The Bone-Eating Beasts attacking from all directions, their cries like hell’s soul-reaping demons—the Qingfeng Sect female cultivator felt that she and the young lady blocking in front of her were two pieces of fresh meat that would be devoured in the next moment without even a hair remaining.

She looked back at her senior brother whose clothes had already been soaked through with blood, brushed aside the disheveled strands of hair at her temples, and looked up at the approaching Bone-Eating Beasts, gripping the treasure sword in her hand tightly. After nearly two hundred years of cultivation, she truly hadn’t expected her manner of death would be like this.

She’d once heard a legend that the closer one’s skeletal remains were to heaven after death, the more one’s soul would fly to the heavens and receive the protection of immortals. She wondered if this manner of death counted as being very close to the sky? Squinting toward the cloud layer, the Bone-Eating Beasts’ wings were solid and powerful—they seemed able to fly very high? At this thought, she felt some small comfort, better than nothing, for the miserable death she was about to face.

Kong Hou had no time to guess at the female cultivator’s thoughts. This was the first time since coming out to gain experience that she’d fought with evil cultivators. The moment she saw the densely packed Bone-Eating Beasts attacking, she’d already thought of what to use against them.

Sound attack.

The phoenix hairpin was removed from her hair. The moment it fell into her palm, it emitted dazzling red-gold light. The magnificent phoenix-headed kong hou appeared in the radiance. The phoenix head let out a piercing phoenix cry. The Bone-Eating Beasts that had dove halfway down seemed extremely afraid of this phoenix call, restlessly circling in the air, not daring to continue downward.

The goateed evil cultivator didn’t care about any of this. He took out a black whistle from his sleeve, put it to his lips and blew. The endlessly circling Bone-Eating Beasts shrieked and dove down again.

Kong Hou had been waiting for this moment. She turned back to the female cultivator. “Seal your hearing!”

Spiritual power gathered at her right hand’s five fingers. The moment her fingers touched the phoenix-headed strings, beautiful sound mixed with attacking power swept out in all directions like a massive tidal wave. The Bone-Eating Beasts charging at the front instantly shattered into pieces, the fishy stench of blood spreading through the air.

However, Kong Hou didn’t stop. Her movements plucking the phoenix-headed strings grew faster and faster. The urgent music was all-pervasive, unavoidable.

The Qingfeng Sect female cultivator stared blankly at the magnificent phoenix-headed kong hou floating in the air. Many black feathers drifted down from the sky like a gorgeous rain, but she knew this wasn’t a magnificent performance—this was a life-or-death moment.

The Bone-Eating Beasts that had been so arrogant just moments ago now fell from the sky one after another—not a single one remained. Fortunately, the young lady blocking in front of her had erected a barrier, so the Bone-Eating Beasts’ blood and corpses didn’t splash onto her or her senior brother.

The goatee’s face changed dramatically in fright. He couldn’t care about feeling sorry for those Bone-Eating Beasts he’d painstakingly tamed—he turned and tried to flee. However, how could Kong Hou give him this opportunity? She removed the auspicious cloud hairpin from her hair. The hairpin transformed into a water-blue treasure sword and, carrying tremendous power, cut across the sky and pierced through both the goatee’s legs.

“Big Brother, save me!” The goatee swayed on the cloud. Seeing Kong Hou chasing after him with the phoenix-headed instrument that had shrunk to half an arm’s length, he hurriedly called out for help. However, when he turned his head, where was Big Brother’s figure in the air? There was only the white-robed young master standing proudly on the jade vessel, and the black-clothed man at the vessel’s stern who had Big Brother trussed up tightly.

Seeing this scene, how could he not know a master had come out to ruin their plans? Before taking action, they’d already inquired that Three Trees City was sparsely populated, its people impoverished, and that no cultivation sect was stationed there—that’s why they’d dared to so brazenly pursue and kill these few righteous cultivators. Where on earth had these masters come from?

