Ch. 91 - Life Is Full of Unexpected Encounters

Ye Fan ran swiftly, leaping over mountains and crossing ridges, agile like a monkey, fast like a leopard. The terrain flew past beneath his feet. But still, he couldn't completely shake off his pursuers, several figures were hot on his trail. Clearly, these people were powerful cultivators, likely already in the late stage of the Bitter Sea realm.

Suddenly, Ye Fan’s expression hardened. A massive canyon loomed ahead, and two figures blocked his path. Not only was he being chased from behind, but two others had flanked him and cut off his escape.

At this point, it was too late to turn back. Ye Fan stopped and said, “The two of you, just a short while ago we were chatting. Why are you now standing in my way?”

The two people at the canyon’s exit, a man and a woman, looked to be around twenty-five or twenty-six years old. The woman wore a cold smirk and said, “You were doing just fine in Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven. Why did you flee? Did you do something disgraceful?”

The man stepped forward several paces, staring Ye Fan down. “You didn’t steal something, did you? Why else would you run like that? A beggar’s nature never changes, your hands were dirty even in Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven.”

“I bet that piece of ‘source’ you have wasn’t obtained legitimately either. Maybe you stole it from Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven. Otherwise, how could a little beggar like you own something so valuable?” the woman said as she closed in on him.

As this happened, Ye Fan also kept moving slowly forward. His actions seemed natural, not aggressive. He remained calm outwardly, but inside he was sneering. These two clearly wanted to rob him of his source, yet were trying to frame him with false accusations.

“Come on, big brother and sister, how could you slander me like this? That source is a Clan heirloom. Don’t throw dirt on my name…” he said while inching closer to them.

At that moment, someone from behind saw how close Ye Fan had gotten and shouted, “Be careful!”

But it was too late.

Ye Fan struck decisively, leaping into the air with lightning speed. His hands shot out like bolts of electricity, smashing the two people’s heads together with brutal force. They collapsed unconscious on the spot.

The two cultivators never expected a seemingly twelve-year-old beggar to possess such terrifying combat skills. Completely unprepared, they were knocked out in an instant.

Ye Fan hadn’t used the golden page because he didn’t have confidence he could kill them instantly. Also, he wanted to mislead his pursuers into thinking he used some underhanded trick, rather than proper cultivation methods.

At that moment, Ye Fan drew a small curved dagger from the woman’s body, pretending he was about to kill them. Shouts rang out from behind.

Ye Fan didn’t go through with it. Instead, he smiled coldly and said, “Hopefully I can mislead you all.” Then, acting flustered and panicked, he resumed his escape.

Sure enough, angry voices rose from behind.

“This little bastard is cunning! That must be how he killed Senior Brother Yang in the stone forest!”

“Good thing we followed closely, or Senior Brother Wang and Junior Sister Zhang might’ve been in trouble too!”

…

“They won’t catch me,” Ye Fan muttered. “But if they insist on chasing me down to the death, I’ll give them a surprise.”

He wasn’t powerful enough yet. If he revealed his trump cards too early and got surrounded, it would end badly. Misleading them now was like gaining an extra layer of protection.

After fleeing for more than ten miles, three more figures intercepted him. The woman in the middle sneered, “You’re not from Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven after all. As fast as you run, you’ve wasted energy taking the long way. In the end, we still caught you.”

The two male disciples beside her had dark, murderous expressions.

“One little beggar managed to kill Senior Brother Yang. Such a despicable trick!” one said coldly.

“If we hadn’t arrived in time, Senior Brother Wang and Junior Sister Zhang might’ve been taken out too. Can’t believe he succeeded in ambushing them!” the other added, voice full of malice.

Ye Fan pretended to be terrified, putting on the expression of a frightened child. He stammered, “I… I didn’t mean to… They tried to kill me… tried to take my source… so I… I hit them while they weren’t looking…”

The woman’s face turned frigid. “You killed Senior Brother Yang…”

“I… I thought I just knocked him out. But then… he grabbed my leg… and I panicked… I pulled out the knife, and… accidentally… cut his neck…” Ye Fan showed a fearful expression befitting a child.

“Accidentally?!” the woman’s face twisted, her beautiful features now frozen with hatred. “You call killing Senior Brother Yang an accident? Is this a joke or an insult?”

“No more talking. Take the source and kill him. Avenge Senior Brother Yang!”

“Killing him directly is too easy…”

The two male disciples’ eyes glinted with killing intent, faces cold and sinister.

At that moment, Ye Fan subtly repositioned himself, seemingly trembling in fear, but actually aligning the two male disciples into a straight line with himself.

Sssshh!

A brilliant golden light suddenly burst from Ye Fan’s body. Like a bolt of golden lightning, it outshone even the sun. The golden book blazed across the air like a holy fire.

