"Ning Yao!"
"Sister Ning!"
Everyone exclaimed in surprise.
Since entering the Cenji Mountains, Su Yuntian's party hadn't encountered a single living person from another family. Seeing "Ning Yao" appear, they couldn't help but feel overjoyed.
He Rong was especially happy.
He knew his nephew, He Ziren, was infatuated with the Ning family's young lady. Now that "Ning Yao" had appeared, He Ziren was probably somewhere nearby.
Luo Hongyan looked dashing and spirited, though her silk dress was covered in bits of leaves and grass. She arrived looking travel-worn, her bright eyes sweeping the surroundings.
After searching without finding the person she wanted, she asked again, her expression cold. "Where is Pang Jian?"
"Who's Pang Jian?"
Su Yuntian asked, puzzled.
"The boy carrying a bamboo basket and a long spear, the one who came out of Crescent Moon Lake."
Luo Hongyan frowned and scanned the area for a long while, her face full of impatience. She didn't want to waste a single moment.
Meanwhile, she secretly instructed the Grey Eagle that had brought her here to search the area.
"Oh, you mean that kid!"
Su Yuntian realized who she meant and smiled as he pointed in a direction. "He went that way. He's been gone for a while."
"Whoosh!"
The dark-grey eagle that had been circling over Crescent Moon Lake suddenly flew high into the sky from somewhere, heading in the direction Su Yuntian had pointed.
"Sister Ning, why are you by yourself?"
Su Meng's round face beamed as she took the initiative to approach.
Luo Hongyan looked at her in confusion. After thinking for a moment, she said, "Oh, Su Meng. It's been a long time."
Su Meng grinned. "It really has. I thought you'd almost forgotten about me."
She spun around in place, then rose up on her tiptoes to make herself a little taller. "The last time we met, I was still a child. Look how tall I am now."
Luo Hongyan paid her little mind. After a perfunctory remark, she was about to leave.
"Girl, where's Ziren?"
He Rong frowned and looked around, but He Ziren was nowhere to be seen. He asked anxiously, "Ziren went to the Ning Family because of you. From what I heard, he stayed with you the whole time. Now that you've come to these mountains, there's no way Ziren didn't come in!"
Su Yuntian and the others were confused, too.
"Ning Yao" had appeared alone and seemed eager to find Pang Jian. They couldn't make sense of it.
With everyone staring at her suspiciously, Luo Hongyan lowered her eyes and asked the body's true owner about it. Then she said mournfully, "Ziren, Uncle Yuanshan, and the others from the Ning Family who came in with me, along with many people from the Zhou Family, all died at the hands of Dark Ghost Hong Tai."
"Dark Ghost?!"
The people from the Su and He Families changed color.
"It happened at Blackwater Pool, on the other side of the mountain. Apart from me, Zhou Qingchen, and Han Duping, I don't think anyone else escaped Dark Ghost's ambush."
Luo Hongyan sighed softly. As she used the Spirit Sha inside the Grey Eagle to search for Pang Jian, she put on a grieving expression. "The boy named Pang Jian was a guide I hired outside. He was one of the survivors, too."
She looked at Su Meng and asked, "By the way, did you see a giant python come out of Crescent Moon Lake with him?"
Su Meng was still stunned, thinking about Dark Ghost's brutal deeds. She answered honestly, "He came up and grilled a few fish, talked with us for a while, then went on his way."
Hearing that the Dark Giant Python hadn't followed him, Luo Hongyan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. The Black-White King Python is Dark Ghost Hong Tai's mount. If it didn't come after him, that means he managed to shake it off."
"That kid kept a lot from us!"
Su Yuntian said angrily.
When Pang Jian had chatted with them, he hadn't mentioned being attacked by Dark Ghost or having crossed paths with the Ning and Zhou Families. Su Yuntian was greatly displeased.
"On the other side of the mountain, there's nothing but heaps of bones. Dark Ghost's people may still be roaming around there, so there's no need to explore."
After warning them about the danger on the other side, Luo Hongyan said, without waiting for the Grey Eagle to find Pang Jian's trail, "I have something to ask Pang Jian. I'll be going ahead."
"Girl, why don't we travel together? It's too dangerous for you to be alone!"
Su Yuntian hurriedly suggested.
He Rong, whose nephew had died, had been silent for a long time. Seeing her in such a hurry to leave, he suddenly came to his senses. "We should travel together!"
