“You now have two choices. The first is to keep the stele and stay here, underground, until the Beast Refining Gate’s people eventually find you and then slowly slice you to pieces. The second choice is to give the stele to me, after which point this entire matter will cease to have anything to do with you.”
Tang Jie spoke to Lin Baicang as he held the stone stele.
Lin Baicang bitterly smiled. “Do I even have a right to choose? The Beast Refining Gate will fly up into the heavens and dig down into the earth to find me in order to get back this suppressing treasure. While it might be nice, it’s not my good fortune to enjoy it. If you want it, then you can have it.”
Tang Jie hadn’t expected Lin Baicang to be this agreeable. “Are you not afraid that I’ll just leave you behind after I get it? So long as the Beast Refining Gate doesn’t know that it’s with me, they’ll still chase after you.”
Lin Baicang laughed. “You really think you can fool them? Let me tell you the truth. From the moment you interacted with me, my scent was on you, and you became unable to escape. Don’t forget what the Beast Refining Gate is best at: raising beasts! They have the best hunting dogs in the world, that can track you through your scent! Why do you think I hid underground and didn’t dare to come out? Only in this underground maze can I cut off my scent. Unless you’re like me and hide underground forever, you’ll be chased down the moment you leave! Hahahaha!”
Lin Baicang laughed like a madman. “Thus, if you want to take this stone stele, then, by all means, take it away. Once they kill you and seize the stone stele, their pursuit against me will weaken, and I might even be able to escape.”
Tang Jie sucked in a cold breath. “If I leave now, how long will it take for them to find me?”
Lin Baicang cocked his head and thought it over. “The Beast Refining Gate has a kind of dog with a long nose that excels in tracking through scent. So long as they are given a scent to follow, they can sense it from fifty kilometers away. But you have only some of my scent, so they shouldn’t be that sensitive. However, I can’t be too specific on the details. Let’s halve the distance. So long as you don’t get within twenty-five kilometers of them, you should have no problem. But you forced me to show myself in the village, so the Beast Refining Gate has probably sent half its people there. I haven’t appeared at all in this period of time, but then I suddenly appeared today, and considering the fuss that you’ve been raising recently, the Beast Refining Gate has probably been watching you for ages, waiting until you met up with me. Thus, today’s meeting was in their calculations since long ago. So long as they gather all their people and start closing in… haha, it will be very difficult to avoid their search!”
“What about in the sky? The sky is so vast that twenty-five kilometers is nothing up there.”
“You think I don’t know how to fly? It’s useless.” Lin Baicang shook his head. “The Beast Refining Gate controls all beasts, and they have both hunting dogs and hunting eagles. They are also watching the skies, and they even have a Celestial Heart True Person scanning the area with their Dao Will. Let alone going in and out of Celestial River Island, they would even sense it if someone sent a message! Celestial River Island has already come under their complete control. If they weren’t afraid of Horizon Ocean Pavilion, they would have already turned the island upside-down!”
“Is that how it is?” Tang Jie dropped his head and began to think.
After some time, he asked, “Then it shouldn’t be a problem if someone from Horizon Ocean Pavilion comes in and out, right?”
Lin Baicang replied, “Theoretically, but I’m afraid having Young Lady Xu carry a message won’t work. I would almost guarantee that the moment my scent leaked out, the Beast Refining Gate immediately started watching Young Lady Xu. If you don’t want to put her in danger, it’s best if you don’t interact with her.”
“Understood. But I have ways of sending messages to her that don’t involve interacting with her,” Tang Jie chuckled.
Underground, message talismans wouldn’t work. Fortunately, he had Heart Consonance.
Yiyi was still at the inn, and through her, he could communicate with Xu Miaoran.
So long as Xu Miaoran left the island without interacting with him, the Beast Refining Gate would not risk trying to stop her.
Tang Jie was more concerned about something else. “The news that Joymount Island is under siege is spreading around. The moment the Beast Refining Gate’s people find out about it, they will definitely realize that the Beast Garden is involved. In other words, while I can have Miaoran help me inform the Basking Moon Sect, it will be too late if I wait for reinforcements.”
Lin Baicang shook his head repeatedly. “There’s no hope. Once I was imprisoned on Celestial River Island, I gave up on the Beast Garden. All I hope for now is to safely leave… I want to go home!”
