The night was silent, and the bright moon flickered with the clouds' movement.
On a cliff high above a nameless valley, Ye Anping stood with his hands behind his back, facing the northern horizon as he looked calmly at the spiritual light that invaded the night sky.
It was like an aurora in the desert, illuminating most of the starry sky.
If Ye Anping's guess was correct, below that spiritual light was Sunset Mountain where Commander Fu Xuan and the others were located. It was six thousand seven hundred miles away from the valley he was in.
However, even if they were six thousand seven hundred miles away, he could still faintly feel the storm caused by the clash between the two Void Returning cultivators as he stood on the cliff.
The yellow sand carried by the breeze pricked his face and was a little choking.
Hu Mu and Seven Ghost Tomb. Although Hu Mu's cultivation base was slightly weaker than Seven Ghost Tomb's, as a fox demon, he was born to counter the demonic cultivator's ghost spirits. If they really wanted to fight to the death, it would definitely not end in less than ten days to half a month.
Ye Anping believed that neither of them was stupid, nor would they lose control to anger easily. They would stop after two or three fights for the sake of their reputation. He also hoped for this outcome.
Anyway, the outcome of Hu Mu and Seven Ghost Tomb's fight was not something he could decide.
At least for now, he didn't have the ability to mess with the confrontation between two Void Returning cultivators.
"I hope the fox is okay."
After rooting for Hu Mu, Ye Anping flew back to the entrance of the cave in the valley, ready to check on the injuries of the disciples of the Justice Division .
Four days had passed since he and Xiao Yunluo arrived.
Because many disciples were seriously injured and could not travel long distances in the wind and flaming spirit of the desert, in the past few days, he just let them nurse themselves back to health as soon as possible so he could take them to the Sword Gate Pass to meet up with the Justice Division disciples from the other two groups.
As soon as he entered the cave, he saw that many disciples who had almost recovered were already practicing sword techniques or reading books.
Seeing Ye Anping coming in, the few people stopped what they were doing, cupped their hands, and respectfully addressed him as "Young Master Ye".
Ye Anping didn't like flattery and felt uncomfortable with all the attention received. He nodded to those people and walked straight to a stone chamber specially opened deep in the cave.
Just as he arrived at the stone room and was about to reach out to pull the curtain at the entrance, the voices of Feng Yu Die and the others playing mahjong came from inside.
"Sister Xiao, show me your horns. I haven't seen them yet. One!"
"Thirty thousand for a chicken. Yes, I want to take a look too. You have such a big wrap on your head. Isn't it hot? There's no one else here..."
"I'm not showing it to you. Forty thousand."
"Forty thousand, I win! Hehe~ Sister Xiao, you've already shown Young Master Ye, why don't you show it to me? You are so stingy~"
"...No, no, no! Second Idiot, why do you always take my cards?"
...
Although it was good that Feng Yu Die and Yun Jiujiu had recovered, the disciples of the Justice Division were still recovering from their injuries, while they were playing cards in here...
Ye Anping sighed and opened the curtain before walking in. He saw Xiao Tian leaning on Xiao Yunluo's forehead, signaling to the Second Idiot while Yunluo was completely unaware.
He rolled his eyes at Xiao Tian, walked toward the stone table with a map on the side, and whispered, "Sister Feng, don't cheat at cards."
Feng Yu Die's hair stood on end, seeing Ye Anping coming back. She pursed her lips in embarrassment, smiled foolishly, and quickly changed the subject. "Young Master Ye, you're back~ How's it going outside?"
Then, Xiao Yunluo, who had finally reacted, lifted her by the collar and glared at her. "Second Idiot! You're cheating even when playing mahjong?"
Ye Anping sighed again and ignored them. He looked back to the map in front of him, used his spiritual power to pick up the ink stone from the table, and traced the return route on the map.
There were quite a few powerful demonic beasts residing in the eastern part of the Central Region . He wanted to avoid their territories as much as possible. Although, with Xiao Yunluo around, those low-level demonic beasts wouldn't mess with them, he still wanted to avoid them if he could. The twenty-seven surviving disciples of the Justice Division could not withstand another accident.
After roughly walking the route in his mind, Ye Anping's gaze moved back to the words "Eastern Great Wall" on the map.
Calculating the time, Gu Mingxin and He Jiming should have returned to the Great Wall by now. If they traveled fast, they could have already reached the Eastern Region .
Ye Anping had been thinking for the past few days about the last sentence Gu Mingxin left to Feng Yu Die. "Tell Ye Anping that he owes me your life!" What the hell did she mean by that?
He had already asked Xiao Tian about what happened.
From Xiao Tian's narration, Gu Mingxin seemed to have the intention to surrender to him, but he had no idea what exactly happened.
