One of my fairy-like friends

Not long after the group descended the mountain, they saw the last halo form at the foot of the mountain, slowly locking in place, and the entire protective array was formed. With a "whoosh," a golden light burst forth, and the scene on the mountain became blurred and invisible.

When Granny Qi started counting the number of people, she discovered that Huang Feiyan and Ming Yan had disappeared. She frowned, knocked Liu Mengli unconscious who had been trying to find Ming Yan, and led the remaining disciples away in a certain direction.

Meanwhile, Huang Feiyan and Ming Yan had taken advantage of the chaos to break away from the group and come to the other side on their own.

"Are you sure you want to act with me? You can still back out now..." Huang Feiyan looked at Ming Yan beside her and sighed.

Why regret it?

"You will die..."

“Who will die is uncertain.” Mingyan shook his head. “Fairy sister, we should be going now… Could you leave some clues so that your enemies can catch up with you, instead of my fellow disciples?”

"You want us to be bait?" Huang Feiyan immediately understood Ming Yan's intentions. After a moment's thought, she nodded. "Of course, there's a way..."

She bent down, ripped a piece of fabric from her skirt, revealing a glimpse of her smooth calves. Holding the fabric, she infused it with her spiritual energy and said, "Those people are all highly skilled; their spiritual senses should be able to detect my spiritual energy. If we leave this fabric along the way, it should attract them... But, where should we go?"

“We’re going to Dragon Ridge.” Ming Yan frowned, then asked, “Divine sense? What is that?”

“Well, you probably haven’t reached this level yet. Let me explain. Humans have five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and intellect. These correspond to several organs: eyes, ears, mouth, nose, limbs, and brain. Divine sense is the sixth sense that cultivators create using spiritual energy. Divine sense can detect things you’ve marked nearby. For example, those people marked my spiritual energy, so they can sense my presence with their divine sense,” Huang Feiyan said.

"...How much can divine sense detect?" Ming Yan frowned upon hearing this. With something like this, whether his plans would still be of any use was another matter entirely...

"The things that divine sense can detect are very limited. If it is not marked in advance, all that divine sense can see is some white halo of life feedback... If it is marked in advance, the target halo will change to another color. Apart from that, divine sense cannot detect much. At least, my current spiritual sense can only do so much. As far as I know, unless one can reach the highest point in this world... that is, the so-called Emperor Realm... divine sense can only be a vague sense. After reaching the Emperor Realm, divine sense will undergo earth-shattering changes... I don't know exactly what those changes are."

Emperor Realm? This was a realm Ming Yan had never heard of before. However, after hearing that this was all that his divine sense could detect, Ming Yan felt relieved. In that case, the plan was still feasible.

"Then let's go, fairy sister, let's head to Dragon Ridge... to prepare some gifts for your 'friends'."

Chapter Eight Countermeasures

At the foot of Yutai Mountain, outside the protective array, the young cultivator and the female cultivator were panting heavily. The female cultivator looked up angrily, "If it weren't for Uncle Zeng's quick reaction, we would have almost fallen for that old guy's trick too..."

“Miss, what do we do now? Uncle Zeng is trapped inside…” one of the three young male cultivators asked with some concern.

"Let's find Huang Feiyan's whereabouts first. Uncle Zeng should be out soon. This mountain-protecting formation should have been left by a cultivator from the Xuanji Mirror. I didn't expect that a Xuanji cultivator was born here... Hmph... If Uncle Zeng wasn't also a Xuanji cultivator, I'm afraid we would have really fallen for his trick..." The female cultivator snorted heavily.

The group then began searching for Huang Feiyan's whereabouts. They first discovered the group from Yutai Blessed Land who had not gone far.

"Miss? How do we do it?"

"Follow them for now... There's a cultivator at the full Qi Sea stage inside. Although I can defeat her with my strength, and you can hold off those few beginners without much problem... it's too much of a waste of time. Huang Feiyan might take advantage of the chaos to escape. Just follow them, and once Uncle Zeng comes out, we can wipe them all out... This damned Yutai Blessed Land... I have to kill these people to vent my hatred..." A hint of cruelty flashed across the young lady's originally sweet face. These people almost ruined her grand plan. If she couldn't kill Huang Feiyan during this time, things would become quite troublesome when the Huang family settled accounts later. How hateful!

