The entire sect is obsessed with love, but I'm the only one who's truly insane.

A chilling wind swept through the room, dispelling all the warmth from the heated kang bed. The room was almost freezing solid, and the blood, entrails, and bits of flesh scattered on the floor had frozen into ice crystals, reflecting a dim light.

Lin Du narrowed his eyes and extended his divine sense throughout the entire room, sensing the remaining demonic energy.

The residual spiritual energy wasn't too great, and the one living inside seemed to be a mortal who hadn't yet entered the Dao realm. It didn't require much demonic power to easily injure people.

However, villagers living in mountain villages usually put up talismans bought from the city on their doors to scare away the monsters that come down from the mountains in winter. Logically speaking, a huge amount of demonic energy would remain on the doors and windows.

However, the demonic energy remaining in the house only stayed inside.

That's strange.

Lin Du frowned, looked at Yan Qing who had followed him in, and gently shook his head.

Yan Qing pondered for a moment, "It's indeed beyond saving after being shattered like this."

Lin Du: ...

She took a deep breath. "What I mean is, something's not right here. Something's fishy."

As a disciple of the Supreme Sect, in addition to daily training, physical skills, and mental cultivation to increase strength, there are also various miscellaneous survival skills in the cultivation world.

For example, detecting demonic energy and judging the characteristics of demonic power and various demonic beasts.

"...This demon doesn't shed any fur." ​​Lin Du walked around the room.

But the monsters in the north live in a cold climate, and those without fur should have been hibernating long ago.

Yan Qing tentatively asked, "Does Junior Uncle mean that this demon might be from elsewhere?"

Lin Du shook his head, holding the compass in his hand, and walked to the wide-open window. "I don't know."

"It seems that this place doesn't have any talismans posted to ward off evil spirits."

Yan Qing looked around for a while, "But that's not right. Every winter, the Supreme Sect would give away a talisman with the aura of a high-level cultivator to the villagers in the surrounding deep mountains for free as a deterrent."

With that talisman, at least the monsters inside the house wouldn't dare to break in; they'd only dare to wreak havoc on the cattle and sheep outside.

There seemed to be footprints of a monster outside the window, but they were covered by light snow.

Lin Du tapped on the somewhat sloppy window frame and suddenly noticed that the compass for detecting demonic energy was spinning.

"Yan Qing!"

Only a living demon could make this copper needle float so high.

The young man in the blue robe pressed one hand against the windowsill and leaped out, followed closely by the tall young man carrying a black iron broadsword.

The two skimmed swiftly across the snow, and as Yan Qing ran, she reached behind her back and drew her large sword.

The copper needle floating on the compass in Lin Du's hand pointed directly to the northwest.

The northwest is the edge of this village, near the mountains.

The remaining demonic power lasted for less than half an hour, perhaps shortly after they received the sect's summons.

Lin Du's mind raced. The disciple's token flashed with white light. She casually removed the token and said, "Speak."

"Junior Uncle, the one that eats beef is very likely a Golden Tiger at the seventh level of the Enlightenment stage," Mo Lin's voice came steadily.

The strength of a seventh-level Enlightenment stage cultivator is basically equivalent to the Great Perfection of the Human Cultivation Qin Mind Realm, which is the realm of Lin Du. However, the attack power of demonic beasts is stronger, and Junior Uncle is not good at fighting.

"If Junior Uncle finds any trace of the demon beast, do not act rashly. I suspect that the demon beast went down the mountain to hunt that ox, which weighs at least 300 jin, because it still has calves to nurse."

An ordinary golden tiger wouldn't be able to devour such a heavy spirit ox until only its skeleton remains.

Angering a golden tiger with a cub is bound to be a very troublesome situation.

"It's too late." Lin Du looked up.

Mo Lin heard a short sentence amidst the howling wind, unsure what Lin Du had said, and asked again, "Junior Uncle? What did you say?"

"I said, it's too late."

The compass in his hand trembled incessantly, indicating that the thing was close at hand. Lin Du casually put the disciple token into his pocket, took out the Floating Life Fan with one hand, gathered his spiritual power, and waved the fan.

The white light transformed into an ice blade, whistling sharply in the wind due to its extremely high speed, before grazing a thick tree trunk and whipping up a flurry of snowflakes.

At this moment, both of them could see clearly what the thing covered in snow under the tree was.

