Chapter 361: Nan Nangong Ping

This woman looked so gentle, but the words she spoke were as cold as swords, making Han Li feel a chill in his heart.

"Did Senior change her mind?" Han Li let out a long breath and said something that surprised the woman a bit.

"It seems you are not completely useless! At the very least, you still have some brains." The woman said expressionlessly.

"If Senior really wanted to kill me, I'm afraid I wouldn't have had the chance to open my eyes!" Han Li gave a faint smile and said with a normal expression.

"My name is Nan Nangong Ping. Don't call me Senior, Senior; it makes me sound so old!" The woman turned her head away again without expression, saying noncommittally.

Hearing this, Han Li was stunned, and then he secretly slandered in his heart:

"Since you've already reached Core Formation, by mortal age, aren't you an old hag?"

Han Li's true essence cultivation had all been sucked away by her, so he naturally had a belly full of anger toward this woman, but forced by the fact that his life was in the other party's hands, he could only secretly curse her a few times.

"Although you saved me because you mistook me for my cousin yesterday, you are still my, Nan Nangong Ping's, benefactor! And yesterday, I unintentionally sucked your true essence, which stabilized my injuries and prevented them from worsening. This favor, I, Nan Nangong Ping, will not fail to repay." The woman said leisurely with her back to Han Li.

"Forget it, since you are Nan Nangong Wan's cousin, I'll just consider myself unlucky!" Han Li furrowed his brows and said helplessly.

Afterwards, he moved his hands and feet and stood up.

With two crisp sounds of "slap, slap," a white shadow flashed in front of Han Li, and after a burst of fragrance, he was slapped firmly twice, causing him to spin in a circle on the spot, almost falling to the ground again.

"You..." Han Li covered his burning cheeks in shock and anger, looking toward Nan Nangong Ping.

"Yesterday, without my permission, you dared to touch my body with your dirty hands! And all night yesterday, you actually dared to press... press on me until you fainted! These two slaps are just a slight punishment for you!" Nan Nangong Ping's voice turned cold, but when she mentioned being pressed by Han Li, a flush of red still rose on her face. But then she returned to a face of frost.

Hearing this, Han Li was speechless.

Reasoning about the boundaries between men and women with a Core Formation stage female cultivator was simply asking for trouble! He was now meat on the other party's chopping block, to be cut however she wanted!

And he faintly felt that this woman treating him like this probably wasn't because he had touched her yesterday, but purely because she wanted to teach him a lesson to vent her anger for Nan Nangong Wan.

After guessing this, Han Li suppressed the anger in his heart and, after lightly rubbing his somewhat swollen cheeks, remained silent.

Seeing Han Li being so sensible and not arguing a single word, it actually surprised Nan Nangong Ping!

In fact, just as Han Li had expected, this woman had long since planned that if Han Li argued about yesterday's matter, she would give him some color to see without a word. But now, Han Li was so sensible that she had no excuse to make a move again.

Thus, she could only snort coldly and say unceremoniously:

"Since the slaps have already been given, next, I will talk about how to repay your great kindness. Now I have two paths for you to choose from: one is that I will give you a certain amount of spirit stones on the spot, enough to make you gape in astonishment, to compensate for your loss in cultivation and the favor of saving me."

"The second is that you follow me to catch up with my sect's retreating team. After our six sects are settled again, I will refine some spiritual pills and find a young female disciple of this sect to dual cultivate with you, allowing you to recover your original cultivation as quickly as possible. You have only lost your true essence; re-cultivating will not have any so-called bottlenecks. I guess that after spending ten or twenty years, you should be able to cultivate back to your previous realm. Of course, during this period, if I am happy, I might even teach you a few secret arts of this sect. You must know that our Yanyue Sect is different from your Huang Feng Valley, that mixed-bag sect; we have many secret arts that are never passed on to outsiders, and their miraculousness is beyond what outsiders can imagine. And the technique I used to automatically absorb your cultivation yesterday is one of them."

After Nan Nangong Ping finished speaking these words proudly, she stared at Han Li with an unchanging expression, waiting for his choice.

But Han Li was a bit dazed!

These two conditions sounded too disparate!

One was just giving some spirit stones to send him away, while the other was not only helping him recover his cultivation but also preparing a dual cultivation partner and willing to teach him some secret arts. Han Li felt more and more that this woman was deliberately making him choose the second path!

This was truly a bit strange. Could it be that she had set some trap for him?

Han Li thought this way and glanced at Nan Nangong Ping hesitantly.

