Chapter 262: He, Chen Huaian, Will Shoulder It All!

“Master, something’s happened!”

“What now?!” Master Yuyao opened her eyes, gazing through the gauzy canopy at the elder kneeling outside, her expression dark and stormy.

This wasn’t the first time she’d been interrupted while healing and meditating.

She had clearly warned them—if it wasn’t urgent, she was not to be disturbed.

“Yu Ling and Yu Quan’s soul lamps have gone out!”

“What?” Master Yuyao shot up, seething with fury. “Where’s Dan Yun’s daughter, Dan Bai? Have you caught her?!”

“No.” The elder trembled under her pressure, head bowed. “Yu Ling and Yu Quan had already found Dan Bai, but the Sword Pavilion Patriarch interfered. Not only did he kill Yu Ling and Yu Quan, he also took Dan Bai…”

“Useless! Absolutely useless!” Master Yuyao’s whole body shook with rage. Her voice rasped with fury. “That Sword Pavilion Patriarch is only at the fifth stage of the Void Fusion Realm. Even if he’s at the peak of the fifth stage, Yu Ling was already at the sixth stage—how could she be killed by someone from the fifth stage?!”

“Master, Elder Yu Ling must’ve underestimated him. She didn’t even bring out her small world. According to our intel, that Sword Pavilion Patriarch strikes extremely fast. Though he’s just at the fifth stage, his understanding of the sword is nearly on the level of laws. Sword cultivators are born for slaughter, so…”

“Excuses. Just excuses.”

Master Yuyao clenched her fists, helpless in her fury.

She hadn’t been able to divine the Sword Pavilion Patriarch’s location. If she had, she would’ve killed him long ago.

She had also considered that this attempt to capture Dan Bai might attract people from the Zhenwu Holy Land. If Dan Bai called for help, Zhenwu would definitely act for Zhang Yibai’s sake. That’s why she had people go demand compensation from the Zhenwu Holy Land, leaving them scrambling to deal with the mess. She never expected some Sword Pavilion Patriarch to show up halfway through!

“Master, what should we do now?” the elder asked carefully, sneaking a glance at Master Yuyao before quickly lowering her head again.

“Find someone to pretend to be Dan Bai. The mother and son haven’t seen each other in over ten years. As long as she looks close enough, they won’t notice…”

Master Yuyao narrowed her eyes, her clenched fingers turning pale.

True Qi surged silently around her, not visible on the outside, but in the shadows, it gathered into a storm of killing intent like a tsunami waiting to explode.

She hadn’t planned to deal with the Sword Pavilion or its patriarch yet—after all, nothing was more important than attaining the Dao and ascending. But this matter had completely enraged her. She gave another order: “The Sword Pavilion Patriarch is elusive and can hide within a small world to avoid detection. We must devise a trap to lure him out and kill him. Only then can I vent this hatred!”

“As expected of Master!” The elder quickly flattered her. “Why didn’t I think of luring the enemy? But… Master, how do we lure him out?”

“He’s from the Sword Pavilion, of course he cares about the Way of the Sword. Ordinary spiritual herbs and treasures won’t interest a monster at the fifth stage of Void Fusion.” Master Yuyao paused, took a deep breath, as if making a firm decision. “Use Zhang Yibai’s Zhenwu Twin Swords as bait. Though the sword spirits have withered, their fame alone is enough to tempt him into the trap!”

“Huh? Master, aren’t those swords in the Zhenwu Holy Land…”

“They’re fakes.” Master Yuyao sneered. “I’ve had the real ones stored away for a long time. How could I let treasures like that slip through my fingers?”

“You truly are unparalleled, Master!” The elder was full of admiration.

Just as she was about to throw in another wave of flattery, a Yaochi disciple stumbled in, panic written all over her face.

She dropped to her knees between the elder and Master Yuyao with a loud thud.

The elder blinked. If she remembered right, wasn’t this disciple assigned to guard the Yaochi treasure vault?

Did something happen to the vault again?

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Master, something terrible’s happened!” the disciple cried out.

Master Yuyao’s teeth ground audibly, her face turning even darker. She was already annoyed just hearing the words “something terrible.”

“What now?!”

