First
If
"Who? Who is it?!"
No matter how composed Wei Qing usually was, encountering something this eerie had him rattled. Standing in the middle of the clearing, he spread his spiritual sense to its fullest, scanning in every direction, trying to root out the person pulling the strings.
And at that exact moment—
Whoosh!
The sound of objects cutting through the air echoed in rapid succession.
Several flying knives hurtled straight toward him, carrying enough force to shatter stars.
A killing intent immediately flooded the entire dense forest.
Wei Qing's heart lurched. In his panic, he didn't lose his wits—his feet flickered rapidly as his body swayed, narrowly dodging the flying knives.
Simultaneously, without even looking, he fired a sleeve arrow straight at the origin of the knives.
However—
Just as Wei Qing's feet steadied, he suddenly felt his legs go sluggish. A jolt of shock shot through his heart, and when he looked down, he saw that everything from his calves upward had already been tightly bound by writhing vine tendrils.
It's him!
A thought flashed through
But the moment his arm rose, countless vine tendrils surged toward him from every direction, wrapping around his body without pause.
His arms. His waist. His neck. His chest.
Every point from which he could generate force was strangled tight by the vines.
No matter how Wei Qing struggled, he could not break free.
"Jiang Chen! Jiang Chen!" Wei Qing was nearly driven mad. The instant he saw these vines, his mind flashed back to the first time he had tried to ambush Jiang Chen.
He never imagined he would fall into Jiang Chen's hands—using these damnable tricks—once again.
In that moment, Wei Qing's heart sank to the very bottom.
He suddenly remembered what Elder Wuhen had told him. The elder had warned him: if he ever encountered Jiang Chen again, the best course of action was to turn around and flee—put as much distance between them as possible.
At the time, Wei Qing had been completely unconvinced. He'd thought Elder Wuhen was exaggerating, deliberately undermining his confidence, boosting the enemy's morale while crushing his own.
His painstaking effort to track down Mu Gaoqi had been all about hunting Jiang Chen—avenging his earlier humiliation, seizing the Heaven Grade Spiritual Medicine, and proving himself in front of Elder Wuhen.
But reality had spoken: Elder Wuhen was right. And Wei Qing himself—like a fool—had made the exact same mistake twice.
A fatal mistake like this was already too much to make once. Yet he'd gone and made it twice.
Wei Qing knew he was finished.
The last time Jiang Chen had captured him, Elder Wuhen had at least been there to save him.
This time, he'd cut himself off from all his sect brothers and gone alone. Now there was no heaven to cry out to, no earth to answer his call.
Earlier, when he'd been hunting Mu Gaoqi and scheming against Du Lihuang, everything had seemed flawless. He'd felt as though the world was within his grasp.
Whether it was Mu Gaoqi at the Small Yuan Realm or Du Lihuang at the peak of the Yuan Realm, both had been played like puppets in his hands. That had inflated Wei Qing's confidence far beyond reason.
Wei Qing struggled with all his might, but once the Ice Fire Demon Lotus had you wrapped up, forget about someone at his level—even a first-level Saint Realm genius might not be able to break free.
His heart burned with anxiety. He knew that if he couldn't escape these vines, he was dead for certain.
His mind was flooded with regret. He regretted not listening to Elder Wuhen's words. He regretted ever provoking Jiang Chen.
A figure flickered before him, and Jiang Chen's silhouette appeared roughly forty to fifty meters ahead.
Wei Qing's eyes blazed with fury as he stared daggers at Jiang Chen: "Kid Jiang Chen, is ambush the only trick you have? If you've got guts, let me go and fight me one-on-one!"
Jiang Chen smiled with leisurely amusement, regarding Wei Qing the way one might look at an idiot: "Others might have the right to say something like that. But you, Wei Qing—drenched in underhanded tricks—seem to be the last person who should. Don't tell me you took down Du Lihuang earlier through a fair one-on-one duel?"
Wei Qing's face shifted between green and purple. He had no comeback.
"What do you want?" Wei Qing rasped.
"What do you think?" Jiang Chen wore a faint, unhurried smile as he walked toward him, one step at a time.
A thought struck Wei Qing. Within a radius of twenty to thirty meters, he had laid down a poison formation. If Jiang Chen stepped into its range, perhaps there was still a chance to turn the tables.
Of course, Wei Qing wouldn't let that show. Instead, he darkened his face and said: "Don't tell me you're doing this to avenge Du Lihuang?"
"What does Du Lihuang have to do with me? You were chasing Mu Gaoqi—wasn't that really aimed at me? Since you came looking for me, how could I not return the favor?"
The faint smile at the corner of Jiang Chen's mouth sent a bone-deep chill through Wei Qing.
He had always believed himself to be the cleverest one. Now he realized that compared to Jiang Chen, he was nowhere close.
The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.
He, Wei Qing, had killed Du Lihuang and cornered Mu Gaoqi, thinking himself supremely capable.
As it turned out, Jiang Chen had known about all of it—and had been lurking in the shadows the entire time, while Wei Qing remained blissfully ignorant!
The comparison made Wei Qing want to die of frustration. All he could do was silently pray—pray that Jiang Chen would step into the poison formation and trigger its attack.
If Jiang Chen were struck by the poison formation, he might still have a chance to kill him in return.