Meanwhile, deep within the secret realm.
Inside an extremely well-hidden cave, Su Yueli threw the young cultivator to the ground.
To prevent him from suddenly fighting back or using some secret technique to escape, she raised her foot and crushed both his knees and wrists.
Crack.
The sound of fracturing bones was exceptionally grating in the silent cave.
The agonizing pain made the disciple gape his mouth wide, but before his wails could escape, Su Yueli tore off a piece of cloth and stuffed it firmly into his mouth.
Cold sweat poured down the young cultivator's forehead as his entire body convulsed with pain, his eyes filled with absolute terror.
Su Yueli looked down at him, slowly pulled the cloth from his mouth, and narrowed her eyes, speaking coldly, “I ask, you answer. Tell the truth, and I won't kill you.”
The young cultivator nodded frantically.
In his eyes, this terrifying mortal woman had captured him for nothing more than to ask about Elder Han's search plans or a secret route out of the secret realm.
However, the first question Su Yueli asked completely exceeded his expectations.
“A hundred years ago, do you know if any fellow disciple or sect elder passed through Daliu Village and casually killed an ordinary mortal couple?”
The young cultivator froze, his eyes filled with confusion.
He could not understand why this ridiculously powerful Ji Dao martial artist would go to such lengths to ask about a trivial matter from a century ago.
He thought for a long time before finally shaking his head in fear, his voice trembling, “I don't know... I wasn't even born a hundred years ago. To the sect, mortals are worse than ants. There is no way something like that would be recorded.”
Su Yueli's face went cold. Without a single word, she threw a backhand punch that smashed heavily into his face.
Bang!
Half of the young cultivator's face swelled up instantly, and he spat out several broken teeth mixed with blood.
“Playing dumb with me?” Su Yueli's gaze was as sharp as a knife.
“Woohoo! I really don't know! Spare me, heroine! I really, truly don't know!”
Scared out of his wits, the young cultivator prostrated himself and kowtowed, the terror in his eyes impossible to fake.
To cultivators, killing a few mortals was like stepping on ants. Who would remember which ant they had crushed a hundred years ago...
Su Yueli frowned. Seeing how terrified he was, she knew he was indeed telling the truth.
Suppressing the killing intent in her heart, she took a deep breath and threw out her second question: “Then about fifty or sixty years ago, did any of your fellow disciples swindle a mortal out of a vast sum of money in Fengling City? The culprit used a completely useless immortal jade slip, claiming it could help a mortal create a cultivation Bone Talent out of thin air.”
The young cultivator instinctively prepared to shake his head again.
But in the split second before he did, Su Yueli caught a flash of panic and hesitation deep in his eyes.
He had clearly thought of something.
Su Yueli sneered. She slammed her right foot onto the wound of his already broken right arm and ground down hard.
“Ah—!!”
A shrill scream echoed through the cave once more. The young cultivator convulsed in agony, drenched in sweat.
“Speak,” Su Yueli said, looking down at him with a voice completely devoid of warmth.
“I'll speak! I'll speak! Stop stepping on it!”
The young cultivator shrieked hysterically, no longer daring to hide a single thing: “I remember! I once heard my senior brothers bring it up as a joke... Decades ago, when the Grand Elder's personal disciple, Jiang Ran, passed through Fengling City, he did indeed play a trick on a worldly mortal who dreamed of cultivating. He swindled tens of thousands of taels of silver and quite a few family heirlooms from him. I really don't know anything else!”
Su Yueli stared at him with cold, clear eyes. After confirming he was not lying, she slowly withdrew her foot.
Jiang Ran... It seemed this was the person who had deceived Shen Qing'an.
“What is his strength now?” Su Yueli demanded coldly.
The young cultivator panted heavily and said haltingly, “Senior Brother Jiang... no, Jiang Ran possesses an Immortal Bone and is highly talented. He is already at the Fourth Realm mid stage. The Grand Elder values him highly and has bestowed many protective magic treasures upon him. Heroine, I've told you everything I know, please spare my life!”
Su Yueli's expression remained calm, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
Reaching into her robes, she pulled out the storage bags she had seized from the three cultivators she had killed on her way here. Together with the one from the disciple before her, there were four in total, which she lined up and tossed onto the ground.
“Erase all the spiritual sense and spiritual energy marks on these four storage bags and open them. If you do, I will let you go, and the Cangyun Sect will not hunt me down anymore. Do you understand?”
Seeing a glimmer of hope for survival, the young cultivator did not dare hesitate.
He desperately channeled the weak residual spiritual energy in his body, forcibly erasing all the sect restrictions and personal marks on the four storage bags.
Having done all this, he collapsed limply onto the ground, completely exhausted, with a glimmer of hope in his eyes: “They... they're all unlocked. You promised me just now that you absolutely wouldn't kill me, and you guaranteed you wouldn't hunt me down...”
Looking at the four unlocked storage bags on the ground, a smirk suddenly played on the corner of Su Yueli's lips.
She slowly squatted down and looked at him, her eyes filled with mockery: “Let you go? Whether you are hunted down or not, is that your call to make now?”
“Besides, if I had fallen into the hands of your Cangyun Sect outside the city earlier, would you have ever thought of sparing my life?”
The expression on the young cultivator's face instantly froze. His pupils dilated as absolute horror filled his eyes.
“You—!”
Pfft!
Before he could finish his sentence, Xiaohei's fist blade in Su Yueli's right hand turned into a flash of cold light, slitting his throat.
A large torrent of blood gushed out. The young cultivator's eyes widened, and after a few convulsions, he went completely still.
Su Yueli calmly retracted her fist blade, scooped up the four storage bags from the ground, and stuffed them into her robes.
These cultivators' resources were all hers now...
Although most of them required spiritual energy to use and were useless to a martial artist like her, they were still worth some money and could be exchanged for resources.
Furthermore, as a martial artist, she did not have to deal with the tedious constraints of cultivators, such as Heavenly Dao oaths or Dao Hearts.
Thus, breaking an oath would not bring her any punishment or karmic retribution.
A martial artist only needed to temper their blood qi to the absolute limit!
...
Meanwhile, at the outer perimeter of the secret realm.
Elder Han was leading the remaining four inner disciples in a full-speed search through the forest when the tracking compass in his hand suddenly shook violently.
Immediately after, the natal life-light representing the disciple from earlier completely went out with a soft pop on the compass.
His soul plaque had shattered; another one was dead.
“Ah—! You damned little thief! I will kill you! I will kill you!!”
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