Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Buddha Venerable Wan Le

Seeing Yun Ding’s finger strike, Xiao Chang Qing’s face tightened. “Yun Ding, you dare?!”

She threw out spirit power like a ribbon across the sky, blocking the cyan flood.

But the instant she blocked it, unease surged even deeper—because Yun Ding didn’t look angry anymore.

He stood with hands behind his back, a smile that wasn’t quite a smile on his lips as he watched her.

Something was wrong.

Xiao Chang Qing’s pupils shrank. She tried to rush to Lin Zhao—

Yun Ding flashed and blocked her path.

“Ao Lai Peak Master,” he sneered, “do you really think my Yun Ding Peak is a place you can enter when you want and leave when you want?”

—

Lin Zhao ran.

Wind tore at her sleeves. Her blood pounded loud in her ears.

And then—

A fat monk in gray robes appeared ahead, smiling as if benevolent.

Lin Zhao stopped short, hand sliding to her Bone Sword.

Wan Le.

Buddha Venerable Wan Le—Immortal Venerable Yun Ding’s friend.

He looked at Lin Zhao like a lamb that had wandered into a butcher’s yard.

With no one else around, Wan Le dropped the mask of austere virtue. Lust crawled openly across his face as he stared at Lin Zhao’s figure.

He’d played with countless female cultivators over the years, but Lin Zhao was different.

Phoenix Maiden. Cold temperament. Limitless potential.

It made his blood burn.

Just imagining pressing such a beauty beneath him was enough to make him salivate.

Lin Zhao recognized that gaze. Her expression chilled further. “Birds of a feather flock together. Animals can only befriend animals that go into heat everywhere.”

Wan Le rubbed his fat hands. Being cursed in Lin Zhao’s pleasant, cold voice only seemed to please him. “Little beauty, finished cursing? Why not curse a few more times?”

Sickened, Lin Zhao tightened her grip on the Heavenly Phoenix Bone Sword.

In the next instant, her spirit power surged wildly.

She would rather explode her spirit qi than fall into a beast like this.

Granny’s voice cut in, firm. “No need. Someone has been following you this whole time. If he doesn’t act, Granny still won’t allow a mere Spirit Transformation to touch my disciple.”

Wan Le chuckled, sensing Lin Zhao’s intent. “Little beauty, in front of Spirit Transformation, you can’t even self-destruct. So be good and—”

He reached out.

He stepped forward to touch her face.

And then he froze.

The plants and trees around them iced over in a blink, as if the world itself had been seized by cold.

Wan Le’s slit-like eyes widened. Fear crept in.

He swallowed. “Who is your excellency? Are you truly going to oppose Buddha Venerable Wan Le—and Immortal Venerable Yun Ding?”

Within three miles of Lin Zhao, a frail old man in ragged hemp clothes appeared, leaning on a cane.

He was small. The cane looked like nothing but a dead branch. His back was hunched, his hair thin, his face weathered.

Yet Wan Le could feel it—vast pressure, boundless as a sea, bearing down on him alone.

Lin Zhao stood close and felt nothing at all.

It was a warning.

And it wasn’t meant for her.

“This girl,” the old man said, voice hoarse, “is someone my sect’s Young Lord will protect.”

Lin Zhao’s mind raced.

Young Lord?

What sect?

On the Heavenly Phoenix Continent, only a handful of forces had a Spirit Transformation Great Perfection expert.

Who was this old man?

Wan Le’s back was drenched in sweat under only a fraction of that pressure.

Then a charming, elegant woman’s voice drifted down from above, light with amusement.

“Heh heh. Looks like Wen Gui that brat worried for nothing!”

Wan Le looked up. His pupils shrank.

A graceful figure sat on a floating Star Platform in midair. Compared to Lin Zhao’s moonlike coolness, she was more mature and alluring. Deep purple eyes seemed to hold ten thousand stars.

And Wan Le didn’t dare let his gaze linger.

He knew her.

“Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji!”

She was a late-stage Spirit Transformation expert, no weaker than Immortal Venerable Yun Ding.

But wasn’t she an elder of Yin Yang Palace? Since when did Yin Yang Palace care about the Three Sects and Noble Houses?

Wan Le forced a smile. Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji smiled back—without warmth.

“Wan Le,” Xuan Ji said lazily, “you still haven’t changed that cultivation method of harvesting yin to supplement yang.”

Wan Le’s face flashed green, then white. “I haven’t done that kind of thing in a long time! I only wanted to bond with Miss Lin!”

Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji stepped off her Star Platform and hovered, amused. “Oh? Miss Lin, is this fat pig Wan Le really just ‘bonding’ with you?”

Lin Zhao didn’t hesitate. “Yun Ding tried to kill me because I refused to return to the sect. After Peak Master Xiao Chang Qing blocked him, he colluded with this fat pig to block my path down the mountain. And this fat pig planned to humiliate me before killing me.”

Wan Le exploded. “Bitch! What nonsense are you spouting?!”

“Heh.” Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji’s smile turned sharp. “Fine. Today I’ll see whether you’ve made any progress.”

She spoke as if testing him.

Her attack said otherwise.

A blade forged from starlight descended, shattering the golden alms bowl Wan Le had flung out and cleaving straight toward his skull.

Wan Le’s eyes went wide. He spun to run.

“Run?” Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji’s voice rang, mocking. “I’d like to see where you can run with Immortal Venerable Lei Yuan here!”

Wan Le didn’t recognize the old man by sight.

Xuan Ji did.

And when Wan Le dropped to his knees before the hunched old man, her expression sharpened further.

“Immortal Venerable, spare me! Immortal Venerable, spare me! I won’t dare again—”

Lei Yuan’s cloudy eyes lifted. His gaze swept over Wan Le like lightning under skin.

“That cultivation all over your body… karmic debts wrapped around it. And you dare claim you’ve already given up demonic methods?”

Wan Le’s expression twisted.

He hadn’t expected to be seen through so easily.

Wan Le had not always been called Buddha Venerable Wan Le. Once, he had been Evil Venerable Wan Le, cultivating sinister arts of harvesting yin to supplement yang.

Later, he had been “enlightened” by the Buddhist Sect—set down the butcher’s knife, and taken the title of Buddha Venerable.

These years, he had acted carefully, and no one suspected he’d never truly changed.

Now this unremarkable old man exposed the rot with a few words.

“A disgusting thing like you deserves death,” Immortal Venerable Xuan Ji snapped, fury flaring.

Wan Le’s eyes flashed dark. “If you want to kill me—then this girl dies too!”

He lunged straight at Lin Zhao.