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"Chirp!"

"Chirp, chirp, chirp!"

The Skylark bird suddenly took flight from the eaves, circling above Lu Qingshan and Lu Qingyu's heads as it let out urgent cries.

"Someone's here!"

The siblings stopped at once. A moment later, as expected, a figure drifted down and landed in the middle of the courtyard.

Lu Qingyu retreated to call Lu Qingfeng.

Holding the Nine-Ring Saber, Lu Qingshan looked toward the newcomer. "Who are you?!"

Trespassing into someone's home—however one looked at it, she clearly meant no good!

Even though this person was breathtakingly beautiful, in Lu Qingshan's eyes, she was nothing more than a threatening enemy.

"You three little fellows hid in your elder sister's city to take shelter, yet you've started treating yourselves like the owners." Daoist Miaoyin held the Ice Toad in her arms. Looking at Lu Qingshan, who had a tigerish head and a tigerish brain and was bristling with wariness, she could not help but purse her lips in amusement.

"Your city?"

Lu Qingshan glared at Daoist Miaoyin.

By then, Lu Qingyu had already woken Lu Qingfeng and brought him out. Lu Qingshan hurried over to his elder brother and reported in a low voice, "Big brother, this woman in yellow says Miaoyin City is hers. I suspect she was sent by the Return to Truth Sect!"

When Lu Qingfeng heard this, he looked toward Daoist Miaoyin. "So it is the city lord herself gracing us with her presence. My siblings and I failed to welcome you from afar. Please forgive us, City Lord."

Lu Qingfeng had long heard that the woman ruling Miaoyin City was as beautiful as a Celestial Immortal. Only after seeing her today did he know the rumors had not been exaggerated.

"Big brother is such an idiot!"

"He believes whatever other people tell him. He's going to suffer terribly one of these days!"

Lu Qingshan's eyes widened as anxiety churned in his heart.

Daoist Miaoyin's eyes shifted and settled on Lu Qingfeng. In an instant, rippling light flashed through them.

Lu Qingshan had seemed mature beyond his years just now, but he still possessed a youth's vigor. In Daoist Miaoyin's eyes, he was even somewhat immature.

But the person before her, at first glance, looked like an old monster who had cultivated for many years standing right in front of her. His manner of speaking and the aura around him were all extremely similar to those senior experts she had encountered in the past.

Could he be an old monster reincarnated?

Or... did he seize someone's body?

Suppressing the doubt in her heart, Daoist Miaoyin looked at Lu Qingfeng and smiled. "The Return to Truth Sect's sect master came to demand the three of you just now, but I protected you. I wonder, do the three of you have anything to say about that?"

"Many thanks, City Lord!"

"I have long heard that fighting does not arise within Miaoyin City and killing is forbidden. Seeing it today, it truly is a pure land among mortals!"

Lu Qingfeng clasped his fists in thanks, then turned and praised Miaoyin City at length.

"This pure land among mortals is about to be stirred into impurity."

"You took shelter in Miaoyin City and caused all these troubles. You can't expect to muddle through with just a few sweet words." Daoist Miaoyin gently shook her head while holding the Ice Toad.

"What orders does the City Lord have for us?"

Lu Qingfeng felt that Daoist Miaoyin was rather difficult to deal with. Still, since she had appeared here, she surely wanted something. If he catered to her preferences, this might even turn out to be a good thing.

"I hear that you, the master of the Black Sand Apothecary, are skilled at refining medicine."

"I was eroded by cold qi in my early years, which caused my True Qi to become impure. I have made no progress for many years."

"If you have a way to cure this cold qi, Miaoyin City will bear the full burden of the Return to Truth Sect's harassment."

Daoist Miaoyin got straight to the point and directly stated why she had come.

Daoist Miaoyin had always ignored the major and minor affairs within Miaoyin City. This time, however, because the matter involved the Return to Truth Sect, she had ordered her subordinates to retrieve the records. After learning the details, she immediately developed an interest in the Lu siblings.

Thus, after protecting the Lu siblings from Zhuge Chongyang's men, she had come to lay her cards on the table the very next moment.

If things truly were as she had anticipated, perhaps the knot that had plagued her for decades could be removed, allowing her strength to advance another step instead of remaining trapped in this shallow pool!

Just as I thought!

Lu Qingfeng's heart settled somewhat when he heard this.

