Zong Yang’s eyes were dull, his hair in disarray, his mouth red and bloodied, his white uniform bloodstained. A dull yellow aura shone by his feet, but his body was tilted in such a fashion that it looked as though he would fall off his sword at any moment.

He was surrounded by seven cultivators, two of whom were clutching their own necks. Fresh blood continued to drip out from the cracks between their fingers.

When Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo saw this sight, they both exclaimed simultaneously, “Corpse poison!”

Of the two students the shade had passed through, one was Zong Yang.

“Who cares where he came from? We’ll kill him first!” one victim, a burly hulk draped in beast pelts, shouted.

“This cultivator… seems to be poisoned. Might it spread?” The other victim was a handsome young master dressed in silk.

“If he really is poisoned, then that’s all the more reason to kill him!” The other cultivators grew even more concerned that they would be the next victim. They unsheathed their weapons and made as if to swarm Zong Yang together.

“Hold it!” A white-robed woman was swiftly approaching the scene, green sword aura by her feet. Guan Ruliu stopped right in front of Zong Yang. “Zong Yang, what’s wrong with you?”

Zong Yang looked toward Guan Ruliu, his eyes glancing blankly at her as he bared his bloody teeth.

“Good, good, we’ve finally found a companion of his!” the hulk shouted. “Your companion bit me, and I’m going to take his life in recompense! Now, make way or suffer the same fate!”

Guan Ruliu whirled and stood between Zong Yang and the injured man. “If you want to kill him, you’ll have to get past me first.” She unsheathed her own spiritual sword, the color of jade.

“Miss, be careful!” a fair maiden shouted. Guan Ruliu dodged the attack from her back: Zong Yang had pounced on her, and he would likely have bitten her if not for her quick reflexes.

Zong Yang tried attacking her again, but Guan Ruliu’s cultivation was more advanced than his. She was a practitioner of the wood arts. With an outstretched finger, a vine sprouted from nowhere and bound Zong Yang up. Exerting her will with the vine as her medium, she dragged his bound body onto her own sword.

Guan Ruliu’s gestures appeared so graceful and practised that most of the gathered cultivators gaped at her.

“Thank you for your reminder, Miss.”

“Of course.” The maiden who spoke was likewise dressed in silk, and she was standing by the other youth who had been bitten.

“Miss, I won’t ask for his death, but can the poison coursing through his body spread through these bites? If so, do you have an antidote? I’d prefer not to die so young,” the youth clad in silk began, his voice measured and steady. 

“I advise that you all not be so hasty,” a cool voice announced to the gathered cultivators. Li Mo had arrived, along with Yun Ruoyan and Lin Qingchen. His gaze swept over the two victims of Zong Yang’s attack. “Your assailant isn’t a demon, but rather a regular cultivator poisoned with corpse poison. Naturally, those he attacks will also suffer the same fate: to turn into mindless, blood-craving puppets.”

The two injured cultivators’ faces turned to horror. 

“If I die, I’ll drag all of you down with me!” the hulk hollered.

On the other hand, the silk-clad youth asked, “Sir, might you have an antidote to this poison? If so, I won’t pursue this matter further.”

This was the concession that Li Mo was waiting for. “As long as you’ll uphold that promise.”

“A gentleman stays true to his word,” the youth replied.

Li Mo tossed the youth a dark-green bottle. Clearly cautious, the youth uncorked it and carefully inspected the lone green pill within before ingesting it.

“You’ll need to meditate immediately upon consuming the pill,” Li Mo reminded him.

The youth glanced at the sea below them. He cupped his fists at Li Mo, then turned to leave on a sword shining with multicolored light. The maiden followed at his back.

“A—And my antidote?” the hulk asked, his voice no longer as belligerent as before. He could feel his wound turning numb, and even speaking was starting to grow difficult. “I… I won’t pursue this matter further either.”

“Catch.” Li Mo tossed another bottle at the hulk, who turned to leave as soon as he caught it. The other gathered cultivators also began to leave.

Just then, Yun Ruoyan thought of something. “Everyone, please wait! Be careful of a young female around my age. She looks petite and frail, and her name’s Yi Qianying. She’s been possessed by a malicious shade who can emit corpse poison, the source of this incident. If you encounter her, proceed with utmost care.”

