"You!"
"You ungrateful wretch!"
Qin Youbing was seething with rage, but all he could utter were these two words.
"Ungrateful wretch?"
Qin Mingyue chuckled self-mockingly, "When have you ever treated Mingfei as your son, or me as your daughter? Since that's the case, where does this 'ungrateful wretch' come from?"
Qin Youbing was so choked he had no reply, and could only point at her nose, "Fine! Fine! Fine! You have backbone, then never return to the Qin family!"
With that, he turned and left in a huff.
Qin Mingyue looked up at the sky and sighed, then turned to pick up Qin Mingfei from the ground. "Mingfei, third sister will take you home! Don't you like the straightforwardness of the King's Mercenary Group? Third sister will take you back to Tianqi now, and we'll look after the King's Mercenary Group!"
As she spoke, she began to walk out of the desert, holding Qin Mingfei's corpse.
A month and a half later, on the edge of the Misty Forest in Tianqi, near Immortal River Town, a grave appeared.
There was no tombstone on the grave, only a sword.
Not far from the grave, a treehouse loomed in and out of sight.
Inside the treehouse, a woman with a head full of silver hair lived alone.
Besides occasional hunting, the silver-haired woman would spend the rest of her time sitting by the grave, chattering away to it.
"Mingfei, look, the King's Mercenary Group has successfully completed another mission."
"Mingfei, do you know? The King's Mercenary Group marched straight towards Jinxia's capital, forcing the Emperor of Jinxia to sign a non-aggression pact."
"Mingfei, it's been a long time since we've heard from Commander Zi. I wonder how she's doing."
"Mingfei..."
This grave was, naturally, Qin Mingfei's. And the silver-haired woman in the treehouse was, naturally, Qin Mingyue.
Qin Mingyue had walked out of the desert that day, leaving Eastern City. However, due to her profound grief, her hair had turned white overnight.
With her heart in agony, she carried Qin Mingfei's corpse back to Tianqi and "settled down" in the Misty Forest, where the King's Mercenary Group often appeared.
However, feeling too ashamed to face the King's Mercenary Group again, she deliberately chose a more hidden spot.
Qin Mingyue had decided to stay with Qin Mingfei's grave for the rest of her life, never to step into the outside world again.
Meanwhile, Zi Lingling, after leaving that desert, headed directly for the Dark Abyss.
Along the way, she continuously refined elixirs. The day before reaching the Dark Abyss, she successfully advanced to the rank of Emperor-level Alchemist and successfully concocted a furnace of Golden Sun Pills.
The Dark Abyss was located in the far west of the Tianyuan Continent, bordering the Boundless Sea.
Legend had it that if one could cross the Boundless Sea, they could reach another continent.
But legends were just legends, and whether they were true or not, one could not know.
Moreover, Zi Lingling had no intention of verifying it, as her destination was the Dark Abyss.
Of course, she had already obtained news from the Wind and Rain Tower and found the place where Ye Lingyun had disappeared.
Standing there, Ye Lingyun's captivating face once again flashed in Zi Lingling's mind.
The Dark Abyss was, in reality, a bottomless canyon.
Zi Lingling stood at the edge, looking at the black mist constantly rising from the canyon below, and her brows furrowed.
Because she could sense that the black mist here was very similar to the black mist she encountered when she met the Ancestor Demon in the place of exile.
Therefore, she could be certain that this black mist was also demonic energy.
And the existence of demonic energy in the Dark Abyss gave Zi Lingling a sense of being out of control.
Should she go down?
Or not go down?
Zi Lingling hesitated.
Because she wasn't sure if Ye Lingyun had really gone down into the Dark Abyss.
But if she didn't go down and explore, she would always feel uneasy.
Besides, even if Ye Lingyun hadn't gone down, her father, Zi Guochang, was down there!
Forget it!
Fortune favors the bold!
To save someone, one must pay a price.
Therefore, Zi Lingling finally decided to go down!
However, before going down, she made some preparations.
For example, she refined some detoxification pills and miasma-breaking pills, and prepared enough food.
Last time, at the Ghost Altar, Zi Lingling had obtained some Dark Night Grass, so the detoxification pills she refined this time were naturally Universal Detoxification Pills.
The so-called universal nature didn't mean absolute universality, but rather that it could neutralize most poisons.
However, some poisons could not be resolved by Universal Detoxification Pills, and might even worsen the symptoms of poisoning, such as the ancient divine poison, Moonlit Glaze.
As for food, Zi Lingling purchased it from nearby towns. She also replenished her surgical knives and upgraded them to the level of King-grade weapons.
With all preparations complete, Zi Lingling began her descent towards the bottom of the Dark Abyss.
She stood at the edge of the cliff, took a deep breath, and leaped down.
Of course, the moment she jumped, the spiritual energy in her feet began to circulate to slow down her free-fall speed.
But even so, as she descended deeper, her speed increased to an extreme.
If Zi Lingling didn't care and continued to fall, by the time she reached the bottom of the abyss, she would be smashed into a meat patty.
Therefore, to slow down her speed, she gathered more spiritual energy beneath her feet to increase friction, and at the same time, took out a long sword from her Nine Spirits Ring and plunged it into the nearby rock face.
"Sizzle sizzle..."
"Clang..."
The long sword inserted into the rock face emitted a piercing grinding sound and could not stop, until finally, the long sword broke.
Zi Lingling rapidly plunged towards the bottom of the abyss again.
"Damn it!"
She roared in anger, took out another long sword, and repeated the process.
"Sizzle sizzle..."
"Clang..."
"Sizzle sizzle..."
"Clang..."
...
The long sword continuously emitted grinding and breaking sounds.
Zi Lingling went through nine long swords in a row before she could control her falling speed within a safe range!
"That was close!"
She inwardly exclaimed, wiping the cold sweat from her forehead.
She had been falling for a quarter of an hour but still hadn't reached the bottom, which showed that the Dark Abyss truly lived up to its name.
Moreover, the entrance to the abyss above her was long gone. The entire Dark Abyss was filled with an impenetrable darkness, without a trace of light.
In the darkness, besides the howling wind in Zi Lingling's ears, there was no other sound.
This was fortunate for Zi Lingling's bravery and skill. If any other girl were here, she would have likely wet herself from fear.
Zi Lingling stabilized her speed and switched back to controlling her descent with spiritual energy.
When her speed once again reached an incredible level, she would use her long sword to slow down again.
After repeating this process several times, Zi Lingling finally felt solid ground beneath her feet, but the surroundings became even darker.
Even with Zi Lingling's divine sense, she could not discern how far it was.
As Zi Lingling's feet touched the ground, she heard a "crack" sound, which startled her greatly.