Chapter 136: Astonishment

A flash of despair had crossed Wu Sen’s face the very moment he saw the golden rope wrapped around his leg.

He recognised this golden rope. It was the the rope that attendant Li had previously given Fang Hao to allow him to catch the quickshade bird. He also knew that the golden rope had the power to expand and contract, but….since when could it extend this far?

Not allowing Wu Sen to continue his line of thoughts, the Compliant Rope gave off a brilliant gleam of golden light and began to contract rapidly. Combined with the mighty pull from Bai Yunfei, the two men were brought closer together just like before.

Initially, Wu Sen had been extremely happy to have dodged the thrown Fire-tipped Spear. He had believed that his opponent had thrown away the strongest soul armament he had and relied upon. An awfully foolish move in truth. But now that this had happened, the foolish one had been him! Bai Yunfei had an even stronger killing move to use!

Flame Winged Blade!

Just as the four-meter long blades shot past him, Wu Sen was just about to call for the detonation order once more when he came to the startling discovery that his left arm had already been separated from his main body. The pain had caused his mouth to open wide and reveal a splurt of blood. Dazed but unwilling to die, Wu Sen found his body engulfed into flames and then finally into ash.

After landing, Bai Yunfei hadn’t dared to drop his guard and whirled around, only to see that the thunderbird had already closed within ten meters of him! But this time, the bird had already ceased in its forward flight and hovered there with a gentle flap of its wings. The chaotic energy that had been running rampant within its body had slowly started to ebb away as it slowly landed onto the ground without another movement after.

“Whew…”

Letting out a drawn out sigh, Bai Yunfei felt a wave of dizziness hit him. Unable to stop himself from taking two staggering steps backwards, Bai Yunfei plopped down to the ground onto his backside. This feeling of exhaustion had spread throughout his entire body and was a sign of soulforce exhaustion.

Swapping out for several accessories that would increase his energy, Bai Yunfei had been able to make a speedy recovery when combined with the +10 space ring that gave even more soulforce recovery speed.

A series of footsteps could be heard from his right side, prompting Bai Yunfei to tilt his head towards the direction. Upon seeing Jing Mingfeng approach, Bai Yunfei smiled, “Finished?” He asked.

“Of course. I was already finished when you killed off the first person and planned to help you out, but who would have knew that you’d finish your battle so quickly? You’ve practically killed two people without a break in your stride.” Jing Mingfeng smiled awkwardly as he shrugged his shoulders.

Looking over to where Jing Mingfeng had came from, he could see that just several hundred meters away, the bodies of Tai Ping and Fang Hao could be seen strewn about. Both of them had a grisly wound on their throats that continued to flow with fresh blood. On the faces of the two, their dying expressions had been a mixture of both astonishment and vacuousness. A single blade had slit their throats, causing a bloody but surefire death.

The pupils in Bai Yunfei’s eyes had contracted slightly from the sight, but he had recovered almost just as fast. Giving a slight nod to Jing Mingfeng, he closed his own eyes and continued to recover his own soulforce.

Prior to this, Jing Mingfeng had asked Bai Yunfei to deal with Fang Hao and Tai Ping himself, allowing Bai Yunfei to focus completely on his own battle. Because of this wholehearted fixation, Bai Yunfei hadn’t paid much attention to how Jing Mingfeng had killed the two, but he didn’t wish to ask any questions about it. He knew that Jing Mingfeng was still hiding a myriad of secrets, but that hadn’t been very important. At the very least, Bai Yunfei could admit that Jing Mingfeng was a person that deserved to be considered a friend worthy of his trust. And that was more than enough for him.

What Bai Yunfei didn’t know, however, was the fact that Jing Mingfeng was currently facing a shock that was many times larger than Bai Yunfei.

“You killed two mid-stage Soul Sprites before, and now you’ve gone and killed another mid-stage Soul Sprite and late-stage Soul Sprite. Just how many soul armaments do you have, and what other secrets are you hiding….” Jing Mingfeng’s face grew sour as he stared at the recuperating Bai Yunfei. His thoughts were a chaotic mess, and it was unsure to everyone except Jing Mingfeng himself to what he was thinking about.

