CH 173

“Someone is after us?” Jing Yue looked around. Why didn't he notice anything amiss?

A-Wu, “Stop looking. The other party is still far away from us. They used a secret technique to figure out our whereabouts, and are coming after us now.”

Qin Yanzhi frowned. “Is it related to the Royal Purple Palace?”

A-Wu, “Maybe.”

A-Wu suddenly sat cross-legged on the ground, his fingers tweaking rapidly as he murmured obscure and incomprehensible incantations.

A few seconds later, his face went pale. He bit his lips hard but could not help spitting a mouthful of blood.

“Shizun!” Jing Yue stepped forward anxiously.

A-Wu opened his eyes and wiped off the blood on his lips. “Not good! Let's go!”

Jing Yue, “What’s the matter?”

A-Wu, “It’s Yao Ji, the only woman in this world who has reached Earth Tribulation!”

“Yao Ji?” Jing Yue was puzzled. “Why is she after us?”

Qin Yanzhi’s expression changed. “She’s Miao Wenxiang's mother!”

A-Wu and Jing Yue were shocked. The Royal Purple Palace had always been a mystery to A-Wu, and most of what he knew was heard from Jing Yue. As for Jing Yue, the records did not mention Miao Wenxiang’s maternal family in detail, so he didn't even know the other party's name.

He never thought that Miao Wenxiang's mother would be an Earth Tribulation practitioner!

In Jing Yue's knowledge, even Mortal Tribulation was unimaginable, let alone Earth Tribulation.

He frowned and said, “If Yao Ji is so strong, how can she tolerate her child being abandoned by his father?”

A-Wu, “Because Miao Wenxiang isn’t her only child.”

A-Wu didn't know much about Miao Wenxiang, but Yao Ji was different. She was one of the few Earth Tribulation powers in the world today, and everyone paid attention to her every move.

Yao Ji had a notorious past, and because she took the pregnancy fruit when she was younger, she was more likely to conceive than other humans and had already raised four or five children.

Thousands of years ago, Yao Ji became Dao partners with a man who was also an Earth Tribulation practitioner.

Hundreds of years ago, it was rumored that Yao Ji was pregnant again, but there was no further information after that. However, Yao Ji seemed to have conflicts with her Dao partner, and went into seclusion very soon, never to be seen for hundreds of years.

If Miao Wenxiang was the son of Yao Ji and that powerful person, the conflict between the two probably originated from this ‘useless’ son.

That powerful person refused to acknowledge this son, and Yao Ji felt ashamed that she had given birth to a ‘trash’, so she couldn't control the man's behavior, and could only build the Royal Purple Palace for Miao Wenxiang to protect him.

But that was all. Yao Ji still had a few talented descendants, and she had limited expectations for Miao Wenxiang, but as a mother, she couldn't tolerate her son's soul-mind being wiped out, leaving only an empty husk!

“Now that Yao Ji had come out of her seclusion and found out about this, she’ll definitely come after us for revenge.” A-Wu's voice was a little weak. “I’ve wiped out our traces and temporarily concealed our whereabouts just now, but Yao Ji is powerful, and she’ll catch up shortly. We must escape as soon as possible!”

Jing Yue, “But where can we go?”

There was nowhere to hide after being targeted by an Earth Tribulation practitioner!

A-Wu, “Go to the Deadlands in the East. With the guidance from Heavenly Dao, it’s our only chance of survival!”

Jing Yue and Qin Yanzhi looked at each other and nodded in unison.

A-Wu stood up and staggered.

Jing Yue hastily helped him up. “Shizun!”

A-Wu, “I’m fine. I just suffered a bit of backlash from Heavenly Dao and need some rest. Let’s go!”

For dozens of days, Jing Yue and the others did not dare to stop for a moment. On this day, they finally entered the scope of the Deadlands in the East.

It was a pitch-black forest, but there were only dense, bare tree trunks in sight, with not even a single fallen leaf as if everything had been burned by fire.

