Feng Jingyu followed Yan Tianhen’s instructions early this morning to find a way to get in touch with Lin Xuanzhi. However, to his surprise, except for the fog forest, there were magic arrays everywhere. Some were fog forest arrays, some were arrays made from streams, some were bamboo forest arrays, and some arrays were even directly made of stones. All in all, none of these were easy to deal with.
As if to pour salt over the wound, the terrain surrounded by mountains and rivers actually turned into a larger and stronger double illusion array when combined with all the various kinds of confusion arrays in all directions!
Feng Jingyu felt like his head would explode anytime he encountered an illusion array. In the past, when he was still in the Nine Lands reigning as king, he would always directly burn any illusion arrays he encountered without exception, but he couldn’t do that now.
First, he had to recover for a long time after spewing fire even once, and second, if he spewed fire for such a trivial matter, as the ruler of the West Lands, he would lose all his face if word ever got out! All-day long, Feng Jingyu’s efforts could be said to be futile.
He couldn’t just fly out of the illusion array, so he naturally couldn’t pass the news to Lin Xuanzhi.
Yan Tianhen looked at his serious little face, then stretched out a finger and flicked Feng Jingyu onto the bed. He lied down again and turned over to face the wall. “If we can’t get out, then we can’t get out. It’s no big deal.”
Feng Jingyu’s feathers puffed up. He jumped up and flew over Yan Tianhen’s head, slapping him on the forehead while chirping in his childish voice, “Don’t casually flick this king!”
Yan Tianhen grabbed Feng Jingyu and covered him with one corner of the quilt, then yawned, “All right, all right, you’re also tired after flying all day, so rest quickly.”
Indeed, he still had a tough battle to fight tomorrow. Right now, Yan Tianhen no longer believed that Esteemed Huai Yu would let him peacefully pass his days.
Feng Jingyu was taken aback and flapped his wings in an attempt to roll out of the quilt. “You’re actually not worried at all that in this situation, if this Esteemed Huai Yu wants to imprison you, you won’t be able to do anything about it?”
Yan Tianhen turned a blind eye to his concerns, “What would he want to imprison me for? I have nothing that’s worth him expending so much effort to capture me like this. On the contrary, I still need to study under him.”
Feng Jingyu faintly studied Yan Tianhen with a pair of golden-red eyes. “Could it be that you don’t like the Great Beauty anymore?”
Yan Tianhen paused. He immediately narrowed his eyes, picking Feng Jingyu up with two fingers and placing him under his eyes. “Maomao, are you hiding something from me?”
Feng Jingyu rolled his eyes; he was already used to being grabbed by people, “What can I hide from you? Of course not.”
Yan Tianhen asked suspiciously, “But why do I feel that you care more about my Dage than I do?”
Feng Jingyu’s body went rigid and he just closed his eyes, playing dead.
Yan Tianhen felt more and more troubled, as though there was something wrong. He shook Feng Jingyu, “Hurry and tell me the truth. Did you do something terrible behind my back?”
Feng Jingyu was shaken so much that his insides were almost displaced. He had to resort to continuously chirping in an attempt to arouse Yan Tianhen’s sympathy.
However, when confronted with something related to Lin Xuanzhi, Yan Tianhen had no sympathy at all; his sympathy was completely eaten by dogs.
“If you don’t tell the truth again, I’ll pluck the two feathers on your behind.”
“Bastard, you’re too cruel!” Feng Jingyu glowered at him and asked softly, feeling very wronged, “How can you bear to pluck my feathers?”
Yan Tianhen’s face darkened. “You’re not allowed to act cute.”
Feng Jingyu, “Chirp chirp chirp!“
Yan Tianhen, “…..”
To be honest, he never quite believed that Feng Jingyu would be the king of the West Land’s West Imperial Palace or whatever it was called.
Yan Tianhen threw Feng Jingyu aside and turned around with his back facing the phoenix, clearly indicating that he no longer wanted to deal with him.
