Through the flourishing branches of the giant trees, Qinghan found that the sunlight was gradually fading away.

On his way, Qinghan would stop at intervals, and cultivate a good amount of Battle Qi to maintain his strength. Now, he was nearly there, the 10 kilometers journey was almost over.

“Ohhh! I’m so tired. I’ll find a place to have a rest first.” Qinghan looked at his surroundings, where countless towering trees with luxurious foliage stood tall and upright. The ground was rampant with all kinds of unknown weeds and vines.

- Whoosh -

Suddenly, Qinghan jumped into a nearby tree, and climbed to one of its highest branches.

“Alright, I’ll sleep here tonight.”

The width of the branch provided Qinghan with a perfect resting place, as though there was a wooden bed high up in the air. Out of curiosity, Qinghan slowly lay himself down on the branch. Here, he felt comfortable and safe, so he quickly decided to sleep here.

Taking out some food and water from his bag, Qinghan filled his hungry stomach. Afterwards, he closed his eyes and sat cross-legged on the branch. He began cultivating, to replenish the Battle Qi he had lost during the long excursion this afternoon. Soon, he unconsciously discontinued his cultivation and fell asleep, leaning against the tree’s trunk.

....

Meanwhile, back in the faraway Grey City, Qingyu was suffering from insomnia. Regardless of the chilly wind in the night of the late spring, she stood alone in the courtyard. Staring into the distance in a southern direction, Qingyu frowned with sorrow.

The light of the stars made her face barely visible. Her white dress slightly moved back and forth against her body because of the wind, making some rattling sounds. Looking from afar, she was just like a fairy who had slipped into this mortal world, waiting to return to the heavens.

“Brother..” Qingyu sobbed and trembled.

Suddenly, she raised her head and cleared the tears on her cheeks. “Brother.. Where are you? You know, since you have left me, someone came here to ask me to marry Xue Wuhen.. At first, I was petrified, yet I didn’t agree. Yet he kept on persuading, so I threatened them, I would rather die than marry that guy.. However, several days later, they came again. This time, they thought of a new way to make me say “yes”. You know, these shameless bastards threatened me, if I didn’t agree, they would send someone to kill you.. Purr.. Now, I really don’t know how to handle this situation. At last, I lied to them, I said I would agree to marry Xue Wuhen, but I had to wait until you, my brother, would return home. Otherwise, if they forced me, I would commit suicide.. You know, they always keep an eye on me these days. Oh, my dear brother, please.. Please come back..”

Qingyu stopped in the middle of her sentence, as she couldn’t help crying. What a weeping beauty! She was like a blossoming pear bathed in the rain.

....

Since Xue Wuhen had first met Qingyu on Cattle-fence Street, he had decided to marry her. He had even asked Elder Shi to bring twenty bottles of top-grade Snow Spirit Dan as the bride-price. He knew, that Qingkuang had long desired to have these Snow Spirit Dan, so he had decided to use him to help in the process.

It took Elder Shi more than a month to bring the twenty bottles of Snow Spirit Dan back to the Ye Family. As soon as the twenty bottles of Dan had arrived, Wuhen had immediately visited Qingkuang and negotiated with him about their secret deal – Wuhen would provide Qingkuang ten bottles of Snow Spirit Dan, if the latter would successfully let Qingyu marry Wuhen as a concubine.

As expected, Qingkuang couldn’t stand the allure of getting these precious Dan, so he directly went to his father, Ye Ron for further advice. Eventually, they decided to conceal this event from the family. Although they were sure that the family wouldn’t reject the proposal made by Wuhen, yet, if the family was involved, their ten bottles of Dan would be taken away by the family.

Therefore, they sent their capable subordinate, Qingxie, to make a faked announcement of marriage requirement in the name of the Ye Family. However, they never thought that this girl, Qingyu, was so unyielding, despite her delicate and weak appearance. The first time, Qingxie had returned to Qingkuang and Ye Ron with great disappointment. He told them how staunch this girl was, who even threatened to cut her wrist pulse.

