But before the green-robed cultivator could slap Zhu Nianfei’s face, everyone heard a resounding ‘slap’. The green-robed woman then went flying with a trail of blood spewing out of her mouth, crashing into a booth opposite to them. In fact, she smashed into it with so much force that it destroyed the restrictions covering it.
A man and a woman sitting within the booth immediately stood up in anger. But when they saw the green-robed woman and the middle-aged man with brown hair, they didn’t dare to speak up and quickly rushed out.
The green-robed woman slowly managed to crawl out of the debris and stand up after spitting out several teeth and a mouthful of blood. She looked around in horror, and everyone could see a purple hand-print on her face.
“What’s going on?” The brown-haired man also looked around in surprise and asked.
The green-robed woman shook her head in confusion, “I don’t know. Someone suddenly slapped me, but I don’t know who did it.”
In their view, no one here had made any movements.
“You don’t need to look around. I slapped you just now. How much spiritual stones does Zhu Nianfei owe you?” Ning Cheng casually took a step forward and asked.
At this time, the green-robed woman and the brown-haired middle-aged man finally recalled that a Ning Cheng was sitting with their target. When they heard that it was Ning Cheng who slapped her, they both immediately started to panic. Moreover, they couldn’t see Ning Cheng’s cultivation at all.
Without any visible movement, he had slapped a late-stage True Condensation Cultivator across the room with just true essence. This act went beyond the realm of essence spirit[1].
Against essence spirit cultivators[2], even if they brought in many experts, it still wouldn’t be enough.
“Replying to senior, it’s five…. No 30,000 middle-rank spiritual stones….” The middle-aged brown-haired man was the first to reach and quickly replied.
50,000 middle-grade spiritual stones, it included the interest. But with such an expert like Ning Cheng here, who was also Zhu Nianfei’s brother-in-law, how could they even dare to add it for Zhu Nianfei?
Ning Cheng wanted to take out 50,000 middle-rank spiritual stones. But just as he was about to move, his hand suddenly stopped in mid-air. He remembered that he didn’t have even a single middle-rank spiritual stone. In fact, the worst ‘currency’ on him was high-ranked spiritual stones, followed by top-ranked spiritual stones, starry sky crystals, Perpetual Moon Pills, etc.
Realising Ning Cheng’s power, that forced Xia Xuan to completely shut up and not even dare talk about the princ.i.p.al’s interest, Zhu Nianfei felt pleasantly surprised.
“Brother-in-law, you don’t need to help me, I have a way to return it to them.” Zhu Nianfei, who felt surprised, also noticed the pause in Ning Cheng’s hand. She immediately guessed that Ning Cheng might not have enough spiritual stones.
“No need.” Ning Cheng finished waving his hand, and 3,000 high-ranked spiritual stones appeared out of thin air, suspended right in front of the green-robed woman.
“Take your spiritual stones and get lost. Leave as far away as you can.” Ning Cheng finished with ridicule.
“Yes, yes….” Ning Cheng had returned the spiritual stones. But even if Ning Cheng did not return the spiritual stones, the two people wouldn’t have said even half a word in displeasure.
“Senior…. They had forced me. My rest stop would never charge for just a little extra time….” The stone a.s.sistant stood in shock as he saw the green-robed female cultivator and the brown-haired man leave in a panic. Fortunately, he had a good head over his shoulders and quickly tried to explain things to Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng didn’t care about this store a.s.sistant. He just took out a storage bag and handed it to Zhu Nianfei. He also left a few words, “There is a jade box inside. Give the medicinal pill inside to your mother. She should recover soon with it, so I’ll be leaving.”
Ning Cheng had already taken a look. As long as Ji Luofei’s mother recovered from her injuries, they wouldn’t need to worry too much. In any case, two Essence Building cultivators had enough strength to deter most of the people in this place.
By the time Zhu Nianfei took the storage bag, Ning Cheng had already left.
