Chapter 61: Uncertain Future
Master Qi, who at first thought it would be easy to catch the nine-tailed celestial fox, felt slightly relieved. Who knew that before his hand could touch the little fox, he suddenly felt a fishy air of wind behind him, and heard a hissing sound at his ear, like a snake spitting its core.
The few people who had been standing aside watching the excitement couldn’t help changing their expression after seeing the behemoth. The snake behind Master Qi stood upright, its entire body rose into the clouds, with its huge head peeking out, and its dark silver eyes shining brightly like the stars.
Qi Huan sighed fiercely behind Xu Kong Zi and looked at Master Qi. The snake was like a balloon. It could grow big or small however it wants. When Qi Huan first saw it, it was slightly chubbier. But now? Now it looked like it could occupy the entire Qing Yun Mountain if it lied down to sleep. Next time, if anyone wanted to conquer a land, just bring this snake along.
“Disciple, where did you get this thing?” Xu Kong Zi watched the snake for a long time but still couldn’t figure out what kind of breed the snake belonged to. Ancient wild beasts had basically almost become extinct due to the great famine. Nowadays, people have only heard of the legendary flying snake. Moreover, Little Yin was even a mutant species, and no one knew what breed it was after staring at it for a long time.
“Hehe, I dug an ancient monk’s tomb and brought it out with me.” Qi Huan did not deliberately conceal the origin of the snake in front of Xu Kong Zi. Anyway, her shifu would definitely protect her. Even if Qi Huan was involved with the devil cultivators or admitted that it was Mo Ye who gave her the snake, perhaps Xu Kong Zi also would not do anything to her.
“Next time if you bring out this kind of dangerous creature, remember to let me know.” Seeing that the flying snake’s saliva had corroded the gate of Qing Yun Mountain, Xu Kong Zi suddenly felt very distressed.
At this time, Master Qi realized that something was not right. When he turned his head around, he saw that the snake’s bloody big mouth was charging towards him like a black hole.
At the juncture of life and death, Master Qi finally gave up to catch the little fox and turned to deal with the flying snake first. The little fox’s figure flickered twice, jumping back to Qi Huan’s side in a familiar manner, pushing aside her collar and going back into her shirt.
Qi Huan pulled her clothes aside slightly and looked at the little fox lying flat on her chest. Hearing its steady breathing, Qi Huan didn’t know how to express her feelings at the moment. As expected of the nine-tailed celestial fox, it even knew how to use an old trick of luring the enemy away from its base (Qi Huan). Although it seemed a little dangerous, it did rescue Qi Huan from Master Qi. Of course, the little fox had planned with the flying snake prior to this.
Qi Huan was also surprised. The flying snake usually would avoid the little fox, but somehow they were so cooperative this time.
Truthfully, the flying snake was not afraid of the little fox, but it just hated the smell of foxes naturally, so it tended to avoid it as much as possible. If it was an ordinary fox, the flying snake would have swallowed it in one bite. But the thing was this little fox was also a prehistoric creature, and the ling qi flowing in its body carried a kind of prehistoric aura. Therefore, the flying snake and the little fox could be said to be coming from the same place, and that was the reason why the flying snake hadn’t eaten the little fox.
At first, Qi Huan could barely see the battle between the flying snake and Master Qi, but their speed was getting faster and faster afterwards, and her eyes could no longer keep up, but looking at those old Taoists’ gloating expressions, she knew that Master Qi must be at the losing side.
Sure enough, after a while, the flying snake’s figure shrank slightly, and its thick silver tail was drawn to Master Qi’s chest very accurately. Although Master Qi was a cultivator in the dacheng stage, he majored in spells, so his physical strength was not as powerful as the flying snake. With one whip of the snake’s tail, Master Qi was flicked away directly.
Seeing Master Qi’s figure becoming a small black dot in the sky, Qi Huan secretly rejoiced. Fortunately, Mo Ye knew this snake from the beginning, otherwise Qi Huan would not even dare to imagine the ending.
After dealing with Master Qi, the flying snake turned its head slowly towards the Taoist nin. It was this woman who treated Qi Huan the most hostile earlier. Following Mo Ye’s principle, “pulling out the roots to get rid of grass”, the flying snake was going to deal with the Taoist nun next.
“Apprentice, take your snake back. We can’t touch Yin Shang now, or else your little snake’s life will be in danger.” Xu Kong Zi used his divine sense to communicate with Qi Huan. Yin Shang is not an elder of Kun Lun, but her family has a deep connection with Kun Lun Sect, so she has always stayed there as an enshrinement.
Although the Yin Family is the only celestial cultivator in the South China Sea, there are two cultivators in this family who have passed through the dujie stage, and rumours have it that one of them have achieved immortality and can already ascend but chose to stay in the human world as a deity.
That was why Yin Shang, a mere Taoist in her dujie stage, dared to be so rude in front of Xu Kong Zi. Earlier when she saw Xu Kong Zi, she should have bowed to pay respect as his Junior Niece, but she just nodded like the other two Taoists. Xu Kong Zi was not self-centered, so he pretended not to notice it.
“Call Little Yin back.” Qi Huan would call the snake back herself if she knew how to communicate with it, but she didn’t, and she also didn’t want those people to know the relationship between the snake and herself, so she could only let the little fox talk to the snake. After all, both of them were beasts. Although they were of different breeds, they all communicated using beast language, so there shouldn’t be a problem for them.
