After Chasing the Wind's seventh time "beating the dragon", Li Shiyin and Long Qiqi finally came back. The two little girls had been away for about forty days, leaving when spring was in the air and returning when early summer had just begun.
Qin Ran was applying medicine to Chasing the Wind under the old locust tree when he suddenly heard a clear, crisp shout: "Master! We're back!!"
This familiar voice made him look up. He saw a young girl in a white dress and skirt flying towards him, accompanied by the colorful glow of dusk. She spread her arms and hugged him down before he could react, grabbing him into her embrace.
She had jumped down while standing, and he was crouching when caught. In the soft, fragrant yet fiery embrace of the young girl, Qin Ran's nose and lips were against her neck. He smelled the girl's light fragrance, saw her snow white skin and faint green veins. He felt he was being hugged very tightly, so tight he couldn't breathe... Fortunately he didn't need to breathe.
After a long, long time, when he sensed the girl's excitement had passed, he gently called out: "Shiyin?"
"Mmm?" Li Shiyin responded with a coy nasal sound but did not let go.
Qin Ran had no choice but to let her keep hugging him.
But just then, Chasing the Wind painfully cried out: "Li Shiyin! Pain! Pain, pain!!"
Only then did Li Shiyin come to her senses and look down to find that she had been stepping on Chasing the Wind.
Embarrassed, she stuck out her tongue, then released Qin Ran. She put her hands on Qin Ran's shoulders and jumped down from Chasing the Wind.
"Wow! Stupid tiger, what's wrong with you? How did you get beaten so badly?" She only noticed Chasing the Wind's miserable state now and exclaimed in surprise, "I was only gone for a few days. Did someone bully you so much when I wasn't home?"
"Humph! I wasn't bullied by anyone!" Chasing the Wind denied. He only said, "I was practicing martial arts with my big brother."
"Big brother?" Li Shiyin scorned him even more. "How shameless! You actually acknowledged a big brother?!"
Chasing the Wind felt a little embarrassed, but fortunately as a tiger, he had thick enough skin. He said, "My big brother is a dragon, very powerful."
"Dragon?" Li Shiyin became interested. "The kind that can become big or small, ride the clouds and mist, make clouds and rain, has vast supernatural powers, snake body fish scales, tiger claws eagle talons, ox ears deer antlers, and shines with golden light?"
"What are you talking about?" Chasing the Wind was puzzled. "I don't understand you at all."
"Oh, like the dragon patterns on the emperor's clothes! Shiny with golden light, very majestic!" Li Shiyin added.
"No..." Chasing the Wind shook his head. He thought of his big brother, a pitch-black flood dragon, and suddenly felt he had no face.
"Then what dragon are you talking about?" Li Shiyin pouted.
Chasing the Wind closed his eyes and pretended to be dead, not speaking.
"There is a flood dragon in Dan Peak Sect's guardian mountain formation," seeing this, Qin Ran explained to Li Shiyin. "These days Chasing the Wind has been playing with him."
"Flood dragon?" Li Shiyin pondered. "Although not as handsome as real dragons, still acceptable."
"Have you seen a flood dragon before?" Chasing the Wind suddenly came back to life.
"The eighth prince's clothes have flood dragon patterns on them..."
Li Shiyin had been back for so long, yet Qin Ran still hadn't seen Long Qiqi. He couldn't help but think of something bad happening, and asked, "Where's Qiqi?"
"After entering the sect gate, I just left her behind..." Li Shiyin only just remembered Long Qiqi, very embarrassed. "I was thinking of Master!"
She shook Qin Ran's shoulders gently again.
Qin Ran helplessly looked at her and shook his head, unable to scold her. He only said, "How could you leave her behind?"
"Qiqi learned Wind Riding, she just isn't skilled at it yet. She needs more practice..."
Li Shiyin had come back riding the sunset, while Long Qiqi had come back groping in the dark. A six or seven-year-old little girl shakily flying through the air on clumsy Wind Riding was truly heartbreaking and tear-jerking to behold.
What was especially egregious was that after passing through Dan Peak Sect's guardian mountain formation, the scene she saw was Qin Ran, Li Shiyin, and Chasing the Wind merrily eating hot pot on the lawn...
It was really too outrageous!!!
Her Wind Riding skill instantly improved by several levels. Fuming, she rushed over and voraciously ate three huge bowls!
"After being away for over a month, what medicinal flame did you finally obtain?" After the meal, when everything was cleaned up, the group sat on the lawn looking at the stars. Qin Ran asked Long Qiqi.
Long Qiqi lay sprawled on the soft Chasing the Wind. Looking at the sky, she said, "Netherworld Soul Flame!"
This name was just Long Qiqi's style, but...
Qin Ran asked doubtfully, "That wasn't on the list I gave you, was it?"
"Alas! None of what you said could be snatched!" Sitting on the lawn with Li Shiyin sleeping on it, her little head leaning against Qin Ran's old waist, she said indignantly,
"Master, let me tell you, Qiqi is so stupid! Every time a flame appeared, we went, but she didn't dare make a move! Especially once, it was that Bone Spirit Cold Fire. I had already blocked seven people for her, fought hard for a long time to buy time for her to absorb it, but she still couldn't absorb it. I was so angry!
"If Qiqi had been just a little braver, we could've come back in seven days."
Qin Ran looked at Long Qiqi. Long Qiqi's eyes seemed evasive. She coughed dryly and said, "Who...who knew there would be so many people? Alchemists, martial artists, all so powerful. We couldn't even see the alchemists."
"I don't know what kind of sinister cultivation methods they practice, needing these strange fires of heaven and earth."
"Many cultivation methods require external aid..." Qin Ran shook his head and said, "Even Shiyin's orthodox Nine Revolutions Star Sword Technique needs the power of stars. Cultivation methods needing certain flames, ices, winds, thunders, waters, and so on can only be more numerous."
He paused, then asked Long Qiqi again, "So how did you finally obtain the Netherworld Soul Flame?"
"When we were waiting for the Black Lotus Earth Fire in Xuanqin to reignite, it was snatched by others. But the people who snatched it hadn't beaten Shiyin, so we got a map from them," Long Qiqi said. "The map showed the location of Netherworld Soul Flame, in Pian Bo of Great Yan."
"So you went to Great Yan?" Qin Ran exclaimed in surprise. "Running so far?"
"Humph! If it wasn't for me beating away all those people this time..." Li Shiyin said, "We might've had to go even further to Yan Han!"
Long Qiqi silently conceded. Though she was an experienced veteran, she had to admit this trip relied entirely on Li Shiyin. Plotting and schemes were all well and good, but in the end, only brute force decided things...
This trip let her clearly see just how powerful Li Shiyin was.
She and Li Shiyin had stepped into the cultivation world around the same time, no more than two months apart, but the gap between them could truly be described as the difference between clouds and mud. If they fought directly... Well, she was not qualified to confront Li Shiyin head-on.
"Alright, I know you're powerful!" Qin Ran praised Li Shiyin, then looked to Long Qiqi again and said, "Take out your Netherworld Soul Flame and let me see."
Long Qiqi showed Qin Ran her clump of dark and gloomy fire.
"Looks pretty good, the quality seems quite high." Qin Ran nodded. "It's just that using this flame to refine pills would most likely make it easier to produce poison pills..." He suddenly stopped here, thinking of the super poison pills he had refined.
"Poison pills will just be poison pills! It's fine as long as we can use them ourselves." Long Qiqi sighed.