Life as a Rogue Cultivator

Chapter 292: Peeping

Liu Xiaolou spent the whole day hiding under the thick canopy, studying the lay of the land and its flow of energy. He kept going over those seven formations they made back then, comparing them to what he saw now. The more he thought about it, the more uncertain he felt.A mountain-guarding formation had to match the local terrain and feng shui. But here at Longtan, it was clear that none of the seven formations fit. To put it bluntly, those formations were never meant for this place.

Could he have been… wrong? That the formation here had nothing to do with those seven at all?

If that was true, things were going to be difficult. With his current abilities, he could never break through a fully intact mountain-guarding formation. The only exception would be something small and half-broken... like the one on Jade Goose Peak at Mount Luofu.

But would the Lu clan really use a shabby, damaged formation to protect their alchemy room?

No way.

The day dragged on forever. When night finally fell, Liu Xiaolou slipped down from the treetops under the cover of darkness and crept into a patch of bushes beside a small stream.

The stream was only about three feet wide, murmuring as it ran past. On the far side, he could clearly sense fluctuations from a formation.

He focused for a while, and a sudden thrill shot through him. But it only brought even more questions.

He quietly backed away from the stream, retraced his steps, left the Longtan area, and headed into the woods about two li to the northeast to start catching live animals.

Wild rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, snakes, insects.

He gathered a dozen or so creatures of all sizes, tied most of them up on the spot with vines, and only carried a rabbit and a pheasant with him as he made his way back to Longtan.

When he reached the stream again, he untied the rabbit and tossed it across. It landed right on a pile of rocks on the far bank. The rabbit froze for a second, stunned by its sudden freedom, ears perked high. After a brief pause, it bolted.

From outside the formation, the rabbit’s escape path looked downright bizarre. It darted left, then right, forward, back, sometimes circling the same spot over and over, and after finishing its loops it would hop to another area and jump in place again and again.

Liu Xiaolou carefully watched the rabbit’s every move and escape route, until suddenly it was engulfed in a burst of fire that flared up from nowhere. Only then did he pull back quickly.

He traveled through the night to another side of Longtan, found a suitable spot, and released the pheasant to break into the formation.

The pheasant flapped wildly for only a moment before a sudden rise of packed earth surged up and buried it. Liu Xiaolou immediately retreated; he had already spotted someone inside the formation rushing toward the commotion, clearly alerted by the disturbance.

Back in the grove where he had tied the rest of the animals, he withdrew another two li or so, putting even more distance between himself and the formation. Only then did he start reviewing the shifts and reactions he’d observed in the formation during the two tests that day.

To an outsider, all these changes would look meaningless, impossible to make sense of. But to Liu Xiaolou, they revealed all kinds of important clues.

He couldn’t probe the formation too frequently, of course. So he waited a full day before sending in two snakes from another direction. The day after that, he used a squirrel and a young deer…

After seven days of testing like this, when the final bird fluttered wildly inside the formation and still couldn’t break through to the sky, Liu Xiaolou finally finished sketching out the full layout of Longtan formation.

He crouched down and drew a rough diagram in the dirt with a tree branch. After a while, he couldn’t help but want to burst out laughing.

He had successfully isolated and identified a sub-formation on the far bank, northeast of the stream. Except it wasn’t really a sub-formation at all. It was a standalone formation, one of the seven he himself had refined years ago for the Siming Sect!

Working downward from there, he peeled away another layer and uncovered a second sub-formation to the northwest. It turned out to be one of the original seven formations from back in the day, and it was actually the one that used to sit at Baiye Manor before Mount Tianmu hauled it over here from Baiye Mountain.

Next came the third formation, then the fourth, fifth, and sixth, all the way to the seventh.

None of the seven formations really fit the terrain or layout of this Longtan valley. Under normal circumstances, you couldn’t set them up here properly. And even if you forced them into place, their power would drop off sharply.

