Food Fairy Lord

Chapter 727 Another Branch Sprout
The two swam out of the White Rhinoceros Cave in silence.

"On the first day of a monarch's reign, what he devours is either the blood and bones of loyal ministers or the wealth and resources of the people." Li Xizhou sighed softly, "A tyrannical ruler."

Pei Ye was still thinking about Lingxi's shocked and aggrieved look, and couldn't hide his shame. He could only glare at the woman and say, "I told you, if you had just written a few words on the corner, none of this would have happened."

"A tyrant who readily takes his anger out on his close advisors."

"Stop interrupting me. I'm asking you why you're not writing."

"You're blaming me? Who knew you'd eat that?" Li Xizhou stared at him with her almond-shaped eyes. "That horn isn't like a scaled demon's, where it just drips when you touch it. I can't even imagine how you ate it—by gnawing on it?"

Pei Ye was silent for a moment: "Then why did I have to rush in to find you?"

"..."

He looked at her, and Li Xizhou turned his head away, pursing his lips: "I'm stupid, I didn't even understand when I handed you the corner."

Why should I understand if I've already handed over the corner?

“That’s called ‘a meeting of minds’,” Li Xizhou said. “You even call yourself Li Yuxi’s good friend.”

“…Who’s going to talk to you?” Pei Ye ignored her and headed south.

Knowing that the boy was furious, Li Xizhou followed behind with a smile.

After a while, more wonderful sights appeared in the spiritual realm, and Pei Ye forgot about the embarrassing incident. The two traveled all over the south, and the woman introduced him to many strange creatures along the way, but they still couldn't find the giant turtle.

The two strolled leisurely eastward. The ordinary things in the spiritual realm were no longer so novel. Pei Ye suddenly turned back and said, "When I was in the Mermaid Palace, Yong Ji was very surprised that I possessed the true blood of the Mirage Dragon."

"Yes, because he himself failed to obtain the true blood of the Mirage Dragon, he always thought that only I could inherit it."

Why is that?

Li Xizhou paused for a moment and said, "Pei Ye, what kind of water lord do you think the Mirage Realm wants?"

"you."

"It chose me because of my mother, so why is my mother the Suicune it wants the most?"

"..."

“I don’t think you would have guessed this, but I have,” Li Xizhou said. “The difference between Mother and other spirits is that she is human, and she can go ashore.”

Pei Ye was taken aback.

Li Xizhou turned to look at him: "The Mirage Realm is not completely separated from the human world. Pei Ye, on the contrary, is suspended above the real human world. A water lord does not just shut himself away and rule in the Mirage Realm. He must be able to connect the two worlds."

Pei Ye seemed to realize something.

"When the road is exhausted and dreams are far away, the spirit appears. The Mirage Realm is far from the human world, yet it is always watching over it. Only a person who is willing to accept its gentle rules is its chosen ruler." Li Xizhou smiled slightly. "The Mirage Realm can recognize a person's shape. The name 'Pei Ye' is renowned in the capital and the Eight Waters. He has entered the Mirage Realm several times, and with our Mirage Unicorn Bond, the Mirage Dragon's True Blood will naturally choose you."

"I see."

The key turning point in the fight against Yongji was this Mirage Dragon True Blood. After obtaining this blood, firstly, he moved freely in the water, and in some ways, he was even more agile than Yongji; secondly, every time he made contact, he would take back the white water from Yongji's body, making Yongji feel restricted; finally, and most importantly, after obtaining the Mirage Dragon True Blood, he connected with heaven and earth through the Mirage Realm and reawakened the divine name of [Fire Lord Ebo].

But what Pei Ye resented was that he still couldn't kill him.

He absolutely gave it his all, but two things were still needed to cut off his head: time and a real defeat.

Just as Yong Ji defeated him by relying on the advantage of [White Water], Pei Ye defeated him so badly that he couldn't lift his head because he had the Blood of the Mirage in his grasp.

You can burn away his true energy and skin, and take away all the white fluid from his body, but the original him is only holding on tightly—he has not lost, he has just been beaten so badly that he cannot lift his head.

Only by fighting on the battlefield can you achieve victory; keeping the city gates closed will make it difficult to gain anything. Only when the enemy also wants to kill you can you break through their moves; that is a life-or-death struggle.