Before they entered the forest, they could smell the rotten stench, and they didn't know what it was like in the forest. According to A-Wu, no one who went in could ever come out.

At this time, the blue phoenix, who had been hiding quietly in Jing Yue's arms poked its head out.

“Jing-jing! Ji-ji heard it again!”

Jing Yue, “Heard what?”

The blue phoenix, “Ji-ji heard something calling me from inside the woods!”

They hurried into the forest. They didn't encounter any danger along the way, and they didn't know what was so scary about such a place. How did it take so many lives? And why couldn’t they see any life?

After an unknown amount of time, a sea appeared in front of them. The sea surface was dark and quiet, and they couldn't tell whether it was land or sea from a distance. Pieces of silver floated on the sea surface, but they were still as if this space was not affected by time, just an unfading picture.

Suddenly, the blue phoenix flew out of Jing Yue's arms and landed on the seashore, staring blankly at the far end of the sea.

Jing Yue, “Ji-ji, what’s there?”

The blue phoenix didn't answer but rushed straight into the black sea.

“Ji-ji!”

Jing Yue knew that the blue phoenix was out of control again and subconsciously wanted to chase after it. But as soon as he stepped into the black sea, the stationary silver leaves suddenly rotated and instantly burrowed into Jing Yue's body like a bug. Jing Yue screamed and quickly retreated.

“A-jing!”

“My apprentice!”

Both Qin Yanzhi and A-Wu rushed over, but Jing Yue yelled, “Go away!”

He was shaking all over, twitching as he moved his fingers, and triggered the Mini Canglan Sword.

The Mini Canglan Sword came out of the scabbard, paused briefly, and quickly cut hundreds of wounds on Jing Yue's body, spraying blood everywhere and dyeing Jing Yue red. Then, Jing Yue’s spiritual energy exploded, and several leaves were forced out of each wound, but the silver leaves had now turned dark red as if they were full of the blood they sucked.

The leaves scattered on the ground and burrowed into the soil in an instant, but in a short while, dozens of tree trunks emerged from the ground.

Jing Yue swayed and was about to fall backward. Qin Yanzhi quickly supported him. “What’s wrong?”

Jing Yue gasped, looked at the silver leaves slowly floating on the sea, and said weakly, “There’s something wrong with those leaves.”

In that brief moment just now, he felt that his soul-mind was split into several pieces, scattered into different times and spaces. Different souls experienced different lives, wore different clothes, had different genders, and spoke different languages. Those bizarre images were like fleeting shadows that he couldn’t grasp at all.

Jing Yue only felt that his head was about to explode, but every leaf seemed to want to snatch control of his soul-mind. If not for Jing Yue’s strong divine consciousness and tenacious will, he might have gone crazy already!

After hearing Jing Yue's description, A-Wu's expression became more serious, and he asked, “Tell me, is your little spirit pet from the blue phoenix family?”

Jing Yue was taken aback, not knowing why A-Wu mentioned this, but he nodded.

Qin Yanzhi knew about this, so he wasn't surprised, but A-Wu was shocked. After a while, he muttered, “That’s right, this is the right place!”

Jing Yue, “What’s this place?”

A-Wu, “Have you heard of the Soul Tree?”

Jing Yue nodded hesitantly. The blue phoenix once said that the Soul Tree was the mother tree of their clan, but he didn't know enough about it.

Jing Yue expressed his confusion, and A-Wu was a little surprised as if he didn't expect him to be so ‘ignorant’. He explained, “When the world first came into existence, there were ten Soul Trees in total, and each tree was born in the barren sea. The crown of the tree is hundreds of miles wide, and its leaves are silvery white, like moonlight.”

“It’s rumored that the Soul Tree is connected to the underworld. Each silver leaf represents a soul, and the birth of the blue phoenix family originated from the Soul Tree. They are born omniscient and omnipotent, one is due to bloodline inheritance, and the other is because they learned the knowledge of the myriad worlds through the Soul Tree during the gestation period.”

