Tang Doudou and Baili Yiling were currently discussing how to start investigating that mysterious person when someone asked to see them.
They shared a glance, then Tang Doudou had that person come in. As they had expected, it was the manservant that guarded the doors of the manor.
"Master and Jun Xin are about to set off, so Yiling, you should go after them!" After the manservant delivered the message, Tang Doudou had him head back first before turning to Baili Yiling.
Baili Yiling had reflexively gotten up the moment the manservant came in, so when she heard what Tang Doudou said, she turned towards Tang Doudou and said in a low voice, "Sister-in-Law, then I'll be heading off. If you can't handle it, make sure to find Big Brother!"
Tang Doudou nodded. "Alright, I know. You should hurry and go, otherwise you'll lose them."
"I hope that I'll be able to come back in time to see the baby born." Baili Yiling stood up. Although she had been kicking up a fuss about wanted to go, when the time actually came, she felt a little reluctant to leave. She didn't know when she would be able to come back again. By the she came back, the child in Tang Doudou's belly would probably already be grown up.
She was even more afraid that she would come back to find that they were already gone.
"Don't worry, we won't make you wait too long. I'll push your brother to find the blood core stone as soon as possible." Tang Doudou glanced at the people of the martial arts alliance who were looking at them curiously and gave a cough. "Let's end things at here for today. You guys should rest up. After I head back and analyze the matter, I'll come back tomorrow to discuss the details with you guys."
Elder Yu shared a glance with the people next to him, then said, "Yes, that works. We didn't suffer huge casualties, but it's been tiring these couple of days. I'm sure everyone would appreciate the rest."
“Alright, then we'll leave now." Tang Doudou stood up and pulled Baili Yiling with her out of the hall.
When they saw that Tang Doudou was leaving, they all got up and cupped their fists. "Safe trip, Alliance Head."
Once they left the courtyard, Baili Yiling asked, "Sister-in-Law, this is?"
"There are some things that I couldn't really talk about inside." Tang Doudou glanced behind them. She had already gotten what she wanted to know from what Elder Yu and the others so there was no point in staying any longer. It was better to take advantage of this chance to leave with Baili Yiling.
"Do you have instructions for me?"
Tang Doudou nodded. "That's right. Yiling, you must be careful while traveling with Senior Dao Xun."
This thought really had occurred very suddenly to her. She hadn't even had a chance to discuss it with Baili Yu yet, but there was no time so she could only tell Yiling to be careful. As for whether her guess was true or not, only time would tell.
Right after she whispered this in Baili Yiling's ear, Baili Yiling's facial color changed drastically and she asked quietly, "Sister-in-Law, are you certain?"
"I'm not sure, but if I was, I wouldn't be telling you to be careful and would just tell you not to go." Tang Doudou patted Baili Yiling's shoulder. "But don't worry, I'll send people to follow you in secret. If there does turn out to be a danger, remember that your own life is most important. Don't do something hot-headed again. Once I finished investigating this side, I'll tell your brother and have him hurry here."
Baili Yiling furrowed her brows and thought about things, then said, "Alright, I'll definitely be careful."
"I hope that I'm just overthinking things this time." Tang Doudou sighed again.
"I hope so as well."
"Alright, let's not delay things any longer. You should head off first. I'll go back to the manor as well to find your brother." Tang Doudou pushed Baili Yiling to have her hurry and go.
However, Baili Yiling turned back to hug her. "Sister-in-Law, take care!"
They came as two and returned as two, but it wasn't the same two.
Tang Doudou glanced towards the pretty good-looking manservant next to her and asked, "Where's your master?"
"After Master sent off Young Master Jun, he left. This little one doesn't know where he went either," replied the manservant.
Tang Doudou replied with 'oh.'
He headed out? Where to?
She hadn't heard him say that he needed to go anywhere though?
She probably wouldn't be able to find Baili Yu even if she headed back, so since she was already out, she might as well visit the four large clans and see how they were doing right now.
Based on what the martial arts alliance had said, the four large clans had fell to some frightening bugs that made them irascible to the point they attacked everyone in sight. Even Xiao Siyuan, despite his gentle temperament, had hurt people, so their situation was probably much worse than the martial arts alliance's side.
The only thing that puzzled Tang Doudou was the fact that Qing Yin's entire body was filled with wounds left by a beast's bite, but the martial arts alliance didn't mention anything about beasts. They didn't even bring up the fact that Qing Yin had been injured.
There were probably more parts of this that was being concealed.
"There's still another place that I have to go, so you should head back first!" When Tang Doudou's thoughts got to here, she turned around to dismiss the servant.
The servant respectfully bowed to her. "Master told this little one to follow Madame, so this little one cannot leave."
He sent a manservant to follow her?
Tang Doudou also copied Baili Yu's manner and narrowed her eyes. "You can't leave?"
"Replying Madame, those are the instructions that Master left."
