Ning Ning propped her chin up with her hand, glancing at the gradually darkening sky. “He Zhizhou didn’t want me to tell you, but with your injuries, it’s impossible for you to come and compete with us for the Heaven River Stone. He’s always overthinking.”

She yawned while looking somewhat tired, then asked him in a drowsy manner, “Rong Ci, where are the people from Niguang Island stationed? You all seem so secretive.”

That’s right; he wouldn’t act.

The crimson-clad young man suppressed a silent smile, still maintaining the appearance of extreme gentleness and vulnerability. However, there was a subtle and almost imperceptible trace of ruthlessness in his eyes.

He wouldn’t take action.

But the other members of Niguang Island, who had maintained communication with him, might not be as obedient.

=====

Yulan Slope.

Niguang Island had only a few disciples in the Xiaochongshan, and they had mobilized almost everyone to intercept the Heaven River Stone.

The Yulan Slope was especially quiet and eerie after dark. Wild grass and overgrown orchids seemed to sway like pale white bones in the wind. The shadows of trees blocked out the moonlight, creating an inky darkness.

With midnight approaching, everyone’s nerves were on edge. In the midst of complete silence, a series of crisp footsteps suddenly rang out.

The leader in green exchanged glances with the others, and a surge of spiritual energy beside him turned into a powerful, invisible force rushing directly towards the approaching figure.

The person let out a furious roar, but what took them by surprise was that the voice didn’t belong to a young girl but rather to a rugged young man.

The leader in green inwardly thought things were not going well and suppressed the killing intent. They raised their heads and looked ahead.

In the gradually brightening moonlight, they finally saw the newcomer’s appearance.

It wasn’t Ning Ning, and it certainly wasn’t He Zhizhou. The enraged man with a burly build and thick eyebrows turned out to be… Zou Wu of the Haoran Sect!

=====

To understand the true sequence of events, we need to go back to this afternoon.

When Rong Ci finished applying the medicine, he fell asleep.

“I have to ask, Ning Ning, did you really leave that bewitching cultivator here?”

He Zhizhou, holding the Golden Jade Furnace, communicated through voice transmission, “He might be handsome, but we don’t know anything about him. What if he’s a bad person with ill intentions towards the Heaven River Stone?”

Unexpectedly, Ning Ning smiled and said, “Have a little faith, and remove the ‘what if’ from the equation.”

He Zhizhou had eaten the poisonous mushrooms, so his mind was not entirely clear. Hearing her say this out of the blue left him momentarily stunned. “Huh?”

“Have you watched ‘Infernal Affairs’ or ‘The Bourne Supremacy’?”

She flicked the furnace with her hand, producing a crisp sound. Ning Ning’s lips curled upward as she continued, “Xu Ye said that Rong Ci is the strongest among the new generation of Niguang Island disciples. His status and connections within the sect are naturally high. Niguang Island sent a group, but after Rong Ci was injured, he didn’t seek help from the sect. Instead, he staged this ‘chance encounter’ with us.”

“Moreover, the location and timing of this ‘chance encounter’ are so coincidental. It happened exactly when I got the Sky Heart herb and had to go pick the Blazing Sunflower.”

He Zhizhou widened his eyes suddenly. “So he’s a spy?”

“Of course. When I was preparing the Blazing Sunflower for Zou Wu, I sensed someone secretly eavesdropping and monitoring in the shadows. He must have heard the entire story, which allowed him to appear at the Blazing Sunflower grove on time.”

Ning Ning nodded. “Back then, I brought Rong Ci back. When I was fetching medicine for him from the bag, I secretly placed a Blazing Sunflower petal inside. If he had ill intentions, he would surely search for the Sky Heart herb in the bag after we and Zhou Wu left the cave.”

She yawned, “Later, I checked the package, and the Blazing Sunflower had indeed turned a very pale shade of red. If it had remained in the bag, it should have faded to pure white.”

“So, he opened the bag while you were away.”

He Zhizhou couldn’t help but laugh. “Rong Ci would never have imagined that you’d outsmart him like this. Now, not only did he fail to find the Sky Heart herb, but he’s also been completely exposed as an undercover agent.”

“Niguang Island and the Haoran Sect are unfriendly, and they won’t give up easily. Since they consider us lambs to the slaughter, why don’t we…”

She trailed off, raising an eyebrow. “Use their own strategy against them and strip them of their wool.”

He Zhizhou immediately became intrigued. “How do we do that?”

