If Chi Yujun were allowed to choose, she would only want to choose to flee from this damned Dust Sword Palace, wait until the day her gu arts were greatly accomplished, then come to the door seeking vengeance, and torment all these enemies who had killed her father and sister until they could neither live nor beg for death.
Especially this so-called Dust Sword Palace Senior Brother Fang Guyuan who had personally buried everything right in front of her.
Having lost her family, living held no meaning for her.
Yet now she could only be at others’ disposal like a bird in a cage…
The only good news for her was that they all still seemed not to know her identity, calling her the “Phoenix Body” she herself did not understand, and they did not look as if they wanted to kill her all that much.
Just now Fang Guyuan had absolutely wanted to kill her again.
That piercing, chilling killing intent was exactly the same as when she had escaped death.
She only did not understand.
The first time she had luckily escaped.
The second time she had nowhere to hide, so why had Fang Guyuan, who had revealed killing intent, actually been able to endure and not strike at her.
If it were her sending gu insects onto someone else’s body, in only a single breath that person’s flesh and blood would melt away like ice and snow, the withered human skin losing its luster, rapidly shrinking and wilting like a ball that had lost its air.
She killed whatever she wanted to kill, ate whatever she wanted to eat, and never considered so many things.
She had known from a young age that in this world, besides gu insects, herself, her father, and her sister, all other myriad things had no need to exist, and were all food and insects that she could casually pinch according to her preferences.
Now it was only that her own strength was insufficient.
Otherwise this Fang Guyuan and this Ye Baizhi would be nothing more than code names for food, and perhaps she would forget them the next day—
In the past, she had never cared what the person in front of her was called or where they came from, because for a dead person that kind of thing held no meaning.
Chi Yujun recognized with incomparable clarity that the urgent task was to raise her own strength.
Only with strength could she return to that incomparable freedom of before and bloodily blade her enemies.
As for Ye Baizhi and Fang Guyuan saying they neither ate people nor ate insects, Chi Yujun had already thought it through on this journey.
Human flesh and blood and insects were great tonic things for the gu insects in her body.
She ate insects because she was a gu master.
Those two people did not raise gu, so of course they did not need to eat them.
But there was one point she found very strange: Father often said that eating something would supplement that thing, so she should eat more people and insects to nourish her body and let her adorable little treasures grow faster.
Fang Guyuan seemed to practice the sword.
Though she did not understand the way of the sword, she could still see the clean, neat beauty of that sword art—
Did Fang Guyuan usually eat swords?
Was that why he could progress so quickly?
The more Chi Yujun thought, the more she felt it made sense.
Looking at the rather womanly and charming Tao Shangyun before her, Chi Yujun understood in her heart: this woman should also have eaten quite a few women, otherwise how could she have grown so graceful and alluring.
Tao Shangyun had no idea the Phoenix Body before her eyes was thinking such world-shocking things.
She laughed it off and drew the topic back toward Fang Guyuan and Ye Baizhi.
Was that not so?
In her eyes, these two were the protagonists of today’s diplomacy, and she had to properly connect and connect feelings.
As for the Phoenix Body, she had heard there were some problems and flaws on her body, but they were probably unimportant.
Once the Phoenix Body joined Fangfei Valley, slowly regulating them would not count as a difficult matter.
“Daoist Fang, long time no see. You seem to have advanced again. I imagine the Immortal Sect Grand Competition after some time will be a sure victory in your grasp. Little Sister Ye has truly grown more and more graceful and upright, becoming more and more watery and adorable. Right, how has your father been lately? Our valley has just finished making a batch of nourishing and tonic spirit medicines. Some beautify the face and nourish the complexion, some strengthen the body. You may as well take more back.”
Tao Shangyun’s charming eyes were like silk as she exchanged courtesies one by one.
“Many thanks for Valley Master Tao’s hospitality. It is only that we came somewhat hastily today and were unable to prepare any decent gifts for the valley master. A little token of regard is not enough to express respect. For any lack of consideration, we still hope for your magnanimity.”
As he spoke, Fang Guyuan lowered his head, cupped his hands in a bow, and presented a finely packaged gift box.
Tao Shangyun received the box, gently lifted a crack and glanced inside, ripples rising in her beautiful eyes, her mouth smiling so wide it would not close.
