Poisoning Fang Qi

"You Dead Fatty, you had some yourself, yet you still stole mine."

"There wasn't a name written on it... whoever bit it first got it, ah... my hand..."

"Haha, you said it yourself. It's mine now. Don't you always say we need taste and should know how to enjoy life? Just eat a little. Wait until the feast arrives before you eat more."

"Who thinks that much when they're hungry? You only talk about taste after your belly is full. Delicious. It's been so long since I've eaten this heartily."

The surrounding servants stared dumbfounded. When the Family Head and Gao Ren had come out shouting that they were hungry, they had initially wanted to immediately prepare a grand feast. Only after getting cursed out did they understand what was going on, hurriedly bringing over whatever pastries and food they had ready, even emptying out the kitchen.

Then they witnessed an astonishing sight. The Family Head and this fatty looked like refugees who had just fled a famine, sweeping through the food like a gale scattering clouds as they fought over every bite. Food that should have been enough for six or seven ordinary people vanished before their very eyes.

The fatty leaned back in his chair and patted his belly. "That felt good. Food really tastes best after you've gone hungry."

"No problem. I can fulfill that wish of yours. From now on, you get one meal every three days." Ren Jie's cultivation of the Jade Emperor Art Body Refining Chapter consumed even more energy. If not for some medicinal power accumulated in his body from before, he likely would not have lasted until now.

"Er... actually, every meal tastes this good to me." Gao Ren changed his tune faster than anyone, but then he suddenly seemed to remember something and looked at Ren Jie. "Meal Ticket Boss, I spent three days and two nights refining that medicine you suddenly changed. What were you doing? How come you hadn't eaten either?"

Gao Ren was like this only because he forgot everything once he immersed himself in refining medicine, but he could not understand what could have left Ren Jie, who previously could not endure even the slightest hardship, starving like this.

"As the Family Head of the Ren Family, one of Jade Capital City's Five Great Families, I naturally had to lead by example and cultivate diligently, so absorbed that I forgot food and sleep," Ren Jie said solemnly.

Diligently cultivating, even forgetting food and sleep? Gao Ren nearly burst out laughing when he heard that. It would have been believable coming from anyone else, but when Ren Jie said it, it was simply a joke.

"If you want to laugh, then laugh. Look at you, your face is about to cramp from holding it in. By the way, how did the medicine turn out?" Seeing Gao Ren struggling to suppress his laughter, Ren Jie found it amusing. Sometimes, when there was no need to lie, he simply did not. He did not even need to think to know that nobody would believe him even if he said it; they would take it entirely as a joke. Since that was the case, why bother lying?

However, Ren Jie did not want to dwell on it. Seeing the fatty trying to laugh while forcibly holding it back, he changed the subject to the medicine.

"Ha... heh... hehe... no, no..." Gao Ren waved his hands and shook his head hard, but he still could not hide his laughter. Only when he heard Ren Jie ask about the medicine did he barely manage to control himself.

"With me handling it, there was naturally no problem. Not only did I refine this Hundred Illusions Poison, but breaking through the hundred ever-changing variations of Hundred Illusions Poison has also firmly brought me into the ranks of Top Tier Miraculous Apothecaries. From now on, I can refine all kinds of Top Tier Potions." The moment this came up, the fatty Gao Ren became incomparably excited and animated. He had not merely refined the medicine—his own alchemy had improved by leaps and bounds as well.

A Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary. If Gao Ren revealed that identity, he would become a star throughout Jade Emperor Academy. Once he became a Spirit Alchemist, his status would even surpass that of an ordinary Divine Power Realm cultivator. Even Top Tier Miraculous Apothecaries were highly valued by the major Lineages, let alone someone of Gao Ren's age who was still in the academy.

Yet Gao Ren had never allowed anyone to know he was a Miraculous Apothecary. In everyone else's eyes, he was merely a hooligan Ren Jie had picked up from a gambling den, one of the many followers who knew how to flatter Ren Jie and was favored by him.

A few years ago, there had been a third-year Jade Emperor Academy student who reached the level of Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary before graduation. It was said that he had been directly taken away by an Alchemy Sect, making everyone in Jade Emperor Academy proud for quite some time. Yet that person had been far older than Gao Ren.

