Did I Walk Right Into the Trap?!

"Senior Brother Gu, look how well Junior Brother Li's spirit field is growing... It's only been a few days, and it looks like the spirit rice has already finished its initial stage of absorbing nutrients and is ready to grow upward!"

On the hillside, Yao Shaohui praised it to Gu Daojin, his face full of astonishment.

They had arrived early at the elder's cave abode, but they were in no hurry to start work in the fields.

From where they stood looking down, they could clearly see the condition of the several spirit fields.

Li Ye's was the best tended, followed by theirs, with Xiong Yinxiu's coming in last.

For his Spirit Plants to show such an advantage, he must have done everything perfectly when he first planted them.

Only then could their Vitality be roused early, allowing them to absorb nutrients and sprout sooner.

If that advantage was maintained through the care that followed, it would undoubtedly bring the yield of the entire spirit field infinitely close to the Spirit Plants' maximum.

One step ahead meant every step ahead, and the same held true when tending Spirit Plants.

In Yao Shaohui's eyes, Li Ye's ability to achieve this meant he was only half a step away from becoming a true second-tier Spirit Plant farmer!

"That's exactly right!"

Gu Daojin nodded in wholehearted agreement.

He turned to look at the second-tier spirit field shrouded by the formation, and the sight of the Blazing Sun Flower seedlings stretching out their tender shoots filled him with even more admiration.

"Not just the Blood Li Rice. Even among the Blazing Sun Flowers, those he helped the elder plant have livelier Vitality, and their growth is clearly a cut above the rest!"

"But the two of us aren't bad either!"

Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin exchanged a glance and chuckled.

"At least compared to a certain shrew, the Blazing Sun Flowers she grew with the skills she's so proud of aren't much better than ours!"

They had watched Li Ye's technique that day and later learned its secrets from him personally. Combined with skills that were already second to none, they could naturally tend the Blazing Sun Flowers properly.

As a result, Xiong Yinxiu's advantage no longer showed at all.

Now, aside from working diligently, she had no other recourse.

Standing beside her field, Xiong Yinxiu watched Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin coldly. Hearing their boastful words, she could not help sneering.

"You can only laugh for now. In a few days, when that Li Ye still hasn't shown up, what will you two have left to compete with me..."

"How is that possible?!"

Before she finished speaking, Xiong Yinxiu froze. Her expression instantly crumbled, as though she had seen something unbelievable.

"Good morning, Junior Brother Li!"

"Good morning, senior brothers!"

Greeted by Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin's cheerful voices, Li Ye walked slowly down the hillside and appeared in Xiong Yinxiu's sight.

He looked completely at ease, a smile on his face, with not the slightest sign of injury.

"Impossible... With his cultivation, how could he have survived against Old Zhao?"

Xiong Yinxiu murmured, still unable to believe it.

Whether the woman believed it or not, Li Ye had appeared here, perfectly unharmed, right before her eyes.

And if he had come back unscathed, didn't that mean Old Zhao had already...

No! With Old Zhao's cultivation, even if he couldn't win, he could surely have escaped!

Thoughts surfaced one by one in Xiong Yinxiu's mind, and the hatred in her gaze as she looked at Li Ye grew deeper without her realizing it.

Li Ye seemed to notice. He looked over from a distance and smiled faintly.

At that very moment, he casually dropped a wormlike thing onto the ground at some point, right in his path...

Splat!

As if stung by that look and that smile, Xiong Yinxiu abruptly looked away, only to see the worm on the ground.

As she watched the worm get crushed flat underfoot, she immediately turned away and clutched her chest, her expression twisted and terrifying, as though she were suppressing immense pain.

She breathed deeply.

A moment later, Xiong Yinxiu's expression grew calm again, as if nothing had happened.

She turned into her spirit field and continued working.

"What a pity..."

Seeing her reaction, Li Ye shook his head.

From Xiong Yinxiu's reaction, he could already be certain that she had sent the burly man to ambush and kill him.

But if the woman had lost her mind at the sight of everything he had done and immediately charged over to kill him, that would have been the best outcome!

He could have fought back and dealt with her on the spot without violating the sect rules in the slightest.

But as things stood, whatever her relationship with the masked burly man, perhaps their feelings for each other had fallen a little short of making her risk everything.

Still, judging by the temperament Xiong Yinxiu had shown before, she would never be able to endure this ever-growing hatred for long.

