FIMA Ch73: Methods

The people from the branch bureau standing nearby watched the two act as if there was no one else around. They were slightly startled, then awkwardly turned their heads away.

Chen Ling, watching the two of them, was thoroughly satisfied: “Ahhh, I’m swooning over this pairing again…”

Huo Yan: “…”
Forget it. Blushing and having a pounding heart for a handsome, cold, and ruthless savior is the most normal thing in the world. There’s nothing strange about it. Just forget it, forget it.

As an old-fashioned man, Director Chen truly couldn’t handle this calmly. He coughed lightly and said awkwardly: “Special Envoys, how about we go back to rest and change clothes first? The weather is quite cold, don’t catch a cold…”

“Ew…” The crowd internally despised him for ruining the mood.

However, Xie Xuanxing’s previous actions were purely driven by a flare-up of possessiveness and a burst of reckless courage. Now, being stared at by so many people, he felt a bit embarrassed and immediately took the logical step to agree.

After the group returned, Gu Siyuan took a shower and changed out of his wet clothes. He immediately set to work drawing the array patterns he had memorized in the stone cave.
He took a photo, sent a copy to the General Bureau, and then called Branch Director Chen over to ask about the situation.

“This is the array I saw at the bottom of the lake. I suspect something is wrong with it. I wonder if Director Chen recognizes this array?”

Director Chen hurriedly patted his head: “I don’t know much about arrays, but we have a young man in our branch who happens to come from an array family in Lingnan. I’ll go ask him. Please wait a moment, Special Envoy.”

Gu Siyuan nodded faintly: “Go.”

Not long after he left, Xie Xuanxing finished his shower in the inner room and walked out.
He was wearing a loose white T-shirt and black shorts, exposing two fair, slender legs. His face was steamed slightly pink, and his soft black hair hung casually over his head, making him look several years younger, almost like a student still in school.

Gu Siyuan’s heart softened slightly, and he couldn’t help but issue a cold command: “Come here.”

Xie Xuanxing’s head was still a bit dizzy from the hot water. Hearing this, he opened his large, dark eyes, obediently walked over, and automatically parted his legs to straddle the man’s lap.

Gu Siyuan hugged his moist, soft little lackey into his arms, lowering his head to place several kisses on his face and neck before feeling slightly satisfied.
He gripped the person’s slender waist and said in a low, hoarse voice: “We should have gone in and washed together just now. We agreed on doing it in the water.”

“…”
Xie Xuanxing had just sobered up from his daze, only to hear these wolfish words. He was instantly so ashamed that even his fair toes couldn’t help but curl up.
Is this what a true mensao (outwardly cold, inwardly passionate) is like? Remaining silent normally, but coming out with a blockbuster when they do speak?!
He thought to himself, his face flushing wildly.

Gu Siyuan reached out, pinched his chin, and said in displeasure: “Spacing out? What are you thinking about?”

Xie Xuanxing pouted his lips slightly: “The water…”

Gu Siyuan nodded: “A good idea. As expected of you, still able to think of this during a crucial moment of solving a case.”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.
How did this become my idea? Wasn’t this your idea?!
I only said I wanted a kiss!

Xie Xuanxing looked up indignantly, only to see a faint, almost imperceptible smile playing on the man’s usually icy face. He immediately realized that this person was completely teasing him.

“I knew you were just bullying me! Aowu, I’m going to bite you to death…” Out of shame and annoyance, Xie Xuanxing opened his mouth and pounced on the man.

While securely catching him, Gu Siyuan teased with a straight face: “En, a little lion is good too. Next time in bed, we’ll do roleplay. You can play the little lion.”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.

Smack…
A crisp, ear-catching sound of a file dropping to the floor rang out at the door.

The fifty-something Director Chen was staring with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth, wearing an expression of “I can’t bear to watch this.”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.
He heard everything?

Director Chen immediately rambled: “I didn’t hear anything! I didn’t hear ‘in the water’, and I didn’t hear ‘little lion’!”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.

Xie Xuanxing shrank his entire body into Gu Siyuan’s embrace, practically curling himself into a small cat, wishing he could just disappear on the spot.

Gu Siyuan let out a low chuckle.
A moment later, he looked up at Director Chen and said coldly: “Did you ask about the array?”

Director Chen wiped the sweat from his forehead and hastily replied: “Yes, yes, yes! That colleague didn’t recognize it at first either, but later he asked an elder in his family. It is said that this array was invented by an infamous evil cultivator from Lingnan. He used to run rampant in the Lingnan region, which is why some people still know of this array.”

Gu Siyuan nodded: “No wonder the array was set up here. What is the specific function of this array?”

“Body snatching (Possession),” Director Chen’s voice suddenly became drifting and ethereal.

