It was a long time before the miserable screaming in the forest finally stopped.

Within it, three figures darted back and forth, avoiding the strikes from a bamboo stick again and again.

Continuing this further was meaningless. Mi Li tossed the bamboo stick aside with a satisfied expression. “Not bad, kid! You managed to split into three copies quite quickly. I expected it to take you at least a few weeks.”

Zu An gave her a disbelieving look.

Excuse me?!

Did you plan on beating my ass for that long?

Mi Li realized she’d slipped up when she saw his furious expression. She said guiltily, “How else could you learn how to split into three copies that quickly?”

Zu An mulled over her words. They did make some sense. The result of it was good at least, although he was still aching all over.

“Doesn’t your Phoenix Nirvana Sutra require you to get beaten up in order to activate? I’m helping you with that as well,” Mi Li added helpfully.

“Thank you so, so much!” Zu An said resentfully.

One day, I’ll get my revenge and give you a good beating...

Mi Li coughed. “By the way, there’s something else I need to talk to you about. You can’t just rely on getting beaten up to cultivate either. You should find some ki stones to aid your cultivation.”

Zu An shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve tried it before. I can’t absorb ki from ki stones.”

“You can’t absorb ki?” Mi Li frowned. “That’s probably a special characteristic of the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra. I’d advise you to find some treasures to ingest, then. There are several pill masters who can make ki pills. I’ve heard of some cultivation techniques that prevent direct absorption of ki from ki stones as well, but I’ve never heard of any that negate the use of ki pills or treasures.”

Zu An’s eyes lit up. That’s right! Aren’t the Ki Fruits I get from the lottery similar to ki pills? Why didn’t I think of this before?

I’ll have to ask Ji Dengtu about this later. He is a divine physician after all, so he should have some of these pills.

Mi Li spoke again. “I’ve helped you seal away Old Mi’s cultivation, but at the expense of all of the effort I spent detoxifying my poison. I’ll have to start all over again from the beginning… Hmph, I really wonder if I owed you something in my past life! I’m going to sleep again. Be careful.”

Even though he knew that she helped him because their fates were closely intertwined, Zu An was still moved by this. “Big sis empress, you’ve always been the one helping me. Is there something I can help you out with?”

“Help me?” Mi Li sniffed. “I don’t need it.”

Her soul body began to dissipate. However, just as she was about to disappear completely, her figure condensed again. “Even though I don’t think you can do anything for me right now, your luck is honestly kind of ridiculous. Who knows, you might just be able to help me out somehow in the future.

“If you have a chance, help me look for some One Life Water, an Agate of Enlightenment, and a Five-Colored Springflower. These are all essential ingredients I require to reconstruct a body after I fully detoxify the ‘Red Tears of Lady Xiang’.”

Zu An immediately brightened up. “You can reforge your body with just these three items?”

Mi Li snorted. “‘Just three items’? Do you know how rare these items are?!

“For example, to find a Five-Colored Springflower, we first have to find an extremely rare Five-Colored Springtree with lotus-like leaves. ‘Spring begins and jade flowers bloom, spring ends and flowers fall; summer begins and red flowers emerge, summer ends and flowers wither; autumn begins and white flowers appear, autumn ends and flowers decline; winter begins and purple flowers sprout, but all things end with the descent of snow.’”

Zu An was puzzled. “Aren’t there only four colors mentioned? Why is it called a five-colored flower?”

“I don’t know either.” Mi Li said dejectedly.

“You don’t even know?” Zu An was blown away. Are you kidding me? This is vital information!

Mi Li grew defensive. “It’s because I’ve never seen this divine tree either. I’ve only read about it from ancient texts.”

Zu An stared at her, speechless.

Mi Li used to be the empress of the Qin Dynasty! The entire world had practically been hers! If even someone like her had never laid eyes on this before, did it even exist? How was he supposed to find something like that?

“How do you know that it can reforge your body if you’ve never even seen it before?” Zu An asked curiously.

Mi Li snorted. “You don’t need to worry about that. I just know.”

Zu An clicked his tongue. Women always loved pretending to be mysterious.

Mi Li sighed deeply. “One Life Water and the Agate of Enlightenment are also legendary items. Not only do you need to possess a significant level of strength in order to obtain them, you need tremendous luck as well. Aside from these three things, there is another legendary item that is even harder to find.”

“There’s something else? What is it?” Zu An asked.

Mi Li shook her head. “Considering your current strength, it would be useless even if I told you.”

Zu An had nothing to say in reply.

When he sensed the discouragement in her voice, he couldn’t help trying to console her. “Big sis empress, don’t worry! Others might have a hard time finding these items, but have you forgotten who I am? It’s no problem at all! I’ll find them for you.”

Mi Li was surprised by the confidence in his voice. “Have you heard about these items before? Or maybe you even know where to find them?”

Zu An shook his head. “I’ve never heard about any of them before.”

Mi Li was so irritated that she laughed instead. “Then where the heck is all this confidence coming from?!”

You have successfully trolled Mi Li for 250 Rage points!

Zu An patted his chest. “Didn’t I say I was the protagonist? I’m the freaking king of plot armor!”

Which protagonist in his previous world didn’t have the craziest luck? How could his luck be any worse than theirs?

Mi Li was speechless. She didn’t feel like talking to him anymore, and went into hibernation. She didn’t want to lose any more brain cells.

After she had gone back to sleep, Zu An went into the forest in search of his Tai’e Sword, and hid the Poisonous Prick in his shoe.

He walked over to Old Mi’s corpse. Staring at the mummified corpse, he said with a sigh, “Whatever. Even though it was all a scheme, you did help me after all. I’ll let you rest in peace.”

He dug a grave and buried Old Mi inside. Then, he found Wei Dan’s corpse and threw it into the pit as well. “The two of you fought bitterly over an entire lifetime. Now that it’s all over, you two can keep each other company.”

A thought occurred to him. He took out a case and placed it next to Old Mi’s corpse. “Old Mi, I’ve brought back your treasures. You’re complete now. Live out your next life properly, all right?”

As for Wei Dan’s treasures, there was nothing he could do about them.

Perhaps because the corpse was too dried up, or perhaps as a final act of kindness, an embroidered pouch fell out from within Old Mi’s clothes.

“Huh?” Zu An immediately recognized it as a storage pouch. His mood brightened immediately. “Old Mi, Old Mi! I didn’t expect you to be such a grateful person! I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”

Even though Old Mi didn’t seem like the super rich type, for better or for worse, he was still a master rank cultivator. His storage pouch should contain some good stuff.

Unfortunately, he discovered that he couldn’t open it at all!

He groped around Wei Dan’s body and found another storage pouch. It looked more extravagant than Old Mi’s, and probably had better loot as well.

It was a pity that Zu An couldn’t open this one either.

Mi Li’s voice rang out beside his ear. “Stop wasting your time. There are master rank soul imprints on them. You can’t open them unless you’re the owner. They’re already dead, so you won’t be able to take anything out, even if there are items inside.”

Zu An was given a sudden fright. “Weren’t you sleeping?”

“I haven’t fallen asleep yet. Do you have a problem with that?” Mi Li shot back.

Sis, I have absolutely no problem with that. Please, do what you need to do.

“Sigh, I need to sleep, but I sense someone approaching. Be careful.” Mi Li let out what seemed like a yawn, and her presence vanished.