Life in the tiny Xunyuan Town seemed to always pass particularly fast.
It was like fine sand leaking through one's fingers.
Unable to be grasped or held back.
On this early morning.
Beside a stone table, Ning Xian held a cup of clear tea, taking small sips.
The sunlight filtered through the bamboo leaves, dappling her plain white robes.
She looked at Fang Xuan, who was sitting across from her with eyes closed, adjusting his breath; his early-stage Transformation Realm cultivation had completely stabilized.
His aura was restrained, yet it vaguely emitted a sharp edge that made one’s heart skip a beat.
It was time to leave.
"We shall set out today," she said, putting down her teacup, her voice light and clear.
"To the Central Plains main city."
Fang Xuan opened his eyes, showing no surprise in his gaze.
He simply propped his head up and looked at her. "Senior Sister, do you really not want to stay a few more days? It's quite comfortable here."
Ning Xian's fingertips curled slightly.
She also wanted to stay longer, but it was impossible.
She didn't know how to explain the countless dangers ahead to her junior brother in detail.
She couldn't exactly say directly, "Junior Brother, I have been reborn many times, and every time at this point, a bunch of people who want to kill us or steal you away will pop up. One particularly troublesome one is the pavilion master of Tianji Pavilion. We have to go kill him quickly, or we won't even be able to sleep peacefully in the future."
If she said that, would her junior brother think she had succumbed to inner demons during her cultivation?
Or... would he ask more about the past she was unwilling to mention?
"No," she eventually said, shaking her head gently and shifting her gaze to the apricot tree in the corner.
"Some things are better done sooner than later."
The Central Plains main city was a place where cultivators from all over the world gathered—a mix of dragons and snakes where opportunities and dangers coexisted.
It was indeed an excellent place for killing for treasure... cough, for obtaining opportunities and accelerating cultivation.
.......
Not a day after leaving Xunyuan Town, as the sun dyed the horizon red again at sunset, the two of them already stood beneath the towering, massive city gates of the Central Plains main city that seemed to touch the sky.
The walls were hundreds of feet high, built from an unknown giant black stone, with complex array patterns inscribed on the surface, radiating an ancient and majestic aura.
The city gates stood wide open, with cultivators flowing in and out like a web; their auras varied in strength, and their attire was diverse and strange.
A wave of clamor rushed over them; it was truly two different worlds compared to the tranquility of Xunyuan Town.
Ning Xian seemed accustomed to this, her expression indifferent.
Fang Xuan, however, looked around with great interest, thinking to himself that this scale was far more spectacular than the main cities in the xianxia online games he had seen in his past life.
The two did not linger for long and followed the flow of people into the city.
Inside the city, the streets were wide and lined with buildings.
.......
The sky had grown dark.
In a relatively quiet district, they casually found a clean and tidy middle-grade inn.
"One superior room," Fang Xuan said, walking to the counter and laying down several spirit stones.
The shopkeeper was a middle-aged cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Realm. He glanced at the two of them before quickly lowering his head, a smile piling onto his face. "Alright, guests, please follow me upstairs. Room A-3, it’s quiet."
The room wasn't very large but was elegantly decorated, with a window facing the street.
Ning Xian walked to the window, pushed half of it open, and scanned the slightly desolate street below and the towering pagoda visible in the distance with a calm gaze.
Tianji Pavilion.
Her brow furrowed imperceptibly.
Things... were coming faster than she had anticipated.
They had only been in the city for less than half an hour, and their place of stay had just been decided. The other party's efficiency was unusually high.
Then again... during this period, to help her junior brother with body tempering, stabilize his realm, and because of the previous minor fights.
The frequency and intensity with which she had used the laws of space were indeed much higher than usual.
No matter how carefully she concealed it, for beings at the same level or those with special monitoring methods.
She would be as conspicuous as a firefly in the dark night.
It seemed that their trip to the Central Plains main city had perhaps fallen into the eyes of certain existences the moment they stepped through the city gates.
In their view, she and her junior brother hadn't exactly snuck in; it was more like they were delivering themselves to the doorstep.
But that was fine; it saved her the trouble of looking for them.
"Junior Brother."
She called out softly, her voice showing no ripples.
Almost at the same time, Fang Xuan’s fingers, which had been playing with a teacup while leaning against the table, paused slightly.
"I know, Senior Sister."
The moment the words fell—
An invisible yet extremely sharp sword intent, like a waterfall crashing onto the earth, completely covered the two seemingly ordinary wooden buildings across the street.
There was no world-shaking explosion, no dazzling brilliance.
