In the evening, Zi Tianjun and Feng Yi finished clearing Lingyun Peak.
The once lush and verdant mountain was now stripped bare, not even a single bamboo shoot remained.
Bao Gu stood in the air, controlling her flying sword, watching as the once picturesque landscape of her sect transformed into an endless wasteland of scorched earth.
In her heart, she noted the debts owed to her by the Ning family, the immortal sect, the Sima family, and the Beast Taming Valley, debts owed to Xuantian Sect.
The Mountain Guardian Granny approached Bao Gu from behind, bowing slightly as she said, “Deputy Peak Master, I just heard the Sect Master mention that Xuantian Sect is planning to relocate and build elsewhere.”
Bao Gu turned to the Mountain Guardian Granny and asked, “Is there something you need, Granny?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny replied, “I am bound by a blood oath and cannot leave this place.”
Bao Gu silently regarded the Mountain Guardian Granny.
With Xuantian Sect in ruins, what could still bind her here?
The Mountain Guardian Granny explained, “I am trapped in a cave deep underground, relying on the Lingyun Peak mountain range. If I leave this place, my soul will scatter.”
Bao Gu asked, “Do you wish to stay?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny said, “It’s not that I want to stay; it’s that I have no choice but to stay.”
Bao Gu pondered for a moment and asked, “Granny, there is ultimately a difference between humans and demons, isn’t there?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny knelt down and said, “I ask the Deputy Peak Master to grant me a way to survive.”
Seeing this, Bao Gu suddenly understood why the Mountain Guardian Granny hadn’t informed her about Xuantian Sect being attacked by the four major forces of Xuanyue Ancient City.
Xuantian Sect had suffered such a heavy blow and was forced to relocate, while the Mountain Guardian Granny remained here due to her confinement.
From now on, only the Mountain Guardian Granny and the little demons she had nurtured from Lingyun Peak would remain, and she would become the ruler of this land, no longer a lowly demon servant.
Bao Gu asked, “Granny, can you tell me why you didn’t notify me when you discovered that Xuantian Sect was under attack by the four major forces of Xuanyue Ancient City?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny knelt before Bao Gu, her head bowed in silence.
Bao Gu said, “Using a sound transmission talisman to inform me wouldn’t have affected your ability to save your disciples, would it?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny remained silent.
Bao Gu stared at the Mountain Guardian Granny for a long time.
In the distance, Zi Tianjun and Feng Yi noticed that the Mountain Guardian Granny had been kneeling before Bao Gu for a long time without getting up.
Zi Tianjun asked Feng Yi to go check what was happening.
Feng Yi approached the Mountain Guardian Granny and Bao Gu.
In his impression, Bao Gu had always been a gentle girl, and he had never seen her with a cold expression.
He looked back and forth between Bao Gu and the Mountain Guardian Granny, puzzled, and asked, “What’s going on?”
The Mountain Guardian Granny replied, “Elder Feng, I am bound to Lingyun Peak and cannot leave with Xuantian Sect. I can only request to stay from the Deputy Peak Master.”
Feng Yi nodded, sighed lightly, and was about to speak when he heard Bao Gu say, “Elder Feng, this is a matter concerning Lingyun Peak.”
He looked at Bao Gu in surprise, feeling a sense of doubt rising in his heart.
Bao Gu said coldly, “Granny, to put it lightly, this is negligence; to put it harshly, it is betrayal of Xuantian Sect. You ask me to grant you a way to survive, but who will grant a way to survive for the disciples of Xuantian Sect who died in battle?”
Feng Yi frowned, looking at Bao Gu with confusion.
The Mountain Guardian Granny said sternly, “Deputy Peak Master, Xuantian Sect suffered such significant damage because we were determined to defend Lingyun Peak. The fault does not lie with me. If the Deputy Peak Master wants to hold me accountable for the casualties of Xuantian Sect, I have nothing to say.”
Bao Gu felt a chill in her heart; she realized that the “person” she once trusted had suddenly become distant and unfamiliar.
She knew that if her senior sister were here to handle the Mountain Guardian Granny, she would have executed the sect’s rules against her.
Perhaps the Mountain Guardian Granny felt that her kindness made her soft-hearted, which is why she dared to act this way.
The fault did not lie with the Mountain Guardian Granny; it lay with her for not discerning “people” clearly and mishandling demons.
Feng Yi, hearing the Mountain Guardian Granny’s words and seeing Bao Gu staring at her in silence, said, “Bao Gu, how can you blame the Mountain Guardian Granny for this? Don’t be ridiculous; even as Deputy Peak Master, you cannot make unreasonable demands of her.”
