The black-armored devilish being had been sent by Violet Spirit.
With her status as one of Sacred Ancestor Liu Ji's disciples, she had a considerable amount of influence in the Blue Waterfall Lake and could call upon many subordinates.
As such, it was naturally a simple task for her to investigate the origins of a Spatial Tempering Stage being.
In less than a day, Violet Spirit had identified him and gathered all of the information surrounding his private mine.
In reality, it was not uncommon to see private mines being excavated in secret in the Blue Waterfall Lake. Wu You and his group's private mine had been opened on a mine vein of a rather low caliber, and he was a late-Spatial Tempering Stage being, so even though the other powers were aware of this, they didn't step in.
"How could so much premium Foreign Devilish Metal have been mined from a low-quality mine vine? There has to be some hidden circumstances involved," Han Li mused to himself.
With that in mind, he didn't hesitate any longer and made a hand seal as he closed his eyes to activate the spiritual sense marks he had left on Wu You and the others.
With his current fearsome powers, they were naturally completely unable to sense what he had done.
Shortly thereafter, a rather peculiar look appeared on Han Li's face.
He could sense that most of Wu You's group had already left Blue Waterfall City, but there were two spiritual sense marks that were only several kilometers away and were slowly approaching him.
Han Li was naturally quite surprised to see this, and he released his spiritual sense out of his room toward the direction where the two marks were situated.
Moments later, Han Li was able to identify the approaching duo as a devilish man and a devilish woman.
The man looked to be in his thirties while the woman appeared to be in her twenties, and they seemed to be a couple.
Through Han Li's spiritual sense detection, he could see that they had just emerged from a beast-drawn carriage, and after a brief discussion, they continued on toward the inn that Han Li was staying in on foot.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Han Li quickly guessed why this devilish couple were doing this, and he ascertained that they had most likely come here to see him.
Thus, he smiled and withdrew his spiritual sense before waiting in his room.
Sure enough, not long after that, the two spiritual sense marks appeared outside the room that he was staying in.
However, the two of them seemed to be rather hesitant and were indecisive about how to proceed.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and his lips tremored slightly a few times.
In the next instant, his voice abruptly rang out in the ears of the devilish couple. "Seeing as you're already here, why don't you come in?"
The couple's expressions changed slightly upon hearing this, and they exchanged a glance, following which the devilish man gritted his teeth, and said, "Let's go. Senior Han has already detected us, so there's no turning back."
The devilish woman nodded with a wry smile after a brief hesitation, and thus, the two of them entered the room.
They were immediately greeted by the sight of a rather small hall, and Han Li was seated on a chair inside the hall, appraising them with an indifferent expression.
"We pay our respects to Senior Han." The devilish couple hurriedly bowed toward Han Li in unison.
"No need for formalities. Why have you two followed me here? Is there something you wish to discuss with me?" Han Li asked.
"Your wisdom is truly unmatched, Senior; we do indeed have something we'd like to tell you," the devilish man said with a fawning smile.
"Go on then; I have many things to attend to, so I don't have much time to waste," Han Li prompted.
The devilish couple exchanged another glance upon hearing this, following which the devilish man mustered up his courage, and said, "Senior Han, does your previous offer still stand?"
"Previous offer? Oh, you're talking about what I said to Wu You before I left, right? Of course it does; are you two interested in disclosing the information to me?" Han Li asked in a calm manner.
"We are! We actually know more than Wu You about the specific area where the Foreign Devilish Metal was mined as we were there in person when this batch of Foreign Devilish Metal was excavated. If you're willing to issue the promised devil stones to us, we'd be more than happy to reveal this information to you, Senior," the devilish man replied in an elated manner.
"Wu You doesn't know you came here, right?" Han Li asked instead of giving a direct response.
