"Fei Xia, what's the situation outside? Are there still cultivators lingering around?"
As Yun Xi transmitted her voice, Fei Xia fluttered her butterfly wings, then replied, "Master, most of them have already left. But there's one person you wouldn't expect who's still keeping watch here."
"Who?"
"Li Chang, the cultivator who ambushed you four at the boundary of the mortal realm."
Yun Xi frowned as soon as she heard the name. This City Lord Li was like a haunting shadow. He had been scared off last time by Liu Haotian's master, Qing Zhu Zhēnjūn, and yet here he was again at Yandang Mountain.
"Master, I suggest you don't leave the space just yet. That guy's difficult to deal with. I don't dare get too close, so it's best if you wait a while longer."
Yun Xi let out a helpless sigh. For some reason, she seemed to attract these types of people. Evil cultivators, or those closely associated with them, were like buzzing flies. The moment she appeared, they would swarm in. And the ones she encountered were always stronger than her, forcing her into hiding again and again. It was frustrating and stifling.
"Fine, I get it. I'm no match for that Li Chang Zhēnjūn, so it's better to lie low for now. I just hope I don't miss the sect competition."
"Fei Xia, stay farther away too. Don't let him spot you. Unless I summon you, don't try to contact me. Yandang Mountain is a good place. You're free to move around."
With their exchange over, Yun Xi cut off the connection. Fei Xia, worried about being discovered and arousing suspicion, gave a flap of her wings and flew off.
Li Chang's divine sense picked up on the departure of the Flying Mist Butterfly, but he made no move. The butterfly had lingered nearby for some time before retreating farther away after he arrived. Now it had flown off completely, which suggested its master had given up.
Still, he had a gut feeling that the strange flame was still nearby, merely hidden. So he decided to keep waiting.
Someone had tipped him off about the Mystic Thunder Violet Flame. But by the time he arrived at Yandang Mountain, it seemed he was already too late. Word was that a Nascent Soul Zhēnjūn from Haoran Sect had taken away the disciple who last made contact with the flame. Likely, they intended to seize both the flame and the cultivator.
No one could offer more details, so Li Chang chose to remain behind.
Ever since his son prematurely activated the Ninefold Sacrificial Array to revive Qiu Shui, Li Chang had known that his dealings with evil cultivators would eventually be exposed. To protect himself, he had gone so far as to execute his own son in public. He had sacrificed so much in pursuit of a minor ascension.
After losing his son, he had planned to fade from public view and wait until the matter was forgotten before taking further action. But the evil cultivators sought him out again, claiming they had a way to revive his son. He believed them.
So he brought his son's corpse to the mortal realm. When he found out the method involved refining his son into a corpse puppet, he hesitated. But guilt eventually overrode his cultivator's principles. He wanted his son to live again, even by such cruel means.
Things had gone relatively smoothly afterward—until a group of cultivators unexpectedly arrived in the mortal realm and shattered his hopes.
Those cultivators had actually summoned the Nine Heavens Mystic Thunder to destroy the corpse-rearing grounds, and it wasn't just any thunder. It was the Three-Nine Tribulation Thunder, a Nascent Soul-level tribulation.
When he rushed over to investigate, he sensed an overwhelming Divine Transformation divine sense, which forced him to retreat.
Still, even after returning to the cultivation realm, he remained unwilling to give up. He wanted to know who had destroyed his son's chance at rebirth. So he waited at the border between the two realms. Eventually, he intercepted a group of one Golden Core cultivator and three Foundation Establishment cultivators.
His plan was to kill the three Foundation Establishment cultivators and capture the Golden Core cultivator alive to interrogate them about what had happened in the mortal realm. Unfortunately, Qing Zhu showed up again and ruined everything.
After Qing Zhu took the four away, Li Chang returned to the mortal realm to see if there was any hope left in the corpse-rearing ground. But the place had been sealed with formations and was completely unusable.
Just as he was about to contact the evil cultivators again, another group of cultivators entered the mortal realm. Their leader was, once again, Qing Zhu. However, this time their goal wasn't to find him. Instead, they stationed cultivators across various cities in the mortal realm to monitor any unusual activity.
To avoid causing panic, the cultivators disguised themselves as ordinary mortals and mingled among the common folk, calling it "secular training." Ironically, this forced the evil cultivators hiding in the mortal realm to be even more cautious. They concealed their presence thoroughly.
Moreover, the cultivators stationed in the mortal realm were not temporary. They rotated every five years as part of a long-term assignment.
The first wave of stationed cultivators knew full well why they had been sent. They were told that evil cultivators had been discovered here. So they remained vigilant, constantly sending out their divine senses in fear of missing a single evil cultivator—and losing the chance to earn sect rewards.
This move by the cultivation realm had effectively ruined the evil cultivators' plans to kidnap people and turn them into furnace vessels. Some evil cultivators had even chosen to retreat to the Weiling Realm by taking alternate routes.
Inadvertently, Yun Xi and her companions had once again disrupted the evil cultivators' schemes.
Li Chang, as one of their allies, now had a new purpose. This operation to track down the strange flame was their idea.
Although Li Chang didn't know what their ultimate goal was, the evil cultivators had promised that if he obtained the flame, they would lead him to the Weiling Realm through another passage.
Li Chang knew exactly what he wanted. The upper realm's cultivation environment was vastly superior, and it could help him reach Divine Transformation sooner. So he came.
If Li Chang were to discover that the very person who had foiled his plans again and again was none other than Yun Xi, he might very well be driven to flay her alive.
Yet at this moment, separated by a spatial barrier, Li Chang remained unaware that the one he had been hunting was right here. Nor did he know that the strange flame he so desperately sought had already chosen Yun Xi as its master.
Inside the space, Yun Xi dared not make any reckless moves. Other than cultivating, she focused on drawing talismans. Once she ran out of blank talisman paper, she brought out the Ziyu Panlong Cauldron and prepared to refine pills with Zi Yan's help.
But when she summoned Zi Yan from her dantian, the flame spirit showed visible disdain toward the Ziyu Panlong Cauldron.
"This little cauldron can't handle my heat. You'll end up ruining the cauldron before even completing the pill."
Yun Xi pressed a hand to her forehead. Old Ancestor Feng had warned her about this before. She had planned to visit the Artifact Forging Peak after returning to the sect to upgrade the Ziyu Panlong Cauldron with better materials. She hadn't expected Zi Yan to bring it up first.
"I'll need to wait until I return to the sect. I don't have suitable materials on me right now."
Zi Yan flickered once and asked, "Didn't you take Lei Hongxuan's storage ring? Check that."
Yun Xi spread her hands. "Everything useful in there was already used up. All that's left are two jade slips with cultivation techniques, a few empty pill bottles, and one weird black lump I can't identify."
Zi Yan immediately responded, "Master, show me that black lump."
"Oh, alright!"
Yun Xi brushed her fingers over the storage ring and retrieved the black lump.
Zi Yan instantly wrapped around it. After burning for about fifteen minutes, the flame spirit returned to Yun Xi's palm and shared good news:
"Master, you're in luck. This is a piece of thousand-year purple-gold meteoric iron ore that Lei Hongxuan managed to find."