Pulling away from those distracting thoughts, Yang Qing shifted his gaze in the direction Xie Han had disappeared to. His eyes flickered, reflecting the dusky rays above him.
Xie Han didn’t reveal much about himself, but his subconscious actions and body spoke volus about the life he’d lived. Whether it was the eyes that kept surreptitiously darting about, searching for an escape route or scanning for danger even after being caught; the miasma that had seeped into his body and soul—its levels suggesting it wasn’t just the result of poisoning, but of soone who regularly dealt with such toxins; or the dense slaughter aura clinging to him—everything pointed to soone who had reaped countless lives, and in countless ways, chief among them through poison.
Yang Qing’s best guess was that he might have been so kind of assassin. But his movents weren’t quite as refined as those of a seasoned one. Assassins, especially those deeply imrsed in their craft—regardless of their cultivation base—always had an ingrained elegance and refinent to them. It showed in their movent arts, in how they carried themselves, in everything they did. Their actions were rooted in precision and efficiency.
Xie Han, while clearly carrying the instincts, lacked that polish. His movents didn’t have that refined sharpness. A proper assassin would never have ventured so deep into the gorge—or if they did, they wouldn’t have done it the way Xie Han had, leaving themselves so easily caught.
Xie Han seed more self-taught. He was like a butcher who had learned on the go—a butcher who knew next to nothing about butchering, had no ntor to guide him, and all he had were his knives, his eyes, and a carcass to work on. Provided the supply of carcasses was endless and he kept at it long enough, he would inevitably beco skilled. But that skill would co with rough edges, born of necessity and self-learning, unlike soone who had trained under a master butcher, soone who had techniques drilled into them and an outside eye to correct any bad habits before they took root.
Xie Han was like that.
He wasn’t a refined butcher, but he was a skilled one nonetheless—in the theater of death. What he lacked in polish, he more than made up for with raw instinct. That was exactly why Yang Qing had chosen to use him as a spy.
When an earthquake is about to hit, it’s the birds and the bees who sense it first, before any tremors are felt. Xie Han would be his bee in the Azure Sapphire Kingdom.
The Order was likely already monitoring the situation there closely, given what was at stake. But it never hurt to have more eyes and ears on the ground. And beyond the intel he might gain about the Huang family or the kingdom itself, Yang Qing hoped to use Xie Han as a source for information about other happenings across the continent, outside the borders of the Azure Sapphire Kingdom.
If the rumors about the Azure Sapphire Kingdom potentially splintering—where the territories of the noble households would beco independent kingdoms—turned out to be true, then for those new kingdoms to sustain themselves and grow, they would need to establish connections with parties beyond their borders. And through those connections would co all manner of potential information sources—ones Yang Qing hoped to gain access to.
As vast as the Order’s information channels were, they were still limited—severely so, if the entire continent was taken into account. Yang Qing’s ploy was simply to add a drop to that network. It might not be much, but it would still be sothing.
"Hopefully sothing cos of it," he murmured, before turning his attention back to the fig tree.
With a wave of his hand, the do surrounding the tree, Haishi, and the rest faded away like fog, though not before the salmons made their theatrical exit. One even rushed forward to give Haishi a peck, only to vanish like windblown smoke just as it was about to make contact.
Haishi shrieked in fear, thinking she was about to be attacked. Given what she’d seen those salmon do, the reaction was more than warranted. Luckily, nothing ca of the charge.
Not that it helped much.
Haishi, Bolin, and Wenling all looked visibly stricken by the salmon’s final act. Even after it had vanished, the three of them remained huddled together, still eyeing the spot where the fish had been with deep wariness.
Haishi even cautiously touched her cheek, as if to confirm whether it was still intact or if it had been blasted to smithereens so fast that even her body hadn’t registered the impact. Her wings sagged in relief when she confird it was still there. Still feeling unsure, she appeared to gesture toward Bolin, seemingly asking him to double-check if her face was truly complete.
Yang Qing chuckled at the display before shifting his attention to the pristine yin spring that had ford below. With another wave of his hand, the spring water began to spiral like a hurricane had struck it, rising and swirling into his palm where it condensed into two crystal-clear droplets.
"Think of this as my gratitude for letting intrude on your ho for a bit," Yang Qing said, addressing the two spiritual plants—the spiritual dew fig tree and the healing cloud gorgevine.
He extended his palm toward the fig tree, and the two bead-sized droplets burst into twin rays of white light that vanished into the fig tree and the gorgevine. Both spiritual plants shimred briefly with a pristine white glow that faded as quickly as it had appeared.
The fog around the healing cloud gorgevine deepened, its hue becoming a purer white, while the trunk of the fig tree expanded nearly twice in girth. Its leaves now glead with a subtle, silken jade-like luster that gave their green hue an extra vibrancy.
However, the greatest change for both spiritual plants occurred internally. Their spirituality was the main beneficiary of those droplets. Thanks to them, it likely wouldn’t take more than four years—at most—for their spirits to fully form.
Wenling couldn’t help but glance enviously at the two spiritual plants. Rubbing her antennae, she wondered just how tasty those two droplets must have been.
The healing cloud gorgevine gently twirled one of its vines around Yang Qing’s pinky, while the fig tree’s branches swayed lightly. Yang Qing smiled and placed his palm on the tree’s trunk.
"Hopefully, the next ti I visit, you two will have fully grown," he whispered softly. "Until next ti," he added, lifting his hand and turning his gaze to Haishi.
"Let’s go. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover—and fast—if we hope to make it before midnight," Yang Qing said, eyeing the red-orange hue of the setting sun on the horizon.
Haishi gave a nod as her wings spread gently. Bolin and Wenling took it as their cue to hop onto her back, followed by Yang Qing. Once everyone was aboard, she took off, quickly leaving the gorge behind.
In just seconds, they were once again within the Wan clan’s territory, where Yang Qing found a fourth-stage Palace Realm expert waiting for him. The cultivator turned out to be another elder of the Wan clan, left behind by Wan Ling to wait on Yang Qing in case he needed any assistance.
The elder couldn’t hide his relief when Yang Qing inford him that he was leaving their territory. He even went so far as to escort Yang Qing all the way to the border—with great enthusiasm, no less. Yang Qing couldn’t help but wonder if the elder’s eagerness was due to the effect Branch Chief Zou Gen’s na seed to have on the Wan clan, or if it was because of the sensitive period they were in, with their patriarch attempting a breakthrough to the Domain Realm. Perhaps they simply wanted to keep unknown elents out of their territory at all costs.
Whatever the reason, it worked in his favor. Not only were they transported in a ferry much faster than Haishi, but the elder also went the extra mile—literally—by offering to take them well beyond the border, traveling 4,000 kiloters before finally bidding them a very warm farewell.
"They really wanted to get rid of that badly?" Yang Qing muttered with a wry smile as he rubbed his nose.
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