Chapter 103 – Remnants of the Phoenix (3)
Feng Baichuan’s gaze switched Lan Xueruo’s rear and said: “This little brother, your complexion looks to be quite terrible and you’re even being carried by this young lady. You must have received heavy injuries right? I, myself have learned a bit of medicine, perhaps I may be of help somehow.”
“My name is Yun Che, I thank Clan Leader Feng for your good will.” Yun Che politely replied from Lan Xueruo’s back. His voice caused Lan Xueruo’s beautiful eyes to widen: “You’re…. you’re awake?”
“Yes, I woke up when senior sister put me on your back.” Yun Che said with a happy smile. Even if his complexion looked terrible, his voice was finally no longer that weak. During his freefall, he used the Sky Poison Pearl and rapidly fused the Skyroot Grass, Flower Nectar, Mountain River Plant along with thirty different types of medicinal material to swiftly concoct a Heaven Returning Pellet. Afterwards, he swallowed it. The amount and quality of the required medicinal material to refine this Heaven Returning Pellet was exceedingly harsh. Moreover, the refining environment, the furnace, and the refining method were all strict to the extreme. Even if it was a high level pellet refining master, the success rate of the refining wouldn’t exceed thirty percent. But with Xiao Sect Branch Sect’s enormous treasury and the Sky Poison Pearl, all of this was not an issue.
“Then why…. then why didn’t you say anything, and made me carry you this far.” Lan Xueruo flushed in anger.
“Because this is the first time in my life that I’ve been carried on a girl’s back. Not only was it very comfortable, the scent of Senior Sister’s body is very fragrant.” As he spoke to here, he originally wanted to lightly sniff the fragrance of Lan Xueruo’s body more, but his expression suddenly became sluggish as he blankly stared in place….
Was it really…. his first time being carried by a girl?
In this life, it was indeed…
But, during his life in the Azure Cloud Continent… That girl… Every time he returned to her by using the last bit of his strength and knocked on the bamboo door, he fainted in front of that bamboo door. When he awakened, he was lying on top of a soft and warm bed… Although he had been unconscious, it seemed as if he was able to clearly feel her use her own delicate body to shoulder his bloodied body. Each of step she took was difficult and accompanying each step were specks of teardrops…
Time and time again; maybe even tens of times, or perhaps even hundreds of times. The number of times were simply uncountable and he also didn’t bother to count it… The only thing he could remember was that even if he lived through two lives in two worlds, it was still impossible for it to make up for what he had owed her. Because heaven, no longer gave him that chance.
Suddenly, the Lan Xueruo he was tightly hugging slowly turned into the figure that only appeared in his dreams…
“You! If it weren’t for the fact that you’re injured, I would’ve tossed you aside!” Lan Xueruo said with a bit of indignance. Previously, when she had been carrying Yun Che, she was calm because she thought that Yun Che was unconscious. Now that he had awoken, that feeling of his body pressing against hers, and the indistinct male scent caused her ears to flush red as her heart pulsed even more erratically.
“Clan Leader Feng, can you help me find a place to settle down my friend?” Lan Xueruo asked Feng Baichuan while facing him.
“Of course, please follow me.”
This small village was indeed a small village; there were a total of a dozen or so simple and crude houses. From Feng Baichuan, they learned that the whole clan was not more than two hundred people. In regards to the newly arrived Lan Xuero and Yun Che, the two outsiders, the people here were vigilant at first but afterwards, they revealed a good nature. Very quickly, Lan Xuero and Yun Che both realised a strange fact; every person they had met were all at the tenth level of the Elementary Profound Realm. Other than the children who have not yet started to cultivate profound energy, all of them were like this, without a single exception. It seemed as if the tenth level of the Elementary Profound Realm was their limit. But, after the Nascent Profound Realm, every time one stepped into another level, it was accompanied by a bottleneck that increasingly becomes difficult to breakthrough. But from the Elementary Profound Realm to the Nascent Profound Realm, there was basically no bottleneck to speak of; so long as enough profound energy was accumulated, one would naturally step into the Nascent Profound Realm.