Seeing Ning Cheng disappear, the store a.s.sistant also quickly left without any word. Even if he felt emboldened, he would never dare to pick a fight with Zhu Nianfei in his life.
Zhu Nianfei stood in a daze for a long time before finally reacting. Recalling Ning Cheng’s words that the storage bag contained a medicinal pill that could heal her mother, her spiritual consciousness immediately swept in.
The first thing she saw was not a jade box with the medicinal pill but a ring. A storage bag for a ring? Zhu Nianfei quickly understood Ning Cheng’s intent. She lived mostly by herself in such a place. As such, the experiences had already polished her mind and reactions on a fundamental level.
She immediately left to find a secluded place. Then, grabbing the ring in her hand, she let her spiritual consciousness sweep inside.
Looking at the tens of millions of high-ranked spiritual stones, heaps of bottles containing medicinal pills, along with the numerous piles of Spiritual and True Artefacts almost made her scream.
Just as Ning Cheng guessed, although Zhu Nianfei felt immense shock, she managed to quickly contain her excitement. She put away everything and walked out without haste looking completely normal.
However, no matter how calm she looked on the surface, she couldn’t calm her violently beating heart. What kind of treasures did Ning Cheng obtain that he took out so many things for her? Even a medium-sized sect wouldn’t be able to come up with this much treasure, right?
Ning Cheng didn’t seem to have a very affectionate att.i.tude towards her, yet he still gave her so many things. From this, she understood that her brother-in-law had countless times more wealth than what she had imagined.
……
What Ning Cheng gave to Zhu Nianfei might have been a heavenly fortune for Zhu Nianfei. But for Ning Cheng, it was just giving away things that were useless to him and occupied unnecessary s.p.a.ce.
As for taking Zhu Nianfei’s family away, Ning Cheng never even thought of it. He only helped Xiong Qihua and Zhu Nianfei because of Luofei. Moreover, he would never bring people like Zhu Hongwen to meet Luofei.
At this point, Ning Cheng had already reached the deepest part of Lost Mountains. Although the edge of this Lost Mountains no longer felt dangerous, when Ning Cheng arrived here, he still felt a strong suction force.
If Ning Cheng was still in the Crucible Transformation Realm or even the Domain Realm, he would have found it impossible to resist this suction force. But now, to Ning Cheng, this suction force was like a vacuum cleaner on his palm. It didn’t affect him at all.
At the centre of this Lost Mountains was a huge circular pit with a person sitting at the edge. Ning Cheng had come here because he knew this person. A red-robed woman. When Ruolan had asked her name, she had replied with ‘Shiluo Xin’[3]. But then she said that she didn’t know who she was.
“You?” As soon as Ning Cheng arrived at the side of the put, the red-robed woman immediately recognised him.
Ning Cheng nodded, “Yes, it’s me. Is this your place?”
He had speculated long ago that this red-robed woman was not as simple as she appeared. But now Ning Cheng felt even more shocked on seeing her once again. He was already at the middle-level of Life and Death Realm, yet he still couldn’t see the cultivation of this red-robed woman.
The red-robed woman nodded. “Yeah. I remembered that I came from here. I should also be able to leave from here. But I have a vague feeling in my heart that once I entered, I would never come out. Over the years, I have seen many people falling into it and even use various flight-type weapons to try an escape. But none ever managed to come out. I’ve been hesitating whether I should go in or not.”
Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness swept into the pit, but once again felt shocked with what he observed. His powerful spiritual consciousness disappeared without a trace in an instant it entered the hole. Moreover, he couldn’t detect anything from inside of it. Previously, he used to think that only the suction force originated from this point, and didn’t take the centre of the Lost Mountains seriously. But now he understood that he was wrong.
After the red-robed woman finished speaking, she did not care whether Ning Cheng answered or not. However, she looked at Ning Cheng in doubt and said, “Eh, I’m the only one who can come here. How did you get here?”
