After four hundred years of ice and snow, nearly ten thousand miles of sea had frozen solid. Countless massive icebergs stood on the vast ice field, with only the dazzling white of snow visible as far as the eye could see, making everything seem empty and desolate.
Ri Yan said, “The large forested island where Jianmu is located is quite remote. There are some islands nearby, but they’re now devoid of human traces. When Qingcheng and I came here following the north wind, we saw remnants of broken houses on several surrounding islands. Though in ruins, one could still sense their once-prosperous past. I suspect they were the dwellings of the Yaksha tribe. Thousands of years ago, the relationship between the Yakshas and Jianmu’s fruit probably wasn’t as twisted as it is now. Look at the island where Jianmu is – doesn’t it seem like it’s surrounded by these Yaksha-dwelling islands like stars around the moon? Ah, you were born at the wrong time. If you had been born tens of thousands of years earlier, you might have been an empress!”
On that day, he had been eager to see Jianmu’s fruit and had overlooked the Yaksha’s large islands. Qingcheng, constantly urged by him as if chasing her life, hadn’t had time to dig out any remaining records from the ruins. Now, even if they wanted to look, they couldn’t see anything. Everything was buried under ice. The once-glorious Yaksha tribe had long since withered away, with the last two members losing their horns. It was truly lamentable.
Li Fei closed her eyes, carefully searching for Lei Xiuyuan’s aura. Suddenly, Ri Yan’s tail coiled around her and tossed her onto his back. “You won’t find him. Come with me.”
After four hundred years, this fox seemed to have grown even stronger. Flying against the wind as swift as lightning, the ice and snow before their eyes receded almost in an instant. The azure sea water reflected the setting sun, with countless large and small verdant islands dotting the sea like pearls, reminding Li Fei of the scenery from the East Sea trials years ago.
“That day, the kid was severely injured. Even after exhausting his entire origin spirit network, he didn’t show much improvement. I thought he was going to die,” Ri Yan said as he flew, telling her about many things that had happened afterward.
Although Yakshas were tough and unparalleled, with deep entanglements with Jianmu’s fruit, they couldn’t handle the heavenly thunder and sea of fire. And they couldn’t make Jianmu’s fruit come and go like the wind, passing through all barriers effortlessly, perfectly concealing all traces and auras as they could.
This is what it means to have different strengths. When facing others’ strengths with one’s weaknesses, even the tough Yakshas would suffer.
“I brought him to Jianmu Island, hoping the dense spiritual energy there would help him, but it didn’t seem to do much good,” Ri Yan took a breath. “I watched for three days, thinking he would die when suddenly his body was covered in golden light, and he fell into a deep sleep. At least, I think it was sleep. I don’t know much about Yakshas. Anyway, he didn’t die and slept for nearly four hundred years. He suddenly woke up two years ago. I wasn’t there when he woke up. By the time I came to Jianmu Island to check on you two, he was already gone.”
Yakshas were a tribe burdened with Jianmu’s curse. Ri Yan had considered the possibility that Lei Xiuyuan might stay under Jianmu after waking up, or even climb to the treetop to try to approach the fruit. What he hadn’t expected was that Lei Xiuyuan would leave, and do so without a trace, leaving not even the slightest clue behind.
Ri Yan continued, “I guess maybe, like Hu Jiaping, after his horn broke, the curse somehow disappeared, so he left Jianmu. I searched the surrounding area for nearly ten days before finally finding him here.”
As he finished speaking, he landed steadily on a mountain peak. Li Fei gazed in awe at the scene below. This should be one of the countless islands, but it was incredibly vast, almost like a sprawling country. The mountain under their feet wasn’t particularly high, nor did it have undulating peaks. What was astonishing was that almost every ten steps on the mountain, there was a tree shimmering with light, as if adorned with pearls. From the mountaintop to the foot, the entire mountain looked like it was wearing a coat of luminous pearls.
A warm breeze caressed her face, and the mountain’s atmosphere was serene and refreshing, lifting her spirits.
