Hidden Moth-Chapter 567 - 325: A Thread of Daylight, No Further Path

Shi’er Ji, with Shi being a Buddhist surname and Er Ji being his Dharma name, is a monk who, in his early years, shaved his head and took vows at Nanhua Zen Temple. He has traveled to many places for cultivation and settled at Jingshe Temple on Qixia Mountain, outside Qi Yuan, the year before last.

Earlier this January, between New Year’s Day and the Spring Festival, his Hidden Moth Technique cultivation formally broke through to Tier Four, which according to ancient legends, should allow him to sense the location of "Hidden Moth."

The so-called "Hidden Moth" refers to the Floating Colors Grotto Heaven.

The names of various grotto heavens were given by later disciples, while the inscriptions on the stone arches within the grotto heavens were left by the founders. For instance, the inscription for Lingxi Grotto Heaven reads "Shock Sect," Immortal Pot Grotto Heaven as "Dan Hill," and the Floating Colors Grotto Heaven’s inscription is "Hidden Moth."

So, did he sense the Grotto Heaven Summon? One can only say he somewhat did.

He could feel the presence of the Grotto Heaven mysteriously, yet he couldn’t pinpoint the gate’s location, or perhaps that location doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.

This was because He Kao brought "Tan Xian’s Walking Stick Painting" into the grotto heaven, creating an inconceivable hyper-dimensional structure.

The reason Shi’er Ji arrived at Qi Yuan was to find Hidden Moth and that painting. Because the painting was swapped in Qi Yuan, it should have been taken by Hidden Moth; combined with certain rumors, Hidden Moth is likely in Qi Yuan.

He had long lost contact with the Magic Sect and dared not reconnect with old friends; thus, his sources of information were limited, and much of the intelligence he possessed was already outdated, not even knowing that the Ancestral Hall’s investigation had clearly ruled out He Kao as Hidden Moth.

This misunderstanding was quite interesting because Hidden Moth at that time indeed wasn’t He Kao but Huang Xiaopang.

Before breaking through to a high tier in the Hidden Moth technique, he could endure, but after breakthrough, he couldn’t help it. The feeling of sensing a summon from afar yet not knowing the gate’s location was truly torturous!

After becoming a Tier Four "Scholar" of the Hidden Moth Sect, he mastered the unique divine technique "Primordial Spirit Travel," allowing him to scout near Pugang Town, where his primordial spirit sneaked into He Kao’s house— a building already searched numerous times by sorcerers in various ways.

Even this master Shi’er Ji didn’t leave empty-handed. He discovered a secret room on the third floor that could isolate divine sense; the primordial spirit, which could travel only within the range of divine sense, could not enter this secret room.

Thus, after confirming no one was home at He Kao’s residence, he sneaked in with his real body and opened the secret room... He had speculated that the painting might be rolled up and stored in the secret room by He Kao, but the search yielded nothing.

The more severe consequence of this action was that it drew the Ancestral Hall’s investigation.

The backdrop at that time was Mei Guyu using herself as bait to come to Qi Yuan, attracting Xiao Alliance’s arrangements on one hand and allowing the Magic Sect to conduct an internal investigation on the other.

Li Xiuyuan, bringing Mei Wenhua and a batch of Ancestral Hall personnel, set up control in Qi Yuan, uncovering a large amount of information about violators. Upon detecting his house being infiltrated, He Kao informed Elder Li.

Elder Li managed to review all surveillance around the Pugang Town area, soon pinpointing the suspect target, likely a monk, and thus dispatched people to inspect the temples around Qi Yuan.

Though Shi’er Ji disguised himself at the time, the round-mouth cloth shoes he wore exposed a flaw, allowing Elder Li to recognize them as monks’ attire, rare nowadays. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Shi’er Ji was unaware of these convoluted details; he only knew that soon after, one night, a group of uninvited guests with magic cultivation sneaked into Jingshe Temple, secretly investigating the monks’ situation.

He remained calm, neither fleeing nor showing any other reaction, not being detected as abnormal by them, but afterward, he dared not act impulsively.

In the following period, he sensed several times the location of the grotto heaven’s gate, sometimes just in the area of Qi Yuan, but swiftly moving thousands of miles away.

Instantly teleporting thousands of miles was clearly a divine technique possessed by the Hidden Moth.

He Kao himself traversed space and accessed the Floating Colors Grotto Heaven without needing to open the grotto heaven gate, but when he sent Elder Gu from Mount Everest and Elder Li from Qi Yuan to Phoenix Tail Town, he needed to open the gate to transit through the grotto heaven, thus being sensed by Shi’er Ji.

However, the time sensing the position was extremely short and fleeting, not nearly enough to rush over and investigate thoroughly, leaving Shi’er Ji’s heart scratching like a cat’s.

He could already confirm that Hidden Moth and the Hidden Moth Sect Grotto Heaven indeed existed; it’s just that the grotto heaven gate was in a state of being mobile and concealed.

Until the early hours yesterday, he sensed the grotto heaven gate appear again and was located on the outskirts of Pugang Town. It was thought to be fleeting once more, yet the gate’s position remained unchanged, continuously staying there.

Due to habitual caution, Shi’er Ji didn’t act rashly, yet the grotto heaven gate stayed there quietly as if calling out to him, until an hour later when it disappeared.

An hour’s time was enough for him to get from Jingshe Temple to Pugang Town. The opportunity finally presented itself, yet he missed it, not without some regret.

But by early this morning, the grotto heaven gate appeared again at the same time, in the same location, and what this implies is self-evident! After a brief hesitation, he quietly got up and hurried to the outskirts of Pugang Town.

After arriving nearby, Shi’er Ji found a hidden spot in Bai Ma Mountain to first engage in primordial spirit travel and investigate the specific situation.

When the primordial spirit entered that abandoned building, in the hall, he indeed saw that hanging "Tan Xian’s Walking Stick Painting"... As he saw the scroll, He Kao also noticed him through the shadow mirror.