2778  Experiencing Oppression

Meng Bai looked around their lodgings and found them to be oppressively bare.

There were only four so-called beds, which were nothing more than stiff, straw-filled mattresses unceremoniously thrown onto the floor. The air was thick with the scent of stale wood and damp stone, as if the room had been long abandoned, left to decay in isolation. There were no tables, no chairs—only a single, crude floor table, barely large enough to hold a tray of cups. The walls were cold, featureless stone, unyielding and lifeless.

There were no windows. No decorations. No means of escape.

The only source of light came from the eerie glow of the monitoring array embedded in the ceiling, its shifting runes pulsating with an unspoken menace. It wasn't just watching them—it was studying them, judging their every move.

"Can't we just leave the city and go elsewhere? Then return only for the teleportation?" Meng Bai asked, the suffocating atmosphere gnawing at his nerves. His voice was hushed, as if speaking too loudly might provoke unseen eyes. "Even living in the wild would be a hundred times better than this."

"Unfortunately, foreigners aren't allowed to leave the city," Daoist Chu replied, shaking his head. "If they did, I would have already suggested it."

Meng Bai's shoulders slumped. "So we're trapped."

Lin Mu narrowed his eyes. "Are they always like this? Were they this extreme the last time you were here?" He asked, his voice sharp with suspicion. Daoist Chu and Monk Hushu had both traveled through this place before. If things had changed, there had to be a reason.

Daoist Chu rubbed his chin, frowning. "Now that you mention it… they do seem far more rigid this time. Even more than usual."

"Did something happen?" Meng Bai muttered, a gnawing unease creeping into his heart.

"Perhaps," Lin Mu said, his tone laced with caution. "But for now, we should focus on getting settled in. We'll figure the rest out later." He needed a clear mind to think things through.

He lowered himself onto one of the stiff mattresses, crossing his legs. Closing his eyes, he began chanting the Calming Heart Sutra, forcing himself to push away the overwhelming sense of oppression. The stale air, the surveillance, the hostile glares from the guards—he willed it all into silence within his mind.

HUUU—

A slow breath. A moment of clarity.

When he opened his eyes again, his mind was sharp. He needed a plan.

He had too many secrets. His techniques, his cultivation methods, the very nature of his power—any one of them could be considered heretical in a place like this. And the beasts. If the Osteri Divine Order had any method of detecting the entities he carried, it could be disastrous. He could not afford to remain under their constant scrutiny for an entire month.

'The monitoring array has to be disabled. And it must be done without alerting them.'

Lin Mu expanded his immortal sense, scanning the room in excruciating detail. Every hidden formation, every strand of lingering energy—he dissected it all with precision. His senses locked onto something.

'A silent alarm.'

It was an insidious formation. It wouldn't activate unless someone attempted to tamper with the other arrays. A clever safeguard. But Lin Mu had seen more complex traps before.

He quickly sent a message to Daoist Chu through the jade slip. 'There's a silent alarm in place. We deal with that first.'

'I understand,' Daoist Chu replied. 'Proceed carefully.'

To anyone watching, Lin Mu appeared deep in meditation, his breathing steady. But within his mind, he was carefully unraveling the threads of the alarm array. It was painfully slow work—every misstep could trigger a response, and then they'd have real trouble.

Twelve agonizing hours passed.

HUU—

Lin Mu exhaled silently, the last strand of energy dissipating. The silent alarm was disabled.

'It's done.' He transmitted.

'Good. Now for the redundancies.'

The monitoring system had layers of fail-safes. Two more redundant arrays were woven into the room, designed to alert the enforcers if any tampering was detected. They were more sophisticated than the silent alarm but not beyond their ability to manipulate.

Lin Mu worked on one while Daoist Chu focused on the other. This was riskier. The formations were designed to interact, meaning a mistake from one of them could still trigger the whole system.

Four hours later, both arrays were under their control.

'Now for the main one.'

Lin Mu turned his attention to the true monster in the room—the monitoring array itself.

It was an invasive, multi-layered construct. It didn't just track movement. It recorded the number of people present, their conversations, and even their actions. A secondary alert system was embedded within it, designed to trigger an alarm if any prohibited objects or actions were detected.

'They really went overboard with this,' Lin Mu mused, eyes narrowing. 'Even a flask of wine would trigger an alert.'

Slowly, methodically, he began to dismantle its restrictions. Unlike before, this time the goal was not to disable it outright, but to gain control over it. The array had to appear functional on the surface while being rendered powerless in practice. That required absolute precision.

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