"Miss, why can't I sense Huang Feiyan's presence?" A cultivator beside the young lady asked curiously, "Isn't Huang Feiyan among this group?"

“Perhaps it’s just well hidden; the atmosphere there is too chaotic…” The young lady shook her head, but after a while, she frowned slightly. “Wait… I can sense Huang Feiyan’s presence… behind us… Hmm? How could this be? Could it be that Huang Feiyan has separated from them?!”

"Could it be that Huang Feiyan doesn't want to cause trouble for these ants and is acting alone?" the male cultivator laughed. "That would truly be heaven helping us..."

"Hmph, I understand. Huang Feiyan probably felt that with Uncle Zeng around, even if she went with these people, they wouldn't be able to protect her and might even cause them trouble, so she left alone... Hmph, that's good. Now Huang Feiyan is seriously injured. Even if she had any means of survival, she probably used them after being hit by that Yin Dragon Soul's tail... Now Huang Feiyan is just a lamb to the slaughter... No need to follow this group anymore. After I kill Huang Feiyan, I'll settle accounts with this Yutai Blessed Land slowly. I'll go after Huang Feiyan first!"

"Yes, miss!"

————————————————————

Meanwhile, Mingyan and Huang Feiyan had arrived at the edge of Dragon Ridge. Huang Feiyan left behind fragments of her torn skirt along the way, believing that the other party should be able to find this place by following those fragments.

"Tell me about your plan." Seeing that Ming Yan seemed quite confident, Huang Feiyan couldn't help but feel curious.

"Does the fairy sister know how big Dragon Ridge is?" Mingyan asked as he hurried along.

"I don't know either... I'm not familiar with this place." Huang Feiyan shook her head. Longling is located on the edge of the Eastern Continent, while the Huang family is located near the center of the Eastern Continent. The Eastern Continent is extremely vast. Just to get from Longling to the Huang family, an ordinary person would not be able to travel even half of the distance in their entire life.

“I read it in the book of the Blessed Land. It records that the Dragon Ridge is more than 500 miles long. It is home to many ferocious beasts and spirit beasts. As for the strength of some of the ferocious beasts, I don’t think I need to explain it to you, Fairy Sister. You probably already knew that before, right?” Ming Yan said. He found Huang Feiyan at the edge of the Dragon Ridge. Before that, she must have been deep in the Dragon Ridge, but she was swept away by the tail of that blood-red dragon.

Huang Feiyan nodded. "There are quite a few ferocious beasts inside that we call Qi Sea and Divine Palace cultivation levels, and there may even be ferocious beasts with higher cultivation levels... But what does this have to do with your plan?"

"As far as I know, although the ferocious beast has acquired cultivation, it still retains its bestial nature, right?"

"Yes, aside from some spirit beasts and divine beasts that can transform into humans from the start or are naturally intelligent, most ferocious beasts only develop true intelligence and shed their bestial nature after surpassing the Divine Realm." Huang Feiyan nodded; she was quite knowledgeable about this...

“Since we can’t get rid of our animalistic nature, we should also get rid of our habits as ferocious beasts. This area, deeper into the edge of Dragon Ridge, is the territory of a bear… I read in a book that more than thirty years ago, it already had the strength equivalent to a human at the full level of the Divine Palace… It’s autumn now… the bear hasn’t reached hibernation time yet…” Mingyan said, “My blood is the best bait to attract it.”

"But what's the point of attracting it? Will it just attack those people?"

“Of course, fairy sister, look at the tree on your left.” Mingyan nodded and pointed to the tall poplar tree next to Huang Feiyan. There were clear scratch marks on the tree, and even some hairs remained on it.

“These are the tracks left by that bear, indicating that this is its territory. These ferocious beasts have a very strong sense of territory. If they find someone trespassing on their territory, they will attack the intruders without mercy, whether they are ordinary people, cultivators, or other ferocious beasts…” Mingyan said, “And the fragments of the fairy sister’s skirt can attract those people here… So as long as we can attract that bear and make them collide, we can use it to buy us time… Even though there are ferocious beasts here, I am sure I can find a way out.”

"And this bear is a female. It would be even better if she had just given birth to cubs; she would become even more ferocious..."

"...Your blood has a strong life force, which is indeed very interesting to those ferocious beasts...Why do I feel that you are very familiar with the habits of these ferocious beasts?" Huang Feiyan was somewhat surprised.

