Chapter 173

Chapter 173: I Don’t Want To Either, But They Want to Squeeze Little Hamster

Han Cheng Yun kept shouting taunts at the surrounding trees, but aside from the wails of the two Su brothers, there was no other sound. After a while he could not help but double over in pain, hands braced on the ground. A fit of ferocious coughing wracked him, and he spat out a mouthful of bright blood laced with black threads.

When he saw the black threads in the blood, Han Cheng Yun finally panicked completely: “No… I won’t die… I have to get out… I still haven’t broken through to Golden Core… I still haven’t…”

His voice cut off. The right hand he had stretched out froze midair like a sculpture. Breath vanished. Heart stopped. No life remained.

The two Su brothers did not last much longer and soon breathed their last.

Even after the three died, Fire Puppets still pranced within the mist. Only when they had exhausted all their fire aura did the Fire Puppets gradually wink out.

After two hours, the purple fog slowly faded to a harmless white, then to transparency, until it vanished.

As the mist dispersed, a figure appeared. Rong Shu, cradling the Little Hamster, stopped not far from the three.

She did not go forward at once. Instead she drew a sword from her Storage Pouch, tapped it with a fingertip, and sent Object Control surging. The sword flew to the corpses and stabbed three times into each target’s head, heart, and dantian.

After confirming the three were truly dead, Rong Shu still did not approach. She recalled the sword, then used Object Control to strip all the Storage Pouches from their bodies.

One, two, three, four… the light in Rong Shu’s eyes grew brighter. While tucking away the newly acquired Storage Pouches, she sighed helplessly in her heart: [I don’t want to either, but they wanted to steal my Exotic Flame.]

[I don’t want to either, but they wanted to take my pill recipes.]

[I don’t want to either, but they wanted to kill me.]

[I don’t want to either, but they wanted to squeeze Little Hamster.]

[An uncle might endure, an aunt might endure, but the hamster will not.]

At the end Rong Shu summed it up aloud, voice sorrowful: “Brother Yun, I’ve avenged you. Go in peace.”

“Gu?” The Little Hamster stared blankly at the grief-stricken Rong Shu. He was baffled, yet somehow the raging anger he had felt toward Han Cheng Yun and the others deflated like a punctured bladder. They no longer seemed so detestable. In fact… they seemed rather pitiful.

“Hee hee hee,” Rong Shu chuckled as usual and kneaded the Little Hamster’s head.

Then she snapped her fingers, and a tangle of vines sprang up beside the corpses, winding them tight.

Rong Shu invoked Super Absorb. A soft green light kindled along the vines, flickering in a steady rhythm like lips smacking while eating. In moments the moisture and nutrients in the three bodies were drained away, leaving them desiccated husks. Under the vines’ tightening pull, some parts, made too brittle by the loss of fluid, cracked and crumbled to powder.

Afterward, Rong Shu used wind to slice and earth to bury. She could not use fire here, and hauling the bodies out would invite discovery once the natural screen of the poison grass was gone. If corpses were found beside poison grass, people would only assume the three had been unlucky.

All told, it was like giving these adorable little purple flowers a bit of fertilizer to thank them for their hard work.

“All done!” Rong Shu rubbed the Little Hamster’s belly and said, “Rested enough? Let’s continue on to Li Rong Mountain.”

“Gu!” The Little Hamster nodded.

A moment later a Spatial Rift opened. When it closed, Rong Shu’s figure had already vanished from the grove.

…

With the Little Hamster’s help, the journey was dramatically shortened. On the third day, Rong Shu smoothly entered Li Rong Mountain.

Perhaps because she had returned to a familiar place, the Exotic Flame within her body leaped in joy. Yet under Rong Shu’s control it continued to revel quietly and did not dare to run out at will.

Rong Shu lowered her eyes to ask the Little Hamster in her palm: “Yan Yan, can you still sense Exotic Flames? They don’t need to be anything high-grade; as long as it’s an Exotic Flame, it will do.”

“Gu! I’ll try!”

The Little Hamster grew solemn, looked left and right, then pointed in a direction.

Rong Shu headed that way. After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, she indeed found a wisp of white Exotic Flame. She sent her Little Blue Flame to devour the newly born white Exotic Flame.

Exotic Flames were generally ranked by the color of their outer flame. White Exotic Flames had just been born, with the weakest and most unstable power. Red Exotic Flames had entered a stable period and possessed middling, reliable power. As for Violet Flame, blue flame, green flame and the like, their colors reflected their inherent properties.

For Little Blue Flame, devouring such newly born white flame posed no pressure at all, though it did require time to digest. While it digested, Rong Shu went to gather spirit herbs to prepare for challenging the fourth-grade barrier of the Scripture Tower.

Thus Rong Shu spent three months inside Li Rong Mountain. In that time she fed her Little Blue Flame five wisps of white Exotic Flame and three wisps of red Exotic Flame.

Unfortunately she never encountered any variant-colored Exotic Flames. With the secret realm open for so long, any such flames had likely been collected by other cultivators.

Besides Exotic Flames, Rong Shu also picked many spirit herbs, including the ingredients for the Fire Refining Pill.

“Next, I will make a trip to the Scripture Tower to obtain enough fourth-grade pill recipes, then I can leave the secret realm,” she planned silently on the road toward the Scripture Tower.

Rong Shu had already stayed long enough. Though she wished to remain, she still had a sect mission in hand; if she delayed any further, it would expire. The reward was not high, but Rong Shu did not want the reputation of missing deadlines. Otherwise, the next time she went to the Task Pavilion to take a mission, it would not be so simple.