Half a month later.
Rumble!
A thunderclap cracked across the dry land.
"Looks like it's going to rain."
Riding his Spirit Steed along the main road, Lu Changsheng glanced at the gloomy sky, thick with dark clouds, and spoke.
"It's getting late, too. There happens to be a temple up ahead. Let's spend the night there."
Li Feiyu looked at the darkening sky and said.
A lonely mountain, a ruined temple, and pouring rain... surely nothing's going to happen?
Lu Changsheng also spotted the abandoned old temple ahead and could not help muttering inwardly.
Still, this weather was hardly suitable for spending the night outdoors.
The two urged their Spirit Steeds toward the old temple.
The temple was badly dilapidated, overgrown with weeds, and full of dust and cobwebs.
Lu Changsheng cast the Cleansing Technique to tidy it up a little, then gathered some firewood and lit a campfire.
Afterward, he took raw meat from his Storage Bag and began feeding the Nine Nether Mastiff.
"This little fellow of yours really can eat."
Li Feiyu watched the Nine Nether Mastiff gulping down the meat and remarked.
"Yeah. I have no idea how its belly holds all that."
Lu Changsheng said.
Though the Nine Nether Mastiff was still a pup, it had a huge appetite, eating five or six jin of raw meat at each meal.
Ordinary raw meat was no problem. He could afford even a hundred jin a day.
But Lu Changsheng felt that if he wanted the Nine Nether Mastiff to grow faster, he would probably have to feed it Demon Beast meat.
That would be expensive.
Even the cheapest Demon Beast meat sold by the Lu Lineage cost one spirit stone for five or six jin.
This made Lu Changsheng feel that raising the Nine Nether Mastiff all the way to the fourth tier would probably cost him a considerable amount of money and resources.
The Nine Nether Mastiff was still a pup and went to sleep as soon as it was full. Lu Changsheng and Li Feiyu also settled down to meditate and rest.
As the night deepened, rain began pouring down outside.
Just then.
Hurried footsteps sounded outside.
Lu Changsheng and Li Feiyu both opened their eyes from meditation.
The ruined temple's doors opened with a creak, and an old man and a young woman entered.
The old man was thin, dressed in a black cloth robe, and carried a gray bundle on his back.
At the sight of Lu Changsheng and Li Feiyu inside the temple, his gaze sharpened slightly. Then he cupped his hands and said, "My granddaughter and I were passing through and hoped to shelter here from the rain. Sorry for disturbing you, young brothers."
"This ruined temple isn't mine. Make yourselves at home."
Lu Changsheng looked at the old man as he spoke, then glanced at the young woman in pink beside him.
She looked sixteen or seventeen.
She wore a long dress of gauzy pink silk. Though not a peerless beauty, she was very pretty, with fair, delicate skin and a sweet face that still carried a little baby fat, giving her a particularly fresh, innocent charm.
The heavy rain had soaked her pink dress, leaving it clinging to her youthful, developing figure, her long legs faintly visible beneath the fabric.
Her black hair clung to her cheeks in slightly disheveled strands, making her look frail and pitiful, yet lending her a hint of youthful allure.
What was strange, however, was that while the young woman was drenched from head to toe, the old man's cloth robe had barely been wet by the downpour.
The old man smiled and cupped his hands again, then led the young woman to sit off to one side.
"Is that old man an Innate Master?"
Lu Changsheng withdrew his gaze and used the Voice Transmission Technique to ask Li Feiyu.
He could tell at a glance that the old man was a martial artist.
Someone who could remain dry in a downpour clearly possessed considerable martial skill, so he guessed the man was an Innate Master.
"That's right. 'Not a feather can settle, not a fly can land.' That's an Innate Master's ability."
Li Feiyu replied through voice transmission as well.
Naturally, he also knew the few beginner spells available to Immortal Cultivators, and he was considerably more practiced with them than Lu Changsheng.
"But that old man and young woman clearly aren't grandfather and granddaughter."
