Just as that hand was about to touch her shoulder, Luo Qingci made her final move.
She held the iron sword horizontally in front of her, frost condensing on the blade.
Can’t run, can’t fight—then she’d slit her own throat.
Better that than falling into this old bastard’s hands.
The iron sword rested against her neck, the sharp edge pressed against her skin, the cold sensation making her shiver.
That pale hand hovered in midair, less than a foot from her shoulder.
“Oh?”
The old man raised an eyebrow, a flicker of surprise in his gray pupils.
“Thinking of killing yourself? Do you really think, in my presence, you have the right to die?”
A surge of vast, majestic spiritual power erupted from him, transforming into an invisible pressure that descended like a mountain.
Luo Qingci’s wrist was locked by that force, the iron sword at her throat unable to cut any deeper—she couldn’t even move a single finger.
“A mere Foundation Establishment cultivator, and you dare to seek death before me.”
He withdrew his hand, clasping it behind his back, looking down at her from on high.
“Don’t rush. I’m not done playing yet.”
Luo Qingci gritted her teeth, struggling with all her might, but that invisible force clamped down like iron pliers on her limbs, her wrists, every joint—she couldn’t budge.
Her eyes reddened.
Not from tears, but from rage.
“If you dare touch me, my master won’t let you off,” she said, her voice low but each word heavily emphasized.
“Your master?”
Huigu Laozu laughed, the sound echoing through the sewer like the cry of a night owl.
“Who is your master? An elder of Qingyun Sect? Or the personal disciple of some Peak Lord?”
“Peak Master of Lingyun Peak, Xiao Yan.”
The laughter stopped.
Huigu Laozu’s gray pupils contracted slightly.
Lingyun Peak.
Xiao Yan.
His reputation was loud in the Eastern Continent.
Strong.
Very strong.
But…
Huigu Laozu fell silent for a moment, then slowly curved his lips again.
“So what if it’s Xiao Yan? He doesn’t know you’re here.”
He crouched down, his gray pupils level with Luo Qingci’s.
“Little girl, do you think I’ll be scared just because you dropped your master’s name?”
He pulled a gray rope from his sleeve.
The rope was made of some unknown material, exuding a decayed aura, with faint runes flowing across its surface.
Spirit Binding Rope.
A magical artifact specifically designed to seal a cultivator’s spiritual power.
Once bound by this thing, even a Golden Core early-stage cultivator could only surrender, let alone a Foundation Establishment.
“Once you become my cauldron and help me break through to Nascent Soul, even if your master comes, he can only watch helplessly.”
Luo Qingci watched the rope approach her, her teeth grinding audibly.
She wasn’t afraid of death.
When the iron sword was at her neck just now, she even felt relieved.
Dead, she wouldn’t have to worry about her physique, the marriage contract, or the covetous eyes—about turning into some monster.
If this old man caught her and made her his cauldron, her life would be over.
Not the “over” of death, but something worse than death.
That’s why she wanted to die.
But now she couldn’t even do that.
The Spirit Binding Rope wrapped around her wrist once, its cold, slippery touch coiling like a snake.
The runes on the rope lit up, emitting a grayish-white glow.
She felt the spiritual power in her dantian being sealed layer by layer, like water under a frozen surface—frozen, unable to flow.
Luo Qingci closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to see the old man’s smug face, didn’t want to see the rope winding around her, didn’t want to know what was coming next.
She would be locked away in a place no one knew, turned into a tool for cultivation, never to be found again.
Her eyes reddened.
“No no no no no!”
“I won’t let this happen!!”
Luo Qingci’s voice exploded in the sewer.
Not a cry for help, not a plea for mercy—a roar.
The Spirit Binding Rope tightened around her wrist, the runes glowing brighter.
The feeling of her spiritual power being sealed was like someone choking her throat, tightening bit by bit, making it hard to breathe.
The hand reached out to her, the withered fingertips almost touching her cheek.
“Good, very good.”
He laughed, his gray pupils reflecting Luo Qingci’s twisted face of anger and fear.
“That’s the look. I love that look the most.”
Luo Qingci wanted to vomit.
Not a metaphor—a physical nausea.
Bile rose to her throat, and she forced it back down.
She wouldn’t throw up in front of this old man, wouldn’t show any weakness, wouldn’t let him think she was already defeated.
The Spirit Binding Rope wrapped a second time around her wrist, sealing almost all her spiritual power.
The ice-blue whirlpool in her dantian slowed down, like a clock about to stop.
The old man’s fingers touched her chin.
Cold, rough, like dried bark.
Luo Qingci clenched her jaw, her teeth grinding audibly.
