After the destruction of Shrek City, Yun Ming and the rest went into hiding while the Tang Sect slowly began to gather forces. They were waiting and slowly planning to one day reveal themselves to the world again.
But before that, they have to take care of the attackers. From the attack and the fact that the Godslayers, the forbidden weapons that should be deeply hidden by the Federation, were used in the attack, the Seagod members didn't need much thinking to know that some major powers were involved in this for the Evil Soul Masters to get their hands on this.
They knew who they were thinking of but they didn't make it verbal since exceptions do exist in the world and it may very well be a hidden new power that has come to rise not too long ago.
However that doesn't mean that they were not going to verify their suspicions. Not doing so would be stupid.
Elder Cai stealthily contacted Leng Yaozhu, the only one that she could trust in the entire Spirit Pagoda, through a secured means.
Leng Yaozhu was overjoyed at the relevation that they were all fine and just hiding and after a quick video conference, she agreed to help them check their suspicions.
She had long been sceptical of Qiangu Dongfeng's involvement in the destruction of Shrek. With the involvement of the Godslayers Missiles, she knew he was the only being capable of providing them to the Evil Soul Masters in the entire world. Even if the Godslayers were not taken into account, just the logistics and armoury used by the Evil Soul Masters to attack the Shrek was enough to raise her doubts about him.
She knew the capability of the Spirit Pagoda and just how much they had.
Even the Wargod temples wouldn't be able to fetch the two Godslayers. Forget the Wargod temples, even the Federation that was keeping the Godslayers couldn't access it without the permission of the rest of the forces. Neither could the Tang Sect or Shrek Academy.
He was the only one who can do it.
Leng Yaozhu knew of the control that Qiangu Dongfeng had on the Federation and it was no joke.
Unfortunately for her, she had been alone on this as none were heeding her words and neither can she attest any proof of Qiangu Dongfeng's involvement since he had been keeping a quiet facade for the past two-three decades with his only notable actions being the fact that he had taken in a no-name child and given him the same treatment as a Spiriter out of nowhere.
Leng Yaozhu had nothing else on him. How would she even have any? Qiangu Dongfeng's involvement in the Federation ran deeper than any could imagine.
While he was keeping a low profile as the Chairman of the Spirit Pagoda, he was using his influence on the Federation to do his bidding in secret for all this time. The Federation was pretty much his puppet, doing whatever he wanted but without revealing who the real master was.
The only one who knew about this was Fan Lin but even he had realised it a bit too late when his men had betrayed him.
After the destruction of Shrek and no news from the Seagod Pavillion or Tang Sect even when people were found to have survived that incident, Leng Yaozhu was going to silently drink her tears and let the truth be unveiled by time and move on and focus on her disciple but Elder Cai had called her, filling her with burning flames and now she was going to find what actually perspired behind the scenes.
If Qiangu Dongfeng was as innocent as he claimed to be, good for him, if he wasn't...
Elder Cai told Leng Yaozhu about Fan Lin and Qiangu Dongfeng's relations in the past and urged her to start from there while telling her about how he had saved the civilians as if he had planned do so from the start. She also told him about how he had tried to teleport after teleporting the civilians, giving no heed to saving Shrek Academy or fighting the Evil Soul Masters.
Elder Cai definitely felt that there was history between Fan Lin and Qiangu Dongfeng and it was definitely not normal otherwise Fan Lin would have never joined the Tang Sect for his Spirit Soul while cutting away all visits to the Spirit Pagoda.
With a lead in her hand, Leng Yaozhu began to cautiously search for Fan Lin's past and information that was stored in the Spirit Pagoda.
On the other hand, the other members of the Seagod island got in contact with the spy in the Spirit Pagoda and found nothing.
To be fair, the attack had indeed orchestrated out of nowhere and without any warnings. The enemy had destroyed the neighbouring city, used it as a bait to lure their forces and then attacked them when they were weak.
Not to forget that the attack had happened from the inside meaning that they could have attacked any time they wanted to but didn't and instead were waiting for an opportunity which they created.
If not for Fan Lin who had been able to calm down the entire chaos within a few minutes, freeing them all to focus on the enemy, the Evil Soul Masters would have likely won or what happened in the actual book.
One thing they got though and it was not about Qiangu Dongfeng and his involvement in the attack but it was about Fan Lin and Qiangu Dongfeng's past and about the time when Qiangu Dongfeng had called in the Spirit Pagoda's top Battle Armour creator team to help Fan Lin create his Battle Armour.
For that, they had to clear away their schedule and even delay some of the Elders requests as Qiangu Dongfeng had put the Battle Armour as the utmost priority.
This had lead to many rumours and speculations that he was either training Fan Lin as the next successor or Fan Lin was related to him and he was training him to be the next successor.
Soon the rumours died down though as Fan Lin suddenly stopped visiting and didn't even get his Battle Armour. But the suprising thing was that Fan Lin was given the privileges of a Spiriter despite his absence. It was like Qiangu Dongfeng was preparing for when he would come. This was the exact reason why the Elders and the spy know about Fan Lin because they thought that the rumours might have some truth to it and Qiangu Dongfeng was just hiding away Fan Lin from the Pagoda to avoid any clashes with Leng Yaozhu's disciple Gu Yue.
Pertaining to this, they took the help of the Tang Sect and launched an investigation into Fan Lin since the information records on him were burned with the Shrek City and if they wanted to know anything, they would have to start afresh and gather the information once again.
Information gathering would however take time. Till then, all of his teachers' gathered up to gather whatever they knew about him and match it up and compile it to provide some insight and when they did that, except for finding him to be extremely rude, annoying, selfish and poison-mouthed, they couldn't get anything new about his character which just raised even more questions about why he saved everyone.
Either they had failed to understand him or they never understood him to began with. Or he had changed. There were too many things that could be.
Whereas the information on his soul skills and combat capabilities were pretty outdated since those were from the time when he only had 6 rings, four of which he never used (Petrosapien Physique, Teleport, Fiery Fire, Indestructible shield), one that he always used (Superior energy body) and the one that was banned to be used after the last fight (Crystallokinesis).
Now he had learnt how to fuse his spirit rings, have four new skills and had become far more of a monster than he already was. He still spammed his Crystallokinesis a lot though.
Weeks passed by and things happened and they all settled down in many of the Tang Sect's and Body Sect's hiding locations.
Finally one day, a few months later, Leng Yaozhu came to meet them, bringing with her the information that changed their perspective on the entire scenario.