“Aiya, you people of Dust Sword Palace are just too polite. You’ve already prepared such a heavy fine gift, yet still say it is not decent. Truly too polite, too polite~ Daoist Fang really knows how to pick gifts. One send and it is sent right into my heart…”
The look Tao Shangyun gave Fang Guyuan gained a few more parts of pleasant surprise.
“It wasn’t Senior Brother who picked it.”
Ye Baizhi keenly sensed something and immediately took over the conversation with a face full of smiling intent.
Giving gifts required catering to preferences.
This was common sense.
But if one catered to preferences too well, it would instead invite some unnecessary trouble.
“Why does he understand me so well?”
“Has he been paying attention to me all along?”
“He couldn’t possibly like me, could he?”
Between the same gender it was still fine, but when you produced this kind of thought toward an opposite-gender person of excellent appearance and temperament whose character was praised by all, and then slightly filled in the blanks, you were not far from falling.
At the very beginning Fang Guyuan had not understood this principle.
When he had just become the sect master’s personally transmitted disciple, he felt he should set an example with his own person and inspire the junior brothers and sisters to work hard and truly practice for the sect.
So for three years in a row he wrote letters on the junior brothers’ and sisters’ birthdays expressing his care, and the content in every letter was different, all written with care.
In those three years, not only did the entire sect’s cultivation progress at divine speed, there even emerged a large batch of Senior Brother’s fanatic fans, dream girls, and also cut-sleeves.
Even the elders of Sword Heart Pavilion and the sect master were alarmed, and after learning the original circumstances they did not know whether to laugh or cry.
After Fang Guyuan suddenly awakened, he contracted face blindness.
When greeting people, he could always accurately and without error call the junior brothers’ and sisters’ names wrong, and still explain with a smiling face that he was truly too tired and so on.
In order to stop Senior Brother from walking the road of no return toward opening a harem—
In order to prevent himself from repeating the same mistake again—
Ye Baizhi and Fang Guyuan immediately reacted as if stressed.
“This was picked by Fifth Senior Brother.”
“That’s right. It was Junior Brother Han Ziyou who used the ‘Instrument of Catering to Preferences’ he developed to pick it.”
Tao Shangyun seemed to remember something and asked.
“That’s right, weren’t the three of you on very good terms before? Why didn’t you act together this time?”
“Junior Brother Ziyou has been busy in the Heavenly Crafts Bureau these days making that thing called… mm, a mobile phone. He hasn’t left seclusion yet. It’s said to be a big project. Once it’s made he should act together with us.”
Fang Guyuan turned his head to glance at the expressionless Chi Yujun, then looked toward Fangfei Valley’s Valley Master Tao Shangyun.
“Valley Master Tao, you should have prepared treasures here to prevent gu poison, yes?”
Hearing the string and knowing the elegant meaning, Tao Shangyun understood in her heart.
Fang Guyuan would not shoot without aim.
This question was necessarily related to the Phoenix Body they had brought.
“There are… ah, so that’s how it is. So the Phoenix Body has been struck by gu poison.”
Tao Shangyun nodded in sudden realization.
“Are there Dao-tool-level gu-poison treasures?”
Fang Guyuan continued to ask.
“Ah?!”
Tao Shangyun was so surprised she suddenly raised her voice.
Treasures were divided into five ranks: artifacts, spirit tools, Dao tools, Immortal tools, and Sequence tools.
Sequence tools existed only in legends and no one had ever seen them, while Immortal tools belonged to the sect-suppressing treasures of every great sect, extremely hard to obtain—
Even so, within Immortal tools one still had to divide inferior, low-grade, mid-grade, high-grade, and peak-grade.
Dao tools already counted as the level that only the extremely few elite disciples, elders, and sect masters within a great school could use.
Because people who cultivated gu arts were few, Dao tools related to gu poison were also extremely few within the immortal sects.
“Is it that serious? Ones related to herbs there still are, but ones related to gu poison…”
“Then please examine her personally.”
Fang Guyuan’s expression looked somewhat weary.
“Your cultivation is high, so it should still be somewhat easier to handle. Just bringing her here we already damaged and scrapped several dozen spirit tools, more than we used when wiping out that evil cult before.”
“It can’t be that bad…”
Tao Shangyun sucked in a cold breath, and only then began to carefully examine Chi Yujun who had been standing without speaking the whole time, her composure greatly disordered.
“She…”
“She hasn’t been struck by gu poison…”
“She herself is a living gu?!”