Qin Yangtai took out the documents he had prepared in advance and stamped them.
Although he didn’t know who the woman before him was, stamping was always a good thing.
Even though he saw Ding Nan being carried by her, and he had some friendship with Ding Wen, it was better to pretend he didn’t know.
Qin Yangtai’s face was all smiles as he shuffled forward on his knees for several meters, raising both hands.
“Please present your travel document.”
Xian Yuyan lowered her beautiful eyes, looked at him, and took out her own travel document.
The person before her, though of low cultivation, had the entire Tianfeng Dynasty behind him.
The Nanyang Academy did not act tyrannically.
Qin Yangtai received the travel document, immediately pulled out a brush, wrote a character, and stamped it again.
“Esteemed guest, please enter the teleportation array.”
“Esteemed guest, please enter the teleportation array!”
“…”
The officials lined up on both sides, clearing a path.
Without another word, Xian Yuyan quickly teleported into the teleportation array within the City Lord’s Mansion.
The array flashed with light, and Xian Yuyan vanished.
Shortly after, two more people descended from the sky, smashing two holes through the ceiling of the City Lord’s Mansion.
The City Lord’s Mansion suddenly felt very… spacious.
Qin Yangtai:
“…”
He fell to his knees with a thump.
The familiar scene played out once more, and this time, Qin Yangtai wept bitterly…
“…”
Xian Yuyan didn’t teleport just once.
She went through multiple rounds of teleportation.
Ji Lanruo and Luo Yao, because they had to spend time figuring out where Xian Yuyan had teleported to before they could follow, gradually fell behind.
In the end, Xian Yuyan managed to escape.
Ji Lanruo and Luo Yao stomped their feet in anger.
—
Some unknown small village.
Xian Yuyan placed Ding Nan on a simple plank bed inside a thatched hut.
However, she did not let her guard down.
Within Ding Nan’s body was Spiritual Qi that was not her own.
It was lying dormant within him in a peculiar state.
“Soulfire… the Five Elements Spiritual Fire?”
Xian Yuyan said.
She raised her hand, channeling her own Spiritual Qi into Ding Nan’s body.
In an instant, she extracted the Five Elements Spiritual Fire belonging to Luo Yao, which had been continuously burrowing deeper into Ding Nan.
Suddenly, a faint, widespread fluctuation of Spiritual Qi came from the horizon.
“Ji Lanruo?”
Xian Yuyan recognized the source of the Spiritual Qi and the state of its operation.
“The Source Tracing Art?”
Her expression changed slightly.
She quickly took a Black Stone Necklace from her Spatial Ring, hung it around Ding Nan’s neck, and immediately fled with him.
Less than a minute later, Ji Lanruo appeared in the hut.
Sniffing the lingering scent of a woman in the air, she couldn’t help but smash the wooden table inside the hut to pieces.
—
Xian Yuyan teleported several more times and finally stopped at a city in Zhongzhou called Wancheng.
Carrying Ding Nan, she headed to an inn.
Kelong Inn, private single room.
Xian Yuyan placed Ding Nan on the bed and then remained on alert.
After nearly two hours, Xian Yuyan finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Esteemed guest, what would you like for lunch?”
A waiter knocked on the door outside and inquired.
“A roast duck and a pot of tea,” Xian Yuyan replied without hesitation.
“Right away, esteemed guest.”
The waiter left.
Xian Yuyan then turned her gaze to Ding Nan.
Ding Nan’s breathing was steady.
He looked as if he were just taking an afternoon nap and would probably wake up soon.
Xian Yuyan leaned down, brushing aside the bangs covering Ding Nan’s face.
“Is it really you?”
Xian Yuyan looked at Ding Nan’s face, which still held a touch of youthfulness.
This face was identical to that of the thief who had infiltrated her home years ago, not only stealing ore and spirit plants but also sneaking into the kitchen to eat the roast chicken.
“It can’t be… Xian Yuyan, calm down. He died in your arms back then. You personally sealed his coffin, buried him, carved the stone, and erected a memorial stele. How could it be him?”
Xian Yuyan stood up, turning her head away, not daring to look at Ding Nan’s face.
She paced for a little while, then stroked her chin, a thought forming in her mind.
“But what if…?”
Her gaze gradually grew solemn.
There were many methods of disguise:
Artificial skin masks, transformation spells.
But no matter how skillful the transformation or makeup, they couldn’t alter the underlying essence of one’s fate or the form of the inner soul.
Xian Yuyan placed both hands on Ding Nan’s chest and slowly closed her eyes.
Xian Yuyan’s soul delved into Ding Nan’s body.
—
Beep! Beep!
Cars drove on the road.
Xian Yuyan stood amidst towering skyscrapers.
Beyond the skyscrapers were vast stretches of green, occasionally intersected by highways and overpasses—it was the city’s outskirts.
Further away were low, somewhat old-looking houses with tiled roofs, similar to ordinary houses in Qingquan City.
Yet the place where they stood was clearly the countryside.
“Where is this…”
Xian Yuyan had never seen such a sight before.
“What kind of scene is this…”
The scene before her couldn’t be called novel; it could only be described as bizarre.
Especially seeing men and women on the streets wearing strange clothes and weary-faced clerks—they must be clerks—inside the office buildings.
Having traveled across the entire continent, she had never witnessed such a scene.
A man walked past Xian Yuyan.
Xian Yuyan looked and saw it was Ding Nan, dressed in a suit and tie, a red tie, carrying a briefcase, holding a phone, and walking hurriedly.
