Chen Ping stood up, his gaze fixed upstream—the direction the Servant Peak Manager and his two lackeys had vanished moments earlier.

Li Yingyong…

For some reason, the name alone triggered a visceral revulsion.

It was as if they were born enemies. A hatred that was both bone-chilling and boiling hot detonated without warning, gnawing at his heart until his very teeth ached.

In truth, the hatred had no logical root.

Yet, it transformed into a monstrous killing intent, threatening to swallow the world whole.

Chen Ping inhaled sharply, closing his eyes to forcibly crush the inexplicable, surging tide of rage.

He had never hated a person with such purity before.

He needed to be calm.

Chen Ping steadied his mind.

Three opponents. One at the 4th Level of Qi Condensation, two at the 3rd Level.

If they swarmed him, he would win, but the noise would be too loud. It might attract unnecessary trouble.

He had to separate them. Break them one by one…

Or…

Lure them into a jar and crush them all at once.

A plan crystallized in his mind.

A trap was best. And he was the perfect bait.

The temptation of an “Immortal opportunity” would drive Li Yingyong to hunt him down regardless of the cost.

He needed a remote location. A burial ground for Li Yingyong and his men.

The more desolate, the better.

Chen Ping quickly erased the traces of his battle with Sun Qian. He dragged the corpse onto a large, flat rock.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he cast a Fireball Art.

The flames roared, instantly reducing the body to a pile of black ash.

He formed a gust with his Qi and struck out with a palm.

The black dust scattered into the wind, vanishing into the sky without a trace.

Chen Ping wasted no more time. Moving like a shadow, he shot upstream.

He headed toward the general area where Li Yingyong’s group had disappeared, moving with astonishing velocity. Yet, despite his speed, he skillfully avoided leaving any obvious tracks.

This was the precise Qi control of the 6th Level of Qi Condensation.

After venturing deep into the forest for half an hour, the terrain steepened. A towering cliff face dominated the view ahead.

It was a sheer precipice of dark rock, slick with moss and tangled vines. Below it lay a relatively open slope littered with jagged boulders.

Remote. Far from the patrol routes of other disciples. A natural dead end.

Chen Ping stopped, the corner of his mouth curling into a cold arc.

This is it. Li Yingyong’s grave.

He did not approach the cliff immediately. Instead, he doubled back a short distance.

He deliberately slowed his pace, leaving clear, frantic footprints in several patches of soft mud.

Next to a cluster of low, thorny bushes, he tore a strip from his gray robe and snagged it on a sharp barb.

On the rough bark of an ancient tree, he used a fingernail to leave a faint scratch, subtly pointing toward the cliff.

These clues were enough to guide a malicious tracker.

Preparation complete, he returned to the rocky slope beneath the cliff.

He chose a flat boulder with its back to the giant wall, ensuring a wide field of view. He swept away the fallen leaves, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes.

He retracted his aura completely, simulating the weak, drifting fluctuations of the 1st Level of Qi Condensation.

Like an insignificant weed in a crack of stone, he waited quietly for the prey to follow the scent of blood into his carefully laid kill zone.

…

Sunlight filtered through the canopy, shifting from the bright white of noon to the amber of dusk, and finally sinking into the inky blue of night.

Insect chirps, beast roars, and the cries of night owls rose and fell in the silence.

Chen Ping sat like a stone carving, motionless. Only occasionally did his eyelids part, revealing a glimmer of cold light in the darkness.

One day passed. Aside from the wind and passing birds, no one approached the cliff.

The second day. The sun climbed over the ridge, casting slanting, scorching beams onto the rocky slope.

Chen Ping remained still, but his Divine Sense had long since expanded, blanketing the surrounding three hundred feet.

Every rustle of grass, every falling leaf, was within his perception.

Time ticked by.

Just as Chen Ping began to wonder if he had overestimated Li Yingyong’s intelligence—or if they had met some other misfortune—his Divine Sense caught a ripple.

Three furtive figures were creeping along the “mistaken” path he had created yesterday.

They moved in fits and starts, squatting to check the ground, parting the grass to search.

It was Li Yingyong and his two rat-faced lackeys.

One of the youths pointed to the gray cloth strip hanging on the thorns, his face twisted with suppressed excitement and greed.

Chen Ping sneered internally. Idiots.

The trail was so obvious, yet it still took them two days to find it.

He closed his eyes again, dampening his aura further. He mimicked the erratic breathing of someone exhausted or injured, slipping into a feigned stupor.

Footsteps approached, heavy with undisguised malice, shattering the silence of the slope.

The three figures halted about thirty meters from the boulder where Chen Ping sat.

“Heh…”

Li Yingyong’s voice was frivolous, dripping with the mockery of a cat toying with a mouse.

“Junior Brother Chen, you really made us work to find you!”

“What’s wrong? Did you get separated from Senior Brother Sun? Or… did Senior Brother Sun abandon you?”

He dragged out the last syllable, his eyes scanning Chen Ping’s body like a butcher eyeing meat.

Chen Ping slowly opened his eyes. He allowed just the right amount of exhaustion and wary panic to surface in his gaze.

“Manager Li…” Chen Ping’s voice was deliberately hoarse. “How… how did you find this place?”

“How?”

The youth beside Li Yingyong cut in, his face smug. “Junior Brother Chen, you left quite a few marks! Panic got the better of you, didn’t it? Where is that fool Sun Qian? Stupid bastard actually let you slip away…”

He pulled a grotesque face and chuckled.

Li Yingyong raised a hand to cut off his lackey’s chatter. He stepped forward, squeezing out a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

His gaze was predatory, seemingly trying to bore a hole through Chen Ping’s robes to find the loot.

“Chen Ping, let’s not play games. Hand over what you have. If you cooperate honestly, I might feel generous. I’ll spare your life and let you rot here in the Spirit Medicine Valley on your own. How about it? A fair trade, isn’t it?”

Naked coercion. Clumsy enticements. It was the tactic of a street thug, devoid of any cultivator’s grace.

A sense of absurdity welled up in Chen Ping. For a moment, the bone-deep hatred was almost diluted by their sheer stupidity.

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if suppressing a laugh at the world’s worst joke.

Seeing the strange expression on Chen Ping’s face, Li Yingyong frowned. He assumed the boy was scared witless or clinging to a delusion. His tone sharpened, heavy with threat.

“Kid, don’t refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit! My patience is limited! This is the wilderness. If I kill you and toss you into a beast den, no one will ever know! Be smart. Hand it over!”

The exhaustion and wariness on Chen Ping’s face vanished instantly, retreating like a tide.

In its place was a flat, indifferent calm.

He stood up slowly. He dusted off non-existent dirt from his gray robe, his movements so composed that Li Yingyong felt an inexplicable skip in his heartbeat.

“Spare my life?”

Chen Ping’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the forest wind with the hardness of glacial ice.

“Li Yingyong… do you think you are capable of that?”