Unable to care about Big Brother who’d been captured, he pulled out a magical artifact and threw it out. Yet this artifact was like a white radish before the Shuishuang Sword—easily chopped into two pieces.

What kind of thing was this sword, that a high-grade magical artifact didn’t even have the ability to contend with it? However, he no longer had time to investigate this question, because the Shuishuang Sword had already pierced his spiritual platform. The spiritual energy throughout his body was like a lamp without oil, instantly extinguished. With both legs already crippled and his spiritual platform destroyed, the evil cultivator fell heavily from the clouds.

An evil cultivator without spiritual power was a tiger without teeth or claws, no different from an ordinary person.

“Oh my, looks like I poked crooked?” Kong Hou covered her mouth and murmured quietly. She’d originally wanted to give him a sword through the heart, but this was her first time truly fighting someone, having never killed before. With the spiritual power in her body nearly exhausted, her hand had shaken.

She turned to secretly glance at Huan Zong on the jade vessel. He shouldn’t have seen that, right?

As a personal disciple of Yunhua Sect, she couldn’t lose face at a time like this. Yunhua Sect’s dignity couldn’t be lost either. She secretly circulated a breath of energy and recalled the Shuishuang Sword. It was completely clean, without even a trace of blood on it. No wonder Senior Brother had been so envious when he saw Elder Qiushuang had given her this Shuishuang Sword. This sword was truly formidable—it even came with a self-cleaning function.

This was good too. At least when she transformed it into the auspicious cloud hairpin to insert in her hair, she wouldn’t have any psychological obstacles.

“We won? We won?” Feng Qi looked at the Bone-Eating Beast corpses covering the ground, almost unable to believe his eyes. The young lady standing amid the ground full of Bone-Eating Beast corpses used a handkerchief to wipe the auspicious cloud hairpin and phoenix hairpin in her hands, then inserted them back into her hair. If one hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, who would believe such beautiful, delicate hairpins were actually magical artifacts with terrifyingly powerful strength?

He returned to his senses from his shock, performed a great bow to Huan Zong and Lin Hu, then jumped down from the jade vessel and flew toward his senior brother and sister.

“Senior Sister!” The accumulated snow on the ground had already been dyed red by the Bone-Eating Beasts’ blood. He knelt on one knee before his senior brother and sister, reaching out to check Senior Brother’s pulse. The pulse was already extremely weak, almost imperceptible. The wound on his chest that was still bleeding made him think of that sword through the chest. His hands shook as he took out a Qi-Condensing Pill. Before he could feed it to Senior Brother’s mouth, because his hands were shaking so badly, he’d already spilled half of it.

“It’s useless.” Senior Sister’s voice was hoarse. Watching Feng Qi stuff medicine into Senior Brother’s mouth, tears fell from her eyes again. “Senior Brother, he…”

“If you keep stuffing medicine in, he won’t die from his injuries—he’ll choke to death on the medicine.” Huan Zong stood several steps away. His whole body spotlessly clean, standing in the snow full of blood, made one feel this filthy snowfield defiled him.

The expression on his face was indifferent, his tone revealing not half a bit of pity for the dying man. Feng Qi’s hands fell powerlessly. He knelt before Senior Brother and burst into wailing sobs. The bedraggled Qingfeng Sect female cultivator also covered her face and cried out in pain.

“Lin Hu.” Huan Zong turned his head slightly. “See if he can still be saved.”

He turned to look at Kong Hou in the distance who was currently using rope to bind the goateed evil cultivator. His cold face finally had half a trace of warmth. After all, this was someone Kong Hou had saved with all her strength—living was better than dying.

After Kong Hou had the goatee thoroughly trussed up, she dragged him over with the rope. The goatee’s sharp-mouthed, monkey-cheeked face scraped across the ground full of snow, bones, and blood. Whether because the posture of being dragged was too humiliating or his injuries too severe, he kept spitting blood, without even the strength to open his mouth and curse.

