Chapter 261 Going Out, He Wants an Answer

Her whole body burned with a restless heat, unbearably uncomfortable.

In her dream, Lian Mu felt as if she had been laid over a fire and was being turned from side to side, roasting evenly like a piece of meat.

It was as though fire was flowing through all the meridians in her body, carried by her blood into every corner. Her dantian gave off a faint heat.

She did not know how much time had passed before that strange sensation of being turned finally faded. A shadow fell over her, and something cold pressed against the side of her neck. Someone was transferring spiritual power into her.

Only after the spiritual power poured in did Lian Mu feel a bit better, but the heat suffusing her body still did not disperse.

On her own, it would take her a long time to recover spiritual power, but with someone’s help, her recovery was extremely fast.

Her lashes trembled, her consciousness finally able to control her body again. She slowly opened her eyes, only to be met with a pair of dull green eyes and a pair of glossy black pincers.

Lian Mu jolted, instantly clear-headed. She thought she must be hallucinating on the verge of death.

Just as this thought surfaced, the big pincers in front of her moved. They caught a lock of hair beside her cheek and gave it a gentle tug.

The slight sting of pain told her this was not an illusion, but real.

“Green Bean?” Lian Mu called tentatively. She tried to raise her hand to touch it, but there was still no strength in her arm, and she missed.

The Black Scorpion let out a sharp, crisp squeak. That sound was all too familiar.

Lian Mu was sure now. This was Green Bean. It really had escaped from Flying Sea Pavilion and come back.

“…If you had come any later, you could have been here to collect my corpse,” Lian Mu said.

She was just being dramatic. Things were not actually that bad. She had only exhausted her spiritual power. She was not really on the brink of death, and she still had two pearls quietly keeping her alive…

Thinking of the Jiao Pearl and the Blood Coagulation Pearl, Lian Mu instinctively felt around her body. The Jiao Pearl was still there, but the Blood Coagulation Pearl was nowhere to be found.

She remembered that just before she fainted, she seemed to have spat the Blood Coagulation Pearl out. Had it rolled into a crack in the ground?

As if sensing what she was thinking, Green Bean opened its other pincer. A dark red pearl lay in the groove between its pincers. Because it was so large, the pincer could just barely cradle it.

Lian Mu let out a breath of relief, tucked the Blood Coagulation Pearl back into her pocket, and continued lying there like a corpse, weak as a rag.

She could feel the pincer pressed against her still transferring spiritual power. She simply lay still and let it work.

After coming back from Flying Sea Pavilion, the spiritual power in its body seemed much stronger. Bai Su had definitely fed it plenty of good things. The entire scorpion had bulked up a size.

Lian Mu had thought it would not come back. Eating and drinking well at Flying Sea Pavilion was surely more comfortable than following a penniless thing like her.

But even if it truly never returned, Lian Mu would not have blamed it. After all, she had been the one to sell it off in the first place.

“You came at a pretty good time,” Lian Mu said. “Do you know the way out? Take me out of here.”

Green Bean made no sound. It crouched in front of her, its dim green bean-eyes fixed on her. With that thumbnail-sized brain of its, it only knew how to squeak the same “zhi zhi” over and over. Everything else had to be proved with actions.

Lian Mu struggled up onto its back and lay down on its black shell. Green Bean stood, several pairs of legs working together as it creaked and clicked its way in one direction.

Now that the spiritual power in her body was circulating again at a basic level, Lian Mu felt even hotter, as if she were still inside the Red Lotus Fire Cavern, burning from head to toe.

Perhaps this was a sequela of being burned by the Red Lotus Fire, but she was still very grateful. At least she had not been reduced to ash.

She began regulating her breathing, trying to pinpoint the source of this restless heat. As she closed her eyes, she once again saw a vast sea of fire.

She frowned.

What was going on?

Lian Mu moved her spiritual power to probe deeper. She had learned a diagnostic spell from alchemical cultivators, using a strand of spiritual power as an observing eye that followed along her meridians all the way to her dantian.

Once that strand entered her dantian, three different lights appeared before her eyes: red, green, and gold. They were the spiritual radiance emitted by her three Heavenly Spiritual Roots. Only the golden light was somewhat dim, currently sealed, and the green light was not in great shape either. Only the red light was extremely active.

The heat seemed to be coming from here.

She stirred the spiritual energy in her dantian. Around the red light, a deeper crimson glow suddenly coiled into being, but it was extremely chaotic.

Lian Mu immediately recognized it. This was the flame qi of the Red Lotus Fire.

Why was it inside her…

No wonder she was so hot. There was still spiritual fire lingering within her that did not belong to her.

However, after observing for a while, she found that this flame qi was trying to fuse with her Fire Spirit Root, but it was constantly being repelled. That was why it wandered throughout her body in such a disorderly way.

A thought surfaced in Lian Mu’s mind: what would happen if she allowed this flame qi to merge with her Spiritual Root?

She pressed her lips together, hesitated for a moment, then decided to give it a try. In any case, she could not disperse this flame qi. Letting it keep rampaging around only tormented her more.

The flame qi itself seemed anxious to find something to attach to. It was ramming around faster and faster.

But… in order to try to fuse it, she would have to seal her mind and fully focus. Otherwise, any disturbance from the outside world could ruin everything.

With that in mind, Lian Mu raised her hand and tapped Green Bean’s shell. “Can you beat all the Demonic Creatures in this area? Those weird-looking things.”

