The night passed without incident.

The next morning, Su Zhuyi emerged from the cave and began crossing mountains again. Just as she reached the cave entrance, she noticed traces of other animals having trampled the weeds near the entrance formation. Su Zhuyi swept the area with her divine sense and saw a small beast huddled in the weeds at the right corner of the cave.

The small beast had most of its body buried in the dirt, with only half its head exposed. It wasn’t looking at her at the moment, but its ears were twitching as it stared in another direction. Then its head sank lower and lower, as if it was about to completely bury itself in the pit.

That was a Treasure-Seeking Mouse.

Treasure-Seeking Mice were the spirit beasts most beloved by cultivators. Their principle was similar to the spirit-seeking compass Su Zhuyi had made before, but Treasure-Seeking Mice were far more powerful than spirit-seeking compasses. Treasure-Seeking Mice were also ranked by their fur color – silver was the highest grade, gray was the lowest. The Treasure-Seeking Mouse before her had gray fur, belonging to the low-tier spirit beasts, with a very small range for detecting spiritual energy and low intelligence.

However, Treasure-Seeking Mice had a characteristic – if their ears kept twitching non-stop, it proved there were treasures nearby. As long as you followed them, you would gain something.

Su Zhuyi curled her lip and turned to leave. Her divine sense noticed that the Treasure-Seeking Mouse’s ears instantly stopped trembling, seeming very surprised why she paid no attention, then began frantically twitching again. It dug even more vigorously, its hind legs constantly kicking and splashing quite a bit of mud out of the pit.

These were all low-tier spirit beasts. Although they were quite clever, their intelligence was still lacking.

Whether it was that golden monkey or this marmot, they all had the same purpose – they wanted to lure her to some place.

However, Qilian Mountain was a place of poor mountains and treacherous waters. Every year, when merchant caravans came, several cultivators would accompany them. If there truly were opportunities in the mountains, would it be her turn? In her previous life, she had never heard of any treasures appearing in Qilian Mountain. Now, these crude methods were like children playing house in front of her – they held no attraction at all.

She ignored the Treasure-Seeking Mouse, shouldered her bundle, and continued forward. Before long, she had climbed to the mountainside of the fourth mountain.

The fourth peak of Qilian Mountain was in the center and was much shorter than the other mountains. The trees on the mountain were sparse, with many areas having only rocks, looking bare. Though the sun overhead wasn’t large and didn’t seem particularly hot, this mountain was hotter than the others, as if hot air was rising from underground, burning hot enough to kindle a fire in one’s heart.

Su Zhuyi was already covered in sweat by the time she climbed to the mountainside. She didn’t use a spiritual energy barrier to block the heat, since she needed to conserve her limited spiritual energy. She felt like she was soaking in a steamer, with her clothes wrung so wet they could drip water. The mountain wasn’t high but was very steep, making the journey difficult. By the time she descended, it was already evening. The fourth peak was too hot to rest comfortably at night, so Su Zhuyi decided to continue climbing to see the fifth peak. She hadn’t been in the forest long when she sensed several more tails following behind her.

The wild beasts trailing her this time were somewhat different.

Su Zhuyi sensed killing intent. Not the kind where they followed her, wondering if this bone could be gnawed, but the kind where they gathered together, determined to tear her apart.

Su Zhuyi swept the surroundings with her divine sense, mobilized spiritual energy to form a small spiritual energy barrier, then took out a stack of paper talismans she had prepared. Before the pack of fierce beasts could attack, Su Zhuyi flicked out the paper talismans in her hand, directly exploding with bang after bang where the wild beasts were lurking. For a moment, the surroundings were filled with explosive sounds, black mist instantly spread, and she gathered spiritual energy at her feet to sprint forward, chose a depression to lie down in, and scattered three more concealment talismans!

Su Zhuyi’s spiritual energy was pitifully scarce now, so the power of the talismans she drew was naturally poor. She could only increase the talisman’s power through other methods.

The symbols drawn on the three concealment talismans weren’t completely identical – when stacked, their effect would greatly increase. She crouched in the depression and saw the fierce beasts running out of the black mist. Su Zhuyi felt quite fortunate that she had hidden in time.

After being hit by a wave of her talismans, over a hundred wild beasts emerged.

Ordinary wild beasts would have been fine, but there were several spirit beasts among them. The golden monkey from before was crouching on a gray wolf’s back, the Treasure-Seeking Mouse was also there, and besides these, there was another wolf, an eagle, and a bear. These were all very common mountain wild beasts without spirit beast bloodlines. To cultivate into spirit beasts required opportunities, yet she hadn’t expected to encounter so many at once in Qilian Mountain. Could it be that these spirit beasts had truly discovered some treasure and gained spiritual energy to cultivate together, and now they were forming a group to rob her?