Seeing the girl staring wide-eyed, Ri Yan couldn’t help but laugh proudly. Knowing everything about Jianmu’s fruit didn’t mean knowing everything about the overseas lands. After all, she was still that inexperienced kid, seeing the true Thousand Isles for the first time, her eyes almost popping out.
“This island isn’t that big,” Ri Yan said, waving his five tails, once again assuming the role of a condescending elder, arrogantly educating her. “Those few Yaksha islands combined are much larger than this one. And the island of the Rakshasa tribe to the south, now that’s truly a big island, over a hundred times larger than this one.”
He shook his body, and his enormous form suddenly shrank to the size of a thumb, just like when he was at the academy years ago. Nimbly jumping onto Li Fei’s shoulder, he said proudly, “Let’s go. Walk down yourself, so those ignorant overseas people don’t come bothering me again.”
Each island overseas had its unique customs and traditions. The people of this Juying Island were particularly skilled in taming demons. The day he suddenly appeared in broad daylight to find Lei Xiuyuan, the islanders were overjoyed, all scrambling to tame him, which was endlessly annoying.
Li Fei was still in shock. The mountain had been very well cared for. Although there were no man-made paths, every small trail was free of weeds. Approaching a glowing tree, she realized that what hung on it were not pearls, but countless flowers woven from luminous leaves. The mountain’s atmosphere was extremely clean, a phenomenon not found anywhere in the Central Plains.
Sitting on the Rhinoceros Horn, she slowly descended along the clean and neat mountain trails, looking around all the while. Finally, she couldn’t help but ask, “What’s the deal with this mountain? What are these glowing leaves hanging everywhere?”
Ri Yan snorted coldly, “Fool, your lack of knowledge is truly laughable! The nearby overseas people living by the mountain worship it as a deity! Haven’t you heard of people in the Central Plains worshipping thunderclouds and lightning? It’s the same here! Since they treat it as a deity, of course, they make it look respectful, just like how people in the Central Plains maintain temples and palaces. The overseas customs are primitive, so they use leaves of the White Poplar to weave flowers for decoration.”
She had certainly heard of various deities, but those were… just legends. The concept of deities was vague and ethereal. Cultivators believed in the Way of Heaven, in cause and effect, in perseverance, but not in non-existent deities. She never imagined that overseas people would believe in such things, and even treat a mountain as a deity. It was unheard of.
“Listen,” Ri Yan’s voice suddenly turned serious, “when you see that kid, don’t get too excited. He seems to remember nothing, and I can’t sense his spiritual energy or aura. Don’t treat him like the person from four hundred years ago who thought of everything for you. He’s living quite well now. Hmph! I knew this kid was born cunning! He won’t lose out anywhere!”
Li Fei nodded, both amused and exasperated. She had already had a premonition that Lei Xiuyuan, like Hu Jiaping, might lose his memories after his horn broke. The Yaksha horn wasn’t as simple as they had thought; it wasn’t just the source of Yaksha’s power but also seemed related to Jianmu’s curse.
But whether he had lost his memories or become an ordinary person, it was enough that Lei Xiuyuan was still alive.
The Rhinoceros Horn flew lightly out of the forest. Under the glow of the setting sun, a huge village could be seen in the distance. The houses were all built with black and white stones, very different from the style of houses in the Central Plains. From afar, they looked like large sea snails standing on the ground. It was dinner time, and smoke rose straight up from the bottom of the houses, a very strange sight.
Li Fei was about to ask where Lei Xiuyuan was when she suddenly felt something was amiss. With a flick of her wrist, she immediately cast a layer of Earth Lord’s Protection on herself. In the dense branches above, there were several fluctuations of spiritual energy, completely different from Central Plains cultivators, strange and subtle, and extremely difficult to detect.
Just as the orange light of the Earth Lord’s Protection flared up, she heard a clear shout from above, followed by several crisp “ding-dong” sounds. More than a dozen shining white iron hooks attached to ropes bounced off Li Fei and fell to the ground.
