Chapter 44 (Part 2)

He never would have imagined that he would now be stabbed in the back by a talisman he had made himself!

The Song family ancestor’s mood was so subtle that it was simply difficult to describe.

The person was still in the secret land. With one thought, he could leave the Ten Thousand Flames Pool and catch him back. But there was no need. The moment Song Yuanxi used the Ten-Thousand-Li Teleportation Talisman to leave, the line of cause and effect between them snapped.

Since cause and effect had ended, their fate was exhausted.

“That wastrel!”

After a long while, the Song family ancestor only spat out those two words. Then he entered meditation again and continued secluded cultivation.

Song Yuanxi stayed in the secret land for another few months. On one hand, he took pills to treat the injuries covering his body. On the other hand, he refined the heavenly fire he had just subdued.

Heavenly fire had a spirit. Even white heavenly fire of the lowest grade was difficult to tame. Only by refining it until it was perfectly obedient could he use it as he pleased in his later cultivation.

Song Yuanxi thought of the cluster of heavenly fire belonging to his master. The Nine Netherworld Flame could be called the fire of hell. Its personality was unruly and untamed, vicious to the extreme, and even harder to deal with than a great demon or fierce beast. But after being tamed, in his master’s hands, it was actually as obedient as a little milk baby.

He also wanted to reach the same level as his master. Even if he could not make it especially obedient and docile, at the very least it had to be like Dàfeng, right?

“It’s fine if it’s a bit naughty on normal days, but at critical moments, it absolutely cannot drop the ball.”

Song Yuanxi found a secluded place, set up a small defensive array for himself, then entered meditation. His divine sense entered his dantian to inspect that cluster of heavenly fire.

It was a small, pure white cluster, currently darting everywhere inside his dantian, trying to find an exit to flee.

Sensing that something had entered, it instantly curled into a ball. Its pure white color gradually faded, and in the end, it actually turned transparent.

However, this was his own dantian. No matter how the pure white heavenly fire changed, Song Yuanxi could still distinguish it. Precisely because he could see it clearly, he was even more astonished. Was there heavenly fire in the cultivation world that could change color?

Song Yuanxi could recite the top ten of the Heavenly Fire Ranking backward from memory. There was no kind of heavenly fire with such a trait. As for the top hundred of the Heavenly Fire Ranking, he had a related jade slip record. He took it out and flipped through it, comparing them one by one, then fell directly silent.

Not a single kind of heavenly fire matched it!

And while he was identifying it, that cluster of heavenly fire in his dantian began changing color again. Perhaps it felt that transparent was not secure enough, so it began changing toward the same color system as the dantian.

Song Yuanxi had not yet reached Foundation Establishment, so the color of his dantian was the color of five spiritual roots. The five spiritual roots corresponded to five colors, and the spiritual energy in his dantian was abundant. As a whole, it looked like a rainbow.

And that cluster of heavenly fire, slowly, slowly, turned into a cluster of five-colored auspicious cloud. This five-colored auspicious cloud could even flow, just like spiritual energy, circling regularly inside his dantian.

If he did not look carefully, even his own eyes could be dazzled.

Song Yuanxi: “…”

What the hell is this thing?

“Don’t tell me there’s a pitfall here.”

Song Yuanxi thought of his experiences over the past several decades. Every time he had even a little opportunity, it was always accompanied by no small pit. This time, he had been inexplicably trapped in the sea of fire, and the moment he woke up, he was sent into the white flame region. This was definitely a pit!

“No, I have to hurry and refine it. Nothing can go wrong.”

Song Yuanxi did not dare delay and hurried to refine the heavenly fire.

The five-colored heavenly fire wanted to hide, but unfortunately, the master of the dantian simply did not allow it. In the end, it was forcibly caught and thrown into his sea of consciousness to be refined with divine sense.

Song Yuanxi refined it very slowly, afraid that if he focused his attention too intensely, something would go wrong with the heavenly fire midway and he would be too slow to react.

Yet this method of warming the frog in lukewarm water actually made the heavenly fire feel hope of survival, so it began hopping around in his sea of consciousness.

Although the heavenly fire had a spirit, it only had that tiny bit. It could not even manage conscious communication, let alone verbal communication. But Song Yuanxi actually read the other party’s meaning from the constantly changing shapes of the heavenly fire.

This cluster of fire… was begging for mercy?

Was this damned shape it was making supposed to be a kneeling posture?

