"You!" Even Fairy Qingxia, with her profound cultivation, could not help losing her temper. Who was she? One of the few great cultivators at the Nascent Soul Late Stage in the entire Liang Kingdom, a towering figure whose stomp could shake the earth three feet deep. Yet today, a mere mortal had dared refuse her like this.
"You don't know what's good for you!" Fairy Qingxia could no longer be bothered to argue with him. She swept her sleeve, sending a streak of blue light through the blue barrier and straight into Li Xiaoya. He tried to say something more, but his mouth had barely opened before he slumped to the ground and lay motionless.
"Master! What did you do to him?" Fairy Liu asked anxiously.
"Nothing. The boy was too noisy, so I just put him to sleep!" Fairy Qingxia said mildly, unconcerned.
"Mmm!" Liu Xian'er glanced at Li Xiaoya on the ground, a hint of amusement flashing in her eyes, and answered obediently.
"All right, we've wasted too much time here. Let's return to the Sect." Fairy Qingxia breathed a sigh of relief. Had she really lost the Five-Element Rainbow Ganoderma, even someone of her standing would have had a hard time explaining herself back at the Sect. With a sweep of her sleeve, she gathered up Liu Xian'er and shot toward the horizon.
"Aaaah!!!!! Where am I?!"
A piercing scream suddenly rang out across the cloudless blue sky, frightening the birds into scattering in all directions.
"We're so high up!"
"We're flying through the sky!"
"Wow! Is that tiny thing down there a city?"
"The people on the ground are so small!"
Then a boy's voice kept calling out in excitement.
A young married woman could be seen holding a girl by the hand, with a round ball of blue light floating beside her. Inside it, a boy waved his arms and legs, exclaiming in amazement at everything he saw.
These people were none other than Fairy Qingxia and her companions. It was now the following morning. After Fairy Qingxia had put Li Xiaoya to sleep with a spell, he had only just woken up and discovered himself suspended in midair, prompting his initial scream and then a burst of excitement. It was his first time flying through the sky in his entire life. He was so thrilled that he even forgot he had been taken away by force.
"Be quiet!" Fairy Qingxia snapped in a low voice, finding his racket utterly intolerable. Yet a trace of amusement slipped unnoticed through her eyes.
Li Xiaoya suddenly felt his head grow heavy, and his voice faltered. Fairy Qingxia had actually used a hidden trick to give him a small punishment.
"Big Sister Qingxia, where are you taking me?" Li Xiaoya no longer dared shout and yell, but he still could not resist asking.
"You'll know when we get there!" Fairy Qingxia said, apparently unwilling to explain further.
"Big Sister Qingxia, could you teach me to fly?" Seeing that Fairy Qingxia would not tell him, Li Xiaoya instead tentatively voiced the request he had wanted to make all along.
"With your aptitude?" Fairy Qingxia glanced at him and spoke indifferently.
"Uh! Hard work can make up for a lack of talent! Please, Big Sister Qingxia!" Refusing to give up, Li Xiaoya shamelessly continued pleading. If he could fly, escaping would be so much easier. Why would he have to fear anyone chasing him down and beating him? He would not have to run around every day with that iron sand strapped to him, either.
"Hard work can make up for a lack of talent?! What we cultivators value most is aptitude and opportunities. Hard work, as it happens, has little to do with it," Fairy Qingxia said mildly, unmoved.
"What aptitude? That swindler of a master I used to have said I was a rare genius! How could my aptitude be poor?" Li Xiaoya declared theatrically, thumping his chest.
That's right! This boy actually has a five-element spiritual root with all five attributes. He really is an oddity. People have always said that immortal cultivators with a five-attribute spiritual root are even rarer than those with a heavenly spiritual root, but I've never actually heard of a genuine five-element spiritual root cultivator anywhere. Cultivators with a heavenly spiritual root may be rare, but I've at least seen a few. Perhaps he really does have some talent. And somehow, I keep getting a strange feeling about him, though I can't put my finger on it. Hearing Li Xiaoya's words, Fairy Qingxia began pondering privately, but aloud she said, "We'll discuss it later! Once I've extracted the Five-Element Rainbow Ganoderma, we'll talk!"
"What exactly do you want to catch Guagua for?" Her words suddenly reminded Li Xiaoya of Guagua, and he asked in bewilderment.
