Back in the mortal realm, things were developing fast. To solve the situation with Qiguan Cheng Da's … previous traitorous behavior, Yuchi Bing Xia had immediately asked the Elder of one of the demon-hunting sects that had survived the dispute a millennium ago for help. Since they had also been invited to Leng Jin Yu and Jinde's wedding, no time was lost and they could deal with the matter immediately.
This sect happened to be the Ye Zhong Order that only accepted female disciples. And to everyone's surprise, one of the disciples that had accompanied the Elder was none other than Hong Bao.
Yuchi Bing Xia hadn't noticed her back at the wedding since he had been busy with many other things so now that he finally saw her, he slowly raised his brows. If he remembered correctly, then this woman was the direct disciple of Xian Xun, the Sect Master of the previous Chun Feng Sect. How had she ended up in the Ye Zhong Order?
The Elder in charge noticed his gaze and gave a wry smile. "I see Sect Master Yuchi remembers Hong Bao. Back then, she had been tasked by her Master to deliver a letter to us in regard to what he deemed to be the traitorous behavior of the Yun Zou Sect. She didn't arrive in time and instead brought this letter over after everything had already been resolved. Since the Chun Feng sect wasn't willing to repent afterward and comply with the rules that everybody had set up, she was left without a place to stay after they disbanded. Seeing that she is quite talented as a demon hunter and happens to be a woman as well, we took her in. She didn't grow up with Xian Xun like most of the others, and also isn't that headstrong so she was willing to swear to abide by the rules."
Naturally, the Ye Zhong Order had paid close attention to what she was doing especially in the beginning. Soon enough, they had found out that Hong Bao really couldn't be looked at like the other disciples. Most of the time, she was quite the headache. They couldn't give her any task to do alone because they could never know what would happen. Thus, she was only ever sent out in a group anyway so there was no way for her to mess up or overstep the bounds of the rules that had been laid down.
Through this, the sect also found out that she was even more lenient than the other demon hunters. If one of the demons told her some kind of sob story about why they were doing things, she would often start to pity them and even try to actually help them out. The results of that … they were really giving the Ye Zhong Order quite the headache. But that was something that she wouldn't admit to in front of Yuchi Bing Xia. She didn't want to lose all of the sect's face after all.
Yuchi Bing Xia nodded, but he honestly wasn't too surprised. He still vividly remembered how Xian Xun had come to him back then, telling him that his disciple had vanished. Back then, it had come out soon that she hadn't actually been abducted or anything but instead just gone to visit her family, not bothering to finish the task she had been given or tell her Master about her changed plans. Just from that, it could be seen that this girl was a somewhat special case.
Thus, after the Elder explained, he just nodded. Looking at the people on the other side though … "I do understand why Miss Hong would be here. But am I imagining things or is this person here the Sect Master of the Hei Dian Sect?" He looked at Shen An De, his brows furrowing. In any case, while the demon-hunting sects were usually neutral in the fight between the righteous and the demonic sects, it still was somewhat strange to bring the Grandmaster of the demonic sect to a meeting with the Sect Master of a righteous sect. That kind of neutrality was going a little too far, wasn't it?
Shen An De inclined his head, also feeling a little strange about the current situation. "Sect Master Yuchi shouldn't blame the Ye Zhong order. Hong Bao happened to tell my wife about what was going on and seeing that this has to do with the demon race, I thought I might be able to give some input so I followed along."
Actually, she had already called them over before because she had mistakenly thought that the ones getting married were Qiu Ling and Jing Yi. Seeing that they also had some relationship with that couple, Shen An De and Hong Ai had agreed to come, only to find out that they had gone to the wrong wedding. All awkwardness aside, that had come in handy when this new situation popped up. He really was interested in helping out here and making some trouble for that uncle of his.
"In any case, while the relationship between our factions might not be that good, demons causing havoc in the mortal realm is still a problem to everyone. I think it would be good to call it a truce for the time being and just focus on the matter at hand. After that, I believe we can go back to hating each other without a guilty conscience."
Yuchi Bing Xia's lips twitched. Well, that was easy for him to say! In any case, Shen An De wasn't in a difficult situation here. Even though he had only brought his wife along and nobody else from the sect, his strength was unparalleled. Most likely, he would even be able to win over their own Grandmaster Zhangsun. So he probably didn't feel any pressure at all. On the other hand, Yuchi Bing Xia felt quite pressured here.
The Elder from the Ye Zhong Order cleared her throat to get back the attention. "No matter what, I think there was an investigation that you wanted our help this. Why don't we go and take a look at that? The sooner we finish this investigation, the sooner Grandmaster Shen will be able to leave again. I think that would be in all of our interests."
Shen An De nodded straightforwardly, keeping quiet. In any case, he was only staying here to make sure that his sister-in-law wasn't getting into trouble and even though his wife had left her own sect long ago, she was still quite worried about these matters so she had naturally also wanted to take a look. Since the opportunity was there, could he say no?
Yuchi Bing Xia also realized that arguing wouldn't lead anyway so he nodded and motioned for them to follow him. "Follow me, please. I will bring you there right away." With that, he led them to an unassuming building in the inner sect where they had kept both the body of Qiguan Cheng Da and the evidence that had been found on him.