Inquiring with a mouthful of melon seeds, Chu Weiyang asked, "Who should I ask if you ask me?"
Facing such words, Steward Ma leaned against the basket, grinned, as if about to burst out cursing, then chuckled, and finally twisted his mouth into a complex and ferocious expression.
"Ask me, and who should I ask?" Steward Ma said, turning his head towards the depths of the lush forest of Lingqiu Mountain.
The majestic aura emanating from the dense forest of trees, after a brief display to all directions, suddenly dissipated like thunder from the nine heavens, following the bright light and flames, along with the fierce winds and sudden rain, disappearing in an instant.
Perhaps too sharp, at this moment, even the continuous spring breeze in the surroundings abruptly ceased.
The eerie and unsettling silence enveloped the surroundings.
At that moment, Steward Ma's expression changed again, now a mix of anxiety and fear.
"Let's go! Things are really getting chaotic now! If it's truly a great cultivator in front of us, in the face of majestic power, all schemes, struggles, and unwillingness are futile...
Hurry, let's go, let's escape!
Perhaps... there might still be a glimmer of hope for you and me to survive..."
By this point, Steward Ma's voice was trembling slightly.
In the past, when his cultivation was stagnant in the Demon-Sealing Cave, he had never felt like this.
When half of his body was crushed by a giant rock during a mountain collapse, he had never felt like this.
Traveling with Chu Weiyang, ignorant of life and death, he had never felt like this.
But now, even before the legendary Golden Core cultivator appeared, Steward Ma was already in despair.
Meanwhile, Chu Weiyang also sensed a certain severity and urgency.
He should have immediately stood up, he should have reacted right away!
But in that moment, Chu Weiyang seemed stunned, sitting there absentmindedly.
"To escape with our lives... where exactly is the safe haven to be considered as such?"
No one could answer Chu Weiyang.
On the side, Steward Ma propped himself up, awkwardly climbed into the basket.
Putting away the scripture in his hand, Chu Weiyang gently slapped his own cheeks with both hands.
Finally, in the next moment, he seemed to regain his composure, no longer speaking, as if the silence and numbness from the Demon-Sealing Cave had returned to him in an instant.
Chu Weiyang leaped off the giant rock, then shouldered the basket, held a sword in one hand, slightly lowered his head, and headed towards the direction of the rising sun in the east.
Yet, inexplicably, as his feet stepped on the muddy ground, Chu Weiyang still sighed.
From the Demon-Sealing Cave to Lingqiu Mountain, from the vast mountains to the dense forest of trees, he seemed to have traveled a long way, yet it felt like he was always trapped in a certain cage.
Only when he occasionally looked down at his feet did he realize he was just treading in place.
A sense of melancholy struck Chu Weiyang's heart in an instant, as if an invisible hand had grabbed hold of the pain and hunger that had always haunted him, ready to extract anger from within.
Almost instinctively, Chu Weiyang tightly gripped the hilt of his sword.
He seemed to be filled with boundless madness ready to erupt with the flames of anger!
And just as this surge of emotion reached its peak, suddenly, Chu Weiyang's steps halted.
Behind him, the vast lush forest of trees.
Farther away, beyond the sparse woods, lay the boundless grasslands of the southwest.
And in between, next to a tree, a young man holding a compass in one hand and leaning against a tree trunk, was panting heavily with a pale face.
Meeting each other by chance, the man glanced at Chu Weiyang, then lowered his head to look at the compass in his hand.
"My junior brother..."
Muttering to himself, the young man's brow suddenly lit up, then he looked up in surprise at Chu Weiyang.
"You are the fugitive from the Demon-Sealing Cave? Now that I see it, my junior brother's life has also fallen into your hands... Ha! Killing a disciple of my Pavilion Chang Mountain, now it's time for you to pay the price, kid, hand over the spiritual object, and I'll let you leave with a complete corpse!"
Chunyu Huai!
Before Chu Weiyang could process half of the man's words, he had already realized.
