Li Xuanxuan waited in the streets and alleys for a while. He saw only blood covering the ground and not a soul in sight. Taking out a jade talisman from his storage bag, he sensed it carefully and muttered inwardly, “Qiuyang’s location is still shifting. I wonder if he has survived, or if his storage bag has already been snatched away...”
After all, Li Qiuyang only had miscellaneous qi cultivation; he likely would not last long amid this great calamity engulfing the market. Although Li Xuanxuan desperately hoped for his safety, he had little confidence in it.
Li Xuanxuan gritted his teeth. Watching the talisman show that person’s position slowly moving closer, he felt somewhat uneasy.
He pondered for a moment, stuffed the jade talisman into a crack in the street wall, and released a wisp of magical light from his hand to leave several lines of characters on the wall:
“If Qiuyang comes looking, wait here a moment.”
After encrypting it with his family’s secret art, Li Xuanxuan hurried away.
Walking a few paces down the street, Li Xuanxuan saw corpses strewn across the ground—young and old alike, all having met gruesome deaths. Amid the pools of blood lay scattered shards of jade bottles, along with two pale white medicinal pills stained with blood, faintly emitting light.
Having managed the shop for many years, he recognized at a single glance that these were Mind Clarifying Pills, commonly used by Qi Refinement cultivators to clarify the mind, calm the spirit, and aid in cultivation. He hastily stepped forward, picked up the pills, wiped them on his robe, and cast a spell to clear away the bloodstains.
Li Xuanxuan squinted at them. They were smooth and round, clearly the product of a prominent clan, crafted with fairly exquisite technique. Although the pills had been tainted by blood and lost much of their efficacy, he was still overjoyed. Sealing them in a jade bottle, he delighted in searching the area thoroughly.
The corpse in the pool of blood was withered and lifeless, reduced to skin and bones after having its blood qi and cultivation drained. Li Xuanxuan paid this no heed, patting down the body, only to find the storage bag had long since been taken by demonic cultivators.
Rubbing the person’s cuffs, he discovered they were made of decent spirit cloth; the deceased must have had some background. He promptly stripped the corpse bare, rolled up the robes, and stored them in his storage bag.
Just as Li Xuanxuan finished, he looked up and saw a gleaming plaque across the street, inscribed in bold golden brushstrokes:
“Jiadan Pavilion.”
Li Xuanxuan’s heart skipped a beat, burning with sudden excitement. Looking at the deserted main entrance reeking only of blood, a streak of greed truly stirred within him. He thought to himself, “The demonic cultivators looted this pill pavilion earlier and came and went in a rush. Perhaps they left something behind!”
This pill pavilion was a property of the Yu family on Guanyun Peak. Li Xuanxuan had visited just two days prior to purchase a batch of goods; the wondrous variety of pills had left him lingering, reluctant to leave.
Snapping out of his thoughts, Li Xuanxuan wasted no time. He immediately formed an incantation for the Breath Concealment Technique and crept over without making a sound.
Before the entrance knelt a cultivator in brocade robes with his head bowed, blood pooling beneath him. His chest was hollowed out—his heart had been torn out. Li Xuanxuan even recognized the man: he was the Yu family shopkeeper. A chill ran down Xuanxuan’s spine as he thought, “If I hadn’t recognized that thunder bead, seized the initiative, and used a few tricks, everyone in my family’s shop would have died without a chance... We would have ended up in a state far worse than him!”
Li Xuanxuan skirted around the corpse and searched the counter twice. It had been picked completely clean; demonic cultivators were fond of spirit stones too, naturally leaving not a single one behind.
The interior of the pill pavilion was pitch-black, littered with bloodstains and fragments of jade bottles. Li Xuanxuan swept his spiritual sense back and forth across the area, stripping five sets of robes and salvaging six Embryonic Breathing pills and one Qi Refinement pill.
Looking back at the stripped corpses strewn across the floor, he felt a twinge of guilt after all. Pulling out several lengths of cloth, he covered them up, then took a few strides into the back courtyard of Jiadan Pavilion.
The back courtyard was even dimmer. A section of it had collapsed, exposing flagstones everywhere. Dark red flames burned quietly; the temperature was not scorching, yet the fumes stung the ears and nose painfully.
“Warm yet not blazing, continuous ocher flames—it’s a fire vein... Ah, the Yu family must have set up alchemy rooms here and channeled a fire vein over...”
Although the Li family did not yet have an alchemy room, Li Xuanxuan still recognized the baleful fire used in such places. It had likely been wrecked by the demonic cultivators, who hauled away the alchemy cauldrons. Deprived of the cauldrons and formations to suppress it, the earth fire had erupted, leaving the place in this state.
