Wen Qianqian and Chen Yu Yan were waiting inside the pleasure barge when they suddenly heard the sound of splashing water, followed by an impatient voice calling out:
"Second Sister, quick! Use a Rejuvenation Talisman to save me!"
Upon hearing this voice, Cao Xuanyi and Xiao Mei Niang were instantly alarmed. Without exchanging a word, they immediately dashed out of the cabin.
Wen Qianqian and Chen Yu Yan exchanged a look and followed them out.
They saw a small, thin man with a dark, ashen face staggering toward the woman in the white dress.
Suddenly, from the sky to the due north, a crimson streak of sword light tore through the air!
Cao Xuanyi's gaze turned cold. He was about to make a move, but the sword light suddenly accelerated, flashing over the deck at an incredible speed.
The small, thin man had just reached Xiao Mei Niang's side. His mouth gaped, his eyes rolled back, and his head tumbled from his neck.
With a THUD, the headless corpse collapsed to the ground.
Xiao Mei Niang stood frozen in astonishment. She had just produced an emerald-green Talisman, but before she could even activate it, her leader, Duan Feng, had died right in front of her.
Cao Xuanyi also wore an expression of utter disbelief. He suddenly slapped the Blood Jade Gourd at his waist. A roiling blood shadow erupted, enveloped him and Xiao Mei Niang, and shot off toward the distant sky.
'If even our leader, Duan Feng, was completely helpless, should we stick around and wait to die?'
The blood shadow had just taken off when two specks of golden light shot across the sky in pursuit.
They were two Vajra Gu.
Following them, Fang Cheng and Wang Xingzhi flew over unhurriedly.
The pair landed on the deck. With a beckoning gesture from Fang Cheng, the Red Feather Sword flew back into his sleeve.
He looked at Wen Qianqian and asked, "Is the Profound Yin Ice Fiend on those two?"
Wen Qianqian answered with a bewildered expression, "The Ice Fiend is still on the barge."
The rapid succession of events had left her completely stunned.
Wang Xingzhi pointed to Duan Feng's corpse on the deck and said in a somber voice, "This man ambushed us. He was likely after the Spirit Stones."
"He's in league with the seller..." Chen Yu Yan's fine brows furrowed as she, too, realized they had fallen into a trap.
Wang Xingzhi's expression was grim. "We owe Brother Fang for this. He... Hah, let's go check on the jar of Profound Yin Ice Fiend first!"
With that, he rushed ahead into the cabin to check on the Profound Yin Ice Fiend.
The others followed him in.
Wang Xingzhi undid the seal on the jar and carefully opened the lid. A frigid, sinister aura immediately filled the air.
Just as looks of delight began to form on their faces, the ethereal blue glow within the jar dimmed and sank to the bottom.
Wang Xingzhi cursed under his breath. A quick scan with his Divine Sense revealed that only a tiny trace of the Profound Yin Ice Fiend remained—less than one percent of the jar's contents!
Seeing this, Fang Cheng just smiled. "Don't worry," he said. "My Vajra Gu have already caught up to them."
A flicker of hope appeared on Wang Xingzhi's face. "Then let's give chase immediately! We can't let them escape."
...
High above the lake, a ten-foot-wide blood shadow shot past with the speed of a lightning strike.
Two walnut-sized, golden Gu Insects were latched firmly onto the blood shadow, continuously devouring its Blood Shadow Spiritual Light.
Within the blood shadow, Cao Xuanyi and Xiao Mei Niang's expressions were grim. They were as panicked as cornered animals.
They never imagined that the opponent they had provoked would be so "powerful."
The enemy who had slain their leader, Duan Feng, had not even appeared, yet he had already driven them to desperation.
Just moments ago, when the Vajra Gu caught up, the pair had tried over a dozen different methods, but none could shake the two Gu Insects.
Now, they could only watch helplessly as the creatures devoured the Blood Shadow Spiritual Light, like two grim reapers closing in.
"Second Sister, the Blood Jade Gourd can't hold out for much longer! We have to split up and run!"
Cao Xuanyi said to Xiao Mei Niang with a sigh.