The young man in front of him was peculiar, with gestures and voice that seemed effeminate, calling him a junior brother, then mentioning Yan Jianming...
As he pondered, when Chunyu Huai's words fell, Chu Weiyang was at a loss.
Almost instinctively, Chu Weiyang responded, "Spiritual object? What spiritual object?"
The sparse forest fell into complete silence at that moment.
Chu Weiyang and Chunyu Huai locked eyes.
They remained silent, as if exchanging a thousand words in that silence.
After a moment, Chunyu Huai's face displayed an extremely complex expression, almost revealing nearly all emotions.
The young man struggled to speak, his mouth twitching with reluctance as he asked, "Are you deceiving me?"
In that moment, Chu Weiyang's expression turned almost furious.
"For this, for this, you came to Lingqiu Mountain? To take my life? And then all these troubles followed? Spiritual object? Look at me, from head to toe, where is a bone that looks like a spiritual object!"
By the end of his words, Chu Weiyang was almost seething, each word squeezed out from between his teeth.
Up to this point, he still didn't understand what a spiritual object was.
He just found everything absurd.
Back when he was trapped in the Demon-Sealing Cave, there were talks of righteousness and evil, and now, these circumstances seemed to revolve around an object he had never heard of...
His fingers gripping the sword hilt turned pale from the force, the boundless anger almost overwhelming Chu Weiyang's senses.
Chunyu Huai's face also turned grim, seemingly understanding everything, yet also brewing with anger.
"Hmph! I'll kill you, and as for which bone is the spiritual object, let me, the lady, find out myself!"
As his words fell, Chunyu Huai's hands flipped, and the compass disappeared from sight.
His sleeves fluttered, and in an instant, two talismans were thrown out, enveloped in bright yellow flames, resembling two flying dragons!
However, just before the flames enveloped them, Chu Weiyang had already taken several steps forward.
As the flames swirled around, they were met by two clashing sword lights!
Two swords!
Chu Weiyang took the lead, his sword wrapped in a fierce wind, concealing the sharpness within the sheath, releasing his boundless anger like thunder and fire!
As Chu Weiyang rushed towards Chunyu Huai, Steward Ma, who was in the basket behind him, propped Chu Weiyang's shoulder with one hand and held a short sword in the other.
Leaping into the air, his figure was like a sword, different from Chu Weiyang's violent aura.
Steward Ma's sword thrust out, the sword energy almost confined to the edge of the blade, appearing elusive, like a cloud disappearing into the sea, a wave dissipating into the sky.
Seeing the two swords approaching from above and below, Chunyu Huai's face revealed a soft smile.
"Heh, the Springtime Sword..."
After a disdainful remark, Chunyu Huai seemed to become more cautious.
"Joining forces with swords, sharing the same color as the sky and sea, you are the disciple of the Qian lineage of the Sword Sect? Forget it... it doesn't matter anymore!"
As his words trailed off, Chunyu Huai's hands shot out like lightning, reaching straight ahead.
Amidst the lightning-fast movements, each hand formed different hand seals.
In a dazzling display, when the movements were clear, Chunyu Huai seemed to have grabbed the tails of two fire dragons.
In the next moment, the two fire dragons transformed into long whips!
As Chunyu Huai flicked his wrist, a whistling sound filled the air, and the two fire dragons turned into a sky full of fiery rain, about to rain down on the two of them!
Upon closer inspection, the flickering flames were not ordinary fire! Inside, they bloomed with bright light, clearly displaying one talisman after another!
In the midst of this fiery rain of talismans, the momentum of the Springtime Sword and the Awakening of Insects Sword had waned, their power diminished.
The situation had changed.
Unable to resist, Chu Weiyang took a step back, his wrist turning, transforming into the Spring Equinox Sword intent, then the Rainwater Sword intent.
By using the concept of generating and overcoming, as well as the continuous spring rain imagery, Chu Weiyang wielded his long sword with no gaps, cutting down one talisman after another in a matter of moments.
But as the tables turned in defense and offense, Chunyu Huai did not give Chu Weiyang a chance to catch his breath!
