Yuxu Mountain looked quite close – one could see the peak from outside the city gates – but walking there was still quite a distance. Su Zhuyi walked most of the day before reaching the foot of Yuxu Mountain. By the time she arrived, the sun overhead had set behind the mountain.

The Suyue Sect had shallow foundations. Even with Dong Fushang Sect as their backing, they currently had no way to claim the entire spirit mountain as their own and forbid others from hunting there. Anyone could go to Yuxu Mountain, but whether they lived or died once there had nothing to do with the Suyue Sect. Such spirit mountains were generally safer below the mountainside, while the peaks were fraught with danger.

Su Zhuyi didn’t plan to venture to the peak now. She’d just wander around the mountainside.

There was a bluestone path up the mountain, with no travelers on it at the moment.

Su Zhuyi was in turmoil, walking slowly up the mountain. After several impacts, the seal on her divine consciousness had loosened somewhat, allowing her to see distant places through divine consciousness. Therefore, Su Zhuyi didn’t wander randomly on the mountain – she just needed to kill a spirit beast and dig up a spirit pearl. With entrance fees taken care of, everything would be fine.

But when she extended her divine consciousness, she immediately noticed that the two cultivators who had given her directions at the city gate were following behind. The two were talking and laughing with lewd expressions, occasionally glancing up at her, clearly harboring ill intentions.

Both cultivators were only at the early Qi Condensation stage, only capable of bullying newcomers who had just started. Could it be they were planning something against her?

Su Zhuyi still had several concealed talismans. She flashed behind a large tree, then activated a concealment talisman to hide her aura. Then she summoned her natal magical treasure and gripped it tightly.

“Eh, where did that damn girl go?”

“Did she discover us? How’s that possible? Chase her!”

“Can’t let the duck at our lips fly away!” The two immediately circulated their spiritual energy and ran frantically with the wind under their feet. Their cultivation wasn’t high – they couldn’t fly on magical devices yet – but they still ran quite fast.

Just as one of them approached the large tree where Su Zhuyi was hiding, she swung her hoe at him directly. Then she struck with a Flame Palm, hitting the man square in the chest. Her five fingers became claws, forcefully trying to dig…

She didn’t pull out his heart, only tore the clothes on his chest.

Su Zhuyi’s former title of Heart-Eating Demoness wasn’t earned for nothing. In her early days, she was very skilled at killing with one strike by digging out hearts and lungs. It wasn’t because she had a perverted hobby of eating hearts, but because a cultivator’s heart and dantian consciousness sea were the most crucial places for spiritual energy circulation. The dantian consciousness sea in the head was hard to attack by surprise, while the heart’s position was much easier to grasp. At Xueluo Sect, those disciples were kept together like raising poisonous insects, attacking each other with only one allowed to survive. So, killing had to use the fastest speed and most ruthless methods – that’s how she practiced this Bone Claw technique.

Later, after she obtained the Exquisite Golden Thread Net, she rarely did this anymore. But then she became a great beauty skilled at seducing men’s hearts, so the title Heart-Eating Demoness stuck.

Now that one strike missed, the hoe smashed the man’s head bloody. The man screamed miserably with a fierce expression, immediately grabbing Su Zhuyi’s hand that had stabbed at his chest and forcefully twisting it! Su Zhuyi infused spiritual energy into her hand, but both were at the early Qi Condensation stage with similar spiritual energy, while he was an adult man with much greater natural strength. This made Su Zhuyi’s arm ache. She lifted her leg and forcefully kicked the man’s lower body. When he released her to protect himself below, Su Zhuyi flashed backward, just avoiding the other man’s attack.

To sneak attack a little girl – how pathetic.

“Quick, catch her! Beat her to death!” the previous man shouted with a bloody face, hunched over.

The other one cracked the thorny whip in his hand with sharp sounds. His feet moved rhythmically left and right, gradually generating wind beneath his feet.

Su Zhuyi’s eyes narrowed slightly. Oh, though this cultivator was only at early Qi Condensation stage, he had a low-grade magical treasure and mastered several techniques. The footwork he was using was “Swift Steps,” quite popular in the cultivation world. Su Zhuyi had practiced this footwork as a child.

