"Uh!! Well... Elder Huang is only concerned about you, little princess! Please come back with us. There are too many outsiders here. You should stay at your lodgings!" the disciple stammered. By "outsiders," he was clearly referring to Li Xiaoya.
"Forget it! I was going back anyway!" Zhou Xiaoya said with a frown. Then she turned to Li Xiaoya. "All right, I'm heading back! Thank you!"
"Uh! You're welcome!" Li Xiaoya replied with a wry smile.
The three disciples escorted Zhou Xiaoya away, clustered around her like stars surrounding the moon. Once they were some distance away, Zhou Xiaoya looked back, waved at him, and called out, "Hehe! Come visit me at Heavenly Spirit Mountain when you have time!" Without waiting for Li Xiaoya to answer, she turned and left.
Suddenly, one of the Heavenly Spirit Church disciples looked back and sent Li Xiaoya a voice transmission. "Just you wait! You'd better hope you don't run into me in the Immortal Assembly tournament!"
"Uh! Huh?" Li Xiaoya shrugged at those words and smiled without replying. He glanced toward a certain spot in the dense forest, then headed back himself.
"Huh? Did that brat actually notice us?" a puzzled voice said from within the dense forest.
"Perhaps. His divine sense seems rather powerful to me. He doesn't seem like an ordinary True Cultivation Stage cultivator!"
"Mm! Do you think he was the one who touched the restrictions over there earlier?"
"Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't!"
"Ah! Are we really going to leave these people alone?"
"Why bother with them? There may be rules from above, but every year, a few disciples fight private duels anyway! Policing these disciples isn't our job!"
"That's true...!"
Before long, the voices faded, as though no one had ever been there.
"Hmph! Those Demonic Path