Escape

The two of them shrank back, trembling. The shadows beneath their feet surged like thick black water, and two Yin soldiers with sharp claws and blood-red eyes suddenly burrowed out, each pouncing onto one of their backs!

"Aoo—"

The two screamed miserably, instantly transforming into terrifying demonic monsters!

Their bodies warped at speed, becoming neither human nor ghost. Foul-smelling drool streamed from their mouths, their eyes burned scarlet, and they howled and shrieked as the maid drove them toward Xu Yuan.

The maid pulled Saint Aunt along and whispered, "Let's go!"

When a living person fused with a Yin soldier, the person could not survive, and the Yin soldier was ruined as well. The maid had sacrificed her two Yin soldiers to buy herself and Saint Aunt a chance to escape!

But another yellow shape splashed out of the pool.

Several patches of fur on her body were bald. She lowered herself and glared hatefully at Saint Aunt.

The maid gritted her teeth and stepped forward. "Saint Aunt, you go first..."

But Saint Aunt said, "I paid the toll."

The fox suddenly stiffened all over and spoke in human words. "Merchant Law... it was that crossbow bolt!"

The crossbow bolt was worth a great deal. Since the two sisters had taken it in their mouths, the transaction had been completed.

Though immensely unwilling, the fox moved aside and gave them the way.

"That hag isn't just an Artisan Cultivator—she's also a Law Cultivator!" the fox muttered resentfully. "Damn it, she's even more cunning than us foxes. One moment of carelessness, and we fell into her trap!"

She could forcibly refuse to abide by the rules of the transaction, but that would only worsen her injuries. It was not worth the loss.

Saint Aunt and the maid retreated swiftly, vanishing into the wild mountains after a few flashes.

The fox cast them another unwilling glance, then turned and went to help Xu Yuan kill the two demonic beasts.

Xu Yuan gave the two foxes a flat glance. "No need for your help."

The two foxes were covered in wounds as well.

Especially when they saw their old home, the Old Plum Tree, had been burned down until only a bare trunk remained, the two yellow foxes hugged each other and whimpered as they cried.

Xu Yuan began searching the corpses, and the two foxes immediately forgot all about crying. They sprang up and blocked his path. "Don't touch them!"

"They're all ours!"

A Gold Pellet spun round and round in Xu Yuan's palm, as though he were merely idly playing with it.

"I killed all of these. How much effort did you put in? What gives you the right to take the larger share?" Xu Yuan shot them a sidelong look of contempt. "I came to seek your cooperation because I thought that if you could claim a patch of territory in Ghost Witch Mountain, you must have some real skill. Who would've thought you truly only knew how to strike poses and flirt."

"Th-this..." The four little eyes of the two foxes rolled rapidly as they searched for an excuse. "If we hadn't stopped those two women, how could you alone have hunted so much Blood Food?"

Xu Yuan snorted. "Even if you have a point, we should each get half! How about this? All the Blood Food goes to you. I only want the things on their bodies."

The two foxes pressed their heads together beneath the Old Plum Tree, stuck up their rumps, and discussed it for a while.

Then Sister stepped forward, coughed twice into her little paw beside her pointed snout, and said with false grandeur, "Fine. For our first cooperation, us sisters will suffer a little loss. It's settled, then."

Xu Yuan swiftly stripped all manner of items from the corpses without having time to inspect them. "I'm going to hunt down those two women. Are you coming? You can eat both of them."

The sisters repeatedly waved their paws. "No, no..."

Xu Yuan urged them earnestly. "Both of them have cultivation. They're rare, excellent Blood Food..."

But the sisters plopped into the pool and refused to listen to Xu Yuan's coaxing any longer.

Xu Yuan shook his head and criticized them, "You don't know how to seize an opportunity!" Then he strode after Saint Aunt and the maid in the direction they had fled.

Within Meihua Pool, water splashed as two graceful figures swam and frolicked. "If there's business like this again, don't come looking for us sisters."

Beneath the ground by the pool's edge, something burrowed and writhed. Old tree roots thrust up one after another, curling around the corpses and dragging them into the pool.

The sound of chewing rang out.

A moment later, the two yellow foxes each held a gnawed, bone-white thigh bone in their pointed mouths and chased one another through the woods around the pool like little dogs, playing with great delight.

Their strange laughter echoed through the mountains and waters.

With the aid of the "Soaring Cloud" and "Riding Wind" calligraphy scrolls, Xu Yuan strode away from the pool at great speed. The moment he left its bounds, cold sweat poured down him, his face darkened, and he collapsed beneath a stone cliff.

After catching his breath for a while and treating himself with medicinal pills, he finally recovered somewhat.

The wound on his back left by the Lantern Ghost's Ghost Claw had worsened further.

Ghostly qi from the wound was eroding his flesh. The area four fingers wide around it had already gone numb.

Xu Yuan had been forcing himself to hold on all this time. Even the "Gold Pellet" he had idly toyed with in his palm earlier had actually been faked with a medicinal pill.

There had only been one Gold Pellet, and it had already shattered in the final confrontation with the Pill Cultivator.

But Xu Yuan was absolutely certain that if he had shown even the slightest sign of weakness, the two foxes would have pounced without hesitation and turned him into a portion of Blood Food as well!

Even at the end, Xu Yuan had warmly invited the two foxes to continue hunting Saint Aunt with him, only then convincing them that there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

Xu Yuan took out all the things he had just stripped from the corpses.

First was the Pill Cultivator's Gold Pellet—this Gold Pellet had already been refined by the Pill Cultivator to the stage where it could initially take shape, making it extremely precious.

Xu Yuan unceremoniously fed on it, then refined it with his own Inner Fire.

There were another seven or eight kinds of pills—some for healing wounds, some for detoxifying, some for boosting virility, some for bewitching the mind... These medicines had all been concocted to swindle people out of their money.

If you thought the pills a Pill Cultivator sold you were certain to be extraordinarily effective, then... wonderful. That was exactly what Pill Cultivators hoped you would think.

But Xu Yuan also found a small gourd with only a few pills left inside.

Xu Yuan pulled the stopper and took a sniff, immediately understanding: these were the vicious pills that turned people into Canine Demons!

The smell wafting from those Canine Demons had been exactly the same as the scent of these pills.

Xu Yuan put them away. They might prove useful someday.

The pouch on the Pill Cultivator was somewhat unusual, divided inside into numerous small compartments. Each compartment held a different kind of metal.

None of the pieces were large, but there were no fewer than twenty-seven kinds.

Xu Yuan recognized only four or five of them.

This cloth pouch represented a Pill Cultivator's normal method of cultivation: gathering various metals and using them as feed to strengthen one's Gold Pellet.

The Gold Pellet and Inner Fire were usually a Pill Cultivator's two strongest means in battle.

As for one's own Inner Pill, strengthening it was no easy matter.

Someone like Xu Yuan was truly an oddity.

Xu Yuan fed all of these to himself as well, refining them into a second Gold Pellet.

Xu Yuan planned to carefully nurture the Pill Cultivator's Gold Pellet, while this second one would be a consumable—he would need to prepare several more such consumables in the future.

It did not need to be too large. Like before, the size of a longan would suffice.

From the Literary Cultivator, he found several calligraphy scrolls, but this Literary Cultivator was far weaker than Master Qiao.

His calligraphy scrolls could only control ordinary people. They were of little use to Xu Yuan now.