Lifeline

Mu Chenze and Gu Ningyun exchanged a look, and he chuckled. "This, my friend, is human nature."

Wen Xuan looked blankly at them. "...Can we speak like normal people? I don't understand a word of this."

Gu Ningyun patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry. Even if they talk, others won't necessarily believe them."

Wen Xuan actually understood that part. "After all, the impression you left as a support during the individual competition was quite deep."

"In that case, let's keep going," Jun Luo said. Then, he and Jiang Yao vanished back into the thick forest.

Si Puyu and Ling Hanbai's teammates were also discussing the same issue.

"We definitely shouldn't say anything. It's too unfair if we're the only ones who got played," Ling Hanbai said, raising an eyebrow at a teammate's suggestion.

"Ruiyu Pavilion's points are already far ahead, and their strength is overwhelming. Taking first place is basically set in stone."

Si Puyu's expression darkened slightly. "Even if we told others, it wouldn't do us much good, whether they believed us or not."

Ling Hanbai nodded. "Exactly. We'd be better off spending that time hunting down a few stray demon beasts or snatching some wooden tokens. We'll secure third while fighting for second."

Si Puyu had been tormented by Ling Hanbai's previous 'securing second while fighting for first' attitude, and hearing this new goal immediately put her on guard.

She blurted out, "Are you still going to keep a death grip on me? Ling Hanbai, if you keep this up, I'll risk everything to take you down with me..."

"Keep a grip on you? When did I ever do that?"

Ling Hanbai picked at her ear, looking at the young girl who was rarely this emotional. "In cultivation, you shouldn't overthink things. It's easy to develop inner demons!"

She finished with a helpless expression toward Si Puyu and led her group away.

Once her divine sense could no longer detect Si Puyu, a teammate gave Ling Hanbai an admiring look.

"Senior Sister Ling, when it comes to the ability to annoy people, I truly look up to you."

Another teammate added, "Exactly. I looked back before we left, and Si Puyu's face was completely black, her fists clenched tight. After moving with them for the past few days, I thought she was a mild-tempered person who never had big emotional swings."

"Ahem, am I really that annoying?"

"You could annoy a thousand-year-old jiangshi back to life. If Si Puyu runs into you a few more times, she might just die of rage."

Ling Hanbai was speechless. There was no need to be that hyperbolic.

...

Two days later, in the far north of the forest, the ground suddenly began to vibrate, accompanied by the sound of trees snapping.

Dozens of demon beasts with blood-red eyes were hot on the heels of a group of new disciples.

As they ran, they shouted warnings to any fellow disciples nearby, "Run! The demon beasts have gone mad!"

The ones they were warning happened to be Fu Mingzhi and his group, who were exploring from the east toward the north.

As the beast pack approached, Fu Mingzhi led his team to catch up with the disciple who had shouted. His voice was full of shock. "Aren't you one of Zhu Zijin's teammates? Why are you alone? Where are Zhu Zijin and the others?"

"The beast pack came too fast! Senior Brother Zhu told us to split up to increase our chances of survival!"

The disciple spoke rapidly, his words blending with the whistling wind. "After we split, the beasts divided into five groups and chased us. I met these other disciples while fleeing, but even working together, we couldn't beat them. We're all injured. What do we do, Senior Brother Fu?"

Fu Mingzhi's eyes were grave. "The secret realm is only so big. We can't run forever. We have to find a way to kill them."

"But there are only twenty of us, and there are over thirty beasts! Every single one is at the rank one peak, and some are even stronger, almost reaching rank two!"

"Keep running for now! We'll join forces once we find more people!"

At that moment, the five members of Ruiyu Pavilion were still in the southern part of the forest.

Just after they finished taking half the points from another group, Gu Ningyun's divine sense detected something abnormal.

In the far north, the vegetation that usually swayed naturally in the wind seemed wrong; the plants were vibrating slightly.

She knelt down and pressed an ear infused with spirit energy to the ground. A thunderous vibration echoed from the north, and even from the east and west, she could faintly hear the heavy thuds of massive objects hitting the ground.

Her expression changed instantly. "Something's happened!"

The other four also knelt to listen.

Mu Chenze's face was grim. "It sounds like a beast riot. But the demon beasts in this secret realm were arranged by the sect for our team competition. Why would they suddenly riot?"

"What should we do?" Wen Xuan asked. Though worried, she remained relatively calm.

"After five days, the demon beasts in the secret realm have mostly been cleared out by the hundred or so groups. Even if there's a riot, there shouldn't be too many of them."

Gu Ningyun's mind raced. "The secret realm is small. Running is useless. We should go meet up with the others and kill them together!"

Jun Luo already had his peach wood sword in hand. "Let's go. To the north!"

They were already near the center of the forest, so they simply pivoted north. Before long, they ran into Fu Mingzhi's group.

Fu Mingzhi spotted them from a distance, and his eyes lit up as if he had seen a savior.

"Gu Ningyun! Can you heal? We'll pay twelve sect points!"

As he spoke, he immediately transferred twelve points to Gu Ningyun. Seeing this, the other injured disciples followed suit and transferred points as fast as they could.

They truly couldn't hold on much longer.

The cultivation levels of these beasts were far higher than theirs, and they were caught again after running only a short distance.

They had been forced to stop and fight, then use whatever means they had to slow the beasts down. In the back-and-forth, every one of them had been wounded.

Perhaps because the beasts were frenzied, the wounds they inflicted wouldn't heal. Even Return-to-Spring Pills were ineffective.

As time passed, a cold, dark energy seemed to bore into their wounds and seep into their bodies, causing their spirit energy to stagnate.

Fu Mingzhi recognized this as evil qi. However, everyone was already on edge; if he told them they were infected with evil qi, they might fall into despair and simply throw their lives away against the beasts.

So, he had been comforting them while hiding the truth about the infection.

Until he saw Gu Ningyun.

He remembered that she had played healing melodies for over ten days in the Trial Tower, even healing the foundation establishment martial uncles. She was undoubtedly an expert in healing music.

If anyone in this secret realm had a chance of treating them, it was likely Gu Ningyun.

Therefore, the moment he saw her, he took the lead in transferring points without a second thought.

Gu Ningyun pulled out her zither as she ran alongside the twenty or thirty bedraggled and wounded disciples, beginning to play 《Zongjiao》.

The moment the melody reached the wounded, Gu Ningyun understood why Fu Mingzhi had paid her double the usual points.

When the rhythm and spirit energy touched the wounds, the reaction was exactly the same as the one described in 《Zongjiao》 for purifying evil qi!

No wonder their wounds wouldn't heal. She had thought they had simply run out of pills.

It turned out that ordinary healing medicine was useless, and they had come to grab her, their only lifeline.