"Where exactly did you get these things?" the Ghost Ancestor asked again.
Yang Kai answered honestly.
Both pitch-black round stones had been obtained from different places by sheer coincidence. The Blood Essence Stone had been snatched from someone else's hands — Yang Kai had possessed it since back on the Tongxuan Continent.
He only understood the Blood Essence Stone's function and had used it many times, but he had no idea what the two pitch-black round stones actually were.
"Senior, do you recognize these two strange stones?" Yang Kai asked carefully, watching for any shift in the Ghost Ancestor's expression.
Strange light flickered in the Ghost Ancestor's eyes as he stared deeply at the two pitch-black round stones, studying the complex patterns on their surfaces and listening to the faint pulsations within. After a long moment, he nodded. "It seems you don't know what these things are…"
"Please enlighten me, Senior!" Yang Kai said solemnly, fixing him with a steady gaze.
The Ghost Ancestor grinned, tossed the Blood Essence Stone and the two pitch-black round stones back into the Demon Mystic Scripture, and then flung the Scripture back to Yang Kai. "Take good care of them. One day you'll figure out what they are. Hmm, they require a great deal of mineral essence. If you don't have minerals, Artifacts will do."
Having dropped this cryptic remark, he vanished.
Yang Kai was left standing alone in the sky, completely bewildered.
The Ghost Ancestor clearly had no intention of telling him what he knew, and that left Yang Kai thoroughly frustrated.
But the old man's words were thought-provoking — he had actually told Yang Kai to nurture the two pitch-black round stones. What was there to nurture about two stones? They weren't living things.
Unable to make sense of it, Yang Kai gave up trying. He instructed the Divine Tree to continue monitoring the black round stones, then stored the Demon Mystic Scripture back inside his body.
When he returned to the flat area on the mountainside, the moment he materialized, Yang Kai felt a gaze that could have eaten him alive fix upon him. It came from Yuexi!
Her power had long since recovered. The Ghost Ancestor clearly didn't intend to keep her confined indefinitely, and for the past few days she had remained on the mountainside, looking like a lost soul. Gone was the dignified, noble beauty from before — now her hairpins were askew and her hair was in disarray, and her beautiful eyes burned with a bone-deep hatred as she stared unwaveringly at Yang Kai.
As though she wished she could swallow him whole.
Even though she had already learned the full truth from He Zao and He Miao — that Yang Kai hadn't actually done anything to them, merely abandoning them in the stone room without a second thought as a roundabout way of punishing their earlier rudeness — Yuexi still couldn't accept it. She thought this junior was far too arrogant, far too brazen and vicious.
She regarded everything she had endured as an unbearable humiliation, nursing a deep grudge in her heart.
Now that she was living under his roof, she had no choice but to keep her head down. She didn't dare make any overt moves, and could only vent her fury and resentment through her hateful stare.
Yang Kai seemed not to notice her at all. He strode straight into the mountain and disappeared from sight.
Yuexi closed her beautiful eyes and drew a deep breath to steady her emotions.
"This kid thinks he's safe and sound with the Ghost Ancestor's backing. He has no idea he's as good as dead," Lü Guichen suddenly materialized beside Yuexi, murmuring with a cold smile. "The moment the Ghost Ancestor can leave this place, he won't spare the kid. That'll be the end of him!"
"Why are you telling me this?" Yuexi opened her eyes and cast a frigid glance at Lü Guichen.
"Don't you hate him? He killed one of your disciples, dragged your two female apprentices into a cave — and what happened to them in there, I'm sure you know better than I do. He humiliated you, too. Don't you hate him? Wouldn't you like to kill him with your own hands?"
"That's my business. It has nothing to do with you!" Yuexi snorted.
Lü Guichen smiled. "Of course it's my business. I want his life too."
"Oh? Then why were you wagging your tail at him just the other day?"
Lü Guichen's face flushed with embarrassment. He rubbed his nose and said, "The situation forced my hand. You think I enjoyed groveling to someone like him? If not for the Ghost Ancestor's protection, I could cut down someone like him without breaking a sweat!"
"Lü Guichen, I'm going to ask you something. Answer me honestly!" Yuexi suddenly fixed him with a sharp, serious gaze.
"What?"
"My disciple Wei Wu — had he already made contact with your Purple Star? What did you promise him to make him willing to betray me, betray the Sword Alliance?" Yuexi demanded in a low voice.
Lü Guichen's eyes flickered, and he chuckled lightly. "What do you mean? I'm not quite sure I understand."
"You know exactly what I mean! I'll settle this score with you sooner or later. And if you want that junior's life, go kill him yourself. Don't even think about provoking me or using me as your weapon — I'm not that foolish!" Yuexi said, then turned and walked away, wearing the expression of someone who was too ashamed to be seen associating with the likes of Lü Guichen.
Watching her retreating figure, Lü Guichen's expression turned grim.
He hadn't expected Yuexi to swallow her rage like that. By all rights, with her two female disciples having been taken into that cave by Yang Kai — where they had surely suffered unspeakable things — she should have rushed in without a second thought. He couldn't understand why Yuexi was so reluctant to act.
Inside the stone chamber within the mountain, Yang Kai sat cross-legged beside the Spirit Stream, watching the water flow gently, lost in thought.
The Ghost Ancestor's words today had parted the clouds and revealed a glimpse of a new world that he had never seen before.
Could the two forces within his body truly be merged together?