Fang Yi looked at Ying Xuanzi, whose body had gone stiff, then at Ying Huanhuan as she pounced toward him. He frowned slightly. "You're joining in this nonsense too?"
Ying Huanhuan's condition made it obvious that she had cultivated the Second Origin Art.
"I just wanted to try it. Who knew what my sister told me about absorbing the slaughterous power of a battlefield was completely wrong? I absorbed nearly ten times as much as she did, at least!"
"Ten times..."
Fang Yi frowned slightly.
That shouldn't have been possible. He had read the Second Origin Art too.
It did vary from person to person, but the difference couldn't possibly be as great as tenfold.
"Open your mouth!"
Fang Yi held out a finger and gently pressed with his Origin Energy.
A drop of brilliant blood seeped from his fingertip and hovered above the pad of his finger, giving off a sacred yet gentle presence.
"Open your mouth."
Ying Huanhuan obediently parted her red lips. Fang Yi flicked his finger, and the drop of golden blood fell into her mouth.
The instant the blood slid down her throat, Ying Huanhuan felt a warm current surge straight from her throat into her mind.
The sounds of battlefield slaughter that had been churning incessantly in her head quieted considerably at once.
But the maddening roars didn't vanish entirely. They merely grew fainter, still echoing deep in her consciousness.
Ying Huanhuan frowned. This wasn't nearly enough.
She looked up at Fang Yi's finger, which he hadn't yet withdrawn. A trace of golden moisture still clung to it.
Without thinking much of it, she grabbed Fang Yi's wrist, opened her mouth, and bit down on the finger.
Fang Yi froze.
Ying Huanhuan's teeth closed around his knuckle, but her teeth were one thing.
What made him stiffen even more was that, beyond the sensation of her biting his finger, there was something warm and soft, moist and trembling slightly.
It was pressed against the pad of his finger.
That softness brushed gently over the pad of his finger, eagerly sucking at it as though to draw out every last trace of the drop of blood.
Fang Yi's mind buzzed. He stood rooted to the spot, his finger frozen in midair.
The soft sensation shot up from his fingertip, coursed along his meridians, and struck the heart in his chest that had suddenly begun to race.
He even forgot to blink.
This girl...
At first, Ying Huanhuan had been single-mindedly intent on sucking up the remaining trace of blood Qi. But after she bit down, the moment her teeth pressed on his finger, the tip of her tongue touched its pad.
The sensation made her pause too, and only then did she realize what she was doing.
Her teeth were still closed around Fang Yi's finger, her lips still wrapped around it. She raised her eyes and met Fang Yi's gaze as he looked down at her.
Those eyes, which always held a calm smile, were staring straight at her.
Ying Huanhuan's face exploded red.
She abruptly released his finger and jumped back a step, clapping both hands over her mouth. Her beautiful eyes were wide and round, full of embarrassment, anger, and panic.
"Y-you... what are you doing?!"
Fang Yi was still standing with his finger outstretched. It took him quite a while to come back to his senses.
He looked down at the trace of moisture left on his finger, then up at Ying Huanhuan, whose face was so red it looked ready to drip blood.
His lips twitched. He wanted to say something, but found his throat a little dry.
"What do you mean, what am I doing?"
Fang Yi finally found his voice and pulled his finger back.
He rubbed its pad unconsciously, the soft sensation seemingly still clinging to it.
He took a deep breath and forcibly put on his usual calm expression. "Are you a dog or something?!"
"You're the dog!"
Ying Huanhuan's ears were scarlet, and even her neck had turned pink.
She kept both hands over her mouth, her voice muffled, but glared fiercely at Fang Yi.
"Ahem, ahem~"
Ying Xuanzi, who had been watching from the side for quite some time, finally couldn't help coughing twice to remind the two of them that he was still there.
For the first time, he felt that his decision to have Fang Yi move out back then had been the right one, even though Ying Huanhuan and Ying Xiaoxiao had glared at him for a long time over it.
They were already like this with him right there.
If he hadn't been there, Ying Xuanzi didn't even dare imagine what might have happened.
"Dad, what are you doing here?"
Ying Huanhuan fanned her face and looked at Ying Xuanzi, her tone genuinely surprised.
