In the end, Shen Qingyue got her wish and left with Xia Jue and the others.
Su Jiu had stayed out of the matter entirely. After all, she was a female cultivator; speaking up about this would only give others ammunition against her.
Su Jiu dared say that if she opened her mouth today, by tomorrow, everyone in the Azure Realm would know that she had bullied a beautiful fellow disciple.
Women had it hard in this world, and female cultivators were no exception. No matter how powerful they became, where was absolute fairness to be found?
After leaving the cave entrance, the group did not head straight to the location marked on the map to compete with those rogue cultivators in the search for the sacred artifact. Instead, they walked some distance in the opposite direction.
Some cultivators lurking in the shadows thought themselves clever. They assumed that the information Xia Jue had initially released was false and that the path his group was taking was the real one, so they continued following in secret.
Only after traveling some distance did they begin to sense that something was wrong.
They discovered that whenever these people reached a patch of third-tier or fourth-tier herbs, they stopped to harvest them.
The cultivators who followed for half a day vaguely sensed something was off, turned around, and left.
The cultivators who followed for a full day finally realized something was wrong. Their faces darkened, and they left as well.
The cultivators who followed for two days found that the group was still gathering herbs and finally lost their patience.
There were more than a dozen people in this bunch, and their leader did not look like a decent man.
His eyes gleamed viciously, with barely concealed anger smoldering within them.
He pointed