Zhu Zhu almost fell when he heard the voice behind him.
"DON'T KILL ME ELDERS!!!!" Zhu Zhu cried out on instinct.
Lin Mu observed the startled man, who seemed to be hiding his head in his knees. He simply stood there and waited for the man to come to his senses. Thankfully, it didn't take long and Zhu Zhu felt something was wrong when he didn't get the wind knocked out of him in five seconds.
Lifting the fingers off his head, he tilted it and sneaked a look at the person standing in front of him. At first, he only saw the legs and they were draped in robes that were not recognizable to him.
'That doesn't seem like any elder's robes…' Zhu Zhu thought.
Finally, building up a little courage, he wholly lifted his head and looked at the young handsome man standing there. There were spirit Qi fluctuation coming from him that were no weaker than most elders.
But poor Zhu Zhu didn't know that this was only because Lin Mu was holding them in. He didn't want to alert the sect and make things more tiresome for himself. At least not when there was a chance that there was something sinister happening here.
"W-who… Who are you?" Zhu Zhu questioned.
"That does not matter… what matters is what I can offer you." Lin Mu stated plainly.
Tens of thoughts ran through Zhu Zhu's mind as he tried to wrap it around this situation. He couldn't understand how someone could appear here in the room he had made in the ground.
Especially since it was closed off entirely and even he would need to dig his way out. There were only some small openings that would bring in air and some sound from the outside.
'Wait… there are no openings…' Zhu Zhu looked around at the small room, seeing no place broken.
Lin Mu easily guessed what the man was thinking, but didn't mind it.
"Now then… I understand that you want to leave the Ripple Mist sect?" Lin Mu asked, pulling the man out of his thoughts.
"Y-yes… I want to leave… the sect elders have gone crazy." Zhu Zhu replied.
"Crazy you say? Can you tell me more?" Lin Mu asked.
"They… they force us to enter seclusion but don't give any resources that they are supposed to. Then there is the fact that all those that entered it have never been heard from again." Zhu Zhu replied.
"From what I know, seclusion is supposed to be like that. No contact, so that one could fully focus on cultivation." Lin Mu stated.
"Yes, that would be fine. But… there were many discrepancies in this… the biggest one that made us suspicious being… the death of a few that was hidden from us." Zhu Zhu replied.
"Deaths? What kind of deaths?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Well… the deaths of many were hidden from us. It wasn't as if deaths during seclusion were common either, as only those that were secluding themselves at the end of their lifespan would die like that. Or rarely those that made mistakes during cultivation and died from Qi deviation.
These were… unexplained deaths.
I and my fellow disciples heard of them for a while but when one of our companion died and we asked the elders, we were reprimanded about questioning them and challenging the rules of the sect." Zhu Zhu answered.
"How were you all so sure of your companion's death?" Lin Mu asked.
"The companion of ours that died… he had a betrothed… someone he had promised to become Dao companions with. He had left a life wick with her. She broke down when she saw the life wick burning out all of a sudden one day.
The shocking thing was, it was merely two days after he entered seclusion. And there was very little chance of him dying in there as he was only in the mid stage of the Qi refining realm, not in any risk stage of breakthrough. He wasn't at the end of his lifespan either and didn't have any other issues." Zhu Zhu replied.
Lin Mu knew what life wicks were. They were similar to the soul light pearls and other such treasure that were used to tell if the owner had died or not. Many people used these to keep track of their family or loved ones.
Though life wicks were considered to be one of the more lower quality ones and wouldn't work if the person who had lit them went too far from it. But even in that case, they wouldn't go out, but just keep on burning for a hundred years before dying out.
But seeing as the man's life wick went out when both were within the sect itself, it didn't make sense that it had stopped working naturally.
Lin Mu found it all to be rather suspicious indeed.
"And you say they deny that anyone died?" Lin Mu asked.
"Y-yes… they sternly deny it all and tell us that we should not question them at all. They all changed… the elders might have been strict in the past, but they turned utterly crazy three years ago after that incident when our ten of our elders died." Zhu Zhu replied.
Hearing that, Lin Mu knew that incident was none other than him leaving the sect after killing some elders in the process.
"The elders were greatly enraged, and the patriarch gave them some ordered before entering seclusion himself. Since then, radical changes happened in the sect and the number of resources we got reduced as well." Zhu Zhu stated.
'The Gu Legion… no doubt they are re-routing the resources from here.' Lin Mu easily guessed.
"Do you know where the sect keeps resources? And also, do you know where the sect's spirit stone mines are?" Lin Mu brazenly questioned.
"W-why do you want to know that?" Zhu Zhu asked, having a bad feeling.
"To take down this sect, of course." Lin Mu causally spoke.
Hearing that, Zhu Zhu's eyes went wide and he couldn't help but feel like there was a lump stuck in his throat.
