“Well, Mr. Ji, you didn’t mention remuneration before…”

The Old Bull asked awkwardly.

“It’s true that I didn’t mention it, but you didn’t ask either.”

Ji Yuan teased with a smile, watching the Old Bull’s face change into a constipated expression.

“Yes, but this Old Bull doesn’t have anything to offer as payment… How about I kowtow to you, sir?”

Ji Yuan shook his head and stopped teasing him.

“Sit down and disperse the spiritual energy on the back of your neck. This hair is rooted in your marrow and essence. It will take some effort to remove it. Don’t move, even if you feel something, otherwise, if there is any deviation while guiding the True Fire energy, you will suffer.”

Niu Batian was overjoyed at Ji Yuan’s words. He agreed and sat down cross-legged with his back facing Ji Yuan, lowering his head and pulling down his collar.

Looking at the campfire in front of him, Niu Batian began imagining what Mr. Ji’s True Fire of Samadhi might look like.

“Prepare yourself, don’t move rashly, the True Fire of Samadhi is no joke!”

Ji Yuan’s words became much more serious, and the Old Bull hurriedly collected himself. Yan Fei, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, originally resting against a tree trunk with his sword in his arms, now sat up straight and observed from the side.

Ji Yuan gazed at the old bull’s rough skin and the tuft of brown hair at the nape of his neck, and slowly opened his supernatural eyes wide.

Compared to the blurriness of normal sights, Ji Yuan’s vision was unusually clear when it came to special auras, energies, and divine light.

The Old Bull’s demonic aura and the demonic aura of the hair possessed two completely different attributes. Following the collision of these contradictory auras, the line of sight of Ji Yuan’s supernatural eyes seemed to extend down into the depths of the bull’s spirit. He could see the source of that evil energy constantly absorbing the Old Bull’s essence and spiritual energy, attempting to continuously extend, but there was a thin membrane of spiritual light blocking it.

“It’s indeed formidable.”

Ji Yuan declared. He summoned the spiritual energy in his body to open the golden bridge in his inner world, sending forth a wisp of True Fire energy. He opened his mouth and a stream of reddish-gray energy slowly escaped, approaching the back of Niu Batian’s neck.

As the reddish-gray energy approached, the bull demon clutched at his own trouser leg. Unable to control his force, he tore it apart as he clamped down on his own leg.

While there should not have been any fluctuations in temperature behind him, his spiritual perception gave him the illusion that there was a raging sea of fire behind him, along with a mental sensation like the piercing of endless needles.

Instinctual warnings raced though his mind.

‘Danger! very dangerous! Fatal danger! I must dodge! ‘

Even so, Niu Batian resisted the urge to flee immediately and remained motionless. His clenched teeth made a cracking sound, and cold sweat dripped from his body. The bonfire in front of him was a mere drop in the ocean compared to the endless see of flames behind him.

“Whoosh…”

The faintest sound of breathing was magnified countless times in this tense moment. Niu Batian’s pupils constricted violently as he faced the bonfire. The monstrous, raging sea of fire was already close by.

A wisp of reddish-gray energy flew under Ji Yuan’s fine control directly to the back of Niu Batian’s exposed neck, and touched the tuft of brown hair.

However, this time, the reddish-gray energy did not directly ignite the hair; instead, it flowed along the hair from the tip, penetrating the Old Bull’s skin, and continued to flow downward. At this moment, the True Fire energy was as thin as a gossamer strand.

This process was an extreme test of Ji Yuan’s mental and spiritual strength, as well as his control, and, of course, Niu Batian’s endurance.

“Hold on and don’t move! The True Fire has already entered your body. If you wish to eradicate this curse, you must wait for it to take root. If you directly let it burn, your soul will also be burned. Concentrate your mind and calm yourself. Don’t visualize the True Fire behind you, otherwise your state of mind will be unable to bear it!”

