key
Suddenly, Ruan Qingyu moved her left hand, and the Phoenix Divine Fire, which had calmed down, began to boil again. This caused Zhang Zitao to writhe on the ground in pain, but with his limbs crippled, he could only roll back and forth like a crawling insect.
"Spare me, spare me!" Zhang Zitao gasped for breath, his cries of agony mingling with his panting.
After a moment, Zhang Zitao finally couldn't bear the torment any longer and spoke again: "Also, I have something else to say."
His face was covered in tears and snot, and his speech was somewhat slurred, but Ruan Qingyu quickly clenched his fist and stopped the boiling flames.
"Speak." Her patience was about to run out. If the information wasn't important, she would have finished him off in the next moment.
Startled, Zhang Zitao blurted out what he had been keeping hidden: "I have a key to the basement where Chen Tian imprisons the fire spirit root cultivators."
"I can also give you a map of that basement. You can sneak in there freely to prove I wasn't lying to you," Zhang Zitao said tremblingly, revealing the last bit of information.
“The key.” Ruan Qingyu reached out her hand to the person on the ground, her expression indifferent.
Seeing this, Zhang Zitao, though unwilling, had no choice but to pull the key from between his eyebrows with trembling hands and hand it to Ruan Qingyu.
"The map is inside the key. It must be activated with a separate fire elemental energy to retrieve it." After saying this, Zhang Zitao looked at Ruan Qingyu with a mixture of struggle and anticipation.
Looking at his face, Ruan Qingyu suddenly remembered how this person had chased her and used all sorts of underhanded tricks in her past life. A smile involuntarily crept onto her lips, and she clenched her left fist, instantly reigniting the flames that had been coiling around his limbs.
They even completely enveloped Zhang Zitao, turning him into a human torch in an instant.
"Ruan...Ruan Qingyu! You will die a horrible death!" As the words fell, his last breath was swallowed by the flames.
Fifteen minutes later, only ashes remained.
Wutong, who had remained silent all along, slowly drifted over and looked at the pile of ashes on the ground with a puzzled expression: "Does Miss Ruan have a life-or-death feud with this person?"
"Yes and no."
"If that's the case, was it just to force out the secret? Then why didn't you use soul searching?" Wutong couldn't quite understand this Miss Ruan who had resurrected him, but there were many cultivators in ancient times who were far more vicious than her.
However, I didn't expect that the emotions I felt inside the Wutongqin were somewhat different from what I actually saw.
Ruan Qingyu was not surprised by the issue of the wutong tree. After all, no one could tell that she and Zhang Zitao had any grudges against each other.
"The method of soul searching is too painful."
"Soul searching is too painful?" Wutong glanced discreetly at the ashes on the ground, nodded, and remained silent. Since Miss Ruan was unwilling to speak, he wouldn't ask; after all, no matter how great the hidden secrets were, he couldn't possibly know them now.
Holding the key in his hand and examining it closely, he felt that the key was too ordinary. It not only lacked spiritual energy fluctuations but was also not made of special materials.
Thinking of this, Ruan Qingyu stroked the key and simply pointed her index finger at the top of the key. Soon, a little bit of pure fire elemental energy was absorbed into the key.
A moment later, a map made of kraft paper suddenly appeared above the key. Upon seeing this, Ruan Qingyu picked up the map and looked at it.
As expected, the location depicted on the map was still a mountain peak within the Xuan Tian Sect. This was the place where Chen Tian had imprisoned her in her previous life, but she had been taken there unconscious and had never had a chance to properly see the scenery outside.
Holding this map today and carefully comparing it with her past memories, Ruan Qingyu realized that she really needed this map. She was only familiar with the basement area at present, and the rest of the place was still unfamiliar to her.
Thinking of this, Ruan Qingyu carefully engraved the map into her mind.
She remembered that around this time in her previous life, Chen Tian would always disappear for a period of time, whether he needed to digest the sudden surge of spiritual energy or had other matters to attend to.
This is the best opportunity for her to enter the secret room where she was once imprisoned.
That night, Ruan Qingyu did not cultivate as usual, but instead let herself fall into a deep sleep. Soon, her consciousness sank into the depths of her soul once again.
Those familiar purple eyes again held a wealth of emotions that Ruan Qingyu couldn't comprehend, but she could sense that the other person cared about her.
"You're here again. I must be dreaming right now," Ruan Qingyu murmured, as the man in front of her leaned closer.
Warm breath fell on Ruan Qingyu's cheek, startling her so much that she instinctively tried to back away. But the other person had already reached out and placed their hand around her waist, leaving her with nowhere to retreat but to stay close to them.
Fortunately, the strange man made no other move, just looked at her with a smile on his face: "Sleep well, I'll come to find you again in a while."
Again? Ruan Qingyu frowned, wanting to refuse, but found that she couldn't speak at all.
She felt incredibly familiar and comfortable in his arms, so much so that she actually started to feel sleepy.
"You are not allowed to find any other demonic beasts." In her last moments of unconsciousness, Ruan Qingyu heard the man say this.
Other demonic beasts? Why would she want to find other demonic beasts? Yunyin hasn't even returned yet...
