The Healer Demands Payment!

Meng Qi seemed to be in a trance. The voice, even with a trace of anger, was pleasant and familiar. Even if she died thousands of times, she wouldn’t fail to recognize the owner of this voice. Meng Qi was sure that she was not hallucinating. Both the last time outside Huajiang Manor or this time, the man’s voice she heard was not her own imagination, but truly existed.

“…Yes.” She replied in a daze.

The black-robed man gave her a slight glance. “What ‘Yes’?” A mockery flashed across his face. “Are you going to admit defeat?”

“Never!” Meng Qi said with a grim determination. A flame suddenly ignited in her heart. So what if this man was more powerful than her? She was not afraid of him!

“So you won’t cry unless you see your own coffin?” The black-robed man sneered. He bent over and took a thin green branch from one of the white ghost puppets he summoned.

“Don’t say I bully you.” He threw a bamboo slip to Meng Qi. “The nine medicinal ingredients needed are recorded in it. I want you to fully admit your defeat.”

The bamboo slip was long and thin, but its color was dark blue, unlike the yellow bamboo slips commonly used in Three Thousand Worlds. On the back of the unfamiliar bamboo slip was a row of characters inscribed in archaic script. Meng Qi touched it with her fingers and read: “Ji Wujiong.”

“Huh?” The black-robed man turned his head in reflex and looked at Meng Qi subconsciously.

It turned out that his name was Ji Wujiong.

Meng Qi quickly recalled her memory. She indeed had never heard this name. If such a powerful cultivator went in and out with Lu Qingran in the previous life, she surely would have heard the rumor about him, so this person probably only appeared later and met Lu Qingran after her death.

Ji Wujiong’s cold gaze swept across Meng Qi. He didn’t seem to care that she knew his name, and said mockingly as always: “Still standing there stupidly? Are you that eager to call me ‘My Lord’?”

Meng Qi: “…”

She lowered her head and quickly memorized all the nine medicinal plants she needed.

“Don’t worry.” The man’s voice rang again in Meng Qi’s mind, but it was even colder than before, “Just do it like the last time.”

Meng Qi lowered her hands and relaxed her mind and body. The long hair tied behind her back suddenly swayed, her blue robe flew, and her figure flashed quickly like the wind. In her hand, the silver medical knife danced across the ground with a ‘swish, swish’ sound, and yellowed grass flew around. In no time, a complete array began to take form on the ground.

“Look clearly.” The man’s voice was still cold. “The name of this array is Thousand Cranes. The one he used is just Hundred Ghosts And Hundred Charms Array. Merely a Hundred Ghosts, why should you feel wary?”

“I see.” Meng Qi responded in a whisper. The corner of her eye swept across Ji Wujiong, who clearly couldn’t hear the man’s voice. Ji Wujiong still stood in a leisure manner and glanced at Meng Qi lazily from time to time; his jaw was slightly raised in arrogance.

“You still look at him!” The man’s voice was dark with a trace of anger that became more obvious. “Do you want to lose?”

Meng Qi pursed her lips and returned her gaze on the ground seriously. She could memorize arrays much faster and easier than memorizing a sword or cultivation technique. When the last stroke from the medical knife fell on the center of the array, Meng Qi already memorized the complete Thousand Cranes array.

“Spirit stone.” The man said in a deep voice: “Eighth-grade.”

Meng Qi quickly took out twelve eighth-grade spirit stones from her storage space item and held them in her hand. She then tossed them on the array, and in an instant, the array shone in blue light, illuminating her delicate face.

Ji Wujiong glanced over and raised his eyebrows disdainfully: “Thousand Cranes array? It is nothing than—…what are you doing?!”

Meng Qi wanted to sigh. This Ji Wujiong was truly knowledgeable. However, it was too late. Countless blue shadows emerged from the array and turned into hundreds of goshawks that soared to the sky. Unlike the ‘crane’ in the array’s name, those goshawks fluttered their wings and flew high, brandishing their sharp talons and beaks majestically.

