The Beautiful Follower

The instant his blood fell, he instantly felt a connection to the ring.

At the same time, his consciousness entered the ring. What Zhao Long feared was the ring being empty. However, he soon realised this was not the case.

As his consciousness entered the ring, he found various items, among them was a beautiful crimson staff adorned in mysterious runes, similar to those he had found at the wooden door.

When Zhao Long saw this staff, he found it strangely familiar, despite having never seen this staff before in his life. He inspected it for a moment, and found that there was nothing unusual about it so he turned his attention the next item.

The next three items seemed to be scrolls. Seeing these, he thought they might be cultivation guides that an expert had left behind, but before he could look into it further, his attention was brought to a red piece of cloth.

Upon closer inspection, Zhao Long found that it was an item he had accidentally seen before in the sect.

"Is that…" he swallowed the next words he was going to say, because he knew exactly what this item was. A tinge of red seemed to color his cheeks for a moment, as he realised the horrifying truth.

"It's a woman's…" Having finally 'discovered' what this mysterious red cloth was, Zhao Long now had an idea of what kind of person was the owner of this ring.

'So it belonged to a beauty?' he thought while he let his imagination run wild.

After a few minutes, he managed to break out of his 'distraction' and quickly decided to put away the piece of revealing clothing.

Who knows, if in the future he gets a lady, he could…

Zhao Long cleared his throat at an attempt of interrupting his impure thoughts. Finally, his consciousness swept upon the remaining items. Most of them were bottles numbering in the hundreds, as well as a pile of manuals, various pieces of women's clothing, herbs and millions of glowing stones. Most of these items he was powerless to identify, while there were only few he could.

One of the last items he could identify was an oval shaped object slightly larger in length than a small dagger, which Zhao Long could only guess was an egg. Although curious about what creature this egg belonged to, he decided to leave it alone for now, and worry about it later.

After a while of searching, he found that other than the staff, the scrolls and the herbs, while the rest of the items were unknown to him.

Right as he was about to summon the scrolls to closely inspect them, he heard the sound of water coming from the wooden door in front of him, which he had temporarily forgotten about.

He stood there slightly dazed, but nonetheless decided to push the wooden door open. Surprisingly, Zhao Long found that the door creaked the same way an old door would.

The view that assaulted his eyes was that of a beautiful blue lake, the only abnormal thing was that this lake was surrounded by a thin layer of ice, which indicated how cold the lake's temperature was. The lake was small in size, and apart from ice, he found that there was a strong defensive formation surrounding the lake.

Being only a practitioner at the Qi Condensation stage, he found that it would be nigh impossible for him to figure out what the formation meant. And while Zhao Long deeply wished to explore the inside of the lake, his instinct told him that his cultivation was still not strong enough, and that the formation surrounding the lake was dangerous.

Seeing that there was nothing more to the cave than this mysterious icy lake which he couldn't step into, he decided he would come back once he had gotten stronger.

Once his thoughts reached this point, Zhao Long turned back the way he came from, it took him 2 hours to exit the forbidden area surprisingly unscathed. Unlike the rumours he had heard so much about the cave, he was not attacked, and there was no demonic beast guarding the cave.

"Were the rumours fake?"

As his thoughts came to this conclusion, and while taking a step out of the cave, a deafening cry thundered in his surroundings.

Zhao Long's face darkened as he soon realised that the demonic beast from the rumour was in fact, true.

"Fuck!" he cursed, as he decided to use his movement technique to escape from what he knew, would be his doom.

Such a deafening cry could only come from a 9th rank demonic beast, and Zhao Long wasn't willing to stick around to find out which beast this was. However, his movement technique could only take him so far against a 9th rank demonic beast. After all, a beast of such a high rank was equivalent in strength to a peak nascent soul practitioner, and that was an entity well beyond his current power.

Zhao Long only hoped he could escape it in time and thus decided to increase his speed to the limit in order to escape with his life. Unfortunately, reality was cruel for the 9th rank beast had already successfully sensed Zhao Long's presence. A long and thick scaly tail surrounded Zhao Long, blocking his path of retreat.

Cold sweat ran through Zhao Long's back as he could see that it was the tail of a serpent who was using it to block his way.

Zhao Long tried his best to escape by climbing out of the serpent's grasp using his movement technique, however his Qi was quickly drained by the movement technique. This only caused Zhao Long to be wrapped around the serpent's tail.

Soon, his body was turned to face the beast's head, but to his surprise what he found in its place was a voluptuous body. It seemed like a woman, but what perplexed Zhao Long was that the lower half of her body was that of a snake. This was obviously a well-known and feared snake woman.

The snake woman's eyes were a deep emerald green, and they shined beautifully. Her facial features definitely resembled that of a beauty that could wreak nations, while she possessed a silky long black hair. Had it not been because she was a demonic beast who was known for being good at seducing its pray, who seemed to be gripping tightly on Zhao Long, he would have long since flirted with the beauty. And yet, this didn't stop him from fantasising about her in his mind.

Despite Zhao Long's rugged countenance, he was nevertheless a handsome young man who loved women as much as he did cultivating. Although not having had the pleasure of tasting a woman's body just yet, he was sure he would sooner or later do so.

Therefore, when such a beautiful snake woman was presented before him, he couldn't help but lust over her seductive body.

Seeming to have noticed the way Zhao Long's eyes drifted from her face to indecent parts of her body, she gritted her teeth, while her face flushed a deep shade of red.