“I saw you and stopped by to say h.e.l.lo. You’ve been here for so many years, so did you find the answer to your question from back then?” Ning Cheng asked.
“No, I still wonder who I am.” The red-robed woman tilted her head and looked at Ning Cheng. After she finished speaking, she then immediately added another sentence. “I visited you when you were trying to surmount the tribulation because I felt a strange aura. I felt like I have sensed this aura before somewhere.”
Ning Cheng once again felt surprised. The aura she talked about during his attempt to surmount the tribulations most likely was the Mysterious Yellow Origin or the Good Fortune Aura. Since this red-robed woman had sensed this aura before, it meant that she definitely had an extraordinary background.
“I’m leaving.” Ning Cheng said. Ning Cheng had a feeling that this red-robed woman was extremely dangerous.
“Wait…” The red-robed woman immediately called out to Ning Cheng. “You are the only one who can get here apart from me. Can you answer my question? Should I go down?”
Ning Cheng hesitated for a bit before replying. “I don’t think you can come back from there. I also don’t think it’s a place you want to go. It most likely is a terrible place.”
The red-robed woman scratched her head again and repeated the words to herself, “Then what should I do? What should I do?”
As she kept asking the same question to herself over and over again, the red-robed woman’s expression grew more and more anxious. It seemed as if the question she had always wondered was now answered, but it was not the answer she had expected.
Ning Cheng sighed. “You don’t have to worry. Well, if you trust me, then you can come with me. I can take you out of the Graceful Star Mainland if you want. I guess you came here from another high-level interface.”
If one talked about sympathy, then Ning Cheng did feel some sympathy towards this red-robed woman. But more importantly, he had a vague feeling that this red-robed woman was not a sinister figure. Graceful Star Mainland was only a low-level interface. With this red-robed woman’s cultivation, she could have easily destroyed the whole mainland with just a wave of her hands. Yet, she did not.
It’s not that she wouldn’t do it, but that she also knew the consequences of doing so. At the same time, just because she didn’t do it now didn’t mean that she wouldn’t do it in the future. If one day, she really stopped thinking and destroyed the Graceful Star Mainland, that would be the end of everything in this place.
“Did you mean that you can take me back?” The red-robed woman immediately put down her hand that kept pulling at her hair and quickly grabbed Ning Cheng in surprise.
Ning Cheng had no choice but to reply, “I only meant that I might be able to help you in your hometown. But I’m not completely sure about this, nor can I guarantee it.”
To Ning Cheng’s surprise, the red-robed woman felt very satisfied with Ning Cheng’s words. “Of course, I’ve been living here for so many years and still couldn’t come up with an answer. You can take me with you, I’m sure you’ll find it slowly. Yes, I’ll come with you.”
“Okay, then let me seal this place first.” Ning Cheng said and took out some array flags and started to put them down.
“I’ll help you.” The red-robed woman finished and also took out some array flags to help Ning Cheng. Her array formation attainments matched Ning Cheng at every step.
Ning Cheng took in a deep breath on seeing this. He now fully understood that this red-robed woman not only had much higher cultivation but also had extraordinary attainments in array formations.
After an hour, the two completely sealed the giant pit. Then Ning Cheng turned around and said, “My name is Ning Cheng, and I will call you Shiluo Xin from now on. Let’s leave this place. But first I have to retrieve something before we finally leave this Graceful Star Mainland.”
[1] I’m not entirely sure if it is a typo from the author. In my opinion, it should be the Essence Building Realm (only a difference of one character). But I decided to keep it as mentioned in the raws. Perhaps we might get more information about it later.
[2] Same here, I feel like it should be Essence Building cultivators instead of Essence Spirit cultivators, but I still decided to keep the translation in line with the raws.
[3] It’s the same mysterious lady who Ning Cheng met after returning to Graceful Star Mainland from Earth with Ruolan, the little girl who could not recall her ident.i.ty.