Wei Yuan felt like he did not deserve her compliment. In reality, Xu Wan’er was a master in concealment arts. He would never have found her if he did not possess the Immortal Lord’s karmic array disc.

Before departure, Wei Yuan habitually reviewed his information one more time. The Swelling Water God Palace was located one thousand three hundred li to the northwest of Willow Ash Town. Its mountain gate was destroyed several years ago. If a grotto-heaven fragment had fallen there, then its space was unusually frail. If an Avatar Trueman were to unleash their full power there, they could very well trigger a chain reaction with unfathomable consequences. At the same time, mystic spells pertaining to karma, fengshui, prediction, and tracking would be greatly weakened, and curses would undergo unpredictable changes. Choosing to meet there made it much easier for either one of them to escape in case of an emergency.

Judging from Yun Feifei’s reply, it seemed like she was being hunted as well, though it was unclear which faction was pursuing her.

Now that he had concrete news about Yun Feifei, Wei Yuan wasted no further time. He produced a small silver vial and ordered, “Open your mouth.”

Xu Wan’er obediently did as he ordered and allowed him to pour a single drop of liquid into her mouth. She then swallowed it.

“This is the Immortal Severance Liquid. I only need a thought to melt your mystic body and leave you with just a primordial spirit. Don’t think about running away either. It will trigger on its own if it does not sense my divine thought for over three days. Of course, I will give you the antidote once I’ve met Yun Feifei,” Wei Yuan said.

“I won’t run away.” Xu Wan’er nodded without any resistance whatsoever.

Wei Yuan waved his hand, and Xu Wenwu fell off the wall. Although the guy was facing away from them, he could hear their conversation loud and clear. After he was freed, he approached Wei Yuan and closed his eyes, mouth open and tongue sticking out in the air. He was ready to consume poison to prove his loyalty.

Wei Yuan’s response was to shove him away. Also a gift from the Immortal Lord, the Immortal Severance Liquid was no ordinary poison. It was quite valuable because it could be triggered remotely with one’s divine thought. As Xu Wenwu was someone he could kill with a hand wave, there was no need to waste the poison on him.

Wei Yuan returned Xu Wan’er’s possessions after she had taken the poison. Then, he packed his own belongings and got ready to put Willow Ash Town behind him.

Wei Yuan was standing in front of her, and Xu Wenwu’s gaze was practically burning into her sides. Naturally, Xu Wan’er found it too embarrassing to hide her possessions inside her body any longer. Instead, she threw them into a backpack and carried it.

Prior to their departure, Wei Yan surrendered Wang Lang’s body to the innkeeper and earned eight hundred taels of immortal silver. As the mission was completed quickly and cleanly, the innkeeper gave him an additional fifty taels in hopes of cultivating a good karmic connection.

Although the bounty was issued by Xu Wan’er, Wei Yuan could not take the money from her directly. That would be robbery. On the other hand, claiming a bounty was a different story. He felt no qualms taking this money whatsoever. Although Xu Wan’er was the one who killed Wang Lang, as the saying goes, a virtuous man acquires his wealth in a proper way.

In the blink of an eye, everything was ready. Before leaving, he bought two horses for ease of travel. With that done, they officially set off for the former site of the Swelling Water God Palace.

To be honest, Xu Wan’er found Wei Yuan’s decision to buy the horses to be rather peculiar. As a Dao Foundation stage cultivator, the fastest method of travel was naturally flying with a mystic artifact. In comparison, riding on horseback felt like moving at a snail’s pace. However, this was Wei Yuan’s decision to make, so she simply accepted it gracefully without further comment.

When the night was still young, three lean horses slowly left Lie Flat Inn. They traveled east until they were out of town before finally turning northwest. This detour alone was probably going to last until morning.

At a residence in the northern district of Willow Ash Town, a young swordsman with his face covered in bandages was sitting at the center of a hall with a gloomy expression. Below him, a girl was whipping his subordinate hard. The girl was young and slender, but her whips were heavy and vicious. Every whip spilled blood and elicited bloodcurdling screams from the victim.

Dozens of whips later, the young swordsman finally felt a little better and ordered the girl to stop. He roared, “You useless piece of garbage! Not one of the six people you caught is the one I’m looking for! What is the point of your existence if you can’t even do something so simple?!”

Unfortunately for him, he accidentally ripped his wound open mid-roar, causing blood to drench the bandages instantly. A girl standing beside him immediately said in a sweet voice, “Your wound has reopened, young master. Let’s head to the back so I can change your dressing for you!”