“Hey… you!”
“Ding Nan” turned his head, sporting dark circles under his eyes, glanced at Xian Yuyan, waited half a second, and when Xian Yuyan didn’t speak, turned back to continue his phone call.
Just as she opened her mouth, she suddenly felt a gaze from above.
Xian Yuyan looked up at the sky.
The blue sky was clear, yet it carried a feeling of oppression—the skyscrapers surrounded her.
As she was lost in thought, she found herself suddenly appearing high in the sky.
The sky had gravity, like a blue lake, sucking her in.
Only then did she remember, why wasn’t she appearing by flying?
She stood among the skyscrapers, just like everyone else.
Xian Yuyan suddenly had a sensation of falling into water.
Then, a feeling of suffocation followed.
She struggled fiercely, trying to break free, but her power was effortlessly dissolved by what looked like the lake surface of the sky.
She couldn’t struggle and could only keep rising.
Darkness assaulted her, a cold sensation piercing her soul, rendering her powerless.
“His divine sense… it’s actually this strong!”
She thought, gradually losing consciousness.
—
When she awoke, fear immediately spread through her chest, making her kneel on the ground, gasping for breath.
The ground was pure white.
Xian Yuyan’s eyes changed slightly.
She raised her head and saw a world of pure white.
At the world’s edge, raging flames reached the sky like a hanging celestial river.
Its peril was such that it was breathtaking, and at the same time, an instinctive understanding arose.
Fire is hot.
Indeed, that fire should be incredibly hot.
Even though Xian Yuyan felt an immeasurable distance from the heavenly fire, she still felt a sensation of being scorched on her body.
If I touched those flames, I’m afraid I’d perish instantly, my cultivation extinguished…
She stood up and looked around.
Pure white, flames, pure white, flames…
Then, she saw a man.
The man’s face was burned by fire, with no eyebrows, no lips, a crooked nose.
His entire face had a sunken feeling, as if a layer had been shaved off, making his eyes appear protruding.
This man wore simple hemp clothes, his body also bearing old burn scars.
He sat upon a pure white throne, like a monster who had usurped it.
Seeing this man, who looked completely inhuman, startled Xian Yuyan.
However, Xian Yuyan could tell that this man belonged here.
That throne, that position, originally belonged to him.
No one had ever usurped it.
This was his sea of consciousness, and also his prison.
Merely standing before this man was like gazing up at a towering peak.
It was the first time she had seen a being with such powerful divine sense.
It exceeds the divine sense level of the Tribulation Transcendence Stage…
With her level of divine sense, before him, she could only wait for death.
“Duanmu Yuyan…”
The man leaned back on the throne, his eyes lowered, gazing at the fearful Xian Yuyan.
Xian Yuyan’s pupils constricted sharply.
It had been a very long time since anyone had called her by that name.
“Who are you?”
Xian Yuyan asked.
The man leaned sideways against the throne, his folded hands never moving.
The man did not answer, slowly closing his eyes.
He fell silent, like a withered corpse on a king’s throne.
“Just who are you…”
Xian Yuyan shouted.
In an instant, she felt her soul being shoved.
In the blink of an eye, she returned to her own body.
She abruptly opened her eyes, then collapsed weakly to her knees on the floor.
“What was all that…”
Xian Yuyan scratched her hair, extremely agitated, then slammed her fist down hard on the quilt on the bed.
Although the man hadn’t answered, she already understood the answer.
The perfect alignment of body and soul, heart state and inner reflection, meant there had been no Possession…
The reason his soul manifested in that appearance was likely due to some past trauma.
Trauma so intense it affected his life, to the point that his own self-perception was exactly like that.
The man sitting on the throne should have looked exactly like Ding Nan lying on the bed.
The Ink Jade Token, knowing Duanmu Yuyan, the appearance, the Spiritual Qi fluctuations—all matched everything about that man in Xian Yuyan’s memory.
“Xian Xinghuan, since you didn’t die, why have you been hiding from me!”
She was somewhat angry.
Watching him die helplessly in her arms back then, she didn’t know how heartbroken she was, crying over the corpse for a full day and night.
And now this man appeared before her again.
What was all this?
Tricking her tears, toying with her feelings?
That’s why she was angry.
But she sat down by the bedside, gently tidying Ding Nan’s hair.
Her slender, pink-tinted fingers stroked Ding Nan’s face.
The anger in her eyes quickly transformed into the joy of something lost and found again.
She couldn’t help but smile.
But then, the overwhelming scent of another woman’s rouge assailed her, along with a faint, ordinary-person-unnoticeable fox-spirit musk.
Luo Yao’s scent.
Her expression instantly turned ugly.
“Did you get together with another woman?”
Xian Yuyan said with a dark face, muttering to herself.
“Is that why you didn’t come find me?”
The sleeping Ding Nan breathed steadily and naturally did not answer Xian Yuyan’s question.
Xian Yuyan stared intently at Ding Nan, as if trying to see if he was pretending to sleep, but then she noticed the peculiarity of Ding Nan’s body.
She reached out and took Ding Nan’s hand.
Her jade-like fingers kneaded the bones of Ding Nan’s hand.
“Physical age just past eighteen… a powerful soul, a young body. The Heavenly Immortal Path?”
Xian Yuyan thought to herself.
“Fine, fine, fine… Did you leave back then because you saw me crying all the time? Bullying me for my low cultivation, is that it?!”
So, Xian Xinghuan didn’t die back then at all, but simply changed bodies?
A vein gradually throbbed on Xian Yuyan’s forehead.