Sorry, master, my junior sister has surrendered to the enemy!

Shi Zhen's injuries had not fully healed; his head drooped, and his eyelids trembled slightly.

He slowly opened his eyes, but the pain in his body and his will to survive drove him to grasp at every straw that offered a chance to survive.

"Hey, big guy, move a little to the right." A clear female voice came from above, and Shi Zhen subconsciously obeyed and moved his head slightly.

Feeling a drop of warm liquid fall onto the wound on his back, Shi Zhen felt the pain gradually lessen and his eyes gradually clear.

He only saw the person who saved him after he regained consciousness.

"Ninth Princess? Did you save me?"

Shi Zhen was surprised.

I originally thought it would be the Third Prince or the Fourth Princess who saved me, so what's with this Ninth Princess?

"I saved you. It was nothing, no need to thank me."

Yue Ling's two sentences made Shi Zhen realize the true face of his savior.

When Shi Zhen saw that his former rival had saved his life despite past grievances, he felt that the Ninth Princess was magnanimous and that people in the martial arts world were straightforward. He was moved to tears.

“Ahem,” Ah Chong interrupted at the right moment: “Shi Zhen, don’t forget whose side you’re on.”

Shi Zhen suddenly realized what was happening and abruptly looked at the bound Third Prince on his right: "Employer, the Third Prince?"

"Damn, is he dead?"

"What a muscle-bound, simple-minded guy," Ah Chong looked at Shi Zhen with disdain and rolled his eyes speechlessly.

"No, my third brother won't die. I just saved him."

Yue Ling raised an eyebrow and shook her injured finger.

"Thank you. If he dies, I will have broken the contract and won't get the rest of the payment."

Shi Zhenchao expressed his gratitude.

"I know, physical cultivation is tough; you earn your money by risking your lives." Yue Ling said gently, with a tone of certainty:

"You risked your life to protect your third brother and fourth sister. Even if your third brother can't give you the remaining reward after you get out, His Majesty will."

"You have rendered great service to our country. As long as you can protect us and get out, you will be rewarded handsomely."

When Shi Zhen heard the princess of a country make such a promise to him, he was deeply moved.

As a body cultivator, he had been risking his life year after year just to compete for those meager cultivation resources, and he had never been treated so kindly before.

“The princess is renowned, and people say that the Ninth Princess is a woman of her word. Now that she has made such a promise, I am extremely grateful.”

Ah Chong immediately interrupted, "Ninth Princess, your third brother and His Majesty will decide on the rewards; you don't need to worry about it."

Seeing Ah Chong suddenly become angry, Shi Zhen asked, confused, "Ah Chong, why are you angry with the Ninth Princess? Didn't she just save us? We should thank her!"

Ah Chong was so angry that he couldn't catch his breath. He glared at Shi Zhen and said, "You saved you but not me. You didn't just fall for her words, did you? You unprincipled idiot."

Shi Zhen didn't know why he was being scolded, and he got anxious: "Well, you have principles. The Ninth Princess saved me, and it's not wrong for me to thank her. Why are you scolding me?"

"Ahem," Yue Ling interrupted at the opportune moment:

“Ah Chong, let me ask you a question,” Yue Ling changed the subject abruptly, catching Ah Chong off guard: “Do you know what kind of man my fourth sister likes?”

"What do you mean by this?" Ah Chong was indeed hit where it hurt, and his tone finally began to show some impatience, no longer dwelling on the verbal dispute with Shi Zhen.

Yue Ling was already tied up very high, and now she was looking down at him from above, speaking in a light and indifferent tone: "You're dressed too plainly, which hides your true nature. Don't you understand?"

“I am a wandering cultivator in the martial world, and I am free by nature.” Ah Chong laughed in anger and retorted sarcastically, “Do you expect me to believe that you can treat Yue An like a close sister? Ninth Princess, if you had just said that you were joking, I might have laughed along with you.”

"Ah, believe it or not, before my fourth sister and I studied the royal family's secret techniques together, we were inseparable best friends." Yue Ling seemed to recall something painful, and slowly recounted everything in a measured tone:

"When I was little, I loved following her around the most. She was the gentlest and kindest of all my older sisters. We would often sneak out of the palace to play polo, pick flowers, and even secretly watch the handsome young men who were famous throughout the capital. Alas, what a pity..."