But the people here all stopped at the tenth level of the Elementary Profound Realm; this truly puzzled Yun Che and Lan Xueruo.
“How could this place have the Phoenix’s essence?”
Jasmine’s sudden voice surprised Yun Che: “Phoenix? The primordial divine beast, the phoenix of legends?”
“Correct!” Jasmine’s voice slightly revealed a sense of exhaustion; she previously transferred a part of her own profound energy to Yun Che. Although it was a very brief couple of seconds, it still caused a certain amount of damage to her soul and Yun Che’s body: “Even though it’s very faint, it is definitely without a doubt, the Phoenix’s essence. How strange… Could it be that the phoenix had actually descended to this inferior plane before?”
This lowly plane… these words made Yun Che’s heart stir, he suddenly made a terrifying guess as to Jasmine’s identity.
“And the flame imprint on their foreheads, is also the mark that the phoenix bloodline bears! But this mark’s color and the color that this princess knows, are completely different. Additionally, the mark of the phoenix bloodline is normally hidden; only when using the phoenix’s power of fire would the mark forcibly appear, but the people here all bear the mark of the phoenix and it’s as if they can’t hide it. In short, this is too weird!”
Feng Baichuan brought Lan Xuero and Yun Che to a clean hut: “You two, please rest easy here. We are just a small clan hidden. Everything we have cannot compare with the outside world, so we can only inconvenience you.”
Lan Xuero carefully put Yun Che on top of the bed. Secretly letting out a sigh of relief in her heart, she turned around to say: “Clan Leader Feng is too courteous. We are already extremely grateful to have a place like this.”
“Are you guys Pheonix Ruins’ guardian clan?”
Yun Che suddenly asked at this time.
Feng Baichuan, who was calm and dignified up until now, froze; his pupils distinctly contracted slightly. His expression rapidly fluctuated as he thought about how he could deny or avoid the question. But after a few breaths of time, his expression calmed down and a seemingly self-deprecating laugh arose: “The guardian clan? We aren’t worthy of that title. We are simply keeping away from the world while carrying this sin and curse. We are just a humble clan who have to atone for their sins, generation after generation. Although I don’t know where you learned that we have a relationship with the Phoenix, but it looks like… You came here in order to obtain the so-called ‘treasure’ that we’re guarding, right?”
“Phoenix? The divine beast that the Divine Phoenix Empire worships?” As the flabbergasted Lan Xueruo looked at Yun Che and Feng Baichuan, her brain momentarily stopped working.
“No, you misunderstood.” Yun Che took a breath. He wanted to sit up but his entire body was so weak that even the slightest of movements would cause a stabbing pain. He could only give up, and lay there as he answered: “The reason I was able to find out that you are possibly the clan that guards the phoenix’s remains, is because of the mark on your foreheads. I came into contact with a lot of rumors regarding the phoenix bloodline; aside from the color being slightly different, the shape of the mark on your foreheads and the shape of the mark that I know of, is exactly the same. My senior sister and I coming here, is due to an unintentional fall from a high altitude. I even sustained heavy injuries from my fall, so there is absolutely no other intention.”
The injuries on Yun Che’s body wholeheartedly convinced Feng Baichuan. After all, no one would be crazy enough to come after their ‘treasure’ with such heavy injuries. Yun Che’s words baffled him for a while, and then he once more mockingly laughed at himself: “The Phoenix imprint… Different color… Yes, different color. The originally respected imprint that symbolized its power and bloodline has turned into a cursed mark of sorrow; our ancestors made a horrible mistake, but what kind of sin have we, the younger generation commit!?”
Feng Baichuan’s words revealed a strong sense of sorrow; it seems as if Yun Che’s words thoroughly stabbed at his heart’s sore spot.
A cursed mark? Yun Che’s heart pounded. The blood mark, how could it turn into a cursed mark? Wait wait, maybe the reason their profound cultivation was limited to the tenth level of the Elementary Profound Realm, was because of this “cursed mark” Feng Baichuan spoke of?
