"She’s my disciple now," Yuan said.

Xuan stared at him for a moment, then blinked. "She is? How? Why? What... What are you even planning? Don’t you know she’s some sort of assassin?"

"Assassin my ass. I’m a bounty hunter," she insisted.

"Yeah yeah, you both kill people for money. I don’t want to hear it. Also, if it wasn’t obvious already, your poison doesn’t work against me, so you can stop fiddling around with that poison dart in your pocket," Xuan said.

Hearing that, her expression paled slightly. Yet Yuan, who saw all of this from the side, was especially amused. Not only were his two students already acquainted, but he also now knew how to push both of them.

"Disciple Xuan, the reason I chose her was because she was particularly good at controlling Poison Qi. Maybe even better than you, perhaps. But it seems like she’s relied too much on her poison, to the point where she stopped trying to improve."

Then, he pointed at Xuan.

"That’s where you come in. You’re going to push her to improve."

Xuan scoffed. "Now why in the hell would I do that? Just toss her into a ditch, or let me kill her."

Right as she was about to retort, Yuan spoke up:

"Yin’Er is talented. So no, I won’t let her go. And as for you, Yin’er, you’re going to brew poison that’s strong enough to kill Xuan. If you don’t, I’m going to toss you aside and let him kill you just like he wanted. What do you say?"

Yin’er just stared at him in disbelief. She had never wanted any of this. All she wanted was to kill Xuan, collect the bounty, and then get on with her life. But now, this perverted old man and that imbecile who was immune to her poison had captured her.

She couldn’t escape. But maybe... Maybe if they let their guards down, then she’d be able to sneak out of their sight and do whatever she needed. Maybe she could even kill Xuan in his sleep.

The opportunity was just too good to pass up, so she didn’t. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Alright... I promise I’ll do my best."

Yuan smiled. "Great, and you, Xuan?"

"Seems like bullshit, but if she keeps injecting poison into me and raising my Poison Qi Type mastery, then I don’t mind."

Hearing the game talk from the side, Yuelan approached. Frankly, she had noticed Yuan and that woman earlier, except she didn’t care enough to really approach them. Now though, it got to the point where she couldn’t ignore them.

"Did someone mention an AFK farm?" Yuelan tip-toed over, a wide smile on her face. "I know you’re all alchemists and all, but come on, I can help with the poison. If you use my Qi, then you could definitely make even stronger poison."

Yin’er nodded in agreement, but Yuan raised a hand at her.

"No. No outside help. Only her effort matters here. So now, while you’re all headed to the Serene Blossom Valley Sect, Yin’er and I will brew some poisons. Xuan, make sure not to run so fast, because I’ll be giving you poison the moment it’s brewed. Now then, don’t mind us two. You two can go ahead and start moving."

With that, Yuan began taking out one material after another, as well as a few recipes that gave rough sketches of how a poison should be made. Yin’er didn’t seem that interested initially, but seeing the combinations, she couldn’t help but feel like this was actually a good opportunity.

So while she would escape later, it was best if she spent her time until then learning to be better. Heh.

On the other hand, Xuan and Yuelan walked back to the others. Sierra seemed to be a little bruised, and as for Hanbi, she was unscathed. Speaking of Hanbi, she had been very silent since the start of the fight, which made Xuan a little worried.

Though when he approached her, he got a little bit of a heads up on what was happening in the form of...

"I got a stomach ache... We should really get a move on," Hanbi said, her stomach rumbling loud enough for even the pigeons to hear.

Xuan sighed. "What’d you eat?"

"Ah. I cooked for her earlier," Yuelan said, puffing out her chest. "She mentioned being hungry, and also lazy, so I volunteered to make some chicken parmesan for her."

No way. He didn’t believe for even a second that she could make something like that.

And he was right... sadly.

"Though the bad part was that I might’ve burnt the chicken. Ah, I also messed up the pasta, so I had to throw both of those out," she said.

Xuan raised a brow. "So she ate just the cheese and sauce?"

She scratched the back of her head. "Ah. I burnt the cheese too."

How was that even possible?

"So I kind of gave up and just made her soup out of what was left. I’m not that bad of a cook, it’s just that I didn’t have the right ingredients," she explained.

He had lost pretty much all hope of her ever being a cook. Alas, when she said she could cook better in the last city, she was bullshitting.

But even so, they didn’t continue their banter for long, as they really did need to get going. So with Hanbi out in front, her speed much higher than everyone else’s, they made their way over to the Serene Blossom Valley Sect.

.

.

.

"So you’re telling me... You want to recruit those two even though they had just killed our ally?" a fierce-looking man asked, his giant forearm resting on the throne as he glared at Luo Lian fearlessly.

"You... Are you an idiot, perhaps?" the man asked once more.

And yet, Luo Lian didn’t back down. There was a really good reason he chose Yuelan in particular, a reason which he was willing to fight for.

That reason was...