Chapter 2614 — Not Dead After All?

After a moment's hesitation, Xiao Shiyi drew a small box from her bosom, opened it, and took out a Great Rejuvenation Pill. Then, thinking better of it, she swapped it for a Lesser Rejuvenation Pill and stuffed it straight into Han Jingyi's mouth.

By now the Lesser Rejuvenation Pill could do nothing at all for Han Jingyi's injuries; it would merely keep a thread of life in her a while longer. Given the state she was in, even a Great Rejuvenation Pill would likely not be enough to save her.

Han Jingyi's consciousness had already been fading, but when she suddenly felt Xiao Shiyi feed her something, a warmth spread through her whole body, and then the wounds on her body began to hurt even more.

Though she had briefly come back to her senses, the pain wracking her body set her teeth chattering. "A Lesser Rejuvenation Pill..."

Being an alchemist, Han Jingyi could naturally tell what Xiao Shiyi had fed her.

"The torment has only just begun! There's something even better coming!" Xiao Shiyi smiled cruelly and produced from somewhere a most peculiar knife. Along its sharp blade ran a row of tiny blades like centipede antennae. "This knife—I suppose you can guess what it's for? One little slash across that pretty face of yours would be quite delicious! Even the finest elixir couldn't heal a wound like that. Tsk, tsk, you'll die looking hideous—isn't that fun?"

"Oh..." Looking at the knife in Xiao Shiyi's hand, a flicker of terror crossed Han Jingyi's eyes. All women love beauty, and Han Jingyi was no exception. She knew she could not escape death this time, but she had wanted to show Wei Zhao her most beautiful side before she died. She had never imagined this woman could be so vicious, scheming to torment her in such ways.

And each method was crueler than the last. Han Jingyi wondered whether this person was some kind of madwoman.

"Swish..."

With a flick of her wrist, Xiao Shiyi drew the blade across Han Jingyi's face. At once, the delicate right side of Han Jingyi's face was a bloody mess, the skin torn open and gushing blood—a truly horrifying sight.

"Are you going to talk?" Xiao Shiyi asked coldly.

"Jingjing is going to die of pain..." Han Jingyi cried out, desperate to release the last trace of true qi in her body and end her life as quickly as possible, for the woman before her was utterly insane, and Han Jingyi could bear it no longer.

"Die? After taking a Lesser Rejuvenation Pill, dying won't come so easily." Xiao Shiyi gave a cold snort. "If you want less suffering, tell me the truth!"

"Oh..." Han Jingyi responded weakly.

"Have you lost the ability to speak?" Xiao Shiyi was furious. She had interrogated many people, but never met anyone as stubborn as Han Jingyi. "What are you hiding? Zhang Lifeng's alchemist's notes—you can't take them with you when you die. You're about to die, so what's the point of keeping them? Tell me, suffer a little less—what's not to like? The sooner you die, the sooner you're reborn. You enjoy holding out, do you?"

"Oh..." Han Jingyi closed her eyes.

"You..." Xiao Shiyi raised the blade once more.

At the gate of Donghai Engineering University, the flying sand and hurled stones gradually subsided. The destruction wrought by that tremendous power had been vast: a trench fully ten meters deep now gaped between Wei Zhao and Xiao Yi. Fortunately, the area before the school gate was open ground; had there been buildings, they would all have been brought down.

"Eh? You're not dead?" Xiao Yi stared at Wei Zhao in shock, unable to believe he had survived her Heaven-Rank Nineteenth-Stance martial technique. Unleashing a single Heaven-Rank Nineteenth-Stance technique had cost even a cultivator of Xiao Yi's caliber nearly half her physical strength and true qi; combined with the two techniques she had unleashed earlier, she would now find it rather difficult to unleash another Nineteenth-Stance Heaven-Rank technique.

Earlier, Xiao Yi had sensed the fluctuation of true qi from the opposite side, but she had not taken it to be Wei Zhao's. After all, when a cultivator unleashes a martial technique, it stirs up a powerful surge of true qi whose residual force lingers for a long while.

So after her initial shock, Xiao Yi's expression turned incomparably grim. If even this had not killed Wei Zhao, then how was he ever to be killed? Would she have to resort to a weapon?

Mighty as Xiao Yi's divine weapon was, wielding it required an infusion of true qi, and she had already expended a great deal. Even if she drew the weapon now, she might not be able to unleash a greater power.

Besides, Wei Zhao hadn't self-destructed, had he? Then what kind of move was that true qi explosion?

In truth, Xiao Yi was overthinking it. She had not seen Wei Zhao blasted away by a true qi bomb, so she still assumed he had miraculously survived her martial technique.

"I'm not dead, so I was thinking—shouldn't we have a talk?" Wei Zhao stood with both hands in his trouser pockets, his right hand gripping the Heaven and Earth Net, ready to unleash it at any moment. But he genuinely wanted to find out just which sect Xiao Yi and Tagan Long belonged to.

That way, even if he captured them, he could settle the score later—or at least he would know how to leak word to them that he had fled to Xixing Mountain Village.

"Talk about what?" Xiao Yi frowned, turning over in her mind why Wei Zhao was not dead. It made no sense—the Twelfth Stance, Tornado Heaven and Earth, had made Wei Zhao vomit blood, yet now he had taken the Nineteenth Stance and seemed perfectly fine, full of vigor. Xiao Yi was utterly baffled.

"What sect are you from? And Tagan Long? Why is his martial technique even stronger than yours?" Wei Zhao fired off the questions in one breath.

"Why ask so much?" Xiao Yi frowned. "All I can tell you is that we are very powerful, and that by crossing us you have only one road left—death... Hmm, that's right. Just now you were blown far away, same as me, weren't you?"

Xiao Yi studied Wei Zhao and suddenly realized he was a long way from her. Which meant that at the time, Wei Zhao had not been at the point where the technique was unleashed—he must have used that peculiar explosive martial technique to flee far away.

Hearing Xiao Yi's question, Wei Zhao sensed trouble. Damn—she seemed to have guessed why the Nineteenth-Stance Heaven-Rank technique, Tornado Heaven and Earth, had failed to kill him. It looked like he would get nothing more out of her. He would have to use the Heaven and Earth Net.

Sure enough, Xiao Yi gave a cold laugh and said no more. She brought her hands together, then spread them apart, preparing to unleash another Heaven-Rank technique. This time she would not use the Nineteenth Stance; in her view, the Fifteenth Stance alone would be more than enough to finish Wei Zhao.