Yao Ranran looked at her with a puzzled face.
"Pei Daoyou, I only have one question I want to ask you."
Pei Xianqiao frowned tightly. "Ask!"
Yao Ranran said, "If Xiao Ming is three years old this year, and his real father is twenty-five, then three years later Xiao Ming will be six years old. How old will his real father be?"
Pei Xianqiao dismissed it without concern. "Of course his real father will be twenty-eight!"
Yao Ranran widened her eyes in mock astonishment. "But isn't Xiao Ming's father twenty-five years old?"
"Three years later, Xiao Ming has grown three years older. Naturally his father will have grown three years older too. Could it be Xiao Ming ages, but his father does not?"
Pei Xianqiao retorted almost instinctively.
Yao Ranran pretended to realize something. "Ah, so that's how it is. Xiao Ming will grow older, and so will his father. Then if Pei Daoyou forms her Yuányīng..."
She didn't finish, but everyone present understood.
"Hahahaha! Hahaha!"
Yun Dehe clutched his stomach, laughing so hard he bent forward.
Lu Ziqian and Zhao Lingyi both turned their heads, suppressing their laughter with difficulty.
Li Qingting joined the Yun Gu Sect disciples and even the demon clans in a collective roar of laughter.
Elder Shang's face suddenly darkened. "Pei girl, that woman is mocking you in a roundabout way. She even wants to be your real father!"
Pei Xianqiao finally realized, her face turning scarlet all at once.
"No one is allowed to laugh!!"
There was silence for a beat. Then everyone burst out laughing even harder.
"Hahahaha! I can't, I'll die laughing!"
Pei Xianqiao's face flushed deeper, nearly steaming red.
"Yao Ranran, just you wait!"
Yao Ranran spread her hands helplessly. "I'm not your husband, why do you stare at me every single day?"
Pei Xianqiao stomped her foot in shame and anger. "Where is the phoenix? Give it back to me!"
"The phoenix isn't here, and it isn't yours," Yao Ranran shook her head.
Elder Shang narrowed his eyes. "Pei girl, let me test her. It's very possible she's deceiving you!"
"No, I want to defeat her myself..." Pei Xianqiao hesitated, rejecting him.
Yun Dehe gave a sharp snort, "You haven't even explained your own identity clearly, yet you dare to suspect Fairy Ranran?"
Elder Shang pushed Pei Xianqiao aside, no longer bothering to hide.
"I originally wanted to act low-key, but you lower realm fools are too stupid. I have no choice but to reveal my true identity! In truth, my real identity is..."
"An old demon monster who lost his body after falling into qi deviation?" Li Qingting suddenly interjected.
"Hahaha, Qing Ting has sharp eyes!" Yun Dehe roared with laughter.
The serious atmosphere was completely ruined.
Everyone started chuckling.
Elder Shang erupted in fury. "Silence, you ignorant lower realm insects! I am a great expert of the Spirit Realm in the Refining Void stage. How dare you mock me?!"
His voice carried a crushing pressure that slammed into everyone. The scene fell instantly silent, all eyes turning to him in shock. A flicker of self-satisfaction flashed in Elder Shang's eyes as he barked, "At my peak, with a mere flick of my finger, I could crush all of you into paste!"
As he spoke, his oppressive force grew heavier, domineering and suffocating.
At that moment, Yao Ranran calmly released the faith power hidden deep within her body. That power was soft and warm, like a spring breeze, swiftly dissolving the suffocating pressure in the air and allowing everyone to breathe again.
Elder Shang's eyes went wide. "You can dissolve my pressure?"
Even if he was no longer at his peak, his divine sense remained strong. Under the suppression of Heaven's laws, reaching mid Divine Transformation was no problem!
Yao Ranran looked genuinely confused. "Was that supposed to be difficult?"
She had only released a wisp of faith power, just enough to circle through the air. Before she could even release more, the pressure had already dissipated. If Elder Shang hadn't asked, she would have thought he had withdrawn it himself.
Seeing her casual, almost naive expression, Elder Shang's face turned livid with rage.
"You little girl, blocking just one layer of my pressure, and you think you're amazing? I'll let you witness the true might of me at full strength. It's not something you can resist!"
His words fell, and a torrent of wild aura crashed down at Yao Ranran.
Her dark hair by her temples lifted slightly as endless faith power surged out and struck back at Elder Shang.
With a loud bang, Elder Shang fell to his knees, glaring up at Yao Ranran, shouting madly, "You lost! Admit you lost!"
Everyone: "..."
Pei Xianqiao: "..."
"This is not the Spirit Realm. You no longer have a complete soul. A cultivator at the Refining Void stage like you already perished in the Spirit Realm long ago."
Yao Ranran's calm words exposed the truth Elder Shang wanted to hide.
Pei Xianqiao rushed forward to help Elder Shang up. His gaze toward Yao Ranran was full of shock.
"You, how do you know this?"
"Because you're not the only one who came down from the Spirit Realm." Yao Ranran turned her eyes to Pei Xianqiao. "There was once a man in black robes who descended into the Central Domain. I happened to witness him."
Pei Xianqiao froze, not understanding why Yao Ranran was looking at her. But the moment she heard the words "black-robed man," her body jolted as though struck by lightning, and she went rigid.
"Black-robed man? What kind of black-robed man?"
Pei Xianqiao seized Elder Shang's arm, trembling with excitement.
"Pei girl, what's gotten into you?" Elder Shang looked at her in surprise.
Pei Xianqiao nearly lunged at Yao Ranran, desperate for her answer.
Yun Dehe and the others only grew more confused, choosing to stay quiet.
Yao Ranran calmly extended her hand. "Two hundred thousand spirit stones per question."
Pei Xianqiao froze for a second, then wordlessly took out a pouch of spirit stones and placed it in her hand.
"Yao Daoyou, this information is very important to me. What exactly did that black-robed man look like?"
Yao Ranran weighed the pouch, glanced inside at the pile of stones, then smiled. "He wore black robes, showing only his eyes. If I had seen what he looked like, I wouldn't have called him the black-robed man."
"You..." Pei Xianqiao was dumbfounded.
Elder Shang roared, "What kind of answer is that? Return the stones!"
Yao Ranran tucked the pouch into her storage ring and shrugged. "She asked me what he looked like. I answered truthfully."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Yes, it was technically a precise answer.
Pei Xianqiao bit her lip, took out another pouch of spirit stones, and threw it over.
"Yao Daoyou, I want to know that black-robed man's identity!"
Yao Ranran didn't even glance at the pouch. "The price has changed. Now it's five hundred thousand spirit stones per answer."
"Why don't you just rob me?!" Elder Shang exploded with fury. "Let me kill her. With one Soul Search technique, she'll spit out everything she knows!"
"You dare!" Lu Ziqian, Yun Dehe, Zhao Lingyi, and Li Qingting all glared at him together.
Their expressions made it clear: if he dared to act, they would attack him from all sides and tear him apart.
Elder Shang's pupils contracted. He looked at Lu Ziqian's powerful demon soldiers and the Yun Gu Sect disciples at Yun Dehe's command, his eyes flickering with hidden fear.