After the path was cut off

On the flying corpse, Zhang Guoren first spent half an incense stick's time hastily transforming Liu Quan's body into a controllable Yin Corpse. Just now, having received Li Qinghan's permission, Zhang Guoren returned to the original battlefield, collected the scattered corpses, and also Liu Quan's body.

His technique was very skillful, clearly indicating that he was used to doing this kind of thing. After the last bit of yin energy entered the corpse, the limp body finally trembled slightly, stood up again, its eyes empty, and its whole body exuding a deathly aura.

Just then, a piece of dark red, damp flesh slowly detached from Liu Quan's ribs. The thing was no bigger than a palm, its surface covered with blood vessels, and it was even wriggling slightly, making one's heart tremble at the sight.

Zhang Guoren was very familiar with this thing, after all, he had made it himself. He carefully picked up the lump of flesh with both hands and turned to present it to Li Qinghan.

"Fairy."

"This is the genital storage bag."

Li Qinghan looked at the wriggling little piece of flesh with some disgust. At the same time, she was also puzzled, according to Qingfeng's explanation. Cultivation is the world itself; cultivation is essentially a process of plundering heaven and earth. With each step forward, a bit of heaven and earth is taken away. Using the Lesser Universe Technique allows one to connect to this world. Heaven and earth are precious; this is the only way to obtain space, there is no other method. Therefore, she was astonished upon seeing what was before her.

"This is a storage bag? It can really store things?"

Zhang Guo gently lifted the polyp, his tone carrying a hint of showing off.

"This thing is alive; it's a specially crafted little Yin Zombie. It can use the Minor Universe Technique, but it can't do anything else besides that."

"To refine it, you first need the flesh of a living Tai Sui, then a ghost that has reached a certain level, and you also need to use special techniques to refine it little by little. After it is refined, it cannot leave your body; it must be kept in your flesh every day and nourished with spiritual energy."

"It's very troublesome, and not many people would normally want to deal with such a burden."

As he said this, a hint of sarcasm crept onto his face.

"When Liu Quan asked me for this thing before, I was curious. What could be so worthwhile for him to hide like this, not even trusting ordinary methods, and having to use this little zombie as an extra layer of concealment?"

"Now we can finally see it."

Li Qinghan did not reach out to take it.

This thing came from a filthy place and was taken from a corpse. She instinctively felt a sense of disgust just looking at it, and there was no way she would actually press it into her own flesh.

"You keep it for yourself."

Her tone was flat.

"Thank you for the gift, Fairy!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Guoren almost immediately burst into laughter, his eyebrows lighting up with amusement.

He wasn't surprised by Li Qinghan's words. Any female cultivator with even a slight obsession with cleanliness wouldn't press such a thing into her flesh.

"Hey, after all this time, it's still me."

He immediately pressed the polyp into the flesh of his arm. As soon as it touched the skin, it slowly sank into the flesh as if it were alive, leaving only a very faint dark red mark on the surface.

Zhang Guoren hissed, feeling a slight itch on his skin. Then, with a thought, a small space appeared in his mind's eye, no more than ten feet square.

But when he finally saw what was inside, his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

There are no elixirs.

There are no ritual implements.

There were no rare or precious stones or materials either.

The space was filled with neatly stacked talismans! Stacks upon stacks, tightly packed, and meticulously categorized.

Fireball talisman, ice arrow talisman, swift movement talisman, Vajra talisman... deep inside, there are even ten yin thunder talismans with an exceptionally sinister aura, which can make one's heart tighten just by looking at them.

Zhang Guoren glanced at it briefly, his Adam's apple bobbing as he did so.

There are probably close to a thousand in total.

"...Goodness gracious."

He couldn't help but gasp.

"That old Liu! He's always so stingy, turns out he's a hidden rich man!"

"Damn it... this isn't drawing talismans, it's printing money. There must be some special method involved."

He excitedly flipped down the page and, sure enough, found an old, fragmented copy of the "Yin Fu Jing" at the very bottom, along with a set of well-preserved talisman-making tools.

After seeing all this, Zhang Guoren could barely contain his smile.

But when he reached into the corner again, his expression suddenly froze, and he immediately looked away.

These were just a few brightly colored women's undergarments, made of very little fabric, hardly what one would expect from a respectable business owner.

Zhang Guoren's lips twitched, and he quickly pressed the corner back down.

"……never mind."

"He's already dead, let's at least save him some face."

After flipping through the pages for a while, he finally pulled out a thin letter and a small, dark token at the very bottom.