"Hundred Illusions. That's a good name. Fine, get ready. We'll make our move soon." If it had been anyone else, even within a Lineage, having a younger generation member become a Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary would have been major news. But Ren Jie had experienced too many miraculous things, and his current realm and horizons were both high. He did not care much about it. Gao Ren was a little excited, but he did not take becoming a Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary too seriously either, much less put on airs before Ren Jie. The fact that he had reached this level half a year ahead of expectations was entirely because of Ren Jie, and he had never considered the title of Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary to be anything remarkable.

If others learned of their reactions, they would surely be so enraged that they would stomp their feet. Even the heads of the great Lineages would not be so indifferent toward someone who had broken through to Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary at such a young age.

"What is there to prepare? I've long found that Fang Qi unpleasant to look at. Let's go now." The instant he heard this, the fatty sprang to his feet, utterly enthusiastic and itching to make a move.

"Don't rush." Ren Jie glanced outside. It had been dark when they returned three days ago, and now it was nearly dark again. "Haven't you heard that night is for murder? We'll talk after night falls."

No way. Gao Ren increasingly felt that Ren Jie had become completely different after getting beaten up a few days ago.

He had once been utterly obsessed with Fang Qi. Of course, the old Ren Jie had been obsessed with every beautiful woman and would not even allow Gao Ren to say a single bad word about them. Now, he completely ignored her and seemed to hate that woman even more than Gao Ren did.

Then there was the matter of preparing the medicine, which still left Gao Ren deeply puzzled. A potion that could help him break through to Top Tier Miraculous Apothecary was worth not much less than an ordinary Middle Grade Spirit Pill.

And that line about a night of murder in the dark had shocked Gao Ren even more. It made Ren Jie sound as though he was an expert at killing people. The sky had already been on the verge of dark, caught between light and darkness, so before long, as the fatty Gao Ren watched in astonishment, night gradually descended.

Without giving the fatty another chance to ask questions, Ren Jie called him along and headed toward Fang Qi's residence.

Although Jade Emperor Academy was an academy for Hedonistic Young Masters, not everyone could live as freely and casually as Ren Jie and the others. Passing through certain areas at this time, they could still see people diligently cultivating and studying, as well as those who had just eaten and were strolling through the academy. Direct descendants of the Five Great Families like Ren Jie and Fang Qi enjoyed an exceptionally high degree of freedom within Jade Emperor Academy.

In other people's eyes, Fang Qi and several other descendants of the Five Great Families were still fairly normal. They attended regular academy classes, and most of their Lineages even had special private training plans for them. Ren Jie, however, was seen by everyone as a thoroughbred Hedonistic Young Master, a complete waste. If such a useless Hedonistic Young Master had not been blessed with outrageously good fortune, even being a direct descendant of one of the Five Great Families would not save him from a miserable fate. Yet he happened to be the Family Head of the Ren Family. Even if everyone considered him only a nominal Family Head, there were still many things they had to be wary of.

Things were somewhat better among the students, but at the academy level, no one truly wanted to provoke him. Thus, Ren Jie had become the freest person in Jade Emperor Academy's history. Since arriving at the academy, he had never seriously attended more than a few classes.

Ren Jie realized that aside from the residences of certain beauties, he did not even know where the rest of the academy was. It seemed he needed to find time to visit Jade Emperor Academy's library. Fortunately, the original memories remained incomparably clear regarding Fang Qi's residence.

Very soon, the two arrived by the lakeside where Fang Qi lived. Night had fallen, and they watched Fang Qi's residence from afar.

"Food and drinking water are the most direct methods. Physical contact is far less effective, but we have to make sure of it first. Otherwise, it will be troublesome if other people are affected. If she doesn't have anything to save her life on her, it can kill her quickly enough. Although I've already prepared an antidote, if it comes to that, not only will we expose ourselves, all our previous efforts will have gone to waste. What a pity there isn't enough time. Otherwise, it would have been ideal to research this Hundred Illusions Poison until it became colorless and tasteless."

"Why make it so troublesome? Just smear the poison on a needle and let it enter her bloodstream." Ren Jie was also watching Fang Qi's residence. From a distant glance, others might see nothing strange about the trees, but Ren Jie had already discovered something amiss.

Gao Ren shook his head sharply upon hearing this. "Meal Ticket Boss, you make it sound easy. Not to mention that there are guards around where she lives, Fang Qi alone could easily take both of us down. Before we got anywhere close, we'd be beaten into pig heads."

"Why do we need to get close to her? Here's the plan: you go set fire to the house beside hers, and I'll find a way to force her into the woods behind it. Then she'll deliver herself right to our doorstep." Ren Jie pointed at the house beside Fang Qi's residence and told the fatty to hurry and start the fire.

