Chapter 850: Stolen Words
Finally!
He'd finally caught a slip-up!
Mo Hua was elated inside, but outwardly remained calm and expressionless. He simply asked with a stern face,
"What altar?"
"The altar for offering tribute to the Divine Lord…"
"Where is it?"
"It's…" Mister Wu hesitated.
Mo Hua kindly reminded him,
"Magistrate Xiao has a bad temper. If you don't talk, he's going to open you up—literally."
Mister Wu panicked and quickly said,
"In the inner hall of the Dragon King Temple!"
Mo Hua's eyes flickered slightly, then he suddenly shook his head:
"Something's not right. You're giving up the altar's location way too easily. Not even a single condition? There's definitely something fishy here…"
Mister Wu smiled bitterly,
"You all hold the blades. I'm just meat on the chopping board—what right do I have to make demands? If you all can spare my life, that's enough. If I die, I can no longer sacrifice myself in loyalty to the Divine Lord…"
Even with death staring him down, this Mister Wu was still thinking about his so-called "Divine Lord."
He must have been brainwashed beyond help.
Mo Hua shook his head.
Magistrate Xiao, silent until now, finally spoke. He had no interest in wasting more time. He pointed his longsword at Mister Wu's throat, eyes narrowing with a gleam of killing intent, and said coldly:
"You'll lead the way to the altar and hand over the fishbone token. Do that, and I won't kill you."
Faced with the sword, Mister Wu trembled and said,
"Yes, yes, I'll lead you there right away…"
Mo Hua was dying to visit the altar—he'd been thinking about it day and night.
But with so many people watching, he had to at least pretend to hesitate. So he put on a worried expression and said,
"This might be a trap…"
Magistrate Xiao shook his head.
"It doesn't matter."
Mo Hua added,
"This Mister Wu may not have good intentions. That altar might not be a good place either…"
Magistrate Xiao replied,
"We've got plenty of people here, and four Core Formation cultivators. In this Dragon King Temple, there's nothing to fear. As for Mister Wu…"
"The moment anything suspicious happens, I'll make sure he dies first."
Mister Wu's face twitched, but he dared not argue.
He was only at the Foundation Establishment realm. Unless he transformed into that monstrous, dragon-scaled creature that was impervious to weapons and flames, he wasn't even remotely a match for Magistrate Xiao.
Mo Hua sighed, acting "reluctant," and said,
"If that's how it is, I'll follow Magistrate Xiao and check out the altar."
Magistrate Xiao nodded, pointing his sword at Mister Wu.
"Please lead the way."
Mister Wu looked gloomy, but had no choice. He was beneath the eaves now—there was no avoiding the rain.
"Everyone, follow me…"
Mister Wu glanced nervously at the corpses of the temple guards all over the floor. He bowed low in shame and then turned to walk toward the Yaksha Hall.
Inside the Yaksha Hall, on both sides of the walkway stood statues—humanoid, four-limbed creatures covered in scales, with blue faces and sharp fangs. Fierce, grotesque Yakshas.
Mo Hua looked at them, secretly suspicious.
These Yaksha statues looked eerily similar to the monster Mister Wu had transformed into.
But Mister Wu didn't even glance at the statues. He kept walking.
They passed through several more halls after the Yaksha Hall, eventually arriving at the central hall of the Dragon King Temple.
But as soon as they stepped into it, the entire group's expressions changed.
The place was drenched in blood.
Everywhere the eye could see—pavilions and halls, walkways and roofs—were either destroyed or collapsed. What remained were ruined walls and broken beams. The entire area was desolate and devastated.
The floor was soaked in filthy blood.
Blackened, foul-smelling blood—yet it pulsed with an ominous energy.
Mo Hua thought for a moment, then pulled out a refined iron rod and dipped it into the blood. When he lifted it out, the iron had already been corroded—the metal soft and eaten through, its core black-red and rotted.
Mo Hua turned to Mister Wu and asked:
"This blood—is it for drawing evil arrays?"
Mister Wu's heart pounded, but he forced a confused, panicked look.
"Young master, evil arrays? I don't know anything about that…"
"Aren't you an array master?" Mo Hua pressed.
"Well, yes, I am an array master… but I really don't know anything about this blood…"
"Then what happened to this hall? Why is it destroyed?"
"That…" Mister Wu hesitated.
Mo Hua's tone cooled.
"You can claim ignorance for the people you murdered and ate outside. But these collapsed temple buildings—this clearly wasn't the work of a day or two. As the one in charge of the Dragon King Temple, don't tell me you don't know anything about this either?"
