Translator: CinderTL
Ye Bing slowly raised her right hand, and a jade slip suddenly appeared in her palm.
"Senior Yun, the complete formation is within this jade slip."
Without hesitation, Ye Bing flicked her wrist, sending the jade slip flying toward Yun Xinghai.
Yun Xinghai glanced at Ye Bing in surprise, seemingly not expecting her to hand over the Devouring Soul Array so readily.
He caught the jade slip and probed it with his divine sense, a satisfied smile spreading across his face.
"You're giving me the formation so readily? Aren't you afraid I might break my promise, take the formation, and refuse to give you the Purple Spirit Ginseng and Celestial Star Grass?"
Ye Bing replied respectfully, "Senior's strength far surpasses mine. If you intended to seize it by force, all my precautions would be futile."
"You have some self-awareness, at least. For the sake of my little friend Jin, I won't bully a junior like you. Here are the items that person wanted. Take them back and report your mission complete."
Yun Xinghai tossed a storage pouch to Ye Bing.
Ye Bing caught the pouch and opened it.
Inside were ten jade boxes, each containing a spirit grass: five Purple Spirit Ginseng and five Celestial Star Grass, all over a thousand years old—perfect for refining the Void Union Primordial Breakthrough Pill.
"Thank you, Senior," Ye Bing said, clasping her hands in a respectful bow, though her face showed little gratitude. After all, she had been brought here against her will.
Yun Xinghai waved dismissively and turned to fly back to his Xin Tang Mountain.
"Senior!" Jin Xiuqi called out urgently. "Li Yue is afflicted by the Soul Burial Curse! Please lend your aid!"
"This old man has no time for the affairs of you juniors," Yun Xinghai's voice echoed through the air as he vanished into the distant horizon.
Jin Xiuqi watched Yun Xinghai's retreating figure, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes.
He quickly suppressed his disappointment and moved to Ye Bing's side, his face filled with concern and tenderness.
"Li Yue, don't worry. I'll find a way to break the Soul Burial Curse for you."
Ye Bing's beautiful eyes remained fixed on the direction Yun Xinghai had vanished. Only when Jin Xiuqi finished speaking did she seem to snap back to reality. A faint, wistful smile tugged at her lips.
"Fellow Daoist Jin, thank you. But that man set a time for my return, and I have no time to linger. I'll repay your kindness in the next life."
With those words, Ye Bing abruptly turned away, a few crystal-clear teardrops falling to the wind.
"Li Yue..."
Jin Xiuqi reached out to grab her sleeve, but his hand closed on empty air.
Ye Bing's figure had already shot away like an arrow released from a bow, hurtling back in the direction she had come from.
"Li Yue! Wait!" Jin Xiuqi shouted, desperately chasing after her.
But his mid-stage Divine Transformation cultivation was far inferior to Ye Bing's peak divine transformation stage. He could only watch her retreating figure grow smaller and smaller, no matter how he pushed his escape speed, he couldn't catch up.
Finally, Ye Bing's silhouette dwindled into a distant black dot on the horizon.
"Li Yue! You must come back alive! I'll be waiting for you!" Jin Xiuqi roared, his voice echoing across the vast sky. "No matter how long it takes, I'll wait!"
Jin Xiuqi stopped, his shoulders slumping, and stared in the direction Ye Bing had vanished, remaining motionless for a long time.
Ye Bing fled at top speed, changing direction repeatedly as she zigzagged across millions of miles. Finally, she plunged into a raging river.
She followed the current for over ten thousand miles before entering an underwater cave.
About two hours later, an old man with only a golden core cultivation level appeared on the river's surface.
He hovered in mid-air for a moment as several Gu insects, each about the size of a sesame seed, flew toward him from four different directions. One of them, a mid-stage fourth-tier Gu, carried a storage pouch in its mouth.
The man was Song Wen.
After the four Gu insects burrowed into his body, he took the storage pouch, sensed its contents, and tucked it into his robe.
With a plop, he plunged into the river and descended to the bottom.
The riverbed was thick with silt, which stirred up into the water, turning it murky yellow. Beneath this layer of silt lay a vast network of caves.
Song Wen burrowed through the silt and entered one of the caves.
The cave's interior was an intricate labyrinth of interconnected passages, all now filled with silt. He wound his way through the tunnels, traveling an unknown distance, until he finally reached a barrier.
The barrier shimmered slightly, and a crack opened.
Song Wen slipped through the fissure and found himself in a cavern roughly a hundred zhang wide.
The cavern was completely dry, devoid of river water or silt.
Ye Bing stood at the center of the cavern, an array disk floating before her. Her hands moved in a series of magic seals as she repaired the crack in the barrier.
"Yun Xinghai didn't follow us, did he?" Ye Bing asked.
Song Wen shook his head. "No. I guarded the river surface for an hour and didn't see a trace of him."
"What about the storage pouch? Did you retrieve it?" Ye Bing pressed.
Song Wen reached into his robe and pulled out the storage pouch, handing it to Ye Bing.
This was the pouch Ye Bing had thrown into the river, the very one Yun Xinghai had given her.
"I've already checked it. There are no lingering divine sense imprints on the pouch," Song Wen said.
"You can really detect imprints left by a Void Refinement Stage cultivator?" Ye Bing asked, taking the pouch with a hint of skepticism.
"Of course," Song Wen replied. "This concerns our lives. Would I speak carelessly?"
Ye Bing was curious about how Song Wen managed this, but she refrained from pressing further.
As she retrieved the jade box from the pouch, she remarked, "You're certainly cautious, guarding the surface for a full hour. When you didn't appear, I thought you'd taken the Purple Spirit Ginseng and Celestial Star Grass and fled."
Song Wen smiled. "To have the company of such a beautiful Immortal Maiden is a stroke of good fortune in life. How could I abandon you and leave alone?"
In truth, Song Wen had considered leaving on his own but ultimately abandoned the idea.
With Jin Xun's storage ring and this storage pouch, he had gathered all the Spirit Herbs needed to refine the Void Union Primordial Breakthrough Pill.
Moreover, he had obtained the pill formula and Pill Refinement insights for the Void Union Primordial Breakthrough Pill from Ye Bing.
Everything seemed to be in place.
Even without Ye Bing, he could attempt refining the Void Union Primordial Breakthrough Pill on his own.
The reason he abandoned the idea was that he could only gather enough Spirit Herbs for two complete batches of the Void Union Primordial Breakthrough Pill. With Ye Bing's resources, they could gather enough for five batches.
The success rate of refining one medicinal pill from two batches of Spirit Herbs was far lower than refining two medicinal pills from five batches.
Furthermore, Ye Bing was an alchemist with exceptional pill crafting techniques. Collaborating with her was the optimal choice.
(End of the Chapter)
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