After saying this, this middle-aged man suddenly began to weep.
Tang Jie could only pat him on the shoulder. “I’ll go out. If I draw away the pursuers from the Beast Refining Gate, you should be able to escape.”
“You…” Lin Baicang looked at Tang Jie in shock.
Tang Jie put the stone stele in his Mustard Seed Bag and slowly asked, “Where’s the closest exit to Joymount Island?”
After a momentary daze, Lin Baicang said, “Follow me.”
—————————————
Celestial River Inn.
Yiyi, who was playing around, suddenly went stiff.
Xu Miaoran noticed the change in her expression and asked, “Yiyi, what’s wrong?”
After a while, Yiyi raised her head and said, “Big Brother has sent a message.”
She walked over and whispered into Xu Miaoran’s ear. As Xu Miaoran listened, her eyes flashed.
A few moments later, Xu Miaoran nodded. “I understand. Tell Tang Jie that I will send his message. Tell him to stay safe.”
She turned and walked out of the room, shouting, “Xian Tao, Hong Yuan! Pack my things! We’re going to leave!”
The two maids rushed over. Hong Yuan said in shock, “Why are we leaving now? Young Sir Tang hasn’t come back yet!”
Xu Miaoran turned and began to walk out of the inn. “He lost to Lan Yu and feels ashamed to see me. He’s going deep into the mountains to train ten years before coming out again. We’re returning to Horizon Ocean Pavilion.”
“What!?” the two maids shouted in disbelief.contemporary romance
But whether they believed it or not, the maids had no choice but to start packing.
Once everything was packed, the party left the inn. Sending away the island guards, Xu Miaoran flew away from the island with her people.
In a small house near the inn, two men in martial attire stood next to the window. One of them was none other than Helian Hu!
Upon seeing Xu Miaoran fly away, Helian Hu turned and walked into the bedroom, where a man with white brows was seated cross-legged in meditation.
Helian Hu got down on one knee and said, “Sir, Xu Miaoran has left Celestial River Island.”
The white-browed man remained seated as he said in a deep voice, “What of Tang Jie?”
“He has yet to appear.”
The white-browed man finally opened his eyes. “Tang Jie has not emerged, so why is Xu Miaoran leaving? Which way is she going?”
“In the direction of Great Wind Island.”
“‘Great Wind Island’? Returning to Great Wind Island without even saying a word to her boyfriend?” The man harrumphed. “There’s something fishy going on. Tang Jie probably has used some secret art to contact Xu Miaoran.”
“This disciple will go and intercept her,” Helian Hu sternly said.
“No!” the white-browed man shouted. “Xu Miaoran’s status is special, and she can’t be recklessly touched. Until we’re absolutely sure, we can’t move against her, or else we’ll bring over Xu Guanghua, and then we’ll really be in trouble!”
“But if she gets the word out…”
The white-browed Daoist shook his head. “What does it matter if word gets out? The Beast Garden is the supreme treasure of my Beast Refining Gate, but it is not important to Horizon Ocean Pavilion. Even if we lose the Beast Garden, it will only affect my Beast Refining Gate’s future potential, not its current combat power. Horizon Ocean Pavilion isn’t so stupid as to become mortal foes with my Beast Refining Gate for a single Beast Garden. At best, they’ll use it to extract some benefits from us. This matter has already been discussed. So long as we can get back the Beast Garden, the price is worth it.”
Helian Hu raised his head. “What if she informs the Basking Moon Sect?”
The Basking Moon Sect was not Horizon Ocean Pavilion. They did not fear deepening the hatred between them and the Beast Refining Gate. They had been mortal foes for ages, and each did whatever made the other side unhappy.
In order to prevent the Beast Refining Gate from getting the Beast Garden, they might even send over Xiao Biehan with the God-Conquering Merak Sword.
“It’s too late for them,” the white-browed elder replied. “I just received word that a large number of sea fiends have attacked Joymount Island. According to witnesses, the number of sea fiends did not increase by too much, but the sea fiends were suddenly twice as strong.”
“‘Suddenly twice as strong’?” Helian Hu said in a high-pitched voice. “Could it be the Beast Garden? But even the Beast Garden didn’t give that much of a boost.”
