This stalemate continued for a while until the ice-faced beauty broke it by asking, without turning her head.

“Do you know of a girl named Qin Ling?”

****

Long Di didn’t answer her, and the silence continued for a while. The only melody that accompanied them was the surging spiritual energy surrounding Yaomu Shou and the howling wind.

“Didn’t you hear what I asked you?” Her voice was cold and unfeeling. Even now she didn’t look at Long Di, as if doing so would dirty her eyes.

Her only interest appeared to be in the roasted Monarch Gale Crow.

Despite her question, Long Di said nothing and continued to stare at her. Irritation eventually got the best of her and she finally turned her head to Long Di glaring at him.

“I’m talking to y-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Long Di held a hand up as if he was waiting for this moment his whole life. “I don’t know who taught you manners, but obviously it wasn’t a conman. I remain bewildered on how you can expect me to know who you were talking to this entire time when you were staring at the piece of meat. Don’t blame me for thinking you had a mental illness for conversing with slow-roasted poultry.”

The new arrival was struck dumb by Long Di’s logic before rage took over. “Are you calling me mentally ill!?”

“The mere fact that this is what you took from it does more to confirm it, don’t you think?” asked Long Di.

The ice-faced beauty’s face turned red with rage. “You’re the mentally ill one! Your whole family is mentally ill! Your entire clan is mentally ill!”

Long Di wasn’t affected by the comment and asked. “Is my possible mental illness why you didn’t want to look at me while talking to me?”

The woman snorted, “You think you’re worthy enough for me to look at you directly?”

Long Di nodded before replying, “So you attached greater importance to the roasted Monarch Gale Crow than me. Got it. By this logic, you see me as less than a human being and if that’s the case, then I’m the equivalent of an ant to you. Why are you conversing with an ant? Do you truly have a mental illness? I would think someone has a mental illness if I saw them talking to an ant, but that’s just me. Not gonna lie, you’re building the best case for yourself here.”

The woman nearly vomited blood in anger at Long Di’s words! His words were too venomous!

He started by insulting himself then quickly dragged her down even worse! She couldn’t allow Long Di to continue, he was too experienced in the art of conversation. She wasn’t his match as an interlocutor.

“Didn’t you hear me asking for Qin Ling!?” she forcefully brought the conversation to where she could control it.

Long Di didn’t answer this question and instead asked one of his own. “Are you hungry?”

“Wha-”

“Let’s eat,” Long Di interrupted her before cutting off a piece of meat from the roasted Monarch Gale Crow.

When he had a few slices all done and ready. He got a stick from his storage ring and pierced through the slices and handed her a shish kebab.

She didn’t take it though and only eyed it before her gaze shifted towards the cocoon of spiritual energy beside Long Di.

A smirk made its way across her face before she folded her hands and looked at him in contempt.

“You think that by stalling and giving whoever is in there a chance to make their breakthrough will be able to help you? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not the case. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, then don’t blame me for being rude!”

D-D-D-Dum

Nine cauldrons exploded into being behind her. They were all orange at the supreme grade. Three of them housed their own core, making her a three-core martial adept.

Of course, none of them sported the gold tinge that Yaomu Shou had before.

That was a step into the perfect grade and was not a realm that just anyone could enter.

Vrrrm!

The pressure of the woman’s cauldrons coursed over and enveloped Long Di. However, to the woman’s surprise, Long Di simply held the shish kebab before her with seemingly no trouble.

His hand didn’t waver, nor did it tremble. This made it obvious that he wasn’t putting on a show. It was effortless for him to hold it up. The pressure had no effect on him.

The woman had a bad feeling welling up within her and she unknowingly gulped as she stared into his deep emotionless eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Wei Yun…!!” When the woman realised she subconsciously answered Long Di’s question like it was the most natural thing in the world, she quickly covered her mouth and stared at him in shock!

That’s right, to no one’s surprise, this was Wei Yun, the disciple who was Qin Ling’s best friend from Ice Phoenix Hall.

Shu!

She backed off and drew a weapon. It was a blue rope filled with crystal barbs. It was similar to a whip but different at the same time.

As Long Di stared at it, he couldn’t help but comment, “If that’s for BDSM, I’ll have to tactfully decline..”

“Who are you!?” Wei Yun was now finally wary of this unassuming boy before her.

“The name is Long Di,” he said offhandedly. “However, I’m going to assume you already know this. So how about we cut to the chase? Why are you here and what do you want with me? It’s obvious you came for me, so explain.”

Wei Yun scoffed at his remark, “What makes you think that I came here for you!? Don’t overestimate yourself!”