“Haoran Sect excels in combat, but their minds aren’t the sharpest. They are hindered by someone outside the secret realm watching their every move, so they won’t mobilize their forces openly to snatch the treasure. However, engaging in one-on-one fights doesn’t guarantee victory for them either. Therefore, the best approach for them is to wait patiently, bide their time, and look for vulnerabilities.”

Ning Ning placed a small stone neatly on the ground and continued, “Niguang Island excels in strategy. They’ve sent an undercover agent, primarily for the purpose of acquiring the Sky Heart Grass. But if they can’t determine where it’s hidden and then suddenly hear that we’ve discovered another unique treasure’s location—”

Hedging in, He Zhizhou said, “They will definitely shift their focus and go directly to that location for a direct snatch!”

“Exactly. As long as the treasure hasn’t officially become ours, Niguang Island has the right to seize it and can overpower us with more people. To defeat us, they will surely dispatch numerous forces collectively to the location, which is the Yulan Slope.”

Ning Ning picked up another pebble and lightly tapped it against the one on the ground, making a clear sound. “But the treasure isn’t there at all. Instead, they’ll run into the furious Haoran Sect. What do you think will happen then?”

He Zhihou applauded repeatedly and marveled, “Hollywood would be silenced, and Hengdian would weep. What a spectacular show!”

(T/N: Hengdian World Studios (Chinese: 横店影视城; pinyin: Héngdiàn Yǐngshìchéng) is a film studio located in Hengdian, a Chinese town in the city of Dongyang, Zhejiang Province. It is one of the largest film studios in the world.)

So, the trap was gradually being set.

“Rong Ci isn’t a fool. To make him completely believe that we’ve discovered the Heaven River Stone’s location, we must use a bait-and-switch tactic.”

Ning Ning continued, “There’s a technique used in police interrogations where one person plays the good cop and another plays the bad cop. When the time comes, you have to show a strong sense of opposition. As for me, I’ll play the role of the naive girl charmed by looks, an innocent and unpretentious white lotus. This will make him firmly believe the information is genuine due to your objections while also figuring out the approximate location of the so-called ‘Heaven River Stone’ through my seemingly unintelligent actions.”

He Zhizhou couldn’t stop grinning. “And then?”

“Then,” she continued, “we pretend to say, ‘Oh, it’s not that we don’t trust you, but this thing is just too precious, and we can’t trust you to carry it. So you absolutely cannot follow us.’ We’ll make him trust the information to the maximum and immediately report this to Niguang Island.”

She spoke with a tired voice, picked up her water bottle, took a sip, and moistened her lips. “The Heaven River Stone only shines at seven in the evening. Niguang Island certainly won’t expect that they won’t find the Heaven River Stone there, but instead, they’ll run into the disciples of the Haoran Sect.”

“Haoran Sect?”

He Zhizhou was enlightened. “You intend to use the furnace as an excuse to make them go there at seven?”

During the conversation, a gust of wind brushed through the treetops, causing the branches and leaves to rustle.

Sunlight poured down like molten gold, gently falling on the innocent face of the young girl. Ning Ning smiled mysteriously. “Not only do we want to deceive them into going to Yulan Slope, but I can also get a precious-grade spirit plant from Zou Wu.”

Seeing He Zhizhou’s full-face puzzled expression, she adjusted her posture, pursed her lips, and smiled gently. “In fact, from the beginning, I knew that Zou Wu, with his intelligence, would probably see through the truth about the furnace. The furnace is just superficial bait. The real target is Xu Ye.”

He Zhizhou was completely baffled.

Zou Wu would never have imagined that Xu Ye, who apparently sold Ning Ning out to him, was, in fact, a top-notch undercover agent.

Betrayed by the betrayer—who could have expected that?

“No matter if Zou Wu has detected that the furnace is fake or not, as long as Xu Ye can pretend to be indignant and reveal the truth about the deception of the gold furnace, explaining our entire surface plan…”

Ning Ning gestured with her fingers, “Zou Wu might believe him by about sixty percent.”

“Sixty percent? What about the remaining forty percent?”

“To make him go from being half-skeptical to fully believing us, we need a little internal conflict.”

She leaned against a tree, forming a circle with her finger at the tip of her hair. “Once Zou Wu ‘accidentally’ discovers that Xu Ye has a bad relationship with us, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and he’ll subconsciously feel good about him.”

He Zhi Zhou finally figured it out: “So, when you pretended to have a quarrel with Xu Ye over Rong Ci, it was on purpose! That way, you made Rong Ci believe you were biased toward him and let Zou Wu know that Xu Ye isn’t on good terms with us!”

“I had already sensed that Zou Wu had been following us since the Blazing Sunflower grove. So, I sent Xu Ye a message, telling him to make a strong display of disagreement with Rong Ci joining us and, ideally, even have a little fight with me.”

