Shen Yi watched the woman’s back disappear into the dark.
He shook his head. He’d already worked out who she was.
Seeing through the Turtle-Breath Method at a glance demonstrated strength. Xiao Qiangwei trusting her completely demonstrated identity.
Only two kinds of person in Qingzhou satisfied both conditions: a Demon Suppression General, or a gold-bell demon-hunter.
He stepped out of the ruined temple.
He hadn’t stumbled onto a windfall like this since leaving Qingfeng Mountain.
The two of them moved in the same direction, one slightly ahead.
Jiang Qiulan glanced back. She apparently hadn’t expected him to actually follow.
When she’d passed through Qingzhou city, she’d exchanged a few words with Grandmother Aqian and leafed through the case files the Commanders had submitted from Baiyun County — including the details on the black ape and the county yamen incident, and had read Lin Baixi’s letter to the end.
So the moment she’d seen that familiar dark blade, she’d already known who this young man was.
“…”
She gave a small nod and looked forward again, walking at an unhurried pace toward the rear mountain.
She’d said what needed saying. She didn’t make a habit of interfering with other people’s choices.
Shen Yi didn’t let the presence of a powerful practitioner relax his guard. She wasn’t concealing her qi — that sharp, unsettling edge to it was easy to sense.
Demons planning to ambush someone like this would have prepared many layers.
Picking up a windfall was one thing. Getting accidentally collected in the process was a different thing.
The one thing puzzling him was that even he had the Unfettered Wind-Riding Art — this translocation-adjacent method — and the woman’s cultivation was clearly beyond his. Yet she was walking the full distance at this pace. Not even a trace of movement technique being used.
Was she planning to cover the whole stretch on foot?
Then a sharp sound cut through the air.
Something crashed down from the distance in an instant and landed in front of him.
A low whimper. He looked down.
A tiger over a zhang in length. Its stomach transfixed by a transparent blade that looked like it had been formed from solid ice. The blood had frozen. The whole body was covered in frost. Both eyes wide with terror.
It appeared to be attempting to both beg and flee simultaneously. Under the blade, the four limbs moved in slow, weakening struggle. Even the sharp claws were trembling.
It seemed genuinely unable to work out how it had been hiding at a very great distance a moment ago and then found itself here with a blade through it.
“This lord — General Jiang — this has nothing to do with me! Nothing to do with me! It was all the White Deer’s scheme!!”
Jiang Qiulan didn’t appear to have heard any of it. She glanced at Shen Yi and said quietly: “I’m not a demon-hunter. No need to stand on ceremony.”
“…”
General Jiang?
Shen Yi felt the powerful demon qi from the creature at his feet, and while his face stayed level, something moved underneath.
If he was reading this right, the tiger lying in front of him was almost certainly the target he’d come for. He just hadn’t imagined meeting it this way.
He understood what she meant.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he brought the blade down, took the head. A thread of heart blood entered the bell. He opened the abdomen and retrieved the core.
【Condensate Perfection Tiger Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 5,800 years. Remaining: 1,200 years. Absorbed.】
While he bent to collect the core, Jiang Qiulan stood quietly beside him. Something in those eyes reached backward — a faint flicker, like filling in a regret that couldn’t be named.
When Shen Yi tucked the tiger core into the bell, she returned to how she’d been. She raised a hand lightly. The blade in the tiger’s body dissolved and became a silver needle that pierced back into her palm.
“Let’s go.”
The distance was only a few dozen li. Jiang Qiulan covered it slowly, as though out for an evening walk.
About half a cup of tea later—
The same scene again.
Cold air sweeping in. Something falling from above. Only this time, not a tiger demon — a purple marten.
It didn’t get a word in before three feet of blade cleanly opened its throat.
【Condensate Perfection Purple Marten Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 5,600 years. Remaining: 1,400 years. Absorbed.】
Shen Yi wiped his hand on the marten’s smooth fur, and felt genuine appreciation. He finally understood why those two old Daoist priests had looked like that. A benefactor like this — he should have met her considerably sooner.
Even without the panel to absorb lifespan, just the heart blood from creatures like these was worth serious compensation from the demon-hunters’ credit system.
By the third time something fell from the sky—
Shen Yi didn’t give it a chance to land. He cut mid-air, collected the lifespan, and had his hand inside the body retrieving the core before it hit the ground.
【Condensate Perfection Golden Eagle Demon slain — Total Lifespan: 5,700 years. Remaining: 1,250 years. Absorbed.】
【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 3,862 years】
This time Jiang Qiulan didn’t wait. Her eyes had moved toward the deep interior ahead.
The golden eagle had been killed while the White Deer was watching. It had fled toward them desperately, hidden behind the White Deer — and been run through by a blade in plain sight.
“…”
The great White Deer hung in the air on all four hooves, form effortlessly graceful, magnificent antlers like a crown washed in blood.
But those crystalline eyes were full of frustration pressed to absolute capacity. The roar that erupted through the valley was so profane it didn’t match the bearing at all.
“I have told you I was never at Qingfeng Mountain! Why won’t you believe me! You chased me from Linjiang Prefecture all the way to Tingyang Prefecture!”
“The Yushan General wanted me dead and I couldn’t take it anymore — that one I admit — but beyond that, when have I ever come near you! What would I gain from provoking Chen Qiankun?! I’d have to be insane!”
The voice shook the valley like a great bell. And there was something in it — a genuine, bone-deep sense of injustice — that was hard to dismiss.
“…”
Shen Yi watched the White Deer with a level gaze, long blade ready in hand.
One step from saying something direct and morally clear about whose idea that Qingfeng Mountain visit actually was.
Jiang Qiulan said nothing. She simply walked toward the White Deer. Each step she took forward, the demon took one involuntary step back — no trace of a core-nurturing demon lord’s bearing to be found anywhere.
Until the dark-robed woman crossed fully into the interior.
The fear finally left the White Deer’s face. Something like relief escaped it, and it said with feeling:
“I never wanted to be your enemy. But you pushed too far. Can’t blame me for finding help.”
The words were barely finished.
The slopes on both sides of the interior began to tremble. The cliff faces cracked rapidly. Half a mountain gave way and collapsed.
When the rubble cleared — a great stone throne, enormously tall.
A figure eight zhang high leaned back against it, not in demon form, still appearing human — one hand resting on the pommel of a ring-headed broadsword, the other propping up the chin with lazy ease.
Two curved horns reached for the sky. A great bull’s head, savage and frightening. Two eyes looking down at the woman below as though at something no larger than a crawling insect.
“Jiang Qiulan.”
The voice was deep as a hollow cavern.
“I’ve been thinking about you for a long time.”
(End of Chapter)