Li Feiyu continued.
"Oh? How can you tell?"
Lu Changsheng asked.
He also felt the pair did not seem like grandfather and granddaughter.
They lacked the affection one would expect between family.
But he did not know why Li Feiyu was so certain, and wanted to hear what this seasoned wanderer had to say.
"Their behavior and bearing don't look like those of grandfather and granddaughter. What grandfather would watch his granddaughter get drenched like that?"
"Besides, the old man is an Innate Master, but his granddaughter shows no sign of martial training. That doesn't quite make sense either."
"Still, you could stretch things and explain those away. The main thing is that the young woman has had her acupoints sealed and can't speak."
"And when they came in, her eyes visibly lit up the instant she saw us. There was hope in them, as though she was asking for help."
Li Feiyu explained everything to Lu Changsheng in detail.
"Impressive. Experience in the martial world really does make a difference."
"In that case, how about playing the hero and rescuing the beauty?"
Lu Changsheng spoke admiringly.
He had not expected Li Feiyu to notice so much in such a short time.
Despite his chain qi third layer cultivation, he had only noticed that the old man was an Innate Master and that the two did not seem like grandfather and granddaughter. He had missed all those details.
"I grew up in the Red Whale Gang and started traveling the martial world at twelve. I've roamed north and south, so I do have an eye for these things."
"As for rescuing the beauty, there's no rush. Let's see how things develop first."
Li Feiyu spoke with a hint of pride in his voice.
While the two conversed through voice transmission, the old man took some dry rations from his bundle and said with easy familiarity, "Young brothers, might I borrow your fire to warm up my rations?"
"My granddaughter's clothes are soaked, too. Without a fire, she could catch a chill and fall ill."
As he spoke, the old man walked toward Lu Changsheng and Li Feiyu.
Seeing him approach, Lu Changsheng immediately narrowed his eyes slightly. Wariness rose in him, and he slipped a hand inside his robe to grasp a stack of talismans.
He clearly remembered Li Feiyu telling him that an Innate Martial Artist was no weaker than a chain qi third layer cultivator.
Once they closed the distance, the Innate Martial Artist would even have a better chance of winning.
They knew nothing about this old man's background, and after what Li Feiyu had just said, there was clearly something wrong with him.
Under these circumstances, Lu Changsheng naturally grew cautious. If the man dared make any suspicious move, he would strike immediately.
"Help yourself!"
At that moment, Li Feiyu spoke.
At the same time, he transmitted to Lu Changsheng, "Leave this to me."
Lu Changsheng did not reply. He kept hold of the talismans and remained on guard.
The old man came up to the campfire and offered his dry rations. "You young brothers haven't eaten yet, have you? Would you like some?"
"Roar!"
Just then, the Nine Nether Mastiff sleeping beside Lu Changsheng suddenly woke and snarled at the old man.
Seeing this, Lu Changsheng calmly soothed the Nine Nether Mastiff, ready to strike at any moment.
"We've already eaten."
Li Feiyu looked at the old man and said with a faint smile.
"Then I'll take a burning stick to start a fire."
As though he had not noticed the Nine Nether Mastiff's snarl, the old man bent down and picked a stick of firewood from the campfire.
Just then, Li Feiyu looked at him with a half-smile and said, "That fire might not be enough, might it? Shall I add a little?"
Before he finished speaking, the seated Li Feiyu's robes billowed, and he abruptly thrust a fierce palm strike at the old man, its powerful force sending wind howling.
Faced with this sudden palm strike, the old man seemed to have been prepared. He reacted swiftly, raising his hand to meet it with a palm strike of his own.
But at that instant, a thumb-sized flame appeared in Li Feiyu's palm.
Bang-!
"Aaaah!!!"
Their palms collided, and the old man immediately let out an agonized scream as his hand caught fire.
Then the flames spread from his arm over his entire body at a speed visible to the naked eye, burning him to ashes.
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