"Indeed. It's not that we wanted to do this behind Wu You's back; Wu You was the one who wronged us first. We were overseeing the proceedings at the mine when the batch of Foreign Devilish Metal was excavated, so they'd been planning to dump everything on our heads if we were to be caught. They want us to be their scapegoats, and if we hadn't overheard them discussing this by chance, we'd still be completely in the dark. On top of that, Wu You is only going to split a very small portion of the devil stones with us, and we're naturally unwilling to settle for this after taking such a huge risk," the devilish man said in an indignant manner.
"I don't care about what happens between you and Wu You; as long as you provide me with satisfactory information, I'll give you the amount of devil stones I promised earlier," Han Li said in an emotionless manner.
"Thank you, Senior; I'm sure the information we have will satisfy you," the devilish man immediately replied in an elated manner.
"Alright, then go ahead," Han Li prompted.
"This batch of Foreign Devilish Metal was excavated from the first private mine that we opened, and it was discovered by myself and my dao companion. However, it was found at the deepest part of the mine in an extremely secluded area, so without proper guidance, it's very difficult to find the entrance to that area; we only stumbled upon it after running the mine for close to 100 years. The exact location is…" Thus, the devilish man began to disclose the information that he had, and Han Li occasionally interjected to ask some questions.
After all of his questions had been answered by the devilish couple, Han Li nodded with a pleased expression, and said, "The information you've provided to me will save me a lot of trouble, so I'll be issuing you the devil stones that I promised. However, if I find that the information you provided me with is false, you won't be alive to spend the devil stones! Is there anything you'd like to add?" Han Li said in a cold voice as a red storage bracelet that was filled with devil stones appeared in his hand.
"Rest assured, Senior; we wouldn't dare to lie to you," the devilish man said with a fawning smile as he glanced at the storage bracelet in Han Li's hand with a hint of yearning in his eyes.
"Hehe, I certainly hope so. Alright, you can go now," Han Li said as he flicked a wrist, tossing the storage bracelet toward the couple.
The devilish man caught the bracelet and immediately injected his spiritual sense into it. Upon discovering that it was filled with devil stones, he immediately extended an ecstatic bow before backing out of the room with the woman as he said, "Thank you, Senior; we won't occupy any more of your time now."
After that, the couple arrived in a secluded alley near the inn, and the woman asked, "Did Senior Han give us the promised number of devil stones?"
"I didn't check it thoroughly, but it should be the right amount. Judging from how generous he was, I'm sure he wouldn't try to fool us over something like this. I didn't think that he would hand over the devil stones so easily; looks like we won't have to use the trump cards we prepared now," the devilish man replied with an excited expression.
The woman was ecstatic to hear this, but a cautious look then appeared on his face. "What do we do next? Do we leave the Blue Waterfall Lake according to the route Wu You had planned?"
"We definitely can't stay in the Blue Waterfall Lake any longer, but we can't take the route that Wu You stipulated, either; we'll have to go in another direction. With these devil stones, we won't have to suck up to him as servants any longer," the devilish man immediately replied, having clearly already considered this matter.
"Alright, we'll do as you say," the woman agreed after a brief hesitation.
Thus, the two of them hailed a beast-drawn carriage before traveling toward the nearest city gate.
Meanwhile, Han Li was still seated in his chair, contemplating the information that he had just received.
As he was listening to the devilish man's account, he had unleashed a very subtle type of secret technique.
This secret technique wasn't as effective as a soul search technique, but it was very potent for determining whether someone was telling the truth. Otherwise, with his cautious nature, there was no way that he would've handed over the devil stones so easily.
As long as the information that the devilish man had revealed to him was truthful, he didn't care if some details had been withheld.
Of course, he had chosen to take this route as capturing the couple and using a soul search technique on them could attract attention from other high-grade devilish beings staying in the inn, which would be quite troublesome.
After contemplating the situation for a while longer, Han Li suddenly rose to his feet, and murmured to himself, "So be it, time is of the essence, so I'll let him go and visit the private mine right now."
