Chapter 851

Under the sweep of sword qi, none of the arriving bandits—no matter their Wu Gong—could last a single strike.

Fang Dongbai, having narrowly escaped death, stood amid the carnage, utterly unconcerned.

Instead, she gazed out over the river, hoping to catch a clear look at her benefactor's face and bearing.

But the benefactor was like an immortal, feet lightly pressing the river's surface.

The rushing torrent could not shake him in the slightest.

Perhaps sensing Fang Dongbai's scrutiny after dealing with the bandits,

the benefactor merely tapped a foot, and his entire figure vanished into thin air.

Were it not for the corpses lining the riverbank, no one would believe that at the river's center there had once stood a peerless swordsman.

Now that her divine art had reached Great Completion, Fang Dongbai had replayed that scene in her mind more than once.

Yet she found that even with her peak Earthly Immortal Realm strength, she could not do what her benefactor had done back then.

Clearly, her benefactor's strength far surpassed the peak of the Earthly Immortal Realm!

With her younger sister Tian Jiaojiao already accounted for, Fang Dongbai had long known where she was, and with no ties left behind,

the Desire Luo Pan bestowed by the Heavenly Dao Hundred Flowers Ranking—was it not meant for Fang Dongbai to seek out that benefactor of old?

Thus Fang Dongbai directly abandoned the throne of the Sun Moon Divine Cult's Cult Leader, disguised herself, took the alias Fang Dongbai, and roamed the world with the Desire Luo Pan in hand.

This Desire Luo Pan was truly wondrous.

One only needed to pick up this small Luo Pan and focus one's mind.

The needle at its center would spin wildly, and once it finally stopped,

acting in the direction the needle pointed would lead one to find what was in one's heart.

It was precisely after Fang Dongbai had tested it several times and verified the Desire Luo Pan's efficacy

that she took it up, silently recalled her benefactor's bearing, and prayed within her heart.

Sure enough, the Desire Luo Pan's needle spun wildly once more, then came to rest on a spot.

Fang Dongbai naturally unleashed her lightness skill and sped toward that place.

She sprinted with lightness skill for three days and three nights straight, covering well over a thousand li, long since leaving Great Ming territory, when her true qi gradually began to falter.

Only then did Fang Dongbai stop to regulate her breathing, and once again took out the Luo Pan to sense.

After another bout of the needle spinning wildly, it stopped on a direction once more.

Fang Dongbai looked closely and nearly tossed the Desire Luo Pan away in frustration.

It turned out the Desire Luo Pan's needle was, at this moment, once again pointing unerringly—straight back in the direction she had come from.

Did this mean she had run the wrong way? Or had she overshot?

Though the Desire Luo Pan was wondrous, it was ultimately just an object.

It could offer no answer to Fang Dongbai's doubts.

After a bout of vexation, Fang Dongbai finished regulating her breath, her spirit full and her qi abundant,

and could only once again follow the Desire Luo Pan's needle, sprinting with lightness skill.

This time she did grow wiser—while sprinting, she kept the Desire Luo Pan in her palm, constantly sensing her heart's desire.

Sure enough, after sprinting for a day and a night this time, the Desire Luo Pan's needle shifted again, pointing due north.

Fang Dongbai smiled inwardly, glad she had not put the Desire Luo Pan away again.

She tapped lightly with her foot and, following the Desire Luo Pan's guidance, sprinted north.

Her Sunflower Manual was itself a wondrous art that excelled in speed.

After she cultivated it to Great Completion, in terms of movement and speed, when she sprinted she was already like a ghostly shadow.

Ordinary people—even those below Grandmaster level—

could not detect the slightest stir even as she sprinted past.

Thus, clutching the Desire Luo Pan and sprinting all the way, though she passed through many towns and markets, hardly anyone noticed her trace.

In this manner, relying on the Desire Luo Pan's guidance,

she gritted her teeth and persevered through several changes of direction.

