After Cultivating To Immortality, I Became the Demon Venerable's White Moonlight - Chapter 8

“Immortal Cultivator, I can’t go on… I…”

The trio had been walking in the forest for half a day, and Zhong Ying was now feeling completely limp and weak, enduring immense discomfort. Yi Qinglan, supporting her with one hand, found herself surprisingly struggling to keep her steady.

“What is going on? She was perfectly fine half an hour ago,” Lin Wanying murmured, her brow furrowing in deep thought.

Yi Qinglan lowered her to the ground, prompting Zhong Ying to sit cross-legged so she could help stabilize and smooth her internal qi. Zhong Ying kept her eyes tightly shut, her face an uncharacteristic, ashen-gray color.

“She actually shows signs of being poisoned,” Yi Qinglan noted after checking her pulse. She inquired, “Before coming here, did you eat or drink anything unusual?”

“Never,” Zhong Ying replied. As she spoke, she was startled to notice her own voice turning raspy and hoarse.

Suddenly, a rustling sound echoed from the bushes behind them.

Yi and Lin were instantly on high alert, snapping their gazes toward the source of the noise.

In this deep, ancient forest, any manner of birds and beasts could appear. The most ferocious predators were often the ones that lay submerged in ambush the deepest.

Holding her breath to quiet her presence, Yi Qinglan straightened up and cautiously probed toward the sound. Although Wood and Fire elements were inherently incompatible, severely restricting her abilities within the forest and making them prone to burning out of control, she would have no choice but to take the risk and fight with everything she had if they encountered danger.

The thicket ahead shifted slightly, as if some living creature were indeed crouching there.

Steeling her heart, Yi Qinglan drew her sword and pointed it directly ahead. Just as she intended to strike first with a Flame Condensation Technique to suppress the enemy, a flash of a white silhouette darted past her eyes.

The sword moved with her thought. Before she could discern what the white shape actually was, the precious blade in Yi Qinglan’s hand had already flown out, hurtling straight toward the white figure.

However, the white silhouette moved like a ghost or a phantom, its speed absolutely breathtaking. When Yi Qinglan turned her head to track it, all that met her gaze was a lingering afterimage.

Having missed its target, the precious sword flew back to her hand on its own.

Griping the sword tightly, Yi Qinglan felt a secret chill in her heart. She had no idea what kind of spirit or monster this creature was, but its speed was so terrifyingly fast that a human eye couldn’t even make out its form.

They had been in the mountains for a long time and hadn’t seen a single beast along the way; this white silhouette seemed to have materialized out of thin air, which was profoundly uncanny.

“Senior Sister!” Lin Wanying rushed over to reinforce her, standing back to back as they faced the threat with drawn swords.

Yet, every time they tried to look directly at the white silhouette, it seemed keenly aware, rapidly shifting away from their line of sight. This game of cat and mouse persisted for a long while, the white shape seemed to be playing hide and seek with them, ensuring they could never glimpse its true form head-on. The two women could only faintly perceive its position using their peripheral vision.

“Perhaps this creature bears no malice,” Yi Qinglan observed after watching for a while, slowly lowering her sword.

Lin Wanying asked, “But what is it doing? Could it be mocking us?”

Suddenly, the white silhouette stopped circling them and bolted in a specific direction.

Looking at where it was charging, Lin Wanying cried out in alarm, “Zhong Ying!”

Zhong Ying was currently sitting on the ground not far from them, leaning against a large tree with her eyes closed, resting.

The white silhouette charged straight at Zhong Ying. Yi and Lin panicked, but they were ultimately a step too late.

By the time they rushed to Zhong Ying’s side, the white silhouette had vanished without a trace. Zhong Ying slowly opened her eyes, her gaze actually looked much clearer now, and the color on her face had softened and improved significantly.

Yi Qinglan quickly knelt down to inspect her complexion. “Child, are you alright?”

“Don’t call me a child!” Zhong Ying pouted.

Seeing her act this way, both Yi and Lin breathed a sigh of relief.

“Just now, I fell asleep under the tree, and I felt like I was having a dream.”

Lin Wanying laughed, “It’s good that you’re fine. To be able to sleep so soundly in a place like this, I actually admire you a little.”

Following this, the three resumed their journey, trekking deeper into the mountains along the left markers.

