Zhao Ru was walking back to the demon's room while bringing the clean sheet, finding her to be not in her room. After setting up the sheet, she came out and asked one of the women outside.
"Do you know where little Ya is, right?" Zhao Ru asked with an innocent face.
"Little Ya should be washing her body right now." She explained without knowing the whole truth.
Zhao Ru misunderstood them once again as she thought that the demon truly sacrificed her chastity in order to make Hao Yu her pawn, not realizing that Hao Yu had the talisman from Ding Ruoling.
Zhao Ru said, "Alright then."
"By the way, Manager, are we going to open the brothel tonight?"
"No. It's still unstable. I think we should wait until tomorrow. The Administrator will give us some explanations soon. So, make sure you get some rest since we'll be busy again soon."
"Alright. I'll tell the other girls, alright?"
Zhao Ru nodded with a smile. Once the woman walked away, Zhao Ru's expression turned grim, realizing the severity of this problem.
…
Meanwhile, the demon was actually not washing herself. Instead, she sneaked out of the brothel and headed to the other brothels to meet her friends.
"What are you doing here?" Her friend was another woman in one of the brothels that was attacking Zhao Ru's place.
"Things are not looking good. The cultivators know that we are here, so we have to silence them. Luckily, I managed to turn an Administrator as my puppet. I've told him to bring the government soldiers to conduct a search, which is a perfect opportunity for us to sneak out."
"What? The government? Cultivators? Aren't they…"
"I know. Just listen to me first since I don't have much time. I want you to also inform the others about my plan."
Both of them stared at each other with a serious expression as the plan was laid down. It looked reckless at first, but it was pretty reasonable when they discussed it.
The plan soon spread to all the demons, ready to take action. In fact, all the demons had started disguising themselves as they tried to leave the city without anyone noticing. They all looped around the city and placed themselves in the position to ambush the cultivators. As long as they eliminated him, they could stay in this city for a long time. Unless the elder was going to act personally, they didn't have to leave.
On the other hand, Ding Ruoling had begun his plan as well, following Hao Yu's arrangement.
He asked for reinforcement from the miners regarding the number of demons and his plan. In the end, he managed to gain the help of six disciples at 8-Star Qi Gathering Stage, which was similar to him. With the addition of his original two friends, they had nine people, two more than the demons.
He was lucky that he managed to kill one of them before or he would definitely need more people than this.
He briefed them, "Alright. Once the investigation commences, the demon is going to run away and I will chase her outside the city. They will definitely surround me in that place, so we'll be ambushing their force after they come out."
The cultivators nodded their heads, understanding the plan. They never thought that Ding Ruoling would make this easy by having an Administrator involved. But they had never thought that an administrator would be this good in setting up an ambush.
If this mission was solved with only this, then they had no choice but to recognize the administrator's skill. In fact, they might have underestimated administrators that this dynasty had.
After discussing the details of the plan, they split up as Ding Ruoling was moving toward the brothel, observing it closely.
…
Unbeknownst to the demons or cultivators, they had been fooled by Hao Yu.
In his office, Hao Yu was extending his hand on the table as Ren Yexiang was applying some salve on the wound located on his palm.
"Mhmm…" Hao Yu endured the pain but didn't scream or anything. What actually happened? When did Hao Yu get this injury?
"Sir. When did you get hurt? Did something not go according to your plan?"
"No. Everything is going according to the plan." Hao Yu took out a talisman he hid inside his pocket instead of sticking it on his body. "Store this."
"This is… a talisman?" Ren Yexiang gasped. "Where did you get this?"
"A cultivator gave it to me. I was supposed to use it to resist the charm of a fox demon, but I knew that pain was enough to prevent me from being charmed, so I didn't need to use it… No, more like I didn't want to use it."
"Didn't want?" Ren Yexiang was surprised but soon found the deep darkness in Hao Yu's eyes.
"Yes. I don't mind using something that can react to Spiritual Qi since the Qi is the original energy that exists in this world. However, I refuse to use something related or made by cultivators." Hao Yu put the talisman down and said, "You should store this until I find someone who can analyze it and find its weakness."
"Understood." Ren Yexiang nodded her head while closing the wound with a band aid. "This should be enough."
"Thank you." Hao Yu smirked. The demon or Zhao Ru wouldn't have realized that the blood on the sheet was actually his blood. He knew Zhao Ru would misunderstand the blood, thinking it came from the demon, which would reinforce the thought of her being a demon in her mind.
With this, he had a witness to smoothen everything.
Not long after, Old Si entered the room and reported, "Sir, the soldiers that you're requesting earlier have arrived. Are you going with them?"
"Of course, I'm going. Tell them to stand by, I'll go out immediately." Hao Yu waved his hand, sending Old Si away.
Before leaving, Hao Yu said to Ren Yexiang, "Do you remember the explosive powder that I've asked you to seize in the past couple of days?"
"Yes. It should have been enough to create a few bombs."
"Good. Make sure they are ready, since we'll be using them soon." Hao Yu smirked. While putting on his robe, he began to walk out while saying, "Alright. Time to kill some cultivators."