Chapter 10: Ambush
When Song Yan first entered the sect, he did not bring Xiao He along, primarily because at that time she had no understanding of cultivation and feared the sect would not tolerate a demon beast.
He had not expected that immortal sects would even raise spiritual beasts and demon spirits, which put his mind at ease.
This time descending the mountain, he naturally intended to bring Xiao He along.
Xiao He was a small green snake demon she had encountered in the mountains as a child while gathering herbs with her grandfather; at that time, she had just awakened her spiritual intelligence, and Song Yan was the first human she had ever seen.
His grandfather said Xiao He was a demon.
He also said that not all demons do evil.
Just as there are people who are thoroughly wicked and commit crimes, there are also demons with cold exteriors but warm hearts who do good deeds—”good demons.”
Song Yan believed his grandfather was right.
Xiao She was a good demon.
However, looking back now, Song Yan wondered how his grandfather had been able to tell at a glance that Xiao He was a demon…
Inside the thatched hut, Xiao He wriggled into the freshly made bedding, her tail curling around the blanket, her muffled voice coming from beneath the covers, interrupting Song Yan’s thoughts: “Go to sleep, I’m so tired.”
March, according to Xiao He, was still part of their hibernation period.
“You sleep first.”
“No! It’s so cold in the blanket, it won’t be warm unless you lie down.”
Snakes are afraid of cold too?
“…”
Though she said she was tired, the little snake tossed and turned, unable to sleep at all.
At the thought that Yanyan was going to take her out to play, Xiao He was too excited to sleep.
If Song Yan could feel it, this mood would be like the night before a child’s first spring outing in elementary school.
Unfortunately, he was completely immersed in cultivating the nameless technique.
This space contained only black and white, resembling yin and yang, so Song Yan cleverly named it the “Two Realms.”
In just one day, his divine sense had not yet grown strong enough for the thirteenth stele, but he had found something different.
As his divine sense grew stronger, Song Yan seemed to faintly make out the first few small characters on the stone stele in the realm.
“Five…”
“Stars…”
“Catch…”
“Five Stars Catching Veins…”
What a peculiar name.
Song Yan pondered it, searching his memory but never having heard of it before.
It was still the twelfth stele; his divine sense could not sustain itself, and he allowed the thirteenth stele to blast him out of the Two Realms.
“Hah…”
He let out a long breath.
This time, that splitting headache did not appear; he only felt a slight mental fatigue.
“Could it be that my divine sense has improved again?”
Song Yan felt a surge of joy.
For the realm of spiritual energy, one could use miraculous pills, spirit-gathering formations, and similar aids, but for strengthening divine sense, there were simply no shortcuts.
Or rather, this incomplete “Five Stars Catching Veins” text was already the shortcut among shortcuts.
Song Yan was a contented man.
Looking at it this way, even if the Two Realms contained only this incomplete text for training divine sense, he was already fortunate enough.
The strength of his divine sense could bring him many conveniences; if the Great Dao truly proved unreachable in the future…
Alchemy, artifact refinement, formations, talismans…
He would not go hungry in this cultivation world.
“Hmm?”
Song Yan had a thought and drew a pale purple spiritual talisman from his Cosmos Bag.
The purple light flickered slightly, and three dots of light appeared before him.
Song Yan’s brows furrowed slightly.
“I hadn’t even gone to investigate yet, and they’ve delivered themselves…”
This purple talisman was not his.
It was a tracking talisman distributed by the sect, mainly to ensure that these cultivators had truly left Shiliang territory.
Once the mission was complete, it had to be returned; the sect would collect it, and a specially appointed deacon elder would keep it for several months before the aura on it was uniformly erased.
“Xiao He, stop sleeping, come with me for a trip.”
“Mmm… hmm?”
The little snake’s excitement had just faded, and she was drowsily on the verge of sleep when Song Yan shook her awake.
Poking her head out from under the covers, she flicked her tongue, somewhat displeased: “It’s the middle of the night, where are we going…” “To beat bad people.”
“Great!”
