Yang Qing sat with Tang Xiadan’s warning for a moment. Smiling gratefully, he said, "Thank you for the warning. I will make sure to pass it along with the same seriousness."

Tang Xiadan nodded, inwardly sighing in relief. His Senior Sister had never seemed quite right since that incident. Even before they left the Green Fog Region, she had always been the sort to keep to herself and avoid trouble where she could, while Tang Xiadan was the opposite.

But even then, reclusive as she was, there had still been a daringness to her, given that she had agreed to leave the Green Fog Region with him and explore the world outside. Well, perhaps it hadn’t been entirely her adventurous side that had factored into that decision, and more the fourth Palace Realm stage Twin Horned Liger they had managed to anger beyond reason, when they robbed it of the Quasi Ascendant Grade Three Lightning Calabash it had been guarding for its own use when it matured. The heist had been successful. Getting away unnoticed had not.

They were chased for months by that monstrous creature, whose horns released black and gold lightning respectively, the potency of which was so destructive that even spirit beasts with the greatest confidence in the hardiness of their defenses would not dare stand against either. After a great deal of scheming, luck, and evasive ability honed to a razor’s edge, which was sharpened even further during that chase, Tang Xiadan and his Senior Sister Yanyu finally managed to lose the liger’s trail. It had become embroiled in a fight with a group of human cultivators it had struck indiscriminately with its lightning while in pursuit of the two, and Tang Xiadan and Yanyu had seized that momentary pause to use Yanyu’s ability to obscure themselves and flee.

That long chase had persisted close to two months, edging toward three, and during it Tang Xiadan and Yanyu had come face to face with death more times than he could count. A few of those times, they hadn’t even been sure how they had made it through. And yet, no matter how harrowing and unnerving that ordeal had been, and no matter how frightened his Senior Sister Yanyu had looked during that chase, what he had seen of her that day at the border of the Deer Mountain Kingdom, that dread in her, was miles beyond anything he’d seen during those three months.

He didn’t know what she saw, or the true gravity of what she had sensed, even she herself didn’t quite understand it outside of knowing that death and calamity lay there in horrifying measure, but her reaction alone was all Tang Xiadan had needed to be deathly terrified of the place. At least for him, not having sensed it personally, his mind had readjusted after they left and he had gone back to normal. The same couldn’t be said of Yanyu.

Part of why he had brought up the Deer Mountain Range was precisely for that reason. If the Order resolved the issue, then maybe his friend could go back to being herself. Revealing the secrets of the Bi Xie Empire, and even the grotto, had been a form of payment for the real ask he had been building toward. Yang Qing’s reply had set his mind at ease.

Maybe when he met up with Yanyu and told her of the Order’s involvement, her mind might finally relax enough for her to join him in his adventures again, rather than remain closed off and hidden in one of the mysterious realms they had found together.

As for Yang Qing, he took Tang Xiadan’s warning genuinely to heart. How could he not, given what had transpired there just a few months ago? And even if they had not lost members there to some insidious scheme by the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate, Yang Qing would still have given the matter the seriousness it deserved.

Better to overreact to something and find out there was nothing there, than to be neglectful in assuming there was nothing only for something to truly be there. Time could never be wound back.

The instant he was done here, he was going to forward the warning to Fan Mei and have her pass it along to the Flying Shadow Hawks and all other relevant parties. Or I could just tell Old Lei to hurry the matter along, Yang Qing thought.

His fear of the old fiend aside, that formidable supervisor of his was actually the most reliable person to reach out to when it came to matters like this, as Yang Qing knew from personal experience. If he wanted rapid movement and reaction, there was no one better than the studious and meticulous Old Lei.

Having decided that Old Lei would be his first call, Yang Qing thanked Tang Xiadan once more. "On the value of the information you have shared alone, you are already deserving of this flame," he said, smiling as he nodded toward the flame still perched on his palm, glowing gently.

Before Tang Xiadan could reply, Yang Qing gently nudged his palm, almost as though he were swatting the flame across, which was precisely what he had done. The flame leapt softly from his palm, drifted onto Tang Xiadan’s chest, and immediately wrapped itself around the bud of the Soulfrost Sequoia before funneling inward.

Immediately, the spiderwebbed veins that had filled Tang Xiadan’s entire body began to writhe like worms, and then one by one they receded back into the bud like roots coiling back into the body of their mother tree. Along with them, the parts of his skin that had hardened and crystallized began regaining the ruddy, supple softness one had grown to expect from normal skin.

In no time, Tang Xiadan’s complexion returned to what was natural for him: a warm gold-bronze. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Yang Qing’s eyes held a quiet glimmer as he noted a few things during that transformation, among them a faintly leaked aura that radiated from Tang Xiadan’s body as his flame ran its course.

Purity of Jade and auspicious qi, Yang Qing thought, sensing several auras from Tang Xiadan that he recognized. There was an attribute in Tang Xiadan that matched his own, the same one that could be found in Feng Xin and Kang Huilang, and even in the wine gourd sitting at the center of the table.

And what did the four of them have in common? Kang Huilang, Feng Xin, and he all had Peerless Jade Physiques, while that gourd had been made from wood processed from an Empyrean World Jade Tree.

Everything made of jade carried a certain refined and pure quality to it, which was why most things jade tended to hold certain purifying or nullifying properties when exposed to impurities, miasma, for instance.

So he is a jade type spirit beast, and then there’s the auspicious qi... Yang Qing murmured silently.

Having been around Yang Shitong for this long, he had developed an instinctual sense for things of an auspicious nature, given that the entire nest, down to that shameless bird itself, was overflowing with it.

This didn’t mean Tang Xiadan was a mythical race member, of course. The quality of his auspicious qi was faint compared to Yang Shitong’s.

Still, faint as it was, it was a worthwhile discovery and an illuminating one at that. Auspicious qi wasn’t exclusive to mythical races. Dragon Spiritual Veins, from the lesser dragon vein all the way up to ancestral dragon veins, were suffused with it.

Nor was it limited to them. Various treasures, spiritual plants, and beasts were known to carry it, and they were almost always tied to luck, destiny, or things closely bound to that nature.

Even so, despite those two clues, revealing as they were, Yang Qing still couldn’t pinpoint Tang Xiadan’s exact species. But at least I now know how he managed to gain such great harvests, and how he found the places tied to all those ancient lineages.