The heavy-hearted Zhao Yunxiao started to make his way down Blueflag Mountain. He did not even try to regulate his condition and treat the injuries that he had received from Kindness before doing so, choosing to descend the mountain immediately instead.

With the amount of aura of corruption released due to the collapse of the hidden space, trying to recover here might just end up yielding the opposite result. Rather than exposing himself to the aura of corruption, enduring for a while longer before recovering at a nearby hilltop would be much more effective.

He remained wary during his descent, making sure that he was neither spotted by anyone else nor did he come into contact with the corrupted vegetation. In order to avoid leaving obvious traces, he even deliberately went down a different route.

Hmm?

Just as he arrived at the foot of the mountain, Zhao Yunxiao quickly hid behind a thick tree as he noticed a woman lying on the ground ahead.

Had she been alive and well, he would have taken a detour around her without hesitation. But the fact that she was lying motionless on the ground triggered the spirit of a physician within him.

Given his current circumstance, he definitely needed all the good karma he could get!

Zhao Yunxiao scanned over her with his spiritual sense, and could not help but frown.

While the young lady seemed to be unconscious, she was certainly still alive. However, she was bleeding profusely from the huge sword gash across her chest. Considering how she was still alive with this wound, there was no doubt that she was a cultivator as well.

Even then, death would be the only fate that awaited her if her wound was left untreated. That was especially so since the aura of corruption had become much denser in the vicinity.

Nevertheless, if it was just this, then Zhao Yunxiao would still hesitate to help.

However, he could also sense strong remnants of the aura of corruption coming from her sword wound – a sight that reminded him of what he had just witnessed not too long ago. That's right, this looked exactly like the other wounds that had been caused by Ke Huofen's Essence Reaper!

Did this young lady end up like this because she tried to go against Ke Huofen alone, wanting to stop him from escaping?

How reckless!

But for her to have tried to do so suggested that she was a fellow orthodox cultivator. That gave him even more reason to help her out. More importantly, he might just be able to gather some information from her about Ke Huofen. This information would not only help him guard against the Scarlet Leaf Sect in the future, but could also be sold to the young duo from the Duyuan Empire.

The good thing was that they were currently at the foot of Blueflag Mountain, so he could simply say that he was passing by while trying to investigate the mountain. That was a perfectly reasonable answer considering how many of the Thousand Autumn City members were doing the same, and there was no reason to suspect that he had wanted to climb the mountain for any other reason.

Whoosh-!

A dagger flew through the air, landing on the ground barely two centimetres away from the young lady's eyes. Some of the dirt from the ground even ended up landing on her face, yet she showed absolutely no signs of reaction.

Good, it looked like she was truly unconscious.

Zhao Yunxiao rushed forward and picked her up. She was burning up, which was definitely understandable considering the state that she was in.

He quickly shot off into the distance, towards a small hill that he had passed on his way to Blueflag Mountain previously.

The hill was not too far away. Atop the hill, one could witness Blueflag Mountain in all its glory.

Of course, this was not exactly the best time to be enjoying the scenery.

Upon reaching the hilltop, Zhao Yunxiao quickly found a quiet spot by a stream, where he laid the young lady down by the bank.

He was not in the best condition himself, but the young lady was already in a critical state. Every second that went by would only exponentially reduce her chances of survival.

Zhao Yunxiao decided to put his own recovery on hold, and was just about to start administering treatment when he suddenly hesitated.

The sword gash was across her chest, which meant that he would have to strip the unconscious young lady of her top if he wanted to treat her. Not just that, but her breasts would be completely exposed as well.

At this moment, his gaze could not help but stray to the young lady's face.

She was definitely a huge beauty.

Zhao Yunxiao swallowed a mouthful of saliva in nervousness, his heart starting to beat faster.

Well, he was only trying to heal her, and this was necessary in order to do so. It was not like he was doing this for any perverse reason.

While some might claim that doing so benefited him, that was still a debatable statement. However, what was for certain was that doing so would definitely benefit the young lady. After all, he was directly saving her life!

That's right!

It's a necessity!

With that, all hesitation disappeared from his mind.

First, he popped a medicinal pill into the young lady's mouth and forced it down her throat with essence energy. That would stabilise her condition for now.

Then, blushing slightly, Zhao Yunxiao bit his lips and proceeded to carefully undo the top of her robes.

That said, he did not allow his nervousness to affect his judgement.

He might not be as skilled as Huang An, but as a trained physician of the Medicine Pavilion, Zhao Yunxiao naturally knew his stuff. Treating a sword wound would not be too difficult for him. That was, if not for the aura of corruption involved.

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Simply treating the physical wound would not suffice if the aura of corruption continued to linger in her body. If the aura of corruption was allowed to fester within her and fully contaminate her spiritual meridians, it would not be surprising if she never regained consciousness even if her physical wounds were properly taken care of!

Zhao Yunxiao closed his eyes in contemplation.

Unfortunately, he did not have a quick way to purify the aura of corruption. As for sealing it away for now, that would not only result in potential issues down the road, but he was also still not familiar enough with the Divine Tether to quickly execute it in such a critical situation.

At the moment, a familiar voice sounded in his head once again.

"Undo the seal, and you shall be rewarded with power beyond your wildest dreams."

Zhao Yunxiao: "..."

Damn it, with Kindness now residing in his dantian, was he going to keep hearing this in the future?

Regardless, no way was he going to do it!

He might wish to save this fellow cultivator, but it was still not to the extent that he would risk dying himself just to do so!