He only had to make preparations and wait for her to show herself, then kill her in one stroke with every justification!

A day's work came to an end.

Li Ye left early as usual.

Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin chatted on and off as they tended to anything they might have missed in the spirit fields.

Xiong Yinxiu came out of her field and walked toward the long stairway in the middle as usual.

As she approached the spirit field under Li Ye's care,

silently,

long worms that resembled earthworms but were as thin as threads, with suckers writhing on their surfaces, emerged from Xiong Yinxiu's trouser legs.

As soon as they touched the soil, they turned nearly the same color as it, making them hard to detect, and burrowed underground.

They gathered and wriggled swiftly beneath the earth, racing toward Li Ye's spirit field.

With these little darlings lurking in your spirit field and sucking the essence Qi your rice seedlings have accumulated, their Vitality will be greatly diminished in less than three days...

When that happens, the fact that Li Ye used a method that depleted the seedlings to forcibly make them grow taller in a bid to show off, ultimately ruining a spirit field, will be enough to enrage the elder and have you expelled in one stroke!

And while you were working, these little darlings already slipped into your body without your noticing, where they'll draw on your blood and essence Qi to grow and reproduce...

When you're utterly lost, growing weaker by the day, and plunged into despair, I'll take your dog life to avenge Old Zhao!

Xiong Yinxiu's face was calm, but her heart churned like stormy waves as vicious thoughts rose one after another.

This was not merely revenge; it would also eliminate a rival!

With Li Ye gone, Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin would be no match for her in a single exchange.

The right to tend the spirit fields of this cave abode would be hers and hers alone!

That had been her very reason for having the burly man ambush Li Ye, yet she had not expected it to become secondary after a single day.

As she drew closer to the mountaintop and saw the Blazing Sun Flowers brimming with Vitality in the second-tier spirit field, her gaze flickered again.

These bloodsucking worms lived by drawing on blood and essence Qi, and they could also turn into blood and dissolve into the earth at a single thought from her.

They would leave no traces at all.

Even if someone investigated, they would never trace it back to her!

If Li Ye were to deceive the elder with the same method and damage even the Blazing Sun Flowers, the elder's thunderous wrath might be more terrifying and harder to endure than merely losing his qualification...

After being suppressed by Li Ye time and again, and even losing the husband she had wed in her youth to him, Xiong Yinxiu had become deranged.

With that thought, Xiong Yinxiu's gaze hardened, and some of the long worms that had just burrowed underground from her feet immediately moved toward the second-tier spirit field.

"How dare you, wretch!"

A furious shout exploded. Elder Ji, who had appeared on the back of the mountain at some unknown time, struck out with his palm from afar.

The force of the blow merely swept over Xiong Yinxiu, but she instantly spat blood and flew sideways like a tattered sack.

The next instant, the formation covering the mountain peak stirred.

Spiritual light flashed through the spirit fields, sweeping over every inch of the surrounding earth and wiping out all the worms in the blink of an eye.

The commotion was so great that Yao Shaohui and Gu Daojin, still in the spirit fields, watched dumbfounded, unable to make sense of it.

Li Ye followed Elder Ji, walking slowly out of the hall and watching it all without expression.

"You... how did you know I had this ability? There was no record of it in the copy Old Zhao had..."

Blood spilled from Xiong Yinxiu's mouth as she shifted her terrified gaze from Elder Ji to Li Ye, still unwilling to accept it.

"How would I know what abilities you have..."

Li Ye replied calmly,

"I merely told Elder Ji everything. If you hadn't harbored evil intentions, there would have been nothing I could do to you today!"

"You..."

Xiong Yinxiu's eyes widened. Had she walked right into the trap herself?!

At that, she could hold on no longer. Her internal injuries flared up, and she coughed up blood and died on the spot.

With a casual beckon from Elder Ji, the Storage Bag at Xiong Yinxiu's waist flew straight to him.

"Though you did it to protect yourself, your timely report to me also counts as a service in defending the spirit fields... You may have what little she owned!"

Seeing Li Ye accept it, Elder Ji cast a cold glance at Xiong Yinxiu's corpse and snorted again.

"She dared collude with an outsider to ambush and kill a disciple of my sect, and even dared destroy this old man's spirit medicines for her own selfish gain..."

"That wretched servant deserved ten thousand deaths!"