Hearing her daughter's sweet, soft voice, Mu Yun dropped his sword, sprinted forward, and scooped Mu Qingxue—who looked just like a little rice dumpling—into his arms. The smile on his face was practically overflowing as he showered her face with kisses.
Mu Qingxue reached up with her two short hands to cup his cheeks, giggling, "Daddy, tickly, your beard!"
Hearing the commotion, Jiu Qing walked out slowly from the wooden house. Looking at the father and daughter, a sweet smile bloomed on her face. "Mu Yun, don't hurt Xueer!"
Snapping back to the present, Mu Qingxue looked at the pile of cold weapons and said with reluctance, "Well... then should we just leave these behind?"
"We definitely can't leave them! They weigh a ton, and we don't even need them anyway."
As he spoke, Ling Yu noticed a flash of reluctance in Mu Qingxue's eyes.
"O-okay then, let's..."
"Wait, actually, I feel like I might need them after all. What if that meteorite devours my spiritual energy at a crucial moment and ruins everything? Right?"
"But..."
Before Mu Qingxue could finish, Ling Yu scooped up the massive pile of items and shoved them into the bundle. He heaved with all his strength, hoisting the heavy pack onto his back. The massive load instantly bent him double at the waist, but he forced his spine straight anyway.
Then, putting on a breezy, nonchalant expression, he said to Mu Qingxue, "Let's go, Miss Mu!"
Seeing his comical appearance, Mu Qingxue covered her mouth with a soft giggle. "Let's go!"
The two stepped out of the wooden house and onto the clearing in front of it. Mu Qingxue turned back to look at the wooden house, a trace of reluctance in her eyes. After all, it was the wooden house where she had lived for over twenty years, and every little memory she had made there flashed through her mind.
She turned back around with a smile. "Let's go!"
Heading east all the way along a small path in the Forest of Ten Thousand Demons, they occasionally heard rustling from the bushes and birdsong in the sky. Accompanied by the chirping of cicadas, it sounded like they were composing a song—a song that belonged exclusively to summer.
After walking for several hours, Ling Yu finally reached his limit. He dropped the heavy bundle onto the ground with a thud and collapsed onto the dirt, sprawling out. "I can't do this anymore, let's take a break. I'm exhausted!"
As he spoke, he raised a hand to wipe the sweat beading on his forehead.
In contrast, Mu Qingxue looked completely at ease, walking forward at a leisurely pace with her hands clasped behind her back.
She stopped in her tracks, turned around, and looked down at Ling Yu. The young man was panting heavily, sprawled on the ground, his somewhat tender face glistening with sweat.
"I offered to carry it for a while, but you wouldn't let me. Such a stubborn blockhead!"
During their walk, Mu Qingxue had indeed considered carrying the bundle for a bit. After all, they were her things to begin with, and she felt bad making Ling Yu carry them the whole way. Even though a Level 3 Swordsman had much greater stamina than an ordinary person, fatigue was inevitable; if an ordinary person tried to carry this pack, they would probably be crushed to the ground after two steps.
Wanting to show off his masculinity, Ling Yu had refused to let Mu Qingxue carry it. In the end, having completely run out of steam, he had no choice but to stop and rest.
The two came to a riverbank. Ling Yu struck his weapons together to create sparks and managed to light a campfire.
It was approaching evening. The temperature difference between day and night wasn't too drastic, but an occasional gust of wind would still make them shiver.
Ling Yu noticed something odd. In the past, even though he was a Level 2 Swordsman, he was only slightly stronger than an ordinary person, and going without food for long periods would always leave him feeling hungry.
Yet today, not only did he not feel any hunger after a whole day of travel, but warm currents kept coursing through his abdomen from time to time, leaving him utterly baffled.
"Miss Mu, are you hungry?" Ling Yu turned his head to look at her and asked.
"Not hungry."
For some reason, Mu Qingxue's attitude right now was utterly aloof, as if she were a completely different person from earlier that morning.
Ling Yu let out an "oh" and stopped trying to make conversation, switching from a sitting position to cross-legged to begin meditating.
Even though practicing right now wouldn't yield much progress, ever since hearing about the current state of the Ling Family from Dao Zhangming, he knew that the heavy responsibility of the family's revival now rested entirely on the shoulders of the eldest young master. Yet, with his current strength as a Level 3 Swordsman, he was still far from ready.
For now, he could only plan step by step, deciding on his next move after finding his father. After all, his father was a Level 2 Sword Saint, whereas the Demon Beast leading the charge that day was only at Demon King Level 1—and it seemed to have just broken through, its realm not yet fully stabilized.His own father had achieved the realm of a Sword Saint for six years now, and had mastered all kinds of cultivation techniques and sword techniques to perfection. However, on that day, there were too many Demon Beasts, and two fists were no match for four hands. The moment he finished off the Demon Beasts right in front of him, more would surge forward wave after wave, and there certainly were intelligent Demon Beasts among them launching sneak attacks.
