Chapter 56: The Reason

A-Ling hurtled down from the high altitude. The rushing wind around her made her freeze for a brief moment, before she instantly understood Qin Xi's tactic.

...Although it sounded like it would pack a massive punch, it somehow felt rather strange.

After a brief hesitation, she called out:

"Taihang Monument!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the Taihang Monument left behind on the ground trembled slightly. Then, with a resounding boom, it shot straight up into the air, landing firmly in A-Ling's hands in a matter of moments!

"Hah, perfect teamwork." Seeing A-Ling, now reduced to a tiny dot in his field of vision, successfully grab the Taihang Monument, Qin Xi clapped his hands. Everything was complete.

Much like Bu Weiwei, the formation had a negligible effect on A-Ling; after all, her innate talent could also be described as monstrous.

However, if one factored in the weight of the Taihang Monument, things would be quite different.

Resembling a meteorite from beyond the heavens, A-Ling plummeted from mid-air at an immense speed. Within moments, a trail of fire ignited behind her due to the intense air friction.

Protecting her body with spiritual energy to keep her clothes from being burned to ashes, she used her formidable sense of balance to fine-tune her direction. In Qin Xi's eyes at that moment, she was nothing less than an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Meanwhile, the Green Ghost Old Demon had been the first to crash onto the ground.

"Boom!"

Such a fall still wasn't enough to kill him, but it added insult to injury to a body that was already severely battered. His internal organs even began to fracture.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Bright red chunks of internal organs were coughed up into his palm. The Green Ghost Old Demon felt that if he didn't circulate his energy to heal himself soon, he would truly be on death's door.

Yet, at that moment, he discovered a bizarre circumstance.

In order to quickly escape the battlefield, he had been flying straight upward. Now, having fallen back to the earth due to the formation's crushing pressure, he naturally landed right where he started.

So why had the villagers and the remaining two little runts who used to be right here suddenly vanished?

Had they been teleported away?

The Green Ghost Old Demon sensed that the situation was ominous, but right now, there was simply nothing he could do.

Immediately afterward, he found out precisely why the crowd on the ground had been evacuated.

A blazing mass of fire, like a shooting star tearing through the night sky, dragged a fiery tail as it plummeted toward the earth. As it descended, the air seemed to ignite, and a wave of intense heat swept across the surroundings.

That dazzling light, akin to an impending dawn, dyed the night sky a brilliant orange-red.

That wasn't even the crucial part. The most crucial part was that this object seemed to be heading directly for him.

He scrambled and crawled away, but under the oppressive weight of the formation, he was like a struggling insect, and his efforts were entirely futile.

Finally, he caught sight of a young girl clutching a stone tablet hurtling toward him, her figure growing larger and larger within his field of vision.

Under his horrified gaze, the two collided.

A deafening crash, resembling rolling thunder, made people's eardrums ache. A scorching wave of heat instantly radiated outward in all directions, kicking up countless dust clouds as the earth itself seemed to tremble.

...

"Jiang Baiqiu... How on earth do you think this guy comes up with such out-of-the-way tactics?"

Bu Weiwei was currently sitting cross-legged in front of the villagers. She and Jiang Baiqiu had just led the villagers down from the mountain when a ball of fire erupted atop the peak, followed immediately by a thunderous roar.

This effectively proved the principle that the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound.

"I have no idea. But isn't this completely normal?" Jiang Baiqiu pulled a gourd from her waist, popped the stopper out with a soft *pop*, and began to sip her spiritual liquid.

"Eh? Normal?"

"Totally normal."

After taking a drink, Jiang Baiqiu let out a sigh of relief, then blinked her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering incessantly in the moonlight: "Only someone who doesn't play by the rules has a chance of reaching the very pinnacle of the immortal path, you know."

Bu Weiwei propped her chin on her hand, her expression very complicated: "Really?"