“I don’t feel like it!”

The girl clung to him instead. “We can change it here as well.”

The young swordsman shook her off his arm and growled in frustration, “I said I don’t feel like it! Ghosts be damned, I can’t believe how slow I’m recovering. Not even the medicine of the Life and Death Hall is effective.”

The girl asked, “Do you think you’re cursed? Should we find a master to neutralize it for you?”

“I guess so.” Suddenly, the young swordsman recalled something and asked, “Wasn’t there a fool named Li whatever? He calls himself the ‘Matchless Sword and Cauldron’ and stirred up quite a commotion recently. Why hasn’t anyone brought him before me?”

A burly man standing on one side of the hall stepped forward and answered, “The fellow has skipped town in the dead of the night, young master. He has two accomplices with him. However, they were riding mortal horses when they departed, so I believe that they are merely swindlers. I was pursuing the ‘Soul Extinguishing Cauldron’ Yu Yirou at the time, so I decided to ignore him.”

The young swordsman’s curiosity was piqued. “Yu Yirou? I heard she’s a bit of a looker.”

The burly man answered, “Nah, she’s a tad aged. She disguises herself as a girl, but her foundation test reveals that she’s over forty. Her shell also shows numerous traces of Dao spell treatment and repair.”

The young swordsman instantly lost interest and ordered, “Continue the search then. Do not stop until you’ve dug the bastard out of his hidey-hole! Remember, he cannot be an ordinary cultivator. For someone to do what he did to me, he has to be Heaven-tier at least. There’s a good chance he’s in the late-stage as well.”

“Acknowledged. This subordinate will search for the attacker based on your judgment.”

The young swordsman started walking toward the back hall, saying, “Also, make sure the Xu girl is ready. She’s not so bad that I couldn’t bear to play with her a couple more times. Hmph, Xu Zhijie would be rolling in his grave if he knows what we’re doing to his distant niece. It’s too bad his daughter managed to escape. She’s the real looker in the family.”

The burly man asked, “What should we do with those we had wrongfully captured?”

“They’re not completely worthless. Sell them to the west.”

The young swordsman was just about to disappear into the back hall when suddenly, he recalled something and looked up at the signboard hanging above the entrance. In his eyes, it was emitting a clear light and pushing back what looked like a mist of blackish red qi.

Suddenly, the young swordsman ordered, “Go after that so-called Matchless Sword and Cauldron! I hate the sound of his title!”

The burly man was caught off guard by the sudden decision, but he did not question it. He simply accepted his order and took his leave.

Outside Willow Ash Town, three lean horses were leisurely making their way toward the horizon.

Xu Wenwu was a man who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “In my world,” he said, “the roads are exceptionally smooth. Some are even fully enclosed—we call them highways. Look at the roads here, potholed and flooded everywhere. This would’ve been totally unacceptable back in my world. Also, we’re traveling at the pace of roughly sixty li per hour—no wait, thirty li? You don’t know this, but we have these things called cars that can travel between four and five hundred li on a highway in just two hours—”

Wei Yuan threw out a rope and cast a Bind spell, binding Xu Wenwu firmly to his horse. The rope had also wrapped around his mouth and gagged him. Then, a wisp of black qi entered a horse each and caused them to grow a size larger, roaring in pain. The horses started jogging under the night, covering two zhang in just a single step. Then, they moved faster and faster until they were practically just blurs.

A shocked Xu Wan’er grabbed the reins tightly as the surroundings receded rapidly around her. They were moving almost as fast as a cultivator flying at top speed despite the fact that they were riding mortal horses, not immortal colts!

As for Xu Wenwu, the guy was screaming in terror. But because his mouth was gagged by two loops of rope, the only noises he could make were grunts.

Wei Yuan leaned forward as his mount galloped faster and faster. At some point, its hooves were hovering slightly above ground as if it was riding the wind. The other two horses were right behind him thanks to his control as well.

Meanwhile, several cultivators flew out of Willow Ash Town and circled around the roads once. Then, they followed the one leading north for a bit before turning northwest. They flew at top speed and covered a hundred li in just a short time. However, they did not find so much as a human shadow along the dark, silent road.

The burly man leading the group eventually called them to a halt, frowning as he looked toward the northwest. Although he could sense three faint human presences down this direction, he couldn’t see anyone at all. Nighttime in the Shattered Realm were the Shamans’ natural hunting ground and extremely dangerous. Although the burly man had cooperated with the Shamans multiple times in the past, he did not trust the ones he had worked with, much less the ones he didn’t know.

