for you two.”

A long while later, after hearing Director Chen’s account, Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing understood the general situation.

Hongtan Villa was adjacent to Qinglan Lake. When it was first built, water from the lake was diverted inside to create a leisure fishing center, which became a favorite among many vacationers and anglers.
Usually, after guests caught fish from the lake, they would ask the villa’s chefs to cook them. The taste was exceptionally fresh and delicious.
Hongtan Villa had always been renowned for this.

But just a week ago at night, all the guests in the villa who had eaten the fish suffered from severe vomiting and diarrhea, and then fell into a coma.
However, after being sent to the hospital and tested with all available equipment, no obvious cause of poisoning could be found. They could only watch as the patients’ conditions deteriorated day by day, their vitality fading.

Thus, the matter was reported to the Special Control Bureau’s South China Branch.

Since the incident, Hongtan Villa had been suspended from business and sealed for investigation, and no one dared to come here anymore.

The Special Control Bureau took over the case and sent people to inspect, only to find that at some unknown point, a boundless fog had spread out from the lake, making it impossible to see anything clearly.
The Bureau initially sent probes inside, but it was as if they had entered a ghost domain; no footage could be transmitted out.
Left with no choice, they had to send people in personally.

As a result, the branch colleague who went to investigate was eventually found unconscious at the villa’s entrance, and he still hadn’t woken up to this day, entering a vegetative state.
After that, the branch sent two more people in to check the situation. Out of caution, they sent the two strongest people in the branch aside from the Director. Yet, the end result was one person in a coma and the other losing contact entirely.

With this, the branch bureau didn’t dare to act rashly anymore and immediately reported it to the General Bureau, requesting assistance.
Those comatose patients, as well as the Special Control Bureau colleagues, were all waiting to be saved…

Early the next morning, after eating breakfast, Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing, accompanied by the Branch Director, dragged the large suitcases they had brought from thousands of miles away and walked toward Hongtan Villa.

From a distance, one wouldn’t even be able to tell there was a villa here, as all the buildings were hidden within the ethereal mist.
Only when they got close and stood at the entrance could they see the villa’s white walls and dark tiles, as well as the somewhat artistic characters “Hongtan Villa” hanging above the dark red gate.

Gu Siyuan took out the detector he carried with him. The needle on it was swinging wildly and irregularly.
Xie Xuanxing knew quite a bit about this, knowing it was a device Gu Siyuan had made not long ago specifically to sense spiritual energy and yin energy. For it to swing like this meant that both might be present here, making things truly complicated.

Next, Gu Siyuan bent down, opened the large suitcase, and took out several small flying probes from inside.
Since the half-Ghost King incident at Luojun Mountain, he had made massive improvements to the probes. The particle types and fluctuations they detected had been fixed within a specific range.

Director Chen’s eyes widened: “I heard that the General Bureau recently made a huge breakthrough in the research of metaphysical phenomena. Could this be the latest probe developed by the General Bureau? The one rumored to be able to enter and exit any supernatural domain without hindrance?”

“Probably,” Gu Siyuan nodded expressionlessly.

Director Chen sighed in admiration: “I wonder which great scientist managed to create such an incredible invention. I really want to call him ‘Daddy’.”

Gu Siyuan: “…”
Gu Siyuan said faintly: “There’s no need for that. He definitely wouldn’t want a son as old as you.”

Xie Xuanxing couldn’t help but lower his eyes and curl the corners of his mouth.
He couldn’t give birth to such an old son either.
Uh…
Wait, why did I suddenly think of that? Why have I become so dirty-minded? I must have been led astray by Luo Chuan.
He’s a man, he can’t give birth to children.
No, wait, I shouldn’t be thinking about having children at all!

Under Gu Siyuan’s control, the probes flew into the villa. Soon, the video feed along the way was transmitted to the tablet in Xie Xuanxing’s hands. The villa was lonely and empty, without anything seeming amiss.

The group furrowed their brows.
Before coming, Gu Siyuan had already memorized the villa’s entire map. Seeing that there were no anomalies in the building area, he directly steered the probes to fly toward Qinglan Lake.

