Return to the Mountain

Within the valley, more than a dozen Long-eared Deer thundered into motion, kicking up great clouds of dust and smoke!

Spiritual light flowed over each of their antlers, which branched several times and were incomparably sharp.

The wounded Azure Cloud Wolves could only keep fleeing.

But then a massive fireball crashed down behind the Azure Cloud Wolves, throwing up huge clouds of dust as a wave of heat spread outward.

Then four somewhat smaller fireballs came hurtling one after another toward the backs of the Azure Cloud Wolves.

The large fireball had been spat out by the Crimson Flame Fox, while the four smaller ones were the basic spells cast by Ye Jingyu and the other three.

The Crimson Flame Fox possessed an exceptional talent for fire and could practically cast instantly, but among Ye Jingcheng and the others, there were differences in speed.

Ye Jingyu was the fastest, followed by Ye Jingcheng, then Ye Jingli and Ye Jingyong.

The fireballs landed in succession. The Azure Cloud Wolves had already been burned, and immediately wheeled around to charge at the Long-eared Deer!

They charged as though staking their lives on it!

The main reason was that the Long-eared Deer still offered a sliver of hope, whereas another spirit barrier had risen around the four Ye Family members—a sight despairing enough to drive any beast mad.

Boom!

Awoo!

Amid tremendous impacts and cries of agony, several Azure Cloud Wolves, charging with their lives on the line, shot out several wind blades. Then, with terrifying speed, they clamped their jaws around the thick, plump necks of several Long-eared Deer.

At the same time, the Long-eared Deer's antlers pierced the bodies of several Azure Cloud Wolves!

Yet in the end, the Long-eared Deer had the last laugh. Five or six of them remained, their bodies covered in wounds as they stood proudly, heads raised and chests thrust out, licking their injuries.

They even growled low at Ye Jingcheng and the others, as though trying to intimidate them.

But the four of them had long since had sharp gleams in their eyes. They abandoned the formation and rushed out first!

The Flying Cloud Leopards were still in the lead. The two Flying Cloud Leopards had just eaten wolf meat, but they were not full yet.

The Ye Family naturally understood spirit beasts inside and out. Even after hunting demonic beasts, they would only reward their spirit beasts with enough food to fill them two-thirds full!

Only then could the Flying Cloud Leopards retain their ferocity!

The Crimson Flame Fox followed behind them as well.

"Little Flame, aim directly at the one in the middle!" Ye Jingcheng shouted.

The Crimson Flame Fox immediately flicked its tail in response. Opening its mouth, it condensed another massive fireball and sent it flying toward the Long-eared Deer with the largest antlers in the center!

The magical artifacts of the other four also shot out almost right behind the fireball.

The Long-eared Deer were extremely fast and ordinarily could have dodged, but after their battle with the Azure Cloud Wolves, nearly every one of them was injured. One was instantly blasted to death by the fireball.

The remaining few were also slain one by one by the four's magical artifacts.

The two Flying Cloud Leopards had pounced on empty air and could only dart into the forest. The next moment, several dozen spotted female Long-eared Deer and seven or eight Long-eared Deer fawns came running out of the woods.

Each Flying Cloud Leopard had a fawn clamped in its jaws!

Clearly, the Azure Cloud Wolf pack had been blocking this herd of deer earlier.

"Catch the fawns and sell them to the family. Kill the female deer!" Ye Jingyu ordered decisively!

The group divided up their tasks once more. Ye Jingcheng and Ye Jingli were slightly weaker, so they retreated to the spirit formation to prevent the scattered Long-eared Deer from crashing through the spirit barrier and escaping!

Meanwhile, Ye Jingyu and Ye Jingyong began attacking the threatening female deer.

A quarter of an hour later, peace returned to the valley.

The two Flying Cloud Leopards were still chewing on the two fawns in their mouths. The fawns' hides had not yet fully developed spiritually, and their antlers had no medicinal use. Coupled with this great victory, the group simply let the two Flying Cloud Leopards feast their fill.

