The woman in blue slowly stood up, spitting out a mouthful of fresh blood. There was no fear in her eyes; instead, they were filled with keen interest, as if she had just discovered a fun new toy.
“You are the first person to defeat me. Tell me your name!”
Ming Yuan did not answer her. “Leave an arm,” she emphasized coldly.
The woman in blue smiled, fresh blood trickling from the corner of her lips, possessing an eerie, bewitching beauty.
“My name is Mu Qing. We will meet again.” The woman in blue gave Ming Yuan a deep look, making sure she had memorized her appearance.
The next moment, a massive tortoise appeared. Mu Qing leaped onto its shell and quickly vanished from Ming Yuan’s field of vision.
Ming Yuan stood in place without chasing after her. It was not that she could not catch up, but rather that this physical body could not bear the burden of her using too much powerful energy.
Mu Qing? Ming Yuan murmured softly.
“Host, Host.” The jade pendant wobbled slightly. “I know her background.”
“Speak,” Ming Yuan uttered a single cold word.
The jade pendant shrank its head. It wasn’t deliberately keeping the host in suspense; it was just afraid that if it spoke directly, the host would find it annoying again. Sob, sob, sob. Peipei feels wronged, Peipei won’t speak.
“Mu Qing is the young master of the Phoenix clan. When she was born, the sky was filled with rosy clouds and a hundred birds sang in chorus. Her innate spiritual item is a gigantic, ancient parasol tree. Later on, she becomes the young supreme lord of the demon clan, shining brilliantly at the Six Realms Assembly, defeating Gong Hantian, and leading the rise of the demons.”
The jade pendant’s eyes turned into little stars. “However, in the original world, the petty Heavenly Dao felt she was too dazzling and overshadowed the destiny child Gong Hantian’s splendor, so it maliciously retaliated against her. Her intelligence was forcibly suppressed, she fell in love with Song Qinglin, and she was reduced to a tool used to frame Jiang Xu.”
“Because Song Qinglin loved Jiang Xu, her ending was extremely tragic. It seemed all her cultivation was completely destroyed, and she was thrown into the mass grave to fend for herself and die.”
“After her death, the demon clan lost their young supreme lord, their morale scattered, and the demon realm was dragged back down from the clouds, its status returning to the initial humble and lowly state.”
Ming Yuan gave a low nod, her lips curving in a half-smile. What a disgusting Heavenly Dao.
Mu Qing! Ming Yuan memorized the name, floated out from between Jiang Xu’s eyebrows, and returned the body to Jiang Xu.
Jiang Xu regained full control of her body, her eyes filled with shock. She had never expected Ming Yuan to be so immensely powerful; the woman in blue, whose single move Jiang Xu couldn’t even block, couldn’t even block a single move from Ming Yuan.
Since that was the case, compared to her, Ming Yuan was countless times stronger! Thinking of the abyss-like gap between them, Jiang Xu felt an even greater sense of loss.
However, was Ming Yuan’s way of driving off the enemy just now a way of venting her anger for her? She had even used the exact same method, telling her to leave an arm, returning her own words right back to her, an eye for an eye.
To be honest, Jiang Xu felt very comfortable, and the tightness clogging her chest slowly dissipated.
She curved her eyes and asked her out loud.
“Yes, I was venting your anger,” Ming Yuan admitted, her gaze gentle.
Since she had come, the female protagonist of this small world would no longer let herself be bullied by anyone who thought they could just step on her. Where did they think that placed her?
Jiang Xu felt herself starting to blush again. An unfamiliar emotion was quietly blooming. She tilted her head in slight confusion, but since this feeling wasn’t bad, she simply stopped dwelling on it.
She looked back and felt a bit shy, then noticed that compared to when they first met, Ming Yuan’s hazy soul body had become a bit clearer, though it also seemed slightly dimmer.
“Ming Yuan, why do I feel like you have become a bit fainter?”
“Well, I consumed some soul power, but it does not matter.”
Ming Yuan blinked. She hadn’t expected Jiang Xu to be so observant as to notice her condition at a glance.
She was a soul spirit, and possessing a human body naturally consumed soul power. She had both driven away the enemy and ensured that Jiang Xu’s physical body remained unharmed. It looked effortless, but in reality, it was indeed quite effortless.
