Chapter 41
Chapter 41: There Really Is Something Dirty on Her
Jiang Yun Jiang burned with rage, but she strangled it down before it could show on her face.
To avoid being marked and tracked by Dragon Clan methods, she didn’t stop for even a breath. She fled more than 50 li, then tore open a Void-Rending Talisman and twisted her position away.
When she finally landed, Dan Yang Mountain was far behind her.
She stood in a dense forest dusted with early winter snow. Cold air bit at her lungs. She touched her earring, letting the artifact’s disguise unravel, and then wiped away every trace of her earlier aura until she felt clean again.
Only then did she punch the tree beside her.
The blow snapped it in half.
The trunk crashed down, shaking snow from the branches in a string of dull thuds—each one an echo of the violence in her chest.
When her breathing steadied, she let it out slow.
“This is so familiar,” she said, voice flat with contempt. “Even when it doesn’t benefit her at all, as long as it makes me miserable, Lu Shao Heng will do it.”
A cold snort slipped out. “Looks like it’s time I taught her a lesson.”
Then her expression shifted, the anger hardening into calculation.
“No. She’s only an outer sect disciple. She’s been in the sect less than four months.”
Her gaze narrowed.
“That longbow is high quality. A top-tier First Grade artifact—market price over 80 spirit stones.”
An outer sect disciple received, at most, 120 spirit stones’ worth of resources in a year. That bow wasn’t something you bought on a whim.
“And Shao Heng isn’t the kind of idiot who would burn her entire year for one artifact,” Jiang Yun Jiang said. “Not unless she had something backing her.”
Dan Hua asked, “Then what do you think it is?”
Jiang Yun Jiang pressed down the last scraps of rage until only the facts remained.
“Most outer sect third-class tasks are chores. You can’t earn many contribution points that way. If she’s taking Second-Class Tasks, then her cultivation is definitely more than twenty-something furnaces.”
For the first time, Dan Hua’s remnant soul showed doubt. A shadowy figure condensed beside Jiang Yun Jiang, expression unreadable.
“But my divine sense won’t be wrong. I checked her once—on the spirit boat, at the start. That girl is Lower Grade talent.”
“Even with spirit stones supporting her, reaching twenty-something furnaces in less than four months is already terrifyingly fast for Lower Grade talent.”
Jiang Yun Jiang fell silent.
Then, rare for her, she contradicted a true lord who had once stood in the Sixth Realm.
“When I return to the sect,” she said, quiet and absolute, “I’ll find a way to probe again. At the very least, I’ll find out where her spirit stones are coming from.”
If she could cut in, she would.
It wouldn’t just be revenge. It would be profit—enough to buy the spirit materials and treasure herbs she needed for alchemy.
—
Inside the pale mist, Shao Heng lowered her bow.
Her righteous speech still rang in the air, sanctimonious enough to make her want to laugh. When Jiang Yun Jiang fled in a streak of panic, Shao Heng’s mouth finally curved.
She had been gathering spirit herbs nearby. Her divine sense was sharp, and when the mist technique weakened for a moment, she felt an unusual fluctuation—like a seam being tugged open.
When she went to investigate, she saw it: someone with half their body inside the mist and half outside, slipping through like a thief.
Hmph.
Just from that back of the head—just from that stubborn swagger—she recognized Jiang Yun Jiang.
Shao Heng had Gray Cocoon clamp down on her own power, then used Face-Changing Art to blur her face into another man’s. She followed close behind into the mist—
And saw the hatchling.
Her heart jolted, a wild, greedy ache she didn’t let reach her eyes.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “If I can’t have Little Dragon, fine. But how am I supposed to let Jiang Yun Jiang take its essence blood?”
So she fired.
Out of instinctive caution, she drew on only a little over 20 furnaces of power. She didn’t need to kill Jiang Yun Jiang—she just needed to interrupt.
It worked. The arrow knocked the dagger aside. Jiang Yun Jiang retreated without even daring to test the situation further.
As Jiang Yun Jiang fled, Shao Heng’s thoughts spun through a dozen possibilities in a single breath. She figured Jiang Yun Jiang had recognized her too, and she turned toward the edge of the mist to leave.
Then she chased—and her eyes narrowed in disbelief.
Even after using Three-Thousand-Li Moon, Jiang Yun Jiang was still several times faster.
Shao Heng’s pulse hammered.
“My power is already at 325 furnaces,” she thought, mind cold and precise. “From that stab, she hasn’t even reached mid First Realm. Even if she cultivated a high-grade escape art, she shouldn’t be this much faster than me.”
Memory fragments surfaced, sharp as splinters.
Jiang Yun Jiang secretly examining her on the spirit boat before they reached the sect. That odd, tiny movement at the gate of the Beast Garden. Breaking through the White Dragon’s mist barrier—
Shao Heng’s expression tightened, and something in her chest sank into certainty.
“Jiang Yun Jiang really does have something dirty on her!”
A split soul? A remnant soul?
Shao Heng leaned toward the latter.
She had asked Zhao Tang about inner sect matters and learned Jiang Yun Jiang had become the disciple of a Sixth Realm cultivator—yet she wasn’t that person’s only true disciple.
A true lord with multiple disciples wouldn’t plant a split soul tied to their own essence on Jiang Yun Jiang just to protect her. Not unless there was more in play.
“A remnant soul attached to her must be after something,” Shao Heng thought, eyes narrowing. “And with her greedy personality… besides hidden benefits like breaking mist and providing protection, there has to be tangible profit.”
She filed it away, already planning.
Then—thump.
The soft, hazy mist in front of her turned into a hard wall. Shao Heng slammed into it head-on. Her forehead cracked against invisible force. Pain blossomed; her vision flashed white.
She swore under her breath and looked back.
The hatchling in the pond had opened its eyes.
Pale-gold slit pupils, but none of a snake’s coldness. Newborn confusion softened its face, almost innocent—yet the natural might of the Dragon Clan sat beneath that innocence like a blade hidden in a sleeve.
“Little Dragon!” Shao Heng called, loud and bright.
She raised both hands as if to show she meant no harm—while her right hand tightened around the bow. Yellow Sprout power gathered in her meridians, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.
“I was the one who stopped the bad person! I saved you!” Her voice went syrupy. “I’m a good person. A really, really good person. Your lifesaver!”
The hatchling opened its mouth and let out a clear cry—like wind chimes shaken in a high breeze.
What reached Shao Heng’s ears was dragon song, but she understood it anyway. The meaning slid straight into her mind, a voice like a young boy’s.
“I remember your voice,” it said. “You’re a good one.”
Shao Heng’s smile twitched. A good one?
She forced it steady. “Thanks. You look like a good dragon too.”
Dragon song again, the tone curious—then sharpened.
“Why do you have my father’s scent on you? Are you a human slave my father sent to protect me?”
A pause. Then, almost eagerly:
“No. You smell sweet. Are you blood food my father sent me?”
True Dragons were heavenly demons. It wasn’t only Human Clan cultivators who fought to tame and conquer them—True Dragons had their own cruelty, their own games. They had even created Dragon Sigil, capable of binding living beings as slaves.
This hatchling had been born only moments ago, yet with a trace of bloodline inheritance awakening, its words already carried the edge beneath the childish mask.