From beginning to end, Pei Ye didn't really get a feel for his spear skills, nor did he quite understand the effects of those two different types of true energy. He simply directed the sea of ​​fire towards Yong Ji, but this prince was far more difficult to kill than he had imagined.

“He won’t leave Shenjing. There’s no way he can survive that way,” Li Xizhou said. “We don’t need to worry about Yong Ji’s life or death for now. The Five Clans will find a way to kill him first. We can wait and see how the Prince of Yan responds.”

Pei Ye nodded.

Regardless of what others planned, his primary goal was to acquire the ability to kill Yong Ji, which was also why he was so eager to feed Bing Lu.

At this moment, he stopped following the instructions of the scaled demons and found the giant turtle that was the size of a small hill.

This giant softshell turtle was the most ferocious, smashing the waterway into pieces, and it also possessed some ability to manipulate water.

It had clearly lived for a long time, but today it had to perish.

Its neck was too thick, and its skin was as tough as armor, so Pei Ye shaved three long, sharp spears and pierced them one by one through its neck. When the huge head roared and could no longer retract into its shell, Pei Ye used his sword to cut it down in four separate blows.

Pei Ye sat cross-legged in front of its neck, and a vortex seemed to condense around him. Blood, scales, flesh, and even shells melted into liquid and surged towards him, seeping into every pore of his skin and then pouring into his dantian.

He closed his eyes, and his wealth flowed in like a whale swallowing its prey.

Only at the end of the third breath.

Just like when the seventh life breaks through the eighth life, the branches that have reached their peak and are already fully mature sprout new growth.

Each branch sprouted two new shoots, which then quickly grew strong under watering.

Pei Ye almost stopped breathing for a moment.

His body stiffened, as if a heavy hammer had struck his meridians from his dantian. Intense pain surged through his body in an instant, and only a moment later did he realize... it was a tsunami.

Starting from his dantian, a tsunami roared and surged through his meridians, sweeping through all the major and minor meridians in an instant, almost causing Pei Ye to roar out in pain.

This was definitely a tempering process. The number of meridians doubled again, giving the body almost no time to adapt. An unimaginable amount of true energy surged out.

Because the increase from 64 to 128 meridians is so terrifying, people have designated the Seventh and Eighth Life Stages as the Upper Two Realms. So what kind of momentum would the increase from 256 to 512 meridians represent?

Perhaps Pei Ye is the only person in the world who has experienced this.

He immediately coughed up blood, his meridians bursting open like an overburdened dam, and roaring true energy surged into his bones and lungs.

At this moment, Pei Ye seemed to vaguely understand why the Eight Lives was the upper limit of the Meridian Tree, because the human body could only withstand this level of true energy. Pei Ye could be considered to have outstanding physical constitution, with extremely open meridians and unimpeded flow of true energy, but it still collapsed completely in the face of this tsunami.

In an instant, Pei Ye wanted to stop eating and even use the Sleeve Tiger Burning Technique to remove the forked branches—Bing Lu could eat anytime and there was no need to suffer a serious injury.

But the next moment, Binglu explored his dantian for the first time.

It extends upwards. When Pei Ye first obtained it, he felt it was like a new organ of his. Now this organ has ushered in a new growth. It started from the dantian and completed a fusion with the end of the meridian. Then, from here, the entire meridian underwent a tempering.

The immense true energy swept away everything in its path, carving out a way for itself, and the myriad threads of life force that emerged from it were reconstructed along its path.

It draws upon all the broken and fractured meridians, merging itself into them, like forging iron into steel. When the second wave of true energy roars in, this new set of meridians is already prepared to handle it with ease.

For the first time, Pei Ye experienced what it meant to be "reborn".

The spring water that the giant turtle had transformed into continued to flow abundantly, and the rate at which the body absorbed the nutrients doubled. The 512 meridians grew vigorously, but under this level of distribution, a single giant turtle no longer brought about a qualitative change.

Binglu stopped growing and began to prioritize repairing his injuries. Pei Ye recovered from the excruciating pain and was breathing heavily.

Li Xizhou gripped his wrist.

"Are you ok?"

Pei Ye looked up, speechless, and only gave her a knowing look.

After reaching the Eighth Life, he felt that the true energy in his body was more abundant than ever before. He spent several months in the Lower Three Realms and Middle Three Realms. Although each advancement was twice as strong as the previous one, it was nothing more than turning a trickle into a stream. After the Seventh and Eighth Life, he felt for the first time that the abundant true energy had converged into a river. When he recalled the thin stream in the First Life, he realized how big the gap was between cultivators in the Upper Two Realms and those before.