When it came to spirit beasts, the Ye Family would not extinguish their ferocity. Otherwise, no matter how spiritual they were, they would still be inferior to wild demonic beasts.

Whether such spirit beasts were even worth raising would be another question altogether.

Nearby, Ye Jingyu had already taken out a magical artifact rope and strung the seven fawns together. After attaching spirit talismans to them, he stored them all in a spirit beast pouch.

Ye Jingyong and Ye Jingli were responsible for cleaning up the aftermath. First, they scattered a ring of red powder around the area.

The powder had an extremely choking smell and was made from the dung of a second-rank demonic beast.

Sprinkling it in a circle could, to a certain extent, keep other demonic beasts from approaching!

Afterward, the two gathered up all the spirit beast corpses. The spirit blood was drained and stored separately in bottle-shaped magical artifacts; otherwise, leaving it in the corpses would affect both the spiritual potency of the blood and that of the spirit beast meat.

Unless they used freezing talismans—but freezing talismans were worth more than the spirit beast meat and spirit blood.

Ye Jingyong and Ye Jingli finished cleaning up quickly as well.

Ye Jingcheng, on the other hand, had lower cultivation and less spiritual energy. After the battle, he was somewhat exhausted, so he was now responsible for feeding the Crimson Flame Fox and the Jade Ring Rat. The Jade Ring Rat had been injured too, but its constitution was much stronger than even the Azure-Scaled Snake's. It was currently gnawing furiously on an Azure Cloud Wolf corpse as though seeking revenge, squeaking loud enough to be heard from afar.

After dealing with the spirit beasts, Ye Jingcheng walked over to the pool of spring water.

The spring water was extraordinarily clear. Even though the Long-eared Deer herd had visited not long ago and left behind many disorderly plum-blossom hoofprints, it was still clear enough to see straight to the bottom.

The spring was not large, only about the size of a thatched hut belonging to an ordinary mortal family.

Ye Jingcheng took out four jade bottles and began filling them with spring water.

There was a miniature spirit vein here, so the water had naturally been nourished by it. Though it could not be called spirit water, it was still quite rich in spiritual energy.

Whether for the four of them to consume or for their spirit beasts to drink, it was an excellent choice.

As for spirit herbs, the four did not search for any more. The Ye Family's demon-hunting teams were far more professional than they were and had long since swept the valley clean.

This spring water had also been collected once before; otherwise, Ye Jingyu would not have waited a month to return!

These jade bottles were specially crafted low-grade artifacts. Each could hold fifty jin of spring water, making two hundred jin in total for all four bottles.

After they finished collecting it, only a shallow pool of spring water remained. Ye Jingcheng did not take any more, instead allowing it to continue seeping up from underground.

At this moment, they could clearly see bubbles rising one after another from the spring's source.

Though it was slow, one could imagine that in less than half a month, the spring would overflow once more, then flow toward the forest and continue providing nourishing sustenance for the trees.

Once they had collected the spring water, Ye Jingyu had already put away the formation over there.

The four had no time to rest. They turned into four streaks of spiritual light and vanished from the valley.

Two days later, Ye Jingcheng and the others returned to Soaring Cloud Peak. At the sight of the blue-brick houses with their tiled roofs, Ye Jingcheng felt an immense sense of familiarity. He immediately returned to his bed and began to rest.

This was the most exhausted he had been since becoming an immortal cultivator. That deep fatigue had nearly made him drift off aboard Ye Jingyu's spirit boat, but because they were carrying valuables and had just emerged from the Taihang Mountain Range, the four of them had to be even more cautious than on their way in.

He slept exceptionally soundly and even had a beautiful dream. In it, the Crimson Flame Fox unfurled all nine tails, and ten thousand flames destroyed the world.

The next moment, he woke heavily from sleep, only to find a torrential rain falling outside the window. Mist filled the mountain forest, making Soaring Cloud Peak seem even more mysterious.

Ye Jingcheng grinned.

It was early spring now. Once the heavy rain passed, it would be time for the spring plowing of spirit rice.

And spring plowing was always a phrase that brought joy.

Of course, at this moment, he was even more curious about how many spirit stones he would receive this time.