Chapter 325: Stepchild, Liked Children, and Favoured Children
"Brother Jiang, brother Yu, are you okay?" Li Futian asked as soon as he left the ancient palace.
"Barely." Jiang Yue said.
His tone was full of grievances but there was nothing that could be done.
"It’s good that you are okay. What about the others?"
"We don’t know. They should be around here but we can’t move about." Yu Nianzhen answered.
"Leave it to me."
After saying that, Li Futian released his divine sense and stretched it to the surroundings.
A moment later, he flew to the east and stopped at the mouth of a cave.
In front of the cave, drag marks were leading into the cave and Li Futian couldn’t help but shudder in distress.
’Brother Xuan is too unlucky.’ He thought and removed his weapon.
Without delay, he entered the cave and came face to face with a snake.
The snake was five metres long, one metre wide, and had beautiful orange scales.
’Fortunately, the triangle-eyed orange python is not a venomous species. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to save Brother Xuan." Li Futian thought and immediately attacked the snake.
Although the snake was not venomous, its stomach juices were very acidic.
Under ordinary circumstances, that level of acidity was not a big deal for Xuan Ke or any other origin tempering realm cultivators.
However, Xuan Ke was severely injured and his condition was very weakened.
If he stayed in the snake’s stomach for too long, he would be corroded and Li Futian would have no way to save him.
Thinking of this, Li Futian hastened his attack.
Bursts of red light streamed from his crystal ball and bombarded the orange snake.
The snake roared and its scales radiated an orange glow.
This orange glow hardened the scales and increased the snake’s defence.
Unfortunately, the snake’s opponent was Li Futian.
Before it made its move, Li Futian had already foreseen it and his attack targeted the weak point at the snake’s seventh inch.
A moment later, the snake roared and began to thrash around in pain.
Taking advantage of the snake’s injury, Li Futian attacked continuously and the creature soon lost its breath.
"I hope I didn’t accidentally injure Brother Xuan." He muttered and removed a dagger from his storage ring.
The dagger was a high-grade spirit rank weapon and it shone with a brilliant silver light.
With a single stroke, Li Futian swiped it along the snake’s stomach and a hole was opened.
From the wide hole, Li Futian saw Xuan Ke and he heaved a sigh of relief.
"He is barely breathing but he is still alive." He said and quickly removed Xuan Ke from the snake’s stomach.
After that, he fed him a rejuvenation pill and helped him refine it.
When Li Futian was sure that his brother’s condition was stable, he put away the snake corpse and carried Xuan Ke to the plain where Yu Nianzhen and Jang Yue were waiting.
"How is Brother Xuan?" Jiang Yue asked.
"His condition is not good but he will be fine." Li Futian said and laid the person on the ground.
"Why are his clothes so tattered?"
"Brother Xuan was swallowed by a snake and his clothes were corroded by the snake’s stomach juices."
When Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue heard that, they didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Compared to them, Xuan Ke was unlucky.
However, from another perspective, Xuan Ke was also lucky.
He was lucky because he encountered a non-poisonous snake.
If he encountered another demonic beast, his body would have been torn apart before being eaten.
At that time, the brothers would not be able to save him even if they killed the demonic beast.
"This time was too dangerous." Jiang Yue said.
"Brother Li, what about master and mistress?" Yu Nianzhen asked.
"I also found them. Their situation is better than Brother Xuan so I went to find Brother Xuan first."
"I will get them now."
"Thank you for your hard work brother Li."
"We are brothers. You don’t need to thank me."
After saying that, Li Futian left to find Bing Lan and Yang Xu.
Unlike Yu Nianzhen, Jiang Yue, and Xuan Ke, Yang Xu and Bing Lan had fallen into a small pond.
Fortunately, cultivators could survive for a long time without breathing and it didn’t matter that the two had sunk to the bottom of the pond.
When he reached the vicinity of the pond, Li Futian sighed and prepared to enter the water.
However, before he could do so, he noticed that the pond was steaming and a rich medicinal scent entered his nose.
"Is it a medicinal hot spring?" He muttered excitedly.
In the Cangxing world, medicinal hot springs were very rare.
