“If you don’t let go, we’ll kill you!” The youths from the Chen kingdom continued duking it out with Lin Qingxue for Zhuo Yifeng’s bow, having experienced its lethality firsthand.

“Over my dead body!” Lin Qingxue continued clutching the bow tightly. Zhuo Yifeng had given it to her, and she knew how important it was to him.

“Alright, you asked for it!” One youth pulled out a sharp sword and thrust it at Lin Qingxue’s wrist. Despite her pained yelp, she refused to let go. The blood dripped down her wrist and onto the bow.

“You fool, let go!” Lin Qingchen shouted, seeing what her sister was up to. Her sword had been knocked away, so she could only tussle with the chubby youth with her bare hands.

“Keep hitting her until she lets go!” The youths from the Chen kingdom were all vexed by Lin Qingxue’s stubbornness. The sword-wielding youth who had already cut one of her wrists now sliced at the other, but Lin Qingxue gritted her teeth and refused to yell out in pain.

Having lost her weapon and her concentration, Lin Qingchen was finally subdued by the chubby youth. He held a sword up against her neck and yelled out fiercely, “I’ll kill both of you in revenge for our leader!”

“How can you be certain that Rong Yueshan’s telling the truth? You haven’t seen anything with your own eyes! What if your leader’s just fine and dandy underwater—and what if someone’s just trying to turn us against each other?”

The chubby youth couldn’t help turning suspiciously to Rong Yueshan.

“I’m not lying to you! I saw Yun Ruoyan kill your leader with my own eyes. She’s an eighth-rank blademaster, and she used a spiritual barrier to block his attack. Then, she swam up to him while he was weakened and sliced his throat open with a dagger! His body fell into the depths of the lake.”

Rong Yueshan’s words so angered the Chen kingdom team that their faces were all flushed and tinged with red.

“I’ll head down and retrieve the leader’s body,” a skinny youth volunteered.

“No, you can’t!” Rong Yueshan exclaimed. “Yun Ruoyan can also breathe freely underwater, and she’s still in the lake. What if she’s waiting for you to go in so she can deal with you more easily?!”

“Well, then what?” the chubby youth yelled out.

“Don’t you have hostages? Just kidnap them, wait for Yun Ruoyan to emerge from the lake, and negotiate with her,” Rong Yueshan opined. “They’re all clearly good friends with each other, so you’ll definitely be able to get her to retrieve your leader’s corpse from the lake. No, you can even ask for the high-grade beast core too!”

The Chen kingdom team murmured assent at Rong Yueshan’s suggestion. They decided to bring Lin Qingchen and Lin Qingxue away for the moment, leaving just a single person behind to inform Yun Ruoyan about their offer.

“I’ll stay,” Zhao Xu said. While she and Zhao Ming were both from the Chen kingdom, they had no relation with each other and hadn’t known each other for a long time. Despite this, however, she felt a faint sense of goodwill toward him, or she wouldn’t have lent him her precious pearl.

She was rather upset and confused by his sudden death. Zhao Ming’s cultivation was very high compared to his peers, and he was skilled at underwater battles. How did he die so easily, especially with her pearl in hand?

As a result, Zhao Xu was rather suspicious of what had really happened underwater. As an outsider, however, her words wouldn’t mean much, and she didn’t want to draw undue attention. Instead, she would stay behind in an attempt to figure out what had actually happened.

“Zhao Xu, you can’t stay—after all, we’re not with this team.” Miss Li tugged on Zhao Xu’s hand.

“Don’t worry, you should leave with them first.” Zhao Xu looked at Miss Li before turning back to the Chen kingdom team. “Since I’m not from your group, it’s best for me to stay behind as the messenger. Yun Ruoyan likely won’t be as furious at me than at you guys.”

“In that case, sorry to trouble you, Miss Zhao,” the chubby youth said, before bringing the Lin sisters away with his group.

“She still won’t let go of the bow!” the sword-wielding youth yelled out in frustration. Even after he had sliced and cut at both her wrists, she stubbornly held onto the bow. Although the injuries weren’t critical, a considerable amount of blood had dripped down her hands and bow. It seemed as though she really wouldn’t let go even if she were to die.

“Qingxue, are you alright?” Lin Qingchen looked at her sister’s stubborn expression with care and fury. Turning to the chubby youth, she exclaimed, “If my sister’s hurt in any way, none of you guys will get a thing!”

“Leave it,” the chubby youth finally announced. “Let her take the bow with her.”

Clearly, the chubby youth was now the leader of their team.

“This Yun Ruoyan is devious and has an advanced cultivation, so we should work together to take her down,” Rong Yueshan suggested.