Bao Gu looked at Feng Yi and asked, “Elder Feng, do I seem like someone who makes unreasonable demands?”
Feng Yi was momentarily taken aback by Bao Gu’s question.
He suddenly felt that this girl, who had seemed so innocent, had matured overnight.
Bao Gu turned to the Mountain Guardian Granny and said, “Granny, we both know the truth of the matter. As you wish, I will let you go. From this moment on, you are no longer a servant of Xuantian Sect’s Lingyun Peak, but remember this: if you do anything detrimental to Xuantian Sect again, neither you nor your disciples will survive.”
The Mountain Guardian Granny bowed her head to Bao Gu, handed over her identity token, and turned to leave.
Feng Yi looked at Bao Gu with a serious expression.
Bao Gu said, “The Mountain Guardian Granny concealed the attack on Xuantian Sect from me and took her disciples back to the cave, neglecting her duties. Now that Xuantian Sect is relocating, she requests to stay under the pretense of being confined here. Elder Feng, I wanted to cultivate demon cultivators, but my senior sister strongly opposed it. Now it seems my senior sister was right.”
Feng Yi thought for a moment and understood the implications, his expression turning serious as he asked, “Are you planning to let this matter go?”
Since it involved betrayal of Xuantian Sect, as an elder of the Punishment Hall, he had to intervene.
He said solemnly, “If there are suspicions of the Mountain Guardian Granny having ulterior motives, we must investigate thoroughly. If she is innocent, we should clear her name; if she is guilty, we must deal with her according to sect rules. We cannot be vague about this.”
Bao Gu replied earnestly, “Elder Feng, the Mountain Guardian Granny’s actions of concealing the attack on Xuantian Sect and taking her disciples back to the cave while neglecting her duties are not vague at all. According to sect rules, expelling her from Xuantian Sect is entirely justified, and her request to stay under the guise of being confined here is not unreasonable.”
Feng Yi asked, “So you want to treat her negligence lightly? What about the heavier charge of betraying Xuantian Sect?”
Bao Gu sighed heavily and said, “Xuantian Sect has relocated. She has shed her identity as a servant and stayed here with her disciples to establish her own faction. This is the outcome she has chosen. As for whether she was negligent, we can no longer verify the outcome of Xuantian Sect’s battle, so we cannot hold her accountable.”
Feng Yi knew that Bao Gu had given the Mountain Guardian Granny a large amount of spiritual treasures and monkey wine, and that she had already made a decision regarding the matter.
Since there was no issue with the handling according to sect rules, he decided not to pursue it further and said, “Prepare yourself; we will set off shortly.”
Bao Gu replied, “I still have an account to settle with Soul Chasing Pavilion; I need to take care of that first.”
Feng Yi felt a headache coming on at the thought of the debt to Soul Chasing Pavilion.
He asked, “Do you have enough to settle the account?”
He painfully pinched his storage bag and handed it to Bao Gu, saying, “Take it!”
Seeing Elder Feng endure the pain and generously offer his resources, Bao Gu felt warmth in her heart and couldn’t help but smile.
She pushed Elder Feng’s storage bag back and said, “Elder Feng, even if I ask Soul Chasing Pavilion to come and collect again, this is more than enough.”
Feng Yi felt his heart bleed at the thought of parting with his resources and gritted his teeth, saying, “You should save the little fortune left by our ancestor!”
Bao Gu said, “The expenses for calling Soul Chasing Pavilion are my own; I didn’t take them from Duobao Spirit Monkey.”
After saying this, she ignored Feng Yi’s disbelieving expression and used a sound transmission talisman to contact Jade Shura, asking her to arrange for someone to come and settle the account.
In less than fifteen minutes, the main carriage of Soul Chasing Pavilion appeared before Bao Gu, breaking through the void.
Seeing the carriage of the Soul Chasing Pavilion master arrive, Feng Yi felt that the creditor had come to collect, and he couldn’t muster a pleasant expression anymore.
Bao Gu looked at the carriage and asked, “I wonder if the one inside is the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion or Jade Shura?”
The carriage door was pushed open, and the curtain was lifted.
Jade Shura leaned out from the carriage and called to Bao Gu, “Come on up.”
She glanced around and exclaimed, “Wow, they really dug up the entire mountain!”
Feng Yi’s face flushed with embarrassment at her words, and he quietly retreated to a distance.
Jade Shura invited Bao Gu into the carriage.
Once inside, Bao Gu saw the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion reclining on a soft couch, looking at her with calm eyes that bore no resemblance to a leader of an assassin organization.
