Chapter Six: The Invisible Threat

Among all the words Shadow had spoken, the one that caught Ding Jun’s attention most was the matter of the hundred million dollars.

What a coincidence it was: before the men from Hong Kong made their move against the temple, Ding Jun had met a local underworld boss who openly said that whoever could find the Gem of the Holy Child’s Heart would earn a one-hundred-million-dollar purchase price.

Qinglong. Ding Jun went straight to the point and named the man.

If that man could commission him to search for the gem, he could just as easily hire others to do the same. After all, one hundred million dollars was an enormous sum, and countless men of the underworld would be willing to scour the earth for such a fortune.

Calling for me? Shadow asked with a grin.

Ding Jun shook his head. “Of course not. I mean, if you are here on Qinglong’s behalf to look for the Heart of the Holy Child, then you have come to the wrong place. Right now, we are gathered here to deal with a major problem. It has little to do with treasure. If there is nothing else, you should leave at once.”

Shadow laughed loudly. “I can’t be bothered with your affairs. If this little fellow hadn’t recklessly brought out the Fire God Gu to scare me, I wouldn’t even have bothered to show myself. Well, that’s the end of it. I should be going.”

“Leaving just like that?” Fang Qing asked coldly.

Shadow glanced sideways and shot back, “If not like this, then how? Do you expect to feed me as well?”

His shameless bluster left Fang Qing with nothing to say. Her lovely brows drew together at once.

“You young people, the lot of you, know nothing of respect for your elders. You don’t even look at who I am. One by one, you shout at me like this. When I was out roaming the world, you were still drinking milk in your mothers’ arms! All right, all right, I’m leaving. Don’t see me off, don’t bother…”

With a flip of his body, Shadow sprang toward the door. With a light hook of his toes, the bolt slid open.

“Senior, please wait. I have something to ask.”

Ding Jun moved swiftly, sliding to the doorway and seizing the back of the other man’s clothes. But he managed only to catch the garment itself. Shadow twisted, slipped free like an eel, and in a flash was already more than ten paces away.

“I didn’t see anyone come out. That’s the answer you wanted.”

By the end of Shadow’s words, his voice had already become blurred and indistinct, nearly fifty meters off.

Even the legendary thief Ruan Feng had come. That showed how serious the matter at Tolin Temple really was, Fang Qing said with a sigh.

Thievery is an ancient profession. Anyone worthy of being called a divine thief must possess skills that verge on the miraculous. By the legends of the underworld, Ruan Feng had perfected disguise, bone-shrinking, and lock-picking to an uncanny degree. There was no gate in the world he could not overcome, not even the top-secret archives of the Pentagon.

Ruan Feng’s temperament was erratic, sometimes righteous and sometimes wicked, which was why people also called him Ruan the Mad.

“Yes. A phoenix never lands where there is no treasure. He must have smelled gold in the air,” Ding Jun said with a nod.

Tolin Temple stood in a remote place. There was no treasure there that men of the underworld would care for. The only things it could protect and preserve were sutras and halls. What truly drew people in was the Heavenly Kingdom treasure Zhu Ye and the others had just mentioned.

“Did you hear him?” Granny Ge never came out through the side door. This is suspicious beyond measure,” Fang Qing said. She was clever as ice and snow and had heard every word of Ruan Feng’s last sentence.

Ding Jun turned to look at the small door, truly unable to understand how a living person could vanish so completely and silently in the cellar.

“Should we go down again, or wait for everyone to come up? The air in the cellar is stifling. It’s really uncomfortable,” Fang Qing said.

Ding Jun was still hesitating when the young man cut in. “Of course we wait here. So many people crowding around one corpse—what’s so interesting about that?”

Fang Qing smiled. “Great minds think alike.”

The young man grinned and nodded at them. “You two are the most interesting ones among this lot. Mind if we get acquainted?”

Ding Jun gave a wry smile. “Of course. But could you put away the Gu insect first?”