Ying Xuanzi was speechless and couldn't be bothered to talk to her.
"Get inside and refine it. I'm annoyed just looking at you!"
"Oh!"
Ying Huanhuan had also realized that what she had just done was a little over the line, so she obediently walked into the bamboo hut.
"You can tell me now."
Ying Xuanzi suppressed his emotions. The important matter came first.
Fang Yi thought it over. It was indeed time to let Ying Xuanzi know what was being suppressed beneath the Great Desolation Tablet.
He rattled off a whole lot.
Things like the Yimo King beneath the Great Desolation Tablet, the Great Desolation Tablet's origins, and the deal Senior Brother Zhou Tong had made with it back then...
"Also, the Great Desolation Tablet said Senior Brother Zhou Tong was probably still alive, because everyone who comprehended the Great Desolation Scripture bore its presence."
At those words, Ying Xuanzi, who had still been shocked by the Yimo King's existence and had even begun wondering whether to relocate the sect, heard this earth-shattering news.
"What?"
"The Great Desolation Tablet said Senior Brother Zhou Tong was probably still alive," Fang Yi repeated. "I only just found out myself."
In truth, the Great Desolation Tablet had said no such thing. But even if Ying Xuanzi went to ask, the Tablet Spirit would back Fang Yi up.
Fang Yi had been looking for a chance to bring this up all this time. After all, if they waited until the great war between heaven and earth to bring Zhou Tong out,
they would still have to nourish his remnant soul in the end. That would take too long, so he wanted to see if there was a way to rescue Senior Brother Zhou Tong now.
"He's not dead... he really isn't dead... but I can't find him," Ying Xuanzi murmured. Back then, he had felt that Zhou Tong wasn't dead, which was why he had gone to the Yuan Sect himself.
But he hadn't detected the slightest trace of Zhou Tong's presence.
Otherwise, he would have brought Zhou Tong back to the Dao Sect even at the cost of his life. In the end, he could only retreat.
He couldn't go to war with the Yuan Sect outright for a dead man.
"But your senior brother had the Space Ancestral Talisman. If he wasn't dead, how could he possibly..."
"If what the Great Desolation Tablet said is true, there's a good chance something is wrong with the Yuan Sect."
"Suppressing the power of an Ancestral Talisman is difficult to accomplish completely, even for someone at the Samsara Stage. Since they managed it, the most likely possibility is..."
"Yimo."
Fang Yi didn't have time to drag things out until Lin Dong grew stronger. The Dao Sect had to act against the Yuan Sect as soon as possible.
If he didn't change anything, he might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes.
"You're saying the Yuan Sect is colluding with the Yimo? The Yimo are enemies of the entire continent. That's no small accusation."
Ying Xuanzi frowned. This couldn't come out of thin air, but since Fang Yi had said it, he surely had his reasons.
"I'll send people to investigate immediately. The Yuan Sect has made the Yuan Region as impenetrable as an iron barrel. It'll take time to uncover anything."
Fang Yi knew Ying Xuanzi wouldn't become a radical so quickly. Getting him to take action was good enough; his previous strategy had been to defend.
A prolonged defense was bound to fail.
Now the means to break the deadlock had been laid. All it would take was the slightest trace to nail the Yuan Sect down.
Fang Yi was about to suggest starting with places in the Yuan Region where Yimo corpses were likely to be found and checking how many there were.
And just then,
a ring of ice-blue light suddenly appeared.
Crack! Crack!
The ice-blue ring spread, and the ground around the bamboo hut froze almost instantly. The ice continued to spread.
Ying Xuanzi's expression changed. A surge of Origin Energy emerged from his palm, forcibly containing the freezing power around the bamboo hut.
"Go in and see what's happening!"
Fang Yi frowned. How had Ying Huanhuan's Reincarnation Seal been triggered?
That shouldn't have happened. At the very least, she would have had to reach nine yuan nirvana and give birth to a Yuan Spirit before the Reincarnation Seal could possibly be disturbed.
"Wait..."
With that, Fang Yi ignored Ying Xuanzi's attempt to stop him and hurried into the bamboo hut.