The mist rose from the lake, and the fish were caught from the lake. Unsurprisingly, the problem lay within the lake.

The three probes skimmed over the lake’s surface at a low altitude in a triangular formation.
The lake surface in late autumn was quiet and desolate, with a few withered yellow reed stalks and messy waterweeds drooping miserably.
Still, there were no anomalies.

Gu Siyuan’s expression remained unchanged. He handed the control of the monitors to Director Chen and the others: “We’re going in to take a look. You guys monitor from the outside at all times.”

Director Chen took the remote control, his face full of novelty, and repeatedly urged: “You two must be careful.”

Gu Siyuan nodded, bent down to take out some other tools from the suitcase, equipped them on himself, and also shared a few with Xie Xuanxing.

Director Chen felt dazzled.
They all seemed like good things; he would have to apply to the General Bureau for a batch after he went back.

Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing held hands and walked in.

Chen Ling’s eyes lit up: “Ahhh, so they have that kind of relationship! I ship it!”

Director Chen glared at his daughter: “How can you be so frivolous toward the two special envoys, you silly girl!”

Chen Ling shook her head and chuckled: “You don’t understand my joy.”

As the two spoke, the backs of Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing had already appeared on the tablet screen in Director Chen’s hands.
Director Chen watched in amazement. He truly didn’t expect the image to be so clear in a place filled with yin mist.
If they had had this equipment a few days ago, it wouldn’t have resulted in several colleagues falling into comas or going missing without yielding a single clue.

Gu Siyuan walked through Hongtan Villa as if strolling through his own home, unimpeded all the way. Without the slightest hesitation or delay, he led Xie Xuanxing to stand directly by Qinglan Lake.
“Let’s see just what exactly is abnormal in this lake.”

Xie Xuanxing frowned uneasily: “This lake gives off a strange sense of oppression, as if facing a cultivator whose cultivation is much higher than one’s own.”

Gu Siyuan raised his eyebrows slightly and attempted to release his own spiritual sense.

Ever since he drew the Shocking Thunder Talisman last time, Gu Siyuan knew that his spiritual sense was far stronger than others’.
Even the Director of the General Bureau only had a spiritual sense release range of about forty or fifty meters, but Gu Siyuan had two hundred meters.

The moment Gu Siyuan’s spiritual sense touched the lake’s surface, he felt a jolt in his mind, followed by an inexplicable sense of unease, as if he had been targeted by some terrifying entity.

He immediately withdrew his spiritual sense, narrowed his eyes, and said: “The evil entity here doesn’t seem to attack cultivators’ physical bodies directly, but uses spiritual sense attacks. If one’s spiritual sense collapses, they naturally fall directly into a coma. Severe cases might even result in direct death. This is the reason why those two branch colleagues are comatose.”

“Spiritual sense attacks?” Xie Xuanxing’s eyes widened.
He had never known that spiritual sense could actually be used as a method of attack.
In the current Dharma-ending Age, even spiritual energy attacks were very monotonous. Except for exceptionally talented battle maniacs like Gu Beilin, under normal circumstances, whoever had more talismans and stronger magical artifacts would be the final victor.
Cultivation methods regarding spiritual sense attacks were practically a fantasy.

Xie Xuanxing blinked his big eyes, full of curiosity: “If spiritual sense is to exert an attacking effect, wouldn’t one first need to materialize it, and then make it leave the mind and brow? How is that done? How deep and vast must one’s spiritual sense be…”

Gu Siyuan nodded in agreement. His little lackey’s thinking was extremely sharp and clever.
He reached out and pinched the person’s soft cheek: “You know that nowadays, when cultivators manipulate magical artifacts, they all refine them with their own essence blood upon the artifact’s completion to deepen their mutual connection, and then control them with weak spiritual sense. But during the flourishing period of metaphysics…”

Speaking of this, Xie Xuanxing remembered.
He immediately said cheerfully: “It’s said that as long as one brands a spiritual sense mark onto a magical artifact, they can use their spiritual sense to leave the body and control it during battle. With this method, the magical artifact is even more responsive, like an extension of one’s own arm. Moreover, if one acquires someone else’s magical artifact, they only need to use their stronger spiritual sense to erase the mark, and they can claim it as their own.”

