In the span of a few sentences, the woman had already taken Bao Gu in from head to toe, inside and out. Seeing Bao Gu’s eyes clear, open, and a little blank with confusion, she could tell this was a girl who hadn’t seen much of the world yet—very likely the legitimate young miss of some great clan or major power.
She asked,
“Then how did you end up here? Don’t tell me you took the wrong road?”
Bao Gu said,
“I’m here looking for my senior sister. She was taken away in the Archaic Wilderness Mountain Range by a girl of unknown origin.”
The woman asked,
“You came alone?”
As she spoke, she kept scanning the surroundings warily, as if guarding against something.
Bao Gu gave a little hum of acknowledgment.
“Grandmaster wouldn’t let me come, so I had to sneak out by myself. Thank you for just now.”
As she spoke, she took out a defensive artifact refined by her Saint Aunt. Her Saint Aunt mostly refined pills and formation flags; defensive artifacts were rare, but every so often she would make a few for Bao Gu to carry for self‑defense.
The woman saw a palm‑sized jade pendant appear in Bao Gu’s hand. It was a lush, translucent green, exuding dense wood spiritual energy. Delicate runes were carved on its surface, and within the jade was sealed a flawless snow‑white lotus, crystalline as if alive, shedding a faint holy glow. The lotus’ radiance seeped through the green jade, white and emerald interweaving in a dazzling play of light. One look was enough to tell this was no common trinket, and the aura of a Void Tearing stage powerhouse lingering on it was blindingly obvious.
This was a Void Tearing stage supreme treasure. Leaving everything else aside, the lotus’ aura alone was a peerless treasure for dispelling corruption, cleansing filth, and clarifying the mind.
The woman stared at Bao Gu, thoroughly shocked.
“Little girl, you’re only at mid‑stage Nascent Soul, and you’re waving around a Void Tearing stage treasure like that? Aren’t you afraid someone will rob you? Put it away, quickly!”
Her words had barely left her mouth when she saw Bao Gu inject a wisp of spiritual power into the jade pendant. At once, a gentle, holy radiance burst forth. The light was soft and mild, yet it spread out to shroud the entire area.
Everything on the ground within that light—vines, weeds, shrubs, and trees—let out shrill, miserable screams. Twisted, agonized faces surfaced on their stems and leaves. As the faces contorted, thick streams of blood‑reek and deathly qi, along with liquid blood, seeped outward, only to vaporize in an instant and vanish. Before long, all the plants under that holy glow crumbled into heaps of rotten, bone‑like husks.
Within several li, the area covered by the pendant’s light, only piles of skeletal remains littered the ground.
The woman’s red lips parted slightly as she stared, dumbstruck, at the scene before her. Then she looked back at Bao Gu, pointed at her, and found herself unable to form words.
More than a dozen cultivators rushed over and, seeing this sight, stared at the two of them in bewilderment.
A man whose cultivation was at early Soul Transformation, looking to be around thirty, asked,
“What happened here? Who is this young lady?”
A cultivator in the group murmured weakly,
“She seems to be the Cleaver Order Master…”
The woman forced herself to focus, then leaned closer to Bao Gu and asked in a low voice,
“Where did you get that thing? Who are you?”
Bao Gu turned and swept her gaze over the newcomers.
“And who are you?”
The woman replied,
“We’re a bunch of rogue cultivators. We used to scrape by in Cangdu City of Yue Kingdom. After Yue fell into chaos, we’ve just been drifting from place to place. And you? You look like someone from a noble family.”
Bao Gu said,
“I’m not from a noble family.”
As she spoke, she continued feeding spiritual power into the jade pendant. The halo of light kept expanding, and in no time, the glow had enveloped a radius of ten li—about the limit of what the pendant could cover.
Within that range, all those eerie plants turned into decayed, bone‑like remains. Strange birds and beasts that had recently appeared in the mountains were struck by the light, and it was as if corrosive acid had been poured over them. Sizzling sounds rang out as waves of blood‑reek and deathly qi poured from their bodies. Tough scales and thick feathers melted away. The creatures bolted in a blind panic; many of the burrowing beasts dove underground and fled.
Seeing this, the faces of the gathered cultivators all changed drastically. Their gazes toward Bao Gu were now full of awe and fear.
Bao Gu’s brow, however, furrowed even tighter.
The blood‑reek and deathly qi did not vanish. Instead, it gathered together, undergoing some terrifying transformation. Everything she saw told her that Ba was definitely still within the borders of Yue Kingdom—very likely right here in the Archaic Wilderness Mountain Range.
The woman stared at Bao Gu, torn between fear and doubt.
“Who on earth are you? Are you really the Cleaver Order Master?”
Bao Gu gave a soft “Mm,” turned her head toward them, and said,
“Here’s a piece of advice: leave this place.”
The woman cried out,
“No way. You really are the Cleaver Order Master?”
She looked at Bao Gu in disbelief. She, of all people, had bumped into the Cleaver Order Master? And the Cleaver Order Master just happened to appear here, like this? And in such a dazed state?
