Both Bai Qi and Chen Xi stared at Ye Wuji in disbelief.
"Take it," Ye Wuji said, still smiling. "Consider it as a token of goodwill and hand over my arrays."
Bai Qi stammered, his voice barely holding together. "But, b-brother, we can't accept this. It's… far too much."
Chen Xi vigorously nodded. "Brother Bai Qi is right. This is simply too generous."
Ye Wuji shook his head. "Just take it. But in return, we'll stay in contact. I want you both to continue searching for any signs of our sect's surviving elders and to monitor the situation between the four righteous sects."
"If you manage to find any useful information, contact me. I'll pay twenty medium spirit crystals and thirty blood essence crystals for every useful information."
The two exchanged hesitant glances before Bai Qi finally asked, "But… how should we contact you, brother?"
Ye Wuji raised a brow. "Do either of you have a Mother Plant?"
"Yes, brother," Bai Qi answered quickly. "I do."
"Good. Give it to me. I'll pluck one petal for each of you. You know how it works, right?" Ye Wuji asked, already reaching out.
"Yes, brother," both nodded.
The two handed over their Blood Essence Harvesting Arrays, and Bai Qi also added the Mother Plant from his storage bag.
Ye Wuji accepted them, stowing them inside his storage bag before carefully plucking two of the three petals from the Mother Plant and handing one to each of them.
The Mother Plant was a symbiotic plant-based artifact naturally formed in the wild. It produced three petals—each a long-range signaling device that could function over unlimited distances.
When one of the plucked petals was destroyed, the Mother Plant would wilt slightly in a distinct pattern, indicating which one had been used, but with just a small infusion of Qi, the plant would regenerate the used petal once again, always maintaining the existing trio petals, but no more.
And if the cultivator wished to destroy the already plucked petal, they simply had to destroy part of the stem from which the petal grew, and he would recognize the specific part of the stem by its color, as each petal has a unique color: green, yellow, and red.
"When either of you crush that petal," Ye Wuji explained, "we'll meet the following day at sunset in the only restaurant located at the center of Rootspire Market. Order a bowl of mind-soothing tea, a dish of green curry, and place a single small spirit crystal on the table. That will be the signal."
This time, Bai Qi and Chen Xi nodded without hesitation.
The restaurant was a perfect meeting spot—public enough to avoid suspicion, crowded enough to conceal intentions. And if either of them tried to betray him, Ye Wuji would simply need to arrive early and check the place thoroughly, avoiding any ambush with a relatively high chance.
"Alright. That's everything," Ye Wuji said. "We should leave now. If Feng Jun informed others from the righteous sect of the meeting location, and they won't receive any news from him soon, they could send reinforcements."
He called back Si Wei and Xue Sha, as they had already finished their meal long ago, and threw them back into the Corpse Tower with a wave of his hand.
The three of them then turned and made their way toward the exit of the cave.
But just as they stepped into the open air, a figure emerged from the shadows.
It was none other than junior brother Xie Li, the same man who had halted Ye Wuji at the entrance before.
Xie Li looked tense, clearly on edge. "What happened inside? I heard sounds of fighting…"
Ye Wuji answered without hesitation and simply stated. "Feng Jun betrayed us. The three cultivators he brought weren't demonic cultivators—they were from a righteous sect. Sent to either capture or kill us."
Xie Li's eyes widened in disbelief. "What about the others?"
"They're all dead," Bai Qi replied. "Only the three of us survived. And honestly, if brother Ye Wuji hadn't protected us… We'd be corpses too."
Xie Li turned toward Chen Xi for confirmation.
Chen Xi simply nodded.
And while they spoke, Ye Wuji silently observed Xie Li's every reaction—his widening eyes, the way his breath caught in his throat, the faint tremble in his fingers. It all seemed genuine to him.
If he had been in it with Feng Jun, he was hiding it remarkably well.
Ye Wuji reached into his storage bag and pulled out the Mother Plant.
Without saying a word, he plucked the final petal and handed it to Xie Li.
Xie Li blinked in surprise. "Why are you giving me… a Mother Plant petal?"
Ye Wuji's expression remained unreadable. "Ask Bai Qi or Chen Xi. I don't have the time to explain. I've stayed long enough, and you three should leave too."
With that, he pulled out his flying shuttle artifact, stepped onto it, and took off into the sky, heading back toward Rootspire City.
But after flying for about ten miles and confirming no one was tailing him, he altered his path, turning west. Although he could have turned east and returned to the cave hidden behind the waterfall where he had previously stayed, he had a habit of changing hiding places frequently, so he decided to go somewhere else this time.
Better to be safe than sorry, after all.
|>>======|✦|======<<|
Meanwhile, back before the cave where the meeting had taken place, Bai Qi and Chen Xi were finishing up their explanation to Xie Li.
They had told him everything important—what should he do now, how to contact Ye Wuji, and the rewards for bringing any useful information to Ye Wuji.
When they finished, Xie Li hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Senior brothers… can I ask you something?"
Both Bai Qi and Chen Xi, now more relaxed with Ye Wuji gone, nodded.
"How did Senior Brother Ye Wuji defeat Feng Jun and those three cultivators? Feng Jun was a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator… and those three certainly weren't weak either."
Bai Qi gave a tired smile. "If you want to know that, you'll have to ask him yourself, junior brother."
Chen Xi added, "And instead of standing here chatting, we should leave too. Who knows if the righteous sect Feng Jun was working with will send some reinforcements."
Bai Qi nodded. Xie Li hesitated, but in the end agreed too.
All three took out their flying artifacts and went their separate ways, disappearing into the surrounding forest, each heading in a different direction.