Still, his father's strength should not make it so easy for him to die. After all, he still possessed a trump card: the Ling Family secret technique, the Divine Firmament Art!
This technique was created by Ling Yu's great-grandfather. It could absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth in an instant, pushing one's own spiritual energy to a peak state in a short amount of time. When that happened, no matter how severe the physical injuries were, they would recover instantly, and one's own strength would multiply.
However, the side effects of this technique were extremely severe. Using it would result in exhausted spiritual energy and fragile meridians.
The trauma to the Dantian was also colossal; it would take at least one hour to recondense spiritual energy and stabilize the meridians.
After a long while, Ling Yu slowly opened his eyes, exhaled a breath of stale air, and looked at Mu Qingxue beside him.
The young woman sat with her back against a large tree, eyes closed, her brow tightly furrowed as if she had something on her mind. Her exquisite face looked exceptionally cold at the moment.
The firelight shone on her face, casting a fiery red glow onto the base of her neck, which had previously been hard to see. Only then did Ling Yu notice that she wore a red cord around her slender neck, though a portion of it was tucked inside her collar, making it impossible to see what was hanging from the cord.
Ling Yu withdrew his gaze and looked up at the moon. It was currently the hottest time of summer, but the occasional breeze at night still made people shiver involuntarily.
The moon in the sky was gradually obscured by dark clouds, and there were no shining stars around. What could be seen just a moment ago was now pitch black, making it impossible to see one's own hand in front of one's face.
Sensing that the weather might change, Ling Yu gently patted Mu Qingxue and said, "Miss Mu, the weather is about to turn. Let's find somewhere else to take shelter from the rain."
Mu Qingxue hazily opened her eyes. Because she had just woken up, her gaze was somewhat dazed. After coming to her senses, she gave a soft grunt of assent, stood up to dust off the dirt from her clothes, and walked forward on her own accord.
Seeing this, Ling Yu also stood up and followed behind her.
As the two of them walked along, they arrived at a bamboo grove. A fine drizzle was now falling from the sky, forcing them to quicken their pace.Not long after, the two arrived before a cave. It was very well concealed, its entrance blocked by a dense thicket of tender bamboo that made it difficult to spot at a glance.
Ling Yu pushed aside the tender bamboo at the entrance, peered inside, and turned back to say to Mu Qingxue, "Miss Mu, come quickly!"
Before Mu Qingxue could reply, Ling Yu plunged straight in.
The cautious Mu Qingxue glanced around her surroundings. Aside from the bamboo, there were many fireflies dancing in the air, and nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.
Inside the cave, pitch-black darkness enveloped everything, while the air carried a faint, fresh fragrance of bamboo.
Relying on his senses, Ling Yu felt his way forward along the walls. He was still unable to channel spiritual energy to illuminate his surroundings and use it as his eyes, so he could only rely on feel to move ahead.
Suddenly, a ball of blue flame materialized out of thin air, revealing Mu Qingxue's breathtakingly beautiful face within it. Her pitch-black pupils faintly gleamed with a bluish hue, and her cold, aloof expression was icy enough to make one involuntarily shiver all over.
This startled Ling Yu, causing him to take two steps back. Once he steadied himself and saw who it was, Ling Yu complained with dissatisfaction:
"Miss Mu, could you please not suddenly pop up and scare the wits out of me like that? It's very dangerous, especially for an 'innocent little kid' with a fragile heart like mine! It's way too easy to frighten me."
As he spoke, he covered his chest with both hands and spoke in a feigned, high-pitched voice.
When he finished, he even deliberately cast a wink at Mu Qingxue.
Mu Qingxue looked at him expressionlessly, her eyes full of speechlessness.
"Keep acting like that and I'll throw you out."
With that, Mu Qingxue ignored Ling Yu and walked onward into the depths of the cave on her own.
Realizing he was only making a fool of himself, Ling Yu stopped and followed closely behind her.
As they walked deeper inside, they noticed the ground was entirely covered in bamboo leaves and debris, which struck the two of them as rather strange.
Abruptly, Mu Qingxue extinguished the flame in her hand and shouted to Ling Yu, "Move!"
Ling Yu, who was still pondering why there was spiritual energy inside this cave, was startled and instinctively took a step back.
Before he could even steady his stance, a pitch-black bear paw slammed down right where he had been standing just a moment before.
With a loud "bang," dust and debris flew into the air as a massive paw print, three feet long and two feet wide, was left gouged into the ground.
Before he could even get a clear look at the bear paw, a deafening roar reached his ears.