Could it be that I am the cruel villain?
Chapter 166 - 122: The Weird and Eccentric Miss Cen_2

Chapter 166: Chapter 122: The Weird and Eccentric Miss Cen_2

The Gu worms inside the body were depleted, having lost the ability to recover. If it wanted to continue regaining its strength, it could only do so by devouring the flesh and blood of living humans.

Cen Zhuangzhuang saw the monster attempting to flee, immediately planning to pursue it. Although it could fly, it wouldn’t get very far, and he was quite confident in his own physical stamina.

"Cousin, I’ll give chase."

He was about to chase after it, but Jiang Feng suddenly spoke up to stop him.

"Brother Cen, do you think it still wants to flee in its current state? Where could it possibly escape to?"

"Ah?"

Clearly, for Cen Zhuangzhuang, this question was somewhat beyond his understanding.

However, the girl beside him glanced at Jiang Feng thoughtfully, likely guessing his intention. After hesitating for a moment, she spoke up.

"It naturally wants to escape, seeking populated areas to strike when the opportunity arises, trying to find a way to recover its body. But in its current state, even if it escapes, it’s unlikely to survive."

"Creatures like the Xu Huoyao need to consume a large amount of living flesh and blood to sustain the energy within it. Living humans are best, similar to how I used to make them parasite on corpses, naturally they wouldn’t last long."

"Its current state is such that it can’t even commit atrocities, let alone encounter a cultivator in the Qi Refinement Realm..."

Her voice stopped abruptly.

Seeing a boy trying to squeeze out a smile, she realized her words might have been a bit inappropriate, which in a way could be seen as a compliment.

To Cen Yueyue, Jiang Feng wasn’t viewed as a novice in Qi cultivation, but rather as a genius young man of similar level to her own brother.

Immediately, she changed her statement.

"Even if it encountered the cultivators we saw earlier, it would be a dead end, so there’s nowhere it can really go. If we had to guess where it might flee to, it could only possibly be seeking its origin."

"It’s just a Xu Huoyao mixed with various types of Spiritual Beast Essence Blood by people, it has no origin...What do you mean?"

She nodded.

Without rushing to pursue, Jiang Feng began to quickly clean up the battlefield.

He collected the scattered weapons and magic treasures on the ground, but he was not greedy at all, simply placing them next to the cultivator who was still unconscious.

This undoubtedly brought a smile to Cen Yueyue’s face, as she highly valued a person’s character.

"Although it’s just a guess, typically when creatures are bullied outside, their first instinct is to return to their mother."

"Same for humans, same for beasts. Even if there’s only a slight chance, we can trace it directly back to the main culprit. For the Xu Huoyao, the traitor from your family is its mother."

"Even if the guess is wrong, it merely delays us a bit, and with your abilities, there shouldn’t be too many accidents. Moreover, from what we’ve seen so far, Southern Fengzhou should have more than one Xu Huoyao."

Now Cen Zhuangzhuang understood: it was about playing the long game. However, he was still naïvely scratching his head.

"Then, Brother, how can we track it? That creature can fly, and it doesn’t leave traces on the ground. Cousin, did you leave any Gu worms on it?"

She shook her head.

Given the urgency of the situation, she hadn’t had time to implant any Gu worms. Jiang Feng, stroking his chin, remained silent.

He only retrieved a delicate paper figure, no, a paper dog from his Qiankun Bag, which looked lifelike and had the same Daoist skill used earlier by Wu Fangsheng in chasing Jiang Feng.

Then, Jiang Feng began to cast a spell in accordance with his memory, stimulating Spiritual Energy. He then glanced at the brother and sister duo and flashed an awkward smile.

"Did I not wash up properly earlier?"

Cen Zhuangzhuang looked at himself, puzzled, checking his clothes which, despite a few tears, surely weren’t that bad, plus he had cleaned himself.

While her brother appeared confused, the wiser Cen Yueyue took a proactive step forward, placing her palm on the young man’s shoulder. Instantly, a powerful surge of Spiritual Energy flooded into his body, replenishing his depleted energy.

With the Spiritual Energy moving through acupuncture points according to the methods remembered by Wu Fangsheng, she bent two fingers and then shouted in a low voice.

