It was only a whisper, but in a cave system like this, even whispers carried far.

“Who’s there!?”

****

The second girl who emerged from the figure looked around in wariness.

“Yaomu Baiyin you’re too loud!” said Yaomu Shou, sticking a pinky in her ear to drive her point home.

“Quite true.”

“S-Sorry Lady Yaomu Shou!”

That’s right. It was no one else but the group of Long Di who was followed by Yaomu Shou and… Yaomu Baiyin?

“But didn’t you all hear that!?” she asked, still wary of her surroundings.

“Yes.” Yaomu Shou answered coldly. She found it hard to open up to Yaomu Baiyin, seeing as how the latter had left with the team before, though she came back in the end.

Yaomu Baiyin then turned to her in surprise.

“Then shouldn’t we be on our guard? Surely, we can’t trust this…” she waved in the direction of couldn’t-care-less Long Di who was looking somewhere else. “Criminal!”

Yaomu Baiyin had great trust in Yaomu Shou and after a short internal battle, decided to follow after her.

She didn’t trust Long Di even though he saved her and the others. More than this, she held some level of animosity towards him.

Whether this was because of his branding as a criminal by the king of their race, his unreadable expression, or his closeness to her mistress, only she could tell.

Though Long Di’s expression remained unchanged since he couldn’t be bothered to care, Yaomu Shou wasn’t the same. Her expression shifted and her tone assumed a grave timbre.

“Yaomu Baiyin, I would trouble you to treat my friend with respect.”

“I-I… I’m sorry Lady Yaomu Shou…”

Yaomu Baiyin, seeing her mistress so angry with her, hung her head low in shame, seemingly in apology.

“Plus, I already sensed the person you’re talking about for a while now. Long Di sensed it even earlier,” she said, flicking a finger at Long Di who now had his sabre drawn.

“We wanted to surprise that person by making them think we were unaware to see what their intentions are, but that’s not gonna work now.”

Fwip.

Seeing Long Di put his sabre away, Yaomu Shou grew curious. Long Di noticed this and explained.

“No need to worry… I think. Ah… what was the name agai…? Ah, right. Lu Pei is that you?” asked Long Di, shocking both Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin.

This was someone Long Di knew!?

Then what kind of talent was this person?! He couldn’t be too far off, right? Could he be even more freakish than Long Di!?

It wasn’t that Long Di knew Lu Pei per se, but more like he remembered the names of those who took the test of destiny with him back then. Apart from his face and name, Long Di knew next to nothing about Lu Pei.

Following his gaze, they kept their eyes locked in one direction, awaiting the arrival of whoever it was.

However, for the longest time, there was no movement and just as an annoyed Yaomu Shou was getting ready to head over there herself, a figure stumbled through the fog towards them before collapsing with a hand to break his fall.

A look of disappointment flashed in her eyes before it quickly returned to one of indifference.

“Long Di! Y-You’re alive!?” was Lu Pei’s first question to no one else, but the boy thought to be dead by everyone in Thundercloud City.

“I see. So everyone thinks I’m dead. Understandable.” Long Di nodded.

“Of course, everyone thinks you’re dead! After your destiny appeared and the sky turned dark, you disappeared in that enormous explosion!”

Lu Pei was by no means an excitable or temperamental person, but Long Di’s situation that day was not something that the mortals of Thundercloud City had ever seen.

Dead? Destiny?? Dark skies??? Explosion!?

When Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin heard Lu Pei’s description of Long Di’s destiny and the incident that befell him, their curiosity was piqued and they yearned to learn more about Long Di and his past.

With a finger to his chin, he nodded in agreement, “When you put it like that. Alive doesn’t seem to be an option on that multiple-choice test.”

Lu Pei wanted to strangle Long Di, (though the line for that was quite long). Did he not know how big a commotion he caused!?

“Where have you been all this time?” he finally asked.

Long Di removed his finger from his chin and gestured to Yaomu Shou. “I’ve been in the demon region ever since. This is Yaomu Shou, a friend of mine, and this is Yaomu Baiyin, she’s… a person.”

“Screw you! I’m more than a person!” Yaomu Baiyin cursed before introducing herself to Lu Pei. “I’m the 7th alchemist’s disciple of the royal family!”

“R-Royal family!?” Lu Pei stuttered.

Long Di was sent to the demon region and got affiliated with the royal family!?

Not only that, he’s travelling with a junior alchemist of the royal family!? No matter where the location, an alchemist was an indispensable resource that every power yearned to have. They’re existences that can call for wind and rain with just a word because of their massive influence.

In any case, Lu Pei cupped his fist in return. “Hello Yaomu Shou, Yaomu Baiyin. I’m Lu-”

“That’s Lady Yaomu Shou to you!” Yaomu Baiyin corrected.

“!”

Lu Pei looked to Yaomu Shou in shock! Who is she!? Yaomu Baiyin is a junior alchemist to an alchemist of the royal family!

He couldn’t think of a position more illustrious than that. But then, if that was the case, Yaomu Baiyin wouldn’t be acting with such deference around her. So then, who is she?

“Oh yeah, she’s the successor to the throne,” Long Di threw in with as much tact as a baseball bat to the side of a head.

“The successor to the…” he looked at Yaomu Shou who stared back at him in indifference.

“You’re the princess to the demon-”

“There’s no princess in the royal family, nor is there a queen.” Yaomu Shou responded coldly.

“Oh… I had thought you were the successor to the throne?” Lu Pei scratched the back of his head in awkwardness.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m just paving the way for the real successor…” she said in a lowered ramble.