On this day, after sprinting yet another long stretch, her true qi truly failing, she could only find a dense forest to rest for a moment.

The Sunflower Manual was not only extremely sinister—requiring one to castrate oneself before it could be cultivated—

but this unorthodox art also overemphasized winning through strangeness, and so did not excel in raw power.

Thus, though Fang Dongbai clearly possessed peak Earthly Immortal Realm strength, her true qi reserves were only a hair's breadth higher than those of late-stage Earthly Immortal Realm.

Precisely because of this, she needed to stop from time to time to regulate her breath and replenish her qi.

This time she had assumed this deep valley was empty, the perfect place to carefully regulate her breath.

But when she was only halfway through, the sound of footsteps came from afar.

"Wan'er, are you sure you've got it right? How could it be here?"

The person had not yet arrived, but a voice as lovely as an oriole's had already floated over.

"How could I possibly get it wrong!"

Another person's voice, no less lovely,

"Although you saw the Jade Slip, you also know that the one they invited was me.

So the message left inside the Jade Slip is known only to me.

I followed the message in the Jade Slip to find this place.

If there's a mistake, it should be them who made it."

"What kind of joke is that? The Qinglong Society invites someone, and then makes a mistake themselves?"

Another voice spoke words that shocked all.

Qinglong Society?!

Hiding in the bushes in the shadows, quietly regulating her breath, Dongfang Bai's heart clenched suddenly at those words!

When she was the Cult Leader of the Sun Moon Divine Sect, she had not suffered lightly at the hands of the Qinglong Society.

How could this stretch of desolate wilderness suddenly be connected to the Qinglong Society?

Who are these two people?

For no apparent reason, Dongfang Bai used her true essence to shield all her aura and vitality, and concealed herself within the bushes, almost merging as one with nature.

Moreover, the sky had already gradually darkened by now; as long as it wasn't a master whose cultivation far surpassed hers, no one could discover her.

"I was just saying it casually!"

The one called Wan'er responded with a coquettish silliness, and then the footsteps of the two had gradually faded into the distance.

Clearly their destination was not somewhere near her.

For no reason, Dongfang Bai felt a sigh of relief in her heart.

The Qinglong Society was unfathomably mysterious, Mo Ce, with a host of experts; unless necessary, Dongfang Bai did not wish to provoke them.

Moreover, she was no longer the Cult Leader of the Sun Moon Divine Sect now, but was thinking of relying on the Desire Luo Pan to find her benefactor from back then and repay the kindness.

She listened with her ear tilted as the two voices grew farther and farther away, until they vanished completely—at the very least, they had already walked several li away.

Under Dongfang Bai's quiet rest and breath-regulation, her true essence had also gradually recovered.

Dongfang Bai swept her senses over the surroundings once more; after confirming there was no one else, she took out the Desire Luo Pan and began to observe it.

The needle shook violently for a moment, then gradually stopped, pointing in one direction.

"Eh? How could it be like this?"

Following the direction of the needle, Dongfang Bai discovered that it was pointing precisely at the direction in which those two sweet-voiced women had just departed—wasn't it?

Was this a coincidence? Or something else?

"Perhaps it's just a coincidence!"

In an instant, Dongfang Bai arrived at just such a guess, then rose and unfurled her lightness skill to give chase.

The experience of being rescued in her childhood was the deepest obsession at the bottom of Dongfang Bai's heart.

To find the benefactor who had saved her back then, like an immortal, Dongfang Bai would not shy away from hardship.

She was extremely fast; though she had clearly set off later, in just a moment she already saw, beneath the moonlight, two slender figures walking forward hand in hand.

This desolate wilderness, and no one else around.

Clearly these two were precisely the two women who had conversed not far from her earlier, the ones who had come because of the Yinqinglong Society.

Dongfang Bai was unwilling to invite unnecessary trouble, so at once she slightly changed direction and skimmed away at an angle with her lightness skill.