Ji Yuan reminded him again, then threw the piece of yellow paper from his sleeve and stopped distracting himself, trying his best to control the raging True Fire. Niu Batian immediately forced himself into stillness, as if he had just woken up from a dream.

Before the yellow paper hit the ground, a faint yellow light, like glowing powder, spread out in the air, and it immediately transformed into a very muscular Golden-Armored Warrior.

The golden armored warrior faced Ji Yuan and bowed respectfully.

“Your Honor!”

But Ji Yuan had no time to pay attention to him, so the Golden-Armored Warrior finished his bow, his gaze only lingering on Yan Fei for a moment, then he stood quietly by the campfire and didn’t move.

Yan Fei watched nervously from the side. Although he couldn’t figure out what was going on, he knew that this was a critical moment. He had heard Niu Batian complain more than once about this evil technique on the back of the neck, saying that it was a vicious technique that damaged his cultivation foundation.

However, with the appearance of this Golden-Armored Warrior, it was clearly not his place to help protect the two cultivators.

Ordinary people could not concentrate for that long of a time, not even Yan Fei with his excellent martial arts skills. After staring at the scene on the opposite side of the campfire for about half an hour, he finally couldn’t bear it anymore.

He rubbed his eyes and looked at the Golden-Armored Warrior. This burly general didn’t move a muscle, and he didn’t even blink his eyes.

“Haah… Please, Warrior, take are of Mr. Ji and Senior Brother Niu. I’ll be back soon.”

When he was drunk, he had been calling him “Brother Niu,” but this honorific was too intimate, and Yan Fei wasn’t used to it, so he had just been using “Senior Brother Niu” over this period of time.1

Yan leapt to the campfire and tossed another large piece of wood into it, then stood up from where he was kneeling and prepared to go out to relieve himself.

The night wind blew by the edge of the woods. Even in the fourth lunar month, it was still chilly. After he had walked a few steps away, Yan Fei turned his head to look in the direction of the campfire.

‘It would be better to go further away for convenience.’

With this thought, Yan Fei took a deep breath and used his movement techniques to step like the wind, quickly traveling towards the depths of the woods.

It was the springtime season of the world’s rebirth, and this forest was no longer silent at night. Various insects and frogs were chirping constantly, so there was probably a source of water nearby.

Now that the flames of the campfire were almost out of sight, Yan Fei stopped and unbuttoned his pants. No matter how far away he was, this distance should not affect Mr. Ji.

The line of water fell onto the dead branches and leaves on the ground, and Yan Fei’s expression relaxed. However, during this process, he opened his eyes and looked around, only to find that he had passed through the densest belt of the forest. Now, looking further forward, he could actually see through the forest to the other side.

“Is there a fire?”

A faint glow could be seen in the distance.

There shouldn’t be any towns or villages nearby, so these flames could only be from another group of people.

After he had finished relieving himself, Yan Fei fastened his belt and glanced back at the direction of the campfire, where Ji Yuan and Niu Batian currently were. He then looked forwards into the distance, gathered his strength, and moved onwards. It took him but a moment to reach the edge of the woods on the other side.

Yan Fei then found a taller tree, leaped up, pushed off a branch, and landed directly at the crown, gazing out into the distance.

“There really is light, and there’s a lot of it…”

From his perch, Yan Fei realized that this distant glow wasn’t just a simple fire. Although it was far off, it wasn’t a single point. This wasn’t something that could be explained away as a campfire; it looked more like a wildfire.

Yan Fei looked up at the sky. There wasn’t even a single cloud or wisp of smoke to be seen in the dim moonlight.

‘The direction of the wind is towards me. If it were a wildfire, there would be smoke. Could it be… the lights of the town? But that’s impossible, there isn’t so much as a village within a hundred li of this place, there couldn’t possibly be a town.’

After thinking for a while, Yan Fei shook his head. He figured that it was better to have fewer worries than more of them, so he prepared to jump off the branch. However, before he jumped, he suddenly thought he saw a carriage rolling through the wilderness a little further away. He took a closer look: it was indeed a horse-drawn carriage.

