Chapter 49: Rescue and Pursuit

  A flash of white light outside the door, and a girl of eleven or twelve years old walked in, wearing a snow-white fur coat, with two emerald-green feathers inserted into her fiery red fox tail hat. The girl quickly walked to the woman's side and said in a crisp voice: "Mother, let's go down the mountain! Xue'er hasn't seen Father for a long time!" While speaking, she also walked to the small leopard's side, squatted down, and pulled the small leopard's ears. The small leopard opened its sleepy eyes, looked at the girl, made two soft calls in its mouth, and then closed its eyes and fell asleep again.

  At this moment, a half-foot-high jade statue on the jade case in front of the woman in blue skirt suddenly made a "crack" sound and cracked several fine cracks. The woman in blue skirt closed the book in her hand, looked up at the jade statue, and her eyebrows jumped involuntarily.

  The girl heard the sound, quickly ran to the front of the jade case, two shiny black eyes looked at the jade statue, then looked at the woman in blue clothes, and asked: "Mother, what's wrong with my grandfather? Is something happening?" The woman in blue clothes showed a stiff smile on her face, saying: "Xue'er is good, Grandfather has great powers, how can anything happen to him?" As she spoke, she quickly took out a piece of jade pendant and carefully examined it. On the jade pendant was also carved a white-robed man, whose appearance was exactly He Lian Qingchen.

  In another grand hall where many spirit plaques and jade plaques were enshrined, two men wearing animal hides hastily walked towards a foot-long jade plaque with numerous cracks on it. A man on the left exclaimed, "It's the Fourth Elder! The Fourth Elder's life plaque has also encountered an accident?" Another man quickly grabbed the jade plaque and examined it carefully for a moment before saying, "It seems that although the Fourth Elder has encountered an accident, he hasn't fallen."

  "The seven elders have just fallen, and the four elders have also had an accident. Is it not true that the four great Yuanying cultivators of the Jade Tripod Sect are missing?" "This is not our concern, hurry up and inform the second elder!" The two men said, quickly walking out of the main hall.

  Under the Jade Cauldron Mountain, in a secluded valley, Wu Mu Dao Ren gazed at the three corpses on the ground and sighed. He muttered to himself, "Three sects' stronghold, Yuan Ying period cultivators... what's to be done now?" With his hands behind his back, he paced back and forth beside the three corpses for about the time it takes to eat a meal. His ugly face twitched as he said, "Can't afford to think so much, I'll just do it this way!"

  As night fell, the eastern peak of Yuding Mountain, where Huoling Sect was stationed, suddenly heard a sharp whistle outside the grand formation. With the whistle, a yellow sword aura several feet long shone brightly in the twilight and heavily chopped on the grand formation laid down by Huoling Sect cultivators. The grand formation responded with a loud noise and was chopped open with a large hole of several meters. Wumutao Ren closely followed the sword light and rushed into the grand formation, raised his right hand, and three talismans flew out of his hands.

  In an instant, flames shot up into the sky within the Fire Spirit Sect's residence. Figures flew out of caves and houses at high speed, accompanied by shrill cries of despair. Countless magical treasures streaked across the dark night sky in a riot of colors. Wu Mu Dao Ren wielded his long sword, instantly killing six Qi Refining stage cultivators. With a flick of his left hand, over a dozen talismans were thrown into the crowd once more. Flames, sword shadows, giant rocks, and ice spears burst forth from the talismans, dancing wildly in the air. For a time, wails of despair filled the air everywhere.

  As a loud, clear whistle pierced the air, a man shouted: "No one is allowed to retreat! Mei Ji will arrive immediately. Don't let the Yu Ding Gate cultivators escape!"

  The figure of Wumudao Ren disappeared into the night after throwing out the talismans, flying swiftly towards the north peak of Yuding Mountain. If someone knew that Wumudao Ren had thrown out over a dozen top-grade talismans that even Golden Dan period cultivators would covet, just to save Tie Xintang and Shui Sheng, two Qi Refining stage children, they would likely be so angry that they would spit blood.

  Not long after, outside the northern peak of Yuding Mountain, a fierce flame burst out again. After a few mournful cries, a yellow light beam as thick as a water bucket shot out quickly. Behind the yellow light beam, five figures followed closely, with an old man in gray robes at the front, who was Qin Zheng, a Yuan Ying cultivator of Tianxin Sect. Just as Qin Zheng was less than three thousand zhang away from the yellow light beam, it suddenly plunged into the ground and disappeared.

  A loud "boom" shook the ground, and Qin Zheng struck out a huge crater tens of meters deep on the surface.

  "Qin, have you caught that little thief?" Qin heard Luo Lie's voice behind him. Several flashes of light appeared, and Luo Lie emerged behind Qin, followed by three other Golden Elixir cultivators.

  Qin Zheng released his divine sense, carefully scanning the ground nearby. A hint of disappointment flashed in his eyes, but he said: "This person has already been injured by me, and is also carrying that little girl. Even if they use magic to hide underground, it won't last long. Brother Luo, don't worry about gathering fellow disciples to search thoroughly, maybe you can capture this thief. I still need to return to stabilize the 'Heavy Light Breaking Array', farewell!" After speaking, his body moved, a black light flashed, and with a loud rumble, he was already over 100 meters away.

  Luo Lie hastily chased after the fleeing black light and paid his respects, repeatedly answering in the affirmative. Another Huo Ling Sect cultivator asked: "Brother Luo, this person is truly audacious, a mere Golden Elixir middle-stage cultivator daring to charge into the Three Sects' encampment alone; could it be that the Qi Refining stage little girl has some impressive background?"