Gu Siyuan nodded: “Exactly so.”

“If put that way, once spiritual sense is profound to a certain degree, using it to attack isn’t impossible either.” Xie Xuanxing blinked, puffed out his cheeks, and expressed a slight doubt: “However, spiritual sense is connected to a cultivator’s soul and mind. The cultivation process must be incredibly perilous and exceptionally painful. Are there still such cultivation methods left in the world today?”

Gu Siyuan narrowed his eyes, staring intently at this seemingly tranquil lake: “The world gives birth to all sorts of things, each unique. What if there is a type of monster that is naturally gifted at spiritual sense attacks from birth?”

Hearing this, Xie Xuanxing immediately furrowed his brows and glared at the man angrily: “You sensed it in the lake just now? You can’t do that next time! What if you ended up like those two branch colleagues…”

My little lackey knows how to lecture me now.
Gu Siyuan reached out, pulled the person into his arms, and gently bumped his forehead against his: “I have a plan in mind. Be good.”

“Oh…” Xie Xuanxing replied, helplessly drawing out his voice.
Then, he reached back and hugged his boyfriend’s waist too.
Tsk, it’s a waste not to hug him.

Right at this moment, the calm surface of the lake rippled with whirlpool-like circles.

Following that, a crisp “Hehe” laughter rang out, and from the center of the whirlpool ripples, a slender figure slowly emerged.
Gu Siyuan narrowed his eyes and looked over. This figure had long, seaweed-like green hair and green eyes. If one ignored the patches of fish scales on his face and the broad flippers, his appearance and physique were actually quite similar to a normal human’s.

Xie Xuanxing also turned his head following his boyfriend’s gaze. However, the moment his eyes met the Green Fishman’s green eyes, he felt his head spin dizzily, almost wanting to pass out directly.

Gu Siyuan’s expression turned icy cold, and he immediately pulled the person behind his back.
The Green Fishman’s visual attack was basically ineffective against him.

The Green Fishman’s laughter grew louder: “Boy, you do have some skills. Why not come be my servant? I might just spare your life.”

Gu Siyuan narrowed his eyes: “All things have spirits, and cultivation is not easy. If you abandon evil and turn to good from now on—as Heaven cares for every living thing—I might just spare your life!”

The Green Fishman’s expression instantly changed, his green eyes even flashing yellow slightly out of anger: “Since you insist on courting death, then I will grant your wish! I will definitely make you learn the consequences of rejecting me, just like those people who came in to throw their lives away before.”

Gu Siyuan smiled coldly: “I’ve heard these kinds of words many times, but everyone who said them to me has ended up falling into the dust forever. In the Dharma-ending Age, cultivation is not easy. Do you also wish to follow in their footsteps?”

“Shameless boasting.” The Green Fishman’s temper seemed quite brutal.

In the next moment, a contemptuous smile appeared on his face. His hands, which were broader than a human’s, formed a series of hand seals as smoothly as flowing water and drifting clouds, while his mouth also chanted a few incantations.

The moment his hand seals were initiated, Gu Siyuan felt a massive surge of spiritual sense erupting forth and shooting towards him.
However, perhaps because the Green Fishman’s spiritual sense or cultivation was limited, even though the hand seals and incantations were finished, the speed at which the spiritual sense attack left his body and traveled toward them wasn’t very fast.

Seeing a true spiritual sense attack for the first time, Xie Xuanxing was deeply shocked and extremely worried. He subconsciously tried to block in front of Gu Siyuan.
But the moment he moved, he noticed that Gu Siyuan had narrowed his eyes and was actually mimicking the Green Fishman’s seal-forming movements, his mouth repeating the exact incantation from just now.

Though his movements looked slightly stiff, as if he was very unfamiliar with them, the speed at which he chained them together was even faster.

Thus, when the Green Fishman refocused his attention, he saw that in front of his successfully condensed Spiritual Sense Flying Needles, several nearly identical Spiritual Sense Flying Needles had risen, perfectly and successfully blocking every single one of his attacks.

