Chapter Ninety: Releasing the Tiger Back to the Mountains

At dawn the next day, a pale band of white appeared on the horizon.

At the border between the Dragon River Federation and the Kingdom of T, a man with a scholarly air and a clean-shaven face was fleeing in utter panic.

Too terrified to avoid the thorny brambles in his path, his face and arms were cut by one bloody scratch after another.

He was Li Hu of the Hungry Wolf Mercenary Corps. At that moment, he wished his parents had given him a pair of extra legs so he could escape faster.

The crew-cut youth behind him was simply too terrifying.

Several hundred meters from Li Hu, beside a road, stood a slightly lean young man with a close-cropped head and eyes bright as stars. He was Chen Xian.

Chen Xian watched Li Hu disappear into the distance without giving chase. A cold smile tugged at his lips as he looked on, expressionless, while the other man fled into the woods.

Whoosh.

A streak of red shot out from Chen Xian’s head and raced toward the miserable figure of Li Hu. On closer look, the red light was a tiny insect with transparent wings. It was exactly the second parasitic stealth larva, number 002.

Swift as a ghost, 002 crossed hundreds of meters in an instant and took root in Li Hu’s body.

Only after Li Hu vanished from sight did Chen Xian withdraw his gaze and look around.

Seven corpses lay scattered on the ground. They were all members of the Hungry Wolf Mercenary Corps who had come to rescue Li Hu.

Besides the bodies, there was also a nine-seat business van parked by the roadside, and in the driver’s seat sat a bearded man with a blank expression.

Chen Xian raised his hand. A dim glow shimmered on the silver ring on his little finger, condensing into a vortex. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—the seven corpses were all taken into the storage ring.

After finishing this, Chen Xian stepped forward, opened the car door, and sat in the front passenger seat. Closing his eyes, he said lightly, “Drive to Haven City.”

The bearded man with the vacant face nodded mechanically like a puppet on strings, turned the wheel, and started the engine, roaring away toward Haven City.

The reason Chen Xian had let Li Hu go was to keep the movements of the Hungry Wolf Mercenary Corps under constant watch—to see whether they would send more people into Haven City to deal with him and his family and friends, and whether they would relocate their lair, and so on.

He had already resolved to wipe out the Hungry Wolf Mercenary Corps in one sweep. To know the enemy and know himself was to secure victory in a hundred battles, so he had to fully grasp their every move.

Li Hu, being the younger brother of the mercenary corps’ commander, was the best possible target for the second stealth larva.

With his eyes closed, Chen Xian observed the mysterious tree in his mind. Seeing that only a small portion of the tree had turned red and become solid, he could not help letting out a long sigh.

“I absorbed all the ammunition energy from these Hungry Wolf mercenaries, and it still wasn’t enough to solidify the tree. It seems that to condense the eighth mysterious fruit, I’ll need far more energy.”

...

Several hours later.

Chen Xian returned to House 101 in the Splendid Residence neighborhood of Haven City and went inside.

Meow, meow, meow!

At once, cat cries rang out. He saw three stray cats staring at him with wide, pitiful eyes.

Chen Xian realized that all the cat food he had prepared for Little One, Little Two, and Little Three was already gone.

“You’re hungry, huh? This afternoon your master will go out and buy you some cat food,” Chen Xian said with a smile.

Meow, meow, meow!

The three little fellows bobbed their heads furiously, looking adorably silly.

Having said that, Chen Xian entered the hall. He took out his phone, intending to check the time, only to discover that the battery was dead.

After putting it on charge, he went to the center of the hall and sat down cross-legged.

With a thought, the storage ring flashed. Corpses flew out one after another, drenched in blood. There were ten in total, the bodies of Old One-Eye Granny and the other members of the Hungry Wolf Mercenary Corps.

Chen Xian merely glanced at them before activating the Supreme Chaos Art to begin refining the bodies.