When they appeared, major forces would capture them and monopolise them for their own use.
"It appears that falling to this place wasn’t a coincidence. I didn’t expect that the previous space crack wasn’t completely heartless." Li Futian said and chuckled.
"The brothers will recover faster if they soak in this hot spring."
With that, Li Futian left the area and went back to find his brothers.
"Where are master and mistress?" Yu Nianzhen asked when he saw that Li Futian returned alone.
"Don’t worry. They are soaking in a medicinal hot spring." Li Futian assured quickly.
"Brothers, enter the ancient palace and I will take you to the medicinal hot spring."
"Good." Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue immediately agreed.
After that, they took Xuan Ke into the palace and Li Futian carried the artefact to the hot spring.
When he arrived, he contacted them and they immediately left the palace.
"Senior Yang and Senior Bing are at the bottom of the hot spring." Li Futian informed them.
"That space crack was too biased." Jiang Yue complained.
"Don’t complain. At least we weren’t sent into the mouth of a demonic beast." Yu Nianzhen said and Jiang Yue immediately stopped complaining.
Although he and Yu Nianzhen weren’t sent into a medicinal hot spring, their treatment was several times better than Xuan Ke’s.
"Senior Yang has a heavenly yang physique and senior Bing has a heavenly yin physique. They are loved by the heavens and are naturally favoured." Li Futian explained.
"Master and mistress are heaven’s favourite children. Azhen and I are somewhat loved and Brother Xuan is barely tolerated."
"Don’t let our brother hear you say that." Yu Nianzhen said and looked at his husband with a helpless look in his eyes.
"Too late, I have already heard it." A low voice said and everyone turned to Xuan Ke.
"Brother Xuan, are you awake?" Jiang Yue asked with a guilty look on his face.
"If I don’t wake up, won’t I miss the chance of knowing that I am heaven’s stepchild?" Xuan Ke asked.
His tone was bitter and the others didn’t know what to say to him.
They couldn’t say he wasn’t the stepchild because he most certainly was.
Otherwise, why would the heavens send a severely injured person into the lair of a demonic beast?
"Forget about that. Let’s enter the hot spring to recover." Jiang Yue quickly changed the subject.
"I will help Brother Xuan." Li Futian said and immediately went to help Xuan Ke.
A moment later, everyone entered the hot spring and Jiang Yue couldn’t help but sigh in comfort.
"It’s so comfortable." He said.
As soon as he entered the water, medicinal qi drilled into his body through his pores.
This medicinal qi was extremely gentle and immediately soothed all the injuries he sustained in the space tear.
"Nianzhen, everyone, you are here?" A voice came from the bottom and the water rippled.
Soon after, Yang Xu and Bing Lan emerged from the water.
"Master, mistress, how are you?" Yu Nianzhen asked.
"We woke up a few days ago and found ourselves in the spring. Unfortunately, our bodies were too weak and we couldn’t go out to find you." Bing Lan explained.
She didn’t want them to think that she and Yang Xu didn’t find them because they wanted to monopolise the medicinal hot spring.
"Mistress doesn’t need to explain. All our situations are the same." Yu Nianzhen said but his words were responded with a snort.
"How can the stepchild be the same as the favoured children?" Xuan Ke grumbled.
"Stepchild?" Yang Xu asked in confusion and Jiang Yue explained the situation.
"Junior Xuan has suffered." Bing Lan said with a sympathetic look on her face.
However, Yang Xu didn’t have such scruples.
He laughed aloud which made Bing Lan glare at him in anger.
"Where is your image as an elder?" She demanded.
"Wife..." He started but couldn’t continue before he started laughing again.
"Junior Xuan, you can ignore this one." Bing Lan said with an apologetic look on her face.
"It doesn’t matter." Xuan Ke said and sighed.
"This spring’s medicinal effect is very good. We should be able to recover in less than a month." Yu Nianzhen suddenly said.
"Speaking about time, how long has it been?" Yang Xu asked.
"I almost forgot about this matter. Brother Li, how long has it been since we entered that space tear?" Jiang Yue asked.
With a sigh, Li Futian looked at everyone with a solemn look on his face.
