Chapter 59
Seeing Yu Tai’s expression visibly change, Shu Li lowered his eyes and asked softly, “What’s wrong?”
Yu Tai stared sharply into his eyes like a hawk. “Are you injured?”
At her question, Shu Li looked away and said, “It’s only a minor injury…”
“Never mind that for now. I caught the little thief who attacked the formation that day.” As though he cared nothing for his own body, he curved his eyes, took Yu Tai’s hand, and led her outside.
Yu Tai keenly noticed that he used his left hand.
As far as she knew, Shu Li was not left-handed.
She had been so busy these past few days that she had completely forgotten about the little thief. But at present, the most important matter was-
Yu Tai unceremoniously seized Shu Li’s right arm. The man visibly stiffened beneath her hand, and red began seeping through the fabric she held.
Yu Tai had purchased Shu Li’s clothes. They were all made from excellent fabric and even bore defensive spells. But the material was highly absorbent, and the spreading crimson soon covered his entire sleeve.
She pushed up his sleeve and unsurprisingly found a vicious wound across his fair arm.
It looked as though something sharp had slashed him.
Shu Li turned and allowed her to hold his arm. “The wound was cleaned and treated with medicine,” he said gently.
It had been fine before, but Yu Tai’s grip changed that.
Blackness gradually spread through Yu Tai’s eyes. Her breathing grew heavy, and Shu Li’s voice receded farther and farther from her ears.
By the time she came back to her senses, her mouth was already filled with the taste of blood that so damnably entranced her.
Her lips were still pressed to Shu Li’s wound, continuously drawing out fresh blood.
Shu Li’s face was deathly pale, and his lips had lost all color from blood loss. Yet even before such a terrifying Yu Tai, he did not make a sound.
She raised her head and looked at Shu Li, whose injury had clearly worsened, feeling a moment of awkwardness.
But the man before her appeared not to notice her embarrassment. With his other hand, he took out a handkerchief and gently wiped the blood from her lips.
Once he withdrew his hand, Yu Tai silently produced a bottle of supreme-grade recovery pills and stuffed them into Shu Li’s mouth as though they cost nothing.
The blood soon stopped. The wound scabbed, then the scab peeled away, leaving the skin beneath as good as new.
“Where’s the little thief? I’ll go have a look.” Yu Tai released his arm and walked out first.
Behind her, Shu Li watched her back. A faint curve appeared on his lips before he followed.
Seeing the two emerge, Xia Mo examined Yu Tai’s expression and then Shu Li’s before releasing a tremendous sigh of relief.
They had finally made up. The past few days had been torture for a panda.
Xia Mo hurried after Yu Tai, then turned and chirped twice at Shu Li, telling him to walk faster.
Shu Li picked up the panda. Xia Mo held its paws awkwardly in the air as though afraid to place them on him. Seeing this, Shu Li’s eyes softened. “The wound has already healed.”
Only then did Xia Mo, which had been startled by the blood on his sleeve, relax. It wiggled into the most comfortable position and rested its paws on his shoulder.
The moment Yu Tai stepped into Shu Li’s courtyard, she was so startled by an enormous, ugly face with blood dripping from its mouth that she drew her sword.
But she was not the only one frightened. The ugly face opposite her also revealed an exceptionally terrified expression.
Only then did Yu Tai realize what it was. “The illusion beast?”
This was the illusion beast she had brought back from the Bishui Secret Realm.
Shu Li had originally suggested tying it outside the entrance as a guard. But Yu Tai considered that this type of demon beast was extremely rare-there was probably only one in the entire Middle Realm. Leaving it openly at the gate would invite endless trouble.
She had already exhausted herself explaining the ship alone.
The System: [Indeed. Explaining it was so exhausting.] *You gave a grand total of two sentences. If anyone dared ask another question, you looked ready to kill them with your eyes.*
Sensing its mistress’s disgust, the illusion beast aggrievedly shifted its enormous body aside, revealing the half-eaten “thing” behind it.
