On the evening of the third day, Han Li, who had been sitting in meditation the entire time, finally opened his eyes.
He raised his head to glance at the dark sky, then flipped his palm, and a moonstone appeared in his hand. He tossed the stone into the air, and a wash of milky luminescence poured down, flooding the nearby peach grove with bright, radiant light.
Han Li rose silently, produced a piece of red coral roughly a foot across, set it beneath a peach tree, and then took out a jade box. He opened the lid to reveal a spirit herb no larger than an inch, with a single stem and thirteen leaves. The herb was faintly white and emanated a soft, rosy glow — it was none other than the Rainbow Robe Grass he had cultivated more times than he could count.
"So this is the method you've prepared?" Once Han Li had transplanted the Rainbow Robe Grass onto the coral, the Grand Sage, thoroughly bewildered, could not help but speak up.
Though he had witnessed Han Li use this spirit herb to feed the Gold Devouring Beetles with truly astonishing results, seeing it brought out now still left him deeply puzzled.
Han Li chuckled softly at the question.
"This herb has another name — 'Lure Grass.' Without further explanation, Senior should understand what this junior intends to do."
"Lure Grass! Could it be you mean to—" The Grand Sage's voice took on a note of sudden realization.
"Exactly. Six days from now, the younger of the two Hao Yang Birds will be let out for its airing. When that happens, heh heh..." Han Li let out a cold laugh.
...
Fang Chu was a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Yueyang Palace. Cultivators of that rank numbered at least several hundred, if not a thousand, within the entire Yueyang Palace — by all rights, he should have been a person of no consequence.
But the reality was quite the opposite. Forget the other Foundation Establishment cultivators; even some of the Core Formation senior uncles and aunts treated Fang Chu with perfect courtesy whenever they saw him, never once regarding him as a junior. Whenever any benefit trickled down within the palace, Fang Chu was invariably the first among the Foundation Establishment disciples to receive it.
All of this had allowed Fang Chu to do very well for himself in the Yueyang Palace. Yet beneath his quiet satisfaction, he knew that the source of everything was simply the post he held. He happened to be the cultivator specifically assigned to look after the younger of the two Hao Yang Birds.
He had been chosen because he possessed a rare innate ability to comprehend the speech of spirit avians — something no one else could replicate. Otherwise, given the precious rarity of the Hao Yang Bird, the responsibility would never have fallen to him.
After all, "looking after" the bird also meant, to a certain degree, being able to command it. That was no small matter.
The spirit bird under his charge was less powerful, but it could still overwhelmingly defeat a late-Core Formation cultivator, and its strength was approaching the Nascent Soul level. No wonder the other cultivators treated Fang Chu with such wariness.
He had been looking after the spirit bird for over thirty years now, and things had gone smoothly the entire time.
The only inconvenience was that whether he was cultivating or meditating, he had to stay with the bird all day long. Even on the brief half-day when the bird was released to stretch its wings and fly freely, he had to interrupt his own cultivation and trail quietly from a distance, just in case something went wrong.
But Fang Chu was not the least bit worried about that.
The entire Tianyue Mountain Range, stretching a hundred thousand li, was under the Yueyang Palace's control — what could possibly happen?
Musing idly to himself, that day Fang Chu followed the Hao Yang Bird as it flew out of the aviary at dawn, trailing at a considerable distance behind.
The Hao Yang Bird was not particularly large — perhaps thirty feet or so — but its tail feathers alone accounted for more than half its length. From a distance, the bird looked like an enormous crimson peacock. But no peacock in the world possessed feathers of such fiery, resplendent beauty.
The spirit bird was clearly excited. Once past the Yueyang Palace's protective formations, it spread its scarlet wings and circled and danced through the air without cease, utterly unaware that someone was following behind.
Under normal circumstances, Fang Chu could never have concealed himself from the Hao Yang Bird's spiritual sense. But before leaving, he had already affixed to his body a Breath Concealment Talisman specially refined for him by the palace. So despite his shallow cultivation, he could rest easy knowing the bird would not detect him.
Watching the bird emit joyful cries as it soared, Fang Chu smiled to himself with understanding.
Having spent so long with this spirit creature, he naturally recognized that the Hao Yang Bird was in a state of supreme bliss. It seemed that today's outing would keep the bird peacefully content for the rest of the month.
And so, the Hao Yang Bird circled unhurriedly above the Yueyang Palace for quite some time before finally changing direction and heading outward.
Fang Chu was not concerned in the least. According to this bird's habit, it would make a wide circuit within a hundred-li radius of the Yueyang Palace before flying back to the palace in satisfaction. So he simply followed at a leisurely pace.
But this time, after traveling only thirty-odd li with the bird, the unexpected happened.