The white-browed elder sighed. “That’s because the Beast Garden’s core treasure was constantly being suppressed. Now that the seal has been broken and the suppressing stele has been stolen, the Beast Garden has gone out of control, and it is unleashing its true power. ‘Twice’? Haha, let alone twice, if you were around that sealed object for long enough, even ten times or a hundred times stronger wouldn’t be strange.”
Helian Hu was shocked by what he was hearing. The Beast Refining Gate’s most fundamental treasure had never been at full power?
Ten times to a hundred times… What exactly was being suppressed that was this powerful?
The white-browed elder did not elaborate, only saying, “The Beast Garden is at Joymount Island. I am basically certain of this. Our current objective should be to gather all our men and immediately head to Joymount Island to find the exact location of the Beast Garden.”
“But even if we find it, without the sealing stele, we can’t take the Beast Garden with us!”
“The Wolf Lord will be with us, so there will be no problems.”
“The Wolf Lord is coming?” Helian Hu trembled in shock at this news.
The so-called Wolf Lord was the Beast Refining Gate’s Blue Wolf True Lord, Feng Muyuan. As the master of the Blue Sky Demon Wolf, the lord of all the wolves in the world, he was known to the people of the Beast Refining Gate as the Wolf Lord.
The white-browed elder grunted, “The Wolf Lord arrived long ago, but he has been at Great Wind Island this entire time, making a marriage proposal on behalf of Qian Yingchen.”
Helian Hu was taken aback. “‘Qian Yingchen’? Who is that?”
The elder chuckled. “The Wolf Lord’s newly adopted son.”
“‘Making a marriage proposal to Horizon Ocean Pavilion for his newly adopted son’?” Helian Hu blurted out. Then he realized, “It’s a pretense?”
The white-browed elder nodded. “The actions of a True Lord are not to be taken lightly. A reason is always needed, or else if one is discovered, one would be repeating the error of Shi Wunian. Thus, when the Beast Garden was lost, the Wolf Lord immediately adopted a son and then rushed off to Horizon Ocean Pavilion to make a marriage proposal for him. The chances of this succeeding are naturally zero, but the Wolf Lord is simply using this opportunity to linger in the area and wait for the right moment.”
The white-browed elder continued, “That’s why we absolutely cannot provoke Xu Miaoran. Let her go. Even if she notifies the Basking Moon Sect, their people won’t come in time.”
“Understood!” Helian Hu nodded. “Then what about Tang Jie?”
The white-browed elder sneered, “With Xu Miaoran gone, Tang Jie has lost his protective talisman. This person humiliated my sect at the Immortal Fortune Conference, and this alone means we cannot let him go. Moreover, while the Wolf Lord can suppress the Beast Garden, it will consume much of his strength. The Beast Garden cannot rely on a True Lord every day to keep operating. We must get back what was taken.”
His eyes glinted with savagery. “Gather all our men. If Tang Jie appears, immediately kill him and take back the suppressing stele!”
“Understood!”
—————————
On the pier of Celestial River Island, the pleasure boat Crape Myrtle slowly floated along the coast.
This kind of pleasure boat wasn’t seaworthy and had to stick around the coast. It was purely used for sightseeing and residential purposes. The rent was rather high at ten taels of silver a day, though this was nothing for cultivators.
Seated beneath a small pergola at the top of the ship, Shen Qingdan was deep in thought.
A middle-aged woman with a graceful bearing walked up to Shen Qingdan and said, “Young lord.”
But Shen Qingdan still seemed to be in a trance.
With no other change, the woman shouted, “Young lord!”
“Ah!” Shen Qingdan seemed to awaken from a dream. “Oh, it’s Aunt Ying. Do you need something?”
This Aunt Ying replied, “There is a message from the employer.”
Shen Qingdan sat up. “Finally a message? What is it?”
“Joymount Island. They will tell us the exact location when we arrive.”
“Hmph, acting all mysterious, do they not trust me?” Shen Qingdan slammed the table in anger. “Tell him that if he keeps being so secretive, we can just drop the deal.”
Aunt Ying sighed. “Young Lady, we’ve already taken their deposit. If this news gets out, it will damage the reputation of our Wandering Palace.”
