Hidden moth

Chapter 234: Entering the Shocking Gate with the Wind

After encountering this incident, He Kao did not continue wandering. Checking the map, he found that the place where he met Chang Anju was near the Kra Isthmus in the Indochina Peninsula. The range of his "lit up" footprints was indeed far enough.

He went straight back to Nanhua's apartment. It was almost three o'clock in the morning. He Kao sat in the bedroom to calm his mind. About an hour later, he suddenly received a phone call.

Of course, the phone was muted when he sat down. Even if it wasn't muted, He Kao could have ignored it, but he had set special reminders for several contact numbers, and the caller happened to be one of them.

He Kao picked up the phone and heard Gu Chun's voice: "Xiao Kao, can you sense the location of that painting?"

He Kao said succinctly: "Yes."

The painting "Tan Xian Holding a Cane" was taken away by Elder Gu. In the past two months, Gu Chun has traveled to many places. He Kao could even estimate the speed at which the old man could fly on a cloud, the fastest being around 350 kilometers per hour.

This is equivalent to a high-speed rail and is similar to a helicopter. Of course, this is just the speed of normal patrols. As for how fast he can fly at full speed in an emergency, He Kao still doesn't know.

He Kao not only knew where Gu Chun had been, but also where he had taken the painting. About a week ago, the painting had been moved to a location He Kao had deliberately avoided: Fengwei Township.

Gu Chun asked again: "With your ability of hiding moths, can you come directly here?"

He Kao's answer was still brief: "No."

Gu Chun: "As expected!"

He Kao: "What do you want to say? Where is that painting now?"

Gu Chun: "Guess."

He Kao: "I checked the satellite map and the location I can sense should be near Jinghua Village in Fengwei Township. Could it be that it was brought into the Jinghua Cave Heaven of Lingxi Sect?"

Gu Chun: "You guessed right! It seems that the cave barrier can limit the power of the hidden moth, but it cannot prevent the hidden moth from sensing the painting."

He Kao: "The Chain Spirit Array can limit the power of the Hidden Moth, let alone the Cave Heaven Barrier."

Gu Chun: "Let's not talk about this anymore. Come over here."

He Kao: "I can't get through."

Gu Chun: "I didn't ask you to go directly to Jinghua Cave Heaven. If you rush to Jinghua Village, how long will it take you at the fastest?"

He Kao: "The nearest place I've been to is Shanping County. It only takes ten minutes to get there. But there should be many experts in Jinghua Village. They might find me."

Gu Chun: "There are no high-level sorcerers in the village right now. Come from the southwest. When you are close to the village, be careful to conceal your breath and move stealthily. I will wait for you outside the village."

He Kao immediately got out of bed, put on his shoes and changed his clothes, then walked to the outskirts of Shanping County. After identifying the direction, he headed towards Jinghuaping. This time he walked from the sky because Jinghua Village was deep in the mountains and it was inconvenient to walk on the ground.

Each teleportation increased from 500 meters to 800 meters, and the pace was still about two seconds. Theoretically, He Kao's speed could reach more than 1,400 kilometers per hour, which was supersonic.

But from another perspective, his speed is actually zero, and his position changes are achieved through repeated teleportation, and there is no wind resistance.

He deliberately wore dark clothes so that he would be hard to be spotted in the night sky. He landed on the ground when he was almost at Jinghua Village, sneaking around and walking from the southwest.

Before he even entered the village, he heard someone behind him say, "Why are you sneaking around like that?"

He Kao quickly turned around: "You scared me!"

Gu Chun walked out from the darkness. "You've practiced stealth quite well. If I hadn't been searching for you, it would have been difficult to spot you from so far away."

He Kao: "That's also thanks to your guidance! But when you touched me from behind, I didn't react at all."

Gu Chun smiled and said, "Of course. How many years have I been practicing? Enough of the small talk. Come with me... Old Man Jiang and Li Huazi are waiting for you."

The old man and the child acted like thieves, sneaking around the village and reaching the entrance to the Jinghua Cave behind the village.

The seven great caves of the Shu sect are all the locations of the sect's ancestral hall, and are also the Taoist temples passed down since ancient times. According to convention, there is usually at least one deacon in charge and several disciples on duty.

The blessed land has beautiful mountains and rivers. Some elders, after abdicating and becoming supreme elders, will choose to live in seclusion and practice in the sect's blessed land. There are many caves built since ancient times.

High-level sorcerers in the sect can apply for and obtain permission to practice in seclusion in the blessed land and cave. This is mainly for breaking through to a higher level of cultivation, especially after completing the fifth level in order to break through to the sixth level.

However, it is not easy for ordinary disciples to obtain permission from the sect to have a cave dwelling in the cave heaven and practice in seclusion for a long time. They have to consider factors such as whether there is enough space and whether the secular affairs outside are properly arranged.