Walking behind the two, Zhong Ying was still a bit dazed, privately re-examining her recent dream. In the dream, there seemed to be an incredibly beautiful white deer standing beside her, which had even lowered its head to let her touch its antlers.

The surface of those antlers felt fuzzy and warm to the touch, yet intensely rigid underneath; it felt completely unique.

Zhong Ying looked at her own hands, where some of that tactile sensation still seemed to linger.

That dream felt entirely too real.

As they walked on, the group gradually arrived deep within the heart of the mountain.

“Look quickly, it’s Jia Ren!” Lin Wanying spotted the familiar figure in the distance.

They saw Jia Ren in a clearing ahead, dumping everything from his wicker basket onto the ground, frantically busy with something.

He looked even more bizarre than he had last night. His face was a sickly green and purple, looking scarcely like a living human being, and his hands were moving with mechanical rigidity.

The three quickly ran forward, but suddenly their feet slipped, and a jarring sensation of weightlessness hit them.

Beneath them lay a deeply concealed cliff.

“Ah!” A sharp scream abruptly pierced the forest.

With a swift thought from Yi Qinglan, her immortal sword unsheathed itself automatically, growing larger against the wind. It caught all three of them mid-air, gently and slowly lowering them down to flat ground.

When the immortal sword touched down with a slight thud, Zhong Ying’s knees buckled, and she nearly tumbled to the earth, but Yi Qinglan caught her in time.

“Are you hurt?”

Zhong Ying shook her head, taking in the surrounding scenery. This place was a massive, naturally formed sinkhole. The cliff walls were nearly vertical, and the bottom of the pit was lush with vegetation, making it look indistinguishable from the flat terrain above when viewed from afar. A clear spring bubbled out from the cliff wall, its gurgling water forming a small pool at the bottom before flowing deeper into the shrouded depths of the pit.

As daylight filtered down from above, they realized the sun had already risen; they had spent an entire night in the forest.

Lin Wanying looked up at the towering, circular cliff walls and marveled, “I never imagined such a peculiar landform would exist within these mountains.”

“Quick, chase it! Don’t let it run!” “Hurry! Hurry!” “Loose arrows!”

Not long after, a tumultuous din of human voices erupted from the top of the cliff.

The three looked up toward the cliff edge simultaneously, only to see a white silhouette leap downward, closely followed by dozens of sharp arrows tearing through the air overhead. The trio quickly pressed themselves against the cliff face to take cover. For a moment, it rained arrows, thudding heavily into the vegetation at the bottom of the pit and turning that patch into a pincushion.

The white silhouette dodged at lightning speed amidst the rain of arrows, moving too fast to leave anything but a blur. It nimbly leaped into a cave at the bottom of the pit, vanishing into a concealed cavern deep within in the blink of an eye.

“Quick, drop the ropes down!” “Don’t touch it, let me do it!”

The three women were utterly astonished. When did so many people enter this forest? Judging by the voices, there had to be at least a dozen of them.

A rope was tossed down from the top of the cliff, and the people above slid down one by one. The man leading the pack reached the bottom first, he looked steady in posture and hale despite his advanced age. On his back, much like Jia Ren, he carried a wicker basket packed with hunting gear.

“Uncle Jing?” Zhong Ying recognized the old hunter leading the group, and then noticed that the faces following behind were also intensely familiar, they were all hunters from her village.

“Are you all here to save my father?” Thrilled, Zhong Ying cast Yi and Lin aside and ran toward Jing Quan.

To her surprise, when Jing Quan looked at her, his gaze was exceptionally cold. He frowned and barked, “Why are you here? What is a young girl doing in the deep mountains! Do you want to lose your life?”

Hearing this, Zhong Ying felt a surge of anger and was just about to retort when she noticed that Jing Quan’s face looked incredibly bizarre, tinged with a sickly gray-green.

Lin Wanying pulled Zhong Ying back slightly and whispered, “Be careful. What if these villagers are also being controlled by a demon…”

Hearing this, cold sweat drenched Zhong Ying. She hurriedly shrank back to the sides of Yi and Lin, eyeing the dozen or so villagers in front of her with deep anxiety. “It can’t be… not this many people…”

Yi Qinglan’s fingers moved subtly, and her precious sword unsheathed itself with a resonant ring, its tip silently aligning with the dozen hunters ahead.