The information he had displayed in Miaoyin City concerned medicinal materials, ores, and the like. If the dignified lord of Miaoyin City had come personally because she wanted something, it should only involve one of those two areas.

Now that he had heard her request, it was no different from what he had expected.

"I need to examine the extent to which the City Lord has been eroded by cold qi."

Lu Qingshan glanced at the Ice Toad in Daoist Miaoyin's arms, which was swallowing clouds and puffing mist, and felt somewhat more confident.

"How do you intend to examine it?" Daoist Miaoyin cast a flirtatious glance at Lu Qingfeng.

"Hmph!"

Seeing this, Lu Qingyu secretly snorted in her heart and turned her head away in a huff.

"Circulate your True Qi and strike the stone table with a soft-force palm," Lu Qingfeng said, pointing at the stone table in the courtyard.

Daoist Miaoyin immediately walked over to the stone table and gently pressed down with one palm, leaving a three-inch-deep palmprint in its surface. Chilling air seeped from the print. After she lifted her hand, the cold qi condensed, gathering into droplets of water that fell into the palmprint.

Lu Qingfeng had already moved to the side. He extended one finger to sense the cold qi in the palmprint, then looked up after a moment. "This degree of cold poison will not be difficult to remove. Qingfeng will give the City Lord an answer in three days."

"Good."

"As long as you can cure this cold-poison affliction, the Return to Truth Sect can forget about laying a finger on any of you siblings!"

Daoist Miaoyin smiled brightly. Her gaze lingered on the Skylark bird perched on Lu Qingyu's shoulder for a moment before she turned and left.

"Big brother, can we trust what she said?"

Only after Daoist Miaoyin had gone far away did Lu Qingshan frown and ask.

"Hmph!"

"You can't trust a vixen's words!"

Lu Qingyu pouted and snorted. She did not have the slightest bit of goodwill toward Daoist Miaoyin.

"Trusting her won't hurt."

In truth, this had nothing to do with trust. They were simply taking what they each needed.

Daoist Miaoyin believed that Lu Qingfeng had a powerful expert skilled at refining pills behind him, while Lu Qingfeng needed Daoist Miaoyin to temporarily block the Return to Truth Sect's various methods.

"This cold poison wasn't caused by variant True Qi. It came from taking a pill similar to the Cold-Origin Pill. The Cold-Origin Pill can preserve life and heal injuries, but its aftereffects are severe. Without a pill with an opposing attribute to neutralize it, one's True Qi becomes impure. Failing to advance in strength is the least of it; merely maintaining one's cultivation without regressing is already exceedingly difficult."

Lu Qingfeng pondered this and thought of the Ice Toad in Daoist Miaoyin's arms.

"A second-rank demonic beast, the Frost Ice Toad can spit ice arrows and has mediocre battle strength, roughly equivalent to the fifth level of the True Qi Realm. Yet it can swallow and exhale cold qi. Daoist Miaoyin is only barely suppressing the cold poison by relying on this demonic beast." Lu Qingfeng had spent three lifetimes in the Primordial World, adding up to more than a hundred years. Naturally, he had seen and learned a great deal.

He had at least dozens of methods for neutralizing this kind of cold poison.

"Now that I've directly come into conflict with the Return to Truth Sect, relying on only three Truth-Destroying Type Ones, I still can't overturn the Return to Truth Sect. This period will be the most dangerous. If Miaoyin City were to protect us—"

Lu Qingfeng settled on a plan.

After instructing Lu Qingshan and Lu Qingyu to continue cultivating and remain alert, he entered the Primordial World to search for and master a way to resolve the problem!

Three days passed in the blink of an eye.

During those three days, Guangyuan Prefecture was thrown into considerable turmoil.

First, Zhao Zhou, the master of the Return to Truth Sect's Punishment Hall, died outside Miaoyin City along with dozens of Return to Truth Sect disciples. Immediately afterward, the Return to Truth Sect's sect master, Zhuge Chongyang, personally visited Miaoyin City, only to part ways with the city lord on bad terms.

People in the martial world caught a whiff of something unusual.

After that, another thirty or forty Return to Truth Sect disciples died one after another over the next three days. Most of them had been shot dead by arrows. Every arrow had struck a vital point—the heart, throat, head, and so on—killing its target with a single shot!

Their deaths looked exactly the same as those of the dozens of Return to Truth Sect disciples who had died outside Miaoyin City three days earlier.