“I used to be a hunter in the village. Although these ferocious beasts are far more ferocious than the ordinary wild animals I used to hunt, as long as they haven’t shaken off their animalistic nature, they will act according to their primal instincts. Therefore, their actions are predictable. As long as we don’t accidentally enter the territory of those demon kings, there shouldn’t be any problems. There is a map of the territories of the ferocious beasts near the Yutai Blessed Land in the blessed land. Although the territories of those demon kings are not marked, generally speaking, demon kings will not allow their territories to overlap with the territories of other ferocious beasts. So as long as we follow the territories of these ferocious beasts, we will always find a way to leave this place,” Mingyan said with a smile.

"And Dragon Ridge is so vast... whether they can still find us by then is another matter. As for my fellow disciples, they should be far away by then, so there's no need to worry about their safety." Ming Yan's plan was simple: he needed to ensure his own and Huang Feiyan's escape, and also buy enough time for his fellow disciples. However... he didn't know exactly what level that cultivator, whose cultivation was even higher than the sect leader's, had reached... If he was truly too strong, these little tricks would probably be useless. In the face of absolute power, all schemes were futile... To put it bluntly, he was still too weak, which was why he needed to think about so many things.

If the opponent is really strong, then they will probably have no choice but to blindly walk into the Demon King's territory... They can only hope that the Demon King will deal with the more threatening people first, and then deal with them, then they will have a sliver of hope.

Huang Feiyan nodded, indicating that she understood Ming Yan's plan.

As Mingyan and Huang Feiyan traveled, Mingyan observed the surroundings. The bear was very large, let alone a bear of this cultivation level. What he needed to do now was to track the bear that was approaching the Divine Realm and ensure that his blood could effectively serve as bait.

In addition, to ensure that the other party would not suspect the "clues" they deliberately left behind for them to follow, Mingyan had Huang Feiyan cover them up to a certain extent, such as pretending that they were torn by branches or bushes or snagged on stones. Furthermore, the distance between each clue was gradually increasing, so as to ensure that the other party would waste some time searching for clues on the road rather than chasing after them directly. It should be noted that Mingyan and Huang Feiyan's travel speed was definitely not as fast as those people's.

But if things continue like this, they will be caught sooner or later, and Mingyan must find the bear as soon as possible.

Finally, perseverance paid off. Following the dried-up droppings, Mingyan finally found some fresh bear droppings...

Huang Feiyan instinctively covered her nose, finding the smell unbearable. Although Mingyan had experience as a hunter and had used bear droppings to track prey many times, he hadn't expected fresh bear droppings to be so smelly… Could it be that the higher one's cultivation level, the smellier their droppings? This thought made some sense. After all, droppings are residue from digestion or undigested matter—essentially impurities the body doesn't need. And cultivation itself involves gradually expelling these impurities from the body… so…

Mingyan couldn't help but glance at Huang Feiyan, his expression strange.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Huang Feiyan felt a chill run down her spine as Ming Yan stared at her with a strange look. "We cultivators are different from ferocious beasts! Once we reach Yongquan, we don't need to use the toilet anymore, have you forgotten?"

"Oh...right, right, right..." Mingyan slapped his forehead, realizing he'd forgotten about that. The ferocious beasts simply couldn't control their animalistic instincts yet, but humans were different. From birth, even ordinary people possessed intelligence, and upon entering the realm of cultivation, a qualitative change occurred. The ferocious beasts' qualitative change only happened after reaching a higher realm...

"Ahem... that bear should be nearby... let's not get any closer. If it spots us, we'll be in danger." Mingyan said, "Fairy sister, leave your last 'clue'."

As he spoke, Mingyan took out a small knife from his waist and cut a gash on his wrist. If he didn't have enough blood, he wouldn't be able to lure the bear over.

Blood gushed from Mingyan's wound, dripping from his lowered fingertips onto the ground. In truth, Mingyan's blood didn't smell strong; it even had a pleasant fragrance. But this was far more alluring to the ferocious beasts than any other stench. You see, when Huang Feiyan saw the wound on Mingyan's wrist, her eyes were glued to it. His blood wasn't just incredibly attractive to beasts...

In fact, Mingyan used to like using his own blood as bait when hunting wild beasts, but at the time he didn't know how special his blood was, and thought it was just that the beasts smelled blood or something like that...