“You… who are you?! You also know my race’s spiritual sense attacks?!” the Green Fishman exclaimed in shock.

Gu Siyuan ignored him.
Instead, his arms moved rapidly again, forming the hand seals from just now once more. In the next moment, the Green Fishman saw a sharp, piercing Spiritual Sense Drill swiftly shooting towards him, who knows how many times stronger than the previous Spiritual Sense Flying Needles.

“As expected, the guess was right. The shape can be arbitrarily constructed using one’s own spiritual sense.”
Gu Siyuan nodded, acting as if he had just completed some ordinary little experiment.

If the occasion hadn’t been inappropriate, Xie Xuanxing only wanted to jump onto his boyfriend and hug him tightly, giving him a few fierce kisses.
There is no one else like this in the world.
Thinking this, he glared viciously at the Green Fishman. Annoying guy, interrupting my good moments.

At this moment, the Green Fishman’s heart was already shocked to the extreme, but his hands allowed for no hesitation. He was instantly forced to form hand seals as well.
These hand seals were slightly different from before and much more complex.

Thus, a long moment later, what appeared in front of the Green Fishman was a Spiritual Sense Shield.
The Green Fishman looked up with lingering fear. Fortunately, he managed to form it before the Spiritual Sense Drill arrived. Spiritual sense defense was much more difficult than offense and required even more spiritual sense power.

However, he soon realized that the Spiritual Sense Drill wasn’t in front of the shield at all; it had stopped directly between his eyebrows. In other words, this Spiritual Sense Drill had arrived long ago, but it just hadn’t killed him.
What did this person want to do?!

Gu Siyuan raised an eyebrow. Looking closely, one could notice a slight upward curve at the corner of his eye, showing he was in a good mood.
He said faintly: “So the defensive one is formed like this.”

As soon as his voice fell, Gu Siyuan once again formed seals and chanted the incantation. Soon, without a doubt, a massive shield also rose in front of him. Due to his overly formidable spiritual sense, the shield he condensed was much wider and larger than the Green Fishman’s on the lake, like the difference between a door and a hand mirror.

“You… you… just who are you?!” The Green Fishman’s posture standing on the lake surface began to tremble and become unsteady. He looked at Gu Siyuan as if he were seeing the most terrifying existence in the human world.

Meanwhile, hiding beneath the lake’s surface and secretly observing, the Han Family Dark Division Elder was terrified to the absolute extreme.
That Green Fishman stayed in the water all day and didn’t have much of a brain.
But he could see that Gu Siyuan’s spiritual sense attack methods were clearly learned just moments ago by mimicking the Green Fishman.

Spiritual sense cultivation methods weren’t actually difficult; the most crucial requirement was having a powerful spiritual sense. Spiritual sense governed thought and the soul. Once it was powerful, naturally, one would learn everything quickly.
So someone like him, whose spiritual sense wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t qualified to learn it at all and could never cross the threshold. And those who were qualified to learn it could basically master it very quickly—everything complemented each other.

But this so-called “not difficult” and “quick” was only relative. It would still take at least ten days to half a month!
It absolutely did not mean learning it just by looking at it once like this! Just one glance, and he could execute it without hesitation, without a single error, and even several times stronger than the Green Fishman who possessed the racial talent!

This was too inconceivable…
The sure-kill trap laid out by the Old Ancestor and the Eldest Young Master had actually been broken in such a simple manner!

The Han Family Dark Division Elder sighed deeply. The Han family might have provoked someone they shouldn’t have provoked.

Right at this moment, an icy voice rang by his ear: “Obediently roll out here. Hmph, you’ve already witnessed my spiritual sense attacks.”

The Han Family Dark Division Elder’s face stiffened. In the next moment, his figure slowly appeared on the water’s surface.

The moment he emerged from the water, a sharp Spiritual Sense Drill stopped flawlessly in front of his brow.
Gu Siyuan glared at him coldly: “Speak. Which family’s people dare to scheme against me?”

Controlled by others. To be meat on the chopping block while others are the knife.
The Han Family Dark Division Elder sighed. Just as Gu Siyuan had said earlier, cultivation was not easy. He had endured so much hardship, how could he give up lightly?

