Su Ye turned to look at Xue Mingzhao, waiting for the powerhouse to speak.
Xue Mingzhao instantly cursed eight hundred times in her head.
Was it too late?
Did that mean her golden thigh was about to go cold?
But she was just a mortal; what did she have to save someone with? If she kept pretending to be a powerhouse, Su Ye would definitely expect her to make a move.
If she continued to play dumb and the person died, where else was she going to find another golden thigh?
She quickly swept her gaze over Su Ye—there wasn't a single glimmer of magical light from any spiritual tool on him, not even the most basic protective spiritual accessory, and his spirit boat was a piece of junk.
His entire being practically had the word 'poor' written all over it.
She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and the enigmatic expression on her face instantly collapsed.
“Fellow Daoist Su, to tell you the truth—I'm no powerhouse. I'm just a mortal without a shred of cultivation.”
Su Ye froze.
Xue Mingzhao spoke at lightning speed, giving him absolutely no time to process his shock. She pointed toward the direction of the cry for help. “But! But you must save that person, because he is the Sect Master of the Heavenly Origin Sect, Huang Siqi.”
“The Heavenly Origin Sect?” Su Ye's eyes flickered. He had heard of this name. It was one of the top sects on the Tianyan Continent.
“Yes, that exact Heavenly Origin Sect. Just think about it. The leader of a major sect is in trouble, without a single guard by his side. If you, a Foundation Establishment rogue cultivator, rescue him, how massive of a favor would that be?”
Xue Mingzhao counted on her fingers, her speech getting faster and faster.
“Even if our talent is too poor to catch his eye, it's a life-saving favor. Would a grand Sect Master have the face to not show his appreciation? Spirit stones, cultivation methods, medicinal pills—whatever he casually throws our way would be enough to sustain us for several years. Besides, the voice is right on the outskirts, at most several dozen feet away. We'll be there in a few steps.”
Su Ye watched her mouth open and close, the image of a profound, hidden expert in his mind shattering into a million pieces.
But he had to admit, her calculations made perfect sense.
A major sect master, just a short distance away, a life-saving favor—no matter how he looked at it, it was an absolute steal.
“...So everything back at the tournament was an act?”
“Is now the time to talk about this? The man is about to die!”
Su Ye took a deep breath, pushing down all his stray thoughts. She was right. Save the person first, settle the score later.
“Fine. Keep up, and don't wander off.”
He turned and rushed toward the direction of the voice.
Xue Mingzhao followed closely behind, silently sighing in relief. Although her powerhouse persona had collapsed, her gamble on wining over Su Ye had paid off.
A life-saving favor from a grand Sect Master—she wagered he wouldn't let this opportunity slip by.
Before they had run very far, a slumped figure came into view behind a gnarled ancient tree.
The person wore an elegant, standard-issue sect robe, looking quite like a distinguished expert, though the fabric was already thoroughly soaked in blood.
His body was covered in crisscrossing wounds, a bloody mess. Tangled hair obscured his face, and his breath was so faint that only a single thread of life remained, barely hanging on.
As expected, a sect elder in distress, Xue Mingzhao thought with certainty. This had to be the fortuitous opportunity she was waiting for.
Su Ye rushed forward, crouching down to check the wounds. His expression grew grave. “The injuries are too severe; he could stop breathing at any moment. This is no place to linger. Let's go!”
Without another word, he bent down to hoist the injured man onto his back, and the three of them quickly retreated toward the exit of the valley.
The night wind swept through the forest, and a chilly wind howled at the bottom of the valley. Xue Mingzhao focused entirely on the path ahead, with Su Ye carrying the man close behind.
Both of them were on high alert, their paces swift, fearing that a single slow step would make them the target of a demon beast lurking in the shadows.
Fortunately, they made it through without any mishaps, successfully leaving the boundaries of Sunset Valley.
Su Ye gently laid the severely injured man onto a flat patch of grass, straightened his back, and let out a long sigh of relief.
He and Xue Mingzhao exchanged a glance, both feeling the relief of having survived a brush with death.
However, before he could even catch his breath, Su Ye suddenly felt a piercing, bone-deep pain in his ankle.
He looked down, his pupils shrinking.
A small, completely black snake had wrapped itself around his calf at some point, its venomous fangs sunk deep into his flesh.
And on the back of Xue Mingzhao's right hand, there were shockingly two tiny puncture wounds, slowly oozing blood.