Feng Jingyu fluttered around Yan Tianhen for a long time but didn’t get any response. He himself also felt that it was meaningless, so he cleared his throat and spoke with a cold expression on his bird face, “Before coming here, the Great Beauty secretly told me that if I could pass news about your situation to him as soon as possible, he would help me craft some magic tools and even refine some small clothes suitable for me.”
The tip of Yan Tianhen’s ear moved slightly, “Just this?”
“What do you mean ‘just this’! Now it seems that it likely won’t be easy to pass on your news from this damnable place! That bullshit Esteemed Huai Yu is nothing good either. Why did he insist on taking away your Voice Transmission Bell?! I really want to spew a mouthful of fire and burn him to death!”
Yan Tianhen rubbed Feng Jingyu’s fluffy head and comforted him, “It doesn’t matter; even if you can’t pass on the message, I’ll still say a few nice words for you when I see my Dage later.”
Feng Jingyu sighed once and lied down on the pillow. “We can’t use the Voice Transmission Bell, and birds can’t fly out either, so let’s first think about how to contact the outside world.”
Yan Tianhen smiled, “We’ll be able to get out sooner or later.”
In the next few days, Yan Tianhen would get up before dawn to make breakfast for Esteemed Huai Yu. Esteemed Huai Yu planted a lot of spiritual rice and grains, and he also grew some bamboo and vegetables. In addition, Yan Tianhen noticed that Esteemed Huai Yu had an unusual preference for light food that’s not greasy or strongly flavored, so he fumbled about, cooking some porridge and some salads for him every morning.
He originally thought that Esteemed Huai Yu, with his personality acting like he’d been spoiled since childhood, would be very picky, but who would have expected that Esteemed Huai Yu actually repeatedly said, “Not bad, not bad.”
The morning meal was easy to handle, but the evening meal was not.
Esteemed Huai Yu only ate two meals a day — breakfast and dinner. Breakfast could be dealt with casually, but dinner must include meat, and it must be fresh meat to boot.
Helpless, Yan Tianhen could only wait until he finished patrolling the spiritual plant fields every day at noon, then ride the Piercing Clouds Plate and head to the nearest peak opposite him to hunt.
When he was lucky, he was able to hunt prey and come back early. When he was unlucky, he couldn’t successfully hunt anything, even when evening came, which made Yan Tianhen extremely depressed.
When hunting, not only did Yan Tianhen have to watch out for all kinds of ferocious demonic beasts and monsters lurking in the forest, but he also needed to be careful to not casually use his demonic arts.
One day while hunting, Yan Tianhen was besieged by a group of vicious beasts.
The fierce beasts were a group of mutant wild boars; each one was as tall as an adult person. Their thick skins were like armor, impervious to swords and spears, and their two tusks split on both sides of their mouths shined with a sinister and cold light.
Eight wild boars slowly surrounded Yan Tianhen. Ah Bai and Hu Po had already been detained on the opposite peak by Esteemed Huai Yu long ago — in Esteemed Huai Yu’s own words, the two tiger cubs ate and slept in his place and even scared his chickens and ducks so much that they couldn’t even lay eggs anymore, they should use their meat to compensate him!
Yan Tianhen held a dagger that couldn’t be considered long, his hands horizontal in front of his chest. He warily watched the wild boars that were coming towards him.
The wild boars smelled the taste of human flesh; one after another, they all seemed excited. Their levels weren’t high and also didn’t yet possess any sentience. However, their natural instincts as wild beasts did not disappear at all. Their pairs of small black bean-like eyes flashed a bloody color, revealing viciousness underneath. After they surrounded Yan Tianhen and circled around him a few times, the eight wild boars simultaneously rushed towards Yan Tianhen!
“Oh, mother!” Yan Tianhen got a fright. When a wild boar was about to arrive in front of him, he immediately jumped up easily onto the wild boar and smoothly plunged the dagger straight into the wild boar’s head.
The dagger was a magic tool. Although it was only high grade, it was enough for dealing with these common mutant beasts.
The wind of the dagger pressed down, splitting the boar’s head in half.
Yan Tianhen leaped again and stabbed towards another jumping wild boar.
