"What you say does make a fair bit of sense."
Bai Yu put away the displeasure in his eyes and nodded in agreement.
"But if I take you along, you must give me ten Merit Coins. Don't misunderstand, I'm not being stingy. This is a rule of the Azure Profound Sect. Whenever a spirit bird carries someone, it must charge Merit Coins, or it will suffer Oath Punishment."
He then looked at Xu Taiping as he spoke.
"No problem. I have Merit Coins!"
Xu Taiping smiled and raised the pouch of Merit Coins in his hand.
It was the very pouch Liu Zijin had just given him.
"Then hurry and get ready. I'll take you along, and we can hunt a few more to bring back."
Seeing how readily Xu Taiping agreed, Bai Yu no longer spoke as haughtily as before, and his tone grew much friendlier.
"All right!"
Xu Taiping nodded firmly.
"By the way, where were you planning to hunt yellow sheep?"
Just as Xu Taiping was about to return to his room to prepare, Bai Yu suddenly asked another question.
"Green Peak Gorge!"
Xu Taiping turned and answered.
"Green Peak Gorge? That's at least four hundred li from here. Why go so far?"
Bai Yu tilted his head, his large eyes full of confusion.
"Because the yellow sheep in Green Peak Gorge taste the best!"
Xu Taiping answered with a smile.
At those words, the confusion in Bai Yu's eyes vanished, replaced by excitement as he said:
"Then let's go to Green Peak Gorge!"
White Horse Slope, Green Peak Gorge.
"Lu Chen, Zi Jin, what took you two so long?"
A young man wearing the robes of an Azure Profound Sect disciple looked coldly at Lu Chen and Zi Jin, who had just dismounted.
The young man had a long face and narrow eyes. Tall and lean, he carried a chill sharpness in his expression.
"Sorry, senior brother, we..."
"Eldest senior brother, Junior Sister Zi Jin's horse wasn't feeling well, so we were delayed a little."
Lu Chen lied to the young man.
The young man he called eldest senior brother was Mo Jun, the foremost disciple of Lu Chen's generation on the Azure Profound Sect's Fifth Peak. His cultivation ranked among the best of his peers.
"Is that really so?"
Mo Jun turned his icy gaze on Liu Zijin.
"Yes, senior brother."
Although Liu Zijin felt there was no need to lie about searching for her sister, since Lu Chen had already said it, she could hardly expose him.
"Junior Brother Mo Jun, now that your two junior disciples are here, shall we set off?"
Just then, a woman riding a spirit horse nearby called out to Mo Jun and the others.
Beside her was a girl dressed in white, also riding a white spirit horse.
Both wore veils over their faces, but even those could not conceal their beauty, enough to bring a city to its knees.
"Eldest senior brother, who are these two?"
Lu Chen nearly stared himself into a daze.
"That's Senior Sister Ziyan of the Sixth Peak and Junior Sister Buyu, who only recently joined the sect. On my way here, I happened to meet Senior Sister Ziyan taking her junior sister to Green Peak Gorge for training. Killing that tiger demon would be easy, but capturing him alive to use as a mount won't be so simple, so I asked her to come along."
As Mo Jun swung onto his horse, he gave Lu Chen the explanation with a cold expression.
"With Senior Sister Ziyan's help, you're certain to capture that tiger demon as your mount this time, eldest senior brother."
Lu Chen offered the flattery with a face full of smiles.
Mo Jun gave Lu Chen a cold look, then turned his gaze to Liu Zijin.
"Zi Jin, once we reach Green Peak Gorge, you and Junior Sister Buyu of the Sixth Peak need only watch from the sidelines. There's no need for you to join the hunt for the tiger demon."
"Eldest senior brother, could you..."
"Junior sister, just listen to eldest senior brother. Everything else can wait until we capture the tiger demon."
Liu Zijin could not help wanting to ask her eldest senior brother to find out whether the tiger demon had seen her sister, but she had barely begun before Lu Chen interrupted her.
"All right."
In the end, Liu Zijin nodded.
"Then let's go. We're all heading to Green Peak Gorge."
Leaving those words behind, Mo Jun squeezed his horse's flanks and shot away like the wind.
The horses they rode were all spirit horses. They raced through the mountains as swiftly as the wind, reaching Green Peak Gorge, where sunlight never penetrated all year round, in mere moments.
Red Maple Forest, Green Peak Gorge.
"The tiger demon's cave is deep within this maple forest. Senior Sister Ziyan and I will hide ourselves first. Lu Chen, once you receive my voice transmission, go lure the tiger demon to our ambush site."
Within a grove of red maples, Mo Jun gave Lu Chen his instructions with a serious expression.
"What about me, senior brother?"
Liu Zijin asked Mo Jun, her voice somewhat urgent.
She desperately wanted to look inside the tiger demon's cave and see whether he had captured her sister and taken her there.
"Zi Jin, stay here with Junior Sister Buyu and don't go anywhere. Once the three of us lure the tiger demon out, you two may come forward to help if the situation calls for it."
Mo Jun looked at Liu Zijin sternly.
"Little Sister Zi Jin, please look after Buyu for us. She only joined the sect six months ago, and this will be her first real encounter with a demon."
Just as Liu Zijin was about to press her case, Senior Sister Ziyan suddenly brought Buyu over to her and made the request with great sincerity.
"Greetings, Senior Sister Zi Jin."
The young girl Buyu greeted Liu Zijin with an indifferent expression.
"Yes, Senior Sister Ziyan, don't worry. I'll be sure to take good care of Buyu."
In the end, Liu Zijin abandoned the idea of going with Lu Chen to lure out the tiger demon. She took Buyu's hand and stood beside her.
Whoosh!
Just then, a mountain gust swept past, lifting Buyu's veil and revealing her almost flawless face.
Not only Lu Chen, but even Liu Zijin beside her was stunned for a moment.
Buyu seemed long accustomed to the gazes around her. She merely raised her head in silence and looked through the gaps between the leaves and branches at a giant eagle circling overhead.
Above Green Peak Gorge.
At that moment, Xu Taiping was holding on to Bai Yu's neck as they flew high into the sky, looking down at the mountain forest below.
"Xu Taiping, there are only a few Azure Profound Sect disciples down there. Where are these yellow sheep?"
Bai Yu, who was also looking down, spoke with some displeasure.
"Brother Bai Yu, you can make out what's happening in the forest below?"
Xu Taiping withdrew his gaze and looked at Bai Yu in astonishment.
He had spent quite some time peering down, yet could only vaguely make out a few figures-and that was with his eyesight enhanced after breaking through to the entering the sea realm.
"Of course!"
Hearing such shock in Xu Taiping's voice, Bai Yu was immensely pleased with himself.
"The White-Headed Eagle Clan's eyesight is actually that formidable?"
Xu Taiping's voice was filled with surprise and admiration.
"Our White-Headed Eagle Clan's eyesight ranks among the finest of all spirit beasts. Never mind people as big as those-even a few ants would be perfectly clear to us."
Hearing Xu Taiping's praise, Bai Yu immediately put the search for yellow sheep out of his mind.
"Then, Brother Bai Yu, could you help me see whether there's a girl in an emerald-green dress among those disciples below?"
Xu Taiping asked at once.
"There is indeed a girl dressed in green."
Delighted by Xu Taiping's praise, Bai Yu immediately swept his gaze over the ground below.
"But the other girl beside her seems a little prettier."
He then added.
Before you continue