Several minutes had past before Bai Yunfei had managed to recuperate enough soulforce to stand up once more. Surveying the scene around him, he whirled around to the Fire-tipped Spear which was practically fully embedded into the ground. As he pulled it out, he spoke out to Jing Mingfeng, “Let’s clean up the battlefield the same way we did last time. We’ll burn the corpses into ash.”

Ye Tianwen first looked to Bai Yunfei who was storing away the daggers he had thrown into the thickets back into his space ring and then to Tianming and Jing Mingfeng who were scurrying about from one side to help out one another. Then, looking to messy but ‘clean’ area around them, Ye Tianwen reflected inwardly to himself with a pensive look. Turning to his uncle Ye Quan, he spoke, “Second uncle, have those four people we sensed earlier really died? They were all Soul Sprites; two of them were early-stage, and the other two were middle-stage and late-stage, how could the four of them be killed so fast by two people?”

The two of them had arrived to the scene just several minutes after the battle had been over. But they had been able to sense the battle prior to their arrival. When they saw that Bai Yunfei and Jing Mingfeng were both ‘cleaning’ up the area however, they had been at a loss for words. Ye Tianwen had even begun to wonder if his soulsense had been wrong, prompting him to ask Ye Quan to confirm his doubts.

Unlike Ye Tianwen, Ye Quan had been been completely aware of the constant explosions of elemental energy as well as the four fluctuating soulforces that became extinguished almost instantaneously. While he had not been privy to the sight himself, he could make a clear conjecture of what happened. The one missing puzzle piece to his conjecture was the fact that he did not expect to see two be able to beat down and kill the four so fast. From the looks of the two, they were relatively unharmed as well….

Shaking his head, Ye Quan had noticed that Bai Yunfei, Jing Mingfeng and Tianming were already heading in his direction. With a low whisper, Ye Quan spoke, “Whatever the case, those two cannot be offended. While they were able to kill the men from the Beast Taming School and destroy any traces of their involvement, it….it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious. If this brings ire to us from the Beast Taming School, then they wouldn’t be satisfied with just murdering the entire house of Ye if it were ten times bigger.”

Ye Tianwen nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, let’s talk about this after we return home. Tianming has a relatively deep friendship with the two it seems, and we’re not privy to the details either. We’ll ask Tianming later tonight and plan what to do after….”

Within Gaoyi City in the mansion of the Ye.

It was already reaching midnight, but the halls were still lit so brightly that it felt as if it was still daytime in there.

When Bai Yunfei and the others walked into the halls, the very first that spoke was not in fact the middle-aged man that bore a striking resemblance to Tianming and sat at the topmost seat, but the cane-wielding white-haired elderly woman right next to him.

“Ming’er, my Ming’er, you’ve….you’ve finally returned! You’ve worried your granny to death, how have you suffered in the outside world? Just look at yourself, you’re so skinny now! Where in the world did you run off to….your father said those scoundrels from the Zhao were trying to kidnap you. Come here and let your granny look at you—are you injured? Don’t go sneaking out any more, the outside world is so dangerous, and you don’t know anything, so if anything were to….”

The old woman didn’t even look as if she had noticed Bai Yunfei or the others at all and headed straight for Tianming at the left side of the group. Latching onto his wrist tightly, the woman looked at him affectionately and began to speak one word after another in rapid succession. It had been rather hard to imagine that there would be such an elderly woman that would be capable of having the energy to speak for so long without pause. Even more impressive was that she continued to speak without ever paying attention to the people surrounding the two.

An impatient look appeared on Tianming’s face as he pushed away the woman’s hand with discontent, “Granny, how many times did I tell you, don’t treat me like a seven-year old anymore. Every single time, you’re like this, how annoying….”

“Tianming!” Bai Yunfei rebuked with a low voice and furrowed eyebrows.

“Ah?” Startled, Tianming turned to look at Bai Yunfei in confusion.

“Did you forget what I told you before?”

“I….I didn’t.” Tianming was silent for a moment before a thought had hit him. Speaking softly, he said, “Of all the virtues, filial piety is the most important. Brother Bai, I didn’t forget, sorry….”

Bai Yunfei shook his head, “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me.”

“Yes….” Tianming turned back to the older woman in front of him with a bowed head. “Grandma, I’m sorry. I’ve made you worried. I won’t be as unruly like this in the future….”

As soon as he spoke these words, everyone had been stunned. Everyone from the Ye had stared at Tianming with a gaping mouth as if they witnessed something completely unbelievable.