Was this still heavenly fire? This was ghost fire, right…

Song Yuanxi immediately did not dare continue refining it. His heart prickled with unease. He kept feeling that if he continued refining it like this, something bad might happen.

“Better wait until I’m out of the secret land and ask Father. He’s an alchemist, so he definitely knows heavenly fire in great detail.”

Song Yuanxi sealed the heavenly fire in his sea of consciousness and temporarily ignored it.

Then he thought of the sleeping Dàfeng fledgling and could not help taking out the spirit beast pouch to check. Finding that the little cub was sleeping soundly and its aura was very steady, he relaxed and sealed the pouch again.

For the days after that, Song Yuanxi had nothing to do. Aside from applying medicine externally every so often to treat his injuries, he just looked up at the sky and shouted loudly at it, “Father! Mother! When are you going to remember your son?”

During yet another bored shout, a crack suddenly split open in the sky of the secret land.

Before Song Yuanxi could react, his vision abruptly blurred. Looking again carefully, the surrounding environment had completely changed. He had come out of the secret land.

“Xixi!” A familiar voice sounded behind him.

Song Yuanxi suddenly turned back. Seeing the person before him, he was thrilled. “Mother!”

He quickly ran over. Song Yuanxi circled Jiang Wanrong, his excitement beyond words. This slightly foolish state was exactly like the Samoyed’s behavior back then, lacking only a tail attached behind him.

Jiang Wanrong said goodbye to the Song family patriarch, then directly brought Song Yuanxi onto her flying sword. The two rode the sword back to Xuantian Sect.

On the way, Song Yuanxi chattered nonstop, continuously describing how he had spent the sixty years in the secret land. He really had been holding it in alone for too long. He wanted to talk too badly.

Jiang Wanrong listened patiently, and for this, she even deliberately slowed their speed so the return journey would last a little longer.

After talking for a long while, Song Yuanxi suddenly remembered something and hurriedly asked, “Mother, wasn’t it agreed to be one sixty-year cycle? Why was it delayed by three years?”

“I’m not very clear about this matter, but your father said this was your opportunity.” Jiang Wanrong truly did not know about the Song family ancestor being injured and cultivating in the secret land. That belonged to the Song family’s secrets. Even among the direct line, there were only a few people who knew.

When Song Yuanxi heard the word “opportunity,” he immediately thought of his experience in the sea of fire. He was currently worrying about that unknown cluster of heavenly fire he had brought out.

“Mother, I did indeed gain something. There was a sea of fire in the secret land, and many colors of flame were nurtured inside it. In the central region, I was lucky enough to subdue a cluster of white heavenly fire. But this heavenly fire is very strange. I don’t have confidence in it and don’t dare refine it directly.”

Song Yuanxi forcibly pulled the heavenly fire out of his sea of consciousness and let his own mother take a look.

Jiang Wanrong had not studied heavenly fire much, especially heavenly fire that could continuously change colors. She had hardly heard of such a thing.

“If you ask me which famous swords exist in the Canglan Realm, I can talk to you for three days and three nights. But if you talk about fire, aside from knowing a little about the top ten of the Heavenly Fire Ranking, I know nothing else.”

When Jiang Wanrong studied in Liuren Hall back then, she had only barely passed the assessment. Aside from her passionate obsession with the sword path, she had no interest at all in other auxiliary arts such as pills, talismans, artifacts, and arrays. She was definitely a student with a severe subject imbalance.

“Put the fire away for now. Once we return to the sect, ask your father. His research on fire seeds is rather thorough.”

Song Yuanxi thought about it and agreed. After all, his father was a fifth-grade alchemist. When it came to playing with fire, he was quite skilled.

The trembling fire cluster was placed back into Song Yuanxi’s sea of consciousness. After that, their conversation turned to everyday matters. Mainly, he simply wanted to be close to his mother.

He did not know which topic opened things up, but they somehow brought up what had happened in Jin City back then.

Jiang Wanrong had been outside searching for an opportunity to break through at the time and had happened to enter a secret realm. She only came out thirty years later. When she returned to the sect, only then did she hear that her eldest son had been injured in Jin City. She wanted to show concern, but he had already been sent into Song family’s secret land.

But just from hearing Song Qing’s description, Jiang Wanrong’s heart had ached terribly. Her Xixi, such a young child, had gone white-haired overnight and lost more than half his vitality. If there had been no Longevity Fruit, perhaps mother and son would already have been separated forever.

Although he had now recovered and his black hair had regrown, the injuries he had suffered could not be erased. Thinking to this point, Jiang Wanrong could not help reaching out and hugging her son, burying her head against his shoulder.