In an instant, the whole ground was covered by the shadows of goshawks flying in the sky. Those goshawks, large enough that their wings spread out was longer than Meng Qi’s arms, swiftly rushed in all directions.

“You can modify Thousand Cranes array like that.” Ji Wujiong squinted towards Meng Qi. His eyes were burning, and even the usual disdain and mockery on his face were all now gone: “Very good!”

“Isn’t it just modifying an array, heh—” The man’s voice in Meng Qi’s mind finally became softer. Maybe it was just her imagination, but the voice seemed to be less angry, and with a trace of satisfaction.

Meng Qi said nothing. She looked up at the goshawks that flew swiftly across the sky and saw some of them rushed to the ground towards the tiny ghost puppets summoned by Ji Wujiong. The goshawks didn’t pay any care. They brandished their talons and quickly robbed the medicinal plants found by the puppets.

Not only that. After robbing, the goshawks lowered their head and pecked on ghost puppets. With a soft ‘poof,’ they quickly turned into a puff of smoke and disappeared. Then the goshawks waved their wings calmly, turned around, and flew back to Meng Qi.

When they flew in front of her, their talons flicked, and they threw the looted plants into her hands.

Meng Qi was dumbfounded!

Ji Wujiong stared blankly for a moment. He originally thought that this girl summoned goshawks with the modified Thousand Cranes array to make them fly faster and find the needed medicinal plants as soon as possible.

Never crossed in his mind that she would directly rob it!

Not only the goshawks robbed his plants, but they also killed his ghost puppets!

This is unbearable!

He can’t bear it!

Ji Wujiong jumped up furiously. The long black saber once again scratched on the ground and quickly drew a new array.

“Hundred Ghosts Night Parade.” Inside Meng Qi’s mind, the man’s voice rang again.

“Is it amazing?” Meng Qi asked in a low voice.

“Amazing?!” The man sneered, “It seems that we must teach him a lesson, so that from now on, he won’t dare to use any array in front of you!” He ordered: “Take a profound-grade spirit stone and hold it in your hand.”

Meng Qi nodded and took out a profound-grade spirit stone from her storage space item.

“The real modification doesn’t require any useless bluffs and tricks. Otherwise, the enemy will have plenty of times to stab your chest when you are busy drawing the array, just like him.” As he spoke, the man controlled Meng Qi’s body once again. He moved quickly and accurately, and the silver medical knife instantly erased a few lines on the array they previously drew.

The medical knife swung once again, and in the next moment, a new exquisite array was drawn in the center of the original array. The profound-grade spirit stone in Meng Qi’s hand began to shine. Her fingers flicked, throwing the spirit stone into the center of the newly-modified array.

A sharp and high eagle scream suddenly resounded through the blue sky. The Grand Tournament’s barrier, which was originally very silent, seemed to be torn apart by their voice.

In the center of the array drawn by Meng Qi, a huge, very lifelike goshawk swiftly rose from the ground and rushed to the sky.

Ji Wujiong suddenly looked up. Only then did Meng Qi see that his eyes had turned blood red at some point. Even the three weird scars on his face faintly glowed in red.

All the remaining ghost puppets were slowly gathered back towards their master. But when the goshawk’s voice resounded through the sky, they seemed to be frightened and stopped in their place.

Meng Qi could even see they raised their heads to look up at the sky.

“Blood moon.” The man said to Meng Qi again. “Throw it into the sky.”

Meng Qi didn’t even pause to think. She quickly took out the blood moon and threw it into the sky.

The huge goshawk swooped down suddenly, taking away the blood moon in one bite. Then it screeched loudly towards the sky, as if to tear of the entire barrier with its voice. Even the ground and the sky seemed to be shaken.

The man’s voice finally had a hint of good mood: “This blood moon is only a thousand years old. Pretty useless. In the future, I will find for you another blood moon that is more than ten thousand years old.”