A-Chong looked straight ahead, seemingly indifferent, but in reality, he was listening attentively, occasionally interjecting, "She is also the most gentle and kind now."

"Ahem," Yue Ling choked on the other party's cheesy response and said, "No matter what you think, I just want to help you. Seeing that you are so sincere to Fourth Sister, I can't bear to see you being so silly, not pulling the cart before pulling the horse, and ultimately giving your heart to the wrong person." Yue Ling changed the subject and came back to the point.

Ah Chong remained aloof and oblivious, clearly disbelieving Yue Ling's words.

"Okay, like you said, I can't treat Yue An like a sister, but I always know my competitors' likes and dislikes very well. Guess if I ever used my charm on Fourth Sister, and if she ever fell for it?"

Yue Ling said these words with a smile, but when they reached A Chong's ears, they sounded like a provocation.

"Heh, trying to sow discord between us with these words? It seems you really don't understand your sister, Yue An, or me." A-Chong scoffed lightly.

Yue Ling was not discouraged by this, but continued, "Whether you are fooled or not is one thing, but a girl's reaction to someone she likes at first sight is not lying."

"I don't know you, but I don't know girls?"

"You just need to look more into Yue An's eyes. If you please her or amaze her, you will be able to sense her emotions."

"It's a kind of unspoken understanding, a tacit connection between two people."

"If it feels right, it means you're using the right method."

Yue Ling's words entered A Zhong's ears like a spell.

"Your outfit doesn't show off your strengths at all. Men are visual creatures, but do you think women aren't? Who doesn't like a man who's good-looking and devoted to them?"

"Clothes make the man, and a saddle makes the horse."

"You're just a wandering cultivator in the martial world. We won't force you to have the bearing of a dragon or phoenix, or to display the demeanor of a member of our Wuyang royal family. But you can at least dress like a young master from a noble family, right? And while you're at it, change that wild hairstyle of yours."

"At the very least, standing next to Yue An, they should give the impression of being a handsome couple."

After listening, Ah Chong remained silent, and it was unclear how much of what he had taken in.

Shi Zhen listened intently, initially feeling completely lost, until now he belatedly exclaimed, "Damn it, Ah Chong, you little brat, you're eyeing the princess!"

"Shut up, you idiot," Ah Chong said irritably.

"You dare insult me!" Shi Zhen glared angrily. "Believe me or not, I'll kill you right now!"

"Did I say something wrong? If you hadn't disobeyed orders and charged in alone, would we have ended up in this situation? You almost killed us, and I had to fight with all my might to send one of us away." Ah Chong finally began to review the situation and severely punish this body cultivator.

"Pah! If I hadn't fought so hard to cover your retreat, would you have had time to escape? You boasted so much about your concealment techniques, but I didn't see you use them at all. We couldn't escape, and it's definitely your fault... You're a bad person!" Shi Zhen was furious. This body cultivator, who wasn't good with words, actually knew how to insult the other party's character.

Ah Chong retorted, "If the Buddhist bell hadn't suddenly rung, how could these sickly guys have seriously injured me? Believe it or not, if we switched positions, and I covered their retreat while you led them to escape, not a single one of them would have gotten away."

Yue Ling listened to their argument with utter boredom.

After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the two seemed to have gotten tired of arguing and stopped. Mainly, Shi Zhen was so angry that he could only grunt and groan while clenching his fists, his whole body tense and his veins bulging. He didn't break free of his restraints at all. Sure enough, he was mocked by A Chong and was so angry that he couldn't even speak.

After a while, Ah Chong's anger subsided considerably, and he began to arrogantly expose the true nature of the spirit: "Ninth Princess, you seem unaware of your situation."

Yue Ling smiled: "Oh, tell me about my situation."

A-Chong: "You're all alone, while the three of us are on the same side."

"You dare to sow discord among us all by yourself? Don't you understand what fate awaits you when the Third Prince wakes up?"

Hearing this person blame himself for the argument, Yue Ling laughed it off: "Oh, you're so powerful, it seems like you can kill me anytime, anywhere, so how come you're trapped on the tree roots like me? Who's more noble than whom? Is Yue An also alone now? Who do you think she'll end up in?"

