After Xue Li left, one of her subordinates grinned and sharply said, “If you have anything to say, hurry and say it. Don’t make me wait, I don’t have much patience.”

Saying so, he too walked out of the hall.

Only Yang Kai and An Ling’er remained now.

The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess quickly came over and asked Yang Kai about his present condition, a thick meaning of concern and worry in her voice. Yang Kai repeatedly a.s.sured her he was fine and then asked her how she was doing.

An Ling’er smiled bitterly and replied, “Senior Xue hasn’t mistreated me so far, she only has me accompany her and take care of some minor tasks, so you don’t need to worry about me. More importantly… Why did you refuse Gou Qiong’s offer to redeem us?”

“Do you think I shouldn’t have refused?”

“I don’t know, but that Xue Li is not a good person, I’m afraid if we remain here we’ll encounter danger sooner or later.”

“She is not a good person, but neither is Gou Qiong,” Yang Kai coldly snorted, “I refused because I want to keep control of my own life.”

“Ah? Why do you say that?” An Ling’er was lost.

Yang Kai explained carefully, “If I accepted his ransom, it that means I will owe him my life. No matter what kind of excessive demands he makes, I won’t be able to refuse.”

“But… you also saved Gou Che’s life. If you take that into consideration, shouldn’t the two things offset one another?”

“You’re still so silly,” Yang Kai knocked her head lightly, “That’s the biggest problem here.”

An Ling’er rubbed her forehead while staring at Yang Kai as if she had been greatly wronged, “I don’t get what you’re saying, explain it clearly.”

“Haa…” Yang Kai looked at her and shook his head, “You being able to grow up must not have been easy. You must thank your Nine Heavens Holy Land for keeping you inside the Sect all these years, if you had gone out on your own, I don’t know how many times you’d have died already.”

An Ling’er pursed her lips unhappily.

“I saved Gou Che, that life-saving grace should have become something we could rely on to leave the Demon Land, but now it’s actually a fatal problem. Think about the ident.i.ty of Gou Che: His father is Gou Qiong, a Demon General. Didn’t Xue Li say this when we first met, ‘A solemn Demon General heir actually needing a human to save his life…’”

“The meaning of that statement was that he should not have been saved by me, or at the very least, he shouldn’t have been saved by a human. If I really accepted Gou Qiong’s ransom and allowed him to redeem us, within a few days, both you and I will wind up dead in some roadside ditch!”

“Ah!” An Ling’er yelped as she covered her mouth.

“The best way for Gou Qiong to not let news of this disgrace spread out is to silence all the witnesses to the crime. With no evidence, no one will know that his son had been saved by a mere human,” Yang Kai smiled coldly, a dangerous light flickering across his eyes.

“Isn’t all that just your speculations?” An Ling’er was somewhat unable to believe what she just heard.

“It’s not a guess, it’s a fact!” Yang Kai concluded, “Gou Qiong is not a generous man, so how could he suddenly be kind enough to redeem his son, a stranger, and two humans? You should know that the amount of ransom he paid was not small, clearly he has an ulterior motive… If my guess is right, on the way to Gou Che’s home, there are already masters waiting for us in ambush. Once we show up, all that will be waiting for us is death!”

An Ling’er tender body trembled as a sense of escaping from certain doom suddenly overcame her.

“This point, Xue Li was also well aware of! But she didn’t make any effort to inform us. That woman really is sinister…” Yang Kai gnashed his teeth.

“No wonder when you refused she smiled so weirdly, so it was like that,” An Ling’er suddenly realized; at the same time, she also felt a great sense of admiration for Yang Kai.

If it had been just her instead, she would likely have happily left with Gou Che, happily fantasizing about how Gou Qiong would thank her for saving his son, not realizing the hidden murderous intent behind all of this!

As a hint of fear flashed across her eyes, a sense of anger also welled up inside her, “Gou Che, that ungrateful dog, how could he not have known how his father thinks?”

“Hmph, he couldn’t be clearer,” Yang Kai sneered.

“You should have left him to rot in that Mysterious Small World!” An Ling’er cursed furiously.

“That was my mistake, I wanted to borrow his ident.i.ty and status; unfortunately, it seems trying to be clever actually made me into a fool. Well, at least it wasn’t a total loss; he did bring us out of that desert. Without him, we might have been lost in that place for the rest of our lives. Even if we had made it out, we probably would have been chased down by other Demon Race cultivators instead of standing here comfortably in Sand City right now.”

Everything has its pros and cons, it all depends on how one thought about it.

Gou Che had truly acted cold and ruthless, but Yang Kai had never been sincere towards him either, so there was nothing to really be disappointed about.

Yang Kai slowly shook his head, “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Right now, we need to consider how to survive while still in Xue Li’s hands. Since you’re by her side, pay attention and observe her carefully, see if there’s something we can use, perhaps some casual discovery will prove to be a breakthrough point for us.”

“En,” An Ling’er nodded firmly, feeling a kind of solidarity and shared sense of destiny with Yang Kai.