"Human boy, you think you can feast your eyes on me just like that?" she said in contempt.

Hearing the snake woman's words, although slightly surprised at the snake woman's ability for human speech, Zhao Long's gaze didn't drift away from her seductive body, while feasting his eyes despite her warning, he quickly formed a plan in his mind.

"You know the human language?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Boy, you're quite strange. Your body seems to be hiding your soul's aura." she commented, ignoring Zhao Long's previous question.

Seeing that the woman ignored his question, he tried a different approach.

"Beauty, you have a name? What do you mean my soul's aura is being hidden?"

Hearing his question, the snake woman pondered for a bit, as if trying to remember a vague memory.

"Fei Ruo." she replied indifferently.

Upon hearing the snake woman's name, Zhao Long simply smiled, seemingly waiting for her to answer his other question.

"Boy, you seem to not notice this strange occurrence, but as a half human, half beast I can tell you that this is something I have never seen in a human before. Rather.... I think I can smell a faint trace of beast in you." she said while her nose twitched a little, as though she was trying to catch a certain smell.

"Smell?"

"It smells frightening. It's too bad the smell is really faint." said the snake woman with a trace of disappointment.

"Miss…. Fei, is there any way you could let me go?" Zhao Long asked cautiously.

Fei Ruo's gaze landed in his for a short moment, seeming to ponder upon something. After a while, as though having decided on something, she smiled while she sized Zhao Long's body and handsome features.

"Hey boy, let's make a blood contract." she said decisively.

Hearing her unexpected proposal, Zhao Long's face blanked for a second, and as though he had heard wrong, he asked:

"W-what?"

"I said let's make a blood contract." she repeated her words again.

"…" Zhao Long was speechless.

"I'll protect you, but when the time comes, I will ask you for a favour, and you must help me with it." she continued, licking her lips.

Seemingly lost in thought after having glanced at her actions, Zhao Long replied absentmindedly, "O-okay…"

As he agreed, she quickly brought him closer to her face, her eyes gazing at Zhao Long's deeply as though searching for something within them.

Being stared at such a close distance by a seductive beauty, Zhao Long could only swallow hard before staring back in the same way.

Slowly, a deep blush assaulted the beauty as she brought her face closer to him and–

"Chu~" a sound came by as the snake woman seemingly pressed her lips against his.

The stunned Zhao Long could do nothing but return the kiss when suddenly, he felt a tinge of pain in his tongue. He could taste a bit of sweetness with a tinge of metallic flavour.

"Urgh..." groaned Zhao Long as he tried to move away from the snake woman's lips.

After a few more seconds spent kissing, they both drew back, panting.

"Ah, You bit me!" complained Zhao Long after having caught his breath.

This had been his first kiss, and honestly, his body almost reacted.

"I had to, that's how we make a blood pact" Fei Ruo said with a smile, a hint of mischievousness could be sensed as she brushed her fingers past her delicate rosy lips while a blush crept to her cheeks.

"Boy, your name is…?"

"Zhao Long" he replied.

"I, Fei Ruo vow to protect you, Zhao Long as long as you bring me along with you and help me with something. You will become my master on these terms, and I will become yours. Should I violate this pact, may my body be blown into a thousand pieces." proclaimed Fei Ruo in a resolute manner, as she recited her blood pact.

"I, Zhao Long, vow to take you along with me as my follower as long as you protect me, and I will help you with any one favour you request of me. Should I violate this pact, may my body be blown into a thousand pieces."

As they both recited their sides of the pact, they smiled to each other. Soon, Fei Ruo smiled while setting Zhao Long down and kneeled before him.

"Master, Fei Ruo greets you."

"En." Zhao Long nodded as he accepted this new follower of his.

"Miss Fei, let's go." he said casually.

"Yes!" she replied sweetly.

...

"ARGHHH!"

An angry roar echoed through the hall.

"It's been 5 days since this rascal left the sect to 'gather herbs' and he still hasn't returned!" a red-haired middle aged man's voice raged in anger to a silver-haired beauty. They were both sitting at a table.

The silver haired beauty who was sipping on her tea simply rolled her eyes at the red haired man's complaints. This red haired man was none other than Ren Liu; the same person who "kidnapped" Zhao Long 15 years ago.

"Zhao Long is still young, and thinks he's better than everyone. Elder Liu, just be patient. He probably went outside to fool around." said the silver haired beauty, in an attempt to appease his anger.

"Fool around?! If that rascal was as determined on increasing his cultivation he wouldn't still be stuck at the Qi condensation stage. He is always like th–" Ren Liu wanted to continue yapping about Zhao Long's misdeeds but at this moment a voice interrupted him mercilessly.

"That's enough Ren Liu! Don't you see you're annoying Fei Xing with your constant yapping?"

It was a middle-aged woman who had her hair tied up in a bun. With an expression of annoyance, she continued, "If you carry on any longer, don't blame me if next time you come by the Pill Palace I won't have any of your precious 'elixirs' in stock!" said the woman in contempt.

Hearing the woman's words, Ren Liu's face went pale from fright. "Elder Su, please don't be like this… You know how hard it is to concoct that elixir… please spare me!" begged Ren Liu.

Seeing Ren Liu's face go pale once those elixirs were mentioned, a complacent look appeared on Elder Su's face.

At this moment, a young masculine voice echoed through the hall.

"Old Man, I'm back!"

A young handsome youth stood at the entrance of the hall with a confident smile on his face.