Luo Hongyan, who had been about to leave, turned back to look at them. She hesitated, then reluctantly said, "All right."
A forest where the branches blotted out the sky.
After saying goodbye to the Su and He Families, Pang Jian felt as free as a bird soaring beneath the open sky. He raced through the forest, weaving between the gaps in the ancient trees.
At times, he stamped the ground and shot into the air like a sharp sword, then crashed back down.
At other times, he nimbly hung from a branch and swung himself toward another tree, swinging through the forest like an ape.
The long spear in his hands whistled through the air with every movement.
A casual thrust could pierce a tree so thick that several people would have to join hands to encircle it.
A faint smile played on his lips. His narrowed eyes were thin as blades, gleaming with a piercing light.
After the second round of tempering with Phoenix Marrow, every bone in his body had been refined. Now, it wasn't just his arms and chest bones—even his legs and toes were filled with savage strength.
With a leap, he could sail nearly ten meters through the air between the trees. When he landed heavily, his feet didn't hurt or go numb.
The feeling of surging power coursing through his body made him want to find someone and fight to his heart's content.
It was the Phoenix Marrow I'd obtained twice that transformed my body and brought about such a change. If I'm not mistaken, there's still one especially miraculous drop of Phoenix Marrow inside the Bronze Plate, and it hasn't revealed its wonders yet.
He glanced again at the Bronze Gate Pendant hanging against his chest. The more he looked at it, the more mysterious it seemed.
Half an hour later.
A little tired, Pang Jian killed a muntjac, prepared it simply, and roasted it over a fire. Before long, the meat was fragrant.
As he ate the firm, chewy meat, Pang Jian realized that ever since he had awakened in the dark stone passage, his appetite had grown tremendously, and he had become ravenous for meat.
He polished off a muntjac weighing several dozen pounds in no time. As he looked at the bones scattered across the ground, he suddenly heard a familiar eagle's cry.
He looked up and sure enough, a dark-grey eagle had appeared in the sky.
"Why is it watching me?"
Pang Jian frowned in puzzlement.
At Crescent Moon Lake, the eagle had circled him, watching from different angles. It had stared for a long time before finally leaving, seemingly reluctant to go.
After he had said goodbye to Su Yuntian, He Rong, and the others, the eagle had come looking for him again. He had no idea what it wanted.
Pang Jian suddenly realized that the eagle's target was him, not the people from the Su and He Families.
Having an eagle like this keep an eye on him put Pang Jian in a foul mood. He glanced at the Dragon-Patterned Spear, remembering the immense strength that had surged through his arms earlier. A cold glint flashed in his eyes.
He abruptly picked up the Dragon-Patterned Spear, shouldered his bamboo basket again, and continued leaping and bounding through the mountainside forest.
At that moment, he suddenly felt as if he were the king of the Cenji Mountains.
Every blade of grass and tree, every bird, beast, insect, and sparrow in the mountains was his private property, within his domain.
"Not a bad feeling."
He muttered to himself as he disappeared among the dense branches of an ancient tree.
This time, he didn't suddenly burst out from the branches. Instead, he carefully concealed himself.
Through a gap in the leaves, he watched the dim sky and waited patiently, his attention fixed.
A short while later, when the dark-grey eagle circling overhead still couldn't spot him, it couldn't help but descend, hoping to investigate at close range.
The moment Pang Jian sensed that the eagle had come within range, he hurled the Dragon-Patterned Spear. It shot out like a bolt of ghostly lightning.
"Thwack!"
The Dragon-Patterned Spear locked onto the eagle with perfect accuracy, piercing it from below without the slightest error!
The spear, still impaling the eagle, fell into the forest dozens of meters away. Pang Jian dashed after it like a nimble leopard.
Before he reached the eagle, a Spirit Sha with Pulse-Opening Realm cultivation promptly floated out of its body and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Pang Jian rushed over, yanked the Dragon-Patterned Spear free, then looked at the fallen eagle and sneered. "When I used to hunt in these mountains, why didn't you keep watching me everywhere?"
There were many goshawks in the Cenji Mountains, and he couldn't tell which one this was. But when he'd hunted in the past, he'd never noticed them paying him such special attention.
After killing the eagle, Pang Jian felt much more at ease. He wasn't hungry for the moment and had no intention of eating it.
The Cenji Mountains were vast, with wild beasts roaming everywhere. With his current strength, he could eat whatever beast he wanted, so he naturally didn't care about this eagle.
