Aspiring to the Immortal Path
Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 703: Interrogation

Bang!

Hong Yuan's body slammed into a wall and slid down. Only then did she realize that she was in a dark cave.

"Talk! Where is the teleportation formation located!?" Sang Hongmei put a foot on Hong Yuan's chest and roared.

The fiend granny's temper was crude and simple, and she had no experience when it came to interrogation, bluntly demanding information.

It had long ago been proved that interrogation without breaking down the target psychologically had horrific chances of success. And the chances were even lower if the target was particularly bold and loyal.

Sang Hongmei didn't understand this and immediately started with brute force, so the result was completely expected.

Hong Yuan sneered at Sang Hongmei. "So you've finally lost your patience?"

"Still acting tough!" Sang Hongmei pressed down with her foot, sending spiritual energy into Hong Yuan's body.

This spiritual power was meant to punish Hong Yuan by making her feel pain, but the moment it entered her body, Hong Yuan threw up blood with such ferocity that she even spat out chunks of her organs. Her eyes then rolled over as she fainted.

Sang Hongmei was stunned.

She had already calculated her strength, and she felt that Hong Yuan should have been able to endure it with her Cognitive Creation constitution.

But then she realized that Hong Yuan must have put down all her defenses and let the spiritual power infiltrate her, so it was only natural that she was heavily injured.

Sang Hongmei was shocked and enraged, but she couldn't let Hong Yuan die, so she had Hong Yuan swallow a pill.

A few moments later, Hong Yuan woke up. Sang Hongmei thumped her cane. "Talk! Where is the teleportation formation!?"

"Is that all you know how to say?" Hong Yuan coldly smiled. "Why don't you continue the torture?"

"Seeking death!"

Hong Yuan raised her head and shouted at Sang Hongmei, "You would have to have the guts to kill me first! If you kill me, then how are you going to find out where the teleportation formation is? Do you know how much money the inter-domain trade makes? One million spirit coins! Every day, it makes at least one million spirit coins, equal to an ultimate-grade art relic! One every day, so if you went into seclusion, after five years, you would open up your eyes and find yourself buried in art relics! Hahaha, isn't that a very nice feeling? Fiend granny, do you dare to kill me?"

"Bastard!" Sang Hongmei slapped Hong Yuan, and Hong Yuan's cheek instantly swelled, several teeth flying out of her mouth.

She jabbed a finger at Hong Yuan's forehead. "Don't say this old self didn't warn you! This is your last chance! If you don't tell me, this old self will use Soulscour and find out all the same!"

Hong Yuan spat on the ground. "If Soulscour was that useful, you would have already used it rather than wasting time talking with me. When Soulscour gathers thoughts, it turns the insubstantial into the substantial, but in this process, too many thoughts are lost or used up. No one can say whether the part lost will be that regarding the teleportation formation!"

"In a rush, this old self has no choice but to take a gamble," Sang Hongmei sinisterly said.

"But if your gamble is bound to fail?" Hong Yuan smiled. "Have you not heard of a secret art called the Heart Silencing Art?"

"'The Heart Silencing Art'?" Sang Hongmei paled. "You can't know this! It's a secret art of the Basking Moon Sect!"

The Heart Silencing Art was the secret art that the Basking Moon Sect had developed to resist Soulscour. Its only function was to grant the ability to control one's thoughts when under Soulscour so that a specific part of one's memories would be washed away. What was special about it was that it wasn't affected by any sort of seal or restraint and would activate on contact.

Without the corresponding memories, one naturally wouldn't be able to find anything useful.

The moment Sang Hongmei said this, she realized that something wasn't right.

She hadn't forgotten the relationship Xu Miaoran and Hong Yuan had with Tang Jie.

Sure enough, Hong Yuan said, "Back in Nadir Hill, my master's husband taught me a lot."

"Bullshit! The Heart Silencing Art is a Basking Moon secret art. To safeguard it against traitors, it's not passed down to just anyone," Sang Hongmei barked.

Because of the special function of the Heart Silencing Art, if a traitor were to learn it, they would not only be able to spread it to others, they could also resist Soulscour. Thus, it was a secret art that was not recorded in the Divine Firmament Sword Classic. Only disciples who were absolutely loyal and were being sent undercover with important missions were permitted to learn it so that they could keep the sect's secrets.

Hong Yuan sneered. "Did you forget that my master's husband is a disciple of the Secret Hall?"

Sang Hongmei was shaken.

Given that the Secret Hall's disciples were often on top-secret missions, they had the highest chance of learning the Heart Silencing Art. Tang Jie was the most outstanding disciple of the Secret Hall, so there really was a chance that he had learned it.

She didn't know that while Tang Jie had the right to learn, he had been out so often that he had never had the chance to learn it, let alone pass it on to Hong Yuan.

Hong Yuan had been lying from the start, and the biggest flaw was that even if Tang Jie had known it, he would have never passed it on to Hong Yuan.