“This sword is called Shuxin. If it encounters demonic qi, it will hum.”

After a long pause, the precious sword remained perfectly still.

Yi Qinglan sheathed Shuxin once more. “It is fine. They are normal humans; there is no demonic qi on them.”

Only then did Lin Wanying and Zhong Ying breathe easy.

Seeing the blank expressions on the faces of Zhong Ying and her companions, Jing Quan figured they likely knew nothing about the treasure. Consequently, he ignored them, focusing instead on directing the hunters to scatter across the pit floor to set up their gear. Before long, the bottom of the pit was riddled with traps.

Yi Qinglan noted, “These hunters look like they are trying to capture something.”

Zhong Ying said with confusion, “No one has ever come into these deep mountains before, and no one would choose to hunt here… Ah, could it be that they, they are also looking for that treasure? But that’s just a legend! How could Uncle Jing and the others be so… so…”

Zhong Ying stared at the group of people before her in utter disbelief, finding them completely unrecognizable.

Jing Quan paced anxiously at the bottom of the pit, scanning his surroundings. He frowned and muttered, “Not enough, it’s still not enough. How can this work? We won’t catch it like this.”

“It runs faster than the fiercest stallion, and darts through the woods faster than the wind. We can’t catch it, we can’t catch it! Not enough, none of this is enough!”

Yi Qinglan carefully studied their complexions and found that Jing Quan and the others all had faces that were turning a sickly green and purple, mimicking the exact symptoms Zhong Ying and Jia Ren had displayed earlier in the forest.

Could it be… they were all poisoned as well?

“Faster, we have to be faster!” Jing Quan directed the men around him, growing increasingly frantic.

“Young mistresses,” a hunter said, noticing the swords on their backs and remembering the rumors that they came from an immortal sect, meaning they likely possessed some mystical skills. Attempting to enlist them, he smiled with careful, fawning politeness, “Are you… also here to capture the treasure?”

Zhong Ying stepped in front of the two women. “Uncle Jiao, they are from out of town and know nothing!”

Impatiently, the hunter shoved her aside with one hand. “What is a little girl doing joining the chaos? Move aside!”

He then turned to warily scan the surrounding area. Seeing that no one was paying attention to their corner, his eyes darted around shiftily. Bringing his ashen, green-tinged face close to Yi Qinglan and Lin Wanying, he whispered, “Didn’t you see it just now?” He gestured with his hands, “It’s white, a white deer. The treasure!”

Seeing their bewildered and startled expressions, he looked profoundly disappointed. Hearing Jing Quan call out to him from the distance, he shouted back in response and left.

Lin Wanying frowned. “These people are each acting like they’ve been possessed by ghosts. They’ve gone mad over this treasure.”

Zhong Ying watched the scene before her, finding it entirely unbelievable. “Uncle Jing is one of the top hunters in our village. When he was young, he would often go into the mountains to hunt with my father. Later, for some reason, he and my father gradually drifted apart. To think I actually believed he remembered their past friendship and came to save my father!”

“There’s no other way, we’re running out of time.” Jing Quan looked incredibly frantic, the color of his face already showing signs of turning from a gray-green to purple. Breaking down on the verge of collapse, he raged, “We’ve been chasing it in this forest for so long, and setting clamps and traps has done nothing. If we don’t find it soon, we’ll all succumb to the poison miasma and die here!”

Then, as if making a grim resolution, Jing Quan called over a hunter and signaled him to take off his wicker basket.

The hunter’s face was also green, and an expression of unbearable pity surfaced on his features. “Do we… do we really have to use this method?”

Jing Quan said no more. He snatched the basket away and pulled open the lid. Lying quietly inside was a young child whose face bore a faint green tint, despite the racket around her, she was still sound asleep, looking exceedingly peaceful.

Jing Quan drew a dagger. Steeling his heart, he slashed with the blade, instantly slicing open the child’s arm, causing bright red blood to well out. Jolted awake by the sharp pain, the child opened her mouth and began to wail loudly.

Jing Quan commanded the men around him, “Place this child right in the center of the trap.” Seeing everyone hesitate, he bellowed even louder, “Only this method will make the treasure willing to come out! All of you, listen to me! Otherwise, given how deeply poisoned we are, none of us are leaving here alive today!”