"Rise!"

Under their gaze, the small exquisite paper figure trembled, then a beast soul was injected into it. The remnants of spiritual beasts’ souls obtained from Wu Fangsheng were all perfectly stored in his Soul Summoning Banner.

Unfortunately, the only regret was that he hadn’t managed to collect the spirit soul of the Spirit Tiger himself, though most were of Foundation Establishment level.

"Woof Woof!"

Having been imbued with a consciousness, the paper dog naturally barked a few times at Jiang Feng.toDouble()

This scene left both people present quite astonished, wondering how Jiang Feng had hidden such an ultimate skill?

"Go."

With those words, the Paperman dog seemed to have received its orders.

Despite its small size, its speed was incredibly fast. It circled a few times around the neck on the ground that was still spasmodically twitching, sniffed it, quickly memorized the scent, and then turned to look in the direction that the earlier escapee had fled.

"You..."

Cen Yueyue truly didn’t know what to say now.

She even started to suspect that Jiang Feng was pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger, actually a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage, intentionally suppressing his cultivation level to deceive her.

But just now, when she infused spiritual energy into Jiang Feng’s body, she found that although his meridians were unobstructed, he was indeed just in the Qi Refinement Realm; the amount of spiritual energy was pitifully little.

What astonished her the most was how someone with such talent and physique was only at the realm of Qi Refinement.

Thus, she couldn’t help but ask, "How long have you been cultivating?"

"Me?"

Watching the Paperman dog nuzzle his trouser leg, he realized that as long as he had enough spiritual energy, he could use many mysterious daoist skills from his memory.

Especially since he had spent a few days in Yu Ying’s study recently, he read through a stack of secret manuals that interested him, but for most of them, it wasn’t that he couldn’t learn them but rather his realm was too low, and he had too little spiritual energy.

For a paper-folding daoist skill like this, provided he had a cultivation around mid-grade Foundation Establishment, he could simultaneously release more than three spirit animal souls’ hosts. This approach was somewhat similar to the Beast Taming Sect, but taming a spiritual beast ultimately requires subjugation.

This technique just needed to collect souls; although less powerful, the threshold was also much lower.

Hearing the girl’s question, Jiang Feng casually replied.

"I started this August."

"..."

This completely stupefied Cen Yueyue.

Counting on her fingers, even if starting from the first day of August, it was only October now, not even three months.

This was the first time she doubted her own talent.

"Brother Jiang, your cultivational talent is much stronger than mine, and even stronger than cousin’s. Cousin only succeeded in forming her core because she consumed many elixirs."

"Besides, you know more techniques than we do at home. We hardly have anyone as talented as you."

"I guess in a few years, Brother Jiang, you might catch up, heh heh, a few years later when you also reach core formation, we brothers should have a good match in the Martial Arts Convention..."

His body trembled without warning, a chill coming over him.

As someone with an EQ akin to negative numbers, Cen Zhuangzhuang always spoke his mind. Hearing that Jiang Feng, having cultivated for less than three months, reached the eighth layer of Qi Refinement and knew a bunch of daoist skills, immediately gave him a thumbs up in praise.

And his straightforward personality also made Jiang Feng rather fond of this younger buddy; after all, everyone likes to deal with honest people.

But as they were talking, he found a tigress glaring straight at him.

"Cou...cousin, what’s wrong?"

Seemingly realizing he might have misspoken, the young man was a bit lacking in confidence, while a certain malicious woman from the Southern Border glanced at her cousin.

Then, she threw down the branch in her hand.

"You, take him and that pile of things, then escort the villagers who just fled to He Family Village. There are guards stationed there who can protect them."

She pointed to the foundation establishment stage cultivator lying unconscious in the corner.

"Cousin, if I take them, your safety..."

"Safety?"

The girl only showed a charming smile, but this smile not only sent chills down Cen Zhuangzhuang’s spine but also made Jiang Feng feel somewhat frightened.

"With the exceptionally gifted Young Master Jiang to protect along the way, with such an impressive set of techniques, you shouldn’t worry about it~"

"Good shelter under a big tree, I believe with Young Master Jiang here, there’s no chance for this medicine jar to make a move~"

"Right?"