The people of the Five Poisons Sect were poison from head to toe, and the animals and pets kept by its disciples were no different. Even the seasoned Ruan Feng was terrified of them, so Ding Jun had no desire to take the risk.

The young man gave a whistle, and the tiny gecko obediently crawled into his palm.

“The Gu insect isn’t as frightening as you imagine,” he said. “The ancestral teachings of the Five Poisons Sect have always stressed that what is truly terrifying is the human heart, not the insect’s poison or sting.” As he spoke, he stuffed the insect back into the shell casing. “The man’s lightness skill was excellent just now, but I could kill him with ease. Within two hundred paces, the moment I pull the trigger, he’d already be a dead man.”

Ding Jun shook his head. “Why kill him? Divine thief Ruan Feng is not a bad man.”

According to media reports, over the past ten years in global charity drives for natural disasters, Ruan Feng had made several lavish donations totaling more than ten million. Whether he did it from genuine compassion or for reputation, the money had unquestionably reached the hands of the disaster victims. In that sense, he was a truly great and benevolent man.

“Why shouldn’t I kill him? He’s hiding here to eavesdrop. He can’t have good intentions,” the young man said.

Fang Qing opened her mouth as if to argue, but Ding Jun immediately made a gesture under the table to stop her from continuing the dispute. The debate over good and evil would never reach an end, because there was no universal standard for either. Ruan Feng’s appearance made him realize how grave the situation was. There was no need to waste breath.

“I’m Ding Jun. This is Miss Fang Qing. Now we’re acquainted,” he said.

“I’m Fire God.”

The young man grinned again. “When you have time, tell me about the battlefield in Afghanistan. I like hearing about that.”

At that moment, Zhu Ye led the others out through the small door, with the rest following behind.

“Where is Granny Ge?” Zhu Ye asked.

Ding Jun and Fang Qing both shook their heads. “She never came out at all.”

Stone Hand, walking at the rear, pressed the matter with a troubled look. “But the door was open. Could she have gone outside?”

After Ruan Feng escaped, Ding Jun had not closed the door, letting the cold Tibetan night wind surge in and disperse the stale air inside.

Ding Jun answered, “The one who opened the door wasn’t Granny Ge. It was the divine thief Ruan Feng, who had been lying low in the room all along. He got away, and no one could stop him. But one thing is certain: Granny Ge definitely did not show herself. She should still be below.”

Stone Hand’s expression changed instantly. He stamped his foot. “But... but we searched everywhere below. We were almost at the point of digging up the ground. Impossible. Impossible...”

Zhu Ye scratched his head. “I really can’t figure out what that old woman is playing at. How did that madman Ruan wind up here? Damn it, the real matter hasn’t even started and now all this nonsense is piling on!”

His gaze kept shifting among Ding Jun, Fang Qing, and Fire God. It was obvious he did not believe what they had said. If the matter involved the treasure’s whereabouts, then of course the fewer people who knew, the better.

“Uncle Li, Mister Qin, go outside and look around. I don’t believe it—a grown person can’t just disappear into thin air.” Zhu Ye ordered loudly.

Judging by the way things stood, he was clearly the undisputed leader among the four who had arrived first. At his command, Uncle Li and Mister Qin immediately headed outside.

Fire God laughed coldly. “Don’t believe us? Fine, fine. We’re not wild boars. We won’t gnaw a living man down to the bones. Go ahead and search outside. Just don’t lose yourselves too.”

He lacked Ding Jun’s composure and did not care whether Zhu Ye liked hearing it or not. Whatever came to mind, he said.

As he reached the doorway, Uncle Li drew a short gun from his sleeve and with a click flipped off the safety. He stepped over the threshold as though facing a great enemy.

Outside, the night was already deep. Mist hung dimly in the air, wrapped in the cold tide of Tibet and blowing straight into their faces. Within seconds, the figures of Uncle Li and Mister Qin had vanished into the darkness.