Set a fire? What use was forcing her into the woods?

But before Gao Ren could ask, Ren Jie had already used the cover of night to dash swiftly toward the forest behind Fang Qi's courtyard.

Why was his Meal Ticket Boss becoming stranger and stranger, always doing things nobody could understand? They had clearly come to poison Fang Qi, so why were they setting a fire now? Forget it. He would cooperate first and see what happened. If it did not work, he could think of something himself.

"Death, death, life..." Ren Jie had already entered the forest behind Fang Qi's residence. He had spotted the problem with this forest from a distance: it was an inactive formation. Once something happened, several points could immediately be altered to activate the formation here.

This also revealed Fang Qi's character—meticulous in her thoughts and cautious in her actions. She had left herself a backup plan even within the academy, proving that she trusted no one.

Just as he could see through the medicines Gao Ren prepared at a glance, Ren Jie likewise saw through the changes of this formation with one look. At the very least, trapping anyone below the sixth layer of the True Qi Realm would be no problem. Even against someone at the eighth or ninth layer of the True Qi Realm, it could hold them back for a while. After making a round inside, Ren Jie found the formation's sole gate of life. He then took out an ordinary steel needle, dipped it into the Hundred Illusions Poison refined by the fatty, and planted it upside down in the ground.

This was a route she had to pass through, and judging from the formation, she would definitely step here to leave. But to be safe, Ren Jie placed another poisoned needle as well.

"Not good, there's a fire! There's a fire! Put it out, quickly..." At that moment, Fang Qi's residence had already caught fire.

Seeing the blaze over there, Ren Jie quickly left the forest and approached the main entrance of Fang Qi's residence. With a movement of his divine sense, he saw Fang Qi emerge from inside from a distance.

"What's going on? How could there be a fire?" The moment Fang Qi came out, her brows furrowed tightly. The fire had started far too inexplicably.

"Hmph, hmph... how could there be a fire?" At that moment, a cold snort rang out in Fang Qi's mind. "Haven't you heard that night is for murder and windy weather for arson? Tonight, I came to kill you, Young Miss Fang—to kill and set fires. Prepare to die..."

"Buzz..." Fang Qi felt her mind hum. Such powerful divine sense—it was at least from someone at the eighth layer of the True Qi Realm. Someone had actually come to kill her.

And now that the fire had been set, this could not possibly be a joke. Anyone who dared burn her residence had already made their intentions clear.

At that moment, Fang Qi had no time to consider anything else. The guards by her side in the academy were merely ordinary guards who watched the gate, while she had no ability whatsoever to resist a True Qi Realm cultivator. In almost an instant, she leapt into the air, vaulted over the wall, and rushed into the forest behind her.

Bang! Bang! The forest was directly behind her, so she did not even need to look. The moment she entered the trees, she waved both hands and sent the two wooden stakes on either side flying.

The moment Fang Qi knocked those two stakes away, the ordinary-looking forest immediately changed. The scenery within became impossible to see clearly, turning hazy, while Fang Qi swiftly disappeared into it.

"Trying to run? What is this? You think this lousy formation can stop me?" Watching Fang Qi flee in panic, and recalling how she had framed him in the memories, along with all the sinister and vicious things she had done, Ren Jie was practically unable to keep himself from laughing aloud.

But an act had to be carried through to the end. Although the formation had been activated, Ren Jie's realm was what it was. He could easily see through a formation of this level, and his powerful divine sense still carried his voice into Fang Qi's mind.

Someone had set fire to her home. A person above the eighth layer of the True Qi Realm was hunting her down, and they even understood formations. Quick, run...

That was the only thought in Fang Qi's mind at the moment. She used the formation to delay them while taking out a family communication token, contacting the Lineage's experts and urging them to come as quickly as possible...

"Ah!" Just as Fang Qi followed the formation's layout and quickly entered the gate of life to escape, she suddenly felt a slight pain beneath her foot. Her body abruptly halted. Dizziness—why was this happening? She had been plotted against, ambushed. She had actually been... poisoned... poisoned... What poison was so powerful...

Fang Qi had initially wanted to circulate the qi within her body to resist it, but then she realized that her consciousness was already beginning to blur. She immediately understood that something was wrong. At once, she crushed the emergency communication spirit jade from her Lineage and, trembling, took out a Life-Preserving Spirit Pill and stuffed it into her mouth.

Thud! Her body swayed back and forth several times before she finally could no longer hold herself up and collapsed.