Their strength was about the same as human Qi Refining stage cultivators. Su Zhuyi was currently only at the third layer of Qi Refining, and being too young, her physical strength was also weak. If she fought them head-on, she would have no good outcome. She couldn’t outrun them either, so hiding was indeed a wise move.

She lay motionless in the depression, watching those several low-tier spirit beasts look left and right, seeming quite curious about why the person had disappeared.

Su Zhuyi was confident in her concealment talismans. Her talismans might be impossible to fool high-level cultivators, but fooling a few low-tier spirit beasts was effortless. Now she just needed to wait for them to disperse.

She sat in the depression without resting, instead beginning to meditate and regulate her breathing. Who would have thought that after a day passed, those spirit beasts were still there, looking like they would persist until the end of time. She held her composure and began circulating her cultivation method again. After cultivating for another day, half the wild beasts had scattered, and several spirit beasts were also gone, but the remaining ones still watched covetously from the surroundings. The spirit eagle overhead circled at low altitude, its pair of eyes flashing with an eerie cold light.

Su Zhuyi’s heart suddenly sank.

The concealment talismans she had stacked could last at most three days.

After three days, when the spiritual energy on the talisman paper completely disappeared, they would lose their concealing effect. Concealment talismans were much harder to draw than the explosive talismans she had scattered before. She only had five total, and having spent three, she had two left. The spirit eagle overhead kept circling nearby, which was enough to show it was suspicious of this area and unwilling to leave. This was still the concealment effect of three stacked talismans – if she only had two left later, she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t be discovered.

Why were these spirit beasts fixated on her? Was it just because she had spiritual energy and was a small cultivator, so her meat would taste better?

Thinking more was useless; she should focus on how to escape.

To successfully flee, she had to kill the spirit eagle overhead. Otherwise, with it there, she would have trouble hiding. Similarly, she had to kill that wolf too – it was fast and had strong attack power, and leaving it alive would be a disaster. As for the bear, it was slow and couldn’t catch up if she ran. The monkey had very low combat power and seemed to be the military advisor of this spirit beast group. As for the Treasure-Seeking Mouse, it could be completely ignored.

The ones that had left were the wolf and the marmot. The ones staying to guard were the bear, eagle, and monkey.

Touching the Wuding Gourd hanging on her wrist, Su Zhuyi thought it would be great if this gourd could be used. Unfortunately, this gourd was just Little Skull’s hiding place, and she was merely a keeper who couldn’t use the gourd at all. Now that Little Skull was gone, even touching this gourd made her uncomfortable, let alone using it.

Otherwise, she could directly suck these fierce beasts into the treasure gourd and they would turn into pools of blood in the blink of an eye. Where would she need to worry?

She couldn’t delay any longer.

Seeing the eagle circling to its lowest point overhead again, Su Zhuyi suddenly used a grappling technique, grabbing the eagle and pulling it down. The hoe enlarged and flew out, directly blocking the bear. After Su Zhuyi used spiritual energy to pull the eagle down, she immediately used Blazing Palm on the eagle’s wing. This strike mobilized most of her internal spiritual energy, directly burning a hole in the eagle’s wing. Then she formed a blade with her hand, wanting to tear the eagle apart directly. Unexpectedly, in an instant, the feathers on the eagle’s body became as hard as iron. When she chopped down, the eagle was fine, but her hand was bleeding profusely.

It seemed this eagle cultivated its feathers, but its feathers weren’t always hard – only when encountering danger would it use spiritual energy to harden them. If not for her sudden attack just now, she might not have been able to break through the eagle’s feather defense.

Su Zhuyi steeled her heart, ignoring the pain in her hand, directly extended two fingers and gouged out the eagle’s eyes. At this time, the binding force of the grappling technique completely disappeared. The eagle screamed, flapped its remaining left wing, and pecked at Su Zhuyi’s head with its sharp beak.

Su Zhuyi’s spiritual energy barrier was almost directly shattered.

She let go, mobilized her remaining spiritual energy to gather at her feet, then ignored her natal magic treasure and desperately ran forward. The monkey kept chattering and chasing, but the bloody method she had just used to slaughter the eagle had shocked it, making it dare not directly clash with Su Zhuyi. Instead, it kept throwing things at her with very powerful force. After several times, Su Zhuyi’s already near-broken spiritual energy barrier was completely shattered, and with all her spiritual energy gathered in her legs, she simply didn’t have enough spiritual energy left to support another defensive barrier.

That wolf was as fast as lightning and had already caught up.

She didn’t have much spiritual energy left in her body and couldn’t fight the wolf pack anymore. Her natal magic treasure had been grabbed by that giant bear and wouldn’t be able to stop the bear much longer…

Su Zhuyi cursed her bad luck inwardly. Even though she was hit with bumps all over her head, she ignored the monkey and leaped forward fiercely again, then rolled on the ground and crushed another concealment talisman. Among those spirit beasts, the one best at reconnaissance was that eagle. Now that the eagle’s wing was broken and its eyes blinded, one concealed talisman could effectively avoid tracking. After crushing the talisman, she disappeared from the spot, then beckoned to call back her natal magic treasure that had almost been broken in half by the bear.

