Chapter 33
Chapter 33: Framed, Facing Danger?
Song Jiu Lai didn’t know if cultivators in Yun Zhou Continent were all this kind.
But so far, every Senior Sister she’d met had been beautiful, generous, and strangely gentle.
She blurted, “If you give me this, what will you do on the way back?”
Lin Qian smiled. “I followed you for seven or eight days. I can protect myself now. Don’t worry. I have a special way to contact the Senior Sisters and Senior Brothers among my fellow disciples. I’ll return with them.”
“It’s still too valuable…” Song Jiu Lai tried to push it back.
“It’s fine.” Lin Qian’s voice stayed warm. “You’ve helped me enough. Next time we meet… can I follow you again?”
Song Jiu Lai didn’t mind. “Sure.”
Lin Qian left the pill in her hand and went on her way.
Song Jiu Lai watched her disappear into the trees and murmured, “System… there really are a lot of good people in this world.”
The System only smiled and said nothing.
And then the slap came fast, like a gust that knocked her off balance.
It wasn’t Lin Qian. Lin Qian was fine.
It was everything else.
The moment Lin Qian left, Song Jiu Lai’s luck turned.
Her odds of running into demon beast dropped sharply. She should have been able to cut loose, to hunt until her arms ached and her spirit qi sang, but there simply weren’t enough demon beast.
She wandered for an entire afternoon and only met three first-rank demon beast.
Not even enough to “fill the gaps between her teeth.”
At least with Lin Qian gone, she could harvest freely. Wild spirit herbs, spirit wood that could be used for forging, alchemy materials—anything mature enough to pick, she picked.
She began spamming tasks for the sect players: sell spirit herbs, sell demon beast materials, sell spirit wood. Demon beast were too disgusting to look at, so she dissected them herself and kept only the key parts.
One material type, any quantity, was worth one point. She only posted tasks for different materials.
The players gradually realized their “Mom” was stingy… but points were points. Even a mosquito leg was meat. Nobody refused free errands.
Then she opened a points exchange.
Points could be traded for spirit stones.
But it cost ten points to exchange for one low-grade spirit stone.
The players stared at the rate in disbelief.
Mom, aren’t you being a little too brutal?
Song Jiu Lai ignored the complaints. She had to. Spirit stones were real money they had to earn outside. Points could be farmed forever. If she priced the exchange too low, she’d get bled dry the moment the players stockpiled points.
And with the players bug-farming errands, Song Jiu Lai turned First Mountain into a wasteland.
She harvested. She hunted. Any first-rank demon beast that crossed her path became a corpse. Wherever she passed, it felt like nothing survived—not grass, not moss, not even the idea of mercy. Even locusts would have bowed and called her Master.
The soul cultivation basic heart method the System had given her circulated automatically inside her body. After each battle, her spirit qi replenished faster. Her breathing steadied sooner. Her limbs grew lighter.
She could feel it—something in her was nearing a threshold.
On the third day after Lin Qian left, she finally confirmed one painful truth.
Lin Qian boosted her luck.
Because now she seriously couldn’t find demon beast.
She searched all morning and burned most of her spirit qi on running. She met only two first-rank demon beast.
First Mountain had only a large map. No mini map. She had to rely on memory and instinct to avoid areas she’d already stripped bare.
Just as she scratched her head and considered pushing deeper, she felt it.
A wrongness.
She stood by a stream in a deep forest, the air damp and cool. She’d just harvested a wild first-rank water spirit ling zhi—one of the Beast-Taming Sect’s needed materials. It only grew beside forest streams.
The moment she slipped the water spirit ling zhi into her mustard seed pouch, the hair on the back of her neck rose.
Across the stream, a wounded man burst from the trees.
The left half of his face had been corroded by something like pus, raw and ugly. He wore a dark blue robe with no sect insignia—no clue who he belonged to.
Song Jiu Lai tensed instantly.
Even injured, he carried pressure above her realm. Not as crushing as that Foundation Establishment Stage Senior Sister Qiao she’d once met, but still enough to make her instincts scream.
Mid or late Qi Refining Stage, at least.
And the way he looked at her wasn’t relief.
It was calculation.
He lifted a hand and tossed something at her feet.
A second-rank earth-bell ling zhi, glowing faintly.
earth-bell ling zhi could make strange sounds at night, attracting certain demon beast. It was also a rare wild medicinal herb needed by Beast-Taming Sect. On the market, a single plant could sell for fifty low-grade spirit stone.
Song Jiu Lai’s brain lagged. “Huh?”
Then the man turned and ran, spirit qi flaring as he fled.
And the stench hit—thick, rancid, rolling in like a black tide from the direction he’d come.
A second-rank demon beast emerged: a Devil Horn Snake.
It was massive, nearly a zhang tall, its body dark as wet ink. Its forehead was bald in places, studded with swollen pus blisters. Its vertical pupils were black needles in the shade.
Song Jiu Lai finally understood why earth-bell ling zhi was so rare.
Because the records said so:
Devil Horn Snake: highly poisonous demon beast. Massive body. The pus it spat could spawn tiny venomous snakes, making it hard to guard against. After death, the blister on its head would burst and corrode all living things nearby and required purification. Often appeared near second-rank spirit medicine earth-bell ling zhi. Fast and capable of splitting. Peak second-rank demon beast.
Song Jiu Lai’s pupils shrank.
At nearly the same time, she and the System cursed, “Bastard!”
The wounded man had used her as a shield.
He was already far away. Song Jiu Lai was only early Qi Refining Stage. There was no world where she outran a peak second-rank Devil Horn Snake.
The Devil Horn Snake’s cold gaze snapped onto her.
Song Jiu Lai went still for half a heartbeat.
Then the snake attacked.
It moved with terrifying speed. Its massive body surged like a collapsing hill, its head snapping forward.
Song Jiu Lai shrieked, “Pick the right person, you bastard! Did I harvest it?! Why are you coming for me?!”
It didn’t understand. It didn’t care.
She threw the largest fireball she could form and slammed it into the snake’s head.
Bang.
The Devil Horn Snake didn’t even bother to dodge. It probably hadn’t expected a weak cultivator to produce a fireball that large. It reeled, shaking its head, hissing violently.
Pus spilled from its mouth—thick green, like paste, smoking with a strange black haze. Tiny snake bodies wriggled within it, swelling rapidly into thumb-thick little serpents.
Now Song Jiu Lai understood why the man’s face looked like that.
The hit bought her a breath.
She turned and ran into the forest.
The System wasn’t panicked. “I have enough energy to teleport you once. Do you want it?”
“No.” Song Jiu Lai’s teeth clenched hard enough to ache. “I’ll try. If I can’t, then I’ll run.”
She’d never swallowed a loss like this. Her first thought wasn’t escaping.
It was finding the bastard who’d framed her.
Even if she couldn’t beat him, she’d make him pay. She’d peel a layer off him with her own hands.
And… she was thinking about the earth-bell ling zhi.
A normal cultivator might not manage, but she had players. She could have them deliver pills, send supplies, build a chain around her.
If she didn’t try… what if there really was a chance?