Tang Doudou nodded. "Alright, then you can follow!"
The manservant said, "Understood!"
However, when he lifted his head, there was no trace of Tang Doudou left.
If it was an ordinary manservant, his expression would definitely fill with panic, but this manservant just chuckled. That light smile caused his ordinary face to become unnaturally beautiful for a moment and his eyes also lit up with brilliant enchanting radiance.
He knew from the start that this girl would run off, but she had run off way too quickly.
He hadn't even had a chance to catch her.
However, if she thought that she could shake him off this way, then she was too naive.
The manservant reached towards his chin and tugged off the human skin mask. Baili Yu's stunning looks were revealed and the smile on his face deepened. At the very end, his smile became very ruthlessly cold.
Despite all his intelligence—he had even thought that nothing in the world could escape his eyes—he actually hadn't managed to see things as clearly as this girl.
It seemed that he had been too focused on Doudou's matters lately. Since he hadn't taught those people a lesson recently, those people have forgotten about his temper.
As of now, Tang Doudou was already safe. She only needed wait quietly for the child to be born, so it was also time for him to initiate the arrangements that he had been preparing for so long.
When his thoughts reached this point, he went after Tang Doudou. Why didn't she investigate things first before heading straight to the four large clans? Should he say that this girl is really dumb or just fake dumb?
Sometimes she understood things better than most people, but sometimes she was seriously dumb.
However, regardless, the most important thing right now is to get that girl back.
Tang Doudou had no idea that the manservant was Baili Yu and that Baili Yu was already aware of the things she had whispered to Baili Yiling. Currently, she was walking on the bustling street leisurely.
As she watched the crowd and looked at the vendor's stands on the streets, she felt at peace and very comfortable.
It's been too long since she's come out to stroll around. Taking a walk every once in a while was not bad!
Tang Doudou brought a stick of tanghulu and chewed on it as she headed towards the city lord's residence where the four large clans were staying. Speaking of which, the four large clans' relationship with the ministers truly was unusually strong. They were attended to by people of the imperial court everywhere they went and stayed in the best places the imperial court could offer. In comparison, the martial arts alliance sure was sad.
In addition, Baili Yu had only instructed for doctors to be sent to the martial arts alliance. The four large clans had suffered more injuries than them and there were only a few good doctors in North Hara City. However, there was no news of casualties dying from the four large clans so they had probably found some skilled doctors through their own methods.
Why did she think this?
She had seen the injuries on the members of the martial arts alliance earlier. She had found it very strange. There were sword wounds and bite wounds. They had said that it was done by those strange bugs, but Tang Doudou found them familiar. She seemed to have seen these injuries on Jun Xin as well.
However, Jun Xin was bit by the soul-devouring bug.
There was no need to mention how terrifying the soul-devouring bugs were. Even Jun Xin, despite his strong inner strength, had fallen after being bit. These people had bite marks all over them, but there were only signs of exhaustion and being poisoned. Other than that, they were completely fine.
Tang Doudou couldn't help but wonder if those bugs were truly soul-devouring bugs.
The only thing she knew for sure was that both the soul-devouring bugs and the strange bugs in the manor were related to Lan Jia. The bugs left in the pots of the Mu family clinic that belonged to Grandma Shen definitely had something to do with Lan Jia as well.
However, she couldn't figure out what exactly Lan Jia's goal was.
If it was the world, why didn't he go bother the imperial court instead of them Jianghu people?
However, if it wasn't for the world, the rumor of the immortality pill has already been destroyed. Could it be that he still wasn't giving up and really thought that he would be able to refine something like an immortality pill?
Or was it that he wanted revenge? Since they had been the ones that ruined the immortality pill, he wanted to take revenge against them, then try again?
That wasn't right, it wasn't right. It still wasn't right… As Yiling has said, there was no way it was easy to refine an immortality pill. Lan Jia had spent so many years just to prepare that one batch. A lot of the required items no longer existed.
It was impossible for Lan Jia to find another set of all those items.
“Hey hey! Please move, please move over!” Suddenly, a youngster that was covered in mud jumped out on the busy street. His expression was flustered. As he asked for everyone to move aside, he kept glancing backwards.
“Stinkin’ brat! Stop right there! You actually dared to steal something of mine? When I get my hands on you, you’re done for!” A group of large men holding wooden sticks were chasing after that youngster and the person who was shouting that he’d beat the youngster to death was a very fat middle-aged man.
As he ran, he kept angrily shouting for that youngster to stop.
But how could the youngster possibly listen to him? He made a face at that man, then continued running. However, just as he turned around, he knocked into someone.
“Sorry, I didn’t do it on purpose!” He hastily apologized.
“Then that means there was a purpose?” The person that he had ran into turned around and said this jokingly.
The youngster lifted his head, surprised. From the sounds of things, this young lady probably wouldn’t forgive him easily.
Tang Doudou was currently also looking at this youngster. After scrutinizing him, she smirked.