After doing all this, Su Zhuyi gasped heavily. Crouched in the corner, she felt especially aggrieved.

To think that she, the notorious Heart-Eating Demoness, had fallen to this state – a group of low-tier spirit beasts could chase her fleeing all over the mountain. Life truly was like a play.

Before long, that wolf demon also caught up, but after they circled the area for a long time without finding her, Su Zhuyi finally relaxed and began checking her injuries.

Her injuries weren’t severe, but her head had bumps from being hit by stones, and her back and shoulders had bruises. When the eagle was dragged by her grappling technique, it struggled and left several bloody marks on her. At the time, the situation was urgent, and she hadn’t felt the pain, but now, when she opened her clothes to look, the deepest mark was deep enough to see bone.

She took out the tree roots from her bundle and slowly chewed them bit by bit, using weak spiritual energy to stop the bleeding of her wounds. After hastily treating all the wounds on her body, Su Zhuyi was already exhausted. Her spiritual energy was completely depleted, and her whole body was weak and powerless.

A single concealment talisman could last about ten days. She had two left, allowing her to hide for twenty days. Within these twenty days, as long as she found a way to eliminate that wolf, escaping would be no problem.

The remaining spirit beasts couldn’t discover her, so Su Zhuyi peacefully healed her injuries. While healing and cultivating, she observed, planning to find the right time to act. She waited another fifteen days. Her injuries had recovered about seventy to eighty percent, and her spiritual energy had also returned to fullness, so she planned to act.

On this day, the ones staying to guard were the wolf, bear, and monkey.

Su Zhuyi still planned to have her natal magic treasure block the bear while she killed the wolf. However, just as she was preparing to act, she heard a voice say, “Senior Brother, there’s a Treasure-Seeking Mouse here.”

“Let’s follow it and take a look.”

Not only did she hear it, but the spirit beasts guarding her also heard it. Then Su Zhuyi witnessed an incredible scene – the monkey suddenly jumped onto the wolf’s head and chattered a few times. The spirit beasts and beast pack that had surrounded her for over half a month dispersed and chased in the direction of the Treasure-Seeking Mouse.

They gave up just like that?

They scattered just like that? The two people who had just spoken should be cultivators with strength considerably higher than her current level. These spirit beasts weren’t opponents for those two cultivators, yet they unhesitatingly went over?

Although somewhat puzzled, Su Zhuyi was quite happy. Regardless, it was good that someone had drawn the beast pack away. She climbed out of the pit, gathered spiritual energy at her feet, and desperately ran up the mountain. Before long, she crossed the peak, descended even faster, and headed straight for the sixth peak.

When she reached the foot of the sixth peak, just as Su Zhuyi was about to continue climbing in one go, she suddenly felt the ground beneath her feet shake violently.

At the same time, she saw a sword light emerge from underground on the fourth peak, shooting straight up to the sky. There was also a flying magic treasure in the sky, with cultivators wearing red and white disciple robes falling down like dumplings, their screams and cries for help echoing through the sky, making Su Zhuyi’s scalp tingle!

“There’s a seal, who triggered the seal, run quickly… Ah!”

Ah!

Back then, the cultivators of Feihong Sect at Fragrant Mountain Mei Ridge loved to wear red and white robes that resembled plum blossoms. Those cultivators were Feihong Sect disciples.

They had been led by the Treasure-Seeking Mouse to trigger the seal of Qilian Mountain and release some fierce creatures? Why had she never heard of such an incident in her previous life? What exactly was in Qilian Mountain? Why hadn’t any news leaked out in her previous life? When they were taken away by the Xueluo Sect, they had flown over Qilian Mountain without any abnormalities!

Su Zhuyi ran desperately forward, but the earth beneath her feet cracked, and the entire ground undulated like waves. Though she ran forward, she soon returned to the original spot. Not only that, she found herself unknowingly caught in a ghost wall, actually circling back to the fourth peak. The surroundings were blazingly hot, as if a fire dragon was emerging from underground to completely devour everything around.

Here it came again. Just how unlucky was she…

But at this moment, a clear and cold female voice shouted, “What evil creature dares to cause trouble here!”

Su Zhuyi looked up and saw a female cultivator flying past on her sword, the sword like a meteor, she like the bright moon.

The woman wore white robes, with a flower-like face and moon-like beauty. Even Su Zhuyi, who prided herself on being the most beautiful woman in the world, had to admit this woman was on par with her at her most beautiful.

She was even more beautiful than in her portrait – an orchid in an empty valley, a solitary moon in mountain streams.

She was Luo Ying of the Gujian Sect.