Yan Tianhen had some lingering fear. When he looked at Lin Xuanzhi again, all the resentment in his eyes was replaced with worry instead.
“Why does she want to kill us?” Yan Tianhen asked.
“Mainly because she doesn’t want to split the benefits within this Pill Limit Mysterious Land with too many people.”
Duan Yuyang angrily exclaimed, “Too hateful, honourable me really wants to kill this vicious woman!”
“If you kill her, no one will be able to obtain those benefits.” Lin Xuanzhi responded mildly.
Duan Yuyang rolled his eyes. “Honourable me is merely saying that.”
“Then what exactly are the so-called benefits?” Yuan Tianwen asked.
“There are quite a lot of benefits. However, I only need a celestial-level pill and the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire.”
Yuan Tianwen and Duan Yuyang both sucked in a cold breath of air at the same time. That the Mysterious Land had a celestial-level pill was still considered normal, but it also had the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire that was ranked ninth in the alchemist world?
Yan Tianhen’s eyes lit up. “I heard Daddy mention this kind of fire before. This is a heavenly flame that alchemists yearn for in their dreams! One can become a great alchemist, second to none, if one refined that flame!”
Duan Yuyang squinted his eyes at looked at Yan Tianhen with a complicated expression. His gaze ultimately fell on Lin Xuanzhi.
Duan Yuyang spoke to Lin Xuanzhi with profound meaning, “The books that my mother left behind also introduced this kind of Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire.”
Lin Xuanzhi met his gaze directly and asked lightly, “What did those records say about it?”
“The biggest use of the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire is not to refine pills, but to nourish the soul.”
Yan Tianhen clearly hadn’t heard of this use before, so he asked curiously, “What does ‘nourish the soul’ mean?”
Duan Yuyang explained, “Humans have past lives in addition to their present life. If they’re missing a soul in their past life, then their souls will also be incomplete in their current life. If someone wants to be whole, then they must have the entire three Yang souls and seven Yin souls; this Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire can take the place of a soul. That person can also take the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire out again after they find their missing soul and refine the flame.”
Lin Xuanzhi gazed at Duan Yuyang, indicating that this was an important matter that should be kept a secret. “It’s the same as what I know.”
Yuan Tianwen shook his head. “Sounds so miraculous, I’ve never heard of this before.”
Yan Tianhen asked foolishly, “So, who’s missing a soul?”
Duan Yuyang slapped him on the forehead. “Are you a fool? Who else can it be besides you?”
Yan Tianhen was dumbstruck, his appearance quite adorable. With his mouth open in shock, he pointed his finger at the tip of his nose, “Me?”
In their past life, just before Yan Tianhen died, he told Lin Xuanzhi, “Living is too exhausting. Dage, I don’t want a next life. In the next life…let’s not meet again either.”
After saying that, he used demonic arts, attempting to shatter his own three Yang souls and seven Yin souls so that he may never again enter the cycle of reincarnation, but Lin Xuanzhi figured out his intention and exhausted all his Qi to oppose the fate Yan Tianhen decided for himself.
However, Lin Xuanzhi only managed to save two Yang souls and six Yin souls.
The remaining one Yang and one Yin soul disintegrated without exception; nobody knew where they dissipated to.
In this life, Yan Tianhen was missing one Yang and one Yin soul.
Thus, his body’s cold attribute was even more pronounced and extreme than his last life’s. The Divine Devil bloodline within his body that didn’t wake up even until the very end in his previous life now showed signs of awakening in this life.
Missing one Yang and one Yin soul meant that his soul was no longer complete, he would always be haunted by matters from the past life when dreaming.
For the time being, although this condition didn’t severely affect Yan Tianhen’s body, the consequences brought about by the missing souls would quickly appear with the improvement in Yan Tianhen’s cultivation.
Lin Xuanzhi chased after the Hepta-Brilliant Sacred Fire in his previous life, but Shen Changgeng ultimately obtained it.
In this life, no matter what he needed to give up to exchange for it, he still wouldn’t hesitate.
