Chapter 52: Mo Huaiyu’s Secret

“Junior Brother!”

Xia Qingluan’s delicate figure was instantly enveloped in light.

She stood in the void, the azure sky behind her, a long sword in her hand as spiritual qi surged forth.

The next moment, a brilliant, resplendent hundred-mile-long sword qi shot out like a rainbow, piercing through the massive body of the tree demon.

BOOM!

The tree demon’s body exploded with a bang.

Xia Qingluan quickly arrived before the youth.

If something really had happened to her junior brother, how could she ever explain it?

This little guy wasn’t just the Yuling Sect’s son-in-law; he was also the younger brother of the current Yaotian Empress.

When she grasped the youth’s wrist to check his injuries—

Huh?

A flicker of confusion appeared in Xia Qingluan’s beautiful eyes. He was fine?

“Ahem…”

Mo Huaiyu opened his eyes, looking at the stunning face so close to his.

The beauty before him was watching him with concern.

“Senior Sister Xia, I’m fine. I used a substitute in an emergency just now.”

As he spoke, he took out a yellow paper figure from his robes.

A large hole could be seen torn in the figure’s chest.

“Whew—”

Xia Qingluan let out a sigh of relief, her fair hand patting his little head.

“That’s good. You really scared me just now, Junior Brother.”

She picked up the yellow paper figure and asked, “Junior Brother, what is this?”

“Senior Sister Xia, this is my secret. I can’t easily tell others about it.”

This was Mo Huaiyu’s life-saving method.

He just hadn’t expected that he wouldn’t need it during his duel with Qin Wudi, but ended up using it against a Divine Palace Realm tree demon.

Xia Qingluan held the paper figure, examining it carefully.

Even she was seeing this kind of technique for the first time.

“Junior Brother, can’t you even tell your senior sister?”

Her tone even carried a hint of coquettishness.

Hearing it, Mo Huaiyu felt as if an electric current had passed through his body, leaving him tingling and numb.

‘Good heavens, this Senior Sister Xia is a bona fide enchantress!’

He stared at the beauty’s lovely face and said, “Senior Sister Xia, this is my life-saving secret art. I can’t just casually reveal it.”

“Oh? And here I was, worried about you just now.”

The youth’s answer made the beauty want to reach out and pinch his tender little face.

And in the end, she did just that.

Her fair wrist lifted, her slender, jade-like fingers pinching the smooth, soft flesh of his cheek.

Within the beauty’s palm, she kneaded and pulled, causing the youth’s face to start contorting.

“Mmmph…”

Mo Huaiyu made a sound of protest.

Xia Qingluan paid it no mind.

As she pinched, she discovered the texture of the youth’s cheek was top-notch, making her reluctant to let go.

Knowing resistance was futile, he simply stopped struggling.

He didn’t resist this physical contact either; he was used to it by now.

Xia Qingluan stared into the little guy’s eyes.

A clear light flowed within his pupils, complementing his refined and handsome features.

This caused the strength in her jade fingers to relax a bit.

Finally, she stopped pinching and instead began gently rubbing and stroking his cheek.

Suddenly, Xia Qingluan seemed to see something deep within Mo Huaiyu’s eyes.

Her gaze gradually became entranced, and her red lips murmured softly.

‘Not good!’

Seeing Senior Sister Xia in this state, Mo Huaiyu quickly raised his hand, grasped her fair wrist, and pulled, bringing Xia Qingluan back from her dazed state.

Xia Qingluan blinked her beautiful eyes.

Just now, she had seemed to enter an illusion.

“Junior Brother, what just happened to me?”

“Senior Sister Xia, what did you see?”

Mo Huaiyu asked, his heart beginning to tense up.

‘If she really saw it, should I prepare to run?’

Sister Yuyun had told him that if someone could truly see the Yin-Yang Source Qi within him, killing them probably wasn’t an option because he likely couldn’t win.

In that case, he should run.

Xia Qingluan thought carefully and said, “I seemed to enter an illusion. First, it was pitch black, then there was a blaze of light.”

