Senior sister, stop working and go home for dinner.

Chapter 374 The Fearful Path Between Immortals and Mortals

Qi Lan frowned even more as she looked at Lingdang's listless appearance. She simply sat down cross-legged opposite Lingdang, without urging her, and took out a still warm steamed bun from the top of the food box, broke it in half, and chewed it slowly.

"That's enough," Qi Lan said between bites, her voice muffled but clear. "Chen Anran said he doesn't blame you, and I don't think so either. If anyone's to blame, it's those worthless cowards with dirty minds and no ability who just love to covet other people's things. What good are you doing burying yourself in the ground here, except making the rocks worry?"

Bell shrank back again.

Qi Lan swallowed her steamed bun, her amber eyes fixed on her: "He said he brought you here so you could help, not so you could just sit here feeling sorry for yourself. Help, understand? It means doing something useful."

Lingdang slowly raised her face, her eyes still red, but the dim light within them seemed to flicker.

"it is good."

Qi Lan stuffed the remaining half of the steamed bun into her mouth, clapped her hands, stood up, and pushed the food box in front of her. "Eat quickly, and then think about what use your skills are."

After saying that, she didn't wait for Lingdang's response, turned around and walked out. As she passed the stone, she raised her chin and said, "Watch her finish eating."

Stone nodded earnestly.

Qi Lan left Miaoxianju, her figure once again blending into the slightly unfamiliar mountain scenery. Without lingering, she headed straight for the location of "Feng's Hundred Herbs Pavilion" from her memory. The resort's main street was deserted and quiet; the modern buildings against the backdrop of the primeval forest had an odd, unreal feel. Soon, the antique-style pavilion came into view, its door open, from which faint sounds of conversation and the gentle clinking of objects could be heard.

As she reached the doorway, she saw the Feng brothers, Changyuan and Lie, standing beside a long table in the hall, quietly discussing something while looking at an open map and several herbal samples. Feng Changyuan was also taking notes in a small notebook.

"Busy?" Qi Lan leaned against the door frame, interrupting their discussion.

The two looked up at the sound. Feng Lie's eyes lit up, and he smiled, "Senior Qi Lan! What brings you here?"

"Chen Anran asked me to check on the unconscious girl." Qi Lan walked in, her gaze sweeping over the various supplies piled up in the hall. Her nostrils twitched slightly as she smelled the mixed fragrance of medicinal herbs and a very faint, somber scent belonging to Mo Han's ailing body. "Is she still in the back?"

"We've moved her to a guest room on the second floor." Feng Changyuan put down his notebook. "Feng Zhi is taking care of her. Her condition... isn't good, but it's not worse either. Her bodily functions are basically stable, but her consciousness remains closed, and she doesn't react to the outside world. The spiritual energy in this realm is very different from before. We tried to introduce spiritual energy to stimulate her awakening, but the effect was minimal, and we dared not increase the intensity rashly."

Qi Lan nodded. She wasn't an expert in medicine, but she understood that damage to the soul was the most difficult to treat.

"Chen Anran just told me to check on the way. Since he's still asleep, it's fine." She changed the subject casually and asked, "Have you guys eaten? Fatty made a pretty decent breakfast."

Feng Lie laughed and said, "My brother and I have already eaten."

Qi Lan nodded, her gaze drifting to the hazy sky outside the door. "How's the packing going? Chen Anran said that in this area down the mountain, each family can divide up their own territory and settle down as soon as possible."

"I just received a message from the patriarch, and I'm discussing this matter with my younger brother." Feng Changyuan pointed to the simple map on the table. "The location of Baicao Pavilion is quite good, backed by a mountain and facing the main street, which is convenient for business and defense. We plan to renovate the several connected empty rooms at the back and side of the pavilion to use as alchemy rooms, medicine storage rooms, and disciples' residences. However..." He paused, "Many modern medicinal herbs may be difficult to find in this world, and the pill formulas will need to be readjusted according to the spiritual energy and medicinal properties of this world, which will be a long process."

"What's the rush? We have plenty of time." Qi Lan said dismissively. "Let's get a place to settle people first, and then we can take our time with the rest." As she spoke, she seemed to sense something, and her beast ears turned sharply toward the doorway, rotating slightly.

"There's movement." Her tone hardened.

Feng Changyuan and Feng Lie immediately became alert, put down what they were doing, and walked quickly with Qi Lan to the entrance of Baicaoge, looking towards the entrance of the resort.

At the junction of the stone-paved road and the dirt road at the end of the main street, about twenty or thirty figures were cautiously approaching.

