Chapter 77: A Life of Ups and Downs

  "Liuxianzi, I didn't expect to meet you again!" Zhao Di walked into the store and said to the young woman after the young man who came to buy Dan medicine left.

  This young woman was none other than Liu Yingying, the alchemist he had met in the Liuyun Mountains over a decade ago.

  The young woman let out a soft sigh and said faintly, "Yes, I never thought that there would be a day when I would reunite with Fellow Zhao. I should congratulate you, as you have now reached the tenth level of Qi Refining!" Her tone was tinged with a hint of melancholy.

  Zhao Di felt a bit awkward, and with a wry smile, he said: "Hasn't the fairy's cultivation increased greatly?! It's been almost ten years since we parted ways at Liuyunfang Market that day. I don't know how you ended up here. Would you mind telling me about what happened during this time?"

  The young woman said in a low voice, "This is not a place for conversation. How about this, I'm also closing the shop now, if Zhao Daoyou doesn't have other things to do, why don't you follow me back to Wang Qing Mountain? There's a small spiritual vein there, where you can temporarily stay."

  "En, also good!" Zhao nodded in agreement.

  As soon as they left Honglinfang City, Zhao Di asked: "Liu Xianzi, how far is it from here to Wangqingshan?"

  Liu Yingying replied, "It's about over 300 miles southwest from here. If we quicken our pace a bit, we can still make it before nightfall. Lately, things seem to be getting a bit uneasy; as Qi-refining stage cultivators, it's better for us not to travel at night."

  "Ah, Fairy said it's true. I have a flying artifact here that can be put to good use." Zhao said, taking out a small boat-like artifact that transformed into a wooden ship over a zhang long with the wind. This flying artifact was obtained from the Dragon Lowering Valley, and it is unknown who the original owner was, which unfortunate cultivator.

  "A flying artifact!" The young woman's eyes widened in surprise as she gazed at the wooden boat, still looking at Zhao with an incredulous expression. With a hint of a smile, she said: "Zhao Daoist, you must have earned quite a few spirit stones over the years to be able to possess such a valuable item! By the way, I almost forgot to ask, what brings you to Tianwu Country?"

  "Hey! It's a long story, but basically I accidentally offended a power that I couldn't mess with, so I had to leave Jin Yan country and come here to take refuge. As for this boat, it has indeed made some breakthroughs in the symbol-making process over the years, which is why I could afford to buy flying artifacts." Zhao Di simply glossed over his reasons for coming to Tian Wu country.

  After finishing speaking, Zhao Di boarded a wooden boat and said to the young woman: "Liu Xianzi, let's walk and talk along the way."

  The young woman smiled slightly, boarded the wooden boat, stood at the other end, and suddenly sank her face, saying gloomily: "I didn't expect that besides my husband, I would also share a flying device with someone else!"

  "I wonder if the noble gentleman's surname is Zhao and his given name is Di, and whether he is also in that Qingyun Mountain?" Zhao Di asked nonchalantly. He had already discerned this from the other person's attire and hairstyle, and at this moment, he had infused a small amount of spiritual energy into the wooden boat, causing it to fly southwest through the air at a speed that was not particularly astonishing.

  "My husband has been gone for over two years, I just didn't dare to let unrelated people know!" The young woman replied in a low voice, her nose slightly twitching, and tears already welling up in her red-rimmed eyes.

  Zhao didn't ask anything for a while, he knew the other party would continue speaking.

  Before long, Liu Yingying briefly recounted what had happened in the nearly ten years since she and Zhao Di parted ways.

  It turned out that after being forced to marry by Lü Qiao, a foundation-building cultivator of the Departed Fire Sect in Liúyún City, Liu Yingying had no choice but to move her family away from the Liúyún Mountains. However, somehow Lü found out about this and, enraged with shame, chased after them all the way from the Liúyún Mountains. With no other option, Liu Yingying parted ways with her family and they scattered in different directions to escape.

