Chapter 2885: Chapter 2885
Qin Mengxi merely glanced at Ye Liuyun’s Interspatial Ring and noticed it contained quite a few medicinal herbs.
However, she didn’t take any. "Keep them for yourself to turn in later! I’m not lacking in cultivation resources—how could I take yours?"
In her mind, she had always assumed that wandering martial cultivators from outside were relatively poor. After all, who would risk coming to their territory if they weren’t in need of resources? So she figured those herbs could help Ye Liuyun exchange for plenty of cultivation materials and naturally didn’t want to take them from him.
That said, she did accept the beast meat. People here didn’t typically hunt large numbers of feral beast—it was usually outsiders who did so, selling the meat to merchant guilds for profit. Thus, such meat was considered a rare resource.
The last time Qin Mengxi had impulsively gone out to hunt beasts, she had nearly gotten herself killed. She had no intention of repeating that experience.
After accepting the meat, she warned Ye Liuyun and his group, "Since you can’t leave for now anyway, you might as well settle down and cultivate here peacefully! And whatever you do, don’t wander off into the starry void—unless you want to get caught!"
Ye Liuyun nodded repeatedly in agreement. Once she left, he retreated into his clone’s spatial realm to accelerate his refinement of the planetary essence energy.
As for the resources Qin Mengxi had given him, he carefully inspected them, memorized their details, and then handed them all over to Li Daoyuan for refinement.
Shortly after, a strict investigation began across the region. First, the wandering cultivators who had been staying out in the open—those not lodged with local families—were rounded up for interrogation.
Then, the scrutiny extended to outsiders staying with locals. Ye Liuyun became a target of the investigation as well.
Fortunately, he produced the herbs he had gathered and the beasts he had hunted, and Qin Mengxi vouched for him, allowing him to slip through the inspection. Moreover, one of the examiners was an elder from the Qin family, so the questioning wasn’t overly rigorous.
But just then, a squad of warriors from the Wan family suddenly arrived. They seized all the cultivators who had already been cleared, subjected them to soul-searching once more, and then hauled them away, herding them onto a single warship to be transported en masse.
After all, these were just wandering outsiders—no one cared where they were sent or what fate awaited them.
A few of the cultivators resisted, but the moment they made a move, they were swiftly executed before any real uprising could take hold.
Then, the Wan family squad demanded that even outsiders staying with local families undergo soul-searching inspections.
This naturally provoked opposition from the local martial cultivators. After all, the outsiders who had taken shelter in their homes were also their guests—how could they simply hand them over to be subjected to soul-searching?
But the martial cultivators from the Wan family were utterly ruthless. Not only did they barge into homes and forcibly search the souls of these outsiders, but they also seized them afterward.
Upon receiving the news, the Qin family immediately instructed Qin Mengxi to inform Ye Liuyun and hide him away.
Thus, under the cover of night, Qin Mengxi led Ye Liuyun back to the Thousand Burial Mountain where they had first met, seeking refuge deep within its wilderness.
Once they were safely away, Ye Liuyun couldn’t help but ask her in confusion, *"If they just wanted to search souls, why take people away afterward?"*
If it had been just a soul search, he wouldn’t have been too worried. He could have erased the memory of absorbing the planet from his clone’s consciousness and fabricated a false recollection of gathering herbs and hunting beasts to deceive the investigators.
But now, even if the soul search revealed nothing, people were still being seized—he couldn’t afford to take the risk.
*"Sigh!"* Qin Mengxi exhaled heavily before explaining, *"The major clans think there are too many outsider cultivators here, disrupting the balance of our star system. They’re using this as an excuse to purge them. Those taken away are being sent to war!"*
*"War? Where?"* Ye Liuyun guessed they were rounding up outsiders to serve as cannon fodder for some distant campaign.
*"I don’t know!"* Qin Mengxi admitted, frustration creeping into her voice. *"This is the first I’ve heard that our star system is even at war! And from what the elders were saying, it sounds like we’re the ones invading another star system!"*
*"They’re absolutely shameless. Even if they’re outsiders, you can’t just drag them off to die!"*
She let out another heavy sigh, her expression darkening.
Clearly, this revelation clashed violently with her perception of their star system, leaving her struggling to reconcile the truth. They had become aggressors—invaders who callously sent outsiders to their deaths on the battlefield. It was a far cry from the ideals she had once believed in.
Seeing her so disheartened, Ye Liuyun didn’t know what to say to comfort her. He wanted to tell her that the world had always been this way, but he held back, unwilling to shatter the illusion of goodness she still clung to. Better to let her come to terms with reality in her own time.
Expanding his divine sense, he noticed that the mountains were already teeming with people—more arriving by the hour. It seemed they weren’t the only ones seeking refuge.
Moreover, many of them were accompanied by locals, clearly indicating that some local factions, much like the Qin family, were also protecting their guests by hiding them here.
"This can’t go on. Sooner or later, this place will be discovered!" A sense of foreboding settled in his heart, and he immediately instructed Tian Dao Ye to prepare their forces for battle.
If fighting broke out, their priority would be to eliminate all the martial cultivators from the Wan family and the strongest fighters on this planet in one swift strike.
The Wan family’s martial cultivator squad had stormed into the local aristocratic families’ territories but found no trace of the outsiders. Realizing they had been deceived—that these families had secretly hidden the fugitives—they grew furious.
"Hmph, do they really think this can stop me?"
Leading the Wan family squad was a Grand Unity realm elder. He knew the starry skies beyond the planet were under blockade, so escape was impossible. The outsiders had to be hiding somewhere nearby, likely in the mountains.
With that in mind, he led the Wan family’s martial cultivators straight toward the Thousand Burial Mountain where Ye Liuyun and the others were concealed.
Their squad consisted of over a dozen Grand Unity realm experts and more than ten martial cultivators at the eighth or ninth level of the Dominator realm. Though their numbers weren’t enough to overpower all the local martial families combined, they were more than sufficient to crush any single family. And given their status, none of the local families would dare oppose them outright.
Yet as they began their search through the Thousand Burial Mountain, the major aristocratic families grew tense. Soon, the Wan family’s squad uncovered traces of hidden martial cultivators.
This time, they didn’t bother with interrogation or capture—they simply slaughtered on sight. Not even the local family members were spared.
The agonized screams of the martial cultivators and the explosive clashes of their true energy reverberated through the entire Thousand Burial Mountain.
Ye Liuyun’s spiritual sense stretched far, and he immediately detected the Wan family’s rampage. He swiftly informed Qin Mengxi, who wasted no time using a communication talisman to relay the situation to the Qin family.
Meanwhile, the families whose members had been discovered by the Wan squad desperately called for reinforcements. Soon, representatives from some of the aristocratic families arrived, pleading with the Wan cultivators to stop.
But for those families whose disciples had already been slain, fury burned hot—they demanded an explanation from the Wan family.
"You betrayed the star system, defied our Wan family’s orders, and now you dare demand an explanation from us? Consider yourselves lucky we haven’t reported this to our main family and called in reinforcements to wipe you all out!" the Wan elder sneered with contempt.