“I believe that you are not bad people because I can’t sense any maliciousness from your body and you have also saved my two children. However I should repay you, is something I ought to do. Only…” Feng Baichuan took a lengthy sigh: “Our clan is currently facing a disaster; if you are to continue to stay here, the disaster could involve you so you should recuperate here. It would be best if you could finish healing and leave before those treacherous people come back here again. Because the next time those villains come, perhaps… It’ll be the disaster of disasters.”
When he was being carried on the road here, he learned what had happened previously from Lan Xueruo and two children’s conversation. Puzzled, he asked: “Clan Leader Feng, I have one thing that I don’t understand. Your clan ought to have been here for many years right? So many years have peacefully passed by, but why has a mercenary group suddenly fixed their attention on you?.”
Feng Baichuan looked out the window and calmly answered: “What you had just said is correct. Our clan has already existed for many many years and was even prosperous for a period of time. But after incurring heaven’s wrath, we rapidly declined and had no choice but to live in isolation in order to survive. At present, because of this lowly appearance, we aren’t even comparable to a small broken down village. However, we were left undisturbed these past years because this area is known as the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range. Every type of profound beast is rampant; the least violent are Nascent Profound Beasts, and the scariest are the Earth Profound Beasts. And it is even rumored that there are three terrifying Sky Profound Beasts dwelling within this mountain range. This is the profound beasts’ paradise. They reject humans who step foot into this place; they would group together to attack if humans entered the area. At the same time, the deeper you go, the higher the level of profound beasts get.”
“As for this place, it is the entire Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range’s center. A few humans may operate around this Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range’s border in order to obtain profound beast cores but aside from those who are exceptionally strong, there was essentially none with the courage and capability to arrive in this region. That and the exceptionally strong who had such an ability would not come to such a trivial place.”
“But it seems as if there are no profound beasts that live near here?” Yun Che frowned, immediately after he finished speaking when he suddenly realized: “Could it possibly be because… of the Phoenix’s essence?”
“Right.” Feng Baichuan nodded: “To tell you the truth, the Phoenix Ruins we have been guarding for generations is behind this area and contains the remaining essence of the phoenix that it left behind. Although the essence is weak, it has never scattered. In this world, which profound beast could possibly withstand the prestigious pressure of a Primordial Divine Beast? Who would dare approach?”
“So it was like this.”
Yun Che slowly nodded and the expression on his face slightly fluctuated. This place actually had a Phoenix Ruin. Not only that, the essence of the Phoenix had never dispersed. The best explanation was that this was the place where the Phoenix Ruin resided, and it was something the Phoenix had left behind!
Something that a Primordial Divine Beast left behind!
The blood in Yun Che’s entire body started to boil as he only thought about this… One could imagine how large of a sensation would occur if word of a Phoenix Ruin being here were to spread.
“Since this is the case, then how did those vicious people who wished to seize the thing you’re guarding enter?” Questioned Yun Che. It was absolutely impossible for a normal mercenary group to have the strength to face spirit profound beasts; and even more so earth realm profound beasts. Forget about a hundred people, even if the scale was ten times larger, encountering an earth realm profound beast would definite result in a complete wipe-out.
Considering this Thousand Beast Mountain Range’s density of beasts walking on a road without encountering any spirit profound beasts or earth realm profound beasts was even more impossible.
“I don’t know.” Feng Baichuan shook his head: “I want to know more than anyone else how they managed to enter this area. Perhaps, this is the fate we deserve.”
Could it be that they were borrowing the power of profound beasts that could fly extremely high? Yun Che muttered to himself, but he immediately rejected this conjecture. This Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range had an innumerable amount of profound beasts. It was inevitable that there include a large number of flying profound beasts amongst them so even if they used normal flying profound beasts, it was still impossible to enter. This could only be done by profound beasts at the level of the Fierce Storm Hawk and the Giant Snow Eagle, who were able to fly thousands or even ten thousands of meters high. But due to the horrifying difficulty in controlling them, the amount of people who had the ability to handle them were simply too few. Even Xiao Sect’s Outer Sect, New Moon City’s strongest sect, only had one, so how could this ordinary mercenary group possess any.