Mister Wu's face twitched. He said:
"By order of the Divine Lord, the Dragon King Temple was to undergo reconstruction. That's why these buildings were taken down for rebuilding. But then…"
"…before any work could start, everything went wrong. The temple guards died. I don't even know how I turned into that… And as for this blood everywhere—I truly don't know where it came from…"
Mo Hua frowned and stayed silent.
Magistrate Xiao swept the area with a cold glance and said:
"Enough. Talking won't change anything. Let's move. Find the altar, get the fishbone token, and get out of this cursed place."
Mo Hua nodded and said no more.
Mister Wu also behaved, leading the group onward.
But the blood was too foul and corrosive—unsuitable for cultivators to touch. They had to carefully step over rubble and debris to avoid it, which took extra time.
Battered and stumbling, they eventually passed through the ruined central hall and crossed the fields of blood.
Ahead stood a great door.
At least five or six people tall, it was topped with temple eaves, wide and massive. Intricate murals were carved upon it. Where the two doors met, a grotesque stone ram's head served as a lock.
Its mouth gaped wide in a ferocious snarl, clamping the doors shut with terrifying might.
This door separated the central and inner halls.
It was also the gateway to the altar.
Mo Hua gazed at the familiar, terrifying ram's head. A strange closeness stirred within him. He could faintly sense it—the tempting, irresistible aura that lay behind the gate.
His heart began to pound.
Forget pretending.
He turned to Mister Wu and asked directly:
"How do we open the door?"
Mister Wu replied:
"It's… not easy…"
"Spare me the crap," Mo Hua said sternly.
"Alright, alright…"
Mister Wu kept nodding, but inside, he was baffled.
Why was this brat so cautious earlier, but suddenly eager now?
This kid was way too sharp.
He nitpicked over the smallest details.
And his eyes—sometimes as clear as spring water, other times as deep as an abyss—made it deeply uncomfortable whenever they stared at you.
Mister Wu didn't dare lie and said:
"This gate takes time to open… Normally, preparations would begin a full day before the sacrificial ceremony. We'd set up offerings, light incense to inform the Divine Lord, and seek His permission. Once approved, the gate would open…"
Mo Hua frowned.
"Be clearer."
"Yes, yes," Mister Wu said.
"Simply put: Offer sacrifices. Use a human sacrifice. Then wait a full day. If the Divine Lord approves, the gate opens on its own."
"Why does it take a whole day?" Mo Hua asked.
Mister Wu forced a smile.
"It's… it's the Divine Lord's rules. Opening this door takes a full day. As for why… I'm just a servant—I wouldn't know…"
Mo Hua frowned slightly but didn't argue.
"Then open the door now."
Mister Wu hesitated.
"To open it… I need a human sacrifice…"
"What kind of human sacrifice?"
"It has to be a living person—offered as the 'sacrifice.' Only then can the door be opened…"
Mo Hua's expression was icy.
"Don't give me all that superstitious crap. I just want the door open—figure the rest out yourself."
"Whatever kind of sacrifice it is—human, dog, whatever—you deal with it. And if you can't find one…"
"Then slit your own throat and offer yourself."
Mister Wu gave a bitter smile, but his heart was burning with fury.
This brat was infuriating!
Sooner or later, the Divine Lord would punish him—and his bones wouldn't even be left to bury!
But Mo Hua wasn't one to coddle people like Mister Wu.
He'd dealt with too many shady so-called "masters" and spiritual frauds before—people who acted neither human nor ghost.
He knew exactly how they operated.
If you didn't pressure them, you'd never find out what tricks they had up their sleeves.
"Open it. Now. No games—unless you'd like me to spill your guts," Mo Hua threatened coldly.
At his side, Magistrate Xiao also placed a hand on his longsword, eyes sharp and deadly.
Mister Wu sighed and dared not stall any longer. He walked over to a statue beside the gate, triggered a mechanism, and retrieved three ornate boxes from the statue's belly.
Runes were carved into the boxes. Mo Hua took one glance and immediately recognized them—ice-type formation marks, likely meant for preservation.
Mister Wu opened the boxes.
Inside were three still-beating hearts.
No one could tell if they were human or demonic, or how long they had been stored. But their color was still fresh, and they quivered slightly even as they were lifted from the box.
Mister Wu placed the three hearts into the mouth of the ram-carving embedded in the door.
In an instant, sharp fangs extended from the ram's mouth and bit down on the hearts.
Fresh blood seeped out, drawn along the fangs and sucked into the ram's gaping maw. The blood then trickled into the grooves around the sculpture, activating the eerie rune patterns etched into the door frame.
However, the process was painfully slow.