This sudden intimacy made Song Yuanxi freeze. When he came back to himself, his entire face flushed red. After Jiang Wanrong let go, he stammered, “Mother… what are you doing… I’m almost a hundred years old, and you’re still hugging me like when I was little…” It was really embarrassing!

Jiang Wanrong laughed. “What’s wrong with this old lady hugging her own son? Which turtle bastard did I get in the way of? Your mother is over three hundred years old this year and still gets scolded by your maternal grandfather every day.”

Song Yuanxi: “…”

Isn’t that because Mother, every few days, you go and torment the big and small mountain peaks of Qingtian Peak? If he doesn’t scold you, who would he scold! Thank goodness Maternal Grandfather has a Nascent Soul cultivation base and a strong heart. Otherwise, just this one biological daughter alone would make his blood pressure shoot up every few days.

Of course, he only thought this in his heart. In front of his own mother, he did not dare run his mouth.

When they were about to reach the sect, Song Yuanxi remembered something else. He took out the spirit beast pouch, opened it, and carried out his contracted beast.

“When did you raise such a thing?” The first time Jiang Wanrong saw the Samoyed, she felt this dog was fat. It only ate and did not train. It was probably a combat weakling.

Song Yuanxi shook his head helplessly. “Mother, look more carefully. This is my contracted beast.”

“Contracted beast?”

Only then did Jiang Wanrong carefully identify it. With this look, she truly saw something. It was actually a Dàfeng fledgling. But shouldn’t the initial form of a Dàfeng fledgling be a young chicken? How had it become a dog?

Song Yuanxi shook his head. “I don’t know either. Little White was indeed in the form of a little yellow chicken before, and Daoist Master Yunhua recognized it at a glance back then. But later, the little yellow chicken was injured and entered the secret land with me. After recuperating for fifty years, it became a dog. Afterward, it devoured a lot of heavenly fire in the sea of fire and fell asleep again.”

The first thing Jiang Wanrong thought of was what form the Dàfeng fledgling, now sleeping and in its growth stage, would take when it woke up again.

Since one mutation could occur, it was hard to guarantee there would not be a second. Dàfeng was a phoenix fledgling. Ever since the phoenix clan fell and disappeared ten thousand years ago, phoenix fledglings had become extremely precious. Although Dàfeng was a fierce beast, it still made countless cultivators rush after it.

Yuanxi’s cultivation was insufficient. If people learned he had Dàfeng as a contracted beast, it would probably not be a good thing.

Thinking to this point, Jiang Wanrong said directly, “Once we return to the sect, come with me to Qingtian Peak first and let your maternal grandfather properly examine your contracted beast.”

After a pause, she added, “Yuanxi, before your cultivation is sufficient, you must not expose that your contracted beast is Dàfeng. Even more so, you must not expose the matter of Dàfeng’s growth form mutating. If anyone asks, just say this dog is a contracted beast I found for you.”

Song Yuanxi nodded. “Mother, I know. A common man is innocent, but possession of treasure makes him guilty.”

Only then did Jiang Wanrong feel reassured. She accelerated directly and brought her son rushing back to Xuantian Sect.

Entering halfway up Qingtian Peak, Jiang Wanrong put away her flying sword. The two landed, preparing to walk up the mountain.

They just happened to meet a passing Qingtian Peak disciple. Seeing Jiang Wanrong approach, she immediately saluted. “Disciple greets True Lord Shuanghua.”

Jiang Wanrong nodded slightly and waved her hand, letting the disciple go about her own business.

Song Yuanxi, however, was stunned. His mouth opened so wide it could swallow an entire egg.

“Mother, you’re actually Nascent Soul?!” His ears were very good. He definitely had not heard wrong just now. That senior sister from Qingtian Peak had called her “True Lord Shuanghua.”

Jiang Wanrong directly threw back her head and laughed, her laughter bright and hearty. “It’s merely advancing to Nascent Soul. Is there any need to be so shocked? With this old lady’s ability, it was only a matter of things falling into place.”

“No, Mother, you’re way too amazing. You’re only over three hundred years old, but you’re already at Nascent Soul cultivation. You’re even more amazing than Maternal Grandfather was back then!” This was what shocked Song Yuanxi.

Jiang Wanrong’s expression, however, was calm. “I said back then that I would definitely reach Nascent Soul by three hundred. I, Jiang Wanrong, do what I say and never speak empty words!”

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