Ming Yuan vaguely felt this was related to her past; not every soul spirit likely possessed soul power as powerful as hers, so although it looked like she had consumed a lot, relative to her total pool, it was merely a drop in the ocean.
“Then, will it recover?” Jiang Xu felt a pang of soreness and tenderness in her heart.
“It will.” It just took time, Ming Yuan silently added in her heart.
“Now that the Glaze Fruit has been found, and the other main medicinal ingredients are almost gathered, we can head back. The rest can be purchased in the city.”
Jiang Xu nodded, picked a path, and headed toward the city gate.
It was still the same crude city gate, and still a woman in red walking out from the wilderness, even carrying a similar aura of blood.
This time, however, the guards at the city gate did not interrogate or provoke Jiang Xu when they saw her. Instead, their gazes carried a faint trace of apprehension and fear.
Demons were not all fools. Three months ago, the horse-faced guard at the daytime gate had just given Jiang Xu a hard time, only to be found dead in his cave the very next morning with his eyes split wide open in disbelief.
Therefore, they had a vague idea in their minds that the one who killed him was most likely Jiang Xu, the half-demon who had been toyed with by him during the day.
After all, apart from the one hundred spirit stones, nothing else had been stolen from the corpses, which was enough to show the murderer’s utter audacity.
Even so, there was nothing they could do. Demons were solitary creatures, and no one was willing to risk their lives to avenge a horse-faced guard.
Even if someone were willing, a single demon or even a group of demons might not necessarily be able to defeat Jiang Xu. If they sought help from the City Lord’s Mansion, there was insufficient evidence, and the Mansion wouldn’t bother harassing a half-demon anyway.
So, who said demons were brainless creatures?
Jiang Xu had no mind to care about the inner thoughts of those demons. She walked straight through the city gate and headed directly toward her courtyard.
Taking down the barrier and pushing open the courtyard door, she found the furnishings inside were identical to before. Because of the barrier’s presence, not much dust had accumulated.
Jiang Xu placed the Glaze Fruit and the other medicinal herbs on the table.
“You go heal your injuries first. I will refine the medicine here. By the time your wounds heal, the medicinal liquid should be ready as well.”
“This is your first time undergoing body tempering, and the process will be very painful. However, once the tempering is complete, the old injuries in your body will be mostly healed.”
“It is fine, I am not afraid of pain. I am only afraid of being trapped in pain without ever seeing any hope of revenge. That kind of pain is the most tormenting.”
Jiang Xu smiled softly, her tone peaceful. She sat cross-legged to heal her injuries, circulating spiritual energy through her body to slowly breathe out the turbid Qi.
Watching her, Ming Yuan felt an emotion called tenderness slowly rising up inside her for some unknown reason.
So experiencing things firsthand really made it much easier to become emotionally invested than just being a bystander, huh?
She sighed softly, forming hand seals with both hands. The Glaze Fruit and other medicinal herbs floated into the air, and a wisp of soul fire danced at Ming Yuan’s fingertips.
The protagonist’s body was too broken, and the old injuries accumulated within her were hard to eradicate over time. If she hadn’t come, probably even the Valley Master of the Medicine Valley wouldn’t have been able to nurse her back to health completely.
It was no wonder the original petty Heavenly Dao had directly arranged for her to be reincarnated and reborn; with a body like hers, even if she left the mass grave, she would have found it very difficult to survive.
Earlier, she had used herself as Jiang Xu’s heart source to repair her body. Even when her soul body drifted outside, she constantly used her soul power to mend her heart, hoping to regrow a brand-new, clean heart for her.
Furthermore, every single day for the three months after she met Jiang Xu, Ming Yuan had refined pills for her to consume. Even with all that, she still couldn’t completely restore Jiang Xu’s health, which showed just how severe her injuries were and how much pain she had endured!
Some of those injuries ran deep into the bone marrow and weren’t acquired in recent years; they must have been left over from her childhood.
Growing up in a human noble family with the body of a half-demon must have been far more difficult than she had imagined.
Ming Yuan supported the soul fire to refine the medicine while idly watching Jiang Xu’s profile and letting her mind wander. The more she thought about it, the more tender she felt, and she secretly resolved to treat Jiang Xu even better in the future and use an even gentler tone!