Having died from Wine Fox Immortal's inexplicable curse, Lu Ya was forced to explain the whole story to her.
To save his breath, he kept it brief, glossing over the important parts and making the whole thing sound as ordinary as a family meal.
Wine Fox Immortal tilted her pretty, round head to the right. The more she listened, the more confused she became.
He'd been swallowed by a Kun, so he'd just gone with the flow and roasted fish in its belly?
How was she supposed to believe that?
Wrapped in a green robe, her petite body darted about through the sea of flames. Her streams of divine sense pierced the blue fire and reached the Kun's bones.
As a result, she discovered she really was inside the Kun's belly!
Her fox-bright eyes stared blankly at Lu Ya, and for a long while, she couldn't recover her wits.
In her gleaming fox eyes, Lu Ya was flipping the seasonings with his sword, his movements utterly practiced, as though the thing in his hand wasn't a sword at all but a royal chef's spatula.
Pretend to be swallowed by a Kun, then roast it from the inside.
How had she never thought of that trick?
And another thing...
Why were his movements so practiced?
Had he planned this all along?
Wine Fox Immortal was terrified by the implications. Suddenly remembering something, she asked outright:
"Where's Golden Peng?"
Lu Ya sprinkled a handful of cumin into the blue flames, as though scattering his ashes.
"Liu Xuanye killed him."
"Huh?"
Wine Fox Immortal's thick, curled brows twisted like spirals.
"I fought tooth and nail, and in the end you two still swooped in and stole the prize?"
Her tone sounded angry, yet somehow carried a hint of grievance.
Lu Ya felt a little guilty, so he reached over and patted her dog—fox head, consoling her:
"We didn't steal the prize. We gave you your chance, and you blew it."
That did nothing to console her. If anything, it made Wine Fox Immortal even angrier and more aggrieved.
Her petite body trembled with anger, and her pretty, round face looked fiercely adorable. In an instant, she was brimming with heroic confidence.
"What do you know? I've only just grown my third tail. Once I'm near death, I'll grow my fourth in no time. Beating Golden Peng would be no problem."
"..."
For a moment, Lu Ya didn't know what to say.
After speaking, Wine Fox Immortal also felt a little short of breath and in urgent need of nourishment, so she asked Lu Ya:
"Do you have any wine?"
"Do you have a story?"
"No."
Lu Ya had thought she might explain why she'd risked her life in that battle, but apparently not.
Lu Ya glanced at her. Her round face, paired with the green robe wrapped tightly around her, gave her an air of youthful shyness and cuteness, entirely unlike her usual demeanor.
When she wore a rough robe that exposed her body, she seemed too brazen to be a woman at all. But wrapped up in a man's clothes with not a thing showing, she instead looked unmistakably feminine.
Lu Ya took a bamboo wine flask from his waist and tossed it to her.
"Don't drink straight from—"
He was about to tell her not to drink straight from the flask, but she had already drained it in one gulp, chewing up even the goji berries.
"Are these... goji berries? Even you have to drink goji berry wine? Sister Xuanye really is impressive!"
"..."
After downing the flask, Wine Fox Immortal's fox eyes lit up. Her complexion glowed with a rosy flush, and she instantly recovered to full strength. She took off the green robe and tossed it to Lu Ya.
Her tattered robe was stained with blood, fluttering in the astral winds of the void like a battle flag.
With her long, slender legs set apart, her left hand planted on her unreasonable waist, she reached her right arm through the deep blue flames and tore off a huge chunk of Kun meat with her bare hands. She paid no one any mind, feasting with abandon.
Lu Ya thought, So I really was overthinking it.
This woman had no sense of feminine modesty at all!
The cuteness had been an illusion.
Halfway through her meal, Wine Fox Immortal's fox eyes suddenly froze.
In an instant, a warm current rose from the Immortal Platform in her sea of qi, sending out a ring of ripples. The ripples steadily expanded, turning into a tsunami in the blink of an eye. It battered the foundation and inner walls of her Immortal Platform, reaching all the way to a certain critical point.
With a soundless explosion—
Boom!
A three-star Immortal Sect Master became a four-star one!
Wine Fox Immortal suddenly understood how Muyu Feifei had felt when a single bite of meat had made her level up.
But that had been a one-star Immortal Monarch rising to two stars. She was a three-star Immortal Sect Master rising to four stars... The difference between them was like a stream compared to an abyss!
Just one bite of meat?
If she ate the whole Kun, wouldn't she rise all the way to Immortal Emperor or Immortal Sovereign?
Wine Fox Immortal felt she could never look at Lu Ya the same way again.
But she still forced herself to meet his eyes, the expression in her fox eyes strangely suggestive.