Fortunately, Yu Tai had long since grown accustomed to scenes like this in her previous life. Anyone else might have vomited on the spot.
Before her lay a man whose lower body was missing. Fragments of bone and flesh littered the ground, and the jagged remains at his waist had plainly been gnawed.
Yu Tai looked at the innocent illusion beast beside him, whose enormous mouth was still stained with blood, and began considering whether she should change its appearance and tie it to the gate to ward off Jiang Li and Jiang Yibai.
Jiang Yibai had recently abandoned his path as a lovesick puppy and become a corporate drone instead.
He treated Yu Tai’s cave dwelling like a company, arriving punctually at dawn every morning to clock in, standing guard for a long time, then silently leaving.
Looking at the horribly mutilated corpse, Yu Tai realized something and turned to examine Shu Li’s expression.
The instant she moved, Shu Li’s formerly indifferent expression abruptly changed. He turned his head aside as though unable to bear the sight, as if killing the man had never been his intention.
Yu Tai rolled her eyes and habitually cursed him as a “saint” in her heart.
Xia Mo, who had witnessed Shu Li’s lightning-fast change of expression: “…”
*Was living like this truly not exhausting for humans?*
Yu Tai calmly examined the corpse and discovered that the man had been a cultivator at mid-stage Nascent Soul.
For a mighty Nascent Soul cultivator to ultimately die in the jaws of a demon beast…
Yu Tai silently stared at the corpse for a long time before involuntarily remarking-
“Serves him right.”
The System: [… I must have been insane to think she was finally sane.]
Shu Li explained what had happened. After Yu Tai left that day, a man had begun lurking suspiciously outside the cave dwelling. He had done nothing, merely stared gloomily at the residence as though observing something.
A thought struck Yu Tai. “You released the illusion beast, and Xia Mo was here too. How did you get injured?”
At that, Shu Li looked away and said indifferently, “When I sent the illusion beast outside to catch him, he happened to exploit an opening.”
He spoke lightly, but for a mortal whose Dao foundation had been destroyed, suddenly facing a Nascent Soul cultivator must have been unimaginably dangerous.
Yu Tai rose and told the illusion beast, which was staring at her with huge, bell-like eyes, “You can have the rest too. Eat it cleanly.”
Drool spilled from the illusion beast’s mouth as it hurriedly nodded.
But because Yu Tai refused to look directly at it, she failed to notice the guilty gleam that flashed through its eyes.
The cultivator had not even managed to struggle before it killed him with a single bite. The truth that My Lord had then used the man’s weapon to cut his own arm was something the illusion beast would take to its grave.
Xia Mo suddenly jumped down from Shu Li’s arms, walked to the corpse, and pointed at the spatial pouch hanging from the man’s waist.
“Chirp! Chirp!”
Yu Tai knew this child enjoyed collecting junk, so she immediately nodded. “You can keep it.”
Xia Mo promptly carried the spatial pouch away in its mouth.
Watching it, Shu Li suddenly said, “This man was a cultivator from the Upper Realm.”
Yu Tai’s expression instantly changed.
The Qingshan Sword Sect was quite tolerant toward cultivators of the Middle Realm, allowing wandering cultivators from various regions to enter and observe or attend lectures free of charge.
Since the man wore no disciple uniform, she had instinctively categorized him as a malicious wandering cultivator who had somehow grown bold enough to court death.
He was actually an Upper Realm cultivator?
Yu Tai examined him several more times but still saw no difference. Turning to Shu Li, she asked, “How could you tell?”
Shu Li answered flatly, “A feeling.”
Cultivators from the Upper Realm always carried an inescapable scent of decay.
It was a stench embedded deep in their bones that not even blood could conceal.
Ignoring Xia Mo’s noisy protests, Yu Tai took away the spatial pouch it had barely begun to enjoy and searched inside.
Before long, she found something identical to the jade token Jiang Li had previously given her.
It was a passage token to the Upper Realm…