Fang Ling flew with Bai Xingyou for nearly an hour before they arrived at the Lost Ancient Mine.
It was a towering mountain, actually quite a distance from Dragon City.
The mountain had been almost entirely hollowed out, riddled with mining tunnels that stretched in every direction.
Whenever the wind blew through, the Lost Ancient Mine let out strange, droning roars like a giant beast.
"That is the ancient mine site." Bai Xingyou stopped and looked toward the Lost Ancient Mine.
"My strength is meager, so I won't accompany you inside, Young Master Fang. I would only become a burden."
Fang Ling nodded. "Thank you for showing me the way, Elder Bai!"
"It's late. You should return to your residence and rest! There's no need to wait here."
Bai Xingyou murmured his assent and bowed farewell. "Take care, Young Master Fang. Above all, please be careful!"
The two parted, and Fang Ling strode toward the abandoned ancient mine.
Along the way, he saw quite a few people camped around the mountain's outskirts.
Some had come specifically to hunt for treasures, while others were travelers visiting the ancient site. It was livelier than he had imagined.
"Young master, are you planning to enter the Lost Ancient Mine?"
"I have something good here. You should need it."
"Primordial Unity Pills! Taking one will increase your resistance to pressure and let you travel farther into the mining tunnels."
Suddenly, a girl with a heavily freckled face darted out from the roadside, walking alongside Fang Ling as she tried to sell him her pills.
"Everyone else charges five hundred spirit stones apiece. I'm not as greedy as they are. I only need enough to put food on the table, so mine cost just half that!"
"Won't you consider buying one, young master?"
Fang Ling shook his head lightly, finding her incessant chatter beside him terribly grating.
Seeing that Fang Ling had no intention of buying, the freckled girl stopped following him and stood there with a helpless sigh.
Suddenly, someone came flying at her with a kick, sending her sprawling.
Several others immediately surrounded her and began punching and kicking her.
"You little bastard! You really aren't afraid of dying!"
"We already warned you! This is our territory, and you're not allowed to steal our business. Don't you understand?"
"And selling Primordial Unity Pills so cheaply? You're slapping me in the face!"
A burly man with thick chest hair and an axe in his hand sneered at the freckled girl as his underlings savagely beat her.
"Brother Yang, please have mercy. Just let me sell here for a few days."
"Once I've sold all the pills I have, I'll stop."
The freckled girl covered her head with both hands and pleaded.
"So you value money more than your life?" The hairy-chested man chuckled. "Then I'll grant your wish!"
He tightened his grip on his axe and advanced menacingly.
His underlings hurried out of his way.
"You little bastard, I heard your father found a treasure around here while he was still alive."
"If you obediently hand it over, I can spare you and even let you keep selling things here."
"Otherwise, your Master Yang will chop your head off right now!" the hairy-chested man threatened.
The freckled girl fell silent.
"Boss, do you think she has it on her? How about we strip her?" A lackey with a pointed mouth and monkey-like cheeks grinned wickedly behind the hairy-chested man.
"She must keep something that important on her. Big Head has a point!" someone immediately chimed in.
The hairy-chested man rolled his neck as he looked at the freckled girl. "This little bastard's face is nothing special, but her figure looks pretty good."
"It's dark anyway, so we won't be able to see her face clearly. Stripping her and letting our brothers have some fun wouldn't be bad!"
"Get her! Make it quick!"
"As you command!" The hairy-chested man's underlings closed in lecherously, wicked grins on their faces.
The freckled girl curled up on the ground, her eyes blank with despair...
Just then, the ring of a sword leaving its sheath rang out.
"You bullies! All of you ganging up on one little girl!"
A white-clad woman emerged from the darkness and charged at the hairy-chested man and his men, sword in hand.
"Where did this little bitch come from, sticking her nose into our business?"
"Take her down first!" the hairy-chested man snorted.
The men turned and charged at her, but after a few soft sword cries, every one of them fell beneath her blade.
The hairy-chested man's eyes widened in terror, and he hastily turned to flee.
But he had barely taken a few steps before a flying sword pierced his chest from behind, and he collapsed to the ground.
"Thank you for saving me!" the freckled girl said, her eyes red.
The White-Clad Woman helped her up and comforted her for a while, then suddenly raised her head to look at Fang Ling up ahead.
As Fang Ling walked on, the White-Clad Woman caught up to him.
She looked at Fang Ling with displeasure. "You really are cold-blooded and heartless!"
"That girl was nearly violated just now, and you turned a blind eye!"
Fang Ling ignored her and continued walking.
Seeing this, the White-Clad Woman stamped her foot in anger. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"
"What family are you from? Which sect or school?"
"Why aren't you speaking? Are you so ashamed that you can't bring yourself to open your mouth?"
Fang Ling slowly turned to look at her and said coldly, "Keep making that racket, and I'll slap you to death!"
The White-Clad Woman's eyes widened, and she was about to explode.
But an old woman suddenly appeared beside her and pulled her away.
"Granny, what are you doing?" the White-Clad Woman demanded indignantly as she was dragged off.
"Not only is that fellow cold-blooded and heartless, he's also so overbearing! I have to teach him a lesson today!"
The old woman looked toward Fang Ling and said gravely, "Young miss, there may be more to this man than meets the eye. It would be best not to stir up trouble."
"I've encountered countless people in my lifetime, and I rarely misjudge anyone."
"Besides, just now... even if you hadn't intervened, that girl would have been fine."
"Impossible! That fellow was strolling along without a care, as though nothing was happening. He would never have helped her!" the White-Clad Woman said.
"Your cultivation is still lacking, young miss, so you couldn't sense it. For a brief instant, there was a faint fluctuation of spiritual energy from him," the old woman explained.
"But because you intervened, it vanished in a flash."
"So I wrongly blamed him?" The White-Clad Woman pursed her lips.
"But that fellow was still terribly rude. I only said a few words to him, and he threatened to slap me to death."
"Wait! My cultivation is still lacking?"
"Only compared to yours, Granny. I'm already in the early Heavenly Balance Realm!"
"In this tiny Southern Sun Kingdom, I count as a first-rate expert. How could I fail to sense his spiritual energy fluctuations?"
"From what you're saying, he must at least be in the late Heavenly Balance Realm."
"He looks a few years younger than me. There's no way a genius like that could exist in a speck of land like the Southern Sun Kingdom."
The old woman smiled. "Young miss! Someone in the Southern Sun Kingdom isn't necessarily from the Southern Sun Kingdom."
"You aren't from the Southern Sun Kingdom, so why must he be?"
The White-Clad Woman found that reasonable. "True. But if what you say is right, he's far stronger than I am."
"So young, yet stronger than me... could he be an heir of one of those great clans?"
"Or a successor of one of those undying great sects?"
"I don't know who he is... Also, if he has a guardian accompanying him, that guardian must be stronger than me, because I can't sense them at all," the old woman said.
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