To others, these filthy corpses were something to be shunned at all costs. But to Chen Xian, they were precious treasures, spiritual energy, sustenance for increasing his cultivation.

Several hours passed.

The corpses before Chen Xian were gone, all of them transformed into spiritual energy and stored within his spirit wheel space.

A smile appeared at the corners of Chen Xian’s mouth as he thought to himself, “My spiritual energy has increased quite a bit again. The spiritual energy generated from Old One-Eye Granny’s corpse alone exceeds the total generated by the other nine warriors among the mercenary crew by a great deal.”

Even so, Chen Xian’s third spirit wheel space was still far from full.

If he wanted to fill all of his spirit wheel spaces and awaken the fourth spirit wheel, he would need a massive amount of spiritual energy.

This time, while refining the corpses, Chen Xian also sensed that mysterious, icy aura lingering around him.

But he was unafraid. Whatever that cold aura might be, he would continue refining enemy corpses in the future to strengthen himself.

The path of spiritual cultivation was, in essence, a struggle against others, against the earth, against the heavens, and against fate itself. Without a fearless heart, it was hard to achieve anything, let alone stand at the summit and become an unrivaled powerhouse.

As his spiritual energy grew, so too did his divine sense, or rather, his mental strength.

All of this was thanks to the Supreme Chaos Art, a peerless technique that cultivated both body and spirit.

Chen Xian stood up, picked up his phone, and found that it was fully charged, showing one hundred percent battery.

He turned it on again.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

Messages came in one after another. They were all missed-call notifications.

Ten of them were missed-call reminders from Zhang Xin, while the remaining three were from Fang Jing.

“Why are Zhang Xin and Fang Jing both so eager to reach me? What’s going on?”

Chen Xian was full of curiosity. He called Zhang Xin first, and the call connected quickly.

Zhang Xin’s voice, gentle and lovely, came through the phone. “Hello? Chen Xian, why was your phone off from last night until now?”

“Sorry, Zhang Xin. I had something urgent come up last night, and my phone ran out of battery, so I never got around to charging it,” Chen Xian explained.

He had already kissed Zhang Xin on the lips. Now that she was his girlfriend, there was no harm in explaining.

Of course, he could not possibly tell Zhang Xin about the dragon-slaying and mercenary-killing that had taken place the night before. She was a kind girl, and if he told her such dangerous things, it would frighten her terribly.

“Chen Xian, you’re not hiding it from me because you secretly went on a date with some other girl, are you? Otherwise, why turn your phone off?” Zhang Xin’s voice turned a little displeased as she questioned him over the phone.

Hearing this, Chen Xian hurriedly said, “Darling, I really did have something to do last night, but it definitely wasn’t to go on a date with another girl. With a girlfriend as beautiful as you, like a fairy descended from heaven, no other girl can catch my eye anymore. After seeing the sea, one cannot be satisfied with mere streams.”

“All right then, darling. Since your mouth is so sweet, I’ll let it go this time. But remember from now on, you absolutely have to keep your phone on. When I miss you, I need to be able to hear your voice and reach you at any time!”

Listening to Zhang Xin, Chen Xian felt warmth spread through his heart. Something called happiness began to seep into it.

“Mm, darling, from now on I’ll definitely keep my phone on,” he promised at once.

Zhang Xin’s happy, delightful voice rang out again. “Darling, when I was reading the newspaper today, I found something really strange. On the front page, in the lead story, I actually saw a public apology from the famous Doctor Wang and other medical experts, apologizing to Chen Xian. Is the Chen Xian in the paper you?”

“That isn’t me. It should be someone else with the same name and surname. Just a coincidence, I guess,” Chen Xian denied.

If he admitted it was him, it would definitely drag in other matters and make Zhang Xin worry and fear for him.

“Oh, so that’s how it is!” Zhang Xin said. “All right, darling, then I’ll get to the point. There’s a dance the night after tomorrow, and I want to take you with me.”