Outside the dream, the wutong zither that was originally placed on the table flickered, a wisp of blue light appeared, and the figure of the wutong tree slowly appeared in the room.
He didn't move, but simply watched from a distance as Ruan Qingyu lay asleep on the bed. His doubts grew stronger; he had only come out because he sensed a familiar presence earlier.
But why is Yun Yin's aura on Miss Ruan? Wu Tong's usually composed face showed a rare hint of confusion. Yun Yin was her biggest source of confusion in the past, and now, ten thousand years later, it's still him.
Shaking his head, Wutong stopped thinking about these things. He only hoped that one day he could reunite with this old friend.
The next day, it was broad daylight.
Ruan Qingyu felt completely relaxed today, a comfort that came from the inside out. It was as if her soul had been cleansed; although her cultivation level remained unchanged, she felt her mind was much clearer.
In such a good mood, she couldn't help but recall the purple-eyed man from last night. Ruan Qingyu herself didn't even realize that a contented smile was playing on her lips.
"Miss Ruan seems to be in a good mood today?" Wu Tong's gentle voice rang out in the room. Although he had no physical form, he was still sitting upright in a chair on the other side.
Upon hearing this, Ruan Qingyu couldn't help but take a few more glances. She still found it somewhat unsettling that Wutong, despite being a spirit, retained some of her habits from her previous life.
But when his gaze fell on the other person's blue eyes, he couldn't help but freeze.
"Wutong, do the colors of a demon beast's eyes remain the same after it transforms into human form?" Ruan Qingyu asked Wutong with some curiosity.
Unexpectedly, Ruan Qingyu asked this question, and Wutong couldn't help but laugh: "Actually, after we demon cultivators transform into human form, we can look exactly the same as ordinary human cultivators, but most demon cultivators will retain some of their characteristics."
Ruan Qingyu understood, so the man in her dream was probably a demon cultivator.
"Are there demon cultivators skilled in entering dreams?"
Wutong withdrew her hand from the table, somewhat surprised, and asked, "Did Miss Ruan encounter a demon cultivator in her dream?"
When he asked this, Ruan Qingyu was about to answer when she suddenly remembered her dream with the purple-eyed man a few days ago, and her breath hitched.
He shook his head: "It's nothing, I just noticed your eyes are different from others, so I was just asking."
Wutong lowered her eyes and calmly said, "Yes, many demon cultivators choose to retain their eye color."
With something on her mind, Ruan Qingyu changed the subject: "Tonight I plan to go and take a look at the basement on the map."
“Miss Ruan, since Chen Tian’s behavior is no different from that of a demonic cultivator, why not report it directly to the sect instead of choosing to take the risk yourself?”
Wutong remembered that in the past, those sects always said that family scandals should not be aired in public. But when a real problem arose, they would still take the initiative to help.
People like Miss Ruan who act alone are rare. It seems Miss Ruan doesn't like interacting with others, much like that kid Yun Yin. Wu Tong's thoughts drifted away, and she naturally missed Ruan Qingyu's suddenly deep gaze.
"The forces within the sect are complex and intertwined. It would be inappropriate for me to report this rashly. I will investigate the matter myself before reporting it." Ruan Qingyu's expression remained unchanged. She was unsure whether Chen Tian would be arrested if she reported it in advance.
However, if she wanted to kill him herself, it would be extremely difficult. Although Chen Tian reaped what he sowed in his previous life, being burned to death by the Phoenix Divine Fire, it still wasn't Ruan Qingyu who personally did it. In this life, she was determined to kill this villain with her own hands.
"However, Wutong, why haven't you changed it yet?" Ruan Qingyu thought that after she returned yesterday, she gave the glass coral stone to Wutong, but now she looked at it.
On the table, besides the zither, lay the glass coral stone, still shimmering with a lustrous sheen. The spirit of the phoenix was still adrift, clearly not yet separated from the zither.
Knowing that she was concerned about her, Wutong smiled and said, "I should have changed places today, but since Miss Ruan is going there today, I will attach myself to the Wutong Qin. If anything goes wrong, I can help out a little."
Seeing the seriousness in Wutong's eyes, Ruan Qingyu couldn't help but smile: "Thank you."
That night, the Xuantian Sect did not have the custom of lighting lamps, so the entire mountain fell silent. Even the cultivators who practiced year-round only lit one lamp in their own residences.
This greatly facilitated Ruan Qingyu, who was wearing a black cloak. Having learned from her previous experience, she had specially reinforced the cloak.
Except for those whose cultivation level far surpasses her own, it is not easy for others to see her face.
The "Concealing the Breath of All Things Technique" quietly activated, and Ruan Qingyu moved through the night like a nimble black cat. Relying on her extreme familiarity with the terrain, she traversed numerous mountain peaks.
Around a bend, we entered a small hill. In the blink of an eye, we passed several dwellings and arrived near an inconspicuous house.
The house was unremarkable, but Ruan Qingyu, with her excellent eyesight, immediately recalled that she had seen this strange yet familiar place in the sky when her soul left her body.
Stepping onto the damp ground, Ruan Qingyu squatted down, but didn't rush to use the key. Instead, she reached out and pressed her hand into the ground, and in the blink of an eye, a dent appeared in the ground.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a spiraling stone staircase leading downwards.
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