The skin around the wounds quickly turned a bizarre greenish-black.
Xue Mingzhao followed his gaze to the back of her hand, her mind buzzing.
When was she bitten?
She hadn't felt a thing.
From the moment they entered to save the man until they came out, her nerves had been stretched as tight as a fully drawn bowstring. She hadn't noticed any abnormality at all.
Su Ye severed the snake's body with a strike of his sword. The black snake fell to the ground, twitched twice, and lost all signs of life.
He stared at the tiny, cold scales on the snake's corpse. His face instantly turned pale, and his voice tightened. “It's a Blood-Withering Snake.”
Xue Mingzhao's heart sank. This creature had been mentioned in the original book—extremely venomous, without an antidote, and fatal to anyone below the Golden Core realm.
Su Ye curled his lips in self-deprecation, the light in his eyes dimming inch by inch.
A month ago, he was still the Young Sect Master of the Mist Concealment Sect, sleeping in until midday and relying entirely on his father's piled-up resources for cultivation.
He also had a younger half-brother, five years old, who possessed a high-grade gold spiritual root and could draw qi into his body at just five years of age.
The entire sect sang his praises. The elders constantly compared Su Ye to a five-year-old kid, both openly and covertly, claiming he was useless and didn't deserve to hold the position of Young Sect Master.
In a fit of anger that day, he snatched his half-brother's spiritual tool and casually gifted it to an outer sect disciple.
In the middle of that very night, his father dragged him straight out of bed and into the main hall.
The entire Mist Concealment Sect was brightly lit. His mother, concubine mothers, half-brother, and the elders who had watched him grow up—everyone was standing in the main hall.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, his father forced his head down to kowtow three times before the ancestral tablets, took out the Void-Shattering Formation left behind by the ancestral master before his ascension, and shoved him right into the formation, telling him to get out and gain experience, and not to return until he reached the Nascent Soul realm.
Tumbling through the spatial turbulence, the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
Was a measly spiritual tool really more important than his own son?
To the point of using the sect's ultimate treasure to sweep him out of the house?
What made him feel most aggrieved was that with so many people in the hall, not a single one had pleaded for him.
Even his mother had kept her back turned to him, never sparing him a single glance from beginning to end.
He swore that once he reached the Nascent Soul realm—no, once he reached the Soul Transformation realm!
He would definitely return in glory, showing those who claimed he was inferior to a five-year-old child exactly what he was made of.
But now, let alone the Soul Transformation realm, he couldn't even survive for the duration of an incense stick.
Su Ye smiled bitterly. Father, if you were going to throw me out, you could have at least left me something to save my life.
Well, this is just great. Your son is about to meet his end in the mouth of a snake.
He knew exactly how domineering the venom of a Blood-Withering Snake was. From the moment of the bite to the onset of the poison, it took fifteen minutes at most.
After fifteen minutes, one's vital energy and blood would wither, and their soul would dissipate, leaving them thoroughly dead, like a fading flower.
The speed at which the poison spread was even faster than he had anticipated.
His vision began to blur, and his consciousness felt as if it were being dragged downward by something pulling tightly.
He took one last look at Xue Mingzhao. The girl who was always full of nonsense was still standing there dazed, staring blankly at the wound on the back of her hand.
“This time...” His lips moved, his voice so quiet it was almost inaudible. “Even if we make it out, we won't survive.”
With those words, Su Ye's vision went black. He completely lost consciousness and collapsed heavily to the ground.
Xue Mingzhao watched Su Ye collapse, then looked at Su Mingyuan lying nearby, drawing his last breath.
Two people—one poisoned and unconscious, the other severely injured and on the verge of death.
And she herself had also been poisoned by the Blood-Withering Snake. According to Su Ye, she would surely die within fifteen minutes.
Despair washed over her like a bucket of ice-cold water from head to toe. Standing in the night wind, she truly felt for the first time what it meant to have no way out.
She looked down at the two tiny puncture wounds on the back of her hand, the greenish-black color spreading outward from the injury, eerie and hideous.
Xue Mingzhao cursed the heavens up and down in her mind.
She had finally managed to transmigrate, yet before she could even touch the threshold of cultivation, she was about to meet her end in the mouth of a snake.
She wanted to cry, but felt it was too much of a waste of time.
She only had fifteen minutes left in total. Crying wouldn't save her life anyway, so she might as well save her strength.
Rate on N.U.
