Interception

When Song Yan first entered the sect, he had not taken Xiao He with him, mainly because he knew nothing about cultivation at the time and worried that the sect would not tolerate a demon.

He had never expected immortal sects to actually keep spirit beasts and spirit demons. Only then had he felt reassured.

Naturally, he would take Xiao He along on this trip down the mountain.

Xiao He was a little green snake demon he had met in the mountains while gathering herbs with his grandfather as a child. She had only just awakened her intelligence then, and Song Yan was the first human she had ever seen.

His grandfather had said Xiao He was a demon.

He had also said that not all demons did evil.

Just as there were people steeped in wickedness who committed all manner of crimes, there were also "good demons" with cold faces and warm hearts who did good deeds and accumulated virtue.

Song Yan thought his grandfather was right.

Xiao He was a good demon.

But looking back now, Song Yan wondered how his grandfather had recognized Xiao He as a demon at a glance...

Inside the thatched hut, Xiao He wriggled into the bedding Song Yan had just laid out and hooked the quilt with her tail. Her muffled voice came from beneath it, interrupting his thoughts. "Hurry up and go to sleep. I'm so sleepy."

It was March. According to Xiao He, they should still have been hibernating.

"You sleep first."

"No! It's so cold under here. It won't get warm unless you lie down."

Snakes were afraid of the cold too?

"..."

Despite saying she was sleepy, the little snake kept tossing and turning instead of settling down.

The thought of Yanyan taking her out to play made Xu Youhe too happy to sleep.

If Song Yan could have felt it, her mood would have been like that of a primary school child on the night before their first spring outing.

Unfortunately, he was wholly immersed in cultivating the nameless mnemonic.

This space contained only black and white, much like the two poles of yin and yang, so Song Yan had rather cleverly named it the "Two-Pole Realm."

In the space of a single day, his Divine Sense had naturally not grown strong enough to reach the thirteenth stele, but he had still discovered something different.

As his Divine Sense strengthened, Song Yan seemed able to vaguely make out the first few small characters on the stone stele inside the realm.

"Five..."

"Star..."

"Pulse..."

"Five-Star Pulse Seizing..."

What an unusual name.

Song Yan pondered it, but even after searching his memory carefully, he could not recall ever hearing it anywhere.

Still only twelve steles. His Divine Sense could not sustain him any longer, and he let the thirteenth stele blast him out of the Two-Pole Realm.

"Whew..."

He let out a long breath.

This time, the splitting headache did not come. He merely felt a little mentally fatigued.

Could my Divine Sense have improved again?

Joy stirred in Song Yan's heart.

His spiritual power cultivation could be aided by miraculous pills, Spirit Gathering Formations, and the like, but there were simply no other shortcuts to strengthening Divine Sense.

Or rather, this fragment of Five-Star Pulse Seizing was already the shortcut of shortcuts.

Song Yan was someone who knew contentment.

Seen that way, even if this fragment for training Divine Sense was all the Two-Pole Realm contained, he was already fortunate enough.

Powerful Divine Sense could offer him many advantages. If he truly had no hope of pursuing the Great Dao in the future...

Pill refining, artifact forging, formations, talismans...

At least he would not "starve to death" in the cultivation world.

"Hmm?"

With a thought, Song Yan took a pale purple spirit talisman from his spatial pouch.

Purple light stirred faintly, and three points of light appeared before him.

Song Yan's brows drew together slightly.

"I haven't even gone looking for you, and you've delivered yourselves to my door..."

This purple talisman did not belong to him.

It was a tracking talisman issued by the sect, primarily to ensure that these cultivators truly left Shiliang Territory.

Once the mission was complete, he would still have to return it. The sect would collect it and have the steward elder responsible keep it for several months before the traces on it were erased together.

"Xiao He, stop sleeping. Come out with me."

"Mm... hmm?"

The little snake's burst of excitement had just passed, and she was drifting groggily toward sleep when Song Yan shook her awake.

She poked her head out of the bedding and flicked her tongue, sounding rather displeased. "Where are we going in the middle of the night...?"

