At that time, Mei Chao Bing and the other three finally returned to the town from the investigation of the array. They immediately went to Elder Baili’s house, their expressions grave.

Seeing the disciples entering, Elder Baili also couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. It looked like whatever they had found wasn’t anything good. Well, that was to be expected. "What exactly did you find?" He looked from one person to the other, trying to find a clue from their expressions already.

Since Zhi Guan had been the one to lead them, the other three stepped back and just let him handle things. In any case, this was his own Master. He could probably explain best to him.

Zhi Guan didn’t lose any time. "The array led to a cave where we found another two arrays of the same kind. We suspect that they will lead to other places in the border region but we didn’t actually try them out. There were other tunnels leading away from the cavern we arrived in but we didn’t follow those either since we were only four people and didn’t know what was on the other side. So we wanted to report our findings first."

Baili Chao furrowed his brows. "I see." It seemed that things were really just as bad as he had thought. In fact, they might even be worse than that. And there wasn’t much that they could do. But in any case, this already told them one thing: They couldn’t be fainthearted. From now on, they had to treat this as their most important case. Just gathering a bit of information would not be enough anymore.

Baili Chao kept quiet for a while but didn’t send the disciples away. It could be that he would have to send them out again in a bit. After all, they probably couldn’t lose time. The problem was that they would likely not be able to get people from the Teng Yong Sect here to support them on short notice. It might take a day or two. That might not seem like much but after finding out about this, he couldn’t help but feel a little anxious. He wanted to solve this issue as soon as possible.

Well, it wouldn’t help to panic. Since things were like this, he could only work with what he had. "It was the right decision to come back here first. It is too dangerous to have the four of you in there on your own. We will need a few more people for this.

"I will message the sect about this and have them sent over some more people. Even if we have to get somebody back from a mission over or have them stop their closed-door cultivation, we can’t push it off any longer. Also, we should probably communicate this to the other sects again."

He fell quiet again, a few calculations flashing through his mind. This kind of array was complicated to set up at the beginning because one needed to determine the exact direction and distance among other things. But as soon as all that was determined, it wasn’t that difficult or expensive to make or use.

Since the demonic practitioners had done something like this, why shouldn’t they as well? The camps had already been fixed. It would be best to establish a faster connection between them for the future. They probably should’ve done that before but there had never been a need to since they had only had some patrols at the border and had only started to do more after the latest results had become more alarming.

Baili Chao turned to the disciple again. "Zhi Guan, I want you to return to the Teng Yong Sect at the fastest speed possible and give the message I will write to the Sect Master. Don’t wait for his response and return immediately. We need every person of a high-level around here that we can currently get. I hope that he will send a few other disciples back as a response. Hopefully, Elder Xing will also be able to come back."

Zhi Guan nodded.

Elder Baili looked at the others and then motioned to the door. "The three of you will also be needed to investigate this further as soon as the other disciples arrive. You should go and rest for a few hours now. After this, there might not be an opportunity for that for quite some time. Use the chance now."

The three of them inclined their heads and left then left silently. Song Mu glanced at Mei Chao Bing but didn’t say anything and just returned to his own courtyard while Xi Ju Hai did the same without bothering about either of them.

Mei Chao Bing went over to the place that he shared with Yun Bei Fen and found the little bunny diligently practicing in the courtyard. He smiled and went over, watching him for a moment. Elder Baili was right in that they didn’t have much time but at least a short moment should be allowed.

Yun Bei Fen soon noticed that his senior martial brother Mei had returned. He immediately put away the sword and then rushed over, jumping at him and wrapping his arms around his neck. "You’re back!"

Mei Chao Bing hugged him in return and nodded. "I’m back. I’m just afraid it won’t be for long. Your Master told us to go and rest. In a bit, we will likely have to leave again. I see that you’ve made some progress though."

Yun Bei Fen pulled back when he heard that, feeling a little down. "You’ll have to leave again already?" He had hoped that they would be able to spend some time together again after he was back but it seemed that that wouldn’t be the case after all.

Mei Chao Bing reached out and cupped Yun Bei Fen’s cheeks, rubbing his skin with his thumb. He felt a bit regretful but there was nothing he could do. "Yeah, I will have to. It can’t be helped. Well, this also means that your Master really trusts me. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?"

Yun Bei Fen nodded at that. Yes, that was indeed good. He should probably be happy about it. He couldn’t deny that he’d rather have stayed with Mei Chao Bing though. "Well, I just hope you’ll be finished soon. I’d much rather spend time with you." He hugged him again but then stepped back. "If you need to rest, then you should do so."

Mei Chao Bing nodded and ruffled Yun Bei Fen’s hair with a smile. "I’ll do so. Don’t worry. Soon enough, the two of us will have more time together again."

Yun Bei Fen nodded eagerly and then watched Mei Chao Bing leave. He stood in the courtyard for a moment, not quite sure what to do with himself, and then, he just ran after him.

Mei Chao Bing raised his brows when his little bunny slipped into the room behind him, wondering what this was about. "You don’t want to train anymore?"

Yun Bei Fen hurriedly shook his head and hugged Mei Chao Bing’s waist. "No, I’ve trained for a long time. I’m also really tired now. I’ll rest with you."

Mei Chao Bing’s lips curled up and he nodded slowly. "Oh. So it was like that. In that case, we should take off our outer robes. Let’s go and sleep." He didn’t bother to expose him and just took off his own outer robe, and then went to lie down with him. In any case, it really was nice to spend at least a few hours together before he had to leave again.