With a wave of his sleeve, continuously flipping his wrist, he kept throwing out talismans like a torrential rain!
Meanwhile, Chunyu Huai's other hand held a jade ball engraved with cloud patterns.
Upon closer inspection, the jade ball was a series of nested jade ornaments, with each layer rotating, the cloud patterns etched on them forming different talismanic patterns.
In no time, as Chunyu Huai flicked his wrist, the jade ball emitted various talismanic lights, resembling lightning, and shot straight towards Steward Ma suspended in mid-air.
This was the joint sword attack Chunyu Huai had mentioned.
Steward Ma's attack mostly focused on the sword, with the remaining power concentrated in that palm strike!
Whether it was deflecting the flying jade ball or using the momentum to strike the jade ornaments, adjusting his posture accordingly.
But as the jade ornaments fell, they seemed to possess a clever force, obediently landing in Chunyu Huai's palm.
The layers of jade ornaments spun, emitting a pleasant whistling sound before being thrown out by Chunyu Huai again.
In just a few breaths, it was hard to say whether Steward Ma, like a hawk, was hovering in that suspended position, or if Chunyu Huai, with malicious intent, was determined not to let Steward Ma catch his breath!
Clearly setting up an ambush, cleanly and decisively killing the peak Foundation Establishment Yan Jianming just the day before, but now facing Chunyu Huai in the later stages of Foundation Establishment, Chu Weiyang felt as if he was suffocating, just like facing a fierce storm.
The swift attack was almost suffocating!
However, Chu Weiyang, guided by Steward Ma, understood that in the initial stages of cultivation, swordsmanship often determined life and death in an instant, at most with just two or three strikes.
If one were to engage in a fight, it would be like sinking into mud, one breath worse than the last.
The current situation seemed to confirm this.
Bitter! So bitter!
Regretting the inadequacy of the sword's edge!
Regretting that the Springtime Sword was not a killing sword!
At this moment, Steward Ma's hoarse shout suddenly echoed from the suspended position!
"Something's wrong, he's not right! Use the Purple Toad Method! Use the Purple Toad Method!"
Perhaps seeing Steward Ma's desperate cry had drained Chunyu Huai of much of his mental and physical strength, causing him to lose focus for a moment.
And it was in that moment—
Chu Weiyang, without hesitation, reached into his waist pouch and pulled out a handful of vials, each containing dried and powdered medicinal mud, sealed with small Thunderclap talismans after his visit to the Lingqiu Mountain market.
This was the Purple Toad Method!
Originally planned by Chu Weiyang and Steward Ma to be used as a last resort against Yan Jianming, it unexpectedly came into play here.
In an instant, smoke billowed up!
Seeing the smoke, the medicinal mud in the Purple Toad Cauldron had already seeped its poisonous aura into the minds of those present.
Even with preparations, Chu Weiyang's sword-wielding hand still seemed dazed, allowing several talismans, wrapped in flames, to narrowly miss him, skimming past his side.
As if returning to the experience in the underground palace, Chu Weiyang's wrist flicked, and a jade snake emerged, biting his wrist, bringing him back to his senses.
Looking up, he saw the fragmented sword lights hovering in the air, ready to be pieced back together.
At the same time, Chunyu Huai's Qiankun pouch was opened by his divine sense, and square alchemical stones flew out, enveloped in flames, turning into mud and water, heading towards the thirty-six fragments.
At that moment, Chu Weiyang's wrist turned, and a vial was held in his hand.
"To this... lady. The sword is mine. The person is mine. You took it without asking! Moreover, you chased us all the way here like a pack of wolves, and today you harmed my friends and family! Lady, I have too many debts, too many words to clarify with you!"
Ignoring the woman's changing expression, Chu Weiyang advanced step by step, holding the vial in his hand.
"If you don't want to talk, it's okay. My friend has taught me many methods for interrogation. If you're not in a hurry, we can take our time..."
Many books are now hard to find, so cherish what you have.