“Don’t!” Zhong Ying instantly recognized the child as her aunt’s youngest daughter. She lunged forward to pull the child into her arms, but was firmly restrained by the hunters who had already been on guard against her.

Seeing this, Lin Wanying instantly drew her sword and pointed it at the hunters.

Jing Quan eyed the two women standing with drawn swords behind Zhong Ying. A trace of deference flickered across his vicious face, and he told the hunter beside him, “Let her go.” He then turned to Yi and Lin, “The child will be fine, I promise.”

Yi Qinglan took hold of Zhong Ying and whispered to the two, “Hold your ground for now. Let’s see what they are actually trying to do.”

Shortly after, the child was properly placed within the trap, her crying echoing loudly through the air.

The hunters all hid themselves away, waiting in breathless silence.

Before long, a strange movement stirred around the perimeter of the trap.

From a distance, a snow-white figure emerged silently from the hidden cave, stepping slowly through the green thicket like a living piece of a serene landscape painting.

Wild joy erupted in the hearts of the hunters, who desperately held their breath to stifle any movement.

Zhong Ying stared fixedly at the white silhouette, a sudden realization washing over her, wasn’t that the very deer from her dream!

“Dream?” Lin Wanying asked in surprise, “The dream you had actually happened? And it helped cure your poison?”

“I can’t remember clearly either!” Zhong Ying whispered. “In the dream, I touched the antlers, and when I woke up, I only saw you two, and then the discomfort was gone.”

Connecting the pieces of the puzzle, Yi Qinglan thought deeply. “The white silhouette we encountered in the forest must be this deer. This deer doesn’t look like an ordinary wild beast; perhaps it is the very treasure they speak of, and also the miraculous cure that can help them neutralize the poison.”

Beside the trap, the deer stood entirely snow-white, tall and breathtakingly beautiful. Atop its head sat a pair of antlers resembling frozen twigs and jade branches. Its fur shimmered brilliantly beneath the sunlight filtering through the canopy, looking like a gemstone crafted from snow.

The child wept inconsolably. Seeing the white deer draw closer and closer to the trap, now practically a single step away, Jing Quan rubbed his hands in pure excitement. After so many years, his dream was finally about to come true!

Keep calm, keep calm, we absolutely cannot let the deer detect us here! As long as it takes one more step forward, it will fall right into the trap!

Hearing the child’s continuous, distressed cries, the deer hesitantly paced forward. Just as it was about to step into the trap, it halted.

Suddenly, the deer turned its gaze toward the spot where the hunters were hiding. Its eyes, resembling a pair of black gemstones, were utterly calm and tranquil, like two bottomless pools of water.

That single glance struck a chord deep within Yi Qinglan’s heart. She even felt an uncanny certainty that the deer had known all along that people were hiding there.

With a soft thud, the snow-white form stepped squarely into the pre-arranged trap, and the netting instantly enveloped its entire body. Yet, the deer had scooped up the child within the trap, letting her ride upon its neck. Curious, the child reached out to touch the antlers, her crying instantly ceasing.

In an instant, the hunters erupted into cheers of joy, pouring out from behind the bushes and rushing toward the trap.

Jing Quan ecstatically extended his hands, reaching through the spiked hunting net to touch the pair of snow-white antlers. “We did it, we did it! We finally caught it!”

From the moment he had first laid eyes on it during his youth, this white silhouette had become an unforgettable obsession. Today, that dream had finally crossed into reality.

Jing Quan couldn’t help but recall the scene from all those years ago. He was young then, venturing deep into the forest to hunt alongside Zhong Yan. They had accidentally inhaled a toxic mist and lost their way, wandering deeper and deeper until they reached the heart of Mount Muyin. In his delirium, he had spotted a flash of white. The snow deer was tall and magnificent, moving with the elegance of a forest elf. It had walked right up to his dying, poison-choked form, lowering its head to let him touch its antlers.

Almost instantaneously, the toxic miasma had completely dissolved, leaving him entirely rejuvenated. A rare treasure nurtured by nature itself possessed such a miraculous efficacy.

A living treasure like this, if he could obtain everything it had to offer, its antlers, its hide, its bones, its blood… it would certainly be worth a fortune!