“This demonic beast was quite powerful in life,” Bai Shen remarked, appraising the bones laid out on the oil cloth.
The two of them had cast a Glamour Spell, if they didn’t wish to be seen, no one could discover them.
They stood before the vendor’s stall, and the stall owner hadn’t noticed them at all. He still sat with his legs crossed, sprawled in a soft chair, dozing off.
“Golden core cultivation base nothing special,” Mu Nanxiao said.
Bai Shen reached out and picked up the skull, which was no bigger than a palm, finally drawing the vendor’s attention.
“One gold coin,” the vendor said lazily. But when he got a clear look at Bai Shen’s face, he straightened his back at once and hurriedly added, “Is there anything else this immortal would like to see? This old man has some fine beast bones as well.”
He was no fool. Someone had been standing in front of his stall and he hadn’t reacted at all, only noticing when the person spoke.
This person must be an extraordinarily powerful immortal, one who could make even the passersby coming and going fail to notice him.
He only saw Bai Shen, not Mu Nanxiao standing behind him or rather, he simply took Mu Nanxiao for an ordinary passerby, unable to focus his attention on him.
“No need, this will do.” Bai Shen took the bone, tossed down a gold coin, and turned into the crowd, vanishing from sight.
The vendor kept staring after Bai Shen, having personally witnessed that he could no longer find the man. He secretly marveled that he had met a master. With a master buying from his stall, what worry could he have about his goods not selling?
“What did you buy this for? Any one of the spiritual beasts in your back courtyard has a deeper cultivation base than this Wild Beast,” Mu Nanxiao asked.
Bai Shen held the bone up to the light, turning it over for a moment, and said, “Nanxiao, look this bone is smooth and lustrous. Held against the light, it seems like a piece of colored glaze, and it’s incredibly hard. If it were made into a hairpin or a Storage Ring, it would surely suit you perfectly. At the very least, it could be made into a jade pendant to wear at your waist, when you walk and it clinks against your other pendants, wouldn’t that jingling sound be like little bells?”
Mu Nanxiao looked at the bone with some distaste.
After losing his memory, Bai Shen’s taste had apparently become this poor. He had never had the habit of wearing Ferocious Beast bones on his person.
He hurriedly refused: “Thank you for the kind thought, Bai Shen, but let’s drop the matter. Wouldn’t you find it creepy to make jewelry from this bone? Made into a Magical Artifact, it couldn’t even withstand a single strike from you or me. In This Venerable One’s view, it’s nothing but chicken ribs, of little value.”
“Fair enough,” Bai Shen said, putting the bone into his Storage Ring. “How could someone as noble as the Immortal Venerable wear the bones of a mere golden core Ferocious Beast as an accessory?”
“These days, the only one worthy of the Immortal Venerable is probably This Venerable One himself. Since Nanxiao looks down on this mere beast bone, then carve out This Venerable One’s bones, make them into jewelry, and present them to Nanxiao.” As Bai Shen spoke, his hand curled into a claw and raked toward his own chest.
The clothing over his chest could not block the sharp Spiritual Power; it shredded, revealing firm skin.
Mu Nanxiao hastily seized his wrist, stopping his hand from going further.
His fingertips had already touched skin at that moment, leaving a few marks, though not piercing through.
“Stop!” Fury laced Mu Nanxiao’s voice, his eyes widening, pupils constricting slightly as he stared at Bai Shen. “If you’re going to do that, then This Venerable One might as well carve out his own bones and give them to you as well!”
Influenced by Bai Shen, Mu Nanxiao’s emotions had grown agitated too.
Hearing this, Bai Shen quickly put on a serious expression and said, “This Venerable One could never bear it. Nanxiao’s body is far more precious than This Venerable One’s, if you so much as bumped or bruised yourself anywhere, I would have to die to atone.”
Hearing Bai Shen’s joking words, Mu Nanxiao’s anger subsided somewhat.
When he had seen that Bai Shen truly intended to hurt himself to take the bone, his rage had been unstoppable, and now, seeing the finger marks on Bai Shen’s chest, he felt a wave of lingering fear.
Did this man not intend to take responsibility? Even if he’d lost his memory, the spiritual fetus in his belly was partly his doing!
Mu Nanxiao used the spiritual fetus to mask the sudden surge of intense emotion within himself.
Then, with a cold face, he walked into the most elegant and grand-looking inn on the street.
“One upper room.” Mu Nanxiao tossed a few gold coins onto the counter.
The waiter hurriedly accepted them and led Mu Nanxiao upstairs.
“Nanxiao booked only one room is he hoping to share a bed with This Venerable One?” Bai Shen teased, following Mu Nanxiao up the stairs.
In this small town, where all sorts of people mingled, the waiter had seen plenty of strange folk, so he said nothing, showed them into the room, and withdrew.
Bai Shen had already draped a robe over himself outside to cover the hole he’d torn in his clothes. He had no strange fetishes this body was not for others to see; only Mu Nanxiao could look at it.
Even if the Immortal Venerable wanted to reach out and touch, Bai Shen would quickly pull the robe open to satisfy Mu Nanxiao’s small needs.
Naturally, Mu Nanxiao would have no such needs.
Until they entered the room, Mu Nanxiao had not said a single word to him.
Only then did Bai Shen turn serious: “This is This Venerable One’s fault. I should not have played around like that. Forgive me, Nanxiao. Nearby is the Tide Forest, home to many rare treasures and strange beasts, and this town has plenty of delicacies. I’ll go find some for you. From now on, if you’re angry, you may scold me or even hit me, but you must not ignore me.”
Only after Bai Shen coaxed him did Mu Nanxiao reply in a low voice: “Mm.”
“Tomorrow we set out for Medicine King Valley. As punishment, you’ll go gather information in town.”