The cultivators nodded and turned to leave.

“Master Mo, please hand me a bottle of the antidote!” Guan Ruliu hurriedly rushed to Li Mo’s side.

“It’s too late.” Li Mo’s tone was one of helplessness. “He’s been poisoned for too long, and the conventional antidote won’t be useful anymore.” Judging from Zong Yang’s behavior, the corpse poison had clearly permeated his body, and it would instinctively reject the antidote by this point.

“In that case, what can we do?” Guan Ruliu asked. Zong Yang was straining to break out of her vines, his face a rictus of malice.

“Let’s head to land first,” Yun Ruoyan suggested.

The portal to the otherworld had spat them all out above a glittering ocean, and they would have to find a patch of land if they wanted to descend. For some reason, all the cultivators were flying in the same direction. As a young girl flew by, they flagged her down and asked her why. 

“Because we can’t fly out from any of the other directions,” the girl replied.

“Can’t fly out?” Yun Ruoyan’s group looked all around them: the sea seemed to expand in every direction, with no hint of land on the horizon. Was there some sort of restriction that wasn’t visible?

The young girl didn’t seem to want to explain. “Just follow everyone else.” She accelerated and left Yun Ruoyan’s group behind.

Li Mo, Yun Ruoyan, Guan Ruliu, and Lin Qingchen glanced at each other before starting to follow the crowd.

“Li Mo, look at the fatso in front!” Not long after they joined the other cultivators, Yun Ruoyan noticed a fatty on a pair of chopsticks. Given his size and his unique flying implement, she judged that he was none other than the vulgar fellow they had spoken with earlier.

Li Mo whistled, causing Mo’er to fly out from somewhere within his robes and land on Li Mo’s shoulder. Then, Li Mo caught up to the fatso.

“Hey, fatty!” Yun Ruoyan called out.

The fatso turned to Yun Ruoyan. His face was broad and round, his ears large, his eyes as small as raisins, his mouth comically wide, and his protruding nose swollen and red.

Despite the burdens plaguing her, Yun Ruoyan couldn’t help laughing.

“What do you want?!” When the fatty saw Mo’er, he immediately covered up his nose with a palm the size of a palm leaf, his raisin-like eyes filled with wariness.

“Nothing.” Yun Ruoyan stifled her laughter. “We just have a question for you.”

“What?”

“Why does everyone fly in this direction? Where does it lead?”

The fatty glanced at Mo’er again before answering, “There are seals blocking flight in the other directions. I tried flying east and south, but an invisible barrier blocked me. One of my teammates tried heading north, but it failed as well. The only way out is west.”

“Ah, is that so?” It seemed as though the cultivators from the lower realms were just birds in a cage, fish in a basket, turtles in a jar: trapped by a formless hand, forced to follow the will of those above them.

“Look, there’s land ahead!” someone called out loudly from the front.

When Yun Ruoyan infused spiritual energy into her eyes, she indeed saw a yellowing patch of land appear near the horizon.

“Thank goodness! If we had to fly for another two hours, I’d probably fall into the sea,” someone murmured. 

Seven landing parties were waiting on that patch of land, corresponding to the seven great families of the Mingyuan continent: the Pi, Lie, Wu, Feng, Zheng, Hua, and Chen families. The head of one delegation was a youth dressed in black. He seemed to be no more than thirteen or fourteen, but he had already entered his growth spurt. His body was lean, his red hair short-cropped.

The youth was none other than the second young master of the Pi clan, Pi Yang.

“Second Young Master, we’ve already arranged things with the Lie, Hua, and Wu families so they won’t contest us for these two cultivators,” a middle-aged man, seemingly a housekeeper, explained to him. He was dressed richly, but his attitude was nothing short of obsequious. He held two portraits in his hands, those of Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo.

“And the other three families?” Pi Yang asked.

The housekeeper hesitated before replying, “The Chen, Feng, and Zheng families want to follow the old rules, to have the cultivators decide for themselves.

Pi Yang snorted. “We have three of their people. They’d be idiots not to choose us!” He glanced at the five prisoners standing behind them, kept under close supervision by the Pi household’s muscled henchmen. The five prisoners were all hurt to some extent, their wrists and ankles manacled. Zhuo Yifeng and Lin Qingxue stood among them...

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