Duan Yuyang was still immersed in the sorrowful news of Yan Tianhen pitifully missing a soul, unable to extricate himself, but when he turned to look, Yan Tianhen was already proceeding to continue applying medicine for Lin Xuanzhi.
Duan Yuyang, “….”
He really wanted to slap the ointment out of Yan Tianhen’s hands. “You’re missing a soul, how can you not care about such monumental news?”
Yan Tianhen raised his head and looked at Duan Yuyang with a pair of bright and clean eyes. “I can’t do anything about it even if I do care. Besides, why should I worry when Dage is worrying about it for me? Dage’s condition is top priority right now.”
Duan Yuyang was immediately exasperated. “You’re really a model younger brother. Have you forgotten the time when he made you angry?”
Yan Tianhen blinked as he replied, “Beating is affection, scolding is love, and if you love even more then just kick them with your feet.”
Duan Yuyang was suddenly stupefied. “Where did you hear such nonsense?”
“My Dad said it before.” Yan Tianhen said as he carefully applied medicine to Lin Xuanzhi.
Duan Yuyang, “…”
Wan Linghua’s ointment worked quite well. Not long after smearing it onto the wounds, Lin Xuanzhi’s injuries no longer bled. Yan Tianhen tore some soft and clean inner garments and bandaged his wounds.
Duan Yuyang looked at his adept movements and couldn’t help clicking his tongue, “Your work looks quite nice.”
“Of course.” Yan Tianhen said proudly, “Practice makes perfect!”
“You used to get hurt all the time?” Duan Yuyang’s heart suddenly hurt.
“Yeah.” Yan Tianhen nodded and replied with a bitter expression on his small face, “When I was a child, I especially liked climbing up and down. Once, I went to the top of a tree to dig out a bird’s nest, but the bird found me. It pecked me and made me fall from the tree, and even the skin on my legs broke from the fall. It hurt a lot!”
Duan Yuyang, “….”
Damn it, I actually felt sorry for you, why don’t you just keep hurting!
Lin Xuanzhi changed into a set of clean clothes and directly burned his original ones.
It was very easy to create unnecessary troubles if one left behind items contaminated with one’s internal aura.
All of a sudden, Ah Bai and Hu Po, who had been trying to lower their presence to rock bottom ever since they first entered the cave, simultaneously cried out with “ao wu“. Hu Po even lowered his body as he glared at the silver river that was already floating. He whimpered and swayed nervously, as though he was facing a powerful enemy.
Ah Bai, on the other hand, looked particularly anxious, running around Lin Xuanzhi and Yan Tianhen’s legs.
“It’s time.” Lin Xuanzhi stood up as he gazed at the jade coffin.
Shen Rubing, who was originally meditating to recover her strength, suddenly opened her eyes as well and stood up.
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon arched its back, and its river-like form quickly solidified into a snake-like demonic beast. Its entire body was silver, with only a long red tube extending from the snake’s head to the tail.
The Small Transforming Bone Dragon had no eyes on its head and looked like a bare whip.
The jade coffin began to tremble.
Shen Rubing took advantage of this time to use up all the Qi that she had accumulated so far and jumped into the air, biting her fingertip, then flicking a drop of blood towards the center of the jade coffin.
In the instant when this drop of blood fell onto the very center of the jade coffin’s lid, red array patterns, with the coffin as the center, crawled out in all four directions, covering the entire mountain chamber. The coffin fell back onto the ground. The Small Transforming Bone Dragon was trapped by the dark blue flames that appeared everywhere and issued a mournful cry.
At this time, a stone gate that only allowed one person to pass at a time opened up on the eastern mountain wall, exactly in between Lin Xuanzhi and Shen Rubing.
“Go!” Lin Xuanzhi shouted once as he pulled Yan Tianhen along, running towards that door.
But Yan Tianhen’s foot was tangled by a tentacle that crawled over and coiled around his foot. With an “Ah!“, he fell to the ground.
