5 Blood of the Immortal Firebird

The morning sun shone dimly at the mouth of the cave, reflecting the white vapor emanating from inside the cave. The scene looked mysterious and magnificent. Shortly afterward, a wandering cultivator appeared standing still in front of the cave. When he noticed the cold vapor mysteriously drifting from the inside, he tightened the sword in his hand and then slowly stepped inward with caution.

"What exactly is going on here?" The wandering cultivator looked at the ice block high up against the ceiling of the cave. Inside, there was a young boy with a bare upper body. His face was burned by the flames; his true face couldn’t be seen clearly. After examining the boy's body until satisfied, he slowly turned his gaze to look at the giant ice block, which was the source of the cold vapor that drifted in the air to the outside.

Initially, the wandering cultivator was extremely curious. But when he saw the source of the cold, his instinct warned that he shouldn’t touch this huge ice. He then turned his gaze to look around, deep into the distant cave wall, until seeing large ginseng, about a foot tall, submerged in the stone wall. The flesh of the opened ginseng was as bright red as blood. Even with some traces of damage, the shape of the ginseng was in 90 percent condition.

"The Inferno Ginseng," the cultivator muttered to himself. Then, a wide grin appeared on his face because the Inferno Ginseng is precious medicine. It had never been seen before, even at the auction in a big city like the Purple Jade City. Although he had been a cultivator with the top-of-level-one natural Qi for many decades, the combined values of all the treasures having passed his hands didn’t even make one-tenth of the price of a perfect-conditioned Inferno Ginseng. The Ginseng possessed hot and pure properties of the Yang element, which were suitable for cultivators well versed in using fire power. Also, its loaded properties helped a cultivator with the top-of-level-one natural Qi to be upgraded to the Connecting Heaven and Earth level. This would be an enough reason for the cultivators to kill each other just to possess this thing. Even if he, fortunately, could possess it, he might not have a chance to actually use it. Therefore, the wandering cultivator planned to secretly keep this Ginseng and travel to a large city in the central region to exchange it for some advanced Qi-nourishing medicine and magic items instead. This is probably the best way for those with the top-of-level-one natural Qi, such as himself.

However, when the wandering cultivator was moving closer to the Inferno Ginseng, his eyes wandered, and saw a pale body dressed in black. Even though the upper half of the side of the face was covered by a scarf hanging down, the lower half was enough to tremble the hearts of all the young men on earth. The girl’s beauty made the wandering cultivator unblinkingly look at her. He had a hard time breathing for a moment. He gazed at the girl’s body thoroughly before gulping down a big load of saliva. Although he had come across so many women in the past journey, the beauty of the girl lying still in front of him was beyond imagination.

The wandering cultivator thought to himself, ‘She’s so beautiful like a fallen angel. If any man fortunate enough to have her…’ But then he cut off that thought because there was a magic treasure that was alluring in front of him.

“I’d better collect the Inferno Ginseng first." Despite being mesmerized by the girl’s beauty for a moment, he still knew how to prioritize matters. If he left behind this very precious object here and someone came by, there must be a big fight for it. But the unconscious girl was another issue. If he failed to possess her and something unexpected happened, there’d still be ways to escape.

The lifeless Inferno Ginseng was easily pulled from the stone wall, like pulling an herb out of the ground. The wandering cultivator didn’t care much about the health of the rootlet as he pulled the Ginseng because he knew that even the tiny rootlet of this wonderful creature was strong and durable like a gold thread. Therefore, no matter how much force was used for pulling it, the rootlet would not be torn and come off easily.

When the Inferno Ginseng was already stuffed into the Dimensional bag. The wandering cultivator immediately changed his target, heading for Ning Xian's unconscious body. But not before it touched the girl's body, in front of the cave, another middle-aged man suddenly appeared, with an elegant tall figure and a charming face like an erudite scholar. Despite no Qi aura coming out of his body, this man—when stared closely—seemed to be unimaginably profound.

"Whew." The middle-aged man let out a long sigh. His solid white dress was fluttering, even without the wind blowing, causing the wandering cultivator to gaze at him with hostile eyes.

“What are you doing in here?” The middle-aged man in white asked in a harsh voice as if the cultivator with the top-of-level-one natural Qi meant nothing to him.

“Huh." The wandering cultivator secretly used his power to gauge the other man’s Qi and found that he was at the fifth level of the basic Qi or, at best, at the top level of pulse harmonization (half a step before breaking into the first level of natural Qi). Yet, the middle-aged man was acting arrogant to him who had a higher level of Qi cultivation, and said, "I think you’d better hurry away while I’m still in a good mood. Otherwise…” The wandering cultivator raised his finger and made a throat-slitting gesture to the other man.

"Otherwise..." The white-clothed man repeated the cultivator’s word. Then, his body in a white robe suddenly passed the wandering cultivator, chopping the latter’s head down to the ground. Not even a drop of blood spilled out since the edge of the wound was all scorched and sealed with a cold vapor that immediately healed the wound right after the assault.