The carriage was at least one li away from the edge of the woods where Yan Fei was, and it was driving from east to west. It seemed to be headed in the direction of the fire Yan Fei had spotted. He frowned and looked for a while, before finally jumping off the branch and turning around to head back.

At this moment, at the campfire at the other end of the forest, Ji Yuan had controlled the True Fire energy and touched the root of the hair. The True Fire energy was like a tiny tornado, engulfing it from the outside in. Then, Ji Yuan’s mind moved.

Whoosh… All the brown hair and demonic spiritual energy were incinerated in an instant.

“Hiss…”

Niu Batian made a sound of pain, or more likely of fear.

“Okay, it’s resolved. Without a detailed understanding of this technique, we can only burn it out crudely like this.”

“Haah…haah…Just now, this Old Bull was really frightened. But it’s finally done.”

Niu Batian wiped the sweat off his face, and then reached out to touch the back of his neck. Aside from a burnt patch of skin about the size of a fingernail, there was no other pain. More importantly, he felt relieved, and his instincts no longer felt any sense of threat.

“Hahahahaha, hahahahaha… It’s really gone, that’s amazing! Hahahahaha… When I fully recover, I won’t be afraid if I meet that stinky bitch again!”

“With your hobby, you might get tricked again.”

Ji Yuan laughed.

“Hey, hey, how could that be? Ever failure is a lesson. From now on, this Old Bull will be more cautious! By the way, where is Brother Yan?”

The Old Bull made a promise, but didn’t see Yan Fei.

“He must have gone out to relieve himself. He should be back soon.”

Sure enough, as Ji Yuan said, Yan Fei returned to the campfire only moments later. He saw that Ji Yuan had already pulled out a book again and Niu Batian was dozing off, each busy with their own things.

Ji Yuan didn’t bother to look up at the sound of Yan Fei’s footsteps, but Niu Batian leapt to his feet. He needed to share his excitement with others.

“Ah, Brother Yan, you’re back. Haha, your Brother Niu is healed again. Now that this evil technique has been removed, there’s nothing stopping my recovery. That bitch can’t defeat me any more. Look, look, the hair is gone!”

The Old Bull turned around and showed Yan Fei the back of his neck. Yan Fei simply congratulated him a few times, then relayed what he had seen.

As Ji Yuan listened, he put down the book. Even the Old Bull fell silent.

“You said there might be a town here?”

“Yes. I saw a horse-drawn carriage heading in that direction with my own eyes, and the firelight is arranged in a way that would indicate a town. Mr. Ji, shall we go and have a look?”

Niu Batian glanced at Ji Yuan and said.

“Mr. Ji, something isn’t right here. There shouldn’t be any towns here. After all, the gathered vital energy of people gathered in towns is so intense that you can’t help but see it.”

Ji Yuan put away the book in his hand, stood up, and looked in the direction Yan Fei had indicated. Indeed, he did not see any signs of a gathering of people.

“Let’s go and take a look. You two, follow me.”

Before he had even finished speaking, Ji Yuan had already set off. His body seemed to be moving slowly, as if he were on a stroll, but he had traveled far in only a short period of time.

“Brother Yan, let’s go too!”

The Old Bull grabbed Yan Fei’s arm. A faint yellow halo appeared under his feet, and he hurriedly chased after him.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the three of them had arrived on a sloping hill, looking far off to the west.

“It really is a town! Who lives here? Why haven’t I heard of it?”

Yan Fei asked in disbelief, but Niu Batian sneered. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the NoveIꜰire.net

“Hmph, Brother Yan, you’re wrong. This town is real, but it’s not for humans!”

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T/n: things always happen when a character goes to pee in the middle of the woods

1. 哥 (gē) is more informal than 兄 (xiōng), though they both translate to “elder brother.” I’ve chosen “Brother” for the informal one and “Elder Brother” for the more formal translation.