“Ninth Princess, I won’t let you lead me astray anymore. The fact that I haven’t been eliminated yet means that Yue An is safe. She is very smart and is definitely not a weak woman like you who can’t survive without someone’s protection.”

Yue Ling felt that this person was so unreasonable that there was no need to waste time arguing with him, so she ignored him, closed her eyes to calm herself down for a while, and then turned to the Third Prince below and said, "Third Brother, is he alive? If he is alive, make a sound."

The Third Prince did not react.

"If you don't reply to me, then I won't save you. You can be eliminated."

The Third Prince still did not react.

"Ninth Princess, could the Third Prince really be dead?" Shi Zhen asked anxiously.

Ah Chong witnessed the scene of the Third Prince bleeding profusely, looking as pale and powerless as a mortal whose throat had been slit. He belatedly realized that something was wrong with the place, and his expression slowly became solemn.

“If the people from the evil land come again, I really don’t have the confidence to save Third Brother.”

But then Yue Ling went back to the point.

"As I've said before, we have the same goal now, we're all in this together, we should unite."

“Something unexpected happened in the small world. We are in a dangerous world. We should save our lives first, and then find a way to leave the Lotus Secret Realm. We brothers and sisters need the protection of you cultivators, and you need us to heal your wounds. As you have seen, after being infected by the blood of the people of the evil land, your physical strength has been almost lost. In addition, with the suppression of the Buddha Bell, you are almost the same as ordinary people. Our blood can resist the infection of the villagers of the evil land.”

“If Third Brother can’t be saved, you two will have to rely on me.”

After Yue Ling finished speaking, everyone was shocked.

In his haste, Shi Zhen began to struggle again, but the tree roots binding him only tightened their grip.

"What the hell is this?" Shi Zhen's thick arms were tightly bound, and barbs grew from the surface of the tree roots, piercing into Shi Zhen's skin and beginning to tear and suck his flesh.

"Stop moving around, Shizhen, the more you move, the tighter the roots will bind you." Azhong realized something was wrong; the force of the tree roots binding him was increasing.

"Cough..." That heavy breathing sound from his throat reappeared, and firelight flared up outside, accompanied by a cacophony of footsteps and shrill laughter.

Yue Ling had a very bad feeling.

A group of people, described as terrifying, followed a man in.

The man was completely covered in a black robe. Compared to the village chief of Xianshan Village, he was thinner and taller, making him very conspicuous in the crowd.

He slightly opened his mouth, his rotting cheeks tearing at the sticky muscles, and his lips split open an inch, a sight that was chilling.

"How long did those two sacrifices take?" the man asked in a hoarse voice.

“Village chief, it’s been three days already,” someone replied.

Yue Ling realized that the village chief of Nie Di was referring to the two unlucky guys who were entangled above her head.

"Ha...it's been three days..."

The village chief stared blankly at the two people entangled in tree roots, then, as if struck by a thought, finally noticed the villager who had died from drinking blood at the Third Prince's feet.

"It has also turned into a healthy corpse..."

"Don't waste it."

He beckoned, and villagers responded, stepping forward with knives in hand.

“Every inch of flesh and blood, every bone, is a gift from God; don’t waste it…”

The villager who died from drinking the blood of the Third Prince was also entangled by the tree roots.

However, he had already died and was soon entangled by tree roots, just like the other two.

It seemed that the addition of the new corpse had injected new nutrients into the tree roots, and there seemed to be flesh and blood pulsating beneath the roots, binding Yue Ling and the others even more tightly.

Hearing the unusual movement of the tree roots, the village chief of Niedi Village finally twitched his cloudy eyes and led a group of villagers to kneel down.

Unlike the villagers of Xianshan, even though there is an alchemy furnace on the offering table in Xianshan, people kneel on trees.

The people of this wicked land actually knelt down and kowtowed before that alchemy furnace.

Even though these tree roots are what bind Yue Ling and the others now, in the eyes of the villagers, these miracles have nothing to do with trees.

