CH 25

—What touched my ear just now?!

Chu Qi held his breath, trying to calm down his emotions.

However, after he held his breath, his hearing became very clear.

First, he heard the sound of the spiritual sword piercing through the air, then the rustling of the grass and trees, and finally Chu Qi’s own heartbeat!

Badum, badum, badum!

It was like a dull drumbeat, getting faster and faster, spreading from inside his chest to all parts of his body before finally making its way to the tips of Chu Qi’s ears where it lingered.

It seemed to be constantly reminding him of that vivid touch from just now.

It wasn’t until Chu Qi secretly chanted the Clear Heart Mantra twice that these violently fluctuating emotions finally eased up a little.

Ignoring the accidental touch between the two of them just now, Chu Qi feigned calm and asked Yan Jiuge, “I… What did you call me for just now?”

“…” 

The person behind him did not respond immediately.

With what had happened just now, Chu Qi was too embarrassed to turn his head again. This kind of thing was too frightening! If it happened a second time, Chu Qi wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop himself from falling off Long Yin directly.

He hesitated a little before calling out, “…Ah-Yan?”

“…I just wanted to ask you about the specific location of the treasure. Are we still heading in the right direction?”

Yan Jiuge’s voice slowly came from behind Chu Qi, a little quieter than usual.

Both of them tacitly avoided the previous accident, and the stiff atmosphere was relieved a little.

“Let me look again.” Chu Qi said in a low voice.

Because of that touch from earlier, Chu Qi had long forgotten about the specific location of the treasure, but fortunately he could still perceive it with his divine sense, so their business was not delayed.

After finding it again, Chu Qi opened his eyes, “Go two li to the right and we’ll be there.”

“Okay.” 

Yan Jiuge responded.

His dark eyes passed over Chu Qi’s ears before he forced himself to look away and turn his attention to the surrounding environment.

Long Yin sped up under Yan Jiuge’s urging and they soon arrived at the place that Chu Qi indicated.

—

The treasure that Chu Qi sensed was still within the jungle, but the terrain had changed a little, looking more mountainous.

The verdant trees and branches were tightly intertwined and beneath the bright green leaves, there was a spiritual spring that was continuously emitting spiritual energy. There were countless rare herbs growing around the spiritual spring, most of which could be used to refine medicine.

Yan Jiuge brought Chu Qi down a ways away from the spiritual spring, lest his sword qi affect any of the herbs.

Putting away Long Yin, Yan Jiuge sealed his qi and accompanied Chu Qi to the spiritual spring.

“The herbs here have grown really well. They are all high-quality materials. Some of them can only be cultivated on Zhongling Peak after three or four years.”

Chu Qi’s eyes were full of surprise.

Ever since Chu Qi became a medical cultivator, he would use his own spiritual power to nourish the herbs after his daily practice.

Some low-level herbs could mature within a few days at the fastest, and no more than half a month at most. However, as the grade of the spiritual plants increased, the longer it took for them to mature.

Especially these Red-Leafed Golden Silk Grasses in front of him, which were one of the main ingredients for refining Nascent Soul Formation pills. 

Chu Qi had been planning to make Nascent Soul Formation pills for Yan Jiuge as far back as two years ago, but the Red-Leafed Golden Silk Grass matured too slowly. When they left the sect, the ones that he had planted on Zhongling Peak still hadn’t matured.

He didn’t expect that he’d find a mature Red-Leafed Golden Grass in the Yunxi Secret Realm! It was really a great harvest.

Chu Qi took out his spade from his qiankun bag and said to the person beside him, “Ah-Yan, I’ll harvest these herbs first, can you wait for me for a while?”

“Do you want me to help?” Yan Jiuge asked him.

Chu Qi shook his head, “The process of harvesting these herbs is more complicated and trickier than low-level herbs.”

When harvesting high-level spiritual plants, he needed to wrap the roots of the plants with his spiritual power and carefully remove them from the soil before placing them into a jade box for storage.

Yan Jiuge had a fire spiritual root, so if he sent his spiritual power into the roots of the plants, he may burn it and cause it to wither.

“Okay.” Yan Jiuge didn’t insist. He stood about three chi away from Chu Qi to give him some space.

His eyes wandered around aimlessly, but they somehow always ended back on Chu Qi’s slightly pinkish ear tips.

Yan Jiuge pursed his lips and couldn’t help recalling the scene from earlier. Ah-Qi’s face was so flushed and he himself was at a loss.

Ah-Qi had thin skin and was easily embarrassed, but this time felt a little different from the past.

What exactly was different, Yan Jiuge couldn’t say.

Anyway, the blushing Ah-Qi looked very pretty.

“…”

By the time Yan Jiuge had recalled that scene twice, Chu Qi had finished collecting all the herbs around the spiritual spring and began to show off his harvest to Yan Jiuge.

“There are a total of thirty high-level herbs and two kinds that I can use to refine Nascent Soul Formation pills. When we get back to Tianxuan Sect, I can start trying to refine some.”

“En.” Yan Jiuge came back to his senses. As he looked at Chu Qi’s happy expression, his mood became clearer, “Have you finished?”

“I’m done. Let’s go.” Chu Qi used a quick cleansing technique to wash away the dirt on his hands.

“Wait a minute, let’s take this spiritual spring with us too. In the future, you won’t have to work so hard to nourish herbs with your spiritual power. You can just use the spiritual spring water to feed them directly.”