"Once the blood channels are filled, the door will open," Mister Wu said.
Mo Hua saw that the door was indeed slowly responding and nodded, choosing not to press him further for now.
Since the gate took a full day to open, the group could only wait it out.
Some were injured and needed to rest and recover.
The real issue, though, was that this "group" wasn't truly united. On the surface, things seemed calm, but underneath, mistrust and suspicion ran deep.
So, when it came time to rest, everyone knowingly spread out—each person picking a spot among the rubble in front of the ram-horn gate. They meditated separately, alert and watchful.
Mister Wu was left all alone.
Xie Liu, Water Yama, and Magistrate Xiao grouped together.
Xiao Tianquan, after some silent brooding, also stayed with Magistrate Xiao for now.
Naturally, Mo Hua remained with Gu Changhuai and Magistrate Xia.
As for Ouyang Feng and Hua Qianqian, Mo Hua pulled them closer too, having them sit near Magistrate Xia to meditate and recover.
Magistrate Xiao noticed this, but didn't intervene. He simply gave Mo Hua a look and warned:
"That brat from the Tai'a Sect is afflicted with my Water Prison Qi. That girl from Hundred Flowers Valley—her poison is from Yin Water. In this Dragon King Temple, only I can remove the Water Prison Qi, and only I can detoxify the Yin Water Poison…"
The meaning was clear:
Don't get any ideas.
Ouyang Feng and Hua Qianqian were still his hostages.
Mo Hua found it annoying, but just lazily waved his hand and said:
"Yeah, yeah, got it. Don't worry, Magistrate Xiao—I'm not planning a jailbreak."
Magistrate Xiao said nothing more. His face remained unreadable as he turned and walked away.
Afterward, Mo Hua found a clean patch of ground and had everyone settle down to rest.
Surrounded by fallen walls and ruined beams, it was at least somewhat safe. From there, they could see the ram-horn gate and monitor the progress of the blood grooves to estimate how much time was left.
Gu Changhuai and Magistrate Xia sat on the ground, keeping watch on Magistrate Xiao's group.
Ouyang Feng and Hua Qianqian, under their protection, began meditating—one to heal, the other to suppress the poison.
Mo Hua sat for a while but soon felt the ground was getting cold.
The Dragon King Temple was in the middle of the Smokewater River, saturated with damp air and a deep, bone-chilling chill.
During battle and travel, the cold hadn't bothered him. But now that they were still, sitting motionless, he felt the icy dampness creeping into his bones.
So he pulled out a warm, fluffy blanket from his storage ring and wrapped himself up.
Then he glanced over at Gu Changhuai and the others, thought for a moment, and took out a few more blankets—handing one to each person.
He was used to traveling light and sleeping rough, and fuzzy blankets were essential gear in his storage ring.
It was a habit formed back when he'd traveled the world with his master, little senior brother, and senior sister.
Everyone was surprised, but no one refused. They thanked Mo Hua, wrapped themselves in the blankets, and immediately felt the warmth spreading through them—grateful for Mo Hua's care and attentiveness.
After that, everyone grew quiet, meditating in silence.
The surroundings settled into stillness.
Mo Hua, wrapped in his blanket, took advantage of the lull to quietly think through everything that had happened at the Dragon King Temple.
There were things others didn't care about—but he couldn't ignore them.
Because he had personally seen the dangers of divine will and spiritual sense. He'd witnessed the horrors of evil gods and monsters. Others had not. They couldn't understand.
At a glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary with this Dragon King Temple…
But the deeper he thought, the more wrong everything felt.
"Is the altar really behind that gate?"
"Could there be more danger inside?"
"What really happened to Mister Wu? Is he hiding something darker?"
"Where's the dragon blood?"
"And all these ruins… were they really from reconstruction? Or something else?"
"…"
Mo Hua quietly went over all the details of their journey, step by step, reviewing everything in his mind and verifying his deductions.
Just as he was deep in thought, he suddenly froze, sensing something unusual.
…A formation's aura?
Someone… was secretly setting up a formation?
Who?
Who had the audacity to set up a formation right under his nose?!
Mo Hua subtly turned his head, using the dim light inside the Dragon King Temple to covertly observe—and discovered that the one setting up the formation…
Was Magistrate Xiao!
Mo Hua's heart skipped a beat, but after a quick analysis, he relaxed slightly.
"It's just a Sound-Isolation Array. Not a trap, killing, or demonic array…"
Clearly, they wanted to talk privately—afraid of being overheard.
Mo Hua let his guard down.
He resumed his previous train of thought, continuing to reflect… but then suddenly stopped again.
