Chapter 24: A Night Leopard

Yun Ruoyan picked up a branch from the ground and drew a little circle in the grass. “We’re at the extremities of the territory: it’s less dangerous, but also has fewer treasures to be found. Given our capabilities, I think we can try to go a little deeper in.”

As she said this, she drew a straight line cutting into the circle, then looked at the Lin sisters as she waited for their input.

The main reason for acquiring the token for access into the territory was for admission into Kongming Academy, but another equally important reason was to acquire precious herbs and treasures.

After all, the imperial territory had the greatest concentration of spiritual energy in the whole Chenyuan continent, and it produced copious amounts of precious herbs and magical beasts.

The herbs were essential for pillmaking, and the inner cores of the magical beasts even more precious. Not only could they be used for medicine, high-quality beast cores could even be absorbed to enhance one’s cultivation.

“We’ll listen to you, sister,” Lin Qingchen affirmed.

“Right, we’ll listen to you!” Lin Qingxue also agreed. “Before we got here, we promised Grandfather that we’d bring him back whole bundles of herbs.”

The three of them were just about to head deeper into the territory when Qiuqiu suddenly spoke up.

“Mistress, there’s a mid-tier magical beast preparing to sneak up on you from a few meters behind.”

Magical beasts were intelligent and even knew how to launch sneak attacks.

“A mid-tier magical beast? Can I take care of it?” Yun Ruoyan hadn’t expected such an encounter so far out from the center of the territory, and she wasn’t certain of her victory.

“With the Feilai Blade, it’ll be quick, but with your martial abilities and current level of cultivation, Mistress, it might take a while.”

She wouldn’t use the Feilai Blade unless she had no other choice, and this would be a good opportunity for her to polish her own fighting skills and even possibly make a breakthrough. “In that case, let’s fight!”

Yun Ruoyan intentionally fell behind the Lin sisters. As she clutched her scabbard, she silently prepared for battle.

“Be careful,” Yun Ruoyan warned her sisters as soon as Qiuqiu informed her that the beast was drawing closer. In an instant, she had unsheathed her blade and turned so that she was between the beast and the Lin sisters.

And, moments later, a black leopard-like creature emerged from the underbrush.

Because they had been unprepared, Lin Qingxue and Lin Qingchen were shocked and dazed.

Yun Ruoyan pushed the girls behind her, then twisted her body just in time to avoid the beast’s jump. It landed and crawled against the ground, a pair of bright yellow eyes closely following Yun Ruoyan’s every move.

“It’s a night leopard,” Qiuqiu informed Yun Ruoyan. “A mid-tier magical beast, crafty and cunning. Its attacks aren’t all that strong, and night leopards mainly rely on their stealth to catch their prey unaware.”

Comforted by the information, Yun Ruoyan became more confident about her chances of victory, and tried to think of a means by which she could kill the leopard in a single blow.

“What night leopards lack in strength, they make up for in agility and intelligence.”

This was the first time that Yun Ruoyan was facing a magical beast, and, anxious for its owner, Qiuqiu continued to help Yun Ruoyan analyze the situation.

“Now that its sneak attack has failed, it’s trying to observe you and determine whether to flee or to fight. Mistress, if you’d like to scare it off, you can try to bluff.”

Scare it off? No, oh no!

This was the first time that she had encountered such a creature, and Yun Ruoyan was raring to fight. She didn’t want to lose this opportunity to train herself!

As she made up her mind, she slightly lowered the tip of her sword, exposing a flaw for the night leopard to take advantage of.

The night leopard’s dim yellow eyes suddenly glinted as it leaped toward Yun Ruoyan, as fast as lightning!

This was the moment that Yun Ruoyan was waiting for. She lowered her leg, arched her waist, and held her sword straight up, at just the right orientation that it would slash the night leopard’s exposed underbelly.

And as the night leopard reached the apex of its jump, its eyes turned fearful. The next moment, like a bag that had just been cut open, its intestines fell to the ground, dyeing the grass red with blood.

And then, limply, it fell onto the ground.

“Wow, Mistress, that was amazing!” Qiuqiu cheered.

“Wow, sister, you were amazing!” Lin Qingxue and Lin Qingchen also cheered.

Yun Ruoyan stood up, sheathing her sword once more. She breathed out and revealed a happy smile.

Her first kill after her rebirth left her feeling exuberant. She wasn’t a bloodthirsty person, but the grudge and vengeance that had carried over from her past life seemed to have diminished with this opportunity to vent her frustration.

“Let’s take its core.”

“Alright!” Lin Qingxue plucked out the two daggers that she kept by her side, walked over to the beast, and sliced its head open.

“My goodness, it’s a fourth-rank core.” Lin Qingxue extracted a green core from within the night leopard’s skull.

Lin Qingchen happily took it from her. “We’re just about out of cores at home! This is a really good ingredient for pills, too.”

