Page 35

Pei Ling still looked pale, frail, and easy to bully. His eyes were as hollow yet stubbornly intent as ever, but something struck Qiao Ranran as strange. Perhaps because she had encountered his Divine Sense up close and knew something about his condition, she sensed his fragility in that moment. No—not fragility. Weakness.

Even when he had struggled to crawl across the ground, he had never felt this weak to her.

"Are you hurt?" It was a question, but Qiao Ranran sounded certain. Pei Ling's body was right by the sea, protected by her Formation, so he had no visible injuries. If something had left him this weak, the damage could only be to his soul.

He had sent his Primordial Spirit out of his body for her, braving enormous danger to retrieve the Blood Jade Nectar from the South Sea Extremity. He had seemed calm and at ease the entire time, but now Qiao Ranran could see that he was hurt.

Pei Ling gave a questioning "Mm?" as though he didn't understand what she meant.

"Were you hurt when you collected the Blood Jade Nectar? A Primordial Spirit outside its body must be terribly vulnerable. You seemed so confident that I thought you had some special Cultivation Method, but you were hurt anyway, weren't you?"

Qiao Ranran started to reach for him, then remembered that she couldn't detect damage to Divine Sense by taking his pulse. She could only gaze at him anxiously.

Pei Ling stood with his hands behind his back. The sea breeze stirred his robe, sending faint ripples through the fabric and making him look even more slight. Only now did he look like a boy in the first flush of youth.

What he said, though, was as hard to swallow as ever. "Senior Sister is always full of surprises."

Qiao Ranran blinked. "Hm?"

"You certainly know a lot." Her understanding of Primordial Spirits, her ability to sense Divine Sense, and even her knowledge of the Cultivation Method had all surprised him.

Qiao Ranran understood. He thought she was being nosy. They hadn't spent much time together, yet she felt as if she had developed a remarkable new talent: she was slowly learning to hear what Pei Ling meant beneath his words.

There was indeed something wrong with Pei Ling's Divine Sense, though not what Qiao Ranran imagined. He had originally thought it was nothing serious, but now he suddenly didn't want to tell her the truth. She liked to guess, and she was good at it, so he would let her keep guessing.

He was curious to see when she would finally work out the truth.

So Pei Ling said evenly, "Ah, yes. I'm hurt." Whatever had caused it, his Divine Sense really was damaged. "Taking you back to the sect the way I brought you here is impossible now."

Qiao Ranran said, "So?"

"So we'll have to walk back."

Walk back? Qiao Ranran was dumbfounded. She had never been to the South Sea in her previous life, but she knew where it was—and how far it was from the Profound Heart Sect! Pei Ling's spatial transfer had brought her here so quickly that she hadn't felt the distance at all. It had been like going to gather seafood just outside the sect gates.

Only when Pei Ling said they would have to walk back did she realize the trip here had been one-way.

As things stood, she was a hopeless cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage who could only make the journey on foot. Pei Ling was at the Foundation Establishment Stage, true, but his soul was damaged. Qiao Ranran didn't know how badly, yet his weakness was plain to see, so it had to be serious. She had no reason to doubt him.

"Then let's... go." Qiao Ranran resigned herself to it at once.

She had planned to travel and gain experience once she improved her cultivation at the Profound Heart Sect. Ideally, she would claim a few opportunities ahead of time, too. She just hadn't expected Pei Ling to bring that plan forward. She could pretend her cultivation had already improved. She had eaten the Blood Jade Nectar, after all!

Qiao Ranran took it in stride.

Pei Ling made no comment. He pointed a pale finger toward the foot of a tree. "What about that?"

Qiao Ranran wanted to know too.

"Give me a moment to think." Qiao Ranran felt a headache coming on.

She could use her Communication Jade Token to ask her fellow disciples for help. There weren't many of them, but they all seemed quite capable. The trouble was, she couldn't explain how she had gone from the Profound Heart Sect to the South Sea in less than a day.

As for giving Pei Ling away, that had never crossed her mind.

"Could you wait here for a bit?" Qiao Ranran tilted her head toward Pei Ling. "I have an idea."

Pei Ling folded his arms, as if to say, Let's see what you come up with.

A walk around the area turned up traces of other creatures. Qiao Ranran missed her sweet, well-behaved Spirit Jade dearly just then. Since she had always got along well with Demon Beasts, she decided to ask one of the local beasts for help.

The kind of beast she had found gave her pause, though. It's a sea turtle, but it's a Demon Beast. It should be able to move pretty fast, right?

What Qiao Ranran most wanted to complain about was how Demon Beasts in this world never seemed to stop growing. There had been the giant Spirit Jade Rabbit leader, taller than two people, and now there was this enormous sea turtle, as big as a small hill.

The turtle gazed at her quietly with a pair of large, watery blue eyes.

Should she explain that she had followed the tracks in the sand, hoping to find a little turtle to carry someone for her? How was she supposed to ask to take away its child now that the tracks had led her to a parent instead?

The turtle kept staring. Its eyes did not waver in the slightest.

Qiao Ranran fell silent. Please stop staring. I know I was wrong.

A turtle that had grown this large had to be old. It was also a Demon Beast. Qiao Ranran couldn't tell what kind, but between its size and the tuft of glossy green hair on its head, she was sure it was no ordinary creature.

Its gaze, at least, was full of patience and wisdom.

Qiao Ranran felt around her meager storage bag. What do sea turtles like to eat again?

In the end, she could only take out a few Hundred-Beast Pills and lay them on her palm, trying to show her sincerity. "I mean you no harm." As the pills' fragrance spread, a flicker of almost human interest passed through the giant turtle's blue eyes, but she didn't notice. "I need your help. I have a friend..." Qiao Ranran paused. She might as well call him a friend; there was no need to explain their relationship to a turtle. "He's badly hurt, and I need to get him somewhere safe for treatment. But he can't withstand being jostled along the way, so I was hoping you could help us..."

Ranking lists

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Transmigration into a book

Sweet romance

Time-travel and rebirth romance

Dahei Loves Fish

Double rebirth

Immortal cultivation fiction