Stop it, Taoist, Your Fight almost Ruins the DAO!

At night, behind a low-lying hill, a man and a woman were passionately kissing.

Some time passed before the two parted.

"You're insane, what if Lin Yueshen found out and just ran off with Bo Jian?"

"These two are quite useful in the cave," teased the Crane Gentleman, running his hand insidiously across Lian Hong's cheeks, his eyes brimming with lascivious intent.

"It's quiet here, what's there to fear? That Lin Yueshen must have gone mad, having him guard the night and he actually came back midway, infuriating me," complained the woman in the black dress, anger distorting her once lovely features.

"You don't need to always give him the cold shoulder, give him a little hope now and then. We'll be reaching the cave soon."

"Such a fool isn't easy to come by these days, just bear with it a little longer, my dear Lian," he said.

"Hiss, slow down," Crane Gentleman suddenly inhaled sharply.

"Don't worry, I… I understand Lin Yueshen. He's just being a bit petulant with me. Tomorrow, I'll make a gesture of goodwill and he'll be as obedient as a dog," the woman in the black dress slurred.

"Alright then, my sweetheart, a little quicker, hiss!" The Crane Gentleman inhaled sharply again.

....

....

The next day, as the dawn light faintly illuminated, a group of travelers was cautiously making their way through a dark green forest.

At this moment, the round-faced and plump Bo Jian couldn't help but transmit a message to Yi Chen in secret: "Look at you, Yueshen, have you finally seen the light?"

"With my extensive experience with women, that Lian Hong is obviously just playing with you. If we hadn't grown up together, I would have walked away long ago, couldn't care less about your fate."

"After we return to the Southern Region, let's split from the Six Banners Market and make a run for it. If your head hadn't been turned, I wouldn't have bothered coming to Extinction Ruins with you."

"Just look at you over the years. Initially, your cultivation was a bit stronger than mine. Now, I'm at the ninth level of the True Person Realm, and you've fallen behind by generously feeding Lian Hong with the resources for cultivation. It's embarrassing that I've surpassed you," he added.

"Let's talk about that later, Bo Jian. I feel this trip is somewhat dangerous; remember to keep your wits about you," Yi Chen, bothered by the fat cultivator's nagging, replied with a headache.

The short and chubby cultivator was Lin Yueshen's staunch brother-in-arms, and Yi Chen had to admire his loyalty, so he gave him a heads-up.

This Lin Yueshen's behavior, in Yi Chen's previous life, would score a whopping 250 on an online forum. He has utterly lost his mind over a woman, inexperienced and foolish.

Cutting your losses is an art form.

You say you're hard to chase, ok, then I'll just block you~

That's what they call mutual effort~

Gauged by Yi Chen's nature, when forced to choose between love and bread, he'd unquestionably pick bread.

Because those who opt for love usually end up with neither the bread nor the love, only trailing behind someone else's car calling for swallows, yielding nothing.

As for the Lin Yueshen of yesterday, whose dream lover had returned, Yi Chen, with his now acute senses, detected the scent of the Crane Gentleman on her.

After several excavations of the body's divine treasures, his senses were not inferior to those of Miao Zi, especially in the department of smell.

"Lin my friend, time flies and easily throws people aside, the wasted years slip by like defoaming froth, it's truly pitiful," he lamented.

"The bicycle you've never touched has someone else standing up and pedaling..."

Yi Chen sighed heavily in his heart but couldn't help feeling slightly schadenfreude.@@novelbin@@

"Yueshen, what's wrong with you today? Why aren't you talking to me? Have you forgotten what you once said to me?" The woman in the black dress hastened her steps until she was beside Yi Chen, extending her hand to tug at his sleeve. Her expressive eyes fixed intently on him, filled with expectation.

[What the hell are you looking at, what have I ever said to you?] Yi Chen scorned internally. He only had access to fragments of Lin Yueshen's memories, unable to recall whatever nonsense Lin had spouted as a fervent admirer.

Seeing that everyone's eyes were converging on him, Yi Chen immediately put on an act, appearing 'sorrowful' and silent, feigning mastery.

With the acting skills he had honed while swindling investors with PPT presentations in the past, this was trivial.

Every lie has a flaw, and sometimes saying nothing, allowing others to fill in the gaps, is a masterful choice.

"You, so petty." Stamping her foot, the woman in the black dress returned to the back of the group.

"Look what you've done, Yueshen, you've upset Lian Hong. Go and comfort her," Crane Gentleman turned his head and spoke softly with a coaxing smile, as if an indulgent elder brother.

"Yueshen, have you really figured it out? Iron trees are blooming, iron trees blooming indeed." Bo Jian began to crazily send voice transmissions to harass Yi Chen.

