Repugnant Gateway

Chapter 461 – New Journey After Daybreak

Not long after An Zheng left Sun Zhongping’s room, he sensed that someone was watching him from the shadows. It was not some [Inherent Skill], buabit created by An Zheng’s long time of vigilance. It was a form of prediction of danger, a type of acquired skill that he had learned over the years in the Ming Fa Si. Back in Ming Fa Si, there were many who wanted to kill him. There were only a handful of people that could kill him.

But An Zheng did not have any reaction, and returned to his own residence acting as if nothing had happened.

As they walked, An Zheng kept thinking about the problem with Sun Zhongping. Ever since he had left the Ming Fa Si, he had become the Vice Principal of an important place like the Three Academies. Furthermore, from his conversation with Fang Yu earlier, An Zheng had obtained a piece of news; Although Fang Xing did not say anything, An Zheng did not need him to give a definite answer.

By speculating, An Zheng would be able to find out the truth.

The reason why Sun Zhongping had been transferred to the First Court and become the Vice Principal was to ensure that those so-called bad students would be intimidated by him. However, he did nothing after coming here, which meant that he had no rights at all. Then his transfer was not for the sake of the academy, but for the sake of his transfer. Simply put, Sun Zhongping had to leave the Ming Fa Si.

Why?

Because he didn’t dare.

Now that An Zheng was certain about it, there was a link between Sun Zhongping and his ambush in the State of Yan. He did not dare to stay in the Ming Fa Si because even though the Ming Fa Si was in decline, there were still a lot of people who were loyal to An Zheng. If Sun Zhongping revealed anything in Ming Fa Si, those loyal to An Zheng would tear him into pieces.

An Zheng immediately thought of Prince Chen Zhongqi, only people of that level could casually insert an outsider into the Three Academies, and even Daxi Shenghuang did not object.

After An Zheng returned to the house, he blew out the lamp and sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes and recuperated. At his level of cultivation, even staying awake for a long time wasn’roblem. His perception was extremely sharp, and the sound of falling leaves could not escape his ears. Thus, he was able to easily determine that the person who was secretly monitoring him was not far away from the house.

Who is An Zheng? Judging from the extremely light footsteps, An Zheng knew that this person was real.

Of course, An Zheng didn’t know who it was, but it was really someone An Zheng had interacted with the most in the courtyard. Furthermore, An Zheng had that kind of strength, so he would definitely remember the sound of Fang Zhen’s footsteps. Judging the size of a person’s foot from the sound of footsteps, and judging the size and habits of a person’s footsteps from the distance between the two footsteps. Therefore, An Zheng was sure that he did not hear wrong.

What was he doing outside his room at this hour?

Was it really just out of concern for a new disciple?

Just as An Zheng was thinking about all these, a light sound came from the door.

“Are you asleep?”

An Zheng immediately replied: I was just about to go to sleep.

“You recognized me?”

The door creaked open, and Fang actually walked in. He casually lit up the lamp in the room, as if he was extremely familiar with this room. Then, An Zheng determined that before he had lived in this room, Fang Xing had actually familiarized himself with everything in the house in advance. Therefore, Fang Xing should have changed his original plan. His original plan should have been to sneak in quietly and not knock on the door.

“Sir, is there anything else you need at this time of the night?”

“Oh, no, I just can’t sleep. The others are already asleep again, and I guess you’re awake, so I came over to talk to you. I’m just a little curious about you, Bei Yan, so I don’t have anything important to say. ”

He placed a jug of wine on the table. An Zheng stood up and poured two cups of wine. When he came into contact with the jug of wine, he could tell from the temperature of the jug that the wine was not what Fang was holding all the time and did not match the temperature of the outside.

This further proved that Fang had really changed his mind. Coming in to drink with An Zheng waemporary decision on his part.

He was also interested in the State of Yan.

An Zheng sneered in his heart.

It was just that he did not know what relationship this person had with him being ambushed in the State of Yan. As An Zheng poured the wine, his mind was already working quickly, but he still couldn’t think of any interactions he had with this person before. He was sure that this person knew him from his previous life, but he definitely didn’t know him in his previous life. A person who had never been in contact with anyone before and had such a low status could not possibly be involved in his death.

Therefore, An Zheng was even more curious about what this person was scheming.

However, An Zheng and Fang Zheng had a good conversation. He talked about some of the customs and wars in the State of Yan. Fang Huo was clearly more patient than Sun Zhongping. He listened very seriously, even asking questions from time to time. So it seemed that he was really just curious about the customs of State of Yan.

“Right, what did the Vice Principal talk about with you?”

“It’s nothing much, I just asked you a few similar questions. “Oh …”

An Zheng pretended to suddenly remember something, “The Vice Principal also asked a very strange question. It was about the matter of a prince from the Da Xi Empire going to the State of Yan a few years ago. It’s just that I was still too young at that time, only around the age of ten.

Fang Shishi’s eyes were twinkling. “Why would he ask that?”

An Zheng shrugged his shoulders. “How would I know? He said that when he gets old and plans to travel around the world, State of Yan is also where he wants to go.

Fang Xing lowered his head, concealing the change in his gaze, “Oh, that’s true. I’ve always heard that the Vice Principal wants to take a walk around. It seems like he prefers the desolation and grandeur of the Northern Kingdom to the beauty of the Southern Wilderness. ”

An Zheng laughed and declined to comment.