The little snake slipped into his sleeve, and Song Yan rose and left the thatched hut.
The peak of Little Orphan Mountain, at the waterfall cliff.
The mountain wind, carrying the damp scent of grass and trees, rushed toward him.
Song Yan sat cross-legged, a blue-gold long sword resting across his knees, his fingertips brushing over the cold purple talisman in his sleeve.
The three dots of light on the purple talisman flickered between brightness and darkness, like fireflies in the pitch-black night.
“About thirty zhang…”
For cultivators, that was close at hand.
His fingertips gently traced along the blade, and Song Yan stood up.
“Lu Xiaowei’s protective jade talisman is already shattered; the remaining two are only at the first level of Qi Refining.”
“Xiao He, what level are you at now?”
“I don’t know…”
A drowsy, faint voice came from within his sleeve: “I’ve never fought a human cultivator before.”
Song Yan’s knowledge of demon beasts was also limited.
But logically speaking, Xiao He was already able to take human form; dealing with two cultivators at the first level of Qi Refining should not be a problem, right?
He flicked his fingers to extinguish the talisman fire, and the green snake slithered out from his sleeve.
“Yanyan, you’re already at the fifth level of Qi Refining, what is there to fear? You could beat them to death by yourself.”
Song Yan shook his head.
“Even a lion or elephant uses full strength against a rabbit. In the battles between cultivators, one careless move means death and the cessation of the Dao.”
“Moreover…”
“The aura on those three—I have never sensed it on anyone else.”
“Though their spiritual energy is low, there is an air of evil about them…”
“During the day, one of them had a copper bell hanging at his waist; when I approached Lu Xiaowei, I smelled corpse oil.”
He had learned medicine from his grandfather since childhood; living two lives, he was precocious from a young age, showing astonishing talent in medicine by the age of eleven or twelve.
Additionally, with his close relationships with Sheng Nian and Constable Ling, he often helped the coroner at the yamen with autopsies; this smell could not be more familiar to him.
“…”
“I once saw in the sect’s records…”
“Magical artifacts like copper bells—the techniques and spells suited for them are nothing more than illusions, corpse driving, spirit summoning, soul disturbance, and the like…”
“Senior Brother Zhao said that during the days they arrived, three people from Yunding Village went missing on their way back to the village…”
Song Yan’s expression turned cold.
“Acting in secret, abducting village women and injuring Constable Ling—if the disappearance of our fellow villagers is related to these three…”
His eyes narrowed, revealing a dangerous aura.
“Today, right here, I’ll kill them all.”
Song Yan was a kind-hearted man, but that did not mean he was gentle.
Quite the opposite.
His grandfather had said before passing that he hated evil with a fierce intensity and acted with solitary courage; if he did not learn some arts of self-cultivation, he feared he would be easily broken by his own rigidity.
Before entering the sect, a martial artist from the Jianghu, thoroughly saturated with wickedness, had fled to Shiliang.
That man, based on a single rumor from the Jianghu about an immortal sect, slaughtered all one hundred and twenty-four members of the Qingyuan Lin family in a single night.
And that man died at the hands of two youths—Song Yan and Sheng Nian.
His divine sense spread outward; every rustle of wind and movement of grass in the waterfall valley was crystal clear.
Mixed with the sound of the waterfall, cursing voices gradually grew closer.
“Senior Brother, if that Song fellow is prepared, then…”
“No matter how capable he is, at most he’s at the mid-stage of Qi Refining; his spiritual energy is insufficient to support wielding magical artifacts for long-range attacks, and his divine sense is no different from ours.”
“During the day, I was only worried about alerting the enemy; tonight under this dark moon and high wind, we’ll just abduct that constable surnamed Sheng and flee. With the treasure bestowed by our master, what is there to fear from him?”
Ding-ling…
The cultivator with the bell at his waist suddenly stopped, his face showing suspicion.
“Senior Brother, why is the ghost bell ringing…”
Bang!
Before the words were out, vines burst from the ground beneath his feet, striking like venomous snakes, instantly wrapping around his ankles.
(End of Chapter)