Tying the rope to a tree, Kong Hou wiped her palms with a handkerchief—they’d gotten stained with the goatee’s blood. She didn’t like the smell of blood. Returning to the female cultivator’s side, seeing Lin Hu was treating the man lying on the ground, Kong Hou didn’t speak. But Huan Zong, seeing Kong Hou approach, took out a bottle of elixir and handed it to her. “Are you injured?”

Due to excessive use of spiritual energy, Kong Hou’s complexion was somewhat pale. She accepted the medicine bottle. Just as she was about to pour out a pill to eat, remembering that when binding the goatee just now her hands had gotten stained with his blood and she hadn’t washed them yet, she suddenly felt rather nauseous. “Huan Zong, you feed me.”

The moment these words left her mouth, she saw Huan Zong’s eyeballs looking left and glancing right—just not looking at her. His fair cheeks also became tinged with crimson. Only then did she realize with alarm that her words were too ambiguous. She hurriedly explained, “Don’t misunderstand. What I mean is, my hands are stained with blood. I only wiped them and haven’t had time to wash yet, so I need to trouble you to help me.”

Huan Zong silently took the medicine bottle, poured out two pills, and carefully fed them to Kong Hou’s lips. Kong Hou lowered her head and ate them. “Thank you, Huan Zong.”

“You’re welcome.” Huan Zong put his hands behind his back. His fingertips felt somewhat hot.

“The life has been saved.” Lin Hu withdrew the spiritual energy he’d been inputting into the male cultivator’s body and poured an entire bottle of medicinal liquid on his injured area. “However, he needs to recuperate for a period of time. During this time, he cannot use his sword and must also be cautious about using spiritual energy.”

“Thank you, Senior!” The female cultivator was overjoyed. So moved she kowtowed to Lin Hu, but Lin Hu stepped aside to avoid it, maintaining his centuries-unchanged brick-face expression. “I’m only following my young master’s orders. These medicines all belong to Young Master.”

“Thank you, Miss, and Young Master, for your life-saving grace.” The female cultivator didn’t feel embarrassed about bowing to Kong Hou just because Kong Hou’s bone age was younger than hers. She knelt before the two and respectfully kowtowed once.

Kong Hou shuffled two steps to the side, hiding behind Huan Zong. Having such a beautiful young lady kowtow to her made her feel rather awkward. “You needn’t take it to heart. We just happened to pass by. Encountering injustice, how could we sit by and do nothing? Evil cultivators who commit such evil—everyone has the right to punish them.”

“To Miss and Young Master, perhaps it’s merely a small effort, but to me, it’s the grace of rebirth.” The female cultivator prostrated on the ground and kowtowed again. “I am Ye Fei, disciple of Qingfeng Sect’s sect master. The unconscious one is my eldest senior brother, Hu Yi’an. I, Ye Fei, will never forget today’s grace.”

People often received kindness and spoke profusely about repaying it, yet didn’t say who they were or where they lived—was this truly wanting to repay the favor, or fear that others would use the favor to demand repayment? People like Ye Fei who revealed her identity and sect completely without asking the other party’s identity—these were people truly holding thoughts of repaying the favor in the future.

Seeing Ye Fei was about to continue kowtowing, Kong Hou couldn’t stand it anymore. She walked before Ye Fei and reached out to help her up. “Now isn’t the time to discuss these things. Your senior brother’s injuries are urgent.”

Having a severely wounded patient with a hole poked through him lying in the snow wasn’t very appropriate either.

Huan Zong waved his sleeve, making the jade vessel floating in the air descend. “Carry him up.”

“Thank you, Senior.” Ye Fei and Feng Qi knew they shouldn’t trouble their benefactors further at this moment, but with Senior Brother severely injured and unconscious, they truly didn’t dare joke with Senior Brother’s life. They could only shamelessly continue owing favors. Fortunately, though this young master’s face was cold, he had a kind heart. Otherwise, they really wouldn’t know what to do today.

After Ye Fei and Feng Qi carried the blood-covered Hu Yi’an onto the jade vessel, Huan Zong’s fingers curved slightly. The goateed evil cultivator Kong Hou had bound to the tree flew over like a sack and hung on the jade vessel.

