Apocalypse: Why did you provoke her? She's a cultivator.

Chapter 159 Reencounter with Xiao Nuo
Time slipped away quietly during the flights and explorations, and seven or eight days had passed in the blink of an eye.

Ye Qiumian's figure shuttled between mountains, valleys, ruins, and towns. The list of more than thirty locations had already been crossed out with eleven crosses.

Each fork in the road represented a disappointment. Those places were either chaotic and disorderly energy turbulence, or desolate and oppressive cold lands, or remnants of energy that had long since dried up... but none of them contained the trace of the spiritual vein she was desperately searching for.

The constant travel had left her with a hint of weariness on her brows, but her eyes remained clear and sharp.

At this moment, she landed at the foot of a rolling mountain range, the thirteenth marker on the list—the nameless mountain.

Like all the previous locations, the information only included the vague name "Unnamed Mountain" and a general location.

Ye Qiumian took a deep breath, suppressing the slight stagnation caused by the circulation of spiritual energy within her body, and slowly released her divine sense.

The invisible divine sense, like a fine net, clung to the ground, sweeping inch by inch across the mountains, forests, rocks, and streams, carefully discerning any possible energy anomalies.

This mountain forest is quite primitive, with lush vegetation and the faint sounds of animal roars and bird calls, exuding an untamed wildness.

His divine sense extended for several miles, but it was still the atmosphere of an ordinary mountain forest. He did not perceive anything "special" as mentioned in the data.

Ye Qiumian frowned slightly, just as she was about to expand the scope of her investigation, when an unusual fluctuation entered her senses.

That was the sound of fighting, and the strong smell of blood.

Her eyes narrowed, and her divine sense instantly locked onto the direction from which the fluctuation came. It was only a little over a thousand meters away from her, in a relatively open clearing in the forest.

The next moment, Ye Qiumian's figure appeared silently in the shadow of the tree canopy at the edge of the open space.

The scene before her made her frown.

On the open ground, a slender figure lay disheveled in a pool of blood, blood constantly oozing from the corner of her mouth, her face as pale as paper.

Those eyes, which always held a touch of charming liveliness, were now staring intently at the two people opposite them, filled with unbelievable pain and despair.

Ye Qiumian was somewhat surprised to run into Xiao Nuo here.

She wasn't very close to Xiao Nuo, but they had met a few times on the way to Lincheng, and she knew that Xiao Nuo was straightforward and enthusiastic.

Standing opposite Xiao Nuo were two young women.

A woman dressed in an elegant short outfit, whose features bore a resemblance to Yu Wenhao, was none other than Yu Wenhao's younger sister, Yu Jiahui.

The other one, with a beautiful face, appeared somewhat distorted due to extreme resentment; she was none other than Yu Jiahui's best friend, Song Yiqiao.

Both of them emanated lingering supernatural energy fluctuations, clearly indicating that the fight just now was their doing.

"Why...why?" Xiao Nuo coughed up blood, her voice weak but stubborn, her gaze mainly fixed on Yu Jia Hui. "I know you don't like me...you don't like me being with your brother...but you...how could you..."

She couldn't understand how Yu Jiahui, despite her opposition, could be so heartless as to try to kill her and even team up with another person.

Yu Jiahui's face was expressionless, her eyes coldly staring at Xiao Nuo on the ground as if she were looking at an insignificant piece of trash. Her tone was indifferent: "Brother is just too soft-hearted. It's causing some trouble. It's time to cut ties completely."

"You should have died long ago!" Song Yiqiao suddenly raised her voice, staring intently at Xiao Nuo, her eyes filled with hatred that seemed almost tangible. Her voice was sharp and venomous. "Xiao Nuo, Wen Hao was originally mine! It was you! It was you, you shameless slut, who seduced him and stole him away!"

"Wenhao and I are truly in love!" Xiao Nuo struggled to refute, but the aggravation aggravated her injuries, and she vomited another mouthful of blood. "Truly in love?" Song Yiqiao seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world, her face filled with insane jealousy. "If you hadn't used your tricks, how could Wenhao have chosen a woman like you with an ordinary family background? Only when you die can Wenhao come to his senses! Only then can he see me!"

With that, her eyes hardened, and she said to Yu Jiahui, "Jiahui, stop wasting time talking to her and get to work! Otherwise things might get complicated!"

Yu Jiahui nodded, raised her hand, and gathered a ball of supernatural power, clearly intending to kill.

The last glimmer of light in Xiao Nuo's eyes dimmed, and she closed her eyes in despair.

Just then, a clear, cold voice rang out unexpectedly in the open space, like ice hitting the ground, instantly freezing Yu Jiahui's movements.

"stop."

When those two words reached her ears, Yu Jiahui's hand, which was gathering energy, suddenly paused.

Song Yiqiao also subconsciously turned around, her face still showing the lingering ferocity.

Before they could even see who it was, an invisible yet powerful spiritual energy surged forth like crashing waves.

The power wasn't murderous, but it was so heavy that it was impossible to resist.

Yu Jiahui felt a numbness in her wrist, and the supernatural power she had gathered instantly dissipated. She felt as if she had been grabbed by an invisible giant hand and thrown backward violently.

Then, with a "bang," he crashed into a tree trunk several meters away, felt a sweet taste in his throat, and immediately his clothes were stained red with blood.

Song Yiqiao's fate was even worse. Her cultivation was already inferior to Yu Jiahui's. When she was hit by this force, she didn't even have time to scream before she fell into the grass like a kite with a broken string. She couldn't get up for a long time and could only curl up, clutching her ribs, her eyes filled with terror.

The forest fell silent instantly, with only the rustling of leaves in the wind and Xiao Nuo's suppressed breathing remaining.

Ye Qiumian emerged from the shade of the tree, her white clothes spotless. When she landed beside Xiao Nuo, her footsteps were so light they made almost no sound.

She looked down at the pale-faced girl on the ground, her fingertips twitching slightly, and a wisp of gentle spiritual energy entered Xiao Nuo's body, temporarily stabilizing her continuously draining life force.

"Ye... Sister Ye?" Xiao Nuo opened her eyes wide with difficulty.
Upon seeing who it was, a look of bewilderment flashed in her eyes, followed by an unbelievable surge of joy. Her voice was barely audible, like a mosquito's buzz, "Is it really you?"

More than six years had passed since they parted ways in Lincheng. Seeing her again at this critical moment in life and death was like a drowning person grabbing onto a piece of driftwood. Xiao Nuo's eyes instantly reddened.

Ye Qiumian withdrew her spiritual energy, her voice still cold, but warmer than before: "What's wrong with you?"

Judging from what she said, she knows those two people?

Xiao Nuo bit her lower lip, enduring the excruciating pain, and spoke intermittently.

“Wenhao and I have been together for almost six years. His sister, Yu Jiahui, has never liked me and always says I'm not good enough for him…” She coughed twice, and blood trickled from the corner of her mouth again. “Song Yiqiao is Jiahui’s best friend, and she has always liked Wenhao… She has hated me since the day we got together…”

"I thought... at most they would just make things difficult for me occasionally. I didn't expect that when we came out on a mission to investigate the abnormal energy in this area, as soon as we reached the foot of the mountain, they suddenly attacked me with a few people. I killed those people, but I was also seriously injured and almost killed by the two of them."

As she finished speaking, Xiao Nuo's voice trembled with tears, filled with both grievance and a chilling coldness.

She still can't understand how a mere emotional entanglement could lead them to such a deadly act.