Once only the two of them were left in the room again, Xie Xuanxing bit Gu Siyuan hard, jumped off his lap, and wished he could stand eight feet away from him.

Gu Siyuan cast a glance at him, deciding not to stimulate his little lackey’s fragile ego any further for now.

Gu Siyuan stood up, walked to a nearby cabinet, picked up the conch shell found in the stone cave—which the dead Green Fishman had hidden very carefully—and began to examine it closely.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up slightly.

Gu Siyuan placed it back on the table, moved his hands slightly to form a spiritual sense seal, and slowly guided it into the conch.
Sure enough, in the next moment, a familiar voice transmitted from the previously ordinary-looking conch shell. It was the voice of the now-dead Green Fishman.

“I heard those old fogeys say that I am the only one in the clan to cultivate sentience in all these years. Spiritual energy is so thin nowadays; cultivation is truly not easy…”

“It’s so noisy outside. I heard it’s something called the 30th anniversary of National Day…”
…

Gu Siyuan listened intently. Much of it was just trivial matters.

Until—
“Today, an old human cultivator found me. Hmph, this human old man actually has some skills; his oppressive aura is extremely strong. He said he wants to cooperate with me to jointly create a cultivation world brimming with spiritual energy, provided I guard the grand array here for forty-nine years. I agreed…”
…

“Today is July 14th. I have to go out again to hunt humans born in the Yin hour to sacrifice to the array. Nine people killed every year. Now, thirty years have passed, and two hundred and seventy people have been killed. I still have to continue killing for another nineteen years. When the time comes, will it really allow even Qi Condensation stage cultivators to possess bodies? Humans are so strange. They are clearly of the same race, yet they slaughter each other…”
…

“I thought that old man had long died. After all, if humans don’t reach Foundation Establishment, they can only live a pitiful hundred years. He hadn’t contacted me for over twenty years, and only recently sent someone to find me again. I thought that since the forty-nine-year deadline was approaching, he came to tell me to prepare to activate the grand array. Who knew he actually just wanted me to kill a few humans? So boring. I might as well catch a few people to keep me company and play with me.”

This was the final voice recording left in the conch shell.

Sure enough, proper people don’t keep diaries.

Xie Xuanxing couldn’t bother throwing a tantrum anymore. He sat back on Gu Siyuan’s lap, blinked, and said softly: “Forty-nine years. What a coincidental number. I remember the half-Ghost King at Luojun Mountain earlier. It was said that the Yin Soul Cauldron was also buried about forty-something years ago. Forty-nine malicious ghosts slaughtered each other inside, and the last one remaining would become a Ghost King…”

“And even earlier than that, I heard Brother Luo Chuan say that the time Big Brother got injured at Kunlun Mountain, it was also because he went to a forbidden land that had existed for over forty years…”

Gu Siyuan hugged him, narrowed his eyes, and said: “Which means, forty-nine years ago, a certain person was already laying out a grand scheme for today. According to this Green Fishman’s message, that person’s goal is to pioneer a world brimming with spiritual energy. How does he plan to do it? Changing the spiritual energy layout of the entire world is not an easy feat.”

Xie Xuanxing puffed out his cheeks: “In today’s Dharma-ending Age, cultivators cannot reach Foundation Establishment, meaning their lifespans are only a hundred years. Forty-nine years ago, this person was already an old man. Therefore, even if this person is still alive today, I’m afraid he can’t even walk anymore. Yet he can still stir up so much trouble; it’s absolutely impossible for him to be a lone wolf. There must be a powerful family faction supporting him from behind. I suspect it’s the Han family.”

Gu Siyuan nodded, then gave a cold sneer: “No matter who it is, since we know the purpose of that array in the stone cave, destroying it will definitely pose no problem.”

Right at this moment, Gu Siyuan’s phone rang. It was He Pan calling from the General Bureau, asking if their operation was going smoothly.

Gu Siyuan said faintly: “Just a few cleanup issues left, it’s almost fully dealt with. However, there are some unusual discoveries this time. We will need to study them carefully after returning.”

He Pan was astonished: “It’s almost dealt with? That fast?!”

Gu Siyuan raised an eyebrow and said coldly: “Who do you think I am?”

He Pan sighed: “How about you guys wait a bit longer? Your brother took a flight this morning to go to you. Wait for him and come back together. Otherwise, if he thinks I tricked him and comes back to split my office in half with his blade, that’d be terrible.”

Gu Siyuan was slightly surprised: “He only departed for the Southwest a few hours before me. The matter was resolved that quickly?”

He Pan nodded, laughing helplessly: “Right! I originally thought that so-called demonic blade causing havoc was just a pretext made up by the Luo family to trick your brother into doing errands for them. Who knew there actually was a demonic blade! Your brother, that impatient blade maniac, went straight to the Luo family’s forbidden land as soon as he got off the plane yesterday afternoon, and then got his hands on that troublesome demonic blade!”