Zhang Guoren's heart stirred slightly, and he first glanced at the letter. The handwriting was somewhat messy, but still fairly clear:

By the time you read this letter, I will probably be dead.

They died either from monsters, from disasters, or from their enemies.

No matter who kills me, that person will not take a single penny from me.

Since you have seen this letter, it is a sign that we are destined to meet. Please feel free to take whatever is in the bag; there is no need to be polite.

If you still have the ability, I only hope that you can pass on the Yin Fu school for me.

—The last words of the Yin Fu Sect Master

The letter was sealed with a small token: the Yin Fu Sect Leader's Order.

As Zhang Guoren looked at the talisman, the joy on his face, which had come from suddenly becoming rich, gradually faded.

"So, it's from a fallen immortal sect after all..."

He muttered something under his breath, unsure whether to laugh or cry. No wonder Liu Quan had always said they were in the same boat.

One is a successor of the Corpse-Wrapping Sect, the other is the leader of the Yin Talisman Sect. Neither of them sounds very respectable, and when they fall on hard times, neither is much better off than the other.

Unfortunately, Liu Quanming was incredibly unlucky. Despite possessing such a vast fortune, when the time came to use it, he still couldn't save his life.

Thinking of this, Zhang Guoren couldn't help but sigh again.

"You said you are too..."

"If you had revealed your skills sooner, that female demon... that fairy might have thought more highly of you, and things might not have come to this."

But as he said this, he himself realized it was meaningless. If he really encountered someone like Li Qinghan, it would make little difference whether he hid or revealed himself.

He looked down at the small sect leader's token and suddenly felt an indescribable weariness.

He remembered his master's withered, sallow face before his death. The old man was already dying then, but he was still tightly gripping his hand, his voice broken and intermittent, as if he would breathe his last at any moment.

"Nuts..."

"Your talent isn't bad, and your comprehension is also passable."

"He's just too soft-hearted, lacks ambition, is afraid of hardship, and afraid of death..."

"Master doesn't ask that you can truly restore the sect, he only asks that... you don't let the legacy of the Corpse Wrapping Sect end in your hands..."

Zhang Guoren stared blankly at the small token in his palm for a long time before letting out a very soft breath.

"Master..."

"I am destined to disappoint you most of the time in this life."

He was ultimately just a cowardly nobody. He knew when to bow his head and when to hide. As for those so-called Corpse-Wrapping Sects and Yin Talisman Sects…

Now that he himself has become a slave in someone else's hands, what can he use to continue the family line for others?

His emotions were in turmoil, but Li Qinghan didn't even glance at him. In her eyes, Zhang Guoren's thoughts were impossible to hide. Since his true spirit had been captured by the Mirror Master, everything in his heart was transparent to her.

Li Qinghan had already closed his eyes, calmed his mind, and was regrouping to prepare his swordplay.

The person she's about to kill will be no weakling.

The flying corpse traveled forward for another half an hour.

The wilderness below gradually receded, and the terrain leveled out. In the distance, an extremely magnificent palace complex suddenly spread out on the desolate land, with upturned eaves, interconnected corridors, and beaded curtains and jade tiles gleaming brightly in the sunlight, completely out of place with the surrounding lifeless wasteland.

There were many people coming and going in the palace.

Most of them were young women with beautiful features and light clothing, and there were also a few men. They all had fair skin and looked neither like workers nor monks, but more like playthings kept here for people's enjoyment.

The flying corpses landed outside the palace. Zhang Guoren carefully woke Li Qinghan.

"Fairy, we've arrived."

Li Qinghan opened her eyes, her gaze clear and cold.

On her way here, she had already used the mirror's main field of vision to roughly scan the inside and outside of the palace.

Two cultivators were at the seventh level of Qi Refining. There were over fifty cultivators at the early stage of Qi Refining, but not a single cultivator at the middle stage.

The strongest among them was a cultivator at the Great Perfection of Qi Refining. He was the very person Zhang Guoren remembered who had offered a bounty of five hundred spirit stones for her head.

The mirror's light shone faintly on that person's soul. Black and white were clearly distinguished. Six good deeds, one hundred and ninety evil deeds.

Li Qinghan glanced at it once and lost all desire to hesitate.

People like that should be killed.

However, the palace in front of her was surrounded by an array. Although the power of the array was greatly reduced in a place like Zhongzhou where spiritual energy was locked, it would still weaken the momentum of her sword strike.

To kill them, you must first lure them out of the formation.