A huge golden tiger, its eyes gleaming with a fierce and menacing light, roared, causing the snow on the trees to fall in a flurry, and even the leaves around it to tremble slightly.

Lin Du promptly sealed his hearing with his spiritual power. The roar of the demon beast Golden Silk Tiger was offensive to the soul. Although his current cultivation level was not high and the damage was not great, it still had a strong impact.

Yan Qing was a step too late; his head was buzzing from the shock, and his hand that was about to draw the knife was a step too slow.

He shouted, "Junior Uncle! Let me handle this!!"

The tiger had already leaped out, its muscles taut, heading straight for Lin Du.

"Go ahead and try." Lin Du swung his fan again, barely managing to slow down the speed of the tigers leaping out of the air with the frozen frost.

But that only delayed things for a few moments, and soon the tiger, covered in frost, swooped down.

Lin Du narrowed his eyes. Sure enough, the monsters were tough and thick-skinned.

But she quickly realized something was wrong. "Yan Qing! Call for help! This tiger demon has gone berserk!!!"

She and Yan Ye had tested the Floating Life Fan these days, and there was no way it couldn't be frozen at the same level.

A tremendous demonic power erupted from the tiger's body, and tiny shards of frost flew into the air, reflecting a dazzling light in the snow. The frost could not contain the tiger, and it was quickly broken free. There was only one possibility.

The tiger demon went berserk.

A fierce blade of energy blocked Lin Du's path, followed by a dark cyan broadsword that slashed upwards with great force, forcing the tiger demon to retreat a few steps.

Lin Du cursed, forgetting that they had all blocked their hearing, and quickly retreated, picking up his disciple token.

Among the four new disciples, Lin Du has the highest cultivation level, while Yan Qing is only at the mid-stage of the Qin Xin Realm.

She quickly called for help, then leaped to the side and sent a telepathic message to Yan Qing, "Suppress them for a while, stall for as long as you can, and retreat if you can't hold them off."

The man who had been so ambitious to fight the tiger was now forced to retreat as he walked, by three successive attacks and bites that were filled with ferocious and demonic energy.

Upon hearing the telepathic message, Yan Qing's handsome face turned solemn, and he continued to reason with the speaker, "Brother Tiger, why resort to violence the moment we meet? Why not sit down and have a proper chat?"

"Just say what you want, why resort to violence?"

"We cultivators have little meat and a lot of bones, so we don't taste good, Brother Tiger."

"As the saying goes, the tiger is the king of beasts. What could have angered you so much, Brother Tiger?"

As he spoke, his broadsword continuously parried the tiger's claws' fierce attacks in mid-air.

The sharp demonic power grazed the heavy steel blade, sending sparks flying. Then, the claws slammed into the blade's surface. The claws, gleaming with a golden light and resembling steel, scraped against it with a piercing sound.

Yan Qing did not retreat. He stood firmly in place, raised his hand, his wide sleeves billowing slightly, and held his broadsword horizontally, steadily blocking the tiger that pounced at him.

"Junior Uncle! I can only hold on for seven more breaths at most!!!"

A man and a tiger, one standing upright with a sword across their body, the other with its forelegs raised, faced each other through the back of a dark blue blade.

His tiger-like eyes blazed with a menacing intimidation, yet his normally magnanimous scholarly spirit showed no sign of yielding.

"Brother Tiger, is this how you want to talk? That's fine too."

Lin Du, who was rapidly setting up the array, threw down the last spirit stone and slammed his closed folding fan into the ground. Spiritual energy quickly flowed into the array from the top of the fan, and in the blink of an eye, faint spiritual light rose in the snow, forming a complex array pattern.

She raised her eyes and looked at the boy in the blue robe who was trembling slightly as he could no longer support himself.

A calm and gentle voice entered Yan Qing's consciousness, "Alright, you can leave now."

Yan Qing's hand went limp, and then he used the force of the tiger pouncing on him to quickly retreat, his feet scraping two deep, heavy craters in the snow.

The white spiritual energy, which was shallowly buried in the snow, suddenly rose up, swirling and flowing, forming a cage of spiritual energy that covered the ground, with its outer wall just in front of Yan Qing's toes.

The tiger crashed heavily into the spiritual energy barrier, was violently bounced back by the array's spiritual energy, let out a mournful howl, and was thrown to the ground.

Yan Qing fell to the ground with a thud, glancing sideways at her still elegant junior uncle.

"I always said that scholars shouldn't carry knives; a fan would be more appropriate."