Wasn’t the Cleaver Gang supposed to have the best information network in the entire cultivation world? If this girl really were the Cleaver Order Master, how could she not know how dangerous the Archaic Wilderness Mountain Range was? How could she walk out here and get caught in something like this the moment she arrived?
The woman’s pretty face hardened.
“You dare try to bluff me?”
As she spoke, she pulled out a golden command token, bright and dazzling. On the front were the words “Cleaver Gang Thousand‑Guard Commander,” and on the back was an engraved cleaver mark.
“Impersonating the Cleaver Order Master—I have the right to cut you down on the spot!”
Bao Gu took out her own Cleaver Order Master token and simply slapped it against the woman’s face.
The woman grabbed it reflexively and looked down. Her eyes went completely blank.
The dozen or so cultivators nearby caught a glimpse of the aura on the token and were so frightened they dropped to their knees with a thump.
The woman traced the characters with her spiritual sense, stunned for a long while before she finally came back to herself. She bent her knees in a formal salute.
“Jing Xiu, Thousand‑Guard Commander of the Cleaver Gang’s Shadow Hall, pays respects to the Order Master.”
She held the Cleaver Order token up with both hands and respectfully returned it to Bao Gu.
Bao Gu took the token back.
“You’re from the Shadow Hall?”
Spies from the Shadow Hall looked like this?
In her mind, spies and infiltrators were supposed to be incredibly mysterious and unfathomable, the kind who radiated depth like Zhang Jing and Li Ge. But this group in front of her just looked like a bunch of easygoing, freewheeling rogue cultivators who had banded together to chase opportunities.
Jing Xiu answered,
“Yes. Two years ago, when Cangdu City was destroyed, we submitted ourselves to the Cleaver Gang. This time, we were ordered by the Pavilion Master to come investigate what’s happening in the Archaic Wilderness Mountain Range.”
Bao Gu asked,
“What have you found?”
Seeing that they were still kneeling, she added,
“Get up and talk.”
Jing Xiu stood, but her eyes kept sneaking over to Bao Gu’s face. She really hadn’t expected that a girl with such a blank, silly expression could be the Cleaver Order Master.
The gap between rumor and reality was just too big.
She remembered two years ago, when the Cleaver Order Master had appeared—domineering and razor‑sharp, righteous aura blazing. Especially when the Xuantian Sword was drawn and pointed at the heavens, summoning down a sea of lightning that shattered the coalition army’s formations in an instant, stripping them of any will to fight.
How overbearing, how powerful, how overwhelming.
Then she looked at the little girl in front of her: dazed and absent‑minded, her presence so weak Jing Xiu felt she could knock her over with a poke. This was the Cleaver Order Master—and she had almost fallen for some cheap illusion and become fertilizer for those plants.
Was she going to get silenced for seeing this?
When Bao Gu didn’t hear a response for a long time, she made a questioning sound and turned to look at Jing Xiu.
Jing Xiu jolted back to her senses.
“We’ve found some clues.”
As she spoke, she took a fist‑sized blood‑red crystal from her storage ring and handed it to Bao Gu.
“This is called a blood crystal. It contains pure, concentrated blood energy. All these new creatures appearing in the Archaic Mountains have one inside them. For beasts and birds, the blood crystal is beneath the skull. For plants, it’s usually in the roots. It’s similar to a demon core, but the energy inside is even purer and tougher. Up until now, we haven’t found any way to refine—”
She never finished the word “refine.” The blood crystal in Bao Gu’s hand suddenly began to leak blood‑reek and deathly qi. Bao Gu’s palm turned bright red as if scorched, but then a layer of five‑element spiritual power flickered across her skin, and her hand immediately returned to normal.
Bao Gu drew a Primordial Demon Talisman—the same talisman she used to suppress Ba‑born calamities—directly onto the blood crystal. The crystal showed no particular reaction; it simply continued to melt at the same rate it had under the jade pendant’s light.
She poured spiritual power into the Primordial Demon Talisman, pushing its power to the absolute limit.
In an instant, the talisman’s force tore the blood crystal apart. It shattered into dozens of fragments, each piece crumbling further. A vast tide of blood‑reek and deathly qi erupted outward, shrouding an area of several dozen zhang, but it was quickly swept away and erased under the jade pendant’s holy radiance.
Bao Gu said,
“Now you understand what’s going on in the Archaic Mountains, right? New life is being born out of endless life‑and‑death qi, and endless blood fiend qi is nurturing new creatures. That’s why there are no corpse zombies or corpse ghosts here—because these are no longer dead things. They’re living beings, born from blood fiend qi.”
“Report this up the chain. And don’t say you met me. Say it was your own discovery.”
She noticed Jing Xiu staring fixedly at her face and asked,
“Is there a flower blooming on my face?”
Jing Xiu shook her head.
“As you command.”
“Don’t say you saw me.”
