"Ouch!"
The crowd of people gasped, staring with incredulity at the scene before them.
Murong Yi Xuan regained his senses and saw the buzzing bees circle for a while more above before flying away. He hurried forward and pulled Feng Qing Ge out from the water, quickly draping his outer robe over her tightly.
"Qing Ge, how are you feeling?" Murong Yi Xuan was rather flustered when he saw her hands and face had swollen up and he could not help but feel pained and guilty at the same time.
Before they came out, he had promised Uncle Xiao that he would protect her but he had allowed her to be pursued and stung by bees. Having nowhere else to hide, she had been forced to leap into the water pond to end up becoming such a sorry sight.
Feng Qing Ge did not reply and only lowered her head as she stood there shivering.
[Someone had targeted her!]
[It was that strange fragrance! Who! ? Who was targeting her?]
Thinking about how she had been so wretchedly been chased by bees to run all over the peach forest and had had to jump into the water to escape them, she became so infuriated that her entire body was shaking.
Murong Yi Xuan thought that she was shivering because she was soaked through so he quickly carried her up and sped towards the direction of the horse carriage.
Seeing that Murong Yi Xuan had carried Feng Qing Ge away, the surrounding travelers who came to admire the peach blossoms started discussing fervently.
None of them had noticed, atop one of the peach trees not too far away, a red figure was lying across a branch smiling happily to herself…..
The next moment, the red figure leapt, passing through the blossoms like a fairy through the peach forest, disappearing all of a sudden.
Returning back into the inner boundary, Feng Jiu removed her veil, her mood joyous as she hummed a little tune. Skipping upon the stones shaped like goose eggs, she came inside and saw the old man still sweeping the grounds. She stopped in her tracks and glanced at him a moment before she continued on her way inside over the stones.
After the red figure went inside, the old man sweeping the ground lifted his head and looked over in her direction. His eyes glinted, but his gaze did not change and he went back to sweeping the floor with his head lowered.
Leng Shuang came back in the afternoon, seemingly worried about leaving Feng Jiu alone within the Peach Blossom Ridge. Hence, she had rushed back almost immediately after relaying the news.
Feng Jiu tossed a swordplay manual to her and asked her to work hard on cultivation while she moved some herbs inside before shutting the doors behind her. When those doors shut, sometimes it was for an entire day where she wouldn't even come out to eat.
Days in the Peach Blossom Ridge passed peacefully and comfortably. Feng Jiu sometimes tinkered around with herbs, and at other times worked on cultivation, her days well spent, busy and fulfilling.
No one knew it, but in less than a month after arriving here at the Peach Blossom Ridge, her cultivation had leapt up to reach the mid levels of the Mystical Warrior stage.
A state that others would take ten years or more to cultivate before they would be able to achieve had taken her less than a month's time, where she had advanced through several levels in one go.
Meanwhile, Feng Jiu was not aware that at that moment, in the courtyard back in the city that Guan Xi Lin and Leng Hua were in, a massacre had broken the tranquility that pervaded that place…..
"Who are you people! Why have you broken into our courtyard! ?"
Dressed only in his plain white underclothes, Guan Xi Lin gripped his sword in his hand as he stared at the black robed men, numbering more than ten, who had suddenly burst in forcibly. The boundary barrier around the yard had been broken by these guys and that had awoken them from their sound sleep.
Leng Hua hurriedly draped his clothes over himself and came out. When he saw so many men holding long swords gripped in their hands outside, he jumped in shock. Afterall, he had never faced such a scene and when he saw that the black robed men had the two of them surrounded, their cold swords pointed at them, his heart was immediately terrified.
A figure dressed in a full black long robe walked out from the back, his hands held behind his back, his malicious gaze fixed upon Guan Xi Lin, laughing chillingly.
"People who have murdered members of my Xu Family, you think you can hide from me?"
While a grey robed old man following behind swept his gaze over Guan Xi Lin and Leng Hua and his face creased up into a frown as he asked: "Who is the person who put up the barrier?"