The burly man pondered for a moment before ordering, “Let’s head back and search along the road. They could not have gone far.”

Could three mortal horses cover a distance of several hundred li in less than an hour? Of course not. Thus, this must be a diversion by the trio. Either they had slipped back into town, or they had escaped in a different direction. It could even be both. But no matter where they went, they could not have gone far. The burly man was confident in his tracking skills and believed that he would capture them eventually.

After riding at top speed for two whole hours, Wei Yuan finally stopped the horses and led them to a hill next the road to catch some rest.

Xu Wan’er’s aura was weaker than normal. It was clear that she had had to expend some Dao energy during the journey. It wasn’t, in fact, a good thing for a mortal horse to perform at the speed of an immortal colt. For starters, the jostling and shaking were several times more intense than they would have been. Her mount absolutely refused to obey her commands as well. That was why she had suspended herself in the air just above her mount and bound herself to it using her Dao energy. Effectively, she was allowing the horse to drag her through the air. This eliminated the discomfort completely, but it also drained her Dao energy at an alarming rate. She was beginning to feel strained two hours later.

Xu Wenwu was completely silent. It was because he had fainted long ago.

Wei Yuan dismounted and withdrew his fortune. Three wisps of black qi returned to him, but he discovered that one of them was a tad fainter than before! It was a miniscule loss, but hardly negligible. When he traced the fortune to its origin, he discovered that it was the one empowering Xu Wenwu’s mount. Not only that, he discovered that something had changed about the horse.

Before this, the horse was utterly ordinary. Its coat was a mottled mix of red, blue, and white, the clear characteristic of a mixed breed. However, it did not revert fully back to its original size after Wei Yuan had withdrawn his fortune. First, it stood about a quarter a head taller than before. Its frame was slightly broader, and its aura was more robust as well. Despite having galloped nearly a thousand li in a go, it still looked pretty vigorous and spirited. It was still an ordinary horse, but it was now a rare find steed among its kind.

I didn’t know that fortune can be used this way. Was it the fortune, or Xu Wenwu?

Meanwhile, Xu Wan’er had untied Xu Wenwu and dragged him off his horse. She laid him on the ground before casting a Purify Heart spell on him. After Xu Wenwu gradually awakened, he felt a terrible churning in his stomach and collapsed on the ground, throwing up violently.

Wei Yuan picked up a piece of jade paper. It was an extremely detailed map of the Shattered Realm. It was alone worth five hundred merits in the merits hall. But since he was carrying out a mission issued by an Immortal Lord, the map, the Immortal Severance Liquid and more had all been given to him freely. He had not spent a single tael on them.

At the moment, Wei Yuan was over five hundred li away from the Swelling Water God Palace and nine hundred li away from Willow Ash Town. They had to navigate across mountains and waters as well, so they had actually covered just over a thousand li in a little over two hours.

Wei Yuan looked at the map and recalled Xu Wenwu’s words, pondering. Assuming that the guy wasn’t lying, his so-called “car” couldn’t even match their speed on horseback. Moreover, the road must be exceptionally smooth without the slightest bumps or potholes for the car to reach the speed he had described. In reality, such a road could not possibly exist outside the gates of an immortal sect.

As if that wasn’t enough, only mortals used roads. Any cultivator commanding a flying artifact could just fly through the sky. As Wei Yuan possessed the ability to transform mortal horses into immortal colts, he didn’t need roads to travel either. Even on a road, those so-called cars could only cover between five and six hundred li of distance in two hours. It didn’t seem all that useful.

Cars weren’t the only things Xu Wenwu had ranted about. However, Wei Yuan’s impression of them was simple—bizarre, but nothing particularly memorable. His curiosity was somewhat piqued when the guy claimed that the tall buildings in his world routinely reached over a hundred stories, yet upon further inquiry, he learned that these so-called skyscrapers did not live up to their reputation. For example, many of the halls in the Palace of Absolute Beginning stood over a hundred zhang tall. However, they only consisted of a single level, meaning that a single-storey building in his world was equal to over a hundred-storey building in Xu Wenwu’s world. Wei Yuan also knew on instinct that, assuming that the building height was the same, it was far easier to build a structure with a hundred levels than it was to build one with a single level.

Xu Wenwu was also extremely long-winded, so Wei Yuan lost interest after just listening for a moment and gagged him with a rope. Then, he turned his attention to Xu Wan’er and questioned her about her past.