Of course, simply staying in seclusion in a cave may not necessarily be beneficial to spiritual practice. Spiritual practice itself still requires experiencing worldly affairs and improving knowledge.

For example, Mei Guyu, the head of the Danding Sect, realized that it would be difficult to make progress by continuing to meditate in the cave, so she planned to go to Qiyuan to "work"; another example is Jiang Daozhen, who simply stayed in Pugang Town all year round when he was going through tribulations.

The above are all normal situations, but the situation of Lingxi Sect is a bit special, mainly because there are too few disciples.

The Guanshen Sect, the largest sect, had over 1,500 disciples, while the Lingxi Sect, from first to seventh rank, had no more than 100 disciples. Last year's census put the number at 54, which was exactly the size of a deck of playing cards.

Because the art of spiritual intuition is difficult to practice, it would be useless to teach those who do not meet the requirements, so most people are filtered out during the talent selection process.

This also shows how precious Wei Luo is in the eyes of Old Man Jiang. If it weren't for this talented girl Wei Luo, Lingxi Sect wouldn't even be able to gather three fifth-level deacons!
Wei Luo was a native of Fengwei Township and had been brought into Jinghua Cave by his master to cultivate since childhood. Although Old Man Jiang lived in seclusion in Pugang Town, he would return every once in a while to instruct his disciples.

Wei Luo did not need any application or approval to enter and exit Jinghua Cave Heaven. It was almost like entering his own backyard. Anyway, there were not many people in such a huge cave heaven, so it was good enough to have disciples taking turns on duty regularly.

Recently, Elder Jiang returned to the sect and claimed that he would personally stay in the cave for a period of time and released Deacon Dong, who was in charge of guarding the cave.

Deacon Dong was of course very happy. He and another Deacon Ji took turns to be in charge of the cave. In the past, there was Deacon Wei who could take turns during the winter and summer vacations, but in the past year, there were only the two of them left, and they were actually very bored.

The main task of the garrison deacon is to take charge of the gate to the cave. There are also two disciples on duty in the Jinghua Cave, whose main task is to take care of the sect's ancestral hall.

This is actually a kind of benefit. You can practice in a blessed place. High-level sorcerers from other sects are vying for it, and the number of disciples on duty daily can reach double digits.

But there are few people in Lingxi Sect, so it is good enough to arrange two people. Even the second uncle Xiao Guangnian is so old, but he still has to take turns to take charge for a month every year.

If the old man really has something to do and can't come, it's okay, but he has to find a fellow disciple to take his place. That's a favor.

Now the guard deacon has been sent away by Old Man Jiang, and the two disciples on duty are only in the Patriarch's Hall. They can quietly open the door and let He Kao in. As long as they are careful, no one will notice.

Jinghua Village is located in Jinghuaping, which is one of the so-called Fengwei Qiping. Fengwei Qiping is a basin surrounded by mountains. It was not until the new century that a tunnel was built to open it to traffic.

Behind the village were mountains, and a small path led uphill, turning before a cliff. But Gu Chun didn't turn. Instead, he gestured to He Kao and headed straight for the cliff. He saw the old man hit the cliff, his figure vanishing like a shadow. He Kao followed suit, and the cliff seemed like an illusion. He stepped over it, and the view before him suddenly opened up.

It was almost six in the morning, mid-December, and the sky wasn't quite bright yet, but there was already a glimmer of light. Looking out, the scene here was almost identical to what he had seen when he first entered Piaocai Cave Heaven.

He stood on a slope, facing the mountains. Two branches in front of him embraced like arms to form a valley entrance, with a winding path in the valley.

Gu Chun was standing at the entrance of the valley, calling out with his divine mind, "Follow me!"

He Kao quickly stepped forward and followed the old man closely, and used his spiritual sense to gather his voice and said, "The terrain of the mountains and rivers here seems to be the same as that of Piaocai Cave Heaven?"

Gu Chun: "The seven major sects' blessed lands all have the same mountain and river layout. They correspond to the Fengwei Township outside, which is forty miles in radius..."

After passing through the valley between the two mountains, the view becomes clear again. There is a river in front of us with a stone bridge on the river and a stone archway at the other end of the bridge.

The stone bridge and stone archway here are different from those in Piaocai Dongtian. They have a distinct sense of time. The word on the archway is not "Yin'e", but - Jingmen.

After passing the stone archway, there is a flat basin in the mountains with some scattered buildings. Most of the area is fields, including medicinal fields and vegetable fields. He Kao even saw corn.

Not all the buildings here are for living. There should also be chicken coops, because He Kao could hear the crowing of roosters from a long distance away. Judging from the time, the roosters should have been crowing for a while.