After releasing enough blood, Mingyan quickly stopped the bleeding, wiped the blood off his hands, and wrapped the wound with gauze. His body's powerful self-healing ability allowed the wound to scab over in a short time, but due to excessive blood loss, his face was still slightly pale. "Fairy sister, let's leave quickly, we can't stay here any longer..."

Huang Feiyan also left her own "clues". After hearing this, she nodded, hesitated for a moment, then helped Mingyan up, and the two quickly left the spot.

About fifteen minutes after the two left, the young lady and her monks found the place.

"Bloodstains...why is this blood so full of yang energy?" The young lady noticed the bloodstains on the ground and sensed the powerful life force and yang energy within them. She was puzzled. Huang Feiyan was poisoned by yin toxins; how could her blood still contain such strong yang energy? Even under normal circumstances, let alone with yin poisons, it shouldn't be like this...? If this blood were used as a medicinal ingredient...

"Miss, why does it smell so bad here?" A cultivator nearby, already feeling dizzy from the stench of bear dung, asked with a strange expression.

"Didn't you see the excrement next to you?" Another cultivator covered his nose and rolled his eyes.

"It looks quite fresh..."

The young woman also felt nauseous. "Quickly check for any other clues. Don't linger here too long, it stinks..."

As soon as she finished speaking, the young lady realized something was wrong. Her divine sense detected a halo even brighter than the surrounding life-giving halos rushing towards her. The faint tremors emanating from the ground also clearly told her that this was not her imagination...

"Something's rushing over!" The young lady quickly stood up, lightly touched the ground with her toes, and instantly took to the air. However, the remaining disciples were only cultivators at the Yangling Realm and could not fly. As a result, they were knocked to the ground by the charging giant bear. The giant bear roared, and before they could react, they were torn to pieces by its claws!

The young lady's expression changed drastically. She could clearly sense that the bear was not one she could easily deal with. Its aura was almost as strong as that of Xia Yanming, the sect leader of Yutai Blessed Land. She immediately abandoned all concern for collecting the corpses of her subordinates and turned to fly away!

After tearing the three cultivators to shreds, the giant bear kept its eyes fixed on the young lady, relentlessly pursuing her. Unable to fly, the bear was enraged by this unreachable intruder who had trespassed on its territory. It roared incessantly, determined to rip the young lady to shreds as well. The young lady's face paled slightly. While cultivators at the Qi Sea Realm could fly, it required a vast amount of spiritual energy. Their flight distance was limited, so once her spiritual energy was exhausted, she would have to return to the ground...

As luck would have it, the direction she fled in was precisely the direction Ming Yan and Huang Feiyan were in...

Chapter Nine: Did the Fairy Sister Come to Save Me?

Supporting the somewhat weak Mingyan, Huang Feiyan moved quickly through the forest. The forest was dense with branches, and Huang Feiyan could not fly, but she seemed to have some special movement technique, and her speed was not slow, but even getting faster and faster.

The air in the forest is fresh; these places are sparsely populated, with an excellent environment and abundant spiritual energy.

The cultivation methods of ferocious beasts differ somewhat from those of humans. Before they develop true intelligence, they do not require much spiritual energy and focus more on physical refinement, consuming very little spiritual energy. After gaining intelligence, they can become self-sufficient, so the places where they live often have more abundant and rich spiritual energy than the places where human cultivators live.

Of course, there are some exceptions.

Huang Feiyan supported Ming Yan and followed the direction he had given them.

“We should leave that giant bear’s territory now, but we must not let our guard down, because sometimes these wild beasts, whether ferocious or not, will leave their territory and go out into the world…” Mingyan felt a little dizzy, partly because of blood loss, and partly because Huang Feiyan was traveling too fast, which made him feel nauseous.

Although his physical abilities were far superior to those of cultivators at the same level, he still experienced the reactions of a normal person, and felt dizzy for a moment.

"Where are we now?" Huang Feiyan was not familiar with the terrain of Dragon Ridge. Although she had ventured deep into Dragon Ridge before, she had several means of survival, but those means were all used up after she was hit by that Yin Dragon Soul. Now she knew that she could not rush in recklessly.