Huan Zong didn’t jump into the jade vessel. He took out a feather from his storage ring. The feather flew into the air and instantly became enormous. He turned to Kong Hou. “Let’s go. We shouldn’t disturb the injured person’s rest.”

Seeing Huan Zong jump onto the feather, Kong Hou also followed him up. Seeing that all of Ye Fei and Feng Qi’s thoughts were on Hu Yi’an and they wouldn’t notice her, her entire imposing aura deflated. With a pale face, she collapsed sitting on the feather. That fight just now had long since exhausted all her strength. If not for relying on magical artifacts to win, how could she still be sitting here so calmly?

This matter couldn’t be let known by Ye Fei and the others. She still wanted to maintain her lofty image of bestowing grace without expecting repayment before them. Fortunately, Huan Zong had taken out a new flying artifact, otherwise she’d probably have to force herself to hold out until reaching the inn.

“Extend your hand.” Seeing her sitting on the feather, Huan Zong’s facial expression unchanged, took out a gourd bottle from his storage ring and opened the wooden stopper.

Kong Hou extended her hand in puzzlement. Surely he wasn’t going to strike her palm because her performance was mediocre? They were friends—Huan Zong shouldn’t do such a thing, right?

Her fair, slender fingers trembled restlessly. Clear, transparent water with a faint fresh fragrance poured into her palm, covering the faint bloody smell on it. Kong Hou turned to look at Huan Zong crouching beside her, her eyes widening.

“Don’t look at me—rub your hands.” Seeing the young lady’s dazed appearance, Huan Zong pointed at her hands. “Didn’t you want to wash your hands?”

Kong Hou returned to her senses and washed her hands until they were completely clean. Smelling the faint fresh fragrance at her fingertips, her eyes curved with a smile. “Thank you, Huan Zong.”

“You don’t blame me for having you go kill the enemy while I looked on coldly from the side?” Huan Zong put away the gourd and learned from Kong Hou’s example to sit down. However, this was his first time sitting on a flying artifact. His feet dangled outside, his posture somewhat stiff, his back ramrod straight—he didn’t look like he was relaxing his body but rather sitting upright and proper.

“I know you did it for my own good.” When sparring with fellow sect members, the senior brothers and sisters were all very measured and truly couldn’t bear to let her get injured. However, enemies outside were different. They wouldn’t show mercy, much less concern themselves with propriety. The only thing they wanted to do was kill her.

Accustomed to sparring with senior brothers and sisters, when she first fought with the goatee, Kong Hou seemed not to fall into disadvantage, but in reality she was only relying on the many protective talismans and magical artifacts given by her elders. Her combat methods lacked structure, and her mentality wasn’t tempered enough.

“The first time I killed an evil cultivator, I was older than your current age. For a good long period afterward, I didn’t like smelling the scent of blood.” Huan Zong rummaged in his storage bag and found a thumb-sized hollow incense ball made of gold and copper. He placed it in Kong Hou’s hand, his face stern. “This is very normal. After encountering evil cultivators a few more times in the future, it will become normal.”

The incense pill rolled around inside the hollow gold-copper ball, making a pleasant sound. The refreshing fragrance penetrated her heart and made Kong Hou’s entire body comfortable. She tied the small ball to her waist and said with a laugh, “Huan Zong, you’re really not at all skilled at comforting people.”

Huan Zong tossed out a glazed lamp from his sleeve. The glazed lamp emitted golden light. Under the glazed lamp’s illumination, the Bone-Eating Beasts’ corpses turned to ash in the blink of an eye. Except for those involved, no one would know a fierce battle had occurred here.

Retrieving the glazed lamp, Huan Zong turned to look at Kong Hou. “Do you feel better now?”

Kong Hou looked at the beautiful glazed lamp in his hand and nodded.

“Do you like it?” Huan Zong held the lamp out before her.

