Chapter 11

Yu You’an’s golden core was blue-black, like surging poisonous water. If one sensed it carefully, there was even muddled dragon breath inside.

Clearly, she had been unable to digest the dragon race’s inner core, even with her mother’s body filtering it first.

Barely, it could also count as a relic of the dragon race.

Wen Qingyin put the golden core into her storage ring.

After that much time had passed, she still had not waited for the Bone Thief’s attack. Most likely, she had already run off.

Why had she run so quickly today?

Had she not been prepared?

Wen Qingyin found it somewhat strange. After all, the Bone Thief was a battle maniac. Wen Qingyin had once thought that her purpose in obtaining dragon bones was not only to replace her own body with dragon bones, but also to come looking for death at Wen Qingyin’s hands.

Or rather: to improve herself through life-and-death battles?

In any case, Wen Qingyin felt that the Bone Thief was here [stolen content]to seek death. It was just that this mixed cultivator Bone Thief knew far too many miscellaneous things and was truly difficult to deal with.

The vicious battle she had expected had ended so hastily. Wen Qingyin, lacking interest, casually took away the two women’s storage pouches.

Yu Xuan was a cultivator at great perfection Nascent Soul and an extremely important artifact-refining elder of Xiaoyao Sect. She had countless magical artifacts and ores on her. Unfortunately, Wen Qingyin was a standard sword cultivator. Those strange magical artifacts were of no use to her.

She also casually checked Yu You’an’s storage artifact. There were even more flashy things inside. After taking these two things back, she would probably have to tidy up her cave dwelling again.

She thought this absentmindedly. But just as her divine sense was about to withdraw, she saw an extremely familiar storage ring.

It looked like the ring that stored the dragon bone.

The same style?

Wen Qingyin felt doubt in her heart. After all, the Bone Thief had been able to leave because she had obtained the dragon bone she wanted. Then what was the matter with this ring?

Wen Qingyin took it out and swept her divine sense inside. There, she saw a section of blue-black dragon spine, a body dozens of chi long coiled inside the storage ring, glowing with a dark, dangerous light.

That abnormal color declared the poison within the dragon bone, and also declared its identity.

It was precisely the poisonous dragon bone Yu Xuan had promised.

Unfortunately, Wen Qingyin did not know her benefactor’s family relations. She did not know who this dragon had been to her benefactor, and could only refer to her as the poisonous dragon.

This section of dragon bone was absolutely real.

Then what about the section in the Bone Thief’s hands?

They all knew this was the final “usable” spine bone. If the one in the Bone Thief’s hands was fake, would she go straight to Jiuxiao Sect once she came back to her senses?

A bad feeling rose in Wen Qingyin’s heart. She immediately rode her sword back to the sect.

Shang Que knew very well that a born killer like Wen Qingyin would definitely handle the aftermath, so she had left early.

Unfortunately, she had not managed to ask those two for more names of the people who participated in that encirclement.

Even more unfortunately, she had not been able to kill them personally.

But now was not the time to consider those things.

Shang Que rushed back to the sect at top speed. She was deeply afraid ​bailiantales.com​someone would take the chance to look for her.

Because her popularity in Jiuxiao Sect had improved again!

She, who had just displayed her clumsy swordsmanship and successfully become a little transparent nobody, had once again become highly sought after because of the news that she was about to become Wen Qingyin’s eldest inner disciple.

There were even some elders who had started taking crooked approaches.

They were truly greedy. Even after getting two accompanying spots, they still felt it was not enough and wanted to gather all the spots into their own hands.

However, they had not started acting yet. They had only sent a few disciples to squat beside her and study her preferences.

Shang Que knew what they were going to do. First, they would wait for Wen Qingyin to confirm that she wanted to accept several more disciples. Then, after Wen Qingyin had more or less chosen one or two, an elder would come and take Shang Que away. Wouldn’t the spot that belonged to Shang Que then be freed up?

Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be happy.

It was just that there were too many people around her.

Sigh. Being a celebrity was not easy. Little Que sighed.

Fortunately, their cultivation levels were lower than hers. An illusion technique could bailiantales.comfool them for a while.

Shang Que returned near her own house and swiftly tossed out a small illusion formation, dazzling their eyes for an instant. Then she smoothly returned to her room, climbed onto the bed, sat cross-legged, and switched to cultivating by herself.

The small illusion formation soon dispersed. They only thought they had spaced out for a moment.

This was perfectly normal. No matter how boring someone was, they could not stare at a completely motionless person sitting cross-legged in cultivation for two whole shichen, right?

No one noticed anything wrong. Shang Que continued cultivating until Han Yuzhu came running over and knocked on Shang Que’s door.

“Xiao Que, that junior sister you rescued finally woke up today.”

In fact, one could tell from the way she addressed her that Senior Sister Han had already become familiar with her. The address had changed from “Junior Sister Shang” to “Xiao Que.”

Shang Que could only feel grateful that Han Yuzhu was a proper person and would not give others nicknames.

Otherwise, she would soon discover that Xiao Que could also be read as little sparrow, and immediately start calling Shang Que “little bird” every day, chirping away.

For now, she set aside that stomach-aching problem.

The main point was that Su Tanghua had finally woken up. The comic [bailiantales.com]could finally continue being drawn.

Shang Que got up and opened the door for Senior Sister Han. “Are we going to see her now?”

She lifted her head and glanced at the sky. It was almost dusk.

Han Yuzhu hesitated for a moment, but still said honestly, “Junior Sister Su brought something incredible out from the back mountain. You were the one who brought Junior Sister Su out, so the elder wants to ask you a few questions too.”

Shang Que nodded.

Good.

She had mixed herself back into the main plot again.

