Better Not Tattle to My Wife

Li Nanting placed the cicada-wing-thin sliver into his mouth with half a mind of doubt. Boom! Li Guanqi raised his hand, instantly masking all of the old man's aura. An invisible barrier enveloped an area of a hundred zhang around him. Li Nanting sat cross-legged on the ground as the aura within him surged madly upward. In the blink of an eye, his cultivation realm broke through in rapid succession, finally coming to a halt at the peak of the Soul Formation Realm. Li Guanqi pressed his hand against the old man's back, helping him slowly refine the boundless power within his body. Pengluo scratched his backside, gnawed on his own arm, and muttered somewhat awkwardly, "Well... looks like... eating it really did make a bang after all." Only after a full half-hour did the old man finally stabilize his cultivation realm, with a vast amount of energy still left unrefined in his body. However, this also gave Li Guanqi a realization. It seemed high time to explain the introductory chapter of Divine Punishment thoroughly to the old man. If he had the Divine Punishment technique, his refinement speed would increase by at least threefold, if not more. "Hu..." Li Nanting exhaled a breath of turbid air, a flicker of lightning flashing deep within his eyes. "What formidable power!" Looking at the big white radish scratching its backside in the distance, Li Nanting felt a wave of lingering dread. He shuddered to imagine what disastrous consequences would have followed had he bitten off a whole chunk and swallowed it earlier. Coming to his senses, Li Nanting sat dazed for a long time, eyes vacant. Looking at Li Guanqi, he muttered to himself, "I... I've reached the late Soul Formation Realm just like that?" Li Guanqi nodded with a smile, took a sip of wine, and said softly, "That's why I said you don't need to worry too much, Master. Below the realm of immortals... it won't take many years at all. It will be very quick." A faint smile appeared on Li Nanting's face as he took a deep breath and let it out. "Hu..." "It seems I truly need to adjust my mindset quickly." Suddenly, Pengluo's voice chimed in Li Guanqi's ear. "Master, how did my performance look?" "That cultivation whooshed right up!" Li Guanqi patted Pengluo's head without batting an eye. Standing up, he smiled. "Then let's be on our way." With that, Li Guanqi took the old man and soared into the sky. The old man quietly closed his eyes to cultivate. Li Guanqi, on the other hand, cast a cold backward glance toward Lanyang City. "Ye Lingyun, was it?" "A True Immortal... Formidable indeed." Li Guanqi did not yet know that Ye Lingyun possessed both a King Physique and King Bones. Even across the entire Ten Lands, he was a peerless prodigy. Having left Lanyang City, Li Guanqi sought out another major city and took a teleportation array straight toward Qingxuan Province. Along the way, Li Guanqi did not tell Qi Mobai that he was coming to Qingxuan Province. His primary purpose for this trip remained seeking out the Great Xia Sword Sect. Inside the teleportation array, images of Ye Lingyun continuously flashed through Li Guanqi's mind. The movements, the expression, and the instant the man had struck. Yet no matter how he replayed it in his mind, he could not have dodged that strike back then. So powerful... The chasm between cultivation realms was simply too immense, leaving him completely powerless to fight back. Li Guanqi raised a hand and drew out Meng Wanshu's jade slip. Just as he was about to say something, he shook his head with a bitter smile and put it away. Rubbing his nose, he said with self-deprecating amusement, "Why am I looking to tattle to my wife..." "No, no, better handle this myself." Closing his eyes to cultivate, he knew this teleportation array would deposit him at the border between Quping Prefecture and Qingxuan Province. From there, crossing into the province would require flying across the borderlands. All told, it would take more than a month, giving him ample time to cultivate in peace. However, Li Guanqi's need for a cultivation technique was fairly pressing now. He had entrusted the Lin family to search for the latter half of his cultivation technique for so long without any news. Li Guanqi felt that switching to another technique in the future might be a more reliable path. Closing his eyes and concentrating his spirit, he immersed himself fully in cultivation and comprehension. In the unseen depths, two thick dao rings of spiritual charm slowly manifested behind Li Guanqi's back, while a third ring was already faintly discernible. Li Guanqi immersed himself in the grand momentum of heaven and earth, comprehending the laws of lightning. Swallowing Heavenly Origin Pills one after another, he madly refined them into immortal essence to fill the dantian within his body. Yet after seven or eight days of deep, focused cultivation, he suddenly opened his eyes. With a flash of light from his raised hand, a golden beetle squeaked and chirped frantically! Its weak, frantic appearance made Li Guanqi feel somewhat embarrassed. The Abyssal Bone-Luster Beetle. After so much time, not only had Li Guanqi claimed all of its Soul-Nourishing Nectar for himself, he hadn't even given it a single immortal crystal... No wonder the beetle was frantic to the extreme and had become thoroughly weakened. The four pairs of wings on its back hadn't even regrown; they were still in the state of tiny buds of flesh. Seeing the beetle in his palm scurrying in frantic circles, its beady little eyes glistening with aggrieved misery, Li Guanqi hurriedly brought out a bottle of Soul-Nourishing Nectar, uncorked it, and held it out. Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch! In the blink of an eye, the beetle devoured the Soul-Nourishing Nectar along with the jade bottle, consuming everything clean. Li Guanqi swallowed hard. "Xiao Gutou... you... you even eat the bottle?" Li Guanqi watched with his own eyes as the fleshy buds on Xiao Gutou's back began to grow slowly. Yet these wings seemed exceptionally crucial; after an entire bottle was consumed, they had only regrown by about a tenth. Li Guanqi gritted his teeth and brought out a whole jar of Soul-Nourishing Nectar. Xiao Gutou leaped straight inside. A moment later, Li Guanqi's hands were empty—even the jar was gone. Helpless, Li Guanqi gave it another segment of Pengluo's arm, and even pried two grade-two immortal herbs out of Pengluo's mouth. Pengluo clutched Li Guanqi's head and wailed at the top of his lungs, "Mine!! Those are all mine!!" Speechless, Li Guanqi said, "Don't you still have so many? What's the big deal about giving it two? Won't it be your little bro from now on?" Hearing this, Pengluo's eyes lit up. He jumped down, pointed at Xiao Gutou, and said, "Everything you ate is mine, you hear me? From now on, I'm your big brother, you got that—Awooowww! It... it's gnawing on me!!!" If Li Guanqi hadn't been quick with his hands, Pengluo would have lost far more than just his right hand. Staring at his empty wrist, Pengluo wanted to weep but had no tears left, while lingering terror gripped his heart. Timidly, he fished out another immortal herb from his personal secret stash. Xiao Gutou finished it off in two bites. The cracks on the bone-patterned jade disk on its back vanished, and its wings regrew completely. Pengluo glared at it, muttering under his breath, "Now that you've eaten my immortal herb... you're not allowed to eat me anymore, okay..." Xiao Gutou seemed to take quite a liking to its name. Having eaten and drunk its fill, it wobbled over and fluttered beside Pengluo. It actually flew right onto the green leaves atop Pengluo's head, rubbed its body against them, and sprawled out. Pengluo fumed, "Xiao Gutou!! How dare you lie on my head!!" Yet in the very next breath... Xiao Gutou opened its mouth and aimed straight for the green leaves on his head, scaring Pengluo into a violent shudder. "Uh... lie there if you want... It's... it's not like you can't." Seeing this, Li Guanqi smiled faintly. He remembered that he still had the four pairs of wings from this Abyssal Bone-Luster Beetle in his storage ring. Taking them out, he examined them from side to side, stroking his chin as he muttered, "Wings this small... could they be forged into an immortal artifact?"