This group of wild boars was not difficult for the current Yan Tianhen. Even though the other side had many pigs and thus had strength in numbers, the gap between their levels was still an insurmountable chasm. However, Yan Tianhen still took some time to handle this group of wild boars.
When he killed the last boar, it was already dark.
Yan Tianhen cut off the hind leg of the strongest wild boar and carried it on his shoulder. He shook off the blood on the dagger and put it back into the scabbard. Only then did he step onto the Piercing Clouds Plate and head towards the opposite summit.
After a short walk, several demonic beasts emerged from the forest and rushed to eat the wild boars clean.
When he reached the summit, Yan Tianhen saw Esteemed Huai Yu with his long hair fluttering in the wind and his hands behind his back.
Esteemed Huai Yu looked unhappy when he saw Yan Tianhen return while carrying a pig leg. “It’s only a wild boar, yet it actually took you so long. I have never seen any Foundation Stage cultivator whose battle strength was this weak before. Aren’t you ashamed?”
Yan Tianhen was stunned. He threw the pig leg to the ground and looked down at the bloody pig leg with drooping eyelids. “I only improved my Dantian Qi Sea, but I didn’t cultivate any decent techniques.”
Esteemed Huai Yu stared at him and interrogated, “What about that demonic arts technique you’ve been cultivating?”
Yan Tianhen was silent.
After a long time, he whispered, “I don’t want to continue cultivating.”
“Why?”
Yan Tianhen raised his head and looked at Esteemed Huai Yu. “I always feel that if I continue to cultivate that path, I will walk opposite roads from my Dage and gradually get further apart. Apart from demonic arts, I can also become an alchemist, which can be of help to Dage.”
Esteemed Huai Yu paused, then mentioned, “That’s not what you said before.”
Yan Tianhen touched his nose awkwardly, “I didn’t mean to deceive you.”
Esteemed Huai Yu rolled his eyes. “Whether or not you cultivate something or practice demonic arts has nothing to do with me. You’re on your own.”
After saying that, Esteemed Huai Yu turned and left with a swing of his sleeves.
Yan Tianhen stared at the pig leg, his hands trembling faintly — he had already noticed it before: once he encountered a dangerous situation, he would involuntarily want to use the Yin Flame Palm to deal with those demonic beasts.
He used it once before, and in an instant, the three demonic beasts besieging him became charred meat and died, with only half of their bodies left, while Yan Tianhen himself also entered into a state similar to falling under demonic influence. He felt that the smell of blood and charred meat was like the sweetest honey, drawing him closer. He wanted to suck all the spiritual Qi within the blood into his own body. In fact, he did that.
Yan Tianhen’s hand pressed on the space above the demonic beast’s corpse. He had something like a “core” in his Dantian, spinning around by itself; within a minute, he had absorbed all the spiritual Qi that had yet to disperse from the demonic beast’s remains.
Suddenly, Yan Tianhen has an urge to continue slaughtering; he wanted to tear the demonic beasts in the entire forest into pieces and absorb all the cultivation in their bodies, turning it into his own. This kind of impulse had never appeared before.
The last time he used Yin Flame Palm, he fell into a deep coma. After waking up, his cultivation improved by two small levels.
However, this time, he was not in a coma. He clearly felt the feeling coming from deep in his heart.
As if the devil had been awakened, he could not control the demonic thoughts in his heart.
If it weren’t for Ah Bai’s roar waking him from the demonic stupor, even Yan Tianhen himself dared not guarantee what he would have done then!
This feeling was too terrifying.
Without Lin Xuanzhi around, Yan Tianhen didn’t even have someone to discuss this with — no, even if he was around, did he dare tell Lin Xuanzhi this kind of terrible and filthy matter without reservation?
Yan Tianhen knew the answer in his heart, so he made a new decision. He was unwilling to continue cultivating that demonic arts technique, because his out-of-control heart and brain, as well as the impatient urge to absorb power through killing, made Yan Tianhen realize for the first time a key fact that he’d never attached much importance to before—
He was a Divine Devil.