"Really, I'm not lying to you." Under the moonlight, the edges of Jiang Baiqiu's pure white hair took on a hazy glow: "After all, how could someone who cultivates strictly within the rules ever surpass the person who made the rules?"

"Only by shattering the mindset of 'it has always been this way,' breaking the rules, and blazing a trail that predecessors have never discovered can one surpass those who came before... and even surpass the one who made the rules, you know."

"Did you... come up with this yourself?" Bu Weiwei was struck by the illusion that Jiang Baiqiu actually just looked foolish while possessing profound wisdom.

"Of course not, an old friend told me." Jiang Baiqiu tilted her head and looked toward the mountain peak: "Shouldn't we go and pick them up now?"

"Shall we bring those two along?"

Bu Weiwei pointed at the two members of the Penglai Immortal Sect, who were currently lying there like a pair of corpses, stone cold.

...

"You really are remarkably hard to kill." Qin Xi looked down at the on-the-verge-of-death Green Ghost Old Demon: "Still, this works out well. Leaving you with a breath left means we can still squeeze some information out of you."

Because it was a portable formation, its duration was very short. Once it ended, Qin Xi began a free fall.

Naturally, A-Ling caught him from below.

A-Ling's physical combat techniques were formidable; with a fluid sequence of "absorbing, redirecting, and discharging," she neutralized the vast majority of the impact force from Qin Xi's descent, before gently tossing him onto the ground.

Master of a hundred martial arts, this was the art of force dissipation.

Once everything settled, Qin Xi turned to A-Ling and asked, "By the way, you must have had a reason for taking on this commission, right? Otherwise, why take the risk of accepting a Foundation Establishment-tier task? Besides, the reward isn't particularly important to you anyway."

A-Ling hesitated for a moment, then turned to look at Qin Xi.

Seeing A-Ling's hesitant demeanor, Qin Xi knew there must be hidden depths to the matter, and it was likely a significant secret to her.

"If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to force yourself..."

In the end, however, A-Ling closed her eyes as if having made a firm resolution, and said, "I... trust you."

"Huh?"

Qin Xi hadn't expected the other party to react this way. Seeing how important the matter was to her, he suddenly felt a bit of pressure.

"I'm searching for a friend of mine, my best friend," A-Ling continued. "My purpose in coming to Daqi this time, and even my purpose in joining the Great Thousand Sect, is all for this."

"Looking for someone? Shouldn't you be posting missing person notices everywhere, or reporting it to the authorities?"

"That friend of mine isn't human... It's a spirit beast."

Hearing this, Qin Xi more or less understood. It must be that a young mistress's pet had strayed, and now she was searching everywhere for it.

Yet, given A-Ling's mindset and financial power—treating spiritual stones like mere dust—wouldn't it be easier to simply hire people to look for it? Why bother doing it herself?

Still, Qin Xi didn't pry any further. This was her privacy, and asking more would be impolite.

"The reason I accepted this commission was because the description in the bounty shared a very similar detail with it... about the size of a horse, but shaped like a fox."

"Only, upon arriving here, I only found a demonic cultivator and saw no trace of it."

A-Ling's expression grew somewhat dejected, and she sighed.

Suddenly, Qin Xi shouted from the side: "Hey, she's talking to you! Have you ever seen an animal that looks like that? Stop playing dead!"

A-Ling turned her head and saw Qin Xi pulling the Green Ghost Old Demon by the ear, yelling at him: "If you dare hide even a sliver of truth, I'll burn you with my righteous Qi!"

"Don't!"

The Green Ghost Old Demon, who had been half-dead on the ground just a moment ago, shuddered all over and hurriedly begged for mercy: "I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!"

A-Ling hadn't expected that the Green Ghost Old Demon's previous state was just an act, nor had she anticipated that Qin Xi could actually tell he was faking it.

"Sigh, actually... that spirit beast you described... I have seen it." The Green Ghost Old Demon wore a mournful expression as he spoke those words.