Chapter 13

On the other side of the secret realm Feng Delun sighed, he had felt the tremors, without needing to feel the spiritual energy he knew this was the work of Jiang Xiaotong.

He thumbed his communication token in his robes, letting his spiritual energy flow into the hard cool surface. "Well, why am I only feeling a tremor from Xiaotong's side? I've told you, one week, we'll have to clean this secret realm. Show some enthusiasm."

He heard a sheepish laugh emanating from the token, from two people.

"I'll get right into it right now, elder brother Delun!" A burly voice said, full of fake vigour.

"Don't worry I'll give these treasure guardians a good massage session." A sensual female voice came filtering through.

After hearing the two he cut off his spiritual energy from the token. He let out a low chuckle. "Those two, even after all these times, are still afraid of pain."

Shooking his head, Feng Delun's eyes landed at the magnificent palace-like building in front of him. The building was made from pure gold, from the upturned eaves to the squared tiles. It was gold, or perhaps covered with gold. He would find that out, after all he was here to take this whole building away.

Though he wondered, according to the Da dynasty norm they would not build a palace inside of a secret realm. At the very least no one had seen a palace inside of the Da dynasty secret realm, his best guess was that this was likely a mausoleum.

He couldn't help but scoff. "They squandered so much gold, imagine how the people suffered to pay for this grandiose display." His tone cold, expression shrouded by darkness.

It was a good thing he would bring it all down.

Just what kind of guardian will appear once he stole the entire building, an undead?

That would be interesting…

***

The whole place was covered with mist. High pitched whistling sound could be heard. Despite this Jiang Xiaotong had been standing in the same spot for the entire five minutes.

After the guardian of this section of the secret realm appeared the mist monster had spread itself, covering a large expanse of the land in white blanket of mist.

With the size of the guardian Jiang Xiaotong was expecting an aggressive frontal attack, not a poking sesion.

A whistling sound drew near, right at the back of his head. A crisp burning sound and the smell of ash hit his senses, he had burnt another useless leaf down.

The leaves had originated from the guardian, he was expecting the guardian to be stronger. Another whistling sounded, another burnt leaves.

Arms crossed over his chest, shoes tapping on the ground. It was growing rather tedious, he should have ended this whole show soon.

He simply cuts through the mist with his left hand, in a karate chop manner, parting the mist in a clear line. A loud shrieking faded along with the mist. He looked at his left arm, it couldn't be this easy?

Then he saw that the guardian was in fact cut in half from his single sweep. The ground shook as the huge wooden carcass of the guardian fell.

Winching from the backlash of destroying an object in this secret realm. Jiang Xiaotong looked at his left hand, both his lips and eyes formed into a thin line, and began contemplating his life.

"...Since when was I this OP?"

The four cultivators stood facing each other, their expressions blank. None of them spoke, but there was a sense of great understanding between the foursome.

They had cleaned the entire secret realm of anything that might be useful or worth a dime. Each of them had defeated the guardians guarding the treasures in a breeze.

Lai Meihui faked a cough. "The guardian, it's too easy?"

"I just had to…" Jie Qiqiang made a display of clapping his hands together. "And it was dead."

Jiang Xiaotong let out a breathless laugh. "I just swiped my hands." More like chopped his hand.

Something came to Jie Qiqiang's mind, the muscled cultivator rubbed his shoulders. "But the backlash I received when I destroyed something in this secret realm was still the same. Still annoying as ever."

"Speaking of backlash, my muscles are sore." Jiang Xiaotong complained.

Watching the three complain, Feng Delun took over the conversation. "When was the last time any of you stepped into the Da dynasty secret realm?"

The question came out of the blue, the three looked amongst themselves, unsure as to how long it had been, the longer one cultivated the less they kept track of time.

Lai Meihui hummed. "It should be around ten centuries ago, actually I haven't stepped into any sort of secret realm either for these past few hundred years. The juniors of my old sect would hand over their rarest finds to the sect, then the elders would redistribute the profits accordingly, even to those who did not enter the secret realm."

Jiang Xiaotong and Jie Qiqiang gave the same answers.

Feng Delun spoke, "Our situations should be similar if not the same. Once we reached the final layers of the Golden Core stage, our respective former sect never allowed any of us to walk into a secret realm freely."

In Jie Qiqiang's case he was rarely sent out of his sect. He was always creating some new spiritual weapon. If he went out it was to find a new material he could use. "Yes, they only ever allowed us to travel the realm when there's a Devil cultivator, Demons, or Beasts on the loose." Jie Qiqiang shared his woes.

Then Jiang Xiaotong said something that made the other three come into realisation, "We never actually learned how strong we were. Now that we are on the latter layers of Nascent Soul stage. We're always up against someone that could defeat us or at the same strength levels."

Feng Delun said, "We can discuss this once we return, for now let us focus on the task at hand." It made them put aside their thoughts for the time being, and immersed themselves into stealing away the riches of the Da dynasty secret realm.

***

She must admit, this cow demon's milk tasted delicious. Her eyes squinted pleasantly, gulping down the milk in the bottle her father held.

"Eldest brother's child is a transmigrator?" Her ears picked up the pretty green aunty's voice, but she was more focused with her milk.

Luo Huifang who had been out for a small shopping trip was out of the loop of the news, Lan Jianhong had just filled her in on the new situation. The woman stared at the baby, this baby acted like a baby, drinking the milk obediently, crying non stop. How could this child be an adult mentally?

Though there was no questioning the child's physical capabilities. While the baby was crying she kicked and punched their hands. And Luo Huifang was certain a normal child was not supposed to have that much strength.

"There must have been some kind of mistake? She acts like a normal baby," Before Li Jiayi could make his case, Luo Huifang continued on saying, "Yes there might be physical advantages this child has that normal human children don't. Didn't mean that eldest brother's child is not a child."

Li Jiayi rubbed his head tiredly. "I said nothing of the child being an adult because she's a transmigrator. She might have been a child when she died and transmigrated or reborn into this world."

"Then what is your point?" Luo Huifang was confused.

"That she's a transmigrator. We don't know if that child took over eldest brother's child's body. Replacing eldest brother's child's soul with her own soul." Li Jiayi pointed.

The whole air seemed to stagnate, they all turned to Ming Yongnian, watching his reaction towards Li Jiayi's statement. The immortal was peacefully tapping the milk bottle with his index finger, reminding the dozing, seemingly clueless, child to drink the milk.

Not lifting an eye from the bottle Ming Yongnian spoke, "The contours of her soul matched with the body. From the moment this child bloomed from the lotus, what was hers, was her own. This is indeed the body she was born with. She did not steal it."

It did nothing to silence Li Jiayi's other worries completely. "There were still the matters of how we should proceed further, now that we know this child is a transmigrator."

This time Ming Yongnian looked up at Li Jiayi, and met him in the eyes. "And I had said, we will wait for Xiaotong to return."

Li Jiayi did not feel threatened by his eldest brother's stare. He knew when he had crossed Ming Yongnian's bottomline, and asking these questions was not one that would cross it. But if he kept on pushing the questions before Jiang Xiaotong came back, he would eventually cross a line. He took the chance to move on with the discussion of planting grass in the village surroundings.