Thinking of the blue phoenix’s strange behavior since it entered the Middle Ages secret realm, Jing Yue believed A-Wu, and said, “So, the silver leaves just now are the leaves of the Soul Tree?”

A-Wu, “I guess so. But with the disappearance of innate energy and the phoenix race, the Soul Tree has not been seen for a long time. I thought the Soul Tree was extinct.”

Jing Yue, “Are there other Soul Trees?”

A-Wu shook his head. “The Soul Tree nourishes the blue phoenix, and it relies on the blue phoenix to bring life to it. Otherwise, it’s a dead tree, and the surrounding land is a dead area too. As far as I know, this is the only Deadlands in the world now.”

“No wonder.” Jing Yue looked at the boundless black sea. The blue phoenix had disappeared, and only the silver leaves had come back to life. “No wonder Ji-ji could go through them unharmed, but I felt like living and dying a hundred times over.”

If The Soul Tree was calling out to Ji-ji, of course Ji-ji couldn’t resist it. No matter how unreliable it was, it was indeed the only blue phoenix alive in the world today.

Jing Yue guessed that when the phoenix race was sacrificed back then, only the blue phoenix egg was left on the Soul Tree. But the blue phoenix egg hadn’t developed a soul yet, and without nourishment from the blue phoenix family, the Soul Tree gradually withered, so Ji-ji could not hatch for a long time.

Later, although Jing Yue awakened Ji-ji, it was born prematurely and had incomplete knowledge of everything in the universe.

Jing Yue, “Can we only wait here?”

He was still worried about Ji-ji.

A-Wu, “The silver leaves here are probably just the fallen leaves of The Soul Tree back then, but when the Soul Tree died, the leaves lost all vitality too. Now the Soul Tree senses the breath of the blue phoenix, it revived naturally, and the leaves will automatically resist any invading creatures.”

With a flick of his hand, he caught a leaf with his fingertips. The leaf struggled as if alive, trying to penetrate his body.

A-Wu squeezed it hard, and the leaves were crushed into silver dust, shining brightly as it flowed down from his hands.

“With so many silver leaves, we can't handle them at all. You can only go through if you’re a dead object.”

Jing Yue frowned, unable to think of a solution for a while, but Qin Yanzhi said, “Maybe I can give it a go.”

A-Wu raised an eyebrow doubtfully. “You?”

After saying that, Qin Yanzhi's aura changed, and A-Wu couldn't sense Qin Yanzhi at all.

The other party was clearly in front of him, but he thought it was a human-shaped sword!

A-Wu stared blankly as Qin Yanzhi stepped into the black sea, but none of the floating silver leaves attacked Qin Yanzhi.

“I am the sword, and the sword is me,” A-Wu murmured. This was the realm he pursued, but he never expected it to be realized by a junior.

Jing Yue wasn’t that emotional. He already knew Qin Yanzhi had such an ability when he was still at Nine Heaven Academy. He didn't notice the existence of Qin Yanzhi when he entered the Sword Pavilion, but he didn't think of it due to his desperation.

“Yanzhi, can you take us with you?”

Qin Yanzhi, “Of course.”

For some reason, Jing Yue felt a bit of anticipation in the other party's tone.

The next moment, he and A-Wu were swept into Qin Yanzhi's sleeve robe, and this time it felt...very stable!

Huh? Qin Yanzhi's Qiankun Sleeve skill had actually improved? Did he practice in secret?

Suddenly, the sleeve shook violently, and he rolled out from it.

Before he could figure out the situation, someone said, “You want to escape? It’s not that easy!”

Author’s Notes:

Ji-ji: Aaahhh! It’s my turn! It’s finally Ji-ji’s part! Ji-ji is about to gain loads of fans! (fly legs rubbing wings)

Author: Hehe, so naïve…