A Blind Swordsman's Sword Coffin

Li Guanqi sheathed the Red Lotus Sword back into its case with a backward motion.

He cast a glance at the two daggers scattered on the ground, then reached out and pulled them into his hand. A closer look revealed that the blades were intact and gave off a faint glow. They were clearly not ordinary weapons, but rare spirit daggers.

Just to be safe, he stabbed one of them into Yu Heng’s heart to confirm the man was truly dead. Only then did he relax a little. With that done, he began rifling through Yu Heng’s body and quickly uncovered five or six storage bags.

He moved on to the other two corpses and snatched the whip from the woman’s hand. In all, he came away with nine storage bags.

Li Guanqi looked down at the pouches in his hand and muttered, “Are Golden Core Realm cultivators really this broke? Not a single storage ring?”

When he opened the bags, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Yu Heng’s pouch alone held eight thousand low-grade spirit stones and thirty middle-grade ones.

The pouches also held an assortment of monster parts, pills, beast cores, and a few low-grade spirit herbs. Combined, everything was easily worth another two thousand low-grade spirit stones.

In total, he’d made a haul of roughly fifteen thousand low-grade stones.

Li Guanqi smacked his lips and stored everything in his own storage ring. He muttered, “No wonder Grandpa always said that robbing cultivators was the fastest way to get rich. No risk, no reward.”

He pulled out a bottle of corpse-dissolving powder he’d bought from the sect’s Hundred Treasures Pavilion. After giving the bodies one last search and finding nothing else of value, he sprinkled the white powder over all three corpses. Then he methodically cleaned up every trace of the battle from the surrounding area, only stopping once he’d erased all evidence.

He flew up and landed in front of the unconscious Ye Feng, then shoved a green antidote pill into his mouth. Without a word, he perched atop a tree branch and began inspecting his haul.

There were two bottles of Vitality-Boosting Pills for Golden Core Realm cultivators, which held forty pills in total.

Li Guanqi frowned as he examined them. They were lumpy, uneven, and gave off a faintly pungent smell. Again, he muttered, “They dare call this a pill? At best, it’s a pellet. Probably not even sixty percent effective.”

Disappointed, he tossed the pills into his storage ring and pulled out a jade slip.

It was a plain green slip, still bearing Yu Heng’s imprint. Li Guanqi erased it with his divine consciousness, revealing a cultivation technique to alter and conceal one’s aura.

Unfortunately, the technique had limitations. At best, it could fool someone at the same cultivation level.

Li Guanqi paused, then decided to memorize the technique anyway. Better to have it than not.

After a long while, some color finally returned to Ye Feng’s face, though his eyes remained closed.

Irritated, Li Guanqi slapped the back of Ye Feng’s head. “Quit pretending. If you’re awake, open your eyes.”

Ye Feng opened his eyes, scratched his head awkwardly, and offered a fawning grin. “Boss...”

Li Guanqi’s face turned cold. He stared Ye Feng down and said sternly, “Do you know what you did wrong?”

Ye Feng averted his gaze, lowering his head. “I was wrong...”

“Wrong about what?”

“I shouldn’t have interfered...”

Smack!

Ye Feng clutched his head, dazed. “That’s not it?”

Li Guanqi’s anger flared. He took a deep breath. “No! You completely ignored the one thing I told you—to listen to me, no matter what! I specifically told you not to go!”

Ye Feng’s face was a mix of emotions as he murmured, “I’m sorry, boss. I really was wrong! I swear it won’t happen again. From now on, if you tell me to jump, I’ll ask how high!”

Seeing Ye Feng’s sincere remorse, Li Guanqi cooled down considerably. “This is your one and only free pass. Do it again, and you can head back to the sect alone.”

Ye Feng understood. He really had screwed up. If Li Guanqi had left any earlier, he’d be a corpse by now. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say he owed Li Guanqi his life.

Li Guanqi continued, “You usually have a sharp mind. Why act like an idiot now? This is a vast, remote mountain range. What are the odds of randomly running into trouble?

“That woman ran straight toward us. And that scruffy guy? He had plenty of chances to kill her but didn’t!”

The more he said, the lower Ye Feng’s head sank. Looking back, everything was suspicious, just as Li Guanqi had said.

“There’s no such thing as too many coincidences. If something feels too convenient, you’re probably being set up. That woman and her blood vitality fruit pill probably fooled a lot of people.”

Ye Feng nodded emphatically, clearly taking the lesson to heart. Seeing that, Li Guanqi said no more.

He’d lectured enough for one day. If Ye Feng understood, good. If not, there was no point in continuing their journey together.

Li Guanqi sighed, then tossed the jade slip to Ye Feng, “Found this on one of them. It’s a cultivation method. It might come in handy someday, so give it a try.”

He also pulled out a storage bag containing three thousand spirit stones and held it out to Ye Feng.

Ye Feng shook his head repeatedly and refused, guilt eating at him. He didn’t dare accept.

But Li Guanqi shoved the pouch into his hand anyway. “Take it. Right now, improving your strength is the top priority. It’s just a few spirit stones. You can pay me back when you find something good.”

Besides, spirit stones burned fast. He still had a Lightning Dragon egg tucked away in his sword box realm—a bottomless money pit.

Even now, the egg had only grown slightly larger. No other changes. If he weren’t so determined to one day stand atop a dragon, he might’ve given up already.

He helped Ye Feng bandage his leg. After everything, neither of them felt like sleeping, so they packed up and left.

The commotion from the battle could attract unwanted trouble, so it was better to get moving.

Li Guanqi had also found a map on Wen Mei’s body. It wasn’t very detailed, covering only a ten-thousand-li radius around them.

After getting his bearings, Li Guanqi led Ye Feng toward a nearby city, hoping to find a place to rest and perhaps discover a blessed land or spiritual haven in the area.

Li Guanqi pressed on, unaware that the day’s events would bring about a major change in Ye Feng’s future.