She felt so helpless that she even changed how she addressed Shen Qingdan.
“We can just return it!”
“Even if we return it, we will still have violated the contract. The other party only needs to say that our actions resulted in a delay that resulted in their loss to still damage our reputation! Moreover… it’s not rare for the requester to not show themselves and to only give the exact location once we arrive.”
Shen Qingdan froze, and then she sat back down in a huff.
She suddenly thought of something and asked, “Strange—what’s wrong with me? Why am I so angry lately? Why is such a small thing setting me off?”
Aunt Ying smiled. “It might be because Young Lady has had a lot on her mind as of late. Presumably, someone has provoked the young lord and made you unhappy.”
‘Someone provoked me’?
Shen Qingdan was startled, and then the figure of a man emerged in her mind.
Tang Jie…
For some reason, Tang Jie’s figure was appearing in her mind more and more.
She had once been curious about Tang Jie, but as she grew more and more familiar with Tang Jie, her curiosity faded.
But her interest in him continued to thicken, not lessening in the slightest.
Especially when she saw Tang Jie together with Xu Miaoran, she had instinctively felt disgust, and when Tang Jie spoke up for Xu Miaoran, she felt sadness.
She wasn’t some sheltered girl, so she knew she was in trouble when these emotions appeared. It seemed like she had started to like Tang Jie.
Fortunately, she felt like she could still control herself.
It’s just a little admiration, Shen Qingdan told herself. Someone who was able to get this far with only a five-cyle Jade Gate and without the help of a great clan was truly worth a little more attention.
But that was all. It couldn’t be considered love.
This was how she reassured herself.
She failed to notice that while she encouraged herself and rejected the possibilities, she began to think more and more about Tang Jie. She ended up getting closer to someone she wanted to push away.
Aunt Ying’s words gave Shen Qingdan a chance to change the topic. She energetically said, “Maybe it’s because I’m still lacking patience, as all of this waiting has me rather frustrated. This message came at the perfect time.”
Shen Qingdan stood up and said, “Since that’s the case, inform everyone that we’re setting off for Joymount Island.”
“Yes.” Aunt Ying left with this order.
She walked a few steps before turning and asking, “Should we inform Young Sir Tang’s group?”
‘Inform Tang Jie’?
After a momentary daze, Shen Qingdan shook her head. “There’s no need. It was just a chance encounter. Since there was no destiny between us, it is better to say our goodbyes and forget ourselves amidst the world.”
“Yes.”
—————————
The underground tunnels.
Lin Baicang stood in a dark burrow. In front of him was a stone wall. There was no way forward, and behind him was Tang Jie.
Pointing above him, Lin Baicang said, “Through here is the coast, and the closest point to Joymount Island. But the Beast Refining Gate has probably surrounded the island by now. Once you leave, they’ll notice you. You’re sure you want to do this?”
Tang Jie looked up at the rock ceiling and indifferently said, “It’s nothing more than another chase. The path of cultivation is dangerous and difficult. Don’t all of us know this? How is it that you still don’t see it?”
Lin Baicang was taken aback by these words, and then he dropped his head and bitterly smiled. “I’m much inferior to Junior Brother.”
“Since that is the case, Tang Jie bids farewell to Senior Brother.”
Tang Jie aimed at the ceiling and punched.
With this one punch, the thin rock layer was blasted open, letting in the sun.
Tang Jie jumped out and flew into the sky.
He accelerated to his maximum speed, rushing into the clouds and sending them into motion. In the sky, the clouds began to gather in a vortex around Tang Jie.
At the same time, the sounds of strange flutes resounded from all sides, and people began to appear on the horizon.
There was no need for the sharp eyes of hunting eagles or the sharp noses of hunting dogs to see such a large turmoil.
Tang Jie simply laughed and flew forward, one arm thrust out in front of him like he was Superman. He tore through the skies, leaving a white trail in his wake.
Lin Baicang was dumbfounded by this impressive sight. After a while, he finally managed to say, “Junior Brother is truly incredible!”
And then he went back underground.
Admiration was all well and good, but he would never risk himself like this.
Tang Jie’s vacation has come to an end. It’s time to get back to business!
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