Seeing that these white iron hooks were infused with spiritual energy, she was secretly shocked. The hooks were attached to ropes, clearly meant to catch and restrain her body. What a savage weapon! Moreover, with spiritual energy attached, they were countless times sharper than ordinary iron tools. If she hadn’t cast the Earth Lord’s Protection, she would probably be covered in hooks by now.
Suddenly, her vision blurred, and more than a dozen strange-looking demon beasts rushed towards her from all directions – front, back, left, right, above, and below – not missing a single spot. It was clear that the Juying people hiding in the treetops must often work together seamlessly.
Unfortunately, demon beasts were useless against her.
Li Fei whistled a few times, and those demon beasts involuntarily stopped in mid-air. With a wave of her hand, they were forced to fly back.
The Juying people hiding in the treetops let out incredulous exclamations. Someone said something in surprise, followed by several figures landing in front of her like lightning. Li Fei saw that they were all short in stature, with the tallest only about her height. They were all lean and dark-skinned, with their hair tightly bound on top of their heads regardless of gender. They wore strange gray short garments, but their facial features were no different from ordinary people. At this moment, their eyes were full of awe and amazement. After staring at her for a while, the tallest man among them suddenly spoke rapidly, seemingly asking her something, but she couldn’t understand a single word.
Not wanting to get entangled with them here, Li Fei immediately flew high on the Rhinoceros Horn, speeding towards the village.
Suddenly, Ri Yan burst into laughter on her shoulder, his tiny body nearly falling backward: “They asked if you were the god from the mountain! People, oh people! They’re just as stupid in the Central Plains as they are overseas!”
Li Fei exclaimed in surprise, “You can understand their language?!”
She was already a mature Jianmu fruit, yet she couldn’t understand her homeland’s language. How tragic was that?
Ri Yan glanced at her, “I’ve been here for four hundred years! Did you think it was just a dream?”
Li Fei was about to ask him to teach her when she suddenly heard a sharp wind behind her ear. Ri Yan let out an angry roar, and then her neck was forcefully gripped by a scorching hand. Her collar was also grabbed mercilessly, and she was yanked off the Rhinoceros Horn in an instant.
She was no longer the same as before. With a thought, several layers of Earth Lord’s Protection were set up around her body. Fire gathered in her palms, intending to force that person’s hand away. But suddenly, she smelled a familiar scent, like the incense burning in bronze tripods in palaces, cool and distant.
She cried out in surprise, grabbing the person’s sleeve and struggling to look up. She saw those pitch-black eyes she had been dreaming of. These eyes no longer held the gentle playfulness of the past but were truly ice-cold. He held her high, seemingly intending to throw her to the ground.
Li Fei saw golden light flickering around his body, and a Yaksha horn protruding from the left side of his head. Fearing he was about to use heavy force, she immediately used her fire to force away his restraining hands. Her body gracefully spun in the air, landing steadily on the ground.
Ri Yan jumped onto her shoulder and angrily said, “If he’s not polite again, I’ll immediately grow big and bite him to death!”
Li Fei didn’t pay any attention to what he said. All her attention was drawn to the person slowly descending in golden light before her.
Was this Lei Xiuyuan? How… how did he end up dressed like this?
She stared in bewilderment at Lei Xiuyuan’s magnificent black attire. He seemed to have grown taller, and both his figure and face no longer had that slightly awkward youthful quality of the past. His long hair was no longer simply tied with a ribbon, but now bound with pearls. His clothes were made of expensive material, with patterns embroidered in gold thread. She had never seen Lei Xiuyuan so luxuriously dressed before. Where had that poor boy with nothing to his name gone?
Noisy voices approached hurriedly from all directions. It seemed that all the people in this village had been alerted. They gathered around, flustered yet orderly, and then, Li Fei watched in astonishment as they bowed respectfully to Lei Xiuyuan. She couldn’t help but gape in shock.
Ri Yan snorted coldly, “See? That’s why I said he’s living quite well!”