“Based on my deduction, we should now be outside the Demon King’s territory.” Ming Yan rubbed his temples and said, “This is my deduction. These ferocious beasts avoid this area... and the previous books didn’t record any ferocious beasts living here. I only reasonably suspect that there is a powerful Demon King here. If that powerful cultivator comes to hunt us down, this will be our last resort... We should shake them off for a while... Fairy Sister, rest for a while. Continue to use my blood to remove the poison from your body. If your strength recovers, then we will have one more layer of protection…”

"Are you alright?" Huang Feiyan asked, somewhat worried about Mingyan's health, as Mingyan's complexion did not look very good.

"It's nothing, just a little blood. I'm still alive, and I can replenish my blood anytime..." Mingyan shook his head. "Let's get started without delay..."

Huang Feiyan thought for a moment and then nodded. She understood what Mingyan meant. In fact, judging from the situation just now, the cultivator whose strength surpassed Xia Yanming's definitely did not catch up. Otherwise, the two of them would have been caught up long ago. Xia Yanming must have held him back tightly... I wonder what happened to Xia Yanming... Huang Feiyan sighed.

Huang Feiyan and Mingyan found a steep rock face with a natural cave entrance at the top. The cave was very dry. Just as Mingyan was about to cut his finger, Huang Feiyan's expression changed. "Oh no...she's catching up with us!"

Ming Yan's expression also changed slightly. He hadn't expected the other party to catch up so quickly. In fact, shortly after setting the trap, both Ming Yan and Huang Feiyan heard a giant bear's roar echo throughout the forest. At that moment, Ming Yan was overjoyed, because the other party must have encountered the giant bear, which would buy them some time. But he never expected that the other party would be so persistent and actually chase after them again...

“However…it seems there’s only one person…” Huang Feiyan frowned. “This is…Yun Ling’s aura, there’s no mistake…but why is there no one else with her?”

"Yun Ling? Is that the person who was chasing after Fairy Sister?"

Huang Feiyan nodded, then gritted her teeth and said resentfully, "She's my mortal enemy... I'm never afraid of her normally... but now, I'm probably no match for her... She's lurking nearby! She must have pinpointed our location..."

She must have left some traces while rushing along, which is why they found her. Huang Feiyan sighed. Not only was she now afflicted with a dark poison, but her strength was also far inferior to before. How could she possibly be a match for her opponent...?

Mingyan thought for a moment, then immediately took the small knife and cut the scabbed wound on his wrist again. He covered it, made Huang Feiyan sit down, and began to feed her the blood, saying, "After drinking the blood, Fairy Sister, please focus on removing the Yin poison. I will try my best to stall her..."

Upon hearing this, Huang Feiyan's expression turned somewhat anxious, but she dared not waste the blood Ming Yan had released, so despite her great anxiety, she dared not speak...

Within a minute, Mingyan had lost a large amount of blood... No matter how strong his constitution, losing so much blood suddenly was too much for Mingyan to handle. He felt dizzy and lightheaded. He wrapped the wound with the blood-stained gauze and leaned against the stone wall, saying, "Fairy Sister, please heal your wounds as soon as possible... I'll try to hold her off..."

"Mingyan!" Huang Feiyan tried to stop Mingyan, because in her mind, Mingyan would die...

But Mingyan waved his hand, "Don't worry, Fairy Sister... I'm lucky, I won't die..."

Meanwhile, in the forest outside the cave, Yun Ling, the female cultivator addressed as "Miss," was staring at the natural cave halfway up the mountain. She gritted her teeth, sensing that Huang Feiyan was inside the cave.

However, she did not act rashly. In order to get rid of the giant bear, she did not hesitate to use the Shrinking Earth Talisman she took from home, which barely managed to shake off the giant bear's pursuit. Just when she thought she had lost him, she unexpectedly discovered that the vegetation in the forest had obvious signs of being trampled. After tracking all the way, she finally found Huang Feiyan!

However, Yunling did not act rashly. Although Huang Feiyan was currently suffering from the Yin Poison and could not exert even one-tenth of her strength, Yunling cautiously chose to observe for a while, thinking that she had almost fallen into the other party's trap along the way. She did not act rashly because in her opinion, Huang Feiyan had no chance of getting rid of the Yin Poison in her body in the short term. Otherwise, she would not have fled in panic when she encountered her. So, it would not matter if she delayed for a while. The main thing was not to be harmed by Huang Feiyan's trap again.