Those two wooden buildings, along with several Nascent Soul Realm cultivators hidden inside, were instantly and gently erased from this world.
Immediately after, five or six figures bolted out from the shadows of the street, their auras all at the late-stage Nascent Soul Realm or even the Great Perfection; they were clearly the second wave of lurking personnel.
Witnessing their companions vanish in an instant, their eyes held shock, but were filled even more with madness.
Various spirit artifacts flashed with light, carrying baleful energy as they rushed toward the inn window, all of them then charging toward Fang Xuan.
Fang Xuan simply raised his left hand casually.
Those several charging Nascent Soul Realm cultivators were all grabbed by their necks and had their throats crushed.
As for why he didn't use his right hand—his senior sister's hand, of course, had to be well-protected.
Doing this kind of thing was too dirty; he could handle it himself.
......
Fang Xuan casually tossed the still-warm corpses to the side.
From the moment the first wave of sword intent was released to the resolution of these two waves of attacks, less than half a moment had passed.
The room remained tidy; not even a single drop of water had spilled from the teacup.
"How... how is it possible... a... Trans..."
Among the pile of corpses in the room, a Nascent Soul Great Perfection cultivator who was the strongest and luckily had half a breath left had pupils that were losing focus.
He used his last bit of strength trying to transmit information, but could only spit out a few blurry words.
Finally, his eyes suddenly became frantic and resolute, and his remaining spiritual power began to recklessly surge backward toward his dantian.
He was going to self-detonate! Even if he couldn't kill the target, he would create chaos and send out a final alarm!
But his madness didn't have time to fully unfold.
Inside the room, Fang Xuan didn't even bother to turn around.
He simply cast a quiet glance toward this spiritual energy source that was about to explode.
The restless spiritual energy froze instantly.
The cultivator’s eyes widened, and he was directly annihilated by the sword intent.
Everything returned to silence once more......
"Knock knock knock." A knock on the door sounded at the right time, and the hesitant voice of the inn apprentice came from outside. "Guest? Just... just now there seemed to be some noise outside. Is... everything alright?"
Fang Xuan replied casually, "It's fine. I was a bit careless while practicing my arts just now; the noise was a bit loud."
The apprentice breathed a sigh of relief and nodded repeatedly. "Oh, oh, as long as everything's fine, as long as everything's fine. Guest should also pay attention to safety while cultivating... then... then I won't disturb you further."
The apprentice withdrew, still mumbling to himself.
These cultivator lords were really terrifying when they practiced. That wave of heart-palpitations just now... tsk. However, this guest actually had a pretty good temper.
He was at least the most gentle one among all the cultivators the apprentice had seen; he looked like a truly good man of the highest order.
He turned and headed downstairs, planning to check the backyard for anything that needed cleaning.
However, as he passed the side of the inn and habitually glanced at the street across, his footsteps suddenly froze.
He rubbed his eyes, then rubbed them again with force.
Huh?
Where was the house?
Where was that huge building of his?!
The apprentice stood frozen in place, his mouth wide open, unable to recover his senses for a long time......
.......
In the room, Fang Xuan walked to the window and stood side by side with Ning Xian.
Xiao Hei wiggled out from somewhere and obediently began to handle the pile of "trash" in the room.
Its black body spread over, and everywhere it passed, even the bloodstains were devoured completely clean.
"It's only the first night, and there’s already such a big commotion."
Fang Xuan looked at the outline of the Tianji Pavilion pagoda in the distance; his tone wasn't tense, but rather slightly excited.
"It seems tomorrow won't be peaceful."
But this was finally getting interesting.
Ning Xian also withdrew her gaze from the pagoda, letting it fall on Fang Xuan's profile, which carried a hint of a smile.
It seemed her junior brother... enjoyed this kind of excitement a little?
That was fine; it was better than being timid.
"Mhm," she responded softly, her voice remaining calm. "Tomorrow, we will go straight to their door."
Since the other party had already bared their fangs, there was no need to dance around anymore.
They would go straight to the source, drag out that lingering immortal hiding in the pagoda, and settle things once and for all......
Afterward, she would worry about how to feed her junior brother until he reached the Tribulation Crossing Realm.
Though, it might not have been Tianji Pavilion's doing; otherwise, the timing would be a bit too coincidental.
But she didn't really care about that; after all, they would have to face them eventually.
......
"Mhm..." Fang Xuan responded indifferently.
He liked his senior sister's straightforward and decisive style.
The night was still long, but inside and outside the inn, silence had returned.
Only a certain apprentice who had lost a building was still reeling in the wind, questioning his very existence.
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