  But it was unknown what kind of means this Lv surname cultivator used, and he actually caught up with her directly, blocking her path, and even wanted to take her back to the cave as a concubine. Liu Yuying would rather die than submit, and the other side showed no mercy at all, suddenly taking action to subdue her and wanting to take her away by force. Just when she was in a life-or-death situation, it happened that a cultivator from Tianwu Country who was traveling around the world passed by this place and stopped Lv Qiao's evil deeds. The two had a fierce battle, and the guy with the surname Lv didn't gain any advantage, but instead suffered some minor injuries, and could only leave in embarrassment.

  After that, Liu Yuying, who had lost contact with her family and had nowhere to go, followed this righteous and courageous foundation period cultivator to Tianwu Country, and married him two or three years later, becoming a dual cultivation partner.

  Li Jin, the husband of Liu Yingying, was a mid-term foundation-building cultivator from the Bihai Gate of Tianwu Country. Although he wasn't someone who could summon the wind and rain or wield great power within the gate, he was still considered a capable individual, with an annual salary of three to five hundred spirit stones. In the years following their marriage, the couple's life together had been peaceful and loving. With Li Jin's help, Liu Yingying's cultivation also rapidly advanced from the fifth or sixth layer of the Qi Refining stage to the ninth layer.

  This was a blessing in disguise for Liu Yingying, and it led to her having a good marriage. Unfortunately, two years ago, Li Jin was executing what seemed like an ordinary task for the sect when he encountered a rare high-level demon beast attack. Among the four foundation-building cultivators and over ten Qi-refining disciples from Bihai Gate who went with him, only two foundation-building cultivators managed to escape, while everyone else, including Li Jin, fell prey to the demon beast.

  Li Jin left, leaving Liu Yingying alone. Her cultivation was average, and she only had a slight edge in alchemy. So she took the small consolation money given by the Bi Hai Gate and opened a medicine shop in Hong Lin Fang City to make a living while continuing her practice.

  Because of her beauty, she feared attracting trouble, so she simply declared to the outside world that she was a companion of a foundation period cultivator, not mentioning at all that her husband had passed away, making those who would flirt with her have some scruples and not dare to have ideas about her. Only how long she could keep this up, it's hard to say.

  Although the young woman only briefly mentioned these past events, her words still revealed the twists and turns of her life. Zhao Di listened intently while secretly lamenting the hardships she had faced. Before escaping from Liú Yún Shān Mài, this woman had also subtly expressed her feelings to him, but he was too focused on his Taoist cultivation to consider romantic matters, so he pretended not to understand and brushed it off. If he had been honest about his own feelings at the time, would they have become a pair of dual-cultivation partners?

  But this "if" question with no answer, Zhao Di only thought about it for a moment before decisively throwing it to the back of his mind.

  He was never good at comforting people, so he just accompanied her with a few sighs and didn't say anything else.

  While chatting on the way, they originally felt that time passed quickly. Adding to their heavy hearts, before they knew it, the wooden boat had already brought them to a green mountain.

  "We've arrived at the Green Mountain, Zhao Daoyou. Let's change to walking from here on out. There are still dozens of cultivators living in this area, so let's avoid being too showy." Liu Yingying wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and said with a smile.

  Zhao nodded in agreement and manipulated the wooden boat to land steadily on a hill. Then he put away his magic tool, and the two of them walked slowly towards the depths of the green mountain.

  After walking for about half a time, they came to a dense forest. Zhao Di's powerful divine sense roughly scanned the area within hundreds of meters and suddenly detected a hint of abnormality. He remained calm on the surface but secretly heightened his vigilance!

  After walking for a while, Liu Yinyin also felt something was wrong and stopped in her tracks. She shouted into the woods: "Who's lurking around here? Come out!"

  From behind a giant tree dozens of feet away from the two, a black figure flashed out, with spiritual light flashing on his body. After exposing his figure, he rushed towards the two at an extremely fast speed.

  "Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator!" Liu Yingying exclaimed, hastily retreating a few steps and pulling out an iron plate-like defensive artifact to guard herself cautiously.

  (Third update, there's still one more before 10 pm tonight. Please collect, new author and book have no popularity, few collections, today's achievement is all thanks to everyone's help in promoting, thank you very much!)