The little fox stretched out its head obediently and squeaked twice. Qi Huan didn’t understand what it meant but she watched as the flying snake who had already arrived in front of Yin Shang, suddenly deflated and with a flash of silver light, it flew back to Qi Huan’s wrist, honestly coiled up and continued to sleep.
Yin Shang, who was just on the verge of life and death, had a green face, and looked like she wanted to say something, but when she saw the silver light flew to Qi Huan’s arm, she couldn’t help but shivered, and then glared at Qi Huan before turning around to leave.
Seeing that there was no more excitement, the others also said their goodbyes. Although everyone was quite unpleasant just now, Xu Kong Zi didn’t care too much about it, he just sent them away politely.
It’s not that these people were not curious about the flying snake, but the thing is that that snake could flick away Master Qi, who was in the dacheng stage, easily with just its tail, so they didn’t have the courage to offend it, who knew if it would flick them next.
They all knew that their bodies were not as strong as Master Qi of the Monster Sect. If their bodies were destroyed by the snake, then they would have to re-cultivate. They had already reached the dacheng stage, and they were just waiting to ascend now, so they surely wouldn’t risk their lives to start all over again.
“Shifu, I just offended that Taoist nun, will I be in danger?” Qi Huan always liked to reflect on her actions after causing troubles. Of course, she was not regretful, but that woman now remembered her name, how could she sleep well?
“It’s okay, even if you didn’t offend her, she didn’t like you from the start anyway. Qing Xiao is her closed disciple.” Xu Kong Zi waved his hand, totally didn’t put Yin Shang in his heart. Yin Shang just had stronger supporters, but he was not really afraid of the Yin Family anyway. Moreover, a cultivator’s purpose is to ascend the sky, how can he be afraid of this and that. In fact, Xu Kong Zi actually felt great when he heard Qi Huan’s words against Yin Shang earlier.
Qi Huan sighed quietly, and followed her shifu to the top of his mountain step by step. Anyway, she had offended the Kun Lun Sect several times, so it wouldn’t make any difference if she offended their cultivator who had passed the dujie stage. If she dared to make trouble again, she would just let the flying snake swallow her up. This way she could get rid of any evidence, that’s kind of a good idea.
Although there was no solution to the lore order in the end, Xu Kong Zi was relieved when he knew that Qi Huan had such a horrifying “bodyguard”. Then, he disappeared again. As for Xu Ling Zi and Xu Yang Zi, they had to see the horror of the flying snake with their own eyes, but after waking the snake from its sleep, the two old folks were sealed by a huge ice block ejected by the snake and it took a long time before they managed to crawl out. After that, the two old folks also disappeared, leaving Qi Huan alone, feeling that they had gone to escape.
The days returned to the usual. In addition to practicing cultivation, Qi Huan went to the back of the mountain to hunt for wild food, or pestered her two Junior Nephews to accompany her to practice flying swords. Every day was quite peaceful, and soon enough, half a year passed.
Only
Qi Huan was not in a hurry to practice after getting “The Earth Pathway”. She had just entered the jiedan stage not long ago, so it was crucial for her to get used to this stage first. When she was bored, she would still flip the book and read it for a while, even though she was barely able to understand anything. However, the cultivation process recorded in the book was a bit weird, so she was not ready to practice for the time being. Actually, she couldn’t practice even if she wanted to.
“The Earth Pathway” is about the spirit named Yuanying. The Yuanying produced after cultivating this technique was not a human spirit, but a spirit of heaven and earth. Qi Huan guessed that the Yuanying that she cultivated should be the legendary Four Spirit Beast. To continue practicing, Qi Huan must find the four heaven spirit bodies, wood, water, fire, and earth, absorb their essence, and then she can produce Yuanying.
Qi Huan still held a glimmer of hope at the beginning, but then she completely got rid of her wish to cultivate the Yuanying stage after listening to Ling Yun Zi introducing the heaven spirit body. Ling Yun Zi said that when the congenital fire spirit was born five hundred years ago, at that time, the entire cultivation world was shocked. At least thousands of cultivators had died because of that fire spirit, and finally it was rumoured that the fire spirit was captured by Jue Jian, the Head of Heavenly Sword Sect then. That time, if he hadn’t reached the late dacheng stage, he would have been beaten to death a long time ago. As for whether the fire spirit was finally refined or eaten, it was unclear, because Jue Jian had already ascended 300 years ago.
Qi Huan, who felt that her future was uncertain, liked to train the little fox all day long. She did not teach the little fox spells, but trained it like a puppy. For example, she would throw a drumstick and let it be picked up, but the little fox was smart by nature, before Qi Huan had enough fun, it was already bored of her tricks.
In the end, Qi Huan could only turn her attention to the flying snake, but it simply ignored her, except only when Qi Huan fed it snacks, would it open its mouth slightly. Other times, the flying snake was usually sleeping.
People keep pets to play with them but her pets were like Gods. The little fox went on a hunger strike when Qi Huan didn’t feed it meat, and the flying snake drooled at Qi Huan when it hadn’t had carrot. Qi Huan also had to plant carrots everyday specifically for the flying snake. Fortunately, Hua Xian Zi’s spell could ripen carrots fast. Although the taste was not very good, it really produced a lot of carrots. Besides, the snake also enjoyed it, at least it didn’t look at Qi Huan like she was its meal for now.
On this day, Qi Huan was harvesting carrots on Wang You Peak and suddenly she saw a strange man entering Wang You Peak. After seeing Qi Huan, the man looked excited and shouted “Junior Sister” and then came up to hug her. Fortunately, Qi Huan relied on her superb escape skills, and escaped before he could hug her.