The guards at the front got alert when they saw Alex walk up to them. 

Alex introduced himself as someone who came on behalf of the emperor to check on the mysterious deaths that were apparently happening inside this sect.

The guards quickly called for someone important and that person arrived a few minutes later.

“Greetings, fellow Daoist. I am the third elder Yuo Jianshuang,” the new person introduced himself. “I hear you were sent by the emperor to investigate the deaths. Were the past investigations not conclusive?”

The pale-faced man was quite lean with thin hair that he had tied in a bun. He wore a robe that shifted from green to blue from up to down. 

“If it were conclusive, it wouldn’t still be mysterious deaths, would it?” Alex asked while his eyes narrowed curiously. “And I wouldn’t have to have come here either.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” the man said. “Are you from the royal family? You don’t seem like a Lightsworn to me.”

“I asked the Emperor for a favor and he asked me for one, that’s all,” Alex said with an unfocused face. He seemed to be searching for something. 

“Ah, is that so?” the man was surprised. He moved his two hands to gesture to Alex to go inside. “Please come with me—”

Alex’s hand suddenly moved and grabbed the man by his wrist. The man tried to pull away, but Alex’s grip was tight.

“What? What are you doing?” the man’s face changed. “Let go of me.”

The guards saw the situation and tried to move it, but for some reason, a golden barrier appeared in front of them, stopping them from advancing.

“Don’t move,” Alex told the third elder. “I’m searching for something.”

He closed his eyes and tried his best to feel something. “It’s hidden quite well,” he said to himself. “Is this the cause of the deaths?”

“What- what are you talking about?” the man asked.

“There’s something inside of your body that will kill you very soon if I don’t deal with it,” Alex said. “I’ll be sending my Qi into your body. Don’t resist me or it will only hurt you.”

Alex used the man’s veins on his wrist to send in his Qi. The third elder felt a warm energy flow into him. He tried to instinctively resist this alien Qi, but he quickly got a hold of himself and let him do what he wanted to.

The third elder could already tell just by his grip that Alex was too strong for him and resisting him wouldn’t be a good idea at all. Instead, he had called for help just in case something bad happened.

People were already rushing in his direction.

“Hmm?” Alex suddenly made a sound. “Ah! It’s hiding inside his dantian.”

Suddenly, the man felt something move inside of his dantian and flow out from him. It hurt a bit as it was rushed out completely from within his body.

It came out of his wrist, a vile inky-black Qi that simply disappeared into Alex. As soon as this black stuff was gone, color returned to the pale-faced old man.

The man felt as if life had flowed back into him, his breathing getting a lot easier, his body invigorated. 

“What did you do to me?” he couldn’t help but ask. “What was that black stuff?”

“Do you know about death aura?” Alex asked the man.

“Death aura?” the man shook his head. “There’s an aura of death?”

“Basically,” Alex said. “It was festering inside of your dantian. Cultivate with it enough and it will slowly spread to all parts of your body. Or rather, it already had. You will need to consume a lot of healing pills afterward or the death aura might return.”

A group of people flew out of the sect, with a woman in the lead.

“Who dares attack one of our own?” the woman shouted out loud as soon as she arrived.

“Sect leader, it was a mistake,” the man turned around to explain. “He wasn’t attacking me, I was mistaken.”

The woman’s face changed slightly. “Huh? You said you were in danger,” she said.

“I did, but it turns out I was not. Fellow Daoist here was trying to help me, and I mistook his grace for hostility,” the man said.

“Third elder!” the woman shouted suddenly. She felt embarrassed that she had come with so many people, only to threaten someone who was helping her people.

“My apologies, fellow Daoist,” the woman said. “We were under the impression that you were here to cause trouble.”

“I’m not offended,” Alex said and looked around at them. He tried to feel the death aura from this group as well, and to his surprise, if he focused hard enough, he could sense it in them as well.”

“You!” one of the people in the group called out suddenly. “Are you… Yu Ming?” 

The moment the words ‘Yu Ming’ flew out of the man’s mouth, the entire group flinched. To these people, the name Yu Ming was like a curse.

It was because of this Yu Ming that their previous sect leader had taken away so many of their talented elders, only to be slaughtered in the Demon realm.

It was because of him that their sect leader was slaughtered right in front of their sect by a beast while they could only stay back and watch.

It was because of him that their sect had gone downhill the past couple of decades and was having a hard time getting back on track.

“Yu Ming? Isn’t he dead?” the woman asked. She looked closely at Alex and realized that his face did in fact look similar to the young man that she had learned was dead.

Was that not true?

“Are you really Yu Ming?” she asked.

“I am,” Alex said. “I would appreciate it if you used my real name Alex though as I’ve introduced myself to your guards.”

The woman wasted no time and quickly bowed toward him. “I would like to humbly apologize to you for what our sect master did in the past. You did not deserve what had happened to you. Please tell us if we can do anything to help.”

Even if everyone in the Broken Ravine sect believed that everything bad had happened because of Yu Ming, they still wouldn’t openly offend him.

They were way too scared of the beast that had Alex’s back. 

“It’s alright,” Alex said. “Your sect leader died, so I have no grudge against the other elders and disciples.”

Alex slowly looked at the man that had recognized him first. The man had a sunken face with dark circles around his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for days. His body looked like it lacked sustenance as well, while his head was completely shaved as if to hide his thinning hair.

“Oh, I almost didn’t recognize you there, brother Guo Chiang,” Alex spoke with a surprised expression. “How have you been doing?”

He always looked pale and deathly in the past, and so did his master that was the sect leader back then. It was only now that Alex realized that it was because of the death aura inside of them.

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