Puff! Puff!

Two soft sounds rang out. The two male disciples died with eyes wide open, sliced cleanly at the waist. Blood sprayed high into the air. Their upper halves crashed to the ground while the lower halves stood stiff for a second before toppling over.

“You…” the woman gasped in shock. She reacted fast, instantly summoning a violet divine net that swept toward Ye Fan.

Clang! Clang!

The golden book, glowing like a miniature sun, charged forward, colliding with the net. Metallic ringing filled the air as the golden light shattered the violet web into pieces.

The golden book cut through with a flash, Shhk!, and the woman’s head rolled to the ground.

Ye Fan wiped the cold sweat from his brow. If he hadn’t kept his trump card hidden and tricked them, he would’ve ended up dead.

“You came to kill me and take my source, your deaths don’t burden my conscience.” He quickly cleaned up the scene and fled like the wind.

But after running just a hundred meters, he heard more voices behind him, reinforcements were arriving. Ye Fan turned to look and his expression froze.

He saw Li Xiaoman!

He couldn’t describe how he felt. Though their past was long over, though it had faded like smoke in the wind, this moment still caught him off guard.

They could be strangers now, cold and distant. But this, this wasn’t what he expected…

“Is she here to kill me too? Or is she trying to stop her fellow disciples? I hope it’s the latter.” Ye Fan spoke to himself. Even though he no longer had feelings for her, if she really came to hunt him down, it would be too bitter to bear.

Ye Fan raced across the mountain paths, moving like the wind. Suddenly, the sound of bells echoed behind him, reverberating through the hills.

“That’s Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven’s bell…” He looked back and saw several figures suddenly stop and then turn around and head back.

“The sound carries for dozens of miles… If they’re retreating because of it, something must’ve happened. Maybe Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven realized the identity of Jiang Clan’s soldier!”

“Not good!” Ye Fan bolted.

Passing a river, he pulled out the source and dropped it to the riverbed.

“Violet Sun’s second strongest cultivator can sense the source. Other experts probably can too. I can’t keep it on me. I’ll come back for it later.” Ye Fan was worried that powerful cultivators might join the hunt for him on behalf of the Jiang Clan.

“I can’t run outward. I need to think backwards, do the unexpected.” He turned around and ran in the opposite direction.

Soon he came to a massive waterfall and jumped in, pressing himself against the rock wall behind the falling water.

Though his cultivation wasn’t high, he could hold his breath for long stretches. When necessary, he surfaced just enough to breathe.

He hid there for three days. People passed by overhead but never looked behind the waterfall. Then he changed locations several times, hiding deep in the mountains for half a month. No one found him.

One night, Ye Fan quietly left the mountains where Violet Sun Grotto-Heaven was located.

A few days later, he appeared a thousand miles away, completely out of danger.

Looking back, the memory of Li Xiaoman’s cold expression was what stuck with him the most. She had advised him to stop dreaming and accept reality, telling him to live as an ordinary mortal, like she was above him.

“Should’ve shaken off the Jiang Clan’s Soldier by now. Time to find a place to focus on cultivation.”

But to Ye Fan’s shock, just three days later, he saw the Jiang Clan’s Soldier again, this time above an ancient city.

“Relentless! So the problem wasn’t the source?”

Ye Fan checked everything he had: a white jade pendant from Elder Wu Qingfeng, harmless. A chipped, worthless-looking piece of jade from the scoundrel Daoist Duan De, probably not the issue either.

Then he took out a walnut-sized bodhi seed.

“Could it be this?”

If he threw it away, it would be a huge loss, it helped him comprehend the Dao. Ye Fan had never treated it like a treasure, always thinking it was just a seed from a divine tree. But now, he suspected this might be what Jiang Yichen had sensed.

“Maybe that bodhi seed is the treasure he’s after…”

Later, Ye Fan entered a restaurant, ordered some food, and sat down to eat.

“Truly, life is full of unexpected encounters…” A hoarse, eerie voice whispered in Ye Fan’s ear. A gaunt old man with white hair covering his face appeared before him like a ghost.

“Elder Han?!” Ye Fan nearly flipped the table. Just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, here he was.

“It seems we are fated. I was looking for you,” said Elder Han of the Desolate Spirit Grotto-Heaven, sitting across from him.

“What do you want, Elder Han?”

Elder Han looked like dry wood, skin and bones, his body wrapped in loose skin, and his white hair hanging over his face, giving him a terrifying appearance. His voice was chilling. “I prepared countless spirit medicines for you, but I could never find you. I didn’t expect to meet again here.”

“You prepared many spirit medicines for me?”

“You’re the main ingredient. The other herbs are just support,” Elder Han said slowly.

“You sick old motherfucker!” Ye Fan slammed the table. There was no point in holding back anymore.

Comments