Li Qinghan turned to look at Zhang Guoren.

"Bring out that Qi Refining Great Perfection cultivator."

Zhang Guoren's heart skipped a beat.

really.

This deadly task still fell to him. But he dared not refuse; he quickly calculated the situation in his mind before cautiously speaking:

"Fairy, please conceal your form."

"Will you intervene after I lure the person out?"

Li Qinghan nodded slightly.

Zhang Guoren immediately controlled the flying corpse to take off and flew alone towards the area above the palace.

As soon as he rose into the air, he unceremoniously pulled out a dozen or so low-level talismans and hurled them down at once.

Boom boom boom—

Firelight, ice flashes, and wind blades fell in a chaotic flurry, but before they could truly touch the palace, they were blocked by a layer of earthen-yellow light that suddenly appeared.

Several figures in the palace were quickly alerted and looked up at the sky.

High in the sky, a huge flying corpse hovered, with a cultivator at the eighth level of Qi Refining standing on it, his face full of murderous intent, looking down at the people below.

Upon seeing the servants raise their heads, Zhang Guoren immediately mustered his courage, feigned extreme anger, and began to curse at the palace:

"Hey, you surnamed Liu! Get your ass out here!"

"You dare to trick my two brothers into risking their lives for you for just five hundred spirit stones?!"

"Do you even know who Li Qinghan is?! He's a sword cultivator! And someone protected by a true disciple of an immortal sect!"

"My brother Liu Quan has already fallen to her sword!"

"If you don't give me an explanation today, I'll tear this place down first!"

His outburst of curses was extremely loud, and many cultivators in the palace immediately showed different expressions.

Some people knew of Li Qinghan's fearsome reputation, and their expressions immediately became subtle upon hearing this.

Two years ago, Li Qinghan chased down evil cultivators outside the town, killing ten in succession, which had already made the surrounding cultivators, who lived in the gray area, tremble with fear. What's more, she had the blatant backing of a true disciple's family. Ordinary people would run away as fast as they could when they encountered her.

I wonder who it is, what their background is, and who would dare to offer such a reward.

Zhang Guoren cursed for a long time, but seeing that no one came out, he became even more furious.

"it is good."

"You're not coming out, are you?"

"Then I'll just bang my head against you!"

As he spoke, he actually pulled out three Yin Thunder Talismans from Liu Quan's spoils and flicked them in the air. The talismans instantly lit up, with dark lightning dancing endlessly between the talisman papers. The violent aura emanating from them alone caused many people below to change their expressions.

This is a genuine killing talisman. One of them is enough to rival the full-force attack of a Qi Refining Stage 9 cultivator.

What's worse, Zhang Guoren pulled out three bills at once.

The palace was immediately thrown into chaos.

Some low-level rogue cultivators who originally came here just to seek refuge and make a living saw that even the formation might not be able to stop this thing, and they immediately had the idea of ​​escaping. Some of them actually secretly climbed out of the palace and fled out.

Just then, two figures finally flew out from the depths of the palace.

One was tall and thin with fair skin, holding a folding fan, and had a feminine demeanor; the other had dark skin, a dreadlocked hairstyle, and a robust build.

Both of them were at the seventh level of Qi Refining.

The effeminate cultivator spoke first:

"Fellow Daoist, is there some misunderstanding?"

Zhang Guoren was immediately excited when he saw the other party appear.

"You've misunderstood my ancestors!"

The effeminate cultivator's face immediately darkened.

"Fellow Daoist."

"Don't refuse a toast offered in kind—"

Before he could finish speaking, Zhang Guoren had already launched all three Yin Thunder Talismans at once.

boom!

Three jets of pitch-black lightning fell from the sky, striking the earthen-yellow array light barrier fiercely!

With a single strike, the entire formation trembled violently, and countless fine lines instantly cracked on the surface of the light barrier, spreading in all directions like a spider web.

Although the formation was not yet broken, everyone could see that it would not be able to withstand a few more blows.

Zhang Guoren felt an immense sense of exhilaration. He now had an invincible swordsman behind him, incredibly arrogant, and he had long wanted to unleash his power. After all these years as a rogue cultivator, humbly hiding in the shadows, he longed to experience the thrill of unbridled freedom. He couldn't let this opportunity slip by.

After he'd had his fun, he felt a pang of regret. Liu Quan hadn't been willing to use this Yin Thunder Talisman even on his deathbed. But then he thought, this talisman was essentially dead man's property; if he kept it, it would most likely end up being taken by Li Qinghan anyway. He might as well go all out now.

