Hong Yi stood on Huang Ying's shoulder and glanced at Hei Ya as the group of three were walking, her head occasionally tilting as she seemed to be calculating something. She seemed to have finished calculating after a few seconds, suddenly flapping her left wing and jumping down from Huang Ying's shoulder. She only had the one wing available so her descent was far from smooth, Huang Ying forced to intervene and catch her before she hit the ground.

"Alright, either suicidal or batshit crazy, got it I'll keep an eye on you from now on."

Hong Yi quickly hopped up and down in Huang Ying's palm, vigorously protesting his blatant slandering while using her beak to point at Hei Ya's head. Huang Ying moved his eyes sideways, his gaze landing on the quiet Hei Ya and raising an eyebrow.

"There?"

Huang Ying stretched out his arm and placed Hong Yi on top of Hei Ya's head, resulting in her hopping around joyfully while puffing out her chest. From the looks of it, she was fully intent on taking on the role of a superior big sister, an act that went beyond instinct and showed that Hong Yi was likely smarter than Huang Ying had originally given her credit for. Hei Ya didn't seem to be very pleased with having the small bird hopping around on top of his head, but as it was an act by his new alpha he didn't really feel like he had a choice in the matter and accepted it.

Huang Ying allowed Hong Yi to ride around on top of Hei Ya's head, the three people heading deeper into the forest. Huang Ying left it to Li Jun to guide them but also made sure to stretch out his own perception as far as he could, his pupils vigilantly flickering across the surrounding area.

The goal this time around was to head deeper into the forest where the Qi would be denser and thus produce stronger Demonic beasts and promote the growth of better herbs. As such, the route Li Jun guided them down took them around any Demonic beasts he discovered, Huang Ying's group actually managing to walk for an entire day without having to fight anything. They had luckily got a decent bit of meat from the wolf corpses so they avoided having to go hungry or hunting for Demonic beasts during this day.

Their route quickly brought them closer to one of the smaller mountains that dotted Cloudreacher Forest. This particular mountain was rather wide and surprisingly triangular in shape, the group of three approaching one of the pointed ends that almost seemed like a massive brown-gray plow that split up the forest. The group of three quickly reached the pointed end of the mountain, Li Jun continuing to direct them.

"Take a left here, there's nothing on the right."

Huang Ying actually halted his steps when Li Jun gave the directions, his gaze turning towards one of the puffy bushes that grew along the base of the mountain, about 15 meters away from his current position. He walked over to the bush, which grew more on the right side of the mountain, and crouched down while pushing some of the leaves aside. Hidden away within the leaves of the bush were a few tufts of brown hair stained with blood as well as a few small branches covered in leaves that were drenched in blood, seemingly used as a brush for something.

Huang Ying's nose wrinkled slightly when he caught a whiff of the blood, the scent was far stronger than any blood he had smelled in the past. He guessed that his sense of smell had also improved by a bit after devouring so many Demonic beasts, especially the most recent wolves and the dog-like beast, which were already beasts famed for their strong noses. This was the only reason he could think of that could make this blood smell so strongly.

Hei Yan walked over so that he and Hong Yi could get a look at what Huang Ying had found, the brows of Huang Ying furrowing somewhat. The scent of the blood felt familiar and gave him a feeling of deja vu, but as his sense of smell had only gotten better recently he couldn't quite figure out why the blood smelled so familiar. If Huang Ying could detect this blood then he was certain that Li Jun could do the same. He gave his surroundings a quick sweep to make sure that there were no traces of other beings around and then decided to ask the question that he had been putting off for a while now.

"Li Jun, you don't really care about my life, do you?"

The simple fact that Huang Ying used his full name rather than calling him Grampa Jun allowed Li Jun to realize that Huang Ying was serious before he even finished his sentence. What followed his question was a short silence from Li Jun, and then he received the answer he had been expecting and somewhat dreading.

"So you really did figure it out. What was it that gave it away?"

Li Jun didn't sound as shocked as Huang Ying expected, he actually seemed rather calm about it all. Huang Ying sat down on the ground after receiving the expected answer, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he raised his head to look at the sky.

"Probably the inconsistency? I mean, back in the village you said you couldn't really do anything, but you still managed to lead me to some pretty decent herbs from time to time. And without fail, each time someone would quickly come to snatch them away and you would try to goad me into fighting them despite knowing full well that I couldn't beat them, I would just get savagely beaten in return. I didn't think much of it then, but thinking back on it made me realize that if you could detect the presence of the herbs then you should also be able to detect the people following me at those times. Really thinking back, my entire life in the village you've been goading me to either fight a losing battle or to accept my death."