In the game, because Xue'e had been by her side since she was young and had instilled some moral values into her, Gu Mingxin was a little more normal than other demonic cultivators, but not by much.
After all, her adoptive father, Patriarch Yu Yan, was an old man who was evil to the core. If Xue'e taught Gu Mingxin half, then Yu Yan taught her the other half.
One couldn't say that Gu Mingxin was extremely ruthless toward human lives, but other than that, she was actually a good demonic cultivator, right?
She and Feng Yu Die were like yin and yang; there was no way they could walk together.
Ye Anping had a deep distrust of Gu Mingxin. Even if she spared Feng Yu Die's life, he still wasn't convinced to bring her to his side.
Who knew if Gu Mingxin wouldn't sneakily stab him in the back one day?
However...
Ye Anping pondered for a moment, then slowly fished out Si Xuanji's bell from his storage bag and stared at it for a while...
Si Xuanji also left a bell for Gu Mingxin. Could it be that she wanted him to recruit her?
Thinking of this, he felt a little overwhelmed.
As for the matter of the Eastern Great Wall, the trajectories of the Heavenly Pivot and Heavenly Demon had completely gone in a direction that he didn't have the slightest clue about.
For each step that followed, he had to plan his route more carefully than before.
The faces of a few Eastern Region demonic cultivators appeared in Ye Anping's mind, and his finger traced Gu Mingxin's trajectory to the right of the map, finally landing on three words: Heavenly Demon Sect.
The Heavenly Demon Sect's Great Elder, He Buqun, wanted to get rid of Gu Mingxin so his eldest son could take the position of the sect's Young Master, but he did not directly send people to kill her.
The reason might be that He Buqun was worried that if Gu Mingxin was assassinated, Patriarch Yu Yan would launch an investigation.
Coincidentally, Gu Mingxin had fallen into his traps three times in a row, and He Buqun used this as a starting point to continuously sow discord between her and He Jiming. In the end, he wanted to use He Jiming's death to perform a painful trick and make Yu Yan and Gu Mingxin completely break off.
Gu Mingxin might have already noticed that He Buqun was playing tricks, but she probably still thought that it was He Buqun who secretly leaked the news to him, which led to her three consecutive failures, right?
Little Gu, little Gu, how pitiful...
Ha, ha, ha...
The sound of mahjong stones in the room stopped abruptly. Yun Jiujiu looked at Ye Anping, who was smiling sinisterly at the map and felt a little cold for some reason.
"What the hell... what are you doing?"
"Eh?" Xiao Yunluo followed Yun Jiujiu's gaze but didn't think much of it. "Anping probably came up with some good ideas again."
"Ideas?" Yun Jiujiu glanced at him and asked, "I really don't understand. What do you and Yun Yiyi like about him? The more I look at him, the more I think he is very sinister. And he is so thin, no masculinity..."
Xiao Yunluo froze when she heard this. She couldn't help but glance at Ye Anping's pants and blush.
"Is it? I think it's quite masculine..."
?
Yun Jiujiu saw that Xiao Yunluo's line of sight was not right, and she rolled her eyes, then looked at Feng Yu Die. "No-bird, what about you? What do you like about him?"
"?"
With a question mark on her face, Feng Yu Die answered in a low voice, "I'm devoted to Sister Pei, but Master Ye's roasted chicken is delicious."
"..."
"..."
"What... It's really delicious." Seeing that the two were looking at her as if she were an idiot, Feng Yu Die frowned slightly and shouted. "Young Master Ye! We want to eat roasted chicken!!"
Ye Anping turned his head slowly upon hearing the voice and saw Feng Yu Die looking at him with a silly grin on her face. He suddenly felt tired of being a nanny but didn't say anything and walked out expressionlessly.
Speaking of which, he remembered that in the treasure bag he had left for Feng Yu Die, he said he would allow Lianxue to kiss her.
In these few days, Feng Yu Die didn't mention this matter to him, and he also didn't want to take the initiative to mention it.
However, thinking about how Feng Yu Die had survived a narrow escape from death...
Ye Anping walked out of the cave while thinking about this. However, he immediately realized something. Why would he think about Feng Yu Die?
Without realizing it, he was almost led astray by the Heavenly Will again.
"Sigh... When I see Sister later, I'll just ask her to kiss her on the cheek, and this matter will be over."
Ye Anping went outside of the cave and set up a bonfire beside the entrance. He took out a few frozen chickens from his storage bag, skewered them with a sword, and put them on the fire.
A plume of cooking smoke rose from the valley, accompanied by the sizzling sound of chicken oil falling into the bonfire, and the sauce fragrance wafted in the air.