But somehow, Tianmu Mountain had put together a simple formation that combined all seven of the original formations. Each one could only reach about 60–70% of its full power on its own, but stacked together in a chain like this, their combined force became formidable.

At first glance, it was clearly much stronger than the strange ancient formation Mount Tianmu set up on Lotus Peak.

If someone else tried to take this thing apart, even a formation expert at the Foundation Establishment stage, they’d probably be completely helpless in front of a chained formation like this. The pity of it is that the person it’s about to face is the one who originally designed and refined the whole thing.

No matter how you link and stack it, every killing move in the formation lived in Liu Xiaolou’s mind. He knew it inside and out.

Even so, Liu Xiaolou didn’t rush in.

First, he couldn’t be sure whether the days of poking around with live-bait tests had tipped off the Lu clan. There was no real way to tell.

Second, he had no idea what kind of expert the Lu clan might have stationed in Longtan.

So he kept circling the place and watching, patient as ever.

Even if he missed this batch of Foundation Establishment Pills, as long as he didn’t alert anyone, he’d still have another chance next spring.

Just as he expected, the Lu clan seemed to be keeping an even closer watch on Longtan. One day, while observing from a hilltop across the way, he spotted a familiar man.

Elder Lu Boqi, an expert at the Golden Core stage!

Seeing him sent a shiver down Liu Xiaolou’s spine. Damn good thing he hadn’t rushed in... he’d be totally screwed if he had.

After staking the place out for over half a month, besides Old Lu, Liu Xiaolou had confirmed two more Lu Clan disciples who were likely Foundation Establishment lurking around Longtan. If you counted the elder who was refining pills there, this place was truly a dragon’s lair. How was he supposed to get in?

That day, he switched to a mountaintop way farther out. From up there he couldn’t even see Longtan exit anymore, but he had a clear line of sight on the mountain path from Lotus Peak to Banzhu Mountain, then from Banzhu all the way to Longtan. He wanted to clock exactly how long it’d take the Lu Clan to rush reinforcements down that route if shit hit the fan.

But while he was observing, he accidentally noticed a black shadow tucked in the branches of a huge tree down the mountain... also peeking toward Longtan.

Cold sweat broke out all over Liu Xiaolou’s back, and a wave of dread washed over him again.

A cold sweat instantly soaked Liu Xiaolou’s back. Another wave of dread washed over him.

He kept his eyes on that patch of blackness. Watched it shiver among the branches as the night grew cold. Watched it slither down the trunk and melt into the deeper dark. Liu Xiaolou came down from his perch as well and quietly followed after him.

He trailed him in a wide loop out of Tianmu Mountain. By midday the two of them, one ahead and one behind, walked into Tianmu Market.

The man headed to the east side of the market, stopped across from the Hongji Tavern, and stepped into a teahouse. He ordered a pot of tea and sipped it slowly while keeping his gaze fixed on the tavern across the street.

Liu Xiaolou sat several tables behind him, ordered tea of his own, and waited in silence.

By evening the man finally got up, left the teahouse, and entered Hongji Tavern. As he went inside, Liu Xiaolou spotted another companion of his. That companion followed him in as well.

Judging from how sneaky he’d been acting, he was probably watching Longtan's Alchemy Room too. Liu Xiaolou just had no idea which faction this “hero” belonged to.

He waited outside the tavern for another hour. After thinking it over again and again, he finally decided to go in.

He pulled the brim of his bamboo hat a little lower, stepped into the main hall, and let his eyes sweep the room. The man wasn’t there. Ignoring the waiter’s eager greeting, he headed up to the second floor.

Outside one of the private rooms, he heard someone call out, “Waiter, bring the wine!”

He didn’t look back. He went straight downstairs and out of Hongji Tavern.

There was no need to check. Whoever was in that private room, whichever of the two it was, had to be the same guy who’d asked him about the diagrams of the seven formations back in the Chicheng underground market.