“Rumor has it that it really is a good item passed down from ancient times. Given your brother’s temper, now that he has a good blade, how could he rest without fighting someone? So, I couldn’t stop him at all. He bought a ticket to your location first thing in the morning, hoping that you’d preferably have a thorny evil entity there so he could show off his skills. Looking at the time, he should be getting off the plane right about now.”

“…” Gu Siyuan hung up the phone.
His older brother and his family partner were truly a match made in heaven—a madman and a psychopath.

Sitting beside him, Xie Xuanxing chuckled softly: “That’s exactly Big Brother’s style.”

Right at this moment, Xie Xuanxing’s phone also rang.
He looked at the caller ID; it was Luo Chuan. It seemed they really had just gotten off the plane.

“Xingxing, where are you guys right now? Your older brother and I are at the N City airport. We’ll grab a cab and come over right away,” Luo Chuan’s voice transmitted clearly through the phone.

Xie Xuanxing: “I’ll send you the address on WeChat. Have the driver navigate here.”
After thinking for a moment, he reminded them, not knowing whether to laugh or cry: “The matters on our end have mostly been resolved too. Tell Big Brother it’s best not to harbor too much hope.”

“Alright…” Luo Chuan also sighed deeply.
Finding such a battle-crazed man was truly a sweet burden.

Xie Xuanxing hung up the phone and looked at Gu Siyuan: “Big Brother just got off the plane, he’ll be here soon.”

Gu Siyuan said expressionlessly: “Let him come. I happen to need to make some things to destroy that array. When Big Brother gets here, if he has nowhere to vent his energy, he can just hack a few times at that array.”

“…” Xie Xuanxing.
Such brotherly devotion. You’re truly treating Gu Beilin as pure hired muscle.
However… the scary part is, Gu Beilin himself might actually enjoy it?

About an hour later.

Gu Siyuan, carrying an improved version of his weapon, went to the shore of Qinglan Lake at Hongtan Villa again with Xie Xuanxing.

Just as they were about to take off their outer coats and enter the water, Gu Siyuan suddenly felt a strong sense of heart palpitations. He grabbed Xie Xuanxing and rapidly retreated backward, simultaneously throwing a massive handful of talismans toward the lake’s surface.

In the next moment, exactly where they had just been standing, a loud boom erupted, and mud and dirt flew everywhere.
Following closely, the talismans he had just thrown exploded on the lake’s surface as well.

Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing stood firm on the grassy shore, narrowing their eyes as they watched the snow-white water spray fall back into the lake. Shortly after, a figure in grey clothing emerged. It wasn’t modern clothing, but a classical long robe, and he wore a mask on his face.

The masked man in the long robe looked at them, narrowed his eyes, and said in an extremely cold voice: “Quite alert.”

Gu Siyuan glared at him coldly. In the next moment, his fingers moved slightly, forming a spiritual sense attack seal.

The masked man’s eyes widened in brief astonishment, and he immediately moved his hands to form seals as well.

The masked man was clearly much more formidable than the Green Fishman from before. Gu Siyuan’s spiritual sense attack was directly blocked by him at the very last second, canceling each other out into nothingness upon collision.

But right at this moment, Xie Xuanxing threw out a massive handful of talismans.
Anyway, since the Special Control Bureau’s currency printing machine was running every day, they lacked everything except talismans! Even if their spiritual energy couldn’t compare to his, they would smash him to death with sheer volume!

The masked man’s face instantly turned extremely ugly, but he had to urgently dodge to evade. His spiritual energy cultivation was clearly a notch above Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing, actually managing to dodge out of the way in the nick of time.

However, he realized that in this split second, Gu Siyuan’s next wave of spiritual sense attacks had already ridden the momentum and arrived.

Before he could even steady himself, he had to immediately form defensive spiritual sense seals again.

But what made him stamp his feet in frustration was that Xie Xuanxing’s next handful of talismans had also been thrown over.

Two against one, especially a tacitly coordinated two against one, was just this unreasonable.

The masked man steeled his heart, no longer hesitated, and directly ignored the incoming talisman attacks, focusing entirely on forming spiritual sense seals to block Gu Siyuan.
The damage from a spiritual sense attack was much greater than physical damage.

Thus, with a loud bang, at the exact moment he blocked the spiritual sense attack, a huge batch of talismans exploded directly on the water surface around him.

Blocked by a towering curtain of water spray, Gu Siyuan could only see the figure of the grey-robed man sway unsteadily.
He was just about to form another spiritual sense attack seal to beat the drowning dog…

Suddenly, “Rise!” A brutal, soft shout transmitted clearly through the layers of water spray. It wasn’t hard to hear the exasperation and gnashed teeth within it.

