Chapter 71 — A New Attempt [Part 1]

At the sect examination, Zuo Yan had risen to prominence and shone brilliantly; his opponent Luo Li had been wounded just as he had. But Luo Li had no master skilled in alchemy, and Shi Dai, furious at his excessive conduct, treated him as though he did not exist. As a result, Luo Li's injuries dragged on a full month before healing.

And when word reached Luo Li that Senior Sister Gongsun Qing, Xu Yi, Xu Yixia, and Yi Xia had gone to visit Zuo Yan, he nearly coughed up blood; the churning resentment aggravated his injuries and delayed his recovery by another ten days. Throughout his convalescence, Hao Min had visited only in the first few days and thereafter shown no concern at all.

It was the sect master who came to see Luo Li once, which moved him deeply.

Once healed, Luo Li immediately went into seclusion, as though he had vanished overnight. People gossiped for a while, then grew bored. But without question, Zuo Yan's corpse-like image loomed far larger in everyone's eyes now.

Within the Youhuang Hall, the company gathered together—but no one's face was pleasant.

After all these days, they had still found nothing. The traces left by that daytime star were pitifully few; they could not determine the location at all, and as time passed the remnants would only grow scarcer. With each passing day, the odds of finding that wounded demon sank lower.

"This region of Dongfu has too much human vitality; the qi flows too swiftly. The traces left last time have been all but washed away," Yuan Li said with a bitter face.

He was the most skilled among them at the art of reading qi, and all had placed high hopes in him. Yet now he had not found the slightest clue—he felt he was losing face.

Yunxia consoled him. "Do not fret, Master Yuan. We do what we can and leave the rest to heaven."

"Has anyone noticed—besides us, there seems to be another group searching for this demon," a silver-crowned Daoist spoke up.

"Oh? What have you found, Scattered Man Wen Tie?" Yunxia could not help asking.

"I have kept feeling that someone is tracking us in secret. Have any of you felt the same?" Scattered Man Wen Tie said with some concern.

"I have felt it too," Yuan Li nodded.

Yunxia swept her beautiful eyes over the company and saw how slack they all were; she sighed inwardly. If the realm lord were here, would any of them dare behave so? Their cultivations were all of a level, every one of them arrogant beyond measure, each accustomed to cultivating alone; many had come this time only out of courtesy. With no absolute expert to hold them in check, they were like a heap of loose sand.

"Elder He, do stop staring at that spirit elixir. Have you any insights?" Yunxia smiled.

"Insights? None, none." The one called Elder He was an old man with white hair and beard, crane's skin and a child's complexion. He excelled in alchemy and had been invited along this time; ordinarily he spoke hardly at all, but his cultivation was unfathomably deep, and no one dared look down on him. Suddenly he sighed. "Dongfu may be a small place, but it still hides dragons and crouching tigers. This Golden Crow Pill—to think someone conceived of refining sun essence into an elixir. This old man pays his respects."

"What use is that?" Yuan Li frowned, unimpressed.

"Fourth-grade Golden Crow Fire might perhaps be refined from it," Elder He said slowly.

At these words, the company fell silent all at once.