Thinking of this, he gritted his teeth and pulled out five more bills, holding them between his fingers.

This caused even the expressions of the two Qi Refining Stage 7 cultivators to change.

The effeminate cultivator could no longer maintain his pretense. He suddenly unfolded his folding fan, revealing a seventh-grade magic artifact with flowing spiritual patterns on its surface.

Zhang Guoren's eyelids twitched.

A seventh-grade Buddhist implement.

He himself had managed to get by until now, and the best he had was only a third-grade item. Sure enough, the one who offered a bounty on Li Qinghan was definitely not some rootless, unaffiliated rogue cultivator.

The next instant, the cultivator lightly waved his folding fan, and several whirlwinds appeared out of thin air, heading straight for Zhang Guoren.

The flying corpse under Zhang Guoren's command was originally flying by the wind, and this time it was really severely restrained. The huge corpse swayed violently in mid-air and almost lost control and fell.

Zhang Guoren felt uneasy, but he still managed to curse aloud:

"Good, good! You even have magical artifacts, right!"

"You bunch of bastards, you really did steal my money a long time ago!"

He cursed as he manipulated the flying corpse to retreat rapidly, while also releasing several smaller flying corpses that flew around the two cultivators haphazardly, occasionally throwing out a few low-level talismans to harass them. Clearly, he was not going to fight them head-on, but only wanted to stall them.

The effeminate cultivator wielding the fan turned pale with anger. He tried to approach several times, but was constantly annoyed by the corpses and scattered talismans.

As for the burly man with the dreadlocks, he was clearly not good at flying and his movements were clumsy, so he could only watch helplessly from the sidelines.

The two sides continued their chase and entanglement until a stalemate ensued.

This stalemate finally enraged the person who had been hiding deep within the palace.

"waste."

A voice filled with anger suddenly erupted from the palace.

The next moment, a blood-red figure shot out from the depths of the main hall like a ghost, its speed far surpassing that of everyone else present. Before the person even arrived, the bloody aura was already overwhelming, making the surrounding air feel heavier.

Qi Refining Perfection!

Zhang Guoren only glanced at it, and the hairs on the back of his head stood on end.

The man raised his hand and pressed down, and a blood-red handprint instantly condensed, carrying a heavy, foul wind, and slammed down on Zhang Guoren and the flying corpse beneath him!

Before the palm strike even landed, Zhang Guoren felt a tightness in his chest, and his breath caught in his throat.

There's no escaping it.

The thought came to him almost instinctively.

But it was at this critical moment—

On the ground, Li Qinghan finally moved.

She gently lifted her hand, which had been resting on the hilt of her sword. The longsword was drawn.

"A line of cold river".

It was still that same sword arc, as thin as an ice line at first, cold and silent.

It is extremely cold, extremely thin, and extremely fast.

When it broke through the air, there wasn't even the slightest whooshing sound; it simply absorbed the surrounding spiritual energy and in the blink of an eye, it transformed from a thin line into a pool of cold water.

Zhang Guoren felt a chill before his eyes.

It was as if a cold river was flowing smoothly past him.

The menacing, blood-red handprint, upon touching the sword light, couldn't even withstand half a breath before silently cracking and disintegrating.

Immediately afterwards, the blood-red figure that had pounced on them also froze in mid-air.

The next moment, a thin line of blood slowly appeared from the throat of the Qi Refining Grand Perfection cultivator.

The ferocity, rage, and contempt on his face hadn't even faded before they froze completely.

The sword light, as cold as a river, swept past him, its momentum unstoppable. When it landed further away, it suddenly shattered into a clear, cold waterfall, hanging like a ribbon.

The blood-red figure fell silently before the waterfall's reflection.

boom.

The body fell to the ground.

The entire room fell silent.

The two Qi Refining Stage 7 cultivators, who had been quite arrogant just moments before, turned deathly pale before their expressions could even change.

As for the low-level cultivators in the palace, they were all struck dumb, not daring to even breathe loudly.

One sword.

Just one sword strike.

He reached the Great Perfection of Qi Refining and died on the spot.

Zhang Guoren remained frozen on the back of the flying corpse, unable to recover for a long time.

He knew Li Qinghan was strong.

Yet, time and again, her strength still made his heart tremble with fear.

After a long while, he swallowed hard, his throat dry, and looked down at the figure standing below with a sword in hand, only one thought remaining in his mind—

Is this woman even human?