“En? The spiritual spring can also be taken away?”

Hearing Yan Jiuge’s words, Chu Qi’s movements stopped. He glanced at the quiet spiritual spring beside him, and said hesitantly, “But such a big spiritual spring can’t fit in my qiankun bag.”

Unless they collected some of the water in a jade bottle to bring back, but just a few bottles wouldn’t be enough to water one mu of medicinal fields on Zhongling Peak.

“I just felt it. This spiritual spring has a core. If you dig out the core and bring it to Zhongling Peak, you should be able to regenerate it.” Yan Jiuge replied.

There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with this method.

The herbs that Chu Qi picked just now depended on this spiritual spring to grow. If they could also get such a spiritual spring on Zhongling Peak, even if Chu Qi went out to practice, his shifu and shijie could use the spiritual spring water to irrigate the herbs more easily.

“Then, how can we dig out the spiritual spring’s core?” Chu Qi asked while looking at Yan Jiuge.

“I can move the spring water out of the way, and you can send spiritual power into the center. This kind of spiritual treasure that has no intelligence will usually instinctively move to a comfortable place.”

While talking, Yan Jiuge pulled out Long Yin from the scabbard at his waist.

Yan Jiuge had a fire spiritual root and was a sword cultivator. If he slashed down with his sword, the core of the spiritual spring would have nowhere to go. If, at the same time, it sensed a gentle wood spirit, it would definitely move towards it.

“Okay.” Chu Qi nodded, then remembered something and said with some emotion, “Obviously the two of us grew up together, so how do you know so much more about the outside world than I do?”

Yan Jiuge: “…”

He paused, then slowly opened his mouth to explain, “Sword cultivator disciples go out more often. I’ve occasionally heard the other disciples talk about it.”

“I see.”

In fact, even if Liu Weiming was present, he might not be able to perceive the core of the spiritual spring, let alone figure out a way to bring it back with them.

The reason why Yan Jiuge knew so much was because he had inherited the Yan family’s records in his sea of consciousness as soon as he was born.

Seeing the doubts on Chu Qi’s face fade away, Yan Jiuge relaxed and approached the spiritual spring with Long Yin.

Spiritual power passed over Long Yin’s blade. The sword hummed softly as the sword intent grew strong all of a sudden. Its majestic momentum was like a dragon going out to sea.

!!!

A sharp sword energy fell on the spiritual spring.

The murderous aura froze the atmosphere. Without any ripples, the spiritual spring water split in two and moved along either side of the sword aura.

At this moment, Chu Qi quickly mobilized the spiritual power in his body and sent it to the empty space in the middle of the spiritual spring.

As soon as Chu Qi’s spiritual power rushed to the center, a round, stone-like thing immediately jumped out from the spiritual spring and firmly embedded itself in Chu Qi’s spiritual power.

Before he had a chance to take a closer look at what the core looked like, Chu Qi drew back his spiritual power.

When the core of the spiritual spring fell into his hands, Chu Qi noticed something strange.

The core, which was originally only the size of a palm, suddenly doubled in size and its silvery-white color changed to a metallic golden luster.

Before Chu Qi came back to his senses, the “spiritual spring core” in his hands raised its round head, and revealed a pair of eager obsidian-like eyes.

“…”

This… isn’t this supposed to be a spiritual spring core without any intelligence?

Why did it look more like a spiritual beast instead?

“Gulu.”

It spit out a bubble, then rubbed its head against Chu Qi’s finger.

“Ah-Qi, throw it away.” Yan Jiuge’s voice was cold.

Chu Qi was originally confused by this strange little thing, so when he heard Yan Jiuge’s words, he subconsciously let go of the thing in his hands.

The round-headed little thing rolled down from Chu Qi’s palm.

The next moment, with a shing–! Yan Jiuge’s sword energy fell towards that thing.

The sword energy that Yan Jiuge sent out was from a late-stage Golden Core cultivator. Even a Grade Four spiritual beast, if it didn’t die immediately, would be seriously injured.

But the sword energy barely broke the skin of that little thing and didn’t leave any serious injury. It rolled around on the ground in pain for a moment before suddenly opening its mouth.

Under Chu Qi’s shocked gaze, it actually bit Long Yin!

Peng–!

There was a crisp sound that echoed through the otherwise silent air. It sounded like something had cracked.

Nobody expected this to happen.

How lovely.

Yan Jiuge squinted his eyes, staring deeply at the thing biting his spiritual sword.

“Loosen your mouth.”

“Idiot.”

Maybe it was because Yan Jiuge’s aura was too terrifying, or its teeth hurt too much, but in the end, it let go of Long Yin’s blade. The little creature rolled off the body of Long Yin and fell to the ground at Chu Qi’s feet.

The disgust in Yan Jiuge’s eyes was palpable. After that thing left, he immediately activated his spiritual power and tempered the entirety of Long Yin again.

At this time, Chu Qi had just recovered from his surprise. He looked at Yan Jiuge’s sword and saw that there was a row of teeth marks on the body of Long Yin!

The crisp sound from earlier must have been the cracking of a small tooth.

“Wuwu.”

Facing Chu Qi’s shocked eyes, the mysterious spiritual beast that was able to confront Yan Jiuge’s Long Yin just a moment ago, now pitifully hugged its cracked tooth and cried to Chu Qi.

Chu Qi: “…”