Facing this scene, a hint of 'sorrow' showed in Yi Chen's eyes, and the light therein dimmed slightly. He looked up to the sky at a 45-degree angle, then felt that he might have been too forceful and lowered his head again.

The subtlety was so well realized that everyone could feel Yi Chen's inner struggle and sadness, except for the woman in the black dress whose eyes flashed with a hint of suspicion.

She always felt something off about the familiar face in front of her, especially when she made eye contact with him just now, it felt quite alien, as if there were a stranger's soul hidden underneath that skin.

In a moment, Lian Hong's heart jolted, and although she pressed down the doubts in her heart, she didn't interact with Yi Chen again.

Half a day passed, and Yi Chen walked on the pitch-black muddy ground. The soil beneath his feet had started to soften, as if stepping on a decaying corpse, and a strange stench began to waft through the air.

"Everyone be careful, we have now arrived at the dark swamp. If we cross this place, we won't be far from reaching the grotto."

Upon seeing this decaying land, He Gongzi's face showed delight, while his eyes flickered with an inexplicable meaning.

...

...

A certain dark hill.

A three-headed toad, over four meters tall, was hit by a heavy, crimson meteor hammer and burst open with a muffled whoosh, turning into a spread of splattered flesh.

Yellow-green fluid flowed all over the ground.

With a casual tug, a woman dressed in a red robe, bewitching and demonic with a faint magical aura, retracted her meteor hammer and wrapped its chain around her wrist before coldly speaking to the distance, "Fellow Daoists, have you seen enough? Please, show yourselves."

As her voice fell, two tall figures stepped out from the shadows.

One was a bald, topless bruiser with a large nose ring,

while the other was shrouded in thick black armor, revealing only a pair of cold eyes, dragging a long chain with a purple pointed blade at its end.

"Unexpectedly, we have encountered the fellow Daoists from the Evil Armor Jin Huai, what a coincidence."

"This direction, could it be that you are also headed to that place?"

The woman in the red robe's eyes sharpened as she saw the two men before her.

Evil Armor Jin Huai is one of the most notorious underground forces in the Eastern Continent, with both of its leaders being mid-stage cultivators in the True Person Realm.

Evil Armor had never shown his face, always hidden within a sinister armor; he and Jin Huai were often seen together, skilled in joint combat techniques. Once they united, not even a late-stage True Person Realm cultivator could handle them.

"We didn't expect to chance upon Lady Xue Luosha from the Luosha Magic Sect. Although my brother and I have thoroughly concealed our presence, it seems you have still managed to find us. Perhaps you have already advanced to the late-stage of the True Person Realm."

Watching the striking woman before him, Jin Huai's eyes were full of wariness.

"Let's not beat around the bush. Are you two also heading towards the Heavenly Dragon grotto? How did you come to know of its location?"

Xue Luosha asked with a puzzled tone.

Had it not been for a hidden ally among the Loose Cultivators informing her of a secret, she wouldn't have appeared here.

"There's no need for Lady to worry about that. While we Evil Armor Jin Huai may not be as wealthy and influential as the Luosha Magic Sect, we still have our own sources of information."

"Now, do you wish to make this into a fight, or shall we postpone it for another time?" In the face of Xue Luosha from the late-stage True Person Realm, Jin Huai was surprisingly assertive. Continue your journey on My Virtual Library Empire

"We all belong to the demonic path; without substantial interest, why bother with fighting and killing? Maybe in the Extinction Ruins, there's still a chance for us to cooperate."

"Gentlemen, until next time." The seemingly irritable and gloomy lady in red suddenly smiled, ignored Jin Huai and the other one, and headed in the direction indicated by her sect's hidden ally's location-seeking treasure.

Watching Xue Luosha leave, Jin Huai's gaze became peculiar for a moment.

"Evil Armor, if I'm not mistaken, it seems we've bumped into that old hag Xue Luosha this time."

"No... no problem, if need be... we'll just fight it out, let... let each rely on their own methods." The tall figure hidden within the armor spoke roughly, as if two slabs of raw iron were grinding against each other.

"Brother Evil Armor makes a good point. It's merely a matter of our own methods. When the two of us brothers join forces, we are not at all afraid of this female demon," Jin Huai said, his spirits lifting slightly as he took a different route, walking in the same direction as Xue Luosha.

The two parties split into different paths, and soon after, they each entered a dark green forest.

Following the direction Yi Chen and his group had left, Xue Luosha strode ahead. Giant mantis beasts occasionally attacked her, only to be smashed into minced meat by her effortless meteor hammer strikes, leaving them utterly disfigured.