The rules of the sect were strict, and even in the dire circumstances back then, Tang Jie had never passed on Heart Consonance to Xu Miaoran. As for Xi Canhen, that had been salvaged by having him join the Basking Moon Sect, so how could he pass on the Heart Silencing Art, which was of an even higher level of secrecy?

The problem was that Sang Hongmei didn't understand Tang Jie, and she herself was someone who ignored the rules, or else she wouldn't have gone and kidnapped Hong Yuan. In her view, so long as Tang Jie knew it, he had a high chance of passing the art to Hong Yuan.

If this was the case, her Soulscour was bound to fail, so interrogation was better.

Sang Hongmei's face shifted between green and white as she hesitated over what to do.

She wasn't a particularly brainy person, and while she had lived a long life, she had focused on cultivating and was used to using her fists to solve problems, not her brains. When her fists could no longer solve problems, she was in the dark.

She had been frightened by Hong Yuan's words, and after hesitating for a while, she lost her patience and decided to resort to torture to get Hong Yuan to talk.

Alas, she was no interrogation expert, whereas Tang Jie had taught Hong Yuan back in Nadir Hill how to deal with interrogations. It was Tang Jie who had told her to relax her mind and let spiritual energy invade her body, forcing Sang Hongmei to act with a lighter touch for fear of killing her.

Even so, Sang Hongmei was ruthless. In rage, she grabbed one of Hong Yuan's fingers and broke it.

Hong Yuan shuddered in pain, but she clenched her teeth and refused to speak. Sang Hongmei proceeded to break several more fingers.

A round of torture left Hong Yuan covered in wounds, but she refused to speak.

Sang Hongmei was about to resume when she suddenly roared, "NO!"

A startled Hong Yuan watched as Sang Hongmei smashed her cane into the wall, which caused the entire mountain to tremble, sending rocks tumbling down its sides as a manifestation of her fury.

"Removing me from my hall master post! The audacity!"

It seemed like she had received the edict from the Jade Emptiness Immortal Sovereign.

Demotion was an extremely serious matter, and Sang Hongmei just couldn't understand why the Jade Emptiness Immortal Sovereign would treat her this way. After all, she was working for the good of the sect.

"No, I can get it back, I can definitely get it back. Once I get the location of the teleportation formation, I'll be restored to my original post, or even be promoted, and then I'll break through the bottleneck and advance to Violet Palace!" Sang Hongmei threw her head back and howled, madness appearing on her face. "Don't try and stop me!"

The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and she smashed the cave wall again and again. With each successive boom, the mountain tottered, and it seemed on the verge of collapse.

Sang Hongmei didn't care. She grabbed Hong Yuan, blasted a hole through the mountain, and flew out.

Much of her rage had been vented on the mountain, and as she looked at Hong Yuan again, her eyes burned with fervor. Chuckling, she said, "You… haven't learned the Heart Silencing Art!"

Her mind had finally cleared, and she had finally seen through the flaw in Hong Yuan's lies.

Just as she was about to thrust her finger at Hong Yuan, a group of people flew toward her: Xu Miaoran's group.

Sang Hongmei's destruction of the mountain had created such a ruckus that even without Bei Canghan's Ice Mark, they would have noticed that something was going on.

Upon seeing Sang Hongmei, they cheered. This was to celebrate finding their target, but it neglected the danger that came with it.

Only Zhou Peng, the sole Soul Transformation True Person, had a grave expression and seemed to not be in a celebratory mood. If he hadn't pledged his entire life to Xu Guanghua and found it impossible to reject a request from the Xu Clan, he would already be gone.

"Sang Hongmei, you kidnapped a fellow disciple of the sect, violating the law. Hand yourself over and accept your punishment!" Xu Miaoran shouted.

Sang Hongmei smirked. "Just a few brats, and you're trying to arrest me? You think the Blood Fairy is that easy to bully? Or perhaps you think that you can overwhelm me with numbers?" She cast her gaze at Bei Canghan and the others. They were all Celestial Heart True Persons, but she didn't recognize a single one, which made her finally sense that something was wrong. Carefully examining these unfamiliar faces and then recalling her previous clash with Bei Canghan and Cai Junyang, Sang Hongmei suddenly understood. "So you're from the Basking Moon Sect! So you've really extended your hand all the way here?"

Bei Canghan bowed. "Basking Moon Sect's Bei Canghan pays respects to Senior Blood Fairy."

"Cai Junyang pays respects to Senior."

"Qi Shaoming pays respects to Senior."

"Wu Xianguang pays respects to Senior."

"Wei Tianchong pays respects to Senior."

"Peng Yaolong pays respects to Senior."

As they gave their names, Sang Hongmei found that she had heard of quite a few of them.

Sang Hongmei couldn't help but laugh. "Quite a few genius disciples. I didn't think that the Basking Moon Sect would be willing to send you over. But since you're here, this old self will kill all of you so that Basking Moon won't get too uppity and threaten my Horizon Ocean Pavilion."

She said in a cold and sinister tone, "All of you… must die!"

She thrust out her palm, sending out a powerful blast of wind.