His footwork grew faster and faster, gradually creating afterimages.

Su Zhuyi held her hoe horizontally in front of her. Her movements were also agile, successfully avoiding the whip several times. But this wouldn’t work – just dodging the whip wasn’t enough. She had to subdue him; otherwise, when that man recovered slightly, being attacked by both would be troublesome. After all, she currently had little spiritual energy, only third-layer Qi Condensation cultivation, and her small size and poor stamina weren’t suitable for prolonged combat.

Su Zhuyi steeled her heart, calculated where his next step would land, directly gathered spiritual energy at her feet, barely managed to use teleportation to get there, then immediately used her hoe to smash the man’s head. When she did this, the opponent’s whip happened to lash empty and wrap around Su Zhuyi’s neck.

Like a snake tightly strangling her neck, almost suffocating her.

He was severely injured and applied even more force. The bone spikes on the whip pierced into Su Zhuyi’s flesh, and her neck immediately bled profusely. It hurt terribly, but she didn’t make a sound. She continued controlling the hoe to apply pressure while struggling to break free from the whip.

Su Zhuyi’s heart raced wildly. She didn’t know – would the Songfeng sword qi continue to appear? Why hadn’t it appeared? Was it because the opponent’s strength was too low to trigger the sword qi?

Her breathing became difficult and her vision blurred, but she still struggled to control the hoe. Seeing that the male cultivator was also growing weaker, who would live and who would die hung by a thread…

Little Skull was resting in the Wuding Gourd.

Su Zhuyi had walked outside most of the day and had watched from the gourd mouth most of the day. Later, because it was too tired, it dozed off drowsily. When suppressing the Longquan Sword, it had expended too much strength, so even now its bones were still yellow. The Wuding Gourd contained several stone lotus platforms with mountain and river spiritual veins, making the spiritual energy inside rich. It felt comfortable resting there, and lying down gradually made its consciousness blur as it had a sweet dream.

Just as it was smacking its lips eating candy, it suddenly felt the taste wasn’t sweet and caught a familiar bloody smell. Little Skull opened its eyes to see big sister’s neck strangled by a long whip, blood all over her neck.

It immediately jumped out of the gourd’s mouth, shouting, “Don’t hurt big sister!”

“Tell them not to move.” Su Zhuyi couldn’t make a sound, only making muffled cries. Fortunately, Little Skull had indeed acknowledged her as master and understood her meaning now, shouting, “Don’t move!”

The cultivator who had been covering his crotch and wailing for a long time, finally recovering enough to help, saw Little Skull and froze completely. He shouted, “Ghost creature! This is righteous sect territory – you demonic cultivator, how dare you be so arrogant, you…”

Before he finished speaking, a hoe struck him in his head.

The cultivator strangling her neck was already weak, with only one breath left. Now suppressed by Little Skull’s pressure and unable to move, Su Zhuyi directly smashed her hoe toward the shouting man, then forcibly pulled out the whip wrapped around her neck. Those bone spikes tore from her flesh, blood flowing freely, but she didn’t groan once. Her face was also calm in a frightening way.

She had already felt uncomfortable, and still, people came looking for death!

She pulled off the whip and directly wrapped it around the original whip-wielder’s neck. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Though young and short, she strangled the opponent’s neck and pulled down hard, then forcefully yanked with both hands, strangling the man to death.

After killing this person, Su Zhuyi walked over to the man struck by her hoe, covered in blood and radiating killing intent. That man was severely injured and couldn’t move, but was still conscious. His face now had both blood and tears as he repeatedly begged for mercy, “Little ancestor, spare my life!”

Who could have imagined that a girl who looked five or six years old could be so terrifying? Her neck was still covered in blood as she walked step by step, like a demon crawling out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood. The killing intent in her eyes scared a grown man to the point of wetting himself.

Su Zhuyi flicked the whip in her hand.

The whip was much taller than her, leaving a bloody mark when it hit the ground. That was blood from the man she had just strangled, but among it was also her blood.

“Why did you target me?” Su Zhuyi asked coldly.

