Time passed, but no disciples came knocking, and no Evil Cultivators came to capture her.
Only then did she confirm that her identity had probably... not been exposed.
The message jade slip had stopped working. The Spirit Contract Insect was currently her only way to contact Qing Xu Temple, and her only hope that the Sect Master could come to her aid after she escaped.
No one had come. Perhaps... what happened just now had been a coincidence?
Had some bored disciples casually sent a wave of fire to burn a swarm of tiny flying insects in the sky?
The thought had barely arisen before she squashed it herself.
Those countless attacks had come from all over the sect. There was no way it had been a coincidence!
She shuddered and decided to try again. This time, she had to be even more careful!
She waited longer this time. A full hour passed before she made another move.
She used a drop of her essence blood to awaken a second Spirit Contract Insect.
Su Ling'er let her mind sink into the thread of connection and guided the insect through the night, weaving between the shadows of buildings.
"Fly higher... a little faster..."
It climbed higher, passing over the medicinal fields she had turned over countless times.
The next instant, attacks even more dazzling and dense than before came hurtling toward the tiny insect!
Sword lights streaked like rainbows, flames poured down like waterfalls, and lightning raged like a prison!
They relentlessly hunted the tiny insect through the air!
The thread of connection in Su Ling'er's mind was severed once more. She groaned, and her vision went dark.
In less than an hour, she had already lost two precious Spirit Contract Insects.
Each one's death brought a stabbing pain to her soul.
Why?!
Why was this happening?!
How had they found it?
Was the mountain-protecting formation searching for it?
How much terrifying spiritual power and precise control would it take to lock onto even a tiny insect?
Was their formation meant to guard against internal traitors, rather than outside enemies?
Was there another spy in the sect besides me?!
Was that why they had laid a vast net, refusing to spare even a single insect?!
No, that couldn't be right.
If that were the case, why did the nearby disciples have such excited expressions, as though they had "found a treasure"?
Unwilling to give up, she took a third Spirit Contract Insect out of the Gu vessel.
She refused to believe that these fiends, who were always flying around on their swords, could keep their eyes on the sky and still watch an ant on the ground!
This time, she didn't make the insect fly. Instead, she had it crawl along, making use of every shadow and hiding place.
She even planned its escape route:
Through the wilderness, down into an underground passage, then along the shadows of the cultivation caves and through the drainage ditch...
In her vision, the little insect crawled forward. Everything went smoothly.
It passed through the weeds. A disciple walked by, his wake scattering fallen leaves, but no one lowered their eyes to look at it.
There was hope!
As long as it reached that underground passage, she would be halfway to success!
But just as the Spirit Contract Insect was about to crawl into the passage...
The door to a cultivation cave in the sect creaked open.
A disciple stumbled out, bleary-eyed and yawning.
He seemed to be heading to Hundred Herbs Valley to see how his Spiritual Grass was growing.
Then he seemed to notice something. He let out a puzzled "Huh?" and looked down by his feet.
He glanced at the dynamic map, then at the little insect crawling on the ground.
It was only three inches from his foot.
"Holy crap! It spawned right on top of me?!"
Without a second thought, he instinctively lifted his foot, wrapped it in Spiritual Power, and stomped hard on the ground!
"Bam—!!!"
The last thing Su Ling'er "saw" was dirt and rubble surging in from every direction.
The poor little insect, along with the flagstones around it and three feet of earth, was crushed to pieces beneath that stomp!
"Urgh..."
Another connection had been severed.
The connection had been faint, but one shock after another had wounded Su Ling'er's soul. She nearly spat out a mouthful of blood.
The sky was no good, and neither was the ground.
She couldn't even set foot outside Gui Xi Sect's mountain gate!
Su Ling'er lay on the straw, staring blankly at the crisscrossed thatch on the roof.
Why was this happening?!
Had every disciple in this sect mastered the Heavenly Eye, or were there arrays carved into the sky and the ground to monitor everything in every direction?
How was anyone supposed to live like this?!
She couldn't accept it!
This had to be an accident!
Her gaze fell once more on the Gu vessel. There were still plenty of insects inside.
There was still a chance!
There had to be some way she hadn't thought of yet!
She tried again. This time, she didn't send the insect out alone. She had it cling to various creatures: toads, cicadas, spirit beasts, and more.
As they moved about naturally, it kept changing its host and slowly made its way outward.
But after it had traveled some distance, she "saw" countless attacks, even more terrifying than before, flare to life from every direction!
They didn't even care whether the low-grade toad survived!
A wall of fire sprang up around it;
An icy blue blizzard descended from above, filling the air with countless icicles and engulfing it;
Dozens of sword cultivators even took to the air at once, forming a sword array that swept toward the toad's location like a vast net!
"BOOM—!!!"
The thread of connection in Su Ling'er's mind didn't even have time to feel pain. Amid that flood of spells, it vanished into ashes along with the insect and the toad.
She refused to give up.
She still had insects.
She tried again...
She carefully sent a new Spirit Contract Insect into the rafters of a hall.
It quietly crept near a section of the rafters, where a huge hornet's nest hung nearby.
"Bzz..."
The hornet's nest trembled slightly, as if heralding a successful hiding place.
But the next instant!
Dozens of talismans of different colors appeared out of thin air, covering the entire rafter.
A flash of silent white light swept past.
When it faded, the entire hornet's nest and a section of the rafter had turned to dust and quietly drifted down.
The connection was severed once more.
Su Ling'er bit the tip of her tongue to keep herself conscious.
Once again, she placed her hopes in the trees.
At her command, the Spirit Contract Insect leaped from tree to tree.
With each leap, it slipped into another tree, trying to fool them.
But then—
Blazing alchemical fire swept across the tree, turning it to charcoal in an instant.
The connection to her soul was extinguished once more.
The Sect Channel was buzzing with excitement.
Whenever a disciple shared a screenshot of a "Red Name Monster" they'd killed, everyone lurking in the channel joined in, some of them shouting:
"Hey, [Ji], what did that toad do to you this time?"
The disciple would post a screenshot and tell the channel, "Take a good look. It's red-named! Killing it gives you 200 Contribution Points!"
Then the others would deliberately call out loudly, "You must've sacrificed something again to get that, right?!"
[Ji]'s face would turn red, and even his ID seemed to glow brighter as he argued,
"Luck doesn't count as a sacrifice... Luck! Can you really call what happens to us lucky players a sacrifice?"
His words immediately brought forth even more "evidence":
[Shi Gandang] tossed out a screenshot too:
"Not just toads! I think even the hornet's nest up in the rafters was red-named over here!"
[Lu Wu] went further, posting a picture of a tree blasted to smithereens:
"This is even crazier. Even a tree can turn into a Red Name Monster!"
One after another, they chimed in with things like "Heaven rewards diligence" and "This is just a warm-up for the Golden Autumn Harvest Festival," setting everyone laughing.
In the end, Shen Nong settled the matter:
"Looks like all kinds of Red Name Monsters will spawn at random before the event. If it's red-named and within range, just kill it."
[Spirit Offering Sword Is Handsome]...
Inside and outside the channel, the air was filled with joy.
At one end of the sect, cups of victory were filled with a heavenly liquor called "Contribution."
But at the other end, in the shadows of that thatched hut, there was only bitter poison.
Drop by drop, it sent Su Ling'er plunging into an abyss called despair...
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