"Gods above, we now offer you two wicked men from the sacred mountain as sacrifices. These two men stole and sold young children in their lifetime, attempting to use the sorcery of the sacred mountain to sacrifice others in exchange for youth. Now, they have been executed on the spot by the divine beings, thus ridding the people of this scourge!"

"The eradication of all evil is a meritorious act of the gods..."

"If the divine being enjoys this, we hope to be granted some miraculous medicine."

The two people who were entangled were vomited out as the tree roots writhed, as if they were eating something.

He vomited out a pool of sticky, bloody flesh; even the bones had melted.

However, Yue Ling still recognized the two people from the remaining clothes as the couple who stole the child from the Immortal Mountain. They had been exiled to this wretched land and ended up here.

The Third Prince was still unconscious, and Yue Ling, A Chong, and Shi Zhen all pretended to be unconscious in unison.

But the tree roots on the other side of Stone Town were tearing at his flesh and blood, and he looked like he was about to collapse.

The village chief hurriedly walked towards the two pools of blood and flesh, eagerly reaching inside to pluck them out.

Hearing the sticky, churning sound of flesh and blood, Shi Zhen could no longer bear it and suddenly opened his eyes.

The village chief of Niedi Village actually took out a small, irregularly shaped, but extremely powerful treasure from his flesh and blood.

The more she sensed that aura, the more unsettled she became.

That turned out to be the last medicine I was looking for: Azure Dragon Crystal Marrow!

This medicinal herb, which has an uncertain generation method and location, and is so difficult to obtain, was actually bloodily pulled out from the body of a villager from a sacred mountain!

This is a treasure left behind only after a beast with true dragon bloodline dies and is buried deep underground, nurtured by the spiritual veins of heaven and earth for ten thousand years. Life and death are predestined, and opportunities are determined by fate. If any link in the chain, from the bloodline of the beast to the spiritual veins of heaven and earth at the place of death, is broken, the Azure Dragon Crystal Marrow cannot be nurtured. That is why it is difficult to find a specific place of its formation.

The village chief of Niedi held the Azure Dragon Crystal Marrow in his hand, and its domineering spiritual power rippled out, cleansing everyone present.

"You must be kidding me," Yue Ling thought to herself. "To encounter Dragon Crystal Marrow under these circumstances?"

"This is a gift from the gods!" The village chief of Niedi finally revealed a look of madness, turned around and held up the piece of Azure Dragon Crystal Marrow covered with blood and flesh with both hands, showing it to the villagers.

All the villagers showed fanatical expressions. Some looked at the other lump of flesh on the ground, while others stared nakedly at the few living people still entangled in the tree roots, unable to suppress their restlessness any longer.

"The divine tree has abandoned us, and the biased Lady Chunling has forsaken us..."

"But the truly loving God did not abandon us; He loves each and every one of us equally."

"God is right. As long as we sacrifice healthy people, we can get medicine to cure our illnesses!"

After saying that, the village chief of Niedi Village suddenly turned around, his eyes filled with madness as he looked at Yue Ling and the others:

“We need more people… more healthy people, to give everything to God.”

After hearing this, Shi Zhen could no longer hold back. In addition, he was already feeling uncomfortable from being strangled, so he spat at the person and said, "Pah! What kind of lousy evil spirits do you believe in? You charlatan pretending to be a god, what kind of thing do you think you are, daring to call yourself a deity?"

"Have you even seen a Divine Realm expert before saying that? Which Divine Realm expert on Zefu's side would do such a thing!"

"You better untie me, or I'll beat your god to a pulp!"

Shi Zhen had a loud, rough voice with a strong penetrating quality, and his language was not very civilized. After his actions, all the villagers of Nie Di stared at him.

The village chief of Niedi Village stiffly moved his head, as if he had heard something. He stared blankly at Shizhen, as if looking at a moving lump of meat, and muttered, "My Lord God, do you want his life?"

Do you want to kill him right now?

The village chief of Niedi stared intently at Shizhen, seemingly conversing with someone.

Suddenly, he moved and stepped forward, knife in hand.

He stopped in front of Shizhen, his skeletal body making a clicking sound, the hole in his throat constantly exhaling the rotting smell from his lungs, making a "cough..." sound.

"If you want his life, I'll give it to you right now."