But it was just an ordinary river, like the tributary of the Wei River that flowed past Liuzhen.

Now, even if what's inside him isn't a tsunami, it's comparable to the might of the Yellow River at its estuary.

A mighty surge.

Pei Ye sat cross-legged for a while, and his body gradually recovered. The pain still lingered in his body, but he felt stronger than ever before.

"Nine times." He stood up and smiled at the woman beside him.

……

It was impossible to explore the entire Mirage Realm, but if it were considered a kingdom, then the two had at least roughly toured the capital. When they returned to the head of the Mirage Dragon, everything was still quiet.

From afar, the Mermaid Palace resembles a magnificent and exquisite jellyfish, seemingly floating, with ancient, hard, iron-like horns growing on either side.

"Are you just going to leave this here? Aren't you going to take it back?"

Having witnessed the magnificent beauty of the mirage, the vastness here allows one to find peace. The two sit side by side on a low twig, tiny fish swimming past their faces, and the dense branches overhead seem like a giant canopy obscuring the sky.

Pei Ye lowered his eyes and looked down at the Mermaid Palace.

“Who carries their house around every day? A snail, perhaps?” Li Xizhou swung his leg. “Listen to me, this mermaid palace is only just being built up. Nobody will live like this. We need to plant grass and trees outside, lay jade inside, and use strange stones to make the walls. Different rooms will use different types of stone…”

She pointed and said, "Look, on that little window, I'm thinking of stringing together bubbles to make a curtain so that the baby jays can hatch inside. That way, they can call it their home, go out together during the day, and come back one by one when I lie down at night."

"Do fish have homes?" Pei Ye asked doubtfully.

Li Xizhou glanced at him.

"Anyway, I've told you all my ideas, so don't mess around with them, just do as I say."

"Row."

"Hmm." Li Xizhou gazed at the mermaid palace quietly for a long time, then turned his gaze to the beautiful, boundless distance. "Then I will entrust it to you."

Pei Ye stayed with her quietly for a while, then whispered, "I think we could invite Luo Weiyou to come and stay... and your little mermaid too. Otherwise, it'll look empty and not very nice."

"Aren't you annoying? This is my Mermaid Palace," Li Xizhou said softly.

Pei Ye didn't speak. He turned his head to look at the woman beside him. She was still dressed in white with her hair down. Just now, she had been excitedly leading him and introducing him to everything she had seen. Now she sat quietly, her eyes filled with deep and tender longing.

In fact, it's more than just her mermaid palace; it's her spiritual realm.

Here, there are fish, shrimp, and rhinoceroses that are affectionate towards her, as well as stones and flowers that she likes. Countless small fish will bring jade to help her decorate her mermaid palace, and even the most vicious scaled demons will become docile in front of her.

This is where my mother came from, and everything she left me. When it rains, I may still see that old childhood memory.

She searched for it for seventeen years, but only had it for a short nine days.

“Alright, then you can have them all. Not a single fish is allowed in,” Pei Ye said.

Li Xizhou smiled: "Little Fish can still go in."

She gazed silently into the distance again, and after a long while, she suddenly murmured: "After playing on the swing, I turned back and my words scattered in the east wind."

Pei Ye stared at her in a daze. She lowered her head, and a swaying peach blossom appeared on her wrist. She reached out and offered it to the boy.

"This is the last sample of mirage blood. Take it."

"...There's no harm in keeping it, we can always come back to visit."

“If I want to come in, wouldn’t it be the same if you opened the door for me?” Li Xizhou smiled at him, then looked into the distance. “…I don’t think I’ll come in again.”

She said softly, "I was born on land, just like my mother was born in the water. We have two paths to choose from, but once we choose one, we should say goodbye to the other. Every time I think about my mother's vulnerability at the end, I feel very sad. But I think that night on the Luo River, when she decided to spend her life with Li Yao on land, she must have thought about this ending as well."

"She didn't hesitate at that time, so she certainly didn't regret it when she passed away."

"..."

“I can’t always imagine that I actually belong here, and I can’t always leave myself a way out.” She lowered her head. “Take it, Pei Ye.”

Pei Ye took it off, and then felt the woman beside him gently rest her head on his shoulder.

He turned his head to look and saw two tears streaming down the woman's face.

(End of this chapter)