“So Xiannu Liang,” Long Di turned to the Nymph, completely ignoring Mina only to hear a ‘screw you!’ from over yonder before urging her on. “You know what to do.”

Xiannu Liang smiled and walked over to Shen Ling.

****

Shen Ling’s heart clenched upon hearing this because she knew what it meant. Xiannu Liang was going to attempt to heal her injuries.

Any sort of playfulness evaporated immediately. Even Long Zhe paid full attention to this, as he was curious about a few things.

He long relegated himself to the void since he realised his presence was troublesome in more ways than one.

“You ready?” Xiannu Liang was already seated in the lotus position behind Shen Ling.

She nodded to express her consent.

Vrrrm…

As Xiannu Liang took a deep breath, her cauldrons trembled and the one that possessed the one core lit up with green energy that suffused it in an instant.

Shing!

A gentle green light lit up the region and Pebbles, Whiskers, and the others felt their pores relax and open up to absorb the rich life energy that Xiannu Liang summoned.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, this energy rushed into Shen Ling’s body, eliciting a gasp from her as she could feel the gentle energy coursing through her body under Xiannu Liang’s control.

Once part of the energy arrived where her eyes were, it was like the life energy was aroused and the entirety of the energy rushed towards this spot of its own accord.

Shen Ling could feel the now faint pain gradually disappearing until it was almost gone.

As a Nymph, Xiannu Liang’s power wasn’t meant for fighting, but was more geared towards life and healing. As a result, her form of healing was particularly potent.

The energy coursed within Shen Ling’s eyes in a furore, mending the tears that mantled them. A breath of relief assaulted the young maiden as she could feel one of her most important places becoming whole.

Under the whipping of the wind generated by the urging of such a significant amount of life energy, the wrapping that hid her eyes fell as it became undone before falling off, revealing more of her face, but not her eyes.

Her eyes were tightly closed as she felt the changes her eyes went through as the healing continued.

Xiannu Liang’s core flashed continuously as it absorbed the life energy to use its healing properties as her own.

This was one of the advantages of having a bloodline cauldron. It allowed Xiannu Liang to wield energy in a form that would only be accessible to those at the core flame evocation realm.

After all, it was only at the star core flame evocation realm like the one that Long Di was at where one would be in control of a certain type of energy. Whether it be flame, ice, darkness or otherwise.

In Xiannu Liang’s case, it was nature energy and even more so delving into its sub-type of healing.

This was different from when she was simply injecting her own spiritual qi that had a natural restorative effect to it in someone else’s body. By using the bloodline cauldron as the beckoner and the core as a catalyst, she was able to call on more powerful and potent energy from the surroundings to supplement her own power thus allowing her healing abilities to be far above what it was before.

The difference between what she was able to do now versus before was as large as the difference between the clouds and mud.

She could also feel the energy as it closed up the wounds that her energy focused on. It was quite some time before the last cut was erased and the eyes were fully healed, or as close to that as she could get it.

Sometime after, the roaring energy died down and Xiannu Liang lowered her hands and wiped the sweat from her brow.

“Done…” she said with a tired expression.

Though she was full of energy at the start of all this, healing Shen Ling’s eyes still took a lot out of her. She had no idea why, as Shen Ling was a mere three-duan martial disciple.

She could only chalk it up to the latter’s eyes being something very extraordinary. She considered it lucky that her eyes were just injured and not destroyed. She feared she would never be able to heal her if that was the case.

Xiannu Liang got up and went to the front like everyone else before telling. “Try opening your eyes.”

Shen Ling’s long white smokey lashes gently shuddered before her eyes slowly opened.

Long Di’s nod and Xiannu Liang and Mina’s smiles were all the confirmation needed to tell the state of Shen Ling’s eyes.

Pebbles, Long Qian and even Long Zhe were shocked when they saw her eyes. It was like boundless darkness, a chasm of sorts that not even the deepest pit could call forth.

