My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

While skillfully flipping the roasted meat, he took out various spices and cumin he had smuggled from the Tang Dynasty palace from his spiritual space and generously sprinkled them on the sizzling, oily meat.

The rich and enticing aroma of meat instantly filled the entire camp.

"Gulp."

A soft swallowing sound was particularly clear in the quiet night.

Li Chen turned his head.

Jiang Liyue was sitting on a flat bluestone, her hands wrapped around her knees.

Those beautiful big eyes were fixed on the golden-brown, crispy animal leg roasting over the fire.

Upon noticing Li Chen looking at her, Jiang Liyue's pretty face flushed red to her ears, and she turned her head away shyly.

Are you hungry?

Li Chen laughed heartily.

He drew the dagger from his waist and deftly cut off a large piece of the fattest, leanest meat.

He held it up with a clean, large leaf and handed it to Jiang Liyue.

"Try my cooking. This is my secret recipe for roasted monster leg. I guarantee you'll want a second bite after just one bite."

Jiang Liyue hesitated for a moment.

In the end, I couldn't resist the tempting aroma.

She reached out her fair little hand, took the roasted meat, and carefully took a bite.

Instantly, her eyes lit up.

Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the meat was juicy and had a unique spice flavor that she had never tasted before. It was so much tastier than the bland and tasteless fasting pills of the Qingxuan Sect.

"tasty!"

Jiang Liyue couldn't help but exclaim in admiration, forgetting all about maintaining a ladylike image, and began to eat heartily.

Seeing her innocent and unguarded demeanor, Li Chen smiled and shook his head.

This was a period of being on the run for more than half a month.

The two evaded the pursuit of the Qingxuan Sect, traversing dense forests by day and resting in caves at night.

Although Li Chen always speaks carelessly and makes sarcastic remarks, he takes meticulous care of Jiang Liyue in his actions.

When danger comes, he always protects her behind him at the first moment.

If he can't find a water source, he will use his true energy to conjure water for her to wash her face with ice-type talismans.

This gave Jiang Liyue, who had been treated coldly by her family since childhood and was forced to become a furnace for the young sect leader, an unprecedented sense of security and reliance.

She secretly raised her head and, by the firelight, examined Li Chen's angular profile.

"Brother Li."

Jiang Liyue hesitated for a moment, but finally couldn't resist her curiosity.

"You said before... that you were Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty. What kind of place is the Tang Dynasty exactly? Why have I never seen it mentioned in the records of the Origin Heaven Realm?"

Upon hearing this question...

Li Chen paused slightly as he flipped the meat on the grill.

He couldn't very well say that the Tang Dynasty was a mortal dynasty with hardly any cultivators and so thin in spiritual energy that it resembled a wasteland, could he? That would be too embarrassing.

"The Great Tang Dynasty."

Li Chen immediately switched into deception mode, his face full of inscrutable mystery.

"That was a supreme immortal dynasty located on the other side of the distant starry sky, countless times larger than the Origin Heaven Realm!" He started spouting nonsense.

"In our Great Tang Dynasty, a sect like the Qingxuan Sect is not even qualified to guard the gates of our royal family."

"Moreover, one of my family members is the Tian Ce General, who was renowned throughout the Tang Dynasty."

Jiang Liyue listened in a daze, her eyes filled with admiration.

"So Brother Li has such a powerful background! No wonder your spatial teleportation technique is so amazing."

She took a deep breath, her tone becoming incredibly sincere and gentle.

"Brother Li, thank you so much for everything these past few days. If it weren't for you, my sister and I would probably be dead already."

The girl's thoughts had quietly undergone a dramatic change by the quiet campfire and during this thrilling escape.

That once cold and desperate heart is being warmed little by little by the man in front of her.

however.

Just as the atmosphere was gradually heating up, even carrying a hint of ambiguity.

"Click."

The branch Li Chen was using to flip the roasting meat suddenly snapped without warning.

The smile on his face vanished instantly.

Instead, there was an unprecedented solemnity and chill.

He suddenly raised his head, his deep eyes fixed on the dark night sky.

"Brother Li, what's wrong?" Jiang Liyue sensed something was wrong and stood up nervously.

"Throw away the barbecue! Be quiet!"

Li Chen grabbed Jiang Liyue's wrist and pulled her sharply behind him.

A silvery-gray spatial force instantly enveloped the two of them, completely concealing their presence.

The very next instant that the spatial barrier closed.

"boom!"

An immense pressure, terrifying to the extreme and seemingly capable of crushing the entire mountain forest, descended from the sky like dark clouds covering the top!

Under this oppressive force, the towering ancient trees around them groaned in unbearable pain, bending their thick trunks low.

The flames in the bonfire were extinguished instantly, leaving only a wisp of smoke.

midair.

An old man dressed in a gray robe, with a withered face and eyes as sharp as a hawk, slowly descended from the void.

Without relying on any flying swords or magical treasures, he simply traversed the air.

This is a flight technique that only a Golden Core stage expert can achieve!

"They run pretty fast."

The old man in the gray robe stood with his hands behind his back, coldly looking down at the ruins of the camp below.

His old eyes, which seemed to see through illusions, slowly turned and finally locked onto the area where Li Chen and Jiang Liyue were hiding.

"but."

"Within my Golden Core domain, even if you possess invisibility or escape techniques, you will find nowhere to hide!"

The gray-robed old man was none other than the sect's most powerful figure, whom the Qingxuan Sect had spared no expense to bring out in order to save face.

A genuine mid-stage Golden Core Elder!

"This is a huge problem."

Li Chen stood inside the spatial barrier, and a layer of cold sweat instantly seeped out from his back.

If he were in his prime, he wouldn't be afraid of this old man at all.

However, he had just reconstructed his physical body, and the two violent spiritual roots within him had not yet fully merged.

At this moment, his cultivation level was firmly suppressed at the Great Perfection of the Foundation Establishment stage, and he hadn't even touched the threshold of the early Golden Core stage.

Facing an old monster in the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm.

To confront them head-on is tantamount to throwing an egg against a rock!

Hold on tight!

Li Chen let out a low shout, giving the gray-robed old man no chance to make a move.

He frantically squeezed out the true energy that had just been restored from his body, pushing the laws of space to their limit.