"Private talk?"
Mo Hua's eyes lit up with curiosity.
Someone was using a Sound-Isolation Array right in front of him to share secrets—and he was just supposed to let that go?
Absolutely not.
He thought for a moment, then sneakily pulled out two more blankets, bundled them around his head like he was resting, and quietly slipped out from beneath them using a stealth technique.
On the side, Magistrate Xia saw Mo Hua slither away and opened his mouth in silent shock.
Gu Changhuai, however, was completely unfazed—in fact, he even tucked the blanket more snugly around "Blanket Mo Hua" to complete the illusion.
Mo Hua, cloaked in invisibility, crept toward Magistrate Xiao and stopped several meters away—cautious not to get too close, since the other was a Golden Core cultivator.
He found a corner of a crumbled wall, crouched down, and peeked out.
Inside the boundary of the Sound-Isolation Array, Magistrate Xiao was speaking with Water Yama. Both had serious expressions and hushed tones, clearly discussing something sensitive.
"Something confidential…"
Mo Hua's ears perked up. After pondering for a moment, he gently released his spiritual sense and began to probe the structure of the sound array on the ground.
It was a second-rank array.
Only second-rank formations could be used in this region, and since it was second-rank… well, that made things simpler.
Mo Hua made a quick deduction and calculated the internal flow intervals of the array—what he called its "vulnerability."
Then he took out a fine silver needle, delicately engraved with a Sound-Snatching Array, and flicked it with a finger toward the weak point.
The needle was light and nearly silent.
And since the Sound-Isolation Array blocked sound both ways, Magistrate Xiao had no idea it had been breached.
Naturally, he'd never imagine someone could eavesdrop on him this way.
With the silver needle in place, Mo Hua drew out a silk thread, looped it around his ear—and sure enough, in moments, sound came through.
It was faint at first, choppy and unclear, but soon grew sharper:
"All you do is screw things up…"
"…I already saved your sorry hide once before, and you're still this useless…"
"…If it weren't for that item, I wouldn't care whether you lived or died."
Mo Hua's eyes widened in surprise.
"Open… that item?"
What item?
After a moment's thought, Mo Hua's heart lurched in realization—
"Don't tell me… he's talking about opening the Water Prison Lockbox?!"
This smiling tiger wanted to use Water Yama to open the lockbox?
Now Mo Hua was truly unsettled.
He forced himself to stay calm and kept listening.
"Big Brother… it's not that I'm incompetent. It's just… things kept going wrong, like someone had everything planned out in advance…"
Water Yama spoke with deep frustration.
"Enough with the excuses," Magistrate Xiao replied coldly.
Water Yama shut his mouth, not daring to argue.
Then Magistrate Xiao turned his head to stare at him and asked:
"Where is it?"
Water Yama's face turned ghostly pale.
Seeing this reaction, Magistrate Xiao frowned. After a moment of silence, his pupils contracted—he suddenly widened his eyes, his voice dropping to a menacing chill:
"Don't tell me… you lost it."
"I didn't lose it!" Water Yama answered with a trembling voice. "It's just… it's not in my possession right now."
Magistrate Xiao's eyes glinted with killing intent—he was so angry he actually laughed:
"Bravo. Impressive. You've 'misplaced' the most important thing. Didn't I tell you? Your life is expendable, but that box—that must not be touched!"
Water Yama clenched his teeth and said:
"Please forgive me, Big Brother. It was my negligence. I was tricked by a despicable brat—he stole it from me. But I swear, I'm trying my best to get it back. I won't let you down!"
Magistrate Xiao's brows furrowed.
"Who has the box now?"
"…It's… it's with that brat named Mo Hua," Water Yama whispered.
Mo Hua, who was eavesdropping nearby, instinctively ducked his head lower.
Meanwhile, Magistrate Xiao appeared stunned, as if he hadn't heard right.
"Who?"
"…Mo Hua…" Water Yama repeated more quietly.
"Which Mo Hua?"
"…The same one who was just talking to you earlier, the one we made a plan with to capture Mister Wu…"
Magistrate Xiao's jaw hung slightly open. His expression was… incredibly complex.
The one who stole the Water Prison Lockbox—
—was the kid he originally tried to kidnap but failed to catch…
—who then traveled with him all this way…
—made plans with him…
—and even worked together to capture Mister Wu…
That same brat?!
This brat stole his most prized treasure—then spent the whole day casually hanging around in front of him like nothing ever happened.
And he hadn't noticed a damn thing.
At that moment, Magistrate Xiao honestly felt… Like strangling Water Yama with his bare hands.
(End of this Chapter)