“Spare me, I’ll never dare again…” the man wailed and cried, “I just wanted to take you to a sect more suitable for your development. Recently, there’s also a sect that only recruits female disciples, so, so…”

Being stared at by those gloomy eyes, he didn’t dare lie, only hoping she was young and didn’t know about Hehuan Sect, to muddle through this situation.

“Hehuan Sect?” A quite famous female cultivator sect of the demonic path that practiced techniques for absorbing yang to supplement yin. The female disciples inside had each dominated countless men. Back then, that Hehuan Sect master had constantly tried to persuade her to join the Hehuan Sect. He would daily criticize the female disciples in his sect, saying that despite practicing charm techniques from childhood, they couldn’t compare to the Heart-Eating Demoness who emerged from Xueluo Sect through killing.

Mm, though Hehuan Sect only recruited female disciples, the current sect master was a man who had a passing acquaintance with Su Zhuyi.

Hearing her directly name Hehuan Sect, the man’s heart immediately dropped.

“I understand.” Su Zhuyi raised her hand to recall her hoe, then lifted it to smash down. But just then, a small hand gripped her arm tightly.

Little Skull had been stunned watching.

It hadn’t been expected that big sister would do such things…

It was very afraid, very afraid of big sister like this. She had already made that person breathless just now. Now, was big sister going to kill this person, too? Little Skull gripped Su Zhuyi’s arm tightly, “Big sister, big sister, big sister…”

“Let go.” Su Zhuyi said coldly.

Little Skull was very strong. With it restraining her, Su Zhuyi couldn’t move that arm. Su Zhuyi glanced back at it and said viciously, “Let go!”

“Please don’t kill him, okay?” Little Skull was very pure. It treasured life, always feeling that turning living things into dead things was terrifying. Now, big sister had done terrifying things and wanted to continue.

“I’ll say this one last time – let go!” Su Zhuyi’s voice was cold, her gaze even colder.

Little Skull still gripped her tightly and wouldn’t let go. So Su Zhuyi sneered, no longer raising her hoe, but gripping Little Skull’s hand bone with her left hand that wasn’t being held. She knew Little Skull’s bones were still brittle now, so she squeezed very hard, bit by bit, crushing that bone into powder.

Then the hoe floating in the air suddenly plummeted, heavily smashing into the cultivator’s head on the ground. Because it fell from high altitude with great force, the man’s head was smashed open like a flower, brain matter bursting out. Large amounts of yellow and white liquid splattered onto Little Skull.

After killing, Su Zhuyi began searching the corpses, finding two storage bags. Together, the two bags contained just over a hundred low-grade spirit stones.

They were both early Qi Condensation cultivators – she hadn’t expected to find good things on them. She crushed a spirit stone and absorbed it, slightly stopping the bleeding on her neck. Then Su Zhuyi stood up and dragged both corpses into the grass.

While she did all this, Little Skull stood dazedly in place. It didn’t look at Su Zhuyi, just stared blankly at its hand.

The little finger that had just been reattached not long ago was crushed.

It wanted to cry.

But it held back and didn’t cry.

After Su Zhuyi hid the corpses, she untied the Wuding Gourd from her wrist. She didn’t speak, but hung the small gourd on a tree branch, then continued walking forward without a word. Little Skull finally reacted, almost running to Su Zhuyi’s side and directly hugging her foot, sitting down with a plop. Its two bone legs just happened to block Su Zhuyi’s foot.

“Big sister…”

Su Zhuyi took a deep breath. “They could kill me, but I can’t kill them?”

“When they were killing me, why didn’t you go hug their arms? But when I kill people, you come to stop me?”

Little Skull had come out late. Earlier, Su Zhuyi had almost been strangled to death. She was a demoness and was used to saving herself, never considering waiting for others to rescue her. So at that time, she was desperately struggling, fighting that cultivator, and hadn’t thought to call Little Skull out.

When she was near death with blood all over her neck, it came out.

It came out and helped, even if late – at least it came out. Su Zhuyi was still very happy to have such a helper and had even decided to treat it better in the future. But she hadn’t expected that when she killed people, it would stop her.

Such a kind ghost creature was incompatible with her – just looking at it made her frustrated.