Long Di turned to her, “Come again?”

“I-It’s fine. Forget it!” She tried to skip over what she let slip after realising she said too much.

Long Di stared her down, and she looked away from him clearly unnerved.

“You,” Long Di turned his attention to Lu Pei. “Who did this to you?”

Lu Pei followed his gaze to his chest, which was still bleeding and the numerous other injuries that riddled his body.

He fidgeted around as if he didn’t wish to say.

“Don’t misunderstand.” Long Di stooped down to face him. “I’m not gonna fight your battles. I’m just curious is all.”

“Weisheng Zu!” Lu Pei spat his name much more sharply than intended.

“Ah, the city lord’s son.” Long Di descended into thought.

“Catch.”

Caught off guard, Lu Pei hurriedly caught something Yaomu Baiyin threw towards him.

After inspecting what she gave him, he found it to be a medicinal pill. It was round and free of any holes!

There was also a faint lustre to it and the medicinal scent it gave off was refreshing.

Lu Pei really needed something like this, but he couldn’t accept handouts, so he handed it back to her.

“You don’t want it?” she asked, clearly puzzled at his declination.

The only reason why Yaomu Baiyin even offered him the pill to begin with, was because Yaomu Shou inaudibly signalled her to do so. She knew that if she didn’t do this, Long Di would request her to do something.

Luckily, Yaomu Baiyin didn’t make a big deal out of it. It seemed that Long Di’s talk earlier about race made quite an impact on her. Even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Lu Pei shook his head, “I can’t accept something this precious for free.”

He still had his pride. He didn’t have to know much about medicinal pills to know that the price for this pill was something that he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“I agree,” Long Di snatched the pill from his hand before he could hand it to Yaomu Baiyin.

He then asked, “how’s your health insurance policy?”

A confused Lu Pei, still taken aback by what just happened, asked, “my what?”

“Thought so,” Long Di stated before he flicked the pill straight down Lu Pei’s throat!

“Ack!” Lu Pei coughed violently since he wasn’t expecting something like this. He coughed till tears came to his eyes.

“You… ack! Ha!” he struggled to speak between gasps of air and the occasional hacks that interrupted him.

“Why would you…” he held his throat and looked at Long Di through teary eyes, trying to bring his question across.

Pa. Pa. Pa.

Long Di slapped him on his back to help him properly down the pill before explaining, “Your pride is too big to swallow unlike that pill, which I can understand. At the end of the day, I forced you to take it and you couldn’t do a darn thing about it. So that’s my fault.”

Lu Pei, Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin all stared at Long Di in wide-eyed shock.

It didn’t take much for anyone to know that Long Di had something off mentally. He was smart in many ways, but socially the boy was a danger to himself and others.

So then how? How was he able to deduce that Lu Pei’s pride forbade him from taking the pill, and that the only way to do so was to ‘force’ him to take the pill? In that way, Lu Pei’s pride wouldn’t be compromised and the price to pay would be it being Long Di’s fault.

Was Long Di not as inept in these dealings as they had initially thought?

Little did they know that Long Di remembered something similar taking place in a cultivation novel and simply improvised a bit with Lu Pei’s well-being in mind.

However, he couldn’t be bothered to address their turbulent thoughts and instead turned his attention to the fogged unknown ahead of the cave.

‘My second time in a tunnel in a very short span of time. I hope this doesn’t become a trend. Anyway, something tells me the spiritual root is at the end of this tunnel.’

“What’s your plan?” Long Di asked Lu Pei who was revelling in the extreme efficacy of the medicinal pill.

The wound on his chest had already closed up and the wounds that garbed his body were all but gone.

The medicinal energy was so strong that it was even mending the injuries caused by the backlash of his use of the King seal.

“Oh, I was planning to cultivate here to raise my realm. Odds are I probably won’t get a chance like this again.”

“We’re setting out for something pretty good ahead. As long as you won’t steal it, you can cultivate there and the effect should be much better.”

Lu Pei weighed the pros and cons of this. Back in the Soaring Cloud Immortal Sect, he had no one to rely on but elder Shen Dai, and even that had its limitations.

Long Di, Yaomu Shou and Yaomu Baiyin, though they kept their realms suppressed he could tell that they were strong. Especially Long Di and Yaomu Shou. They were far stronger than anyone he had met so far in the same generation.

They could kill him if they wanted to, but they gave him a pill instead. As a result, they had no need to play with him, so their request was probably sincere.

“Okay.” he agreed.

…

“Are you sure you saw them head this way?” several figures collected around one location.

“Yes! Can you let us go now!?” Hui Haohan and the others cursed their bad luck.

Soon after detaching themselves from Long Di and Yaomu Shou, Yaomu Baiyin decided to leave and follow Yaomu Shou.

They didn’t even get far before they were cornered by a bunch of cultivators looking for Long Di!

“Not yet,” a particular figure walked out from the crowd that surrounded them, causing Hui Haohan and others to tense up in response.

When this figure saw Nao Shan, his expression changed slightly before it returned to normal.

“You can go. It would seem the Gu demons have declined if they produced someone like you,” he said with no small amount of disdain.

Curiously enough, Nao Shan didn’t argue against this. Instead, he shook himself free of the woman who supported him and turned from them.

“Nao Shan!” Hui Haohan called out before he was stopped by one of the many demons that surrounded them.

The leader of these demons then addressed Hui Haohan, and by extension everyone else, saying, “we’ll trouble you to show us exactly where you last saw them.”