In a fairly pleasant mood, she followed Han Yuzhu out. They went all the way to the sect’s Punishment Hall.

Jiuxiao Sect’s Punishment Hall was very reassuring. Although it was the same as those of other sects—after walking in through the wide doors, one entered a dark and slightly damp room.

Even the air she breathed in was cold, as if countless wronged souls were inside this room, looking for someone to drag away.

The decorations alone gave people an extremely strong sense of oppression.

But Shang Que knew that currently, Wen Qingyin was the pillar holding up Jiuxiao Sect, so the Punishment Hall was naturally under her control as well.

This person loved a good reputation the most, so naturally, she would not let go of a good place like the Punishment Hall to polish that reputation.

In short, Jiuxiao Sect’s Punishment Hall was the cleanest and most upright. It absolutely would not allow anyone to be wronged.

When she entered, Su Tanghua was being questioned by an extremely cold and gorgeous woman.

Before transmigrating, Su Tanghua had only been a high school girl and had not experienced much. After arriving in the cultivation world, she had nearly been eaten by a stone one moment and nearly died in a river the next. After being rescued, she had fainted from pain over and over again. When had she ever suffered such hardship?

On top of that, seeing the elder interrogate her like she was a criminal, her first reaction was that the stone had probably done something bad again. And so she immediately adopted the posture of someone meeting a righteous judge, choosing the main strategy of answering whatever she was asked. She even hoped the elder would quickly take that stone away. After all, that thing was truly evil.

Even now, she still felt that the senior sister had failed to recognize it back then because her cultivation was too low.

But who was the elder of the Punishment Hall?

She was a Nascent Soul cultivator. These past two days in the cultivation world, Su Tanghua had more or less figured out the cultivation system.

Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, [bailiantales.com]Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, Tribulation Crossing, and finally, ascension.

No one in the cultivation world had ascended in a very long time. Tribulation Crossing cultivators were the strongest people on the surface, but each and every one of them was ancestor-level and would not easily leave their sects.

Even Spirit Transformation cultivators rarely moved around outside. From what she had seen so far, she only knew of one: Wen Qingyin.

A sword path genius, a genius who could defeat a Tribulation Crossing sword venerable while only at the early stage of Spirit Transformation.

But Senior Sister Wen was not someone she could easily meet either.

Nascent Soul was already the biggest big shot she could meet.

And so, when the big shot asked, Su Tanghua opened her mouth directly with teary eyes. Starting from the fox cave at the very beginning, she spoke all the way to how uncontrollable that stone was. She had been afraid the stone would eat something it should not, so she had followed it to the back mountain.

The events after going to the back mountain were things Shang Que did not know, so she also pricked up her ears to listen.

However, the follow-up was the same as Shang Que had guessed. What the Devouring Xuan Mother Crystal loved to eat most was its own kind, and Jingchuan was its own kind.

Su Tanghua described how the Devouring Xuan Mother Crystal had brought her to that place and had her dig Jingchuan out.

As for that piece of dragon bone, she had not unauthorized copy recognized it. She had thought it was the bone of some large creature, so she had used the dragon bone to dig through the soil.

To be honest, when she saw that what the Devouring Xuan Mother Crystal wanted to eat in the end was a broken sword, she had breathed a sigh of relief.

It was just a broken sword buried underground, filthy and covered in mud, clearly abandoned at first glance. What value could it possibly have?

She just had not expected that after the Devouring Xuan Mother Crystal finished eating, or rather, after it merged into that broken sword, agonizing pain would spread through her entire body. It felt as if countless tiny blades had stabbed into her blood vessels, slicing across her whole body as her blood flowed.

The pain made her vision blur, and she even began bleeding from all seven orifices. She ate all the pills she had on her, but they were completely useless.

And so she thought of leaving that place, or finding a senior sister to save her. She repeatedly cut herself to stay conscious.

But the journey was too long, and she was in too much pain. The moment she fell into the river, it was as if she had sunk into eternal sleep.

At one point, a pill flowed into her mouth. For a period of time, she was not in pain, but that time was too short.

She collapsed to the ground, then was sent to Medical Peak and rescued for three days.

After waking up, the dragon bone in her hand was gone, and the broken sword was gone too.

The Punishment Hall elder, Li Fangyi, unauthorized copy nodded and shifted her gaze to Shang Que, who had just arrived.

Li Fangyi had an extremely gorgeous appearance. Her features were richly beautiful, and because she had presided over the Punishment Hall for many years, she carried an unquestionable, vicious air. When her phoenix eyes lowered slightly and locked onto you, one could feel a pressure as if everything had been seen through.

At that moment, her gaze fixed tightly onto Shang Que. In a slightly husky voice, she asked, “What about you? Why did you go to the back mountain?”

Shang Que was just about to say she did not know, but discovered that her mouth did not seem to be under her control. She actually said, “My divination…”

Shang Que paused, realizing that this elder had probably cast a truth spell on her.

Because of her pause, Li Fangyi’s brows furrowed slightly, but Shang Que quickly continued her answer. “My divination… told me that my opportunity was there.”

“Opportunity?” She smiled without really smiling. “Then did you find it?”

“…” Shang Que did not speak, seeming to fall into a dilemma. In the end, she gave an ambiguous answer. “If saving a person counts.”

Li Fangyi gave a light ha. Many years of interrogation allowed her to see that Shang Que was avoiding the important points.

She was just about to say Shang Que was not being honest and threaten her a little while she was at it, when she sensed a familiar presence arrive on the roof beam.

She lifted her eyes and swept a glance upward. Thinking of the “gentle makeup” Wen Qingyin had worn that day, she forcefully switched ​read the original at bailiantales.com​to an inconsequential topic. “What did the hexagram say that day?”