Chapter Ninety-Four: What Is Xiao Hanyi’s True Identity?

Their spiritual senses were locked onto each other’s storage pouches.

With the strength of Liu Pan and Xiao Hanyi’s spiritual senses, it was not difficult at such close range to penetrate the restrictions on a low-grade magical artifact like a storage pouch.

Yet, because of the difference in spiritual power, although Xiao Hanyi had been the first to lock onto Liu Pan’s storage pouch, it was Liu Pan’s spiritual sense that ultimately slipped into Xiao Hanyi’s first.

Peeking into another person’s storage pouch was not considered anything unusual in the cultivation world. Of course, to avoid trouble, one had to be sure before peeking that what followed was truly peeking, and not the shameless kind of prying under another name.

As for Xiao Hanyi’s storage pouch, Liu Pan did not pay it much mind. After all, though Xiao Hanyi possessed extraordinary talent, he was still only a cultivator at the martial master stage, which in the vast cultivation world amounted to little more than an ant. How many good things could an ant possibly have?

And yet, after his spiritual sense entered Xiao Hanyi’s storage pouch, Liu Pan froze.

"This..." He felt a strange unease. At that moment, he even wondered whether his spiritual perception had somehow been mistaken.

Because of material limitations, storage pouches generally had a capacity of about two cubic meters, and Xiao Hanyi’s pouch was no exception.

As Liu Pan’s spiritual sense penetrated it, the first things he saw were everyday necessities and a three-foot sword.

The daily provisions needed no explanation. The sword was a magical artifact, and given Xiao Hanyi’s talent and cultivation, there was nothing odd about that.

Beyond the sword, Liu Pan found a small pile of gold coins and a much larger pile of medicinal herbs.

Gold coins were of little use to cultivators. Still, cultivators in the mortal world could not simply ignore mortal customs. Thus, most would carry some gold coins with them for emergencies.

As for the herbs, there were truly too many of them, occupying nearly half the storage pouch. Most were middle-grade herbs, with only a handful of low-grade ones.

Clearly, before entering Cloud Stream Sect, Xiao Hanyi had intended to study alchemy here as well, otherwise there would not have been so many medicinal herbs in his pouch.

Of course, these herbs were not what truly drew Liu Pan’s attention. What really made him focus were the jade boxes lying deepest in the pouch.

Jade boxes were common in the cultivation world, so common that even the writers of all those fantasy novels would struggle to explain why there were so many of them.

And what jade boxes were used to hold varied from person to person.

At first Liu Pan had not thought much of them. But after his spiritual sense swept across them, he froze, because he discovered that the boxes contained origin stones.

Origin stones were a kind of cultivation resource. They contained pure vital energy, and when cultivators absorbed that energy in their training, the effect could be several times greater for half the effort.

However, origin stones could be said to be a nonrenewable resource. Like oil, they could not be formed in less than several million years.

On Tianfeng Continent, from the appearance of the first cultivator to the present day, not even Liu Pan himself knew how much time had passed.

And as the number of cultivators grew, this convenient resource had already begun to run dry. Only a few powerful families in the Central Plains occupied one or two origin-stone veins each, and even then they mined them only for their own use. In almost all other places, there were none at all.

Perhaps, countless years ago, origin stones were the most common cultivation resource on Tianfeng Continent. But today, the most common cultivation resource was pill medicine.

That was precisely why alchemists held such a special position on Tianfeng Continent. Had one gone back to the distant past, there would have been no such profession at all.

A hint of something unreadable flashed in Liu Pan’s eyes. He did not believe for a moment that the origin stones in Xiao Hanyi’s storage pouch had been picked up by chance.

At that instant, he even began to suspect that Xiao Hanyi might be one of the great families of the Central Plains. But after thinking it over, he found that unlikely.

Given Xiao Hanyi’s talent, if he truly were a descendant of one of those families, they would protect him with everything they had. How could they have sent him off to a remote place like Cloud Stream Sect?

Could it be...?

Suddenly, a sharp light flashed in Liu Pan’s eyes as he thought of the Gu family of North Desolate City.

The main reason he thought of the Gu family was Xiao Hanyi’s ice-element spiritual root.

Although Liu Pan did not know Xiao Hanyi’s exact aptitude, he was certain it could not be ordinary. In fact, he even suspected that Xiao Hanyi possessed a top-grade ice spiritual root.

And once the Gu family came to mind, Liu Pan could not help thinking of his own mother, Gu Suqing. All at once, it seemed even more likely that Xiao Hanyi had some connection to the Gu family.

After all, even his mother had appeared in a remote borderland of South Province. It was entirely possible for other members of the Gu clan to appear in Cloud Stream Sect.

With that in mind, Liu Pan’s thoughts shifted, and his spiritual sense began to meticulously scan every item in Xiao Hanyi’s storage pouch.

At last, after Xiao Hanyi’s spiritual sense had swept through Liu Pan’s pouch several times, and lunchtime was nearly over, Liu Pan’s gaze flickered as he discovered something unusual.

It was a broken silver earring, placed inside a thin, flat little box. Because it had been stored together with the everyday necessities, Liu Pan had not paid it any special attention before.

Now that he examined it closely, he immediately noticed that the earring was not quite right.

It was not badly damaged, or rather, only a small section was missing. From the curvature of the break and the smoothness of the severed surface, it was obvious that it had been snapped off by someone’s hand.

If an ordinary person used spiritual sense or divine sense to scan this broken earring, they would certainly take it for some ordinary mortal trinket and think nothing of it.

But with the suspicion surrounding Xiao Hanyi’s identity, Liu Pan’s scrutiny of everything inside the storage pouch was exceptionally thorough. That was how he discovered the problem with the earring.

Indeed, it was a common mortal object, and indeed it had been broken by human hands. Yet under careful spiritual scanning, Liu Pan found that after it had been damaged, someone had refined it.

On the uneven surface of the break, he discovered a very faintly concealed mark.

It was a diamond-shaped insignia made of four dots. Extremely simple. If he had not examined the fractured surface so carefully, he would never have noticed it. In fact, Liu Pan even suspected that if he had used divine sense instead of spiritual power, even a meticulous scan might not have revealed that mark.

This mark was none other than the simplified emblem of the Gu clan. He had seen the very same symbol before on an inconspicuous piece of jewelry in the tomb of his mother, Gu Suqing.

As expected...

Liu Pan’s eyes flickered, but his brow imperceptibly furrowed.

Though he had confirmed that Xiao Hanyi had some connection with the Gu family, the confusion in his heart only deepened.

The Gu clan’s presence in South Province was already strange enough. If it had merely been some ordinary, low-cultivation disciples appearing here, Liu Pan might still have accepted it. But a genius like Xiao Hanyi showing up in such a place—did that not make even less sense?

The Gu clan was already in a precarious position. How could they allow such a gifted descendant to wander outside? Had they abandoned all hope of rising again? Impossible.

Or could it be... that Xiao Hanyi’s talent was not as remarkable as it appeared, and that was why he had ended up here? Was the Gu clan secretly plotting something?

At this thought, Liu Pan’s eyes flickered once more. Then he raised his head to look at Xiao Hanyi across the stone table, and with a faint smile said, "Brother Xiao, may I ask what kind of spiritual root talent you possess?"