Ning Ning nodded, and her eyes curled with a joyful smile. “Zou Wu will definitely follow Xu Ye’s arrangement. Then he’ll give me a precious-grade spirit plant. After everything is done, we just need to arrange for the two sects to meet in the same place and add a bit of fuel to the fire—The Haoran Sect will believe that Niguang Island is closely associated with us.”

She paused, and her smile deepened. “Besides, Zou Wu has personally witnessed that Rong Ci has a good relationship with us. This infatuated girl can indeed have a quarrel with her friends for him.”

Even Rong Ci would never have imagined that his well-thought-out undercover mission would become leverage for them, making the Haoran Sect believe that Niguang Island had a close connection with Ning Ning and her group.

He Zhizhou just wanted to exclaim: Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

Both sects believed they had the upper hand, with one expecting to strike a good deal and the other thrilled about the priceless treasure they were about to seize. But they could never have guessed that this was all part of a carefully orchestrated plot.

After this battle, the people from Niguang Island and Haoran Sect would undoubtedly suffer significant losses. Their overall strength was not strong to begin with, and with both sides wounded in the fight, they wouldn’t have the power to trouble Ning Ning.

This whole situation can be described as a real-life Mission: Impossible, with elements of espionage, undercover operations, double agents, and sowing discord. It’s absolutely thrilling.

He Knows the Answer praised, “You’re like a modern-day Tom Cruise!”

With a touch of humor, Ningning replied, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m a cop.”

=====

In the evening, at Yulan Slope

The two groups of people faced each other, and the blue-clothed leader who had blasted Zou Wu with spiritual energy earlier had a green face.

Weren’t they the only ones who knew about the Heaven River Stone’s location? What was going on with these Haoran Sect people?

Zou Wu, who had nearly been blown up, had an equally gloomy expression and clenched his fists secretly.

He had heard Xu Ye’s words a while ago, delivered Precious-grade spirit plant to Ning Ning an hour earlier, and received news that she had run away and that she was about to arrive at Yulan Slope.

However, when he arrived, he didn’t see anyone and suddenly received a voice transmission.

It was He Zhizhou’s voice, full of arrogance and pride: “Did Xu Ye tell you all our secrets? Sorry, we really couldn’t find that spirit plant. Fortunately, Niguang Island said that they would help us solve this problem as long as we gave them half of the plant.”

That smelly brat sighed as he spoke, pretending to be disheartened. “Well, half is half; it wasn’t ours to begin with. Brothers, take care!”

Zou Wu was seething with anger.

Meanwhile, the blue-clothed leader on the other side had a look of astonishment.

A voice transmission belonging to He Zhizhou resounded in his ears. He sighed and chuckled with an inexcusably smug tone. “They were trying to place an undercover agent here? We found out long ago. Those fools from the Haoran sect said that they’d help us if we gave them the gold furnace. How stupid they are! We just agreed.”

The Haoran Sect had been used!

The blue-clothed leader clenched his fists, speaking coldly, “That gold furnace is fake. You don’t know that, do you?”

Zou Wu was furious.

These people had known they were being deceived and had even colluded with the members of the Xuanxu Sect to take revenge on them. Now, all of a sudden, they brought up this issue, daring to mock him to his face?

“F***ing hell!” Zou Wu immediately swore and retorted, “I’ve known it all along! The undercover agent placed here already told me!”

The blue-clothed leader was horrified.

He’d known it all along? Not only did he find out about it, but he also colluded with the Xuanxu Sect to annihilate them here! It seemed that this person wasn’t deceived but intended to eliminate them!

“Oh, by the way, when Niguang Island came to take the Heaven River Stone this time, they probably sent out about 80% of their people. Add Rong Ci, who’s still at our place…”

He Zhizhou smirked, “I wonder how many people are left in your base? Oh, wait, Ning Ning will tell me this news herself when she returns.”

Because they were so eager to seize the Heaven River Stone, they had only left one person to guard everyone’s belongings.

The blue-clothed leader almost spat out a mouthful of blood.

He had only recently realized that this was a quiet, unobtrusive subterfuge, but he could never have imagined—

This was still a plan to lure the tiger away from the mountain!

Bastards! This gang of deceivers got fooled by the deceivers themselves!

The blue-clothed leader, unable to contain himself, trembled and blurted out, “Screw you, you son of a b***h!, I’m your uncle gonna beat you.”

Then he met the fierce gaze of the man in front of him.

“You…Are you my uncle??” he asked.

Zou Wu sneered, “I’m just going to kill you directly!”