The next second, that stinking old man flew away.
The person who was crouching in front of her, whose fingers were still on her chin, smiling and saying “I love that look the most”—gone.
In his place stood a youth.
Her mind hadn’t processed what happened yet.
“Are you okay?”
Luo Qingci froze. “Xiao Han?”
Foundation Establishment? No.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator couldn’t elbow a Golden Core True Person away.
Luo Qingci’s Spiritual Sense probed toward him.
The moment it touched him, it felt like crashing into a mountain.
Not the kind of collision that bounced back—the kind where you stand before a mountain, reach out to push it, and the mountain doesn’t move, you don’t move, but you know it’s bigger, taller, heavier, and has existed far longer than you.
Golden Core…
No… bro?
A few months ago you were at Qi Refining, and now you’re at Golden Core?
Are you even human?
Luo Qingci stared at him, lips moving, voice small: “You…”
“Passing by,” he said.
Passing by?
Ha ha, what a coincidence.
“A mere Golden Core early-stage brat… dares to disturb me? I am Huigu Laozu, who has been at Golden Core for a hundred years. Are you ready to die?”
But to his surprise, the cultivator opposite him didn’t show any fear.
Instead, he nodded quite agreeably and echoed: “Mm-hmm, so are you ready to die?”
Huigu Laozu: ?
Wait, what did he say?
He was asking himself if HE was ready to die?
Are you drunk?
The thought had barely crossed his mind when he felt a searing, bone-penetrating spiritual power.
Flames burst forth, spiritual energy flooding.
Xiao Han’s movement was so fast it was almost impossible to see.
Swift as Fire, momentum like a roaming dragon.
But Xiao Han didn’t use a killing move; his force wasn’t heavy.
Still, the elbow strike crashing into this old man sent him flying a distance, emitting a piercing scream.
A Body Cultivator!
And a Golden Core Body Cultivator!
Among the millions of cultivators, Sword Cultivators and Body Cultivators were the most troublesome.
Sword Cultivators focused on offense, breaking all momentum with one sword—you never knew how powerful their next strike would be.
Body Cultivators focused on strengthening themselves, breaking all techniques with brute force—you never knew how thick their health bar was.
The common point: both were very poor.
And basically looked down on each other.
Sword Cultivators thought the other side were muscle-headed poor idiots.
Body Cultivators thought the other side were glass cannons with single attack methods.
One needed a huge amount of spirit stones and resources to nourish their sword, and the other also needed countless heavenly treasures to temper themselves.
Huigu Laozu stood up from the rubble.
His gray robe was stained with mud and water.
His left shoulder was caved in from Xiao Han’s elbow, bones grinding audibly.
He looked down at his twisted shoulder, reached out, and twisted it back into place with a crack.
“A Body Cultivator.”
Huigu Laozu shook his arm, his gray pupils completely cold.
“No wonder you’re so cocky.”
He had lived for over three hundred years and seen too many arrogant youngsters.
Practiced body techniques for a few years, thought they could punch through the sky, and ended up dying miserably.
No matter how strong a Body Cultivator was, they had to fight close-range.
As a Magic Cultivator, he just needed to keep his distance and crush them.
Xiao Han took a step forward.
Huigu Laozu instinctively leaped backward, his form turning into a gray afterimage, retreating over ten zhang.
He had been a rogue cultivator for two hundred years, both prey and hunter.
He knew the first rule of facing a Body Cultivator: never let them get close.
But when he landed, Xiao Han was already standing in front of him.
Not a flash step, not a teleportation—he just walked over.
One step, and the ten-zhang distance didn’t exist, erased cleanly.
Huigu Laozu’s pupils shrank violently.
Too fast!
Normal Body Cultivators, no matter how strong or fast, would leave traces.
The flow of spiritual power, muscle exertion, even breathing rhythm would reveal their next move.
But Xiao Han had none of these flaws.
When he moved, he was like a flame—you only knew it was burning toward you, but you couldn’t see how it burned.
Huigu Laozu bit his tongue, spat a mouthful of vital blood into his palm, and rapidly formed hand seals.
Gray spiritual light exploded from within him, rising as a wall of bone from the ground, enclosing him in the center.
The bone wall was covered in sharp spikes, each coated with grayish-white poisonous mist.
Bone Prison.
One of his life-saving techniques.
He had used this move three times, saving his life all three times.
No one below Nascent Soul could break this wall within an incense stick’s time, and that was enough for him to cast his ultimate secret technique.
Huigu Laozu pulled a gray bone talisman from his sleeve and pressed it to his chest.
The runes on the talisman lit up, and a cold spiritual power flowed into his meridians, mending his broken ribs, filling his depleted dantian.