Furthermore, he was not entirely without other options either.

In fact, he could think of a method to do so right off the bat, albeit a rather expensive one. That was why he had to contemplate if it was truly worth doing so.

With a flick of his wrists, a small jade bottle appeared in his hands. This was the medicinal elixir that Gu Qiansi had given him prior to this trip, made from the root of a Blue Jade Lotus.

Back then, Gu Qiansi had said that this elixir should be able to help with most physical wounds. But after having examined it in his free time, Zhao Yunxiao knew that there was more to it than just that.

Perhaps it was because Gu Qiansi had been dealing with corrupted plants recently, but she had somehow managed to incorporate an ability to purify corruption aura within the elixir.

His heart ached a little upon thinking about using it. However, saving the life of a fellow cultivator was more important. After all, while this medicinal elixir was valuable, it was still not to the extent of being priceless.

As long as he asked Gu Qiansi for the recipe, more of it could still be created with his remaining Blue Jade Lotus root.

With his mind made up, Zhao Yunxiao proceeded with the treatment.

The softness of her skin was definitely distracting, but he tried his best to remain focused. He first cleaned the deep wound, then expelled as much of the aura of corruption as he could with his essence energy. Following which, he applied the medicinal elixir across and around the wound before finally bandaging it up.

Since he already possessed all the tools he needed, this was not exactly a difficult process. Yet when he was finally done, Zhao Yunxiao still found himself drenched in cold sweat.

The physical process might be straightforward on paper, but he had to do so while enduring the pain of energy churning wildly through his spiritual meridians. His superior mental fortitude might have allowed him to focus through the entire process, but that was purely by enduring throughout.

The pain definitely did not go away just because of that.

Huu-!

Zhao Yunxiao let out a sigh of relief after carefully dressing the young lady in one of his spare clothes, keeping away her original robes that had already been wrecked by the vicious sword slash.

Thankfully, there had been no complications with the process. Her condition was successfully stabilised.

And now, it was his turn.

Zhao Yunxiao popped a medicinal pill before entering a state of meditation, slowly but steadily stabilising his own condition.

It was not until dusk that the young lady finally regained consciousness.

"This- urgh!" the young lady immediately tried to crawl back in retreat upon noticing Zhao Yunxiao's presence, but this only caused her to wince in pain.

"I'd suggest not making such sudden movements, or your wound might reopen," Zhao Yunxiao said while opening his eyes.

"You... my... this..." the young lady was confused for a moment by the sudden influx of information from her observations of the current situation. "...Did you save me?"

"Don't worry about it. This is the duty of a physician," Zhao Yunxiao answered.

The young lady blushed a little as she grasped the collars of her robes, having noticed that she was no longer wearing her own clothes.

"My apologies. I had no choice but to remove your clothes in order to save you," Zhao Yunxiao said while suppressing his nervousness. "But don't worry, I didn't touch your things. I mean... your spatial pouch, not your... erm..."

"...I understand," the young lady's words were soft from embarrassment. "Thank you for the help..."

"That said, what happened? Who was it that gave you such a terrible wound? Is it an enemy?" Zhao Yunxiao quickly tried to steer the conversation away to clear the awkward atmosphere.

"It's an evil man..." the young lady said with a sigh.

"Ke Huofen?" Zhao Yunxiao asked.

"You know him?" the young lady narrowed her eyes at him.

"Is that surprising? The entire Thousand Autumn City is probably looking for him right now," Zhao Yunxiao shrugged.

"I guess that's true. You are right; it is that man indeed. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stop him," the young lady eased a little before slowly getting to her feet. "I have to get going. I need to quickly inform the higher-ups of what happened here."

"I understand, but take care not to strain your body too much just because you are in a rush," Zhao Yunxiao nodded. If not for his own selfish reasons, he would probably have rushed back to report about the matter as well.

"Before I leave, may I know your name?" the young lady asked hesitantly.

"You can call me Ah Long," Zhao Yunxiao answered. "And you?"

"Yan Qixin is grateful to Sir Long for saving my life," the young lady clasped her fists towards Zhao Yunxiao before flicking a gemstone towards him. "This is nothing much, but please accept this as a small token of my appreciation."

Zhao Yunxiao grabbed the gemstone, and his eyes widened in surprise.

An earth topaz!

That was the earth element equivalent of the fire ruby and water sapphire – a real treasure!

Come to think of it, Ke Huofen had easily killed each and every person who stood in his way, and that included Dao Rune realm cultivators. For Yan Qixin to be able to survive an encounter with him, she definitely could not be underestimated as well.

He had really struck the jackpot here!

"...I have another request to make," Yan Qixin said hesitantly. "I hope that Sir Long will not tell anyone about what happened today."

"I understand," Zhao Yunxiao immediately understood the reason behind this request. "Let this matter stay between the two of us."

Be it being reduced to the brink of death or being seen naked by a man during treatment, it would definitely be rather embarrassing to a powerful female cultivator like Yan Qixin if either of those matters was made known to others.

In any case, this worked to his advantage as well. The less people knew of his presence here, the better.

"Thank you for your understanding, Sir Long. I shall take my leave then," Yan Qixin bowed lightly, then turned and disappeared in a flash.

As for Zhao Yunxiao, his gaze lingered a little longer on the spot where Yan Qixin last stood, before he closed his eyes once again.

It was a coincidental encounter that he had fortunately ended up benefiting from.

Regardless, the more important thing now was still to quickly get back to peak condition. Then, it would be time to return to the Hei Residence in Thousand Autumn City!

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