"To beat up bad people."

"Okay!"

The little snake slipped into his sleeve. Song Yan rose and left the thatched hut.

Atop Little Solitary Mountain, by the waterfall cliff.

The mountain wind swept toward him, carrying the damp scent of grass and trees.

Song Yan sat cross-legged, a blue-gold longsword hovering horizontally above his knees as his fingertips rubbed the cold purple spirit talisman inside his sleeve.

The three points of light on the purple talisman flickered like fireflies in the pitch-black night.

"About thirty zhang..."

For cultivators, that was practically within arm's reach.

His fingertips brushed lightly across the blade, and Song Yan stood.

"Lu Xiaowei's protective jade talisman has shattered. The other two are only at the first level of Qi Refining."

"Xiao He, what realm are you at now?"

"I don't know..."

A faint, drowsy voice came from his sleeve. "I've never fought a human cultivator before."

Song Yan did not know much about demons either.

But logically, Xiao He could already take human form. Dealing with two first-level Qi Refining cultivators should not be a problem, should it?

He flicked a finger to extinguish the talisman fire, and the green snake wound her way out of his cuff.

"Yanyan, you're already at the fifth level of Qi Refining. What's there to be afraid of? You could beat them to death all by yourself."

Song Yan shook his head.

"Lions and elephants use their full strength even against a rabbit. In a struggle between cultivators, one careless move means death and the end of your Dao."

"Besides..."

"I've never sensed anything like the presence of those three on anyone else."

"Their spiritual power cultivation is low, but there's a trace of Evil Qi about them..."

"During the day, one of them had a bronze bell hanging at his waist. When I approached Lu Xiaowei, I smelled corpse oil."

He had studied medicine with his grandfather since childhood. Having lived two lives, he had been precocious from an early age and displayed astonishing medical talent by eleven or twelve.

Moreover, he was close to Sheng Nian and Constable Ling and often helped the yamen's coroner examine bodies. He could not have been more familiar with that smell.

"..."

"I once read in the sect's books..."

"For Law Artifacts such as bronze bells, the compatible cultivation methods and Law Techniques are generally things like illusions, corpse driving, spirit summoning, and soul disruption..."

"Senior Brother Zhao said that around the time they arrived, three people from Yunding Village disappeared on their way back to the village..."

Song Yan's expression was icy.

"Slinking around, abducting a woman, and even injuring Constable Ling. If those three are involved in the villagers' disappearance..."

His eyes narrowed, revealing a dangerous air.

"Then let's kill them all right here today."

Song Yan was a kindhearted person, but that did not mean he was mild.

Quite the opposite.

When his grandfather was alive, he had said that Song Yan hated evil as a mortal enemy and acted with solitary courage. Unless he learned some arts to cultivate his character and temper his disposition, he feared Song Yan would be like something too rigid, easily broken.

Before he joined the sect, a martial artist steeped in wickedness had fled to Shiliang.

On the strength of a single rumor in the martial world concerning an immortal sect, that man had slaughtered all one hundred and twenty-four members of the Qingyuan Lin Clan in a single night.

And that man had died at the hands of two youths: Song Yan himself and Sheng Nian.

His Divine Sense spread, revealing every rustle of grass and stir of wind in the waterfall valley with perfect clarity.

Amid the roar of the waterfall, curses gradually drew closer.

"Senior Brother, if that Song fellow is already prepared, what should..."

"However capable he is, he's at the middle stage of Qi Refining at most. His spiritual power isn't enough to wield a Law Artifact for attacks over much distance, and his Divine Sense is no different from ours."

"During the day, we were only worried about beating the grass and startling the snake. Now the moon is dark and the wind is high. We'll abduct that constable named Sheng and escape, that's all. With the treasure Master bestowed on us, what have we to fear from him?"

Jingle...

The cultivator with the bell hanging at his waist suddenly stopped, looking puzzled.

"Senior Brother, why is the Ghost Bell ringing...?"

Bang!

Before his words had faded, vines burst from the earth beneath his feet, striking like venomous snakes and instantly coiling around his ankles.