Moreover, from deep within her delicate body, a sliver of desire emerged—a desire to delve deeper, to find something, and then… to devour it.

After listening to Xia Qingluan’s account, Mo Huaiyu felt immense relief.

‘Thank goodness, Senior Sister Xia didn’t see the Yin-Yang Source Qi.’

According to Sister Yuyun, Yin-Yang Source Qi was like the flesh of the monk Tang Sanzang; anyone who saw it would covet it.

When Xia Qingluan asked what she had just seen, Mo Huaiyu simply played dumb, angering the beauty who pinched the youth’s cheek.

However, this time, she didn’t dare to look directly into his eyes.

Mo Huaiyu rubbed his flushed cheeks.

The surroundings were a mess.

As for the tree demon, its aura had vanished completely.

It seemed to have escaped.

“Damn it. My spirit treasure reward is going to be cut in half, and I also used up a substitute talisman. This trip was a total loss.”

He bent down and picked up the petal he had sliced off earlier with his palm.

He discovered it had an unknown, mucus-like substance on it, emitting a faint, sweet scent.

‘What is this?’

He rubbed it with his finger.

Instantly, the mucus stuck to his finger like glue, accompanied by a sharp, stinging pain.

“Ah! This stuff is corrosive!” Mo Huaiyu sucked in a sharp breath as the pain hit him.

“Junior Brother, what are you doing?”

Xia Qingluan looked at him with shock.

She had just been about to warn him not to touch the tree demon’s petals carelessly, but she hadn’t expected the little guy to go ahead and touch it directly.

She quickly gathered spiritual qi to wash away the mucus for him, then took out a clean handkerchief to wipe his finger clean.

Only after seeing his finger was unharmed did she let out a sigh of relief.

“Senior Sister Xia, what is this thing?”

Mo Huaiyu hadn’t expected to be tripped up by a single tree demon twice, and he’d never heard of this kind of monster either.

“The Ten-Thousand-Vine Ancient Demon. An extremely rare variant species. Not only is it incredibly difficult to kill, but its sap is also corrosive. It’s a very troublesome monster.”

Xia Qingluan explained.

The Yuling Sect had also tried to find its main body but failed, making it impossible to eradicate it completely.

They could only organize regular group hunts to cull it and prevent its growth.

“Oh, so it’s a variant. No wonder it’s so tricky.”

Mo Huaiyu understood now.

As the saying went, the rich rely on technology, the poor rely on mutation.

In the Cultivation World, this became: the rich rely on bloodline, the poor rely on mutation.

If you didn’t have some awesome-sounding bloodline inheritance within you, your only hope was for your spiritual root or physique to mutate.

Otherwise, it was really tough to get by in this Cultivation World.

—

Later, Mo Huaiyu returned to the Jubao Pavilion Master.

Having failed to complete the mission, he thought he could only claim half the spirit treasure reward.

However, here he encountered a completely unexpected figure.

“Sect Master?!”

“Hehe, Young Friend Mo, it’s been a while. How have you been faring at the Yuling Sect?”

As he spoke, Sect Leader Yaoyang’s eyes shifted to the youth beside him, Xia Qingluan.

Huh? It’s not that little girl An, but the Xia girl?

Noticing Sect Leader Yaoyang’s keen gaze shifting back and forth between him and Senior Sister Xia, Mo Huaiyu hurriedly explained, “Ahem, Sect Master, Sister Ruoxi had urgent business to attend to, so she asked Senior Sister Xia to bring me here to collect the reward.”

He was terrified the Sect Master would misunderstand his relationship with Senior Sister Xia.

If another marriage contract came out of this… just thinking about it made his scalp tingle.

Xia Qingluan naturally also noticed the Sect Leader’s gaze, and her expression immediately became somewhat unnatural.

“Hehe, so that’s how it is.”

Sect Leader Yaoyang smiled, not saying anything more.

But Mo Huaiyu was very familiar with that expression—it was full of gossipy implications.