Am I the only good person in this cultivation world?

After passing halfway up the mountain, Yao Han and Ai Lan temporarily parted ways, allowing her to go home and prepare for her long journey, say goodbye to her family, and agree to pick her up in town three days later.

Afterwards, he revisited the place and carefully erased all traces of the battle—although the possibility of being hunted down was unlikely, the necessary cleanup still had to be done.

Yao Han already had a hunch about the mysterious "master" of these three people.

In the female cultivator's memory, this master had never shown his face. She only knew that he was a ruthless Core Formation cultivator who used blood pact restrictions to control many rogue cultivators, making them work for him and search for "medicinal herbs" with excellent spiritual roots.

These medicinal herbs are actually cultivators. After luring them here, they use various methods to imprison them, dig out their bones and blood, and push them into a blood pool for their cultivation.

Yao Han used this to determine the person's identity.

The Eastern Ridge Demonic Path has always been in decline, and several demonic sects have been rooted in the Ghost Tomb area for many years. Cultivators there can see each other all the time. In fact, there are only a handful of Core Formation and Nascent Soul elders who use the insane method of "Blood Pool" to cultivate.

Now that the Demon Palace is almost completely destroyed and only one person from the Blood Slaughter Sect has survived, it's easy to guess who this person is: if he is not a rogue cultivator who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, then he must be the Blood Soul True Monarch who escaped, but because his injuries were too severe, his cultivation level dropped to the Core Formation stage.

Outsiders might not understand these intricacies, but Yao Han knew them perfectly well, after all, he was one of the few demonic cultivators who had escaped the massacre of his entire family.

He just didn't expect that he would be involved with Blood Soul True Monarch because of such a coincidence. This Nascent Soul cultivator seems to have been driven to desperation. His subordinates have all fled to Yu Kingdom. Isn't he afraid of overstepping his bounds and being caught by the Six Sects?

Yao Han shook his head. Who knows what these Nascent Soul cultivators are thinking! He thought it was suicide, but maybe they did it on purpose to lure the six sects into a trap.

After moving the last large tree on the hillside that had been cut down by the residual power of the magical artifact, Yao Han breathed a sigh of relief. He then casually cast a few minor spells to disrupt the traces of magical power in the area and confuse the public before returning to his cave.

The sun had set, the moon and stars were few, and the mountain was serene.

The cave was somewhat dark, and the luminous stones on the wall had lost their effectiveness. Not wanting to waste them, he lit a candle on the table.

I'm about to embark on a long journey, and I've prepared everything I need to take with me. Now that I have some free time, I might as well take stock of what I've gained today and get some rest.

The female cultivator's storage bag... must have been taken by Lan'er.

This girl really does imitate others.

Well, a cultivator always needs a storage bag, so I'll give that to her.

Yao Han flicked his hand on the table, and two storage bags appeared on the table, one belonging to the male cultivator at the eighth level of Qi Refining, and the other to Zhang Pan.

There's not much to say about the male cultivator's storage bag. In order to resist the magic array, he had used up all the magic artifacts on his body. The only intact item was the copper bead, which was only a low-grade magic artifact.

All that remained were some ordinary pills and a few spirit stones.

This Zhang Pan is quite wealthy.

Although the spear had already been given to Lan'er, there was still a mid-grade fan in the bag, which looked quite impressive.

In addition, there are two bottles of pills needed for Foundation Establishment stage cultivation, Yin-Yang Pills. These are good; he'll need them later.

Yao Han stuffed everything into his bag.

To be honest, he has a lot of magical artifacts on him for storage, most of which he obtained through combat. He doesn't need that many.

It's just a burden to carry around, so I might as well just get rid of it tonight.

Yao Han grabbed all the extra storage bags on his body and planned to burn them all.

Wait, there's something inside this one.

He was stunned for a moment, and it took him a while to recall that this was Chen You, a branch of the Chen family of Youshan.

He glanced at it casually and saw that it was all gold and silver treasures, so he didn't look at it closely.

With a flick of his finger on the bag, a large pile of gilded and silver-inlaid objects clattered to the ground, along with various antique stones and other collectibles. Yao Han scanned the bag with his divine sense, then shook his head with a wry smile.