As they were speaking, Xue Li’s subordinate called out to them from outside the hall, urging them to hurry up, so Yang Kai quickly said goodbye to An Ling’er and departed and was returned to his room again.

Time pa.s.sed and everything was quiet.

Since Yang Kai rejected Gou Qiong’s ransom that day, he seemed to have been forgotten by Xue Li, and before he knew it, two months had gone by.

Yang Kai was also happy with the status quo for now; besides meditating and cultivating throughout the day, he spent his time communicating with the Divine Tree.

After several months, the Divine Tree’s consciousness had matured greatly, and it was now possible for Yang Kai to hold simple conversations with it.

From Yang Kai, the Divine Tree had learned a lot, and its wisdom was still growing rapidly. Today, it possessed ability equal to that of a six or seven-year-old child; besides being slightly mischievous, everything about it was excellent.

The Divine Tree was now rooted in the Black Book s.p.a.ce and Yang Kai could supplement his own Yang Qi and Spiritual Energy from it any time or place. It was as if Yang Kai was carrying a ma.s.sive storage s.p.a.ce of energy with him which was extremely convenient to use.

After two months of dedicated cultivation, Yang Kai’s strength had increased significantly.

One day, when Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar dove into the Black Book s.p.a.ce, he found something out of place.

The rare ores he had stored in the Black Book s.p.a.ce seemed to have decreased in number somewhat.

These ores were collected from the last time Yang Kai entered the Starry Sky. After pa.s.sing through the Starry Sky Storm, he had found many precious ores left behind from the Asteroid Sea. He wanted to use these ores to create some powerful artifacts, but had never had time to find a suitable Artifact Refiner.

Yang Kai wasn’t too clear about the exact quant.i.ty of these ores, but after checking it over a few times, there were indeed fewer than he remembered.

In the place where he had been keeping them, there was some scattered gravel remaining. These leftovers were completely composed of impurities. In other words, the essence of the original ores had been consumed, leaving only dregs behind.

Yang Kai was puzzled and quickly used brought his Soul Avatar into the Divine Tree’s core to ask it about it.

Yang Kai thought that the Divine Tree had secretly absorbed the essence from these ores but after hearing his question, the Divine Tree actually shook its head and said it had done no such thing.

Yang Kai laughed dumbly at this response and didn’t ask again.

The consciousness of the Divine Tree was only equivalent to that of a child, it was only normal for it to lie a little about such things at this age.

Yang Kai naturally didn’t have any intention to blame it, if the Divine Tree needed these ores, he would happily give all of them to it.

“Good, if these stones are useful to you, you can use as many as you want, you don’t need to ask me first. Right, there is also a pool of medicinal liquid over there, you can absorb one drop of it every day, it may help your growth.”

The Divine Tree rejoiced slightly and immediately reached out a branch towards the pool of Myriad Drug Liquid and took a drop, a moment later releasing a long, satisfied sigh.

Seeing this, Yang Kai smiled warmly, but soon after he noticed that someone was approaching his room so he quickly informed the Divine Tree before returning his consciousness back to his body.

Just as he opened his eyes, the door was pushed open and Xue Li’s subordinate waved towards Yang Kai indifferently, “Get out, Mistress wants to see you.”

Yang Kai frowned for a moment but refrained from asking anything and quickly followed the man out.

Yang Kai didn’t know what this man’s exact cultivation was, but from the pressure he felt and how highly Xue Li’s trusted the latter, it was likely this man was a Saint Realm master.

The Demon Race was generally longer lived than those of the Human Race, so from appearance alone, this person didn’t seem very old. He looked like a handsome thirty-year-old man who constantly had an arrogant expression on his face.

Only when he was in front of Xue Li would this man restrain himself, not daring to act prideful in the slightest.

“Friend, how should I address you?” Yang Kai asked suddenly.

The man turned his head and stared at Yang Kai for a moment before chuckling, “Mistress said your courage wasn’t small, it seems she was right! Boy, you don’t seem to have the awareness a prisoner should have.”

Yang Kai shrugged his shoulders and replied casually, “Although I have indeed been confined by you, since you haven’t done anything to me after so long, it means that I still have some use to you. Why should I act anxiously for no reason?”

“Seems your head isn’t too bad either, good, I like it!” The man laughed before saying, “Call me Yu Mo.”

“The names of your Demon Race people are really weird…” Yang Kai shook his head.

“I think the names of your humans are the weird ones!” Yu Mo grinned.

“What does your Mistress want from me this time?” Yang Kai asked again.

“I don’t know, maybe she thinks you no longer have any value and has decided to kill you,” Yu Mo grinned as he took pleasure in Yang Kai’s misfortune, continuing scornfully, “You’d better prepare yourself, otherwise you may find yourself lacking a head without even knowing why.”

The corner of Yang Kai’s mouth twitched slightly but he managed to maintain his indifferent expression somehow.

Seeing this, Yu Mo nodded secretly, feeling like this little brat was indeed somewhat different. Any average person would probably be panicking after hearing such words, but this boy actually still looked quite carefree.