Ding Jun had no intention of stopping them, because he could see Zhu Ye’s ambition. Since the man wanted control of the situation, it was best to let him have his wish. Besides, danger was everywhere. Staying in the room was no safer than being outside.

“Little Ding, help me think. If Granny Ge isn’t below and isn’t here, where in the world did she go?” Stone Hand asked.

Ding Jun shook his head. He had no answer in his heart.

“I have a way,” Ho Wuqiu said cheerfully, answering for Ding Jun. “No matter where Granny Ge is, with a few little tricks, we can make sure she comes out on her own.”

Stone Hand immediately pressed, “Mister Ho, what trick?”

Ho Wuqiu pointed toward the side door. “Send a Gu insect down there and drive Granny Ge up here. The reason the Five Poisons Sect likes to refine and command Gu insects is that they can do many things beyond human power.”

He made it sound easy, but anyone who understood his meaning would know how vicious the plan really was. The implication was that if Granny Ge was using some method of concealment to hide in a corner and refuse to come out, the Gu insect would poison her to death with its stings. Either reveal yourself, or become a corpse. The choice was hers.

Zhu Ye flew into a rage. “What do you mean by that? Are you saying Granny Ge deliberately hid herself to make things difficult for Old Stone?”

Ho Wuqiu remained smiling. “That’s what you said. I didn’t say it.”

Stone Hand turned toward Zhu Ye. “Zhu Ye, Granny Ge came with you. Now that she’s gone, you should at least come up with a solution, shouldn’t you?”

Zhu Ye pointed outside. “She must have gone out there. She didn’t vanish into the air in the middle of the day. I don’t believe anyone’s words. I only believe what I see with my own eyes!”

A scream came from outside.

“Uncle Li?” Zhu Ye reacted at once and rushed toward the door, but just as he reached it, someone outside ran in at full speed and the two of them slammed into each other with a thud.

In an instant, Zhu Ye twisted his body and used a back-arching throw from northwestern wrestling to hurl the other man flying toward the table.

With a crash, the man fell onto the table. Ignoring the pain, he flipped upright, flailing both hands and screaming hoarsely, “Ghost! Ghost! It’s a ghost...”

“Hey, what the hell happened?” Zhu Ye barked angrily.

The one shouting in confusion was none other than Uncle Li. By then the gun in his hand was gone, and his hair, face, and chest were all covered in blood.

“Mister Qin is dead! Torn apart by a ghost!” Uncle Li managed to steady himself a little and shouted out two more words.

Zhu Ye yelled into the night beyond the door. “Old Qin! Old Qin, are you there?”

Uncle Li laughed bitterly. “Stop calling, Zhu Ye. He’s already dead. How could he answer you?”

Suddenly Fang Qing moved closer to Ding Jun and quickly wrote a few words in his palm with her finger: Do not go out. Watch them.

Ding Jun truly did feel the impulse to leap out and see what was happening. When he had been with the Delta Force, the instructors had always emphasized courage and responsibility in group combat. When danger struck, if everyone summoned several times their usual courage, the whole squad could unleash extraordinary fighting strength and reverse a disadvantage. But now this was not an army operation; it was a gathering of the martial world. If he jumped out now, the others would not become a solid rear guard. Instead, they would be opportunists who would drag him down or take advantage whenever they could.

He smiled at Fang Qing, grateful for her warning.

A person had to know how to read the situation in order to remain undefeated. Because of this, his understanding of Fang Qing deepened, and so did his trust in her.

“There are no ghosts in this world,” Zhu Ye muttered.

“Mister Qin was walking along, and then his body was suddenly split into several pieces... You didn’t see it—the man’s head was chopped cleanly into three parts, and the eyes, the eyes, the eyes all... all got sliced from top to bottom. His two eyeballs became four pieces... And his arms, both of them were cut into six sections...” Uncle Li cried out, his voice already hoarse from straining it too much.