Long Di then let loose a spiel of reasons as to why he thought this was the case. “You’re from one of the ten great sects. I can tell based on pieces of evidence I will soon reveal to you. Your sect probably has spiritual weapons for days, so you couldn’t be here for that unless you’re poor and/or incompetent which, even though by my standards you would hilariously fail, the Ice Phoenix Hall on the other hand accepted you so take that as you will. Now you’re probably gonna ask me why I don’t think you could be here for the Spirit Vein Root, to which I will reply by citing why a top ten great sect such as your Ice Phoenix Hall would bother sending a single disciple to retrieve such a thing as a low-grade spiritual vein root when you quite literally have hundreds under the control of your sect. Last and foremost, you found me and the first thing you asked me was not my name, but if I know who Qin Ling is. This means you know her and judging by the cool breeze that didn’t propel itself from your butt-crack, you are a disciple of the Ice Phoenix Hall, since that’s where she went. That is also the evidence I was referring to. Did I miss anything?”

Wei Yun was left speechless. This person’s mouth was too unbridled, wasn’t it? This was the wise person that created senior apprentice sister Qin Ling’s cultivation method?

Yeah right! He most likely found some old scroll from some ruins and handed it over to her without knowing how valuable it was.

After all, she could tell that he was no hidden master. No hidden master would come to the Spiritual Bingqi Realm. Plus, there was the issue of the cultivation realm limit. Sure, a supreme existence could fool the laws to some extent, but that was more trouble than it was worth. In addition, Long Di’s mannerisms, though not inherently similar to that of a child, were more so dissimilar to that of a hidden master or a supreme existence capable of writing and creating a cultivation method, especially one as profound and awe-inspiring as the one that Qin Ling was cultivating.

In truth, most of what Long Di had said was true and should have aroused her suspicion of how intelligent he was, it was simply a case where the last things that came out of his mouth were enough to diminish his intelligence in her eyes. To her, Long Di was a petty, foul-mouthed youth.

Deciding that Long Di was next to useless, she rose the rope in preparation to attack.

Shu!

With no discernible movement from her, the rope snaked its way towards Long Di in an indiscernible pattern motion.

Since she couldn’t get to know what she wanted from him, she decided to capture and extract the information from him later.

A strong hand then grabbed the barb-covered rope. When Wei Yun saw how Long Di effortlessly grabbed her weapon, shock covered her face before a smirk replaced it.

Following this, the barbs released a chilling glow before they extended, piercing Long Di’s hands.

Blood dripped from where he gripped the rope, causing Wei Yun’s heart to thump madly in her chest.

It wasn’t Long Di’s hand bleeding that frightened her. It was the fact that his hand only bled and nothing more.

Those barbs should have erupted with enough force to blow Long Di’s hand apart!

“How strong is his physical body!?”

Wei Yun didn’t take Long Di for a body cultivator. Sure, he was in the demon region where it was more or less the norm, but‌ he was a human all the same. There was no need to take such a difficult path.

Yet she didn’t feel any spiritual fluctuations from him. So this meant that he received her attack with just his body. What confused her even more, was that she didn’t feel the fluctuations of somatic essence, either.

However, how could she know that Long Di was using his spiritual force, which was far above the four-star-core martial master realm, to mask his energy fluctuations?

Still, she didn’t lose her composure and instead mocked him for his arrogance. “You’ll pay for underestimating me!”

Shing

The light of the barbs grew more intense and without warning, ice spread from the wound and began encasing Long Di’s arm.

His brow rose in interest when he saw this. However, the encasing of the ice slowed down when it encountered his robes.

The ice found it troublesome to freeze the parts of his robe stitched by the shadow silk. Its shadow-like characteristics made it quite hard for the ice to affect it.

Long Di saw this and couldn’t help but feel impressed that such a thing wasn’t more highly sought after.

What Long Di didn’t know was that shadow silk was extremely popular, but very rare. This was why the Nether Immolation War Temple deemed Thousand Emo Valley important enough to protect.

They also made sure to stop any information leak about there being shadow silk there. Only very influential and high-rank people within the demon region would be aware of this.

“I-Is that s-s-shadow silk!?”

When Wei Yun saw the material that made up the bulk of Long Di’s robes, she was amazed. Though she knew what shadow silk was, she had never seen so much of it before!

“Shadow silk, so you know of it. That’s good to know. However, I couldn’t care less.”

Long Di stood up and took slow, steady steps towards her, even though the barbs of the rope pierced through his hand.

P-P-Pling…

Suddenly, cracks grew in the ice that encased his arms, causing Wei Yun to widen her eyes in shock.

Pssshh!

Wei Yun stared wide-eyed at Long Di as he appeared to be the embodiment of the heavens. A scarlet flame danced within the cosmos that he became and she was… is horrified.

Her lips trembled as she forced herself to ask a question she could only hope he would answer.

“What are you?”