He opened his mouth, preparing to speak the truth.
In the next moment, a sudden boom echoed in his mind. His entire person fell straight backwards uncontrollably. With a splash, water sprayed everywhere on the tranquil lake.

This commotion startled even the Green Fishman beside him.
He stared blankly at the corpse bobbing in the lake: “This is a Spiritual Sense Knot… A Spiritual Sense Knot was planted on him!”

As he spoke those words, his head also instantly throbbed with intense pain, and his body fell heavily into the water, sinking downward.

Gu Siyuan immediately reached out, grabbed Xie Xuanxing, and said faintly: “We’re going down too. There’s something below.”

The two took off their outer coats and leaped into the water.
The lake water in late autumn was incredibly freezing.

The moment Xie Xuanxing touched it, he uncontrollably shuddered all over.
Right at this moment, a solid body pressed against him from behind. Although they were clearly still in the freezing lake water, Xie Xuanxing instantly felt his body and mind warm up.

The two sped up their movements and soon followed the Green Fishman’s figure into a stone cave at the bottom of the lake.
Behind the stone cave was a whole other world.

However, by the time they tracked him to the innermost part, the Green Fishman had already collapsed completely on the ground, lifeless, sharing the same fate as that middle-aged man earlier.

In the very center of the stone cave was a massive array.
Beside the array stood three stone pillars. Tied to one of them was a slender human figure.

Gu Siyuan said faintly: “It’s Huo Yan.”
That missing branch colleague.

After searching around the cave, gathering general information, and memorizing the array, the two brought the unconscious Huo Yan and swam out to the lake’s surface.

On the shore, Branch Director Chen and his people were waiting anxiously.
He had watched the footage from the probe earlier and knew Gu Siyuan had completely gained the upper hand, but he didn’t know why he suddenly jumped into the water. In a panic, he had directly brought people in.
Fortunately, the mist in the villa had also coincidentally begun to slowly dissipate.

Seeing the three of them surface, Director Chen’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise immediately: “This is great… this is wonderful!”

Huo Yan’s spiritual sense hadn’t been harmed; the Green Fishman had captured him probably for another purpose.
The moment he touched the ground, he woke up directly.

Opening his eyes and seeing the cold, handsome face in front of him, he froze for a moment: “You… did you save me?”

Director Chen grinned and said: “That’s right! It was Mr. Gu from the General Bureau who saved you.”

Gu Siyuan nodded indifferently.

For some reason, looking at this person’s icy demeanor, Huo Yan suddenly became even more dazed, and his face even flushed slightly red.
Gu Siyuan found it inexplicable and stood up without paying it much mind.

Xie Xuanxing narrowed his eyes and cast a sidelong glance at the person beside him. Because his thin inner shirt was thoroughly soaked, it clung tightly to his beautifully muscled body, outlining intoxicatingly undulating curves.
His black hair, un-styled for many days due to his busy schedule, was casually pushed back into a slicked-back style, revealing his deep and sharp facial features, exuding an inexplicable aura of refined elegance mixed with a hint of roguishness.

No wonder he’s so good at seducing people…

Gu Siyuan naturally felt his little lackey’s intense gaze: “What’s wrong?”

Xie Xuanxing hooked up a shallow smile, walked over, stood on his tiptoes, threw his arms around the man’s neck, and planted a fierce kiss on his cheek, sighing: “Ah, satisfying. I really wanted to do this when we were in the water. You are still so handsome today.”

Gu Siyuan grabbed the person’s slender waist, staring at him with an unkind look in his eyes.

Xie Xuanxing peeked at him: “You’re not satisfied?”

Gu Siyuan raised an eyebrow, slightly lowered his head, pressed against his ear, and said in a low, deep voice: “Then why didn’t you kiss me just now? I heard doing it in the water is even better. There’s no time like the present.”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.
You… how can you be like this?
Are kissing and ‘doing it’ the same thing?!
Hmph, if that innocent young guy knew you acted like this, he definitely wouldn’t have blushed just now!

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