Bai Shen left with a smile. Even if Mu Nanxiao said nothing, he would still carefully investigate Medicine King Valley, where Mu Nanxiao’s Cultivation Partner resided, just what kind of place it truly was.
Medicine King Valley had been closed for over two thousand years. Even though this town was quite close to it, Bai Shen hadn’t learned much, only that Medicine King Valley was indeed located in a gorge within the Tide Forest.
They had both assumed entering Medicine King Valley would be easy, never expecting it to take this much effort.
Early the next morning, they checked out and headed toward the Tide Forest outside the town.
“Medicine King Valley has hidden itself from the world for so many years, who knows if the people inside are still alive,” Bai Shen said, thinking viciously that if Mu Nanxiao’s Cultivation Partner had been buried along with Medicine King Valley, that would truly be a wonderful thing.
Mu Nanxiao: “Watch your words.”
Bai Shen knew he would say that.
Mu Nanxiao was the Immortal Venerable, a man who carried the righteousness of the world in his heart, whose eyes could tolerate no evil.
That he had taken a liking to someone as wicked as himself was already nearly impossible; now that Bai Shen kept speaking of killing his Cultivation Partner, how much longer could he endure it?
Bai Shen thought this, his eyes flickering, and suddenly grabbed Mu Nanxiao’s hand.
The two stopped at the same moment. Before them lay the Tide Forest.
Standing there, they could hear the roars of fierce beasts within, the smell of blood mixed with the fragrance of forest plants flooding their nostrils.
“Followed us all this way come out,” Bai Shen said, his voice turning colder.
A rustling came from behind them, and a thin, small figure stepped out from behind a tree.
His clothes were in tatters and his hair unkempt and grimy, yet the strips of fabric hanging from his body revealed cloth of the most expensive quality, and beneath the dirt, his face showed traces of fair, tender skin.
His eyes were especially striking even disheveled as he was, nothing could hide those bright, gleaming eyes. His black pupils were limpid, capable of seeing through every illusion in this world.
A young master from a fallen family? Or a young master who had gotten lost from his household?
Mu Nanxiao asked, “What is it?”
His voice was cold and clear, his expression blank, and it startled the boy who had just stepped out from behind the trees.
The boy’s lips trembled. Not daring to look at Mu Nanxiao, he fixed his gaze instead on Bai Shen, who had called him out.
Both of these were immortals of extremely high cultivation bases. One looked icy cold, his very words carrying shards of frost, his hair a colorless white devoid of warmth, difficult to approach.
The other, with red eyes and black hair, seemed somewhat sinister, but he was smiling, and appeared far more approachable.
The boy quickly made up his mind and dropped to his knees before Bai Shen with a thud.
Men of such noble standing had countless people kneel before them; they were unmoved by the boy’s actions.
“Please, my lord, please save my sister, she’s been captured by Demonic Cultivators!” The boy’s voice was young and hoarse. Kneeling on the ground, he pleaded endlessly: “I am willing to be your slave and servant. Even if you wish to trade a life for a life, I would do so willingly.”
Demonic Cultivator Bai Shen watched the boy with a smile that grew ever brighter: “A life for a life is so boring. As it happens, This Venerable One is short a Medicine Slave. If This Venerable One saves your sister, how about you come back with This Venerable One and serve as a Medicine Slave?”
The boy couldn’t help but tremble, clearly terrified by the words “Medicine Slave,” yet he still gritted his teeth and agreed: “As long as you save my sister, my life belongs to you!”
Mu Nanxiao had no intention of indulging Bai Shen’s twisted sense of fun, and spoke up: “Done playing?”
Bai Shen hastily composed himself, putting on the airs of a lofty master, and said to the boy, “Just go home and wait for news. Those words of This Venerable One’s were merely a test, to see your resolve. It seems you’re quite a promising seedling indeed. This Venerable One shall make an exception and help you this once.”
The boy wept tears of joy and hurriedly said, “Thank you, my lord! Thank you, my lord!”
He wanted to follow the two into the Tide Forest, but Bai Shen shooed him away.
“What do you think, Nanxiao?” Bai Shen asked with a smile.
“Born with Special Pupils that see through illusion, no disguise can hide from him,” Mu Nanxiao assessed.
From the very first glance at the boy, he had known that this child of merely eight or nine years possessed a pair of very special eyes, ones that could see through his and Bai Shen’s disguises which was why the boy had been following them all along.
“Quite a good seedling indeed.” Bai Shen’s thoughts turned again toward taking a disciple.
Mu Nanxiao quashed the idea: “You want those eyes to be sullied in your Hehuan Sect?”
Bai Shen merely smiled and said nothing.
“These days there isn’t much of a divide between the righteous and demonic paths, yet there are still plenty of Orthodox Demonic Cultivators who commit all manner of evil and run rampant across the Three Realms,” Mu Nanxiao said softly. From the moment the boy had come out seeking help, he had intended to help him.
He was an Immortal Venerable; he could not turn a blind eye to such things. This was why Bai Shen often said he carried the righteousness of the world in his heart.
Bai Shen said, “Matters of Demonic Cultivators are naturally tied to the Demon Abyss. This is This Venerable One’s failure to govern properly.”
They stepped into the Tide Forest and, without carefully scouting the area, headed straight in one direction.
They had sensed that surging demonic power from far away.
The Demonic Cultivator hadn’t made any attempt at concealment was it simply because this was the Tide Forest? The Tide Forest was too remote. Although it held plenty of spiritual beasts and spiritual herbs, and several sects all wanted to claim it, the checks and balances among them had resulted in a kind of equilibrium, with none interfering with the others.
This was also why the Tide Forest had become a sacred ground for adventurers.
And now, it was precisely why this Demonic Cultivator could run rampant here.