This was his final trump card, a life talisman condensed from a hundred years of cultivation.
Using it would drop his cultivation by a minor realm, but life was more important than cultivation.
“You little bastard…” he panted, his gray pupils staring at Xiao Han through the gaps in the bone wall.
“Once I catch my breath, I’ll refine you into a bone puppet, and your soul will never rest in peace—”
He didn’t finish.
The bone wall shattered.
Not broken, but burned through.
“I thought it was a speed bump.”
Xiao Han’s right hand pressed against the bone wall, flames dancing in his palm, the temperature so high the air began to distort.
The grayish-white poisonous mist on the bone wall evaporated like snow meeting boiling water the moment it touched those flames, without even a struggle.
Bone Prison, which he claimed no one below Nascent Soul could break, was as fragile as paper before those flames.
“Impossible! A hundred years of bitter cultivation!”
Xiao Han smiled faintly and casually sealed his cultivation.
Laughable.
A hundred years of bitter cultivation?
Others relied on heavenly treasures to break through, their power floating.
His power was steadily improved step by step through the System, his foundation rock solid.
You people only need to fight for resources to advance—but I have more to consider.
Like how to earn points, and where to add those points…
How could a mere hundred years of bitter cultivation compare to my persistence and effort?
You have your Innate Dao Body, Chaotic Saint Body—isn’t my Innate System Body also a talent?
How many people know about my hard work and sweat, my diligence?
Huigu Laozu stepped back three paces, his lips trembling, unable to utter a word.
He didn’t know what kind of monster he was facing, but he knew one thing: today, he might not be able to leave.
“Oh, by the way,” Xiao Han said, tilting his head as if remembering something, “you said you weren’t done playing, right?”
Huigu Laozu’s face was pale as a corpse.
“Qingci, come here.”
“Me?”
Luo Qingci looked at him suspiciously.
Aren’t you going to kill him? Why keep him alive? And why call me over?
“Yes, you. Go slap him twice. Have some fun with him. It’s fine if he dies.”
Luo Qingci froze, then suddenly laughed.
“Alright.”
When Luo Qingci walked over, it was as if she was walking toward a piece of meat on a chopping block, not a Golden Core True Person who had wanted to make her his cauldron just moments ago.
Huigu Laozu lay on the ground, cracks in his skull extending from his forehead to his cheekbone, gray blood smeared across half his face.
His eyes could still move, his pupils tracking Luo Qingci’s boot tips, like a snake whose tail had been stepped on, still wanting to bite, but his body no longer obeyed him.
“You dare…”
His voice was hoarse, almost inaudible, gray-black blood frothing from his mouth.
“I am a Golden Core True Person. You, a mere Foundation Establishment, dare to humiliate me—”
Luo Qingci stopped in front of him.
Looked down at him.
She had never imagined she would be in a sewer, bound by a Spirit Binding Rope by a gray old man, almost becoming a cauldron.
Nor had she imagined a youth would descend from the sky, beat this old man into a rag doll, and then tell her: go slap him twice.
Luo Qingci bent down, level with Huigu Laozu’s eyes.
“You said you loved that look of mine the most, right?” she asked softly.
Huigu Laozu’s pupils trembled.
Luo Qingci smiled.
She thrust her iron sword into the ground, freeing her right hand, and swung her arm in a full arc.
Slap.
The slap echoed through the sewer.
Huigu Laozu’s head snapped to one side, a few gray teeth flying out of his mouth, landing in the muddy water with soft plop plop sounds.
Luo Qingci shook her hand.
Her palm stung fiercely, but it felt satisfying.
Then she kept slapping.
“Practiced for hundreds of years, still stuck at Golden Core—waste!”
“And you wanted to make me your cauldron!”
“I’d rather pick a dog than a waste like you!”
“A mere Golden Core, calling yourself ‘Laozu’?”
“Are you even worthy!?”
Huigu Laozu’s other cheek swelled up too, his whole head like a moldy steamed bun, blood trickling from his mouth and nostrils.
His expression finally changed.
No longer anger and unwillingness, but fear.
Pure, absolute fear.
He realized he might really die here.
Not a glorious death, not being beheaded by some peerless expert, but in a sewer, being slapped to death by a Foundation Establishment little girl.
His spiritual power was sealed.
Now he was no different from a mortal.
His mouth was swollen from the spiritual-power-infused slaps, unable even to beg for mercy.
Luo Qingci patted her hands, looking at the old man whose head she had nearly slapped off, and let out a soft breath.
Ahhh.
That felt good.
When she got back, she definitely needed to wash her hands several times—no, her whole body needed several washes!
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