Glad to see you still alive.

Hua Tianshu and Jie Fu Lian reacted together in unison and made a few hand seals. Their movements were identical and in perfect sync.

Before the demon could fully be summoned, the two managed to reverse the effect of the summoning formation.

The hand of the demon started disappearing just as fast as it had started to appear and in that split second when they were about to be transported to the demon realm, Hua Tianshu and Jie Fu Lian changed their hand seals and traced the demon-summoning formation back to its origins.

No matter how easy and effortless the two made it seem, in reality, it was quite tricky and difficult to do something like that.

In fact, such methods were never taught and had to be learned the hard way.

Hua Tianshu and Jie Fu Lian had gone through a lot in the past, so it was only natural that they were aware of such a method and could use it in such a critical moment.

However, Hua Tianshu had a reputation and a lot of experience so it was only natural for him to be this capable, but Jie Fu Lian, was in a much different situation. Almost nobody had ever seen him nor heard about him before this, so it was only natural that his actions shocked a whole lot of people that noticed him.

Out of everyone else, Hua Tianshu was probably the one who was intrigued the most.

His eyebrows creased together and he looked at Jie Fu Lian with a thoughtful expression on his face, almost making it look as if he had something to ask the man, but at the end of the day, he didn't say anything.

Thanks to the joined effort of Hua Tianshu and Jie Fu Lian, the group was safely transported out of the cave and stood under the clear sky once again.

"Isn't that...!" Somebody gasped in shock and soon, there were more such shocked reactions coming from the disciples who had been transported out of that cave.

"It's the Xu clan's residence!" One of the disciples exclaimed in horror.

Hua Tianshu and Jie Fu Lian had traced the origins of the demon summoning formation and that was the reason why everybody had been transported to the courtyard of the Xu clan's residence.

Them simply being here meant that the Xu clan was clearly not as innocent as they claimed to be.

"But how can this be?!" Someone else shouted.

"Then the Xu clan was really exterminated by a demon...?!" Another disciple added, sounding a bit hesitant and scared.

"But if it's a demon... Should we really be here?"

Most of the disciples from the small sect sounded a bit reluctant to continue with this investigation and that was clearly to be expected.

If the investigation was going to involve demons then most cultivators would start having second thoughts, especially if they didn't have the confidence in beating a demon.

"This case has turned dangerous now," Duan Luoyang suddenly cleared his throat and spoke thoughtfully, "I'll advice everyone to leave the premises in order to ensure your own safety."

In other words, he was simply telling the disciples of the other sect to leave since they weren't strong enough.

It was quite rude of him to stand up and say such words but Jie Fu Lian couldn't blame him since he also agreed.

Shockingly enough, this time, nobody bothered to argue with Duan Luoyang about this topic. In fact, even Huo Feng hung his head low with nothing to say.

Everyone slowly started nodding their heads and the investigation was put on hold for the time being.

The group of disciples from the small sect, that Jie Fu Lian had come with, started leaving and in order to not draw any attention to himself, he also acted as if he was leaving with them.

However, after walking for some time, Jie Fu Lian parted ways with the discouraged group of disciples and decided to secretly follow after the disciples from the HuiXue sect.

The disciples of the HuiXue sect were also not courageous enough to continue the investigation and hence, they also retreated back to report their findings to their sect master.

If Jie Fu Lian were to guess, he would say that till now, there had been no traces of demons in this case and hence, the HuiXue sect had wrongly classified this case as a grade C investigation and had sent their new disciples over.

Every case was graded according to its level of difficulty. The highest grade a case could get was Grade S investigation which would be handled by the elders of the sect. The second-most dangerous graded case was the Grade A investigation and it was handled by the experienced top disciples of the sect with one or two elders.

The next two grades, Grade B and Grade C investigations weren't exactly hard nor were they dangerous. Grade B was handled by the disciples who weren't new but weren't that great either and Grade C investigations were handled by the new disciples who had freshly joined the sect.

If this Xu clan's case was graded as Grade C, it made sense why most of the disciples were inexperienced and in need of some proper improvement training.

Hua Tianshu was probably sent over just in case anything went wrong but the presence of Duan Luoyang was certainly a bit suspicious.

According to what Ling Rong and Xian Li had told him, this Duan Luoyang was a direct disciple of Hua Tianshu, and that in itself meant that he wasn't somebody whose skills could be looked down upon.

He was certainly not a new disciple and that would mean, he either followed Hua Tianshu here or he was the original one tasked to lead this investigation group but was followed by Hua Tianshu who was worried about his disciple.

For some reason, Jie Fu Lian simply could not imagine the latter being the case since it was quite rare to see Hua Tianshu displaying such care for anyone.

Jie Fu Lian had only met Hua Tianshu thrice in his life.

However, each one of those three meetings had left a strong impression on Jie Fu Lian's mind.

After meeting the man thrice, he had already concluded that they could never get along well with each other. They were soul enemies, at least, that was what Jie Fu Lian always believed in.

If there was anything he learned about Hua Tianshu in those three meetings, it was perhaps the fact that this man did not care about anyone other than himself. The life of others to him was trivial and meaningless.

On their first meeting, Jie Fu Lian felt that the man had an ice-cold heart.

On their second meeting, he corrected himself and thought that the man not only had an icy heart but had a stone for a heart.

On their third and final meeting, he didn't have the luxury of checking the condition of the man's heart since his own life was at its bitter end.

Since he already considered Hua Tianshu to be such a selfish cold-hearted man, it was more believable for him to think that Hua Tianshu had come here because he too was looking to gain something through this case.

When they all reached the entry gate of the HuiXue sect, Jie Fu Lian couldn't help but recall a certain memory that made him smile.

This place had certainly not changed even a single bit but the circumstances had certainly changed a lot.

Jie Fu Lian had first seen these gates when he was just fourteen years old.

Back then, he had been invited and was treated politely by almost everyone whom he had met here, however, now he needed to sneak in since his presence wasn't exactly welcomed anymore.

Jie Fu Lian looked towards a tree on the right side of the gate and instead of sneaking in, he leisurely walked over to it.

There was a visibly deep cut on the tree and Jie Fu Lian couldn't help but let his fingers trace over that deep cut.

"Glad to see you still alive," Jie Fu Lian spoke to the tree with a small smile hanging on his lips.

The tree naturally did not respond and Jie Fu Lian also didn't bother wasting any more time here.

He snuck inside the HuiXue sect and secretly watched over the disciples who were reporting the Xu clan's case to the sect leader.

Jie Fu Lian was currently inside the demon king's body and hence, his skills and abilities were almost on par with the greatest of immortals. He could easily hide his traces from the disciples and Hua Tianshu, but he couldn't hide from the keen eyes of the old sect master Quan.

As soon as he had stepped into the sect, his presence had already been discovered by Sect Master Quan, but the man said nothing about it and simply acted as if he did not care.

Jie Fu Lian was supposed to feel grateful for such a reaction, but when he thought about how this Old Quan was willing to give away his sword as a reward for a mere Grade C investigation, he couldn't help but frown as he felt a little bitter.