"What Guagua? You mean the Five-Element Rainbow Ganoderma? He's tied to our Sect's very survival. You don't need to know the details." A hint of uncertainty flashed through Fairy Qingxia's eyes, but her voice remained indifferent, her manner aloof from worldly concerns.
"You aren't after Guagua's life, are you? Are you going to cook him and eat him?" Looking deeply suspicious, Li Xiaoya asked the question he most wanted answered.
"Pah! Of course we aren't! We're not demonic cultivators!" Lin Xian'er spat, cutting in from the side.
"Of course not! He's tied to our Sect's very survival!" Qingxia's expression turned solemn as she answered firmly.
"I see..." At that, Li Xiaoya lowered his head and fell silent in thought.
For a while, none of the three spoke, and silence settled around them.
"Oh, right! What happened with the throwing knife in your back and that palm strike to your chest yesterday?" Liu Xian'er suddenly asked.
"Huh? How do you know about that?" Li Xiaoya asked in surprise.
"Of course I know. My master even used a spell to save your life!" Liu Xian'er blinked her large eyes at him, then added quietly, "Otherwise, you'd have died ages ago!"
"But... wasn't it Guagua who saved me?" Li Xiaoya stared at his hands in astonishment, as though hoping to catch a glimpse of Guagua, and spoke with some disbelief.
"Oh, come on! How would he know how to save someone? You were lying in those woods, almost dead, and my master used a spell to save you. We were tracking the Five-Element Rainbow Ganoderma then, and the five-element spiritual qi on you interfered with my master's tracking, so we found you. You were already unconscious by then, and my master cast a spell to save you! Afterward, we were busy searching for the Five-Element Rainbow Ganoderma, and there was no need to let you know we existed. You should know that we immortal cultivators don't associate with you mortals! We left before you woke up." Liu Xian'er rattled off a torrent of words. This fellow actually doubted her?
"Is... is that really true?" Li Xiaoya still sounded somewhat doubtful. When he had been injured in the collision yesterday, he had been fully conscious and knew that Guagua had healed him.
"Just hurry up and tell me how you got hurt! Were you robbed?" Liu Xian'er abruptly cut off his thoughts and asked in her sweet voice.
"Of course not! Look at me-would anyone bother robbing someone like me? I offended some people in town..." Li Xiaoya recounted the events in detail, deliberately trimming out some of the less flattering parts. "And that was how that martial arts expert died at my hands. I walked a little farther, but then my internal injuries flared up and I passed out there. You already know what happened afterward!" he finished, still shaken by the memory.
"Wow! You're amazing! That was so dangerous! It sounds just like a story about the martial world!" Liu Xian'er exclaimed, blinking her large eyes with a touch of admiration.
"Then you must have done something to offend so many people in town that they were all shouting to beat you, like a rat crossing the street?" Fairy Qingxia, however, pinpointed the gap in Li Xiaoya's account with needle-sharp accuracy.
"Uh... well... you see... I was trying to get something to eat in town... so... I..." With his dirty laundry exposed, Li Xiaoya grew embarrassed and began stammering. Then, as though suddenly remembering something, he exclaimed, "But I'd never seen that scar-faced man before! Why did he come after me too?"
"Really?" Liu Xian'er asked curiously.
"And he wasn't just trying to teach me a lesson. He wanted to kill me! That's what's strange! I've never offended him before!" Li Xiaoya said, his face pale.
Seeing the bewilderment on Li Xiaoya's face, Liu Xian'er did not know what to say either.
Having successfully muddled his way through and changed the subject, Li Xiaoya stopped talking and pretended to lower his head in thought. Before long, though, he really was thinking. He truly had no idea how he could have offended such an expert.
"We're almost there!" Fairy Qingxia suddenly said.
Li Xiaoya looked up at her words and could not help exclaiming, "What a magnificent place!"
(The lovely Xianxian's popularity really does have irresistible charm! But fellow Daoists! Can you bear to let Xianxian work so hard? The review section still needs moderators. Opportunities this good to get close to the lovely Xianxian don't come along often! Hurry and sign up! Apply in the signup thread!)
If searching for the book title doesn't work, try searching for the author. Perhaps the title has simply changed!
By popular reader demand, an ad-free feature is now available for VIP members.
Click to view