Kong Hou knew this was a formidable magical artifact and shook her head. “Don’t give it to me. I just thought it was beautiful, so I looked at it a few more times. It’s the same as looking at flowers, looking at the moon, looking at stars, or being unable to resist looking at yourself when passing a mirror—it’s a natural physical reaction.”

Huan Zong was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. You only need to know that I don’t want this lamp.” Kong Hou glanced at the empty surroundings. “Senior Lin Hu should have… brought the Qingfeng Sect people to the inn by now, right?”

With the injured patient lying in the inn while the two of them were here chatting idly and burning Bone-Eating Beast corpses—that seemed a tiny bit improper.

“Lin Hu does things very reliably.” Huan Zong saw a layer of white accumulated snow on top of Kong Hou’s head and felt his left hand, which was closest to Kong Hou, had some impulse—wanting to brush away that snow. However, he still remembered the distinction between men and women. He placed his left hand on his knee and gripped it with his right hand.

“Senior Lin Hu is a man, and Fellow Daoist Ye Fei is a woman. Some matters might be rather inconvenient.” Thinking the beauty might suffer grievances, Kong Hou couldn’t sit still.

“Then let’s go back.” Huan Zong stood up, and the feather flew forward. Kong Hou watched the hem of his robe dancing in the air, brushed aside the fallen strands of hair at her temples, cupped her face with one hand and smiled.

Opening her other fair, clean palm, Kong Hou lowered the hand cupping her face and, with curved lips, poked at the hollow little incense ball at her waist.

She’d made a very good friend.

Returning to the inn, Ye Fei and the others had already settled in. There were also several more people who were likewise from Qingfeng Sect. When these bedraggled people saw Kong Hou and Huan Zong enter, their faces were full of gratitude as they thanked them. Huan Zong looked at the jewel-adorned swords at their waists, his face cold and indifferent.

Kong Hou was so tired her mouth and tongue were parched. She finally managed to convince these Qingfeng Sect members who’d sworn to work like oxen and horses for her to go care for the injured patient. Turning her head, she saw Huan Zong sitting beside her leisurely drinking tea and suddenly comprehended the benefits of being taciturn.

Sensing Kong Hou looking at him, Huan Zong put down his cup. “You’re tired today too. Go rest first. Lin Hu and I are still here.”

“All right.” Kong Hou was indeed physically and mentally exhausted. After having the inn send her hot water to bathe, she fell into a deep sleep. That entire night, smelling the scent of the incense ball, she slept very soundly without even a single dream. When she woke the next morning, the sky was already bright. Sunlight slipped in through the window cracks, leaving spots of light in the room.

Opening the window, the snow outside had stopped. The icicles under the eaves reflected beautiful light in the sunlight. She yawned, washed up and dressed, opened the door and immediately saw Huan Zong standing in the corridor.

“Huan Zong?” Kong Hou walked to Huan Zong’s side and saw several Qingfeng Sect disciples sitting at a table in the hall downstairs eating breakfast. Having changed into clean clothes and combed their hair, they looked more spirited than yesterday.

“How did you sleep last night?” Huan Zong handed her a spirit fruit.

Kong Hou took it and bit into it. After swallowing, she nodded. “I slept very well, didn’t even have dreams.”

“That’s good then.” Seeing the incense ball still hanging at her waist, Huan Zong’s lips moved slightly. He covered his mouth and lightly coughed a few times.

“Young Master, Miss.” Ye Fei came out of the room. Seeing Kong Hou and Huan Zong standing side by side, she came forward and performed a bow. “Thank you, Young Master, for the gifted medicine.” Senior Brother had woken up in the middle of the night yesterday. Though still unable to rise, his life was no longer in danger. Senior Lin Hu had also said Senior Brother’s spiritual platform hadn’t been damaged, so it wouldn’t affect his cultivation.

“How is Fellow Daoist Hu?” Kong Hou smiled at Ye Fei.