"Let me guess. You're actually a royal chef from the Immortal Court, right? I was executed and reduced to ashes for sneaking around with the Immortal Sovereign's consort, and my clone fled to the remote Colored Cloud Immortal Domain. You came here to hide, didn't you?"
"No."
Lu Ya's eye twitched slightly. He was beginning to regret saving this woman.
But on second thought, her guess did have a certain logic to it.
Wine Fox Immortal still couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"If you have this kind of skill, why did you have me build a City Guard? You could've just given the Immortal Commoners some meat, and they'd have ascended to immortality long ago. Why did I have to work so hard to find people for you?"
Lu Ya shook his head.
"Your injuries caused a buildup in your sea of qi. Now that you've cleared out the injuries, the stimulation from the meat of a nine-star Immortal Sect Master Kun naturally made you break through. But if you want to reach the next level, you'll probably have to eat ten thousand pounds of Kun meat."
Wine Fox Immortal suddenly grew excited.
"Oh, are you being this nice to me?"
"Drink less."
"Are you planning to eat it all yourself?"
"Eating too much gets tiring. My plan is to cook this Kun and have people sample it, so we can make a splash in the East Floating District, put our Azure Phoenix City on the map, and attract higher-tier customers and merchants."
"I thought you'd come to Bamboo Spring Sect to retire. You hadn't come down the mountain in ten days, and I figured your plan to build a city was just something you'd said to fool Ning Zhongzi. I didn't expect you to really be taking it seriously! Aren't you afraid all the people will be noisy?"
"You don't understand. If you want to retire early, the more gofers you have, the better."
"Gofers?"
"Ahem, enough about that. Come help me slice the fish, will you?"
"Can't you slice it yourself?"
"I have guests to entertain."
"Guests?"
The Martial Arts Arena.
The Beast Immortals were immersed in shock, confusion, and the joy of their newfound freedom.
Ning Zhongzi and Black Sheep Matron were carefully looking after Snake Baby.
High in the sky.
Muyu Feifei paced back and forth at the Kun's mouth, cursing Lu Ya and Wine Fox Immortal.
"Damn couple!"
"Shameless!"
Just then—
A divine sense at the Immortal Venerable level enveloped the entire Floating Mountain.
It was incredibly sharp and discreet, silently sweeping over every flower and blade of grass, every person and object on the Floating Mountain.
It deliberately avoided Liu Xuanye and finally stopped at the giant Kun's belly, where the deep blue flames blocked it from seeing what lay inside.
Inside the sword formation in the sleeping quarters on Little Bamboo Spring Mountain.
Liu Xuanye raised her head slightly, sensing a faint disturbance.
Then she lowered her picturesque eyes once more and continued channeling her power in seclusion.
She understood that the power of this divine sense exceeded her limits.
And it hadn't come for her.
Somewhere in the firmament.
A half-step Immortal Venerable, concealing his body and spiritual pressure, slowly drew a blade over ten feet long—one capable of cleaving a Kun's head or a Peng's neck in a single stroke.
His divine sense had scrutinized the giant Kun for a long time. Aside from confirming that it was dead, he knew nothing about how it had died or who had killed it.
After hesitating for a very long time, he silently put away his blade.
A moment later.
A mile west of the giant Kun, white clouds drifted through the sky.
A white-clad immortal emerged from the clouds, his figure clad in white.
A white lotus was embroidered at the collar of his robe.
Yet the white clothes didn't suit his masculine presence.
He was far too muscular. Though he wasn't ugly and had a rather refined air, there was a robust, brotherly aura between his brows, and his entire body radiated a beastlike, masculine musk.
With one step through the air, he suddenly appeared above the giant Kun's head.
He saw two Tiger Immortals.
Why were two Immortal Monarch-level Tiger Immortals standing before a giant Kun that had only recently died?
Aside from Liu Xuanye, who had the cultivation of an Immortal Sect Master, no one else on the entire Floating Mountain was worth mentioning.
Who had killed the Void Kun, and where was Golden Peng?
And where had Wine Fox Immortal, whom he'd seen during the Beast Tide, gone?
The white-clad man couldn't make heads or tails of it.
With a flicker, he quietly appeared beside Muyu Feifei and asked kindly:
"Little friend, do you know who killed this giant Kun? Also, where did the other Peng Immortal go?"
His tone was kind, but his bulging physique and the wildness between his brows made him frightening.
Muyu Feifei backed away in fright, but after thinking it over, she gathered her courage and pointed toward the Kun's mouth.
"You'll know if you come inside with us."
"But you have to go first."
"Hm?"
The white-clad man was suddenly taken aback.
"Does who goes first really matter?"
Before you continue