Screech---
Suddenly, a crane's cry came from the sky, causing him to raise his eyes. He saw a white-feathered crane flying toward him like a meteor in the night sky while dropping white bombs.
An old cultivator in a pink robe sat cross-legged on the crane's back with a horsetail whisk in his hand.
Ye Anping used the Distant Vision technique to look over. He recognized Ye Ao and frowned. "Dad?"
Then, he saw Pei Lianxue standing on the crane's back behind Ye Ao, waving a hand as if calling him, 'Big Brother' .
"..."
Because it seemed to him that Pei Lianxue had three hands, Ye Anping thought he was seeing things and squinted. However, after the red-crowned crane landed, he saw clearly that his sister really had three hands.
"Brother!"
Pei Lianxue slid down from the crane's back in one move, ran to him while holding the third hand, and looked into the cave beside him with a blank look. "Brother, why are you here? Weren't you with Yunluo and the others?"
Ye Anping's eyes stayed on the hand Pei Lianxue was holding and replied, "I heard that Sister Feng and the others went missing, so I rushed here with Yunluo."
"Ah, so..." Pei Lianxue nodded. Seeing her brother staring at Gu Mingxin's hand, she boasted with a grin. "Brother, I ran into Gu Mingxin on the way here, and I cut this off."
"..."
The breeze gently caressed Ye Anping's black hair. He was silent for a long time, then he slowly took the hand that seemed to still have a trace of life and carefully examined it over and over again.
Then, he looked up, checking on Pei Lianxue. Seeing a slight scratch on her face, he asked hurriedly, "Sister, other than the wound on your face, are you hurt anywhere else?"
"No..."
"Next time, don't fight her alone. She has that black python beside her, and without the Snow Jade Spirit Sword , you have less than fifty percent chance of winning if you fight her alone. Don't think I will praise you. I'd rather see you safe and sound than see you cut off her hand."
Seeing Ye Anping angry, Pei Lianxue lowered her head and nodded like a little chicken pecking at rice. "Yes..."
Ye Ao, who was standing aside, looked at Pei Lianxue's soft and obedient manner in front of his son and was stunned. He came up, saying, "Anping..."
But Ye Anping glared at him. "Dad, what are you doing here?"
"Ah... I just wanted to come and help..."
"I asked Brother Liang to come, not you. Great Wall's matter isn't something you can interfere with. If something happens to you, how will I explain it to Mother when I go back?"
Ye Ao was speechless for a moment. After witnessing the sword fight between little Pei and that female demonic cultivator, he was indeed a little scared. He nodded and said, "It's my fault for acting on my own initiative... Let's not argue anymore. Next time, I will definitely tell you first..."
"Well..." Ye Anping's frown slowly relaxed. "It's good that you're fine. You and Sister are my weak spots. When two armies are facing each other, no one is putting their weak spots at the frontline. In the future, you should live well in the Hundred Lotus Sect and don't follow me around for no reason."
With a helpless smile, Ye Ao cupped his hands. "Yes, you have the final say, Young Master Ye of the Hundred Lotus Sect."
"..."
Ye Anping suddenly felt a little awkward. He gently caressed his sister's face and said, "Sister, you are awesome, but don't make me worry about you."
"Well... but brother, Miss Li said before that as a wife, I must help you deal with unexpected things." Pei Lianxue puffed up her cheeks slightly. "I won't do anything I'm not sure of."
"...Okay."
Ye Anping didn't expect his sister to retort, and he was quite gratified. Without saying anything else, he nodded in response and then looked down at Gu Mingxin's hand.
Although it was a bit of a pity that it couldn't be sold like Yun Tianchong's secondary golden pills...
But it had other uses.
He thought of Gu Mingxin's demonic blood and body. As long as it was not broken into a meat paste, a broken hand could be reattached. If Gu Mingxin did not reattach it, it was probably left behind on purpose.
Ye Anping narrowed his eyes, turned Gu Mingxin's hand over, and with his index finger, he wrote a few words on her palm.
---Ye received it.
In an instant, the cold severed hand seemed to come alive and directly grabbed his index finger, but the force was not strong.
Ye Ao and Pei Lianxue were so frightened that they jumped back a step.
"Ah?!"
"What the hell!"
Ye Anping sighed and gently patted the back of Gu Mingxin's hand. It loosened its grip on its index finger, then opened and closed it in his hand a few times before clenching into a fist and no longer moving.
Ye Anping took out a rope and tied Gu Mingxin's hand to his belt. "Dad, sister, let's go inside the cave and rest first. We can talk about the rest slowly, there's no rush... We'll be leaving for the Sword Gate Pass after sunrise tomorrow."