Fang Ying truly took advantage of this topic to ask An Zheng a few more things about Chen Zhongqi, and then pretended to inadvertently mention the matter of Ming Fa Si’s first Fang Zheng. Then, An Zheng suddenly realised that this was one of the methods used by the Ming Fa Si to investigate this case. Back then, when he was giving lectures to the new members of the Ming Fa Si, he had also taught them about techniques to get the information they wanted through talking.

Very familiar, very routine.

However, these tricks were all An Zheng’s invention and no one was more familiar with them than him. From this point, An Zheng was certain that he really was from Ming Fa Si, so he immediately thought of Ou Yangduo from the Intelligence Division. Ou Yangduo adhered to one principle, and that was that only he himself knew the locations, names and identities of his subordinates, and he would not even tell An Zheng about them.

Therefore, An Zheng had always thought that Ou Yangduo was the most suitable Head of the Intelligence Division.

Fang really did chat for a while, neither too fast nor too slow. After he finished his wine, he took his leave. An Zheng sent him out of his room, and the moment he closed the door, An Zheng took out the yaksha umbrella from his Blood Pearl Bracelet and actually left the room after him. He maintained a certain distance from the group, which was much longer than the distance that An Zheng taught the spies to keep after him.

Fang really did return to his room. After about ten minutes, he came out of the back window and changed into a set of night clothes. He cleverly avoided all of the hidden sentries in the academy, and then flipped over the wall. An Zheng followed him easily and without making a sound.

Twenty minutes later, at the riverside where they were crossing Jinling, An Zheng saw that Fang really did board a small boat, and quickly left the shore.

This was one of Ou Yangduo’s typical tricks. In the middle of the river, the chances of being overheard was practically zero.

An Zheng suddenly felt very gratified, because the people under him had not forgotten him and had not given up on him. Ou Yangduo and Ou Yangduo were different. Sun Zhongping did have guilt in his heart, but Fang Huai and Ou Yangduo really did not give up and continued to search for information regarding An Zheng. Of course, An Zheng knew that the Ming Fa Si had already been thoroughly monitored and lost their authority, they were not allowed any Ming Fa Si people to leave the Da Xi Empire, and the people who had followed Chen Zhongqi to the Buddhist Nation in the Western Regions were the people that Chen Zhongqi wanted to get rid of.

An Zheng did not continue to follow him because he was sure that he did not guess wrong.

When An Zheng returned to the courtyard, he similarly avoided all of the hidden sentries. An Zheng perfectly retraced the steps he had taken previously without missing a step. But when An Zheng returned to his room, he realized that someone had entered his room before.

Nothing was moved, but there was something wrong with the air and there was a faint smell. Everyone had their own smell, some thick and some faint. This kind of resolution of smell was something the people from the Ming Fa Si could use to investigate cases. Furthermore, An Zheng had not left for very long, so the smell had not completely dissipated yet.

An Zheng confirmed as he entered the room.

He did not put down his yaksha umbrella. He went out of the window and went to the toilet several meters away. He put away the yaksha umbrella and pretended to tidy up before coming out of the toilet.

In the shadows, Sun Zhongping secretly heaved a sigh of relief, then turned and left.

After An Zheng entered the room, he once again opened the yaksha umbrella and exited through the window. Then, he quietly followed Sun Zhongping outside, and not long after he entered his own two story wooden building, he came out from the rear window. He skillfully avoided all the hidden sentry posts and left the Three Academies.

An Zheng calculated the time it would take to use the yaksha umbrella, and after confirming that there would be no problems, he continued to follow them. Sun Zhongping was very cunning, he purposely took many detours on the way. This was also a common method used by the people of Ming Fa Si, so An Zheng was naturally familiar with it.

Therefore, An Zheng arrived a few minutes early outside the prince’s mansion, and saw Sun Zhongping hurriedly enter through the back door a few minutes later. The one who opened the door waerson wearing servant’s clothes, he looked to be very familiar with Sun Zhongping. An Zheng laughed, Sun Zhongping was not the only one, the servant was. Borrowing the light from the door, An Zheng clearly saw the servant’s appearance, then turned and left.

He would not rashly enter Chen Zhongqi’s house, there were countless of experts there. Even if An Zheng had the yaksha umbrella and did not have the time to disappear, he still could not enter.

After returning to the first courtyard, An Zheng told himself not to think about anything else, to close his eyes and cultivate.

He needed to adjust his condition, because everything had to go according to plan. Investigating the people who had participated in the assassination attempt on him was just a convenient matter, he would first settle the matter with the State of Yan. He still had to face the examination tomorrow, but An Zheng believed that Fang really had his own ways to let An Zheng enter his class.

Similarly, there were three rankings among the disciples of the academy. Red Ranking, Golden Ranking, Purple Ranking. Only the people on the Purple List had the qualification to meet the Holy Emperor Chen Wunuo, so from tomorrow onwards, An Zheng would have to fight his way to the Purple List. However, An Zheng was well aware that the Three Academies was truly a place where crouching tigers and hidden dragons were gathered, which was far from what the two academies could compare. Although he easily killed the three people from Mu Ziping’s group, those three people hadn’t even entered the Red List. In the Three Academies’s First Court, entering the Red List would require about the strength of a mid-ranked Captive Stage. Mu Ziping was only at the early stage of Captive Stage, so he did not have the qualifications.

An Zheng calculated that the strength of his own Lower Completion Stage should pretty much match up to the experts on the Golden Ranking. Furthermore, those experts were not useless fools. They were all freaks who could crush ordinary cultivators of the same level. Thus, this battle had only just begun. Furthermore, it was full of unknown dangers.