Green Bean blinked and clicked its pincers together with a crisp “ka ka,” expressing that it was absolutely not a problem.

“Good. I am going to sleep for a bit in a moment. Just take me straight out and hand me over to the people outside wearing green. Anyone in green robes is my sect mate,” Lian Mu said.

Green Bean only recognized her face and did not distinguish strangers’ faces. All she could do was teach it to recognize the Returning Immortal Sect’s robe color. She was not worried about Green Bean being seen anyway. Plenty of people already knew she kept a Spirit Pet. Even Shen Wuxie knew. It was nothing strange.

Black Moon Night was special. For the sake of protecting disciples, there would definitely be many elders guarding the teleportation exit, and the Returning Immortal Sect was sure to have people among them. While she was in a mind-sealing state, she would be unable to communicate with the outside, so she could only count on those elders to drag her back for treatment.

Afraid it would not recognize them, Lian Mu added, “Look for someone who looks very old. Do you understand?”

Green Bean squeaked once in response. It had understood and continued its rustling crawl forward.

Lian Mu patted its shell, then closed her eyes and entered a mind-sealing state.

…

…

The night was deep and still, the wind howling.

It should already have been close to dawn, yet it was still a cold, dark night. This particular night felt especially long.

The Eroding Moon Miasma had already receded to a half-moon’s sliver. Moonlight shone down upon the land, and it was no longer so pitch-black.

Before the entrance to the teleportation barrier, a lone figure in green stood in the moonlight. He was the only one there, and his solitary silhouette looked rather desolate.

He had already been standing guard here for an entire hour.

Ying You watched the unmoving barrier entrance and let out a sigh.

Even at this moment, no one had come out.

He stood silent in the wind for a long time, then finally let his gaze drift lightly across a certain direction.

All the other elders and disciples had been called away to be checked for demonic qi and would not be back for a while. There was only him here…

No, to be precise, there was only him on the surface.

In truth, when Sect Master Hua said that only he would stay behind to guard the barrier, Ying You immediately understood what she meant to do.

Before he set out, he had needed the sect master’s permission to leave the sect. His master had passed along a letter to Sect Master Hua, and at first the sect master did not agree. But not long after, she sent another reply, granting his request.

Why had she suddenly agreed to let him come to Shifang Nether Soil? At the time, Ying You had faintly guessed that his trip held another purpose.

Sure enough, he had been made into live bait to lure out the demon race.

An Innate Sword Bone had an enormous attraction to the demon race. If he ended up alone, he would definitely draw those things’ covetous gazes.

On Black Moon Night, when the Black Tide erupted, many disciples disappeared and were later retrieved. Among them, there were certainly demon race infiltrators fishing in troubled waters.

Hua Qiuxin had not become Sect Master of Azure Profound Sect by accident. Of course she knew that the best time to test for demonic infiltration was when the disciples had just come out, not after everyone had mingled together and any screening would become meaningless.

She had deliberately given the demon race time to hide themselves, then used him as bait to lure them into revealing a flaw.

The remnants of the Black Abyss Demon Race had been lurking in the shadows and bringing calamity to the world for many years, yet their tracks had always been hard to find. If they could capture even one of them alive, it would be a huge breakthrough in the Immortal Sects’ demon-hunting campaign. Right now was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Sect Master Hua had not spelled it out to him, but he understood. The people of Azure Profound Sect were lying in wait in the dark, ready for the fish to bite, and among them were Sword Cultivator Elders.

He could sense all of their swords and could even feel out the places where they were hiding. No matter how high the elders’ cultivation was or how powerful their concealment arts, as long as they carried a sword, they were completely exposed in front of him.

Ying You did not mind. He had been sheltered and raised by Azure Profound Sect for so many years, so it was only right for him to do his part now. To cooperate with them, he had not even brought the Flying Swan sword. He was standing here completely unprotected, laying himself bare.

If it meant he could stay here and wait for the person he wanted to see to come out, taking on a bit of risk was nothing.

He did not know how much time had passed before the hidden Azure Profound Sect cultivators finally moved. One after another, they rushed off in another direction.

Ying You could only feel the elders’ swords drawing farther away from him, yet he could not detect any other presence at all.

This was his flaw. He could not tell the difference between normal spiritual energy and Demonic Qi. Even if a demon race cultivator wreathed in raging Demonic Qi were to stand right in front of him, he would not sense that anything was amiss.

He could only judge by the movements of the elders hiding in the dark. For them to suddenly depart, they must have discovered something.

Ying You looked toward the direction they had gone. All he could see was distant darkness, the scenery too far away to make out.

His task for tonight could be considered complete, could it not?

Ying You remained where he was, unmoving. He lifted his hand and glanced at the mark on his wrist. It had been quiet for a long time now.

He lowered his eyes. The wind had blown them a little red at the rims. His clothes were icy cold, as if a layer of frost had settled over them.

Would she still come back?

He had not even had time to ask her whether she had recognized him.

If it was only that she did not wish to acknowledge him, he could pretend nothing had happened and lock those past memories deep in his heart.

Before, he had wanted an answer. Now, he only hoped she could live, and go on living for a very, very long time.

Ying You wanted to touch that bright Begonia Mark. He had just raised his hand when his movement suddenly halted, something tugging at his sleeve.

Puzzled, he turned his head. A glossy black pincer was clamped onto his sleeve. It gave another pull as a pair of green eyes glared up at him.