“Ah Hen!” Lin Xuanzhi stopped at once and drew out a dagger to cut off the tentacle.
This action made them a step too late.
Shen Rubing pinched a talisman in her hand as she quickly flashed to the door. She reached out a hand to press the mechanism next to the door, but her arm was batted away by Yuan Tianwen, who was closely following behind her.
The two started fighting on the spot, in front of the stone door.
The more they fought, the farther away they got from the door. Shen Rubing didn’t want to be entangled with Yuan Tianwen any further and wanted to pass through the stone door, but Yuan Tianwen pulled out his longsword and leveled it at her chest, blocking her way.
Shen Rubing said fiercely, “Get out of my way, or else we’ll die here together!”
Yuan Tianwen replied contemptuously, “Who wants to die together with you in the name of love?”
With that, his sword swung out again.
Thus, the first people to pass through the stone door were actually Wan Linghua and Jin Fangfei, followed closely by Duan Yuyang.
Qi Er also dragged his tattered body and limped towards this side. Ah Bai couldn’t bear to watch any longer and directly gripped the back of Qi Er’s collar in his mouth as he dragged Qi Er forward.
“Ah!” Qiu Lu turned around and saw that a dark green tentacle unexpectedly stretched out from within the dark blue flames and grabbed onto Wu Shiyin’s ankle, throwing her to the ground.
Qiu Lu hurriedly drew her sword to chop at that thing, but after she cut that one, two more came along.
On Lin Xuanzhi’s side, he threw out a top-grade attack weapon with no hesitation and cut off all those tentacles square in the middle.
Yan Tianhen’s ankle was injured, so Lin Xuanzhi picked him up and rushed towards the stone door, quickly slipping through.
“Shijie!” The more Qiu Lu cut apart, the more those tentacles appeared. She cried out anxiously when she saw that Shen Rubing was actually still fighting with Yuan Tianwen.
The stone door began to descend.
“Yuan Tianwen, what the fuck are you still fighting for, get over here right now!” Duan Yuyang roared. Yuan Tianwen seemed as though he’d been struck by lightning. He pulled back his attack and twisted his face, ducking under the stone door.
“Leave her alone! Go!” Shen Rubing called out and hurriedly rushed through the stone door. Qiu Lu gave Wu Shiyin, who was getting more and more entangled by those things, one last reluctant glance before turning around and running away as well.
Despair appeared on Wu Shiyin’s face.
Behind her, under the dark fire, the Small Transforming Bone Dragon roared angrily and rushed towards the stone gate.
With a bang, the stone door fell down and stopped the Small Transforming Bone Dragon.
However, Wu Shiyin, who was left inside, was crushed by the Small Transforming Bone Dragon, leaving behind only a puddle of watery blood; even her bones couldn’t be seen.
The hair-raising and terrifying moment had passed, and the survivors of the calamity leaned against the dark mountain wall, gasping for breath.
Although they escaped a disaster, to achieve Lin Xuanzhi’s ultimate goal, this was far from enough.
“Young Sect Master Shen.” Lin Xuanzhi looked straight at the breathless Shen Rubing in the dark and continued, “If you have any more untoward thoughts on the road ahead, I don’t mind switching to another route.”
Shen Rubing felt an abrupt shock and blurted out, “How can you know that there are other routes? Just how much do you know about this Mysterious Land?”
“Naturally less than Young Sect Master Shen.”
Shen Rubing thought for a while, then smiled coldly, “It seems that Craftsman Lin wanted to approach me in the beginning because he wanted me to lead the way!”
“I didn’t approach you, instead it was the exact opposite. Food can be eaten at random, but words can’t be spoken at random, so as to avoid misunderstandings.”
Shen Rubing’s expression was ashen, but nobody could tell in the dark.
After a while, Shen Rubing sneered, “I’ll acknowledge my misfortune for falling into your hands, however…are you going to take this trash along?”
She pointed to Qi family’s second young master, who was lying on the ground half-dead. Murderous intent burst forth from her eyes, clearly wanting to end his life.
