Xiao Yan turned his head, forcing a smile onto his face as he looked toward Gu Xun'er, who stood to the side wearing a pale yellow plain skirt with her arms crossed, her lovely eyes filled with worry as she gazed fixedly at him.
"It's you, Xun'er. Why did you come over?"
Gu Xun'er did not answer Xiao Yan immediately, instead stepping forward to take his large, blood-stained hand in hers. She produced a handkerchief, gently wiping away the blood from his hand, and then asked softly,
"Brother Xiao Yan, does it hurt?"
Looking at Gu Xun'er before him, he recalled how she had slaughtered Jia Lie Ao like a demonic god because he had been injured.
After he was hurt, she brought him healing medicine. Seeing him driven to frenzied cultivation because he could not break out of his mental bottleneck, she did not stop him, choosing instead to let him vent while silently standing behind him and stepping forward to wipe away his blood when he bled.
Everything, down to the last detail, constantly battered at the softest depths of his heart. For the past three years, aside from when he was sleeping, he had faced cold sneers and mockery from others almost every other moment; humiliation had become the norm.
He had gradually grown used to it later on, and his heart had become incomparably resolute, yet now, facing this young maiden who had remained loyal and steadfast by his side through it all for three years, he even had the urge to cry.
Fighting back his tears so they would not fall, Xiao Yan turned his hand over to grip her delicate, fair hand tightly as she wiped the blood from him, and said in a hoarse voice,
"Xun'er... thank you! Thank you for everything you've done for me these past three years! I will definitely become a powerhouse, and I will definitely protect you well!"
"Brother Xiao Yan..."
When Gu Xun'er saw Xiao Yan grasp her hand, she was startled at first, feeling the warmth radiating from his large palm.
Upon hearing Xiao Yan's words, her entire body trembled, and two streams of warm tears involuntarily welled up in her eyes. A smile blossomed on her face, breathtakingly beautiful, and she wept tears of joy.
"Brother Xiao Yan, I believe in you! I believe you will definitely become a powerhouse! I believe Brother Xiao Yan is the most amazing one of all! Xun'er will help you too; Xun'er will forever stand behind Brother Xiao Yan and support you!"
Gu Xun'er said as she gripped Xiao Yan's large hand tightly in return.
Right at that moment, the boulder that Xiao Yan had battered for a month suddenly emitted a faint white light.
The sudden anomaly caught the attention of both of them, shattering the tender, lingering atmosphere between them just moments before.
"Xun'er, watch out!"
Instinctively, Xiao Yan pulled Gu Xun'er behind him, watching the bizarre boulder with vigilant eyes.
The white light on the boulder condensed into fine, dense characters, engraving themselves directly onto the stone.
Witnessing such a wondrous sight, Xiao Yan and Gu Xun'er hurried forward with curiosity, scrutinizing the words that had suddenly appeared on the boulder.
"Flame Mantra... Heavenly Flames... a Cultivation Method surpassing the Heavenly Class..."
After finishing the words on the boulder, both of them stood there in a daze. They never could have imagined that the text on this boulder actually turned out to be a Cultivation Method!
As it turned out, when Hun Changqing took Yao Chen away that day, Yao Chen thought that people from the Soul Palace had come to capture him and believed he was undoubtedly dead.
He was not afraid of death himself, but he harbored a deep sense of guilt in his heart toward Xiao Yan, who had been subjected to endless humiliation because of him.
Therefore, when he was being taken away, he exhausted his Soul Power to imprint this Cultivation Method, which held boundless potential, onto this boulder, wishing to use it as a form of compensation for Xiao Yan.
"Could... could there really be such a miraculous Cultivation Method?" Xiao Yan said, finding it somewhat hard to believe.
"This should be real," Gu Xun'er said from the side, a trace of a guess forming in her heart.
"Father once said that Xiao Xuan, the past patriarch of the Xiao Clan, possessed three types of Heavenly Flames, and his strength was incomparably terrifying-a cut above the power of both Father and Hun Tiandi. Could this Cultivation Method be the very one Xiao Xuan practiced in the past?
If so, then it is only natural that Xiao Xuan was so formidable. I never expected that the Cultivation Method Xiao Xuan practiced would actually be passed down and hidden within this boulder in the back mountains."
Gu Xun'er thought to herself in secret, and then proceeded to memorize the Cultivation Method inscribed upon the stone.
"Brother Xiao Yan, have you memorized this Cultivation Method?"
Gu Xun'er said to Xiao Yan, who was staring intently at the boulder beside her.
"Mn, I've memorized it."
Xiao Yan nodded.
Upon hearing Xiao Yan's reply, Gu Xun'er gathered Dou Qi onto her palm and struck the boulder. In an instant, the boulder turned into fine powder and drifted away with the wind.
Meanwhile, Xiao Yan was left completely dumbfounded by Gu Xun'er's sudden attack.
"Xun'er, what are you..."
"Brother Xiao Yan, do you know what Heavenly Flames are?"
Xiao Yan shook his head. This was his first time hearing of something called a Heavenly Flame.
Seeing Xiao Yan shake his head, Gu Xun'er revealed a slight smile and said,
"Between this boundless heaven and earth exist certain Heavenly Flames. Perhaps they are wisps of flame carried by a meteorite from the heavens, or perhaps they are molten magma fires from deep within volcanoes that have been scorched for a thousand years..."
"Many people search for a Heavenly Flame their entire lives, yet in the end fail to achieve their wish. Therefore, only an extremely rare few fortunate individuals, through sheer coincidence, manage to refine a tiny wisp of a Heavenly Flame and nurture it into their own personal fire seed. Without exception, people like this are terrifying powerhouses."
Xiao Yan listened, feeling somewhat dazzled and entranced. After a long moment, he licked his lips and said,
"Then this Flame Mantra is..."
"That's right. This Flame Mantra is a Cultivation Method capable of devouring these Heavenly Flames of heaven and earth to evolve. On the Dou Qi Continent, people have compiled the publicly known Heavenly Flames, establishing the 'Heavenly Flame Ranking', which contains a total of twenty-three kinds of Heavenly Flames.
If Brother Xiao Yan wishes to cultivate this Cultivation Method, he will need to seek out many Heavenly Flames. If this Cultivation Method were to leak out, Brother Xiao Yan's process of searching for Heavenly Flames might become rather unsmooth, oh. That's why Xun'er took it upon herself to destroy this stone."
Having finished, Xun'er even playfully stuck out the tip of her tongue.
"Oh, hahaha, I didn't think that far ahead. It's still Xun'er who thinks things through thoroughly. Thank you, Xun'er."
Xiao Yan rubbed the back of his head and burst into a loud laugh.
Xiao Yan had been warned by his father, Xiao Zhan, that Xun'er's background and origins were far from simple, and usually Xun'er would also produce extremely precious cultivation resources that she wanted to give him. Therefore, Xiao Yan was not surprised that Xun'er knew information about Heavenly Flames; instead, he felt extremely grateful to Gu Xun'er for telling him these things, and his feelings for Gu Xun'er deepened by another notch in his heart.
(End of chapter)