He cast a spell to shield his nose and mouth and stepped deeper inside. Flipping his hand, he shoved aside a broken crossbeam. Dark red flames surged out, and just as expected, he saw that the cauldrons in both alchemy rooms had been plundered, leaving behind only the glowing, dark red fire veins.
“What a pity.”
Channeling fire veins was a troublesome endeavor; the Yu family had spent quite a few spirit stones to draw these two fire veins here. Li Xuanxuan sighed and raised his foot to leave, but vaguely caught the sound of groaning.
“Hm?”
Startled, he cocked his ear to listen. Following the sound, he spotted a furry arm hanging among the ruins, limply extended. Its sharp, pitch-black claws weakly pushed against the large stone pressing down on it. Li Xuanxuan was inwardly shocked, thinking, “A monster?!”
How could a monster survive in the Yu family’s market? Li Xuanxuan carefully focused his gaze. The creature carried no demonic aura; on the contrary, it possessed an orthodox magic power. His heart leaped: “Naturally, there couldn’t be a monster here! This must be a spirit beast kept by the Yu family to guard storehouses or help with chores!”
Overjoyed, he stepped forward and pressed a palm forcefully against the stone, instantly shattering it to pieces. The creature beneath shifted its body, revealing a thunder-god face.
“A spirit monkey?”
The monkey looked exhausted, its eyes red-rimmed and its face lined with wrinkles. Yet its gaze was lucid, even tinged with a weathered maturity. Tears welled in its eyes as it stared at Li Xuanxuan, wheezing like a bellows in a broken furnace.
Li Xuanxuan took hold of the spirit monkey’s hairy paw and was astonished to discover that this spirit beast actually had a cultivation of the fourth layer of Qi Refinement—even higher than his own! However, with fire poison having seeped into its body and severe injuries tormenting it, it was merely clinging to life.
Seeing the tears and gratitude flooding the monkey’s face, his heart softened. He fumbled in his sleeves, pulled out two healing pills, and said gently, “Here!”
The spirit monkey was exceptionally clever. Hunching its back and puckering its lips, it hastily swallowed the two medicinal pills, then began gesturing and making mumbled noises. As its body struggled, a clanking sound of grating metal rang out.
Only then did Li Xuanxuan notice that a cold, heavy collar remained locked around the monkey’s neck. Beside its feet lay a jade pestle and a chipped, emerald-green medicine mortar. He felt as if he had stumbled upon an invaluable treasure.
Picking them up to inspect, he found both were Qi Refinement-grade magical artifacts specially designed for grinding medicinal herbs. They were quite rare and prized by alchemists, holding immense value. These two artifacts alone far surpassed any pills.
Delight instantly broke across Li Xuanxuan’s face, and he could not help but exclaim, “Good monkey! With these two items, my dear Ming’er will be spared so much trouble!”
Holding back his joy, Li Xuanxuan stored the two items into his storage bag. By then, the monkey had already bowed down and parted the charred fur on its back for him to see. Several finger-sized puncture wounds were visible, dripping with black blood—a horrifying sight.
Realization dawned upon him. While taking out medicine to apply to the monkey, he cast three spells in succession to soothe its injuries. Observing the spirit monkey’s state, he made a few guesses and thought, “This spirit beast is most likely an attendant used by the Yu family to grind herbs and watch the fire. When the demonic cultivators fought, it must have hidden away in some corner, which allowed it to survive...”
Feeling the blisters and singed fur all over the monkey, and considering the fire poison coursing through it, a sudden jolt of shock hit him. He instantly understood: “It actually crawled into the fire vein! What a clever monkey, and what endurance!”
A fire vein was not only saturated with fire poison and baleful fire, but its spiritual energy was chaotic, disrupting spiritual sense. Not only did this monkey know to hide inside, but it also endured such excruciating agony...
While Li Xuanxuan was still marveling, the monkey began rustling and digging at the ground. Before long, it dragged out a charred corpse and retrieved a gleaming jade slip from the sleeve of the deceased.
“Clack.”
In merely two breaths, the monkey used the jade slip to unlock the black iron spirit collar around its neck, handed both the collar and the jade slip into Li Xuanxuan’s hands, and squatted on the ground to regulate its breath.
Li Xuanxuan had only glanced at them twice when the monkey suddenly snapped its eyes open. Its ears twitched slightly, and a hint of terror surfaced in its large eyes. Without making a sound, it began gesturing, mimicking the motion of laboriously grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle.
Li Xuanxuan’s heart clenched violently. Turning his hand, he stowed the two items away, pushed his spiritual sense to the limit, and shrank into a corner, not daring to move. The monkey looked anxious, terrified of making any noise, bowing in greeting one moment and mimicking grinding herbs the next.
Li Xuanxuan froze for a second, then hurriedly pulled the pestle from his waist and thrust it into the monkey’s hands. The spirit beast nodded, took the magical artifact, and slipped into the ruins like a streak of smoke.
Chapter 342