They could feel themselves being swallowed up by this darkness and that once they were caught in it, there was no escape. Dots of light littered the confines within, but they provided little comfort as backdrops for something far more terrifying.

What was even more bizarre though, was that on Shen Ling, it coalesced into a picture of pure beauty. The eyes by themselves were frightening. Staring deep into the eyes was terrifying, but upon viewing Shen Ling with those eyes as a whole was incomparably breathtaking.

“Beautiful…” Pebbles nodded in acceptance.

“Aby-”

“Careful.” Long Zhe materialised in ‘human’ form beside Long Qian to stop her from saying something she shouldn’t.

He eyed Shen Ling with great scrutiny, paying a considerable deal of attention to her eyes. His expression lacked any softness or flexibility.

It was as if his mien was carved of stone with its default set to draconian.

Eventually, Shen Ling squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Looking at you, there is only one word apt to describe you. But I will stay judgement on this matter and see what happens.” He then turned his attention to Long Di.

“You are the one I will find to settle this account with if I find she is what I now think she is. Ashes will become you.”

Before Long Di could reply, he opened up a tear in the void and took Long Qian with him before disappearing from view.

“Our talks are nice,” Long Di commented after he was gone.

Pebbles followed up with a scoff before saying. “About as nice as wiping the line of thine rectum with a cactus.”

Both Xiannu Liang and Shen Ling both blushed with shocked expressions when hearing how crass Pebbles truly was.

It was like he was Long Di, but on steroids.

“I’m glad to see you’re all better,” Long Di said to Shen Ling, while also walking closer to her.

Shen Ling smiled upon seeing him. There was a pulsating phantom pain that reared its head every now and again, but she could tell that it wouldn’t last for long.

In addition, it was more than worth it to be able to see again.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly.

Long Di came over before stooping down and with his index finger, tapped Shen Ling’s forehead.

When Pebbles, Long Zhe and Long Qian saw this seemingly innocent act their eyes widened in shock.

Pebbles looked at Long Di and said, “Wha-”

“A little bit of my affection if you will,” Long Di said to him.

Shen Ling’s cheeks reddened when hearing this was how Long Di expressed his affection. It was even more pronounced when she realised that Long Di hadn’t done the same thing to anyone else.

“I believe they say that thanks aren’t necessary between friends. Besides, you should really thank her,” Long Di added, pointing to Xiannu Liang who was more than proud of herself at the moment.

Shen Ling giggled at the latter’s expression. “Thank you Xiannu Liang.”

Xiannu Liang rushed into Shen Ling’s embrace before happily replying. “No need to thank me, senior sister Shen Ling.”

“Meow!”

Whiskers walked up to them with a meow conveying its growing restlessness with their lack of movement. Shidashi Maos were known as living calamities or living disasters, and living up to this moniker included their constant movement from one place to another.

In addition, Whiskers was to advance soon, but the lack of action on its side had stagnated its growth and its annoyance grew by the day.

Long Di agreed with this. “It’s about time for us to get a move on and get out of this forest.”

“Finally!” a simultaneous cry came from both Pebbles and Mina, causing them to glare at each other in irritation.

“My IQ must be suffering if I’m agreeing with you,” Pebbles said as it hopped over on Long Di’s head.

Mina scoffed at this before replying. “You being able to talk is the worst thing that happened to anything ever.”

Long Di picked up Pebbles by his scruff before placing him on his shoulder while the cat ran his mouth, responding with.

“Both of your brain cells are fighting for third place aren’t they?”

“I hate you!” Mina’s eyes were practically spitting fire at this point.

Pebbles ignored her at this point, realising this was his win. No need to kick a dead horse, or even worse, a Mina when it’s down.

“But where do we go now?” Shen Ling asked.

“Look! Look! There are people here!”

“Shush Sun Kai!”

Everyone’s attention was drawn to a direction in the distance where they saw a trio of humans staring at them in shock.

“Oh no! They saw us run!”

Long Di cocked his head to the side in what Pebbles knew was amusement.

“Looks like we found our travel guides.”