At the foot of the mountain at the end of the basin, there is a large, antique courtyard, which should be the location of the Lingxi Sect's ancestral hall. Gu Chun did not cross the bridge, but turned left along the stream and led He Kao into the mountain.

The old man also did not forget to introduce with his divine consciousness that Lingxi Sect has had relatively few disciples since ancient times, and there were only a hundred people at its peak, so there were not many buildings built here.

There were two disciples on duty in the ancestral hall over there, so they didn't go any closer and took a detour from the nearby mountain. This time, Jinghua Dongtian from Lingxi Sect was chosen to call him over because there were few people here.

If it were the Yujing Cave Heaven of the Xinpan Sect, there would be disciples on duty at the gate... As for the gate to the cave heaven, it would be just an ordinary cliff when it was not open. Today, it was Old Man Jiang who specially opened the gate.

They crossed two ridges in succession and came to a basin. The terrain of the mountains and rivers should correspond to the Jinghuaping outside. There was also a courtyard here.

He Kao had seen this kind of house with adobe walls and thatched roofs in the countryside when he was a child, but it almost disappeared later. He didn't expect to see it here again.

A fence enclosed a courtyard in front of the house. The entire courtyard seemed to be shrouded in a formation, surprisingly able to block out spiritual consciousness. Two elders stood in the courtyard: Jiang Daozhen and Li Xiuyuan.

Li Xiuyuan called out, "Master Gudi, why are you so slow?"

Gu Chun: "You let me do all the errands, and you still think I'm slow?"

Jiang Daozhen: "Why don't you go to heaven?"

Gu Chun: "Aren't you afraid of being discovered?"

Jiang Daozhen: "Those two disciples on duty won't be able to find it."

Gu Chun: "I'm afraid they'll find out about He Kao."

As he spoke, He Kao rushed forward, bowed deeply and said, "Greetings to Master Jiang! Greetings to Master Li!"

The two elders stood there smiling and accepting the greeting, without offering a hand to support him. At the same time, they were secretly bickering with their divine thoughts.

Li Xiuyuan: "Why should I bow to you first and me later?"

Jiang Daozhen: "There has to be a first come first served order, right?"

After He Kao finished his greetings, Jiang Daozhen waved his hand and said, "Stop with all this formalities and come inside!"

After He Kao entered the house, he found that the house looked completely different from the inside and the outside. It had smooth milky white walls, beautiful wood-grained ceilings, and the furnishings in the hall were simple and elegant, even more exquisite than the silver-threaded wood furniture in He Kao's hometown.

There was a painting hanging in the middle hall, which was the "Tan Xian Holding a Cane" that Gu Chun took away.

Jiang Daozhen introduced: "This place is called Yanzuotang, the place where the successive leaders of Lingxi Sect practiced, but I didn't spend much time here."

He Kao looked around and said in confusion, "You must have renovated this place. There's even a modern kitchen and bathroom."

Jiang Daozhen laughed: "I'm not an old stubborn person who doesn't change. Of course I have changed, but I just don't have internet access."

Gu Chun added, "There's no natural gas either!"

Jiang Daozhen retorted: "As long as it can cook, why do we need natural gas?"

He Kao took out his phone and took a look. It worked fine, but there was no signal. It was similar to the situation in Piao Cai Cave. He stepped forward and interrupted, "Elders, why did you call me here?"

Li Xiuyuan: "Let's do an experiment. Does your Moth-Hidden Power work here?"

He Kao: "You're all staring at me, so of course it won't work."

Jiang Daozhen waved his hand and said, "We won't watch you. Go out and try."

He Kao walked out of the yard and returned to the house two minutes later, saying, "I can teleport within the cave. I can reach places I've been to and remember, but the range is limited to the cave."

Jiang Daozhen nodded slightly and said, "Just as I expected." Then he pointed to the wall and said, "If you get this painting, can you open the door to Piaocai Cave Heaven and lead us all in?"

He Kao nodded and said, "It should be possible."

In fact, He Kao had just been to Piaocai Cave Heaven, but in this situation, the "lit" maps in the outside world seemed to be extinguished, and when he came out, he could only return to Jinghua Cave Heaven.

Jiang Daozhen: "Then let's give it a try. Lao Li and I also want to go into the Piaocai Cave Heaven and take a look."

Gu Chun shouted, "Let's talk about it after we finish eating. The food is ready!"

Li Xiuyuan: "You've already been there, so of course there's no need to rush. But Jiang Laogui and I haven't been there yet."

Gu Chun: "What kind of concentration do you have? You've been practicing for so many years, but you can't even wait for a meal?"

Jiang Daozhen waved his hand and said, "Then let's eat first. Xiaokao should be hungry too."

**
(End of this chapter)