The chubby youth wasn’t familiar with Yun Ruoyan, and the rest of Rong Yueshan’s team was too weak to pose a threat to them. As a result, he agreed to form a temporary alliance with Rong Yueshan in order to deal with Yun Ruoyan.

The Chen kingdom team brought Lin Qingxue and Lin Qingchen back to the oasis that they were originally in, and Rong Yueshan’s team followed them there. Miss Li was somewhat flustered when Zhao Xu stubbornly insisted on staying put. Zhao Xu had had her own team, but because she got along well with Miss Li, she would frequently join Miss Li’s team instead. In the end, she had ended up separated from her own team and had stayed with Miss Li’s team.

However, caught unaware by the eight-legged evil spirit, Miss Li’s team had all perished save for Miss Li herself. She had initially planned on finding Zhao Xu’s original team with her, but now that Zhao Xu had insisted on staying behind, she didn’t feel good about leaving her by the lake alone.

“You should leave with them,” Zhao Xu advised. “I’ll head over to find you immediately after I tell Yun Ruoyan about what happened. Then, we can go find my brother’s team together.”

Miss Li nodded and walked off with the Chen kingdom team.

Zhao Xu stood alone by the lake as she stared at its peaceful, tranquil surface.

Within the lake, Yun Ruoyan found herself uncontrollably swimming downward into the dragon’s grotto. Zhuo Yifeng rapidly caught up to her and noticed that her eyes were vacant, as if she had been possessed. By that time, Zhuo Yifeng was almost entirely out of air, and he tried to drag Yun Ruoyan back to the surface with him.

However, Yun Ruoyan refused to stop swimming downward. She did so with such strength that Zhuo Yifeng had no other choice but to knock her unconscious before finally heading up once more. By the time Zhuo Yifeng broached the surface, he was panting heavily, as if his lungs were about to burst. When his head finally stopped spinning, he noticed how quiet his surroundings were. Where had everyone else gone?

Zhuo Yifeng looked all around him. There was only one girl left on the once-crowded shore, looking steadily at him.

Zhuo Yifeng recognized her face, but he didn’t know who she was. Regardless, his top priority at the moment was to bring Yun Ruoyan ashore, then figure out what had happened to her.

When Zhao Xu noticed the duo emerging from the water, she walked closer to the lake. As the two stepped ashore, she walked about two feet away from them and said, “I’m here with a message from the others.”

Zhuo Yifeng lay Yun Ruoyan down on rather flat ground, inspected her body for injuries, and checked if she was still breathing.

“She’s alright,” Zhao Xu commented. “She has a pearl necklace too, so she won’t have trouble breathing underwater.”

It was only then that Zhuo Yifeng seemed to register Zhao Xu’s presence. He turned back to look at her calmly. “Whose message are you transmitting, and what’s the message?”

“According to Rong Yueshan, the Chen kingdom team was killed by Yun Ruoyan. As a result, they took away your two companions and are intending to ransom them for their leader’s corpse and the high-grade beast core you just obtained.” Zhao Xu paused, then continued, “Did you really kill Zhao Ming?”

Zhuo Yifeng replied calmly, “He’s dead, but not by our hand. Does she look like she just killed someone?”

Zhuo Yifeng pointed at the unconscious Yun Ruoyan. Her hair lay haphazardly around her head, covering half her face. Because of how long she’d been underwater, her face was pale and stark-white under the sunlight.

The gauze patch that covered her face had gone missing, and the revealed dark-red flesh looked almost as though it were rotten meat. At any rate, it made Zhao Xu very uncomfortable.

“If not her, then who?” Zhao Xu’s heart sank when she found out that Zhao Ming’s death hadn’t been a lie.

“It was Rong Yueshan. We saw her with our own eyes,” Zhuo Yifeng replied. “While Zhao Ming wasn’t paying attention, she snuck up behind him and slit his throat with a dagger.”

“Rong Yueshan?!” Zhao Xu exclaimed in shock. “Why would she kill Zhao Ming?”

Although they were all competitors, surely Rong Yueshan wouldn’t have murdered Zhao Ming senselessly. Either she had a grudge against him, or they had had a conflict of interest.

“I don’t know myself, but perhaps…” His eyes turned dark. “Perhaps the reason she killed Zhao Ming was to pin the blame on Yun Ruoyan, so that her group could ally with the Chen kingdom team to defeat us.”

Zhao Xu frowned. “You might be telling the truth, but you might also be lying.”

“My words are truthful. Whether you believe me is up to you.” Zhuo Yifeng didn’t bother explaining himself further. With an icy tone, he continued, “Tell them that we’ll meet up with them tomorrow. If the Lin sisters are injured in any way, we definitely won’t go easy on them!”