Her warm attitude made Ye Fei much more at ease. “Senior Brother is much better. Fortunately, the three fellow daoists took action to help, otherwise…”

“Didn’t we agree yesterday not to be so formal?” Kong Hou interrupted Ye Fei’s words. “Meeting is fate. If Fellow Daoist Ye continues being so polite, I’ll feel embarrassed instead.”

Ye Fei smiled awkwardly and stopped mentioning these matters, but kept this favor in her heart.

Lin Hu walked out of the room and came before Huan Zong. “I obtained some information from those two evil cultivators’ mouths.”

Huan Zong indicated for him to continue.

“They want to celebrate a Demon Lord’s Spirit Separation stage breakthrough ceremony, so they’re collecting spiritual energy from righteous cultivators’ spiritual platforms everywhere to use for pill refinement.” Lin Hu’s usually calm and placid tone carried a few traces of gravity. “On the evil cultivators’ side, there’s another person with Spirit Separation stage cultivation.”

In recent years, because the ten great sects had managed the cultivation world very well, evil cultivators only dared come out for petty mischief. The evil cultivator who’d caused the most trouble in nearly a hundred years was still in Yunhua Sect’s prison and would never be able to come out again in this lifetime.

Now evil cultivators weren’t only coming out to kill people and extract hearts but also destroying spiritual platforms to extract spiritual power for pill refinement. Could it be that evil cultivators were beginning to stir restlessly again?

During these years of stability in the cultivation world, ordinary common people had also lived some days with peace of mind. Now if evil cultivators began making big moves, the first to suffer wouldn’t be righteous cultivators like them but ordinary common people who had no power to resist before evil cultivators.

But currently it was only two or three evil cultivators causing trouble. Without any evidence, cultivators from other sects probably wouldn’t believe their words.

“Use a flying message talisman to transmit the course of events to the sect and have them relay it to the ten great sects. Even if other sects don’t believe it, they can prepare early just in case.” Huan Zong was devoted to the way of the sword and almost never dealt with people from other sects. Having the sect handle this kind of matter was more appropriate.

Listening to Huan Zong and Lin Hu’s conversation, Kong Hou realized this matter might not be simple. But she wasn’t a native of Lingyou Realm. In the few years since entering Lingyou Realm, she’d always stayed at Yunhua Sect, so she knew very little about the cultivation world. She wasn’t clear how serious the situation actually was, but she could tell the sect everything that had happened. No matter what matter or which place, making early plans was always more prudent.

“Huan Zong, I’ll also send a flying message back to the sect.” Kong Hou said, “I’ll go back to my room first.”

Ye Fei was secretly astonished. To be able to easily produce flying message talismans to use, and moreover to have the sect transmit messages to the ten great sects—these two benefactors’ identities were definitely not ordinary. But since the two didn’t say, she wouldn’t ask. This was the most basic respect for benefactors.

The flying message talismans were quickly sent out. At lunchtime, Kong Hou discovered the dishes on the table were much more refined and particular. Every dish emanated rich spiritual energy. After asking, she learned these dishes were personally made by Qingfeng Sect disciples.

Eating the dishes that tasted quite good, Kong Hou somewhat suspected these disciples were truly planning to work like oxen and horses for her and Huan Zong.

“Huan Zong…” When Kong Hou extended help, she hadn’t planned on having them repay the favor, so this made her rather embarrassed.

“Let them be.” Though Huan Zong didn’t quite understand others’ emotions, Kong Hou’s current expression was very easy to understand. He said quietly, “Life-saving grace—the other party is bound to feel anxious. If this can make them feel better, then let them do as they wish.”

Kong Hou froze, then quickly understood. In certain situations, Huan Zong was much more understanding than her.

After finishing the meal, Kong Hou saw Ye Fei approaching with a difficult expression. “Miss, I have a very important question I’d like to ask Miss. Please forgive my presumption.”

Could it be she wanted to ask about her identity?

Kong Hou nodded. “Please speak.”

“May I ask, Miss, what kind of gemstones were embedded on the sword you used yesterday? Why is the sword body so beautiful?”

Kong Hou: “Huh?!”