"It got a bit better after I awakened the law of devouring, but you still kept things hidden from me, teetering between helping me or going against me at times. Well, maybe calling it testing me is a better way of putting it. You occasionally give me the wrong advice, either to harm me or to see how I react, but at other times you provide the correct advice, and whenever I leave it to you to lead then you try to bring me to places where I guess I have a 60% chance of living and 40% chance of dying."

"And then there's the things you lie about or keep hidden. This path right now for example, you said that there is nothing to the right but this blood indicates that there is clearly something to the right. And then there's the cultivation technique you gave me. You said that I should head to the academy for the connections, the cultivation techniques, and the resources, stating that your cultivation techniques wouldn't be able to show their full effectiveness in my hands. And yet, it's miles better than what the academy gave me, a fact I'm guessing you already knew before I even set foot in the academy. You lie, you keep things hidden, and you always try to push me to the very edge, maybe even over it. So tell me, Li Jun, what exactly is it that you are thinking, what are you planning?"

Huang Ying had spent his fair share of time thinking over everything after he awakened his law of devouring, and the more he thought the more holes he found in Li Jun and his actions. But right now Li Jun was the last thing he had left that could be called a family, so at first, he had been rather reluctant to believe that Li Jun would actually want to harm him. But time forced him to realize that even if Li Jun wasn't actively trying to harm him, he most certainly didn't seem to care all that much about whether or not Huang Ying lived or died. There was another slight silence from him before Li Jun responded with a soft sigh and an honest, if rather cold, tone.

"Life, I'm planning life. I'm stuck inside you until you either die or someone recreates a body for me to inhabit. So you're right, I did indeed try to goad you towards your death while you lived in the village and were unable to cultivate. You would never have been able to create a new body for me as you were then, it was better for me to find a way to have your life end quickly. But then you awakened your law of devouring and I decided to change my plans, the new you did indeed have the chance to recreate my body and give me a new life without having to reincarnate. But you were still weak, and the items needed to recreate a body aren't easy to get a hold of."

"So I pushed you to your limits again and again, I tested you so that you would learn and grow stronger, and I pushed you to enter the academy because the Nine Suns academy holds one of the items needed to recreate a body. But I won't lie to you, it's already pointless to do so, whether you live or not doesn't matter much to me. You either live and I have a chance to help you enough that you'll help me recreate my body, or you die and my soul can move on to reincarnation. But if I were to say my honest thoughts, I would prefer that you live, it's far easier to re-cultivate with a recreated body than it is to awaken your memories after reincarnation, that's why the areas I push you towards have a 70% chance of life and a 30% chance of death."

Li Jun honestly stated all his thoughts and plans, the time for lies had already passed, at this point it was better to be brutally honest so that the two of them could shed their previous relationship and foster a more business-centric relationship, an intention he made abundantly clear. Huang Ying felt that he knew Li Jun well enough to understand his intentions, even despite all his lies. A somewhat weak and bitter laugh escaped his lips after he cleared up his thoughts, his hand unconsciously reaching out and giving Hei Ya's head a few soft strokes.

"Haha, so that's how it is, that's how it's going to be. You use me to be reborn and I use you to grow stronger so that I can keep moving forward. Brutally honest and easy to understand, with no love or emotions, is this how you conducted yourself while still alive? But alright, it's far better than having to worry about getting lied to. Oh, I'll have you swear an oath though, otherwise, I'll just start completely ignoring you until I forget about your existence."

Huang Ying found himself uneasily calm in this situation but he guessed that the reason he was this calm was due to the fact that he had already been thinking about this for a while, guessed the truth for a while. The oath was a form of insurance, Huang Ying could evade it, but Li Jun would be bound by it, a fact that they both knew. Or rather, it was the only fact that Huang Ying could put his trust in right now, a universal fact in the cultivation world that had been proven to work on multiple occasions. Li Jun also knew that he didn't really have a choice in the matter, somewhat unwillingly swearing the oath.

"On the gods of darkness and death, I swear that none of the words I have spoken were a lie and that I will not send anyone, or myself head into an area where there is a greater chance of dying than living. I also swear that I won't say another lie from now until this same date 1000 years in the future."

Li Jun worded his oath somewhat strangely, but Huang Ying knew that there was a purpose behind the odd wording. Huang Ying's existence was not noticeable by the gods that upheld the oaths so Li Jun had to do some workarounds in how he worded the oath so that Huang Ying felt safe that the oath would be upheld properly. And just like that, the familial bond Huang Ying had with the last person he considered a family member was severed, replaced by the cold bond of business.