Ye Ron didn’t intend to stir up this event, in case the whole family would find out about what was going on. If Qingyu killed herself, everyone would know their secret. Plus, it would hurt their reputation if they accompliced with the outsiders to bully a girl of their own family,

Several days later, Ye Ron came up with a conspiracy. Again, he sent Qingxie, to tell Qingyu that if she rejected the marriage or committed suicide, her brother would be in danger. This method actually took effect, as Qingyu didn’t mention any wrist-cutting or hanging herself with a piece of scarf. And she even promised them to marry Wuhen as soon as her brother returned home.

....

In one of the houses of the Ye Castle, the room was illuminated with lights.

“Young master, what’s our next step?”

In the middle of the room, there sat a young man in white clothing, who was full of aristocratic hypocrisy. His eyes were extremely sparkling, like two brilliant lights on his head. There also stood two elders on both sides of him, one was in black clothing, while the other was in white clothing. The elder in white clothing was Elder Shi, it was he who had asked the young master – Wuhen.

However, the elder in black clothing, Elder Mo kept silent, he was pondering with a dark expression.

“Ye Ron and Ye Qingkuang are just two incompetent bastards. They failed to finish such an easy task! Young master, let’s do it by ourselves, I mean, we can bind the girl and send her to our Snowing City.” Elder Mo came up with an evil alternative.

“No!” Wuhen waved his hands disapprovingly, “Never act rashly and warn the enemy. Otherwise, our plans will be disrupted. Elder Mo, think twice before you offer me a suggestion. Besides, I suppose that those elders in the Ye Family already know the identity of this girl, her Jade Spirit Body. If this is the case, they will probably not allow me to marry her. Plus, Qingyu is a girl of moral integrity; she will not surrender so easily, and if she killed herself.. All of our efforts would’ve been in vain.”

“Yes, your highness!” Both Elder Mo and Elder Shi furiously nodded their heads. They realized that if Qingyu died, then her body would be a mere corpse. Only the living body would be considered as the Jade Spirit Body.

“Our next steps: first, inform Qingkuang that we will give him another ten bottles of Snow Spirit Dan, and urge him to finish the task as soon as possible. Second, send some capable men to Wild City to arrest Qinghan. If Qingyu still rejects my proposal, we can at least use her brother as a threat. The Jade Spirit Body, I will finally get it.”

“Yes, young master!”

......

It was late at night; Qinghan was sleeping soundly on his big branch. He had no idea about what was happening to his sister.

The first ray of morning sunshine had woken the sleeping Qinghan up. Several minutes later, the whole forest was covered with flaming sunlight.

Qinghan began to cultivate some Battle Qi, which would later be stored in the cells and meridians of his body.

However, the cells in his body could only reserve a small amount of Qi, it mainly depended on the meridians to store the Battle Qi.

For each newborn, there would be some unnecessary stuff congested in their meridians the moment they entered into this world. It required the Battle Qi to dissolve, or wash away this jammed stuff, in order to obtain unobstructed meridians. Once the meridians were cleared up, there would be more space for storing more Battle Qi, which was a prerequisite in any fight, both in defense and in attack.

Now, Qinghan had stored the Battle Qi in his already opened two meridians – his yin- and yang meridians. And he used this stored Battle Qi to erode the stuff congested in his other meridians. Once the Battle Qi in his body was used up, he would once again absorb more Nature Qi, and converted it into Battle Qi. He did this over and over again.

“Oh.. This is so inefficient.”

Two hours had passed, before Qinghan stopped cultivating. The twelve meridians in his body were like the twelve rivers congested with numerous sand and mud. Each time he cultivated, it was like scooping out the sand from the large river with his bare hands. If he sped up his digging, the riverbeds would probably collapse. In other words, there was no shortcut for him to immediately get rid of the unnecessary stuff in his meridians.

After a while, Qinghan jumped off the tree and walked deeper into the mountain range. It was finally time to start killing some demonic beasts.