She clasped her fists in greeting and said, “Bao Gu pays her respects to the Pavilion Master.”
The master of Soul Chasing Pavilion nodded slightly and said, “No need for formalities.”
Jade Shura handed Bao Gu the already calculated account book and a storage bag, saying, “Here are the accounts. The storage bag contains the heads and tokens taken after claiming lives; please check them.”
Bao Gu looked at the storage bag, hesitated for a moment, but still accepted it.
She released her spiritual sense to probe inside, and the first thing she encountered was a mountain of severed heads, with a pile of identity tokens, items, and half-decayed corpses nearby.
She dared not look any longer and threw the storage bag back to Jade Shura.
She glanced through the account book briefly and set it down.
She couldn’t bring herself to count the heads and reconcile the accounts with Soul Chasing Pavilion, especially since she didn’t have enough spiritual stones to pay; reconciling the accounts seemed pointless.
She said, “I think you know I don’t have that many spiritual stones, so let’s settle it with precious medicines instead.”
Jade Shura smiled slightly and handed Bao Gu a list of precious medicines that had already been prepared.
After looking over Jade Shura’s list, Bao Gu was somewhat surprised and glanced at Jade Shura.
She had thought that providing around ten precious medicines that had matured for several thousand years would suffice, but she didn’t expect Jade Shura’s list to include medicines that were hundreds or even thousands of years old, resulting in a vast quantity and variety.
The difference between precious medicines and spiritual medicines is vast.
Even a ninth-grade spiritual medicine can only be called a spiritual medicine, while a precious medicine is a spiritual medicine that has absorbed a large amount of essence and spiritual energy over thousands or even tens of thousands of years, giving rise to divine substances.
In the current cultivation world, ninth-grade spiritual medicines are hard to find, and precious medicines are even rarer.
The reason is that precious medicines, having absorbed a large amount of essence over a long time, often develop spiritual intelligence and can evade capture, making them extremely difficult to find.
The most typical example is the demon saint who had once slept with her Little Martial Aunt.
The demon saint is the most formidable one Bao Gu knows, having cultivated to the Void Tearing realm and transformed into a holy medicine.
The precious medicines in Bao Gu’s large storage bag, due to certain restrictions, had not developed spiritual intelligence and could not be compared to the demon saint, but their value was certainly greater than that of ninth-grade spiritual medicines.
Bao Gu did not understand why the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion and Jade Shura wanted spiritual medicines instead of precious medicines.
She did not ask further and turned to sit on a nearby chair, searching for the spiritual medicines according to Jade Shura’s list.
Jade Shura sat down beside Bao Gu and leaned closer to examine her carefully, saying, “Bao Gu, have you noticed that your eyes have turned red like a rabbit’s, full of bloodshot veins?”
Bao Gu glanced at Jade Shura and continued to search for spiritual medicines in her large storage bag.
Seeing that Bao Gu was upset, Jade Shura decided not to tease her anymore.
Bao Gu spent over an hour rummaging through her large storage bag before finally gathering the spiritual medicines Jade Shura wanted and handing them over in a storage bag.
After Jade Shura checked the quantity and types of spiritual medicines, she looked at Bao Gu in surprise.
Bao Gu asked, “What’s wrong? Is there a mistake?”
Jade Shura replied, “No, I was just surprised that you actually managed to gather these spiritual medicines.”
Bao Gu stood up and said, “Since there are no mistakes, I will take my leave.”
Jade Shura called out, “Wait a moment.”
She said, “Now that Xuantian Sect has relocated, where will my master go to find you for the Nirvana Pill?”
Bao Gu replied, “I will contact you.”
After saying this, she clasped her fists in a bow to the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion and Jade Shura before turning to leave.
Jade Shura watched Bao Gu’s departing figure with reluctance, dragging out her voice in a playful tone, “Master, I really want to rob her!”
The master of Soul Chasing Pavilion closed the carriage door and set off to return.
She muttered, “I can’t beat Nanshan Yijian.”
Suddenly, her beautiful eyes turned, and she asked, “Do you want to break the sect rules?”
Jade Shura rushed back to the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion’s side, hugging her arm and asking, “If I break the sect rules, will you cover for me, Master?”
The master of Soul Chasing Pavilion pointed at Jade Shura’s forehead and said, “Breaking the sect rules is to destroy the very foundation of your existence. Do you think I would cover for you?”
Jade Shura playfully stuck out her tongue, playfully scratched the master of Soul Chasing Pavilion’s delicate nose with her finger, and nestled into her embrace.
She said, “Master, since we killed so many people from the four major forces this time, we must have offended them terribly. Should I be more careful when I go out in the future?”