Although they didn’t know what the masked man’s shout meant, it was absolutely not a good thing.

Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing exchanged a glance and immediately retreated backward in tacit understanding. However, they found that after taking a few steps, they could no longer move. A semi-circular, transparent light barrier had risen around them.

Xie Xuanxing’s face turned cold and gloomy: “A trapping array was set up in advance.”

Gu Siyuan narrowed his eyes: “This dead old geezer went to quite some trouble to deal with us.”

The water spray fell.
The figure of the masked man appeared in front of them again. His grey robe had been blasted into tatters by the talisman attacks. His posture was slightly hunched, and a trace of bright red blood hung from his chin.
However, the robe on his body was probably some sort of defensive magical artifact. Although he looked wretched, he clearly wasn’t heavily injured.

Looking at the two people inside the trapping array, he sneered coldly: “Hmph, no matter how much you lack martial ethics, being treacherous and cunning, you’ve still fallen into my hands.”

Gu Siyuan ignored these cold and sarcastic words. Instead, he launched another spiritual sense attack, but soon discovered that the spiritual sense seal couldn’t penetrate the light barrier at all.

Xie Xuanxing also tried throwing a few handfuls of talismans. Although the light barrier swayed slightly, it remained perfectly safe and sound shortly after, while the exploding talismans almost injured themselves.

This trapping array was indeed formidable.

Gu Siyuan pulled out a specially made gun. This was the main weapon he had been researching at the Special Control Bureau previously, designed to annihilate cultivator’s spiritual energy and ghost cultivators’ yin energy. (Translator note: “枪” was censored as “木仓” in the raw text).

He fired a shot at the transparent light barrier. The bullet exploded, the light barrier trembled slightly, a faint ripple spread across it, and then it quickly auto-repaired, achieving absolutely nothing.

Seeing this, the masked man immediately let out an even more arrogant burst of loud laughter: “This trapping array can trap even someone at the Peak of the Qi Condensation stage! Do you think that useless, broken gun of yours will work?”

After speaking, a bead-like object appeared in his hand. It was a one-time-use Thunder-Fire Explosive Bead, created by compressing thunder and fire spiritual energy to the extreme to unleash massive destructive power instantly.
With a ferocious look on his face, he said: “Hmph, I will send you two juniors to hell right now!”

Right at this moment, an extremely familiar, sharp shout echoed in mid-air: “Seeking death!”

Following that, a massive, iron-grey, overbearing blade shadow slashed directly toward the top of the masked man’s head.

“It’s you! Why are you here?!” The masked man was greatly shocked and retreated rapidly, no longer able to care about the people in the trapping array.

Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing looked up. On the top of a large tree, Gu Beilin stood dressed entirely in black. His blade’s aura slashed across the sky, completely awe-inspiring and commanding the wind and clouds.

What a show-off.

In the next moment, he slashed another blade at the trapping array’s light barrier. That demonic blade’s aura was extremely evil and bizarre, carrying an aura of deathly silence and withering. The light barrier only held on for a moment before being corroded until it tottered on the verge of collapse.

Xie Xuanxing took the opportunity to supplement it with a handful of talismans. The light barrier instantly shattered into pieces, and the two regained their freedom.

Gu Beilin mocked: “I told you not to properly cultivate spiritual energy for the past few decades. See? Once you meet a true cultivation expert, your scientific methods immediately become helpless.”

After speaking, without looking at them again, he urgently chased after the masked man to fight.

Even before, if not relying on the trapping array, it would have been hard for the masked man to deal with Gu Siyuan and Xie Xuanxing, let alone now with Gu Beilin added to the mix. Naturally, recognizing the situation, he took to his heels and ran.

And right at this moment, on the mountain peak not far away, a helicopter happened to rise into the air, clearly there to extract him.

“…” Gu Beilin.
Gu Beilin immediately sped up to chase. He had finally found an opponent; he couldn’t let him just run away like this!

Just as he was thinking this…
In the next moment, the masked man’s two thighs suddenly exploded with blood blossoms one after the other with two bangs. His entire person directly fell forward onto the ground. He struggled several times but couldn’t get back up no matter what.

The helicopter could only fly away helplessly on its own.

Gu Beilin froze for a second, then turned his head to look back.

His good, big brother Gu Siyuan leisurely blew the smoke off the gun in his hand, stared at him, and said: “This is a scientific method.”

For a high-level cultivator like the masked man, during a head-on confrontation, he could rely on his superior spiritual sense and physical reflexes to rapidly dodge bullets. But when he was injured and being chased to run away like a dog, that was a different story.

“…” Gu Beilin.
Having such an annoying younger brother, should I beat him to death, or should I beat him to death?

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