Xiao Mei Niang gave a bitter laugh. "How am I supposed to fend off these vicious creatures? Why don't we just beg for mercy? We can offer to be his servants in exchange for our lives."
Cao Xuanyi didn't answer, but he thought, 'That man is utterly ruthless. He'd never let us live.'
CRACK!
Suddenly, a sharp cracking sound came from the Blood Jade Gourd at Cao Xuanyi's waist. It was now covered in fissures.
There was no time left.
A look of grim resolve flashed in Cao Xuanyi's eyes. He suddenly thrust a hand out and jabbed a finger at Xiao Mei Niang!
The lithe Female Cultivator's body instantly went rigid. An expression of disbelief crossed her face. "Third Brother, you..."
"I'm sorry, Second Sister. When I've achieved greatness in my cultivation, I will definitely return to avenge you and Big Brother!"
Cao Xuanyi's hands didn't stop. In the blink of an eye, he struck eighteen points on Xiao Mei Niang's body.
Before Xiao Mei Niang could say another word, her entire body began to swell, and a crimson light erupted from her skin!
BOOM!
Xiao Mei Niang's clothes disintegrated as her entire body suddenly exploded.
At the same instant, Cao Xuanyi's Blood Jade Gourd also burst apart.
Two halos of blood-red light—one large, one small—blossomed in the air, unleashing a vast and suffocating power.
The two Vajra Gu were trapped within the bloody halos, fiercely bombarded by clusters of Blood Thunder. They were tossed about relentlessly, like two golden beans in a sizzling pan.
「The next moment.」
A streak of blood-red light shot out from the halos. After circling once in the air, it sped away into the distance.
Cao Xuanyi, shrouded in the blood-red light, failed to notice an ink-black Gu Insect hovering on beating wings just outside the two halos.
He had been using Flying Escape for only a few minutes when his entire body suddenly went numb. His vision went black, and he plummeted from the sky.
Before he even hit the water, his face had turned dark and ashen, his life force completely extinguished.
...
Fang Cheng's party of five found Cao Xuanyi's body one hundred Baili east of the pleasure barge.
He was floating on the surface of the water. Within a radius of ten zhang, all the fish and shrimp had been poisoned to death.
The two Vajra Gu flew back to Fang Cheng's side, listless and weak. Through his connection to them, Fang Cheng already knew what had transpired.
He took Cao Xuanyi's storage pouch, then with a flick of his finger, sent a ball of fire to ignite the corpse.
"There's no Profound Yin Ice Fiend."
Fang Cheng erased the seal on Cao Xuanyi's storage pouch and swept his Divine Sense inside. He found a good number of Spirit Stones but no Profound Yin Ice Fiend, and couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.
With that said, he tossed the storage pouch to Wang Xingzhi.
Wang Xingzhi took it without a word, inspected the contents, and passed it to Wen Qianqian. After Chen Yu Yan had her turn, she handed it back to Fang Cheng.
"It's really not here. This was a trap after all," Wang Xingzhi lamented.
The gruesome deaths of the two ambushers had left him deeply shaken.
Seeing Cao Xuanyi's corpse, in particular, had sent a chill down his spine. 'I must never, ever offend someone who uses Poison Gu!' he thought to himself.
After inspecting the storage pouch, Chen Yu Yan's lovely eyes gleamed as she said, "He has a lot of Spirit Stones. He must have possessed the Profound Yin Ice Fiend at some point, but he's probably already sold it..."
Wen Qianqian gave a wry smile. "It was my poor judgment this time. I almost got everyone killed."
At this point, no one had the heart to blame her. After all, the allure of the Profound Yin Ice Fiend had been too great for any of them to resist.
Wang Xingzhi gave Fang Cheng a peculiar look. "Brother Fang, the first man you killed... that should have been Duan Feng, an Honored Guest Elder of the Luo Family. He wasn't just an expert at the eighth layer of Sensing; he also possessed a First-rank top-grade magic tool. If word of this gets out, your name will become famous."
To slay a Late Sensing Stage master and two Mid-Sensing Stage Loose Cultivators with only a Fourth-Layer Sensing Cultivation... a feat like that is rare even among the core Disciples of the four great families.