Chapter 155: Heavenly Fire Envoy

Three months passed in a flash.

Jiuyou's cultivation had quietly recovered to the Mid Foundation Establishment Stage. Combined with the breath-concealing methods of his appearance-altering art and his undiminished, powerful divine sense, even if a Nascent Soul cultivator stood right in front of him, they would struggle to see through his disguise.

Over these three months, Graceful visited him every few days. Sometimes she brought meals, and other times she gifted him a few low-tier medicinal pills. While they did little to help restore his Foundation Establishment cultivation, they spared him a great deal of trivial hassle.

Jiuyou politely accepted them every time and chatted with her for a while. Graceful always took the opportunity to ask about Ganzhou. From the layout of its great cities down to its common street customs, she wanted to know everything.

Jiuyou didn't find it annoying. He occasionally picked out interesting tales to share with her, and her eyes would light up as she listened, looking as if she wished she could immediately fly out of the grasslands. Landuo often tagged along behind her, listening just as raptly.

However, with his sharp divine sense, Jiuyou occasionally overheard others in the tribe gossiping about Graceful, murmuring that she was already engaged to the young chief of the Lingmu Tribe.

Jiuyou let the words go in one ear and out the other. He never brought the matter up in front of Graceful, having absolutely zero interest in it himself.

Jiuyou hadn't let these three months go to waste.

Beneath the tent where he lived, he had silently excavated a small meditation room. He concealed its aura with an array, making it completely undetectable to anyone ordinary.

Inside the meditation room, he resumed his old trade of cultivating spiritual herbs. The spiritual herb seeds he had previously tossed into the corner of his storage pouch as backups were now proving useful. Combined with the medicinal pills already stockpiled in his storage pouch, he estimated that if he recovered at this pace, he could hope to return to his peak in just a few years.

Aside from the spiritual herbs, he occasionally let his Soul-Eating Insects out for fresh air and feeding, preventing the swarm from growing sluggish inside the Spirit Insect Pouch.

In addition, finding time every day to read through the Daoyang Ten Palaces Art had become his habit. Jiuyou always planned carefully before making a move; if he was going to switch to cultivating this art in the future, he wouldn't act rashly without thoroughly understanding its foundations first.

One day, he flipped to a passage he hadn't noticed before, and after reading it, he was slightly taken aback.

It was a record concerning "Mortal World Heart Tempering."

According to the book, if one wished to cultivate the Daoyang Ten Palaces Art to a profound level, they needed to pass through a stage called "Mortal World Heart Tempering." This stage served to temper both a cultivator's foundation and their state of mind. It could reduce the growth of inner demons and wear away the accumulation of baleful aura, making it crucial for breaking through to higher realms in the future.

Jiuyou turned a few more pages, his brows furrowing slightly. This so-called Mortal World Heart Tempering required the cultivator to disguise themselves as a low-tier cultivator, or even a mere mortal. They had to truly walk among the mundane world, experience birth, aging, illness, and death, taste love, hatred, anger, and obsession, and feel the myriad states of human life.

He slowly closed the book and sat in silence for a while before muttering to himself.

"Righteous Path arts are troublesome, as expected."

For a cultivator like him who had lived for over a thousand years, the joys and sorrows of mortals had long since become too far removed from him.

In the past, he most likely would have scoffed at it. But right now, with his baleful aura yet to disperse and his cultivation still unrecovered, he had to admit that if this method truly worked, it was a viable path to take. Not to mention, he had the Ten-Thousand-Year Longevity Fruit as his foundation; his lifespan was abundant, and he could afford to spend the time.

He placed the book back on his lap and turned another page, as if weighing something in his mind. A moment later, he gently shook his head and said nothing more.

Spiritual light drifted through the meditation room, and the fragrance of medicine slowly permeated the air. Everything went on as usual.

These peaceful days were quietly shattered one day.

Jiuyou was meditating with his eyes closed in the meditation room when his divine sense stirred slightly, sensing a figure hurrying over. Their footsteps were rushed and their breathing was slightly ragged—a stark contrast to their usual leisurely and relaxed demeanor.

His expression remained unchanged. In an instant, he left the meditation room and returned to the tent, sitting cross-legged with his usual calm face, looking as though he had never left.

The tent flap was thrown open, and Graceful hurried inside. A rare look of nervousness marked her face. Her gaze swept around the tent, and only when it landed on Jiuyou did she seem to settle down slightly.

"Miss Graceful, what's wrong?" Jiuyou asked, looking up and feigning confusion in his tone.

In truth, he had already sensed two unfamiliar Golden Core auras. The newcomers did not come with good intentions.

Graceful didn't explain. She stepped forward, and the moment she grabbed his wrist, the tips of her ears grew slightly hot. She lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Don't ask. Come with me."

Jiuyou didn't ask any further. He concealed his aura and followed her out of the tent.

Graceful had already summoned her Banana Leaf magic artifact. Jiuyou stepped onto it, and the artifact swept out, skimming the tips of the grass. It flew in the opposite direction of the tribe, heading straight toward the hills in the northwest. The wind rushed against them, snapping her robes loudly in the air.

Only when they were over ten miles away from the tribe did Graceful slow down. She turned her head and explained.

"Envoys from the Heavenly Fire Tribe have arrived. I don't know what's going on, but lately, they've been killing anyone from Ganzhou on sight, regardless of their identity or the reason. Just now, my father told me to stay in my tent and not come out. Remembering you were still here, I decided to sneak you out first."

Her tone still carried a bit of urgency; evidently, the rush here had taken its toll. She stopped beside a low dirt mound and let Jiuyou step off.

"Hide here for a while. Once those two envoys leave, I'll come find you."

Jiuyou didn't say much, simply nodding.

"Thank you, miss."

Graceful glanced at him. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, but she swallowed the words back down.

Over these past few months, Graceful couldn't quite explain the reason herself, but she felt increasingly invested in her conversations with this young man who called himself Qing You.

Every time she spoke with Qing You, time seemed to fly by. Sometimes, when he finished a story and picked up his teacup, she would still be sitting across from him, as if she hadn't heard enough. It wasn't until she stepped out of the tent and the evening breeze hit her that she would slowly come back to her senses. She had never felt this way before—her heart beating faster than her footsteps.

Miss Graceful snapped out of her daze and calmed her emotions. She turned and stepped onto her magic artifact. Before ascending, she glanced back, her gaze lingering on Jiuyou for a moment before she drove the artifact back toward the tribe.

Jiuyou watched the azure spiritual light drift away until it faded into a faint speck, disappearing where the grasslands met the horizon. Only then did he slowly withdraw his gaze. The gentleness on his face gradually vanished, replaced by an utter coldness that was a stark contrast to his previous demeanor.

He knew very well that the Heavenly Fire Tribe making such a massive fuss was, at its core, because of the deaths of those two Great Grandmasters. The people of Ganzhou had become scapegoats, and truth be told, him being hunted wasn't exactly unjust.

However, this only made him more certain that as long as he didn't expose himself, with his current methods and disguise, these people wouldn't be able to make any waves.

He found a stone sheltered from the wind next to the dirt mound and sat down, closing his eyes to regulate his breathing. Yet, his divine sense constantly blanketed a radius of several miles, taking in every rustle of the wind and grass into his perception.

The sky gradually darkened, and the wind on the grasslands grew colder. In the distance, the glowing lights of the tribe could faintly be seen.

Jiuyou took a glance but didn't stand up. He still needed to wait here for a while. However, he wasn't in a hurry. Having these people act as cover for him saved him quite a bit of effort. Once he restored his cultivation in the future, the matters of this place would no longer have anything to do with him.