But he saw a trace of a complex expression in the other party's eyes, seemingly a bit expectant and a bit anxious.

Han Li was stunned in his heart and felt even more confused!

He rubbed his nose hard, folded his arms, supported his chin with his right hand, and fell into deep thought.

A full stick of incense time passed, and Han Li still hadn't spoken. But Nan Nangong Ping couldn't help but raise her eyebrows, open her cherry lips, and urge:

"Well, have you decided?"

At this moment, she had a look of impatience!

Hearing this urging, Han Li raised his head, looked at the other party thoughtfully, and said slowly:

"I've decided. I'll choose the first condition! Senior just needs to give me some spirit stones. I will find a way to recover my cultivation myself, so there's no need for Senior to worry!"

Han Li's expression was faint.

Nan Nangong Ping was stunned upon hearing Han Li's decision, revealing a look of strangeness.

She stared at Han Li's face for a while, then suddenly raised her hand and threw a red storage pouch over.

"The spirit stones are inside, along with some commonly used materials; I'll give them all to you." Nan Nangong Ping's voice was a bit cold.

Han Li didn't care about the other party's tone, unceremoniously grabbed the storage pouch, and swept his spiritual sense into it.

Even though he was prepared, the dozens of mid-tier spirit stones and numerous miscellaneous materials in the pouch still shocked him deeply.

Suddenly, Han Li revealed a bit of joy, raised his head, and asked Nan Nangong Ping eagerly:

"Does Senior have any 'Yuan Jade' on her? Could you give me a few more pieces?"

Han Li's words made the woman flash a look of surprise.

But after fumbling around on her body for a while without a word, she threw over a few pieces of white jade. Han Li accepted them with great joy.

In this way, the materials he needed to repair the teleportation formation were gathered without having to search for them.

"Is there anything else? If not, I'm leaving." Nan Nangong Ping looked at Han Li's actions coldly and said suddenly without expression.

"Oh... nothing else to trouble you with!" Han Li shook his head with a serious expression.

Hearing this, Nan Nangong Ping snorted and immediately turned to walk toward the tree hole entrance.

But when she reached the tree hole entrance, she turned her head back and said calmly:

"Han Li, I don't know if you're truly stupid or just being clever by making such a choice!"

After saying this, a precious sword flew out from her sleeve, and then with a flash of white shadow, she stood on it.

But just then, behind her came Han Li's lazy voice.

"Senior, don't forget to say hello to Nan Nangong Wan for me!"

Hearing this, Nan Nangong Ping's figure paused, but immediately turned into a beam of white light without a word and flew away from the cave entrance. It was unknown whether she had agreed or simply ignored him.

Seeing this scene, Han Li gave a few bitter laughs, rubbed his nose, sat down on the ground again, and stared blankly at the cave entrance, falling into a daze.

He still didn't understand how his entire cultivation could have been sucked away by this woman.

Was this Yanyue Sect's cultivation technique really that overbearing?! It was even more strange than the Ghost Spirit Sect's blood sacrifice.

But Han Li thought. This kind of technique that could absorb others' cultivation must have many restrictions and flaws. Otherwise, the Yanyue Sect's cultivators would have long since been feared by everyone in the cultivation world.

Han Li's guess was actually quite close to the truth.

Nan Nangong Ping being able to absorb his true essence could be said to be a coincidence.

This woman had suffered great damage to her true essence after using the secret art, and if there were no accidents, her cultivation would definitely drop significantly. Although she could maintain the Core Formation stage level, decades of painstaking cultivation would definitely be lost.

And after the secret art's effect disappeared, thinking she would fall into the hands of those two demonic path people, she gritted her teeth and activated the divine ability of her cultivation technique, the "Reincarnation True Technique."

Once this divine ability was activated, as long as someone else used spiritual power to probe her body, they would naturally be forcibly sucked by the spiral true essence formed in her body, and then their true essence cultivation would be sucked dry. Originally, if this woman hadn't woken up early and stopped the technique in time, Han Li's last bit of cultivation would have been completely sucked away.

Of course, the conditions for using this strange divine ability were also extremely harsh.

First, it required the caster to be in a state of great true essence damage to use this technique.

Second, if no one else's true essence was used to replenish the loss in her body after a period of time, the caster would shrink their true essence and explode to death, which could be said to be a semi-"suicidal" technique.

But what made people feel it was a waste was that although this divine ability could absorb others' true essence, it was limited to the part she had originally lost. It couldn't be used to increase the caster's magic power cultivation by even half a point.

(Webnovel site link) ===== CHAPTER 362 =====