He set off again, heading for the far north of the Cenji Mountains, toward another place his father had designated as a forbidden zone.
After what had happened at Blackwater Pool, he had a vague feeling that the Phoenix Bone might have chosen any of the forbidden zones in the Cenji Mountains as a place to fall.
Having experienced the wonders of Phoenix Marrow, he intended to visit another forbidden zone and see if fortune smiled on him again.
In the far north, the "Ghost Mist" and Boundary Wall that Zhou Qingchen and the others had mentioned several times also filled him with curiosity.
The place where the "Ghost Mist" lay had been designated by his father as the foremost forbidden zone in the Cenji Mountains. His father had forbidden him to set foot there under any circumstances.
But now his strength had greatly increased, and he had seen the wonders of the cultivation world. He wanted to climb step by step to the summit of the Upper Realm, and so he no longer wanted to heed his father's instructions.
It was another deep night.
After being tired for a long time, Pang Jian had eaten his fill and drunk his fill. For the first time, he didn't cultivate with the Pot-Heaven Qi Cultivation Art.
Overcome by drowsiness, he found another secluded hideout.
It was a withered tree, hollow inside. He had even made a "door" out of its cracked bark.
He didn't know that, in the pitch-black night of the Fourth Realm, a hazy grey Spirit Sha was keeping a close eye on him the entire time.
Finally at ease, Pang Jian fell fast asleep inside the tree hollow. He slept deeply and peacefully.
By the time he woke up, it was already light.
He pushed open the cracked bark door and stepped outside. Suddenly, he saw a familiar figure sitting beneath the green canopy of a large tree not far away.
The young woman had changed out of her simple, practical outfit and put on a silk dress. Dewdrops glistened on her black hair and long eyelashes.
In the morning mist, she looked like a forest sprite.
Her rather thick eyebrows and straight nose had made her look heroic, but in the drifting mist, she seemed to have suddenly taken on a hazy, feminine softness.
Two utterly different temperaments came together in her at that moment, elevating her beauty to another level.
Pang Jian rubbed his eyes and looked at her again, startled. "Ning Yao?"
"Didn't think I'd still be alive?"
The woman in the thin white mist opened her eyes, her expression cold. Then she rose gracefully and walked toward him.
Dozens of meters away.
When the people from the Su and He Families saw her stand, they also saw Pang Jian suddenly appear. Both families were astonished.
"I have something to discuss with him. Please don't interrupt us."
When she was close to Pang Jian, Luo Hongyan stopped and turned to look at He Rong and the others, her eyes cold and warning.
They frowned, unable to understand why she kept treating them so coldly and acting so distant.
Pang Jian was startled. Only then did he notice that she wasn't alone—the people from the He and Su Families he'd seen not long ago were there, too.
"Let's talk inside the tree hollow."
Luo Hongyan, who had been waiting for Pang Jian to come out, placed her pale hand against his chest and pushed him back inside. Then she followed him into the hollow.
Seeing this, anger flashed across He Rong's face.
Su Yuntian scratched his head, unable to guess what their relationship was. He was full of questions.
"They..."
Su Meng's mouth was wide open in shock, gaping enough to fit an egg.
Inside the tree hollow, Pang Jian felt a little awkward.
He had prepared the hollow for himself and had never imagined it would hold a second person.
When he was alone, the hollow had been just the right size. With another person suddenly inside, it felt cramped.
The two couldn't help but brush against each other.
As he breathed, Pang Jian could smell the faint fragrance on her. He had no idea why she had come, so he kept silent.
Once they were inside the hollow, Luo Hongyan acted completely at ease. Her bright eyes held a strange, aggressive gleam.
She looked at the tiny sliver of space between their chests, and the strange light in her eyes grew stronger.
"I'm sorry. I sincerely apologize to you. I was wrong before!"
She suddenly apologized first, her expression earnest. Her gaze shifted from the gap between their chests to Pang Jian's face.
"When we went to the first Phoenix Bone, I shouldn't have threatened you, either. There's no difference in status between us. I hired you, so you weren't a servant of the Ning Family."
"I was used to ordering servants around and being above everyone else, so I behaved inappropriately."
As she spoke, she bent at the waist in apology. The gap between her and Pang Jian disappeared.
She "accidentally" pressed her chest against his. Then, as if she'd just realized what she'd done, she hurriedly straightened up.
Completely baffled by her, Pang Jian took a deep breath. The gap between their chests disappeared once more.
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