“They wanted to kill big sister, so big sister had to kill them?” Little Skull hugged Su Zhuyi’s leg without letting go, asking timidly.

“Yes!”

If they dared to target her, they shouldn’t blame her for being ruthless and leaving no survivors.

“Mm, I understand.” Little Skull nodded. Its reaction was quite quick. Comparatively, it could better accept those two people losing their life force than fearing that big sister would lose hers. If big sister died, that would be more terrifying.

Little uncle had also said to protect big sister well.

Though still somewhat afraid, but, but they had bullied big sister first, so big sister beating them to death seemed, seemed not so hard to accept…

Little Skull looked up at Su Zhuyi, “Big sister, next time I won’t stop you.” It grinned, forcibly squeezing out a smile, “Next time someone bullies you, I’ll beat them to death!” It raised its hand in a motion to hit someone, patting downward like swatting flies. Its little palm was missing a finger – the little finger Su Zhuyi had crushed.

Since you’ve become enlightened so quickly, I’ll keep you around for now.

Su Zhuyi gave part of the spirit stones she’d just obtained to Little Skull, saying, “Your bones can grow back. Eat more spirit stones, or just stay in the gourd.” The abundant spiritual energy in the Wuding Gourd made it a supreme cultivation place – almost nowhere in the world could compare. If only she could enter to cultivate, but unfortunately, that was Ji Wuxin’s gift to his son, and she couldn’t use it at all.

“Mm.” Little Skull nodded vigorously in agreement.

Little Skull was still a blank slate now. With proper training, it could still be very useful, Su Zhuyi thought.

At the same moment, Qinghe was hanging his head, being scolded.

Actually, Luo Ying showed no expression on her face – no anger was visible, and her tone was quite calm – but Qinghe knew master was unhappy. She was reprimanding him.

But the other party indeed didn’t want to join Gujian Sect, and master wasn’t someone who forced others.

Luo Ying never forced anyone to do anything. So Qinghe didn’t understand why master was so persistent about that girl. Upon waking and not seeing her, master’s expression had become much more serious.

“You also saw that little girl has a skeleton beside her. Though it’s a ghost creature, it’s pure and kind.” Luo Ying looked at Qinghe and said slowly.

“It’s very powerful.” Speaking of this, Luo Ying turned her head slightly, gazing into the distance. At this moment, the moon hung on willow branches, and stars sparkled in the sky. The image of that clean, white little skeleton appeared in her mind, and even the corners of her eyes curved slightly.

Master felt happy thinking of that skeleton. Qinghe keenly caught this point and immediately felt he should snatch that skeleton over and keep it under master’s nose daily to make her happy.

“It’s very clean.” Luo Ying continued. “Very easily influenced.”

It was still a blank slate. What it would grow into depended on the person raising it. Whether the paper would show green mountains and waters with flowers like brocade, or corpses everywhere with devastation, all depended on the one holding the brush to paint.

Luo Ying wanted to take Su Zhuyi as a disciple not only because of the girl herself, but for another, more important reason – Little Skull Wu’er.

If it turned evil, there weren’t many people in the world who could restrain it.

So it was better to keep it under her nose. Luo Ying glanced at Qinghe, a sigh escaping her lips.

Qinghe rarely heard the master make such a sighing sound and immediately panicked, saying, “Then we won’t return to Gujian Sect for now. We’ll follow her first and try to persuade her to join the Gujian Sect?” He spoke sincerely, but was thinking that since the master wanted this disciple, then regardless of whether that little girl was willing or not, even if she refused, they’d tie her up and bring her to the mountain.

Whether to willingly agree to become a disciple or directly die – Qinghe believed she looked quite smart and should know how to choose.

“Mm, let’s observe for now. What sect did she want to join?” Luo Ying asked. If she could join a righteous sect that cultivated the heart, that wouldn’t be bad either. She truly didn’t want to force others.

“Suyue Sect.” After Luo Ying heard this, her brows furrowed slightly.

She had been down the mountain for several years and had encountered Suyue Sect female cultivators bullying others multiple times. That place was not a good destination.

“We won’t return to the sect for now. Let’s go see Suyue Sect.” Luo Ying instructed.

“Yes, master.”