Chapter 144: A Wistfully Beautiful Face

The Devil Head immediately pulled a long face, forcing milky white Soul Orbs out of his body one by one. After he had expelled more than forty of them, his Golden Core was already on the verge of shattering.

Wang Lin waved his hand, and the forty-three Soul Orbs were pressed onto his forehead, entering his Sea of Consciousness and lining up next to the souls of the Core Formation Cultivators from Xuanwu Country.

The extreme realm Divine Sense appeared like lightning, flashing through the Soul Orbs. As the Soul Orbs vanished, Wang Lin could feel his Divine Sense grow stronger by a fraction.

The Devil Head secretly sighed in relief, looking eagerly at Wang Lin, muttering in his heart, "This is too much. I snatched all these back from that damn Sword Spirit. Sooner or later, I swear I'll fight you to the death, hmph, just wait until I recover my Nascent Soul cultivation."

Just as he was thinking about how to deal with Wang Lin once he recovered to the Nascent Soul Stage, Wang Lin grabbed him and threw him back into the Dragon Sinew. The Devil Head sighed a few times in frustration, and the thought of fighting him right now resurfaced. However, considering that even risking the shattering of his Golden Core would not lead to a favorable outcome, he immediately wilted again.

After drinking a few mouthfuls of Spirit Liquid and meditating briefly, Wang Lin considered the power of the previous Sword Cultivator, Xie Donglai. After a moment of thought, he immediately took out Spirit Stones and consecutively set up hundreds of Turtle Shell Profound Destruction Arrays for close-range defense.

Having finished this, he took a deep breath, patted the nearby wall, and the Dragon Tooth immediately let out a rumbling sound and slowly opened. Wang Lin stood up and walked out.

As soon as he stepped out, his gaze immediately fell upon a soft, graceful, charming, and delicate figure near the Dragon Tail. Li Muwan looked haggard, but her eyes were bright and focused as she continuously traced lines on one of the Dragon Tail scales.

Shangguan Mo stood nearby, wearing a forced smile, holding a massive Luminous Pearl to provide light for her.

Wang Lin remained silent. His seclusion period wasn't very long this time, but judging by Li Muwan's appearance, it seemed she hadn't left at all. He sighed inwardly, leaped out, and, like flowing clouds and water, descended from the Dragon Head, floating behind Li Muwan.

Upon seeing Wang Lin, Shangguan Mo immediately became alert and pushed Spirit Power into the pearl even harder, making its emitted light brighter. At the same time, he quickly forced sweat onto his forehead to demonstrate his diligence.

Wang Lin looked at Li Muwan's focused face. Her picturesque, beautiful face now had tightly furrowed brows, her lower lip was pursed, and she stared intently at the patterns on the scale. A gust of misty wind blew by, lifting a few strands of her hair.

"Let's go. I'll take you home…" Wang Lin said slowly, his voice low.

Li Muwan's finger trembled. She looked up at Wang Lin, stared into his eyes, and after a long time, whispered, "Are you really sending me back?"

Wang Lin avoided Li Muwan's gaze and nodded.

Li Muwan chuckled lightly, though the laugh carried a hint of helplessness. She stood up, straightened her clothes, and said, "Give me three days, alright?"

Wang Lin glanced at her, floated away, landed atop the Dragon Head, and sat down cross-legged.

Li Muwan took out a Jade Slip from her Storage Pouch, placed it on her forehead to engrave the patterns she had noted from the dragon scale, then turned and spoke plainly to Shangguan Mo, "Prepare a Secret Room for me."

Shangguan Mo quickly affirmed, thinking to himself that he must have been mistaken earlier; the relationship between that Evil Star and the young lady was not what he had assumed.

Inside the Secret Room, Li Muwan sat quietly on the ground, scenes from the past few years flashing before her eyes: the pursuit by the Core Formation Cultivators of Xuanwu Country, being saved by Wang Lin, their escape, attracting Fire Beasts, breaking out of the Fire Beast encirclement to enter the Cultivation Devil Sea, building the Stone Mansion. She performed Alchemy daily while Wang Lin devoted himself to cultivation… up until he went out three years later to procure a Pill Furnace for her, returned, faced the Core Formation Cultivators' chase, and successfully formed his Core, leading her on a path of slaughter and carving out a Bloody Road.

Especially when Wang Lin was forming his Core, she, a delicate woman, faced those ten Core Formation Devil Cultivators and was about to sever her own Heart Meridian when Wang Lin suddenly appeared, scaring them away. This drastic change was too much for her to bear, and she nearly collapsed, but he ultimately held her in his arms.

"Don't move. I'll take you to kill people." This sentence kept echoing in Li Muwan's ears. Thinking of it, complex emotions arose in her heart. Her beautiful face flushed slightly. She had recalled this phrase many times throughout their journey, sometimes finding it rather amusing, but ultimately, as Wang Lin slew enemies along the way, these words felt heavier than gold, deeply pressing upon her heart.

"I'll take you to kill people…" Li Muwan murmured to herself, a slight smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. She took a deep breath and chuckled softly, "Others go to see romantic scenery, morning clouds, and setting suns, but he, he takes me to kill people…"

But immediately after, she sighed faintly, muttering, "In all these years, he has never asked my name, nor do I know what he is called. Perhaps, in his eyes, my name is no longer important. What matters is that I know Alchemy… Now that the Medicinal Pills are refined, I must have lost my value…" Thinking of this, the complexity in her heart intensified, gradually turning into a piercing pain. A thread of fresh blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. On her fair, flawless, beautiful face, this trace of blood looked shocking.