“We’re missing a hundred portions of the Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients from the treasure vault…”

“What?!” Darkness swam before Master Yuyao’s eyes, and the world spun. She collapsed unconscious again.

“Who would’ve thought! This… this Demon Path Faction Shop actually sells ingredients for the Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill!”

Chen Huaian rubbed his hands, beaming as he looked at the neat rows of one hundred portions of Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients in his backpack.

As soon as he left his small world, he used Heaven’s Calculation to search for the ingredients.

He never expected the answer to be right under his nose.

Too bad he’d wasted 100,000 on the game. If he’d just checked the <Demon Path Faction Shop> earlier, he wouldn’t have spent that money.

As for why the Demon Path Shop had Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients…

Chen Huaian gave it some thought and kind of got it.

Just look at what this shop sells.

Buddhist relics, panties from Yaochi female cultivators, bellybands from Lingxi Valley disciples, the Pleasure Sect’s Seduction Techniques, all sorts of strange spiritual roots, an absurd variety of pills and talismans, and even fragments of orthodox cultivation manuals—clearly, this was all loot!

The Demon Path Faction Shop just sells stolen goods from when demon cultivators kill righteous cultivators!

If it’s stolen, then of course it’s reasonable to have Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients.

You ask? The answer’s simple: they robbed someone.

To buy stuff from this shop, you need Righteous Cultivator Shards, spirit crystals, and money.

For example, one portion of Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients costs 20 Righteous Cultivator Shards, 2 spirit crystals, and 10 million.

After killing Yu Quan and Yu Ling, both of them exploded with lots of shards—over a hundred each.

Combined with what he already had, he just barely had over two thousand shards, enough to exchange for one hundred portions of ingredients.

If he hadn’t run out of shards, he could’ve kept going.

There were still over two hundred in stock~

“Looks like I’ll need to find some righteous cultivators to kill in the future.” A cold glint flashed in Chen Huaian’s narrowed eyes.

“No, indiscriminate killing makes me no different from evil scum. If I must kill, it must be justified!” He corrected his own thinking immediately, clenching a fist in his palm. “Then I’ll kill the cultivators from Yaochi and Burning Purity Holy Land! The reason? They harmed my disciples and sect members… As for those ‘innocent’ Holy Land cultivators—well, let’s just say they were fated to meet me.”

Chen Huaian had it all figured out.

Humming a tune, he tore open the void and returned to his small world.

The moment he landed, he saw Elder Liu and Dan Bai standing atop Luoxia Peak—one looked utterly dejected, the other anxious.

"Patriarch, you’re back?”

Elder Liu hurried over like she’d seen her savior and said awkwardly, “Patriarch, we don’t have any Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients in the Sword Pavilion—not a single one… It’s not that they’re rare or precious. It’s mainly that the spiritual energy in the Sword Pavilion is too weak. Some of the herbs just won’t grow in our medicine gardens. These herbs probably only grow in the Three Great Holy Lands.”

“Sigh, the Sword Pavilion used to be so powerful… It’s my failure as Pavilion Master.”

Su Qinian leaned on the Black Tortoise Sword, gave a bitter smile, and sipped his drink gloomily.

Truth was, the entire Cangyun Realm’s spiritual energy was thinning.

It wasn’t just the Sword Pavilion—other sects were declining too.

Only the Three Great Holy Lands were barely holding on. And where did their spiritual energy come from? It was being siphoned off from the smaller sects.

Everyone wore bitter, troubled expressions.

As the Sword Pavilion Patriarch…

Of course, this was the moment for him to step up!

The Sword Pavilion was lacking in resources. These ingredients were hard to come by. The pressure was enormous…

But he, Chen Huaian, would shoulder it all!

Facing away from the crowd, Chen Huaian squinted at the overly harsh sunlight, and casually simulated a setting sun in his small world.

The sunset’s rays bathed his figure, casting a tall silhouette behind him.

Everyone was subconsciously drawn to that backlit figure, holding their breath.

“It’s just Hunyuan Heaven-Mending Pill ingredients, that’s all…”

With a playful chuckle…

Everyone watched as the Patriarch casually flicked his storage ring.

Then—crash clatter boom—a pile of white jade boxes fell to the ground, filling the air with a rich medicinal fragrance.