She was just about to wipe the blood off the core and put it in her pouch when she suddenly realized that this was Yun Ruoyan’s kill, and the core was hers by right.

She hastily handed the core to Yun Ruoyan, embarrassed. “Sorry, this belongs to you, sister.”

“Don’t worry, you can keep it.” Yun Ruoyan smiled. “I’m sure there’ll be a lot more spoils ahead.”

In the end, after offering the core to Yun Ruoyan and getting rejected once more, Lin Qingchen finally kept the core in her own pouch.

The girls continued down the little path deeper into the greenery, but shortly after, Yun Ruoyan felt a prickling sensation at the back of her neck, as if she were being tailed. She stopped and communicated mentally with Qiuqiu. “Do you feel anyone coming after us?”

“Qiu, qiu!” Qiuqiu chirped. “They’re just two ordinary people, relatively harmless. But I didn’t expect you to notice them so quickly, Mistress!”

It seemed that Qiuqiu had intentionally been withholding this information to test Yun Ruoyan’s sensitivity.

“Even if they’re just normal people, we still can’t let them follow us blindly. As long as they’re hiding, they’re a threat.”

Her experience from her past life had been so overwhelming that Yun Ruoyan had become far more vigilant as a result.

“Come out, whoever you are. If you don’t, I’ll take it as a threat.” Yun Ruoyan stopped moving and shouted behind her.

Lin Qingxue and Lin Qingchen also stopped moving.

“What’s the matter?”

“Someone’s been following us, and Sister found out,” Lin Qingchen explained in a soft voice.

The two girls followed Yun Ruoyan’s gaze to a bush, and then to the young boy and girl that popped out from within.

“It’s you!” Lin Qingxue immediately recognized the duo as the siblings that had been right behind them in the cave.

“Why’re you following us?”

“We didn’t do it intentionally,” the girl began to explain.

The boy’s gaze, however, stayed fixed on Yun Ruoyan’s body. Yun Ruoyan began to frown, but he didn’t seem to be doing it maliciously.

“In what sense?”

The girl’s face blushed a little red as she tugged on the boy’s shirt, intending for him to speak up. Finally, the boy turned his gaze away from Yun Ruoyan and explained to Lin Qingxue, “We’re here following the scent of a magical beast.”

“You can track magical beasts by smell?” Lin Qingxue looked at the boy, shocked.

This pair of siblings, who had appeared out of nowhere, clothed in roughspun hemp, was clearly not from a prosperous family.

Yun Ruoyan and the Lin siblings were both wearing loose-fitting attire suitable for the outdoors; the scions of other large families dressed similarly, and some would even be decked in fitted armor. Honestly, out of the hundred or so carriages that had been travelling up the mountain, she hadn’t seen anyone else in hemp.

The boy carried a bow on his back, and the girl carried nothing.

Faced with the interrogatory stares of the three girls, the young girl hid behind her brother’s back, but he seemed unaffected.

“We’re from a beastkin tribe. My name’s Zhuo Yifeng, and this is my sister, Zhuo Lin’er.”

“Beastkin, you’re a member of the half-extinct beastkin?!” Lin Qingxue was shocked beyond belief, and similar expressions were on Yun Ruoyan and Lin Qingchen’s faces.

“Yes, that’s right. We beastkin are particularly adept at hunting magical beasts, and my sister’s sense of smell is particularly well developed. She led us here.”

Yun Ruoyan looked at Zhuo Lin’er, who was still hiding behind her brother’s back. She was no more than ten, thin and small, and Yun Ruoyan didn’t know how the siblings had managed to get a token of entry in the first place.

“My cultivation’s not too bad, and I’m a good hunter. I’ll just need someone to take care of my sister when I’m in a battle.”

Zhuo Yifeng looked a little older, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, and he had bright, resolute eyes. “We’d like to party up with you if you’re willing.”

The siblings seemed relatively pleasant, but the larger the party, the more their movement would be hampered.

Zhuo Yifeng seemed to be aware of the three girls’ concerns, because he hurriedly added, “I can carry my sister on my back, so we won’t be a burden to everyone. I just need someone to stay back and look after her during a battle. I’m already a fifth-rank blademaster, so I can definitely fight.”

Having a fifth-rank blademaster around was tempting, but Yun Ruoyan was still apprehensive. In the end, she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but we don’t know each other. If we can’t trust each other fully, then fighting together will be a dangerous prospect. Let’s split up.”

Yun Ruoyan pointed at a fork in the road ahead, saying coldly, “We’ll take the left side, and you two can take the right side.”

She began marching forward as soon as she finished speaking. Lin Qingchen followed closely behind her, and, after a moment of hesitation, so did Lin Qingxue.

After taking a few steps, Lin Qingxue looked back surreptitiously, her gaze just happening to meet Zhuo Yifeng’s. Her heart jumped: the boy’s eyes were startlingly bright!