With the Lu Household's guards protecting Lu Mei, Luo Qian could finally relax. He let go of her hand and quietly slipped away. Once he reached a deserted spot, he summoned the Thundercloud Fire Leopard and rode off on a cloud. Many of the Lu Household's people knew Luo Qian, and none of them wanted to see him with their young lady. When he left without a word, they pretended not to notice. No one stopped him.
"Roar!" The Jadewater Qilin crouched atop a huge boulder outside its lair. Yet beside its massive body, the boulder looked like nothing more than a little footstool. With all four legs tucked beneath it, the Qilin raised its head and howled at the sky. A soundproof barrier sealed the cave entrance, so Longque, inside, was undisturbed. The Qilin had been looking forward to the "lesson" Luo Qian had promised to teach Mr. Que. Why, it wondered, had the fellow who had taken over its lair still not met with misfortune?
It craned its neck and peered inside with eyes as big as Bronze Gongs. Suddenly, a fierce burst of light came from the pitch-black cave. The Jadewater Qilin roared, sprang off its footstool with a whoosh, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Inside the cave, Longque was drenched in sweat. His hands flew through one Spell Formula after another so quickly that only a blur remained before his chest, impossible to tell left hand from right. Seal after seal, each accompanied by the faint sound of crackling flame, struck his pill furnace, where the Two Principles flowed into each other, the Four Symbols stood guard, and the Eight Trigrams aligned in secret. The brilliant light bursting from within was medicinal power escaping just before the pill was complete. Only by