With that, Bao Gu lifted the jade pendant and flew deeper into the Archaic Wilderness Mountain Range.
Only after Bao Gu had flown a long way did Jing Xiu smack her own forehead.
“Heavens above, the Order Master is actually like this. Marching brazenly into the Archaic Mountains, waving around a treasure like that and drawing every eye in sight, then wanting everyone to pretend they never saw her—this is the very definition of covering your ears while stealing a bell!”
A cultivator beside her whispered,
“Seventh Sister, mind your words!”
Bao Gu flew another seven or eight li before another group of cultivators appeared ahead of her, along with many probing gazes from all directions.
The leader wore a sect disciple’s robe, with an embroidered “Splendid Rivers and Mountains” design across his chest. He cupped his fists and bowed slightly.
“Miss, I was sent by my sect to investigate the Archaic Mountains. Just now, the phenomena triggered by your jade pendant were most extraordinary. I wonder if you might be willing to enlighten me a little?”
While he was still speaking, a naked girl appeared out of thin air a short distance behind him.
The girl’s face was exquisitely beautiful; her eyes were bright, her teeth like jade, her skin whiter than snow—like an ultimate work of art carved from the finest material. Her hair hung loose, cascading all the way down to her hips. Her proud chest and the secret place at the junction of her legs were half‑hidden, half‑revealed under that fall of hair.
Most eye‑catching of all was the fiery blood‑red lotus mark between her brows. It was identical in shape to the lotus inside Bao Gu’s pendant—the only difference was color. One was pure, spotless white; the other burned a vivid crimson, like a flame that wanted to incinerate all the filth in the world.
Bao Gu stared at the girl who had suddenly appeared without a stitch of clothing.
The girl tilted her head, her pitch‑black eyes gleaming like a starry sky. She stared for a long moment at the jade pendant in Bao Gu’s hand before finally shifting her gaze to Bao Gu herself.
“You know her. Take me to her.”
Bao Gu nodded.
“I can. But you have to take me to someone first. Not long ago, you abducted a woman who has cultivated Nanming Lihuo. I want to see her, and you have to let her go.”
The girl said,
“You’re not qualified to make demands of me.”
Her crisp voice was full of arrogance and pride.
Bao Gu said,
“Ba, the fact that I could come here to find you means I am qualified to set conditions. Don’t think that just because you escaped your seal and even refined the Prison‑Breaking Blood Lotus that suppressed you, there’s nothing left in this world that can subdue you.”
The surrounding cultivators erupted into motion, scattering in all directions as they stared at the girl in shock and confusion.
“Ba? No way, right? Looking like that?”
None of them could bring themselves to believe that this pretty young girl was Ba. Well… the whole not‑wearing‑clothes thing was a bit much, but still…
The girl Bao Gu had called “Ba” smiled sweetly. She raised a snowy white palm and struck toward Bao Gu.
Bao Gu’s feet shifted. She put away the jade pendant, and an aura of sword intent that seemed ready to tear heaven and earth apart exploded from her body. At the same time, the Xuantian Sword appeared in front of Ba’s outstretched hand, blocking it.
Bao Gu stamped lightly on the air, and a powerful force erupted beneath her toes. She raised her own palm and struck at Ba. The two pale jade‑like hands seemed to move with leisurely ease, but the moment they went out, the power they carried surged like collapsing mountains and overturning seas, rushing toward Ba in tidal waves.
Ba lifted her hand and gave a casual sweep, dissolving Bao Gu’s strike as if brushing aside dust. She flashed a brilliant smile and reached for the Xuantian Sword hanging before her.
“This sword is interesting.”
Bao Gu said,
“There’s something even more interesting.”
Cold light flickered in her eyes. From an oversized storage bag, eighty‑one Five‑Element Immortal Stones shot out, flying to fixed positions in midair according to the pattern of a grand formation—the Xuantian Sword at their center as the formation’s core.
Ba’s hand was just about to close on the Xuantian Sword when she suddenly sensed something wrong. She snapped her hand back and swept her gaze around. The eighty‑one Five‑Element Immortal Stones had already formed a formation, sealing off the surrounding space.
She glanced at the stones, then at Bao Gu, and gave her a pure, innocent smile.
In the next instant, her figure blurred and vanished.
Seeing Ba move, Bao Gu used her link to the Xuantian Sword to activate the formation and launch an attack. But at the very instant her mind stirred, Ba was already in front of her.
A fist slammed into Bao Gu’s chest.
Pain lanced through her ribs. Before she could react, Ba’s hand clamped down on her shoulder. A single thought flashed through Bao Gu’s mind:
“So fast!”
Agony ripped through the air around her. Something sliced across her chest cavity. She lowered her head and saw a huge hole in her own chest, blood surging out in streams. In Ba’s hand lay a still‑beating heart—her heart.
She stared at Ba, stunned.
“You—”
Before the word was out, she saw Ba lift the heart to her lips and bite down, just like someone sinking their teeth into a fresh, juicy peach.
