Ji Qingzhou took a deep breath to calm herself down. She looked up at the medicine hall. Qiu Mingxue had already been taken away for treatment. After she was gone, only Ying Xiu was left in the middle of the spacious medicine hall.

She stared wide-eyed with a trace of astonishment on her clear and beautiful face. She did not expect Ye Duanhong to appear suddenly.

Ye Duanhong’s cultivation base was high and he was veritably formidable. If he hadn’t been present today, no one would have been able to subdue the strange flames.

— Ye Duanhong came to watch the disciples participate in the examination and hid himself. No one would have spotted him unless they were sitting next to him.

Ying Xiu remained silent, and took out the elixir from her cauldron with trembling hands. What she refined was an above-average ordinary elixir, just enough to outperform the rest of the disciples present. Nevertheless, it also gave her room to outsmart Qiu Mingxue.

Ye Duanhong looked frosty, and his complexion was totally unpleasant. He watched some people take the injured Qiu Mingxue away to be sent to the doctor with brows tightly furrowed.

He was a straightforward person, and he would never hide his emotions — With his position in Xuanyun Sect, there was no need for him to greet anyone with a smile either.

His unconcealable dislike for Qiu Mingxue was painted all over his face. He opened his lips and said coldly, “How wretched.”

It was his duty as an elder of Xuanyun Sect to save her, but anyone with a discerning eye saw that Qiu Mingxue got her just desserts.

She relied on her status as a beloved princess and unscrupulously made demands to her own kingdom, oppressing the mortals of the Ze Kingdom in the process. No one sympathized with her for her fate.

“Xiao Yu-shixiong… What is that flame?” Ji Qingzhou calmed down, and she looked at the black qi that was struggling and writhing on the ground — It had been cut into two pieces by Ye Duanhong, but it was still struggling stubbornly.

It seemed like that thing wouldn’t give up unless it burned something. Its evilness was awfully heavy.

“It’s — the product of the Earth Vein Ghost Qi.” Shen Rongyu opened his lips, pausing for a moment after saying the first word.

Ji Qingzhou keenly grasped the four words “Earth Vein Ghost Qi”. The system seemed to have said that… Shen Rongyu had something to do with the Earth Vein Ghost Qi. It was just that she didn’t ask about their specific relationship, and the system didn’t make it clear either.

She froze for a moment then asked, “Earth Vein Ghost Qi, what is it?”

“It is a by-product of the explosion of spirit qi in this world,” Shen Rongyu repeated the contents of the book to Ji Qingzhou, “After the burst of spirit qi, human beings began to cultivate and absorbed spirit qi. The turbidity they produce after use sank into the earth vein, and because a large amount of turbidity can no longer be converted through nature, it is deposited as Earth Vein Ghost Qi, in which demons are bred.”

“Is that so?…” Ji Qingzhou responded. She was thinking, how could such a thing be connected with Shen Rongyu? He was dressed in white, levitating like a banished immortal. No matter how she thought about it, it was impossible for him to have any connections with that Earth Vein Ghost Qi.

When she was lost in thought, the look on her face was dull, so Shen Rongyu leaned closer and asked her in a low voice, “What are you thinking about, Zhouzhou?”

His smile exuded a kind of detached gentleness, which could easily make one indulge in it. He was like a vortex that attracted everything around him.

Ji Qingzhou wouldn’t fall for him, because she was too heavy a piece of wood.

She said, “I’m thinking about this Earth Vein Ghost Qi.”

“Don’t dwell on it anymore.” Shen Rongyu said to her with a smile, “Even if you use what little magic power you have for thousands of years, you won’t be able to accumulate Earth Vein Ghost Qi.”

While they were chatting, Ye Duanhong had already captured the demon on the ground. He used his long cutlass to draw a demon-sealing formation and covered the evil purple-black flames in it. The flames madly writhed like snakes in the formation, and then a wisp of blue smoke was stripped from the flames.

Ye Duanhong drew water to extinguish the remaining flames and then observed the object formed from the condensed blue smoke. It changed back into its original appearance, which was a rolling stone herb, but this herb turned black and not lush green like when Qiu Mingxue first took it out.

“The mortal souls combined with Earth Vein Ghost Qi are called Xiao¹.” Ye Duanhong stared at the rolling stone herb and relayed the origin of the evil thing in a deep voice, “Too many people have died beneath the cliffs where the rolling stone herb grows. It is born and nourished by blood. This Xiao follows its roots and becomes one with the plant, and their only calling is vengeance.”

“Qiu Mingxue put the rolling stone herb into a cauldron and stimulated the Xiao. It combined with the flames under the cauldron and launched an attack on her.” After Ye Duanhong confirmed the existence of the Xiao, he deduced the ins and outs of the incident.

“The Xiao injured her, and she deserved it, but if this Xiao has absorbed her essence and soul and turns to attack other disciples, the matter will not be easy to clean up.” Ye Duanhong raised his hand and picked up the Xiao in the Demon Sealing Array. He crushed the evil creature to death with one hand, and the picture contained in the illusory phantoms also dispersed like bubbles.

When all the horrific sounds and images disappeared, Ji Qingzhou saw the rolling stone herb fall instantly.

Footnote:

¹ Xiao – In Chinese mythology, Xiao is the name of several creatures, including the Xiao “a long-armed ape” or “a four-winged bird” and the Shan Xiao “mischievous, one-legged mountain spirit”