The white-clothed man did not pay attention to the dead body that just fell behind him. He immediately went straight to examine Ning Xian's condition. Using his Qi to do so, he frowned because the girl did not have an injury. Besides, the residual fire poison—from excessive use of the Fire Element Nourishing Medicine—completely disappeared. The veins that had been difficult to penetrate were now cleared. Even without having to rely on medicine distilled from the Inferno Ginseng, the girl would not experience the constricted Qi flow from any possible bottlenecks in the future. However, the reason the girl lost consciousness was the sudden change in internal energy causing the girl’s body and mind—exhausted from the previous body-and-mind separation—to temporarily lost consciousness.

As soon as the white-clothed man realized the cause, he put the advanced Qi-regenerating pill—the Life Essence Medicine—into the precious mouth of the girl. In just a moment, her curved eyelashes trembled and fluttered, before the big eyes slowly widened once again.

"Master!” Ning Xian shouted as soon as she regained her consciousness and saw her Master's face clearly. After that, the young girl hurriedly looked around the cave and found a man's dead body. In her heart, she prayed, ‘Please, not the boy I had a nice talk with last night.’ Even though she felt a little worried, after carefully looking at the head that rolled in the other direction, the girl gradually felt relieved that it was not that boy's head. Then, she felt the chill permeating the air. Ning Xian was definitely stunned by the enormous ice block which had frozen the boy with a scorched face on one side. Even though she couldn't see Xueming's face last night very clearly, she was confident that he was the same boy who had been talking to her last night. "Master, can you help him?"

The white-clothed man didn't even say half a word and used his hand to touch the thick ice block. Then, the white smoke came out and floated away to the outside. Xueming's soaked body fell to the ground. Despite already being free from the ice trap, the pulse was beating slowly like it could stop at any time. "This young man was attacked directly at the heart pulse, but because of the ice that had wrapped up his body, he was able to survive.” The Master said in a loud voice so that Ning Xian can learn from his words. "If you look at the burning traces on his face and the wounds on the arms and chest, surely this young man was fighting against the Inferno Ginseng.” Ning Xian’s Master turned to the girl for a moment. "You’d fainted before you saw the Inferno Ginseng, right?" Ning Xian nodded. The Master walked towards the headless body, took out the wandering cultivator’s Dimensional bag, and poured the things inside the bag out on the ground.

Many objects have fallen, but he did not care. Then, the Inferno Ginseng fell to the ground. Ning Xian's Master picked it up for another look.

"This young man is strange. From the traces on the Inferno Ginseng, it seems that this young man was fighting with this fire ginseng and bit it. Finally, there must have been an unexpected event causing the two to be defeated at the same time, but what was the cause? That, I can't answer.” After his speech, the Master walked over to pat the girl's head once before pointing at the boy's body. “This young man risked his life to protect you but was only a low-grade cultivator. For me, he’s got nothing special, and you may not see him again in this lifetime. Do you still insist on helping him?” Her Master stressed the last sentence with a gentle gaze toward his only student.

"Although I don't know who he is, I still want to help him since I owe him much…"

“Well, as your Master, I disagreed with you on giving up your own Blood of the Immortal Firebird for this boy. But that was only my opinion. If you are willing to lose part of your cultivated power along with your True Blood, healing this young man was as easy as flipping my palm. Having known this, do you still want to help this boy?"

"True Blood." Ning Xian felt a little hesitant because the True Blood was very important to her sacred bloodline. "I do."

The Master nodded his head three times before smiling knowingly to Ning Xian. "A pure and beautiful smile, even exchanging it with ten thousand gold taels, is still worthwhile. Like a rocky road difficult to overcome, it’s worth losing life with no regret. Ning Xian, keep that in mind. Not all of our decision makes sense, but there are things that we’ll regret forever if we don’t do them. Fight and do your best. Even if it doesn’t yield the expected outcome, you’ll owe someone nothing. That will thus be the way of a truly free life. When fate has brought you and this young man to meet and owe each other something, there must be a reason that can’t be calculated by common sense."

"Thank you, Master, for teaching me." As her words ended, the girl's beautiful face suddenly had a pure and innocent smile. Having made a decision, she slashed her fingertips with a dagger before hastily stirring her Qi to push out a drop of True Blood and then poking her slender finger past Xueming's pale lips into the mouth.

As soon as Ning Xian's blood entered his body, the scorched half of his face suddenly peeled off, revealing the sleeping handsome face of the boy. Without an explainable reason, that face unconsciously imprinted in Ning Xian's heart.

Ning Xian's Master looked at what was happening without blinking. "This young man is very fortunate. Ning Xian's True Blood was not some ordinary, sacred blood. With good luck on his side, I believed that the future of his cultivation would be incomparably greater than before. But more surprisingly, I somehow feel familiar with this young man's face, hahaha."

When he saw that the boy's face looked healthier, the Master then spoke again. "We already got what we want. Now we should go back.” Ning Xian's teacher pushed the Inferno Ginseng into his dimensional ring before walking outside to allow Ning Xian to look at Xueming's slowly recovering body for a moment.

A mischievous smile appeared on the girl's face. "Stranger brother, I hope we’ll meet again.” Ning Xian removed her veil and placed it next to Xueming. Then, she slowly stood up and walked away.