A word called "wistfully beautiful" was imprinted upon Li Muwan's countenance at that moment.

After a long while, she pursed her lower lip and took out piece after piece of Jade Slips from her Storage Pouch. There were eighteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-four pieces in total, exactly the number of scales covering the entire body of that massive Dragon.

Back then, Xie Donglai's Disciples were insufficient in number, so they did not occupy all the scales.

These scales were copied down by her, one by one, over the course of half a month, almost without sleep, consuming a massive amount of mental energy. This half month of mental exhaustion reduced her Lifespan by at least five years… But Li Muwan no longer cared about this. She picked up the Jade Slips, concentrated her mind on them, and linked them together one by one, occasionally changing the patterns and engraving them further within.

The first thing she did was to use Fusion to combine and merge these nearly twenty thousand Jade Slips onto ten thousand pieces. Following that, it was five thousand, and so on… Three days later, Li Muwan was pale and extremely haggard, looking as if a gust of wind could make her collapse. She leaned against the wall as she walked out of the Secret Room.

Wang Lin held an object in his hand and sat quietly on the Dragon Head for three days. After Li Muwan appeared, he put away the object, leaped down, and landed beside her. Seeing her even more haggard face, Wang Lin frowned and asked, "What have you been doing for these three days? Drink this." He took a jade bottle from his Storage Pouch, which contained over three hundred drops of Spirit Liquid, and placed it in Li Muwan's hand.

Li Muwan carefully placed the jade bottle into her bosom and whispered, "Thank you, Senior Brother. I'm fine. Let's… go…" As she spoke, a hint of color suddenly returned to her face. She leaned against Wang Lin's shoulder and whispered again, "Let's go… home…"

Wang Lin remained silent for a long time, then wrapped his left arm around Li Muwan's waist. Their bodies immediately soared into the air, with the Crystalline Flying Sword leading the way. The two instantly vanished beyond the horizon.

At this very moment, in a tea house inside Nandou City, an old man with a hooked nose and a frosty expression pushed the door open and walked in. This person was tall and thin, wearing a long gown of cyan hemp cloth. Three inches above the bottom hem of the robe, seven golden plum blossoms were embroidered, with a red dot in the center of each flower, making them look strikingly vibrant.

The plum blossom is inherently an elegant object, and if golden, it would feel slightly vulgar. However, the spot of bright red within the plum blossom immediately changed its overall feel, turning the vulgar into the solemn and the elegant into the bizarre.

Many Cultivators were present in the inn, conversing softly with each other. The moment the old man entered, the conversations immediately ceased, and several gazes swept over the old man before being withdrawn.

After entering the inn, the old man did not spare a glance at his surroundings. Instead, he sat down at a window seat, ordered some light wine, and drank alone. His brows were sometimes tightly furrowed and sometimes relaxed, giving him a look of being preoccupied with worries.

At this point, the inn returned to its previous state of soft murmuring.

At one of the tables, several Cultivators looked worried and whispered, "That Evil Star killed his way here and finally fought Xie Donglai at the Dragon Mountain of the Duxie Sect for three days and three nights. In the end, he used a mysterious Magic Treasure to kill Xie Donglai in one move and whipped his corpse for seven days and seven nights. Heh heh, I think Nandou City is about to get a new City Lord."

The old man in the cyan gown stirred slightly when he heard the phrase "mysterious Magic Treasure."

"Heh heh, what's that? I saw that Evil Star with my own eyes back then. The sky was filled with the corpses he had tied up—at least a thousand of them—all densely dragged behind him. That Evil Star sure knew how to enjoy himself; he was holding a charming young lady in his arms as he whistled through the sky. That scene is truly unforgettable." A round-faced Cultivator nearby sighed, a look of recollection on his face.

The old man in the cyan gown frowned slightly and muttered a few words under his breath.

"You guys keep it down. I heard that fellow is naturally bloodthirsty, and the Cultivation Technique he practices is the extremely vicious Death Curse Art. Moreover, he hates being talked about the most. Be careful, if this reaches his ears, none of you will have a burial place." A cold-faced youth took a sip of wine and sneered from the side.

When the old man in the cyan gown heard the three words "Death Curse Art," his eyes immediately lit up.

"If you ask me, this person is afflicted with the Ten Thousand Devils Hundred Day Kill Order. If he remains within the Cultivation Devil Sea, he probably won't live for more than a few days. Although there are no Nascent Soul Stage Cultivators currently within the scope of Nandou City, if the commotion spreads, it's hard to guarantee that no Nascent Soul Cultivators will come here. If I were him, I would definitely find a place to hide for a hundred days first." The youth sneered and took another sip of wine.

"Hundred Day Kill Order!?" The old man in the cyan gown's eyes immediately shone brightly. He grabbed with his right hand, and the drinking youth's neck instantly flushed red as he was seized by an invisible large hand and violently dragged over.

"Young fellow, this old man is quite interested in the person you mentioned. Could you tell me a bit more in detail?"

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