  Luo Lie's face sank, and he said: "We can't underestimate this person anymore. If it weren't for Qin Senior being here, we would have been in big trouble. This person was able to sneak past Qin Senior's detection and enter our camp, break through the seal with one sword, and instantly subdue Elder Sister Cang Wei. How could we compare? Without Qin Senior, even with the four of us working together, it would be difficult to catch this person. Let's head back to the camp and wait for Master to return before doing anything else!"

  The other three monks seemed to have a certain respect for Luo Lie, and upon hearing this, they didn't say much either, following behind Luo Lie as he returned by the original route.

  As the four people left, Qin Zheng's figure suddenly appeared in the nearby air, chuckled and said to the ground: "Little Taoist, I think you are that Wu Mu who killed Bai Li Mu. Tsk! A Jindan period cultivator can do this, I admire it extremely! The previous thunder slash was an unintentional mistake, not my intention. If you need medicine to heal your wounds, just speak up!" This Qin Zheng turned out to be a rare Leilinggen cultivator, who had injured Wu Mu the Taoist, but now pretended to be harmless.

  Unfortunately, his answer was met with complete silence!

  On the second day at noon, in a flat valley more than 300 miles east of Yuding Mountain, the ground was covered with wolf-like shadows, and there were more than a dozen huge deep pits. Intersecting deep knife marks crisscrossed each other, and the trees in the valley were also burned to black by fierce flames.

  On a flat, large stone at the entrance, Tie Xin Tang sat on the ground with an unwilling expression, pouting her small mouth, and staring fiercely at Mei Ji with a pair of big eyes. "I don't know how many Golden Elixir cultivators have broken their heads trying to join my sect, but I didn't even give them a glance. You're just a Qi Refining stage little girl, yet you were exceptionally accepted as my disciple. I wonder what great fortune your previous life had accumulated for you to be so lucky. But instead of being grateful, you're thinking of escaping? Could it be that this turtle-like Wu Mu Daoist is stronger than me?" Mei Ji asked displeased.

  She snorted and shouted loudly, "You only wanted to take Shuǐ Shēng as your disciple, and then took me in along with him. It wasn't out of genuine kindness. Now that Shuǐ Shēng has been taken away by someone else, you don't even care whether he's dead or alive. What's the point of being your disciple? Wū Mù Dào Cháng may be no match for you, but at least he came to rescue me. Would you have done the same?" After saying that, she rolled her eyes and turned away, ignoring her.

  Mei Ji saw Tie Xin Tang dare to talk back, a hint of anger flashed in her eyes, and she turned around to say to the empty space: "Wu Mu, this immortal is too lazy to entangle with you. Zhou Shui Sheng is in the hands of He Lian Qingchen, one of the four elders of Bing Feng Valley. If you're not afraid of death, go find that old thing! If you dare to run to the foot of Yu Ding Mountain again and cause trouble for this immortal, don't blame this immortal for being impolite!" After speaking, her slender hand shook, and a green light flew out from her sleeve, falling into the air, buzzing and transforming into a 10-foot-long green flying boat with sharp ends and sparkling spiritual light. It seemed to be an extremely precious flying treasure in the cultivation world.

  Mei Ji waved her large sleeve, and a ball of fire cloud flew out from her sleeve, rolling up Tie Xin Tang. As soon as she moved, the two of them fell onto the flying boat and sailed away through the air.

  Mei Ji managed to retrieve Tie Xin Tang, but she had no way of dealing with Wu Mu Dao Ren, who was hiding underground and refused to come out.

  After a meal, a head emerged from the stone crevice next to the cliff, which was Wu Mu Dao Ren. His hair and beard were charred black, his face pale white. After looking around left and right, he slowly crawled out of the ground, sat down with a thud, and panted heavily. At this time, Wu Mu Dao Ren's body was covered in mud, his Taoist robe behind him was torn to shreds, and on the front of his robe, there were faintly visible drops of dried bloodstains. His entire body had less than one-tenth of its original spiritual power left, looking extremely disheveled.

  He reached out and took out two small bottles, taking a few grains of snow-white medicine from one bottle and putting it in his mouth. He chewed hard for a while, then looked at the other bottle with only one grain of fiery red medicine left, revealing a hint of reluctance in his eyes. After thinking for a moment, he still opened the bottle cap, took out the medicine, and threw it into his mouth.

  Wu Mu Dao Ren exhausted his mind and spent more than a dozen precious talismans to attack the eastern peak of Yu Ding Mountain, opening up the charm girl. Then he used the "Hidden Shadow Talisman" to hide his tracks, sneaking into the northern peak of Yu Ding Mountain where the Huo Ling Sect was stationed, rescuing Tie Xin Tang. Unexpectedly, however, he was struck by Qin Zheng who arrived just in time.

  After barely getting rid of Qin Zheng, he took a deep breath and consumed three precious elixirs to save his life. He also took half a bottle of Xue Shen Wan to recover 70% of his magical powers. However, he didn't expect that Mei Ji had already left a divine mark in Tie Xin Tang's body, finding the place where he was healing. Unable to resist, he could only escape again. In less than two hours, Mei Ji caught up with him again, and he almost lost his life. In desperation, he couldn't take Tie Xin Tang into the ground, and could only watch as Mei Ji took Tie Xin Tang away.

  Wumeng Daoist cleverly borrowed Baili Mu's "greed" and used the "Qiankun Divine Thunder" to kill Baili Mu, but in front of Qin Zheng and Mei Ji, he once again felt the huge gap between Jindan cultivators and Yuanying cultivators.

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