They were dressed in coarse cloth shorts, their clothes patched together, carrying hoes, machetes, sharpened wooden sticks, and even a few rusty old pitchforks. They were all young and strong men, sallow and thin, their faces a mixture of fear, wariness, and intense curiosity, staring at the neat, clean, and strangely styled buildings of the resort from afar, not daring to go any further.

They whispered to each other, their voices extremely low, but in the quiet morning, a few trembling sounds still drifted over:

"...Immortal, immortal's cave dwelling?"

"It doesn't look like... I've never seen a house like this before..."

"Is it a demon? It suddenly appeared..."

"There seems to be a figure inside!"

The leader was a dark-skinned man in his forties, clutching a relatively intact machete. His Adam's apple bobbed as he mustered his courage and, speaking in a trembling, heavily accented Mandarin, called out towards the resort:

"Inside...is it a human or an immortal? Or...who are you? We're from Xiaoshi Village at the foot of the mountain! This hillside has always been our village's territory for gathering firewood and herbs...Where...where did you come from? What...what do you want?"

Qi Lan narrowed her eyes, her gaze sweeping over the group of villagers who were so nervous they were almost moving in unison.

"We have a guest."

Qi Lan crossed her arms and strolled forward slowly, watching the group of villagers who were as frightened as startled birds. She cleared her throat. "Don't panic. We are not demons, nor are we any man-eating monsters. We are... well, wandering cultivators who have come here."

"A cultivator?!"

The moment the word "cultivator" was uttered, the already tense atmosphere instantly exploded!

The villagers, who had just been wary and curious, suddenly lost all color in their faces, their eyes flashing with a fear far deeper than any demon they had ever seen. The shrewd man at the head of the group dropped his machete with a clatter, and the able-bodied men behind him staggered backward as if struck by an invisible whip. Then, someone let out a scream that had gone awry:

"Run! Run for your life!"

"Immortal, Immortal Lord, spare us! We'll leave right now! We'll leave right now!"

"Don't kill us! We didn't see anything!"

The barely maintained order of the group collapsed instantly. Twenty or thirty villagers, utterly terrified, turned and fled desperately back into the mountains, not even bothering to pick up their fallen farm tools. They wished they had more legs. To them, demons and monsters might be something they could avoid or pray to, but "cultivators"... they were beings high above, viewing mortals as ants, capable of massacring entire villages and plundering everything! A hundred times more terrifying than any mountain spirit or wild monster!

Qi Lan: "..."

She opened her mouth, momentarily speechless. Was this reaction... a bit too much? In all her years, she'd seen people afraid of demons, afraid of ghosts, but she'd never seen a mortal react like they'd seen the King of Hell at the mere mention of "cultivator." Just how bad was the atmosphere in the cultivation world three thousand years ago?

Feng Changyuan and Feng Lie looked at each other in bewilderment.

In that brief moment of shock and the cacophony of villagers fleeing for their lives—

"Buzz!"

A sharp, piercing whistle came from the distant horizon without warning!

Immediately afterwards, five beams of light, each a different color, shot toward the resort at an astonishing speed, like sharp arrows tearing through the morning mist! The beams of light contained an undisguised, powerful pressure and a fierce killing intent; wherever they passed, birds and beasts in the forest took flight in fright, and the air itself seemed to be torn apart!

That oppressive aura... was clearly from the Golden Core stage! And there was more than one person there!

The five streaks of light arrived extremely fast; almost as soon as the sound of air being torn apart reached them, the figures were already there!

The beam of light suddenly stopped dozens of feet above the resort, and the powerful spiritual pressure poured down without restraint, like an invisible boulder, slamming into the hearts of everyone below.

The five newcomers were all dressed in magnificent robes of different styles, some embroidered with thunder patterns, some painted with fiery clouds, and some adorned with starlight, clearly belonging to different factions. They stood in the void, their bodies radiating spiritual light, their eyes like lightning, coldly and arrogantly surveying the "strange architectural complex" that had appeared out of nowhere below, as well as the strangely dressed and mixed-breeding crowd in front of the buildings.

Leading the group was a middle-aged Taoist priest with sallow skin and narrow eyes, dressed in a purple robe with lightning patterns, carrying an ancient longsword on his back. His aura was the most formidable, indicating he had reached the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm. Slightly behind him was a voluptuous woman in red with alluring eyes. A few wisps of pink mist swirled around his fingertips, indicating his cultivation was also at the early stage of the Golden Core realm. The other three—two wiry men and a pale-faced scholar—were all at the early stage of the Golden Core realm.