These things might be a great fortune for ordinary people, but they are useless to cultivators. All of them together might not even be worth a single spirit stone.

We could leave these to the Yao family descendants, so they could live a better life... Wait, what's this?

As he scanned the area with his divine sense, a golden wine glass suddenly lit up.

Holding the wine glass in his hand, Yao Han realized that what was shining was not the glass itself, but a piece of cloth stuffed inside.

The piece of cloth was entirely brownish-red and looked very worn; it must have been quite old. He held it in his palm, pinched a corner, and gently unfolded it.

The cloth, about the size of two palms, was blank, but when divine sense swept over it, patterns appeared, depicting mountains, rivers, and indistinct place names, as if marking a location.

It seems that before Chen You died, he said something like, "There's still some treasure left..."

So he wasn't talking about treasure, but a treasure map?

Yao Han compared the terrain drawn on the map with his memory, but couldn't recall where the place was.

It doesn't look like Dongling, at least not in the southern part of Dongling, and it's definitely not Yu or Jing.

He examined the piece of cloth over and over for a long time, but found nothing particularly special about it.

Perhaps there are other images?

Yao Han, who had initially paid no attention to the pile of treasures, began to pick through them one by one.

An hour passed before he finally finished his inspection, and apart from the mysterious treasure map, there was nothing else of value.

Well, I'll just keep it safe for now. Who knows, it might match up with a map of some place someday.

……

Three days passed in a flash, and before we knew it, it was time to set off.

Yao Han sealed off the cave, put away the great formation, and flew towards Yao Family Town at the foot of the mountain on the Wuchang Boat.

Before leaving, he went to see Yao Ping'an and met with him alone.

The latter is now the clan chief, and he is in charge of all matters, big and small.

When he saw this immortal ancestor summon a mountain of gold and silver treasures with a wave of his hand, he was instantly shocked and his eyes widened.

"These treasures are of little use to me, and Lan'er has no use for them either, so keep them with you. You can decide how to use them yourselves."

"Here are six talismans. The first five should be posted in important places within the clan, such as the ancestral hall, to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune."

"This last one is my prized technique, called the 'Spirit Serpent Talisman.' In times of crisis, three direct descendants of the Yao family can bite their fingers and smear their blood on the talisman to summon a phantom of a spirit serpent. This phantom will move according to the will of the person wielding the talisman, and under the attack of the serpent, ordinary Qi Refining cultivators have no chance of survival."

"But remember, this talisman can only be used three times, after which it will dissipate. That's all I can do for now; the rest of the journey is up to you."

Yao Ping'an listened carefully, his eyes reddened, and he bowed deeply.

"Our ancestors devoted themselves wholeheartedly to the well-being of their descendants; we will certainly live up to their good intentions!"

Yao Han waved his hand:

"This spirit talisman should be kept safe and passed on to the successive patriarchs of the Yao family. I will take Lan'er away in a little while. There's no need for a big fuss; just keep it to yourself."

"Ping An understands. Our ancestor has done so much for the clan, we clansmen really don't know how to repay him... How about, before our ancestor departs, he has one last meal at our home?"

Have a meal?

Yao Han chuckled; he had thought Ping An was going to say something.

"It's not that it's impossible. What kind of dishes did you make?"

"Mother and Xiuchun aren't good at cooking elaborate dishes, they just boiled a few plates of dumplings. If Ancestor doesn't mind..."

Yao Han nodded and followed Ping An into the main hall.

On the small octagonal table, four plates of dumplings were laid out, round and white, steaming and filling the room with a warm aroma.

The family of five sat down at the table, looking at Yao Han with expectant eyes.

He sat down with a smile, rolled up his sleeves, picked up his chopsticks, took a dumpling, and put it in his mouth.

Taking a bite, before even tasting the flavor, it's swallowed, like drinking a mouthful of strong liquor, the heat spreading from the throat to the heart, and then from the heart to the body.

Yao Han kept her eyes closed, as if savoring the moment. After a long while, she finally opened her eyes again.

"fragrant."