"Huh?" The woman in red spoke first, her voice sweet and cloying. Her gaze swept over the buildings below, then lingered on Qi Lan, Feng Changyuan, and the others, especially on Qi Lan's inhuman beast ears and vertical pupils. A playful smile curved her lips. "Where did these rogue cultivators come from? And a little demon whose form is incomplete? This mountain... yesterday it was just a desolate forest, how come overnight these strange houses have appeared? What kind of illusion have you used? Or... have you obtained some opportunity from an ancient ruin and manifested here?"

Her words were casual, but the greed and scrutiny in her eyes were undisguised.

The Taoist priest with the yellowish-brown dough snorted coldly, his voice like the clash of metal: "What do you care about illusions or opportunities! The spiritual energy here is fluctuating abnormally. Its sudden appearance must indicate something extraordinary. Your auras are mixed and weak, at most only at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. Do you even deserve to occupy such a treasure land? Quickly reveal your origins, hand over the secrets of this place and the treasures you've obtained, and perhaps I can spare your lives and take you as my servants!"

At that moment, Daoist Tianbao and the others saw this and hurried over.

The mid-stage Golden Core Daoist didn't even glance at Tianbao and the others. His oppressive aura intensified, deliberately targeting the people below. Daoist Tianbao's face paled, and he let out a muffled groan as his spiritual energy circulation became sluggish. Feng Changyuan and Feng Lie, whose cultivation levels were even lower, struggled to breathe, sweat beading on their foreheads.

Qi Lan's amber-colored vertical pupils narrowed into thin lines. His demonic aura instinctively surged to resist, but under the combined pressure of this Golden Core cultivator, he was forced to retreat step by step, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.

The difference is too big!

Those who came from the modern era now truly felt the cruel reality of the "survival of the fittest" law in the cultivation world three thousand years ago. There was no reasoning, no order; strength was the only voice.

"Senior..." Daoist Tianbao forced himself to take half a step forward, attempting to negotiate, "We are newcomers and have no ill intentions. This place..."

"Enough with the noise!" The pale-faced, scholarly-looking Golden Core cultivator impatiently flicked his sleeve, unleashing a soft, sinister palm strike aimed directly at Daoist Tianbao's face. "A Foundation Establishment ant like you dares to speak to us?"

Before the palm strike even arrived, the chilling and vicious energy had already made Master Tianbao's beard and hair stand on end, as if he had fallen into an ice cave, with no way to avoid it!

Feng Wenzheng, Jiang Yan, and others were filled with rage, but it was too late to come to their rescue.

At this critical moment—

There were no signs whatsoever.

There was no earth-shattering roar, no dazzling brilliance.

It was as if someone had gently plucked an invisible string in the universe.

The gentle palm strike that descended from mid-air melted away silently, like ice and snow under the scorching sun, even a foot away from Daoist Tianbao's face, without even causing a ripple.

Immediately afterwards—

"Um?"

The arrogance and indifference on the faces of the five Golden Core cultivators froze instantly, turning into unbelievable astonishment.

They felt as if the surging spiritual energy flowing around them had been suddenly gripped by an invisible giant hand! It wasn't a blockage, it wasn't suppression, but rather... a complete loss of connection!

It was as if their dantian and meridians, which they had cultivated for hundreds of years and were now as ingrained as their own limbs, had instantly become "insulators" cut off from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. The golden core continued to rotate in the purple mansion, but it could no longer draw any spiritual energy from the outside world to replenish itself, and even the levitation spells they cast instantly became ineffective!

"What's going on?!"

"My spiritual power!!"

"A forbidden technique? Who is this master?!"

Before the angry and shocked question could be fully uttered, the five figures, having lost the support of spiritual energy, plummeted straight down to the ground from dozens of feet in the air, like kites with broken strings or flies swatted down by an invisible hand!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Five muffled thuds followed, sending dust flying.

The Taoist priest with the sallow-brown skin fell the hardest, stumbling face-first to the ground, his purple robe stained with mud and his hair disheveled. The woman in red screamed, managing to twist her body, but still landed hard on her bottom on the cold, hard stone pavement, her face contorted in pain. The other three also fell, looking dazed and covered in dust.

The overwhelming pressure from the Golden Core cultivator vanished without a trace.

Qi Lan, Daoist Tianbao, Feng Changyuan, and the others, who had just been like lambs to the slaughter, were all stunned, staring blankly at the unbelievable scene before them.

Five Golden Core cultivators, who were all menacing and in control of life and death a second ago, lost all their spiritual power and fell from the sky, crashing without any dignity.

What... what's going on here?

Only Qi Lan seemed to sense something; her beast ears twitched slightly, her amber pupils suddenly contracted, and she abruptly looked up towards the direction of the main peak of Yunyin Mountain.

"It's Chen Anran!"