Of course, Leng Leng knew full well that the odds of Wei Zhao still being here were truly slim. She was merely clinging to a hope of one in ten thousand.

Yet before she could set out to return, she happened to spot Sun Baimei and his companions first, surging back with a menacing air. Fortunately, she had been hiding on the hillside at the time with her aura suppressed, and so the three of them had not discovered her. But from the direction they were heading, it was plain these people were on their way to the very place she had rented.

Leng Leng was shocked on the spot, and an overwhelming worry welled up in her heart. What if Wei Zhao was still there? The possibility was tiny, tiny beyond measure—but what if?

Her first instinct was to rush back ahead of them and warn him. Fortunately, reason won out over impulse in the end. For one thing, Wei Zhao had most likely long since gone; and even if he truly were still there, her returning at this moment would serve no purpose. Against the three of them—Sun Baimei and the others—she lacked even the strength to stall them for a moment, and she might well end up dragging Wei Zhao down instead.

Forcing down the impulse in her heart, Leng Leng waited a full half day before finally setting out for her residential compound. Barring the unexpected, Sun Baimei and the others should have left long ago by this time.

Sure enough, the room was empty. Yet the scene before her eyes nearly made Leng Leng faint dead away: fresh traces of fighting had clearly been added at the doorway and in the living room—and there were even bloodstains, fresh and wet!

"Could Wei Zhao have been..." Leng Leng simply dared not imagine it. She had assumed that after so long, it was basically impossible for Wei Zhao to still be in this place—yet she had never expected something like this to happen.

If Wei Zhao really had died at the hands of Sun Baimei and his lot, she would never forgive herself for as long as she lived. Had she known it would come to this, why hadn't she come earlier? Even at the cost of fighting to the death, she should have won Wei Zhao a little time to escape!

But she quickly came to her senses—her worry had truly clouded her judgment. Wei Zhao was a primordial spirit; where would this blood have come from?

Leng Leng had witnessed the scene last time when Wei Zhao was surrounded and attacked by the blood spirit cats. Though it had looked hideous and gruesome at the time, with flesh and blood splattering everywhere, those things were merely condensed from spiritual-consciousness energy and dispersed into nothingness in short order. They could not possibly leave behind real bloodstains.

Turning it over and over in her mind, Leng Leng concluded there were only two explanations for these wet bloodstains: either they belonged to Sun Baimei and his companions, or there were other people involved. In any case, they could not possibly be Wei Zhao's.

Still, to say the blood belonged to Sun Baimei and the others did not seem quite plausible either. Sun Baimei and Fei Yangsheng alone were already not to be trifled with, and with the even stronger Senior Brother Yin added to the mix, that formation was one that, unless the expedition-leading senior brothers of the Primordial Little Jianghu came in person, would basically never suffer a loss.

Could it be that some hooligans playing at being tough had shown up again, only to have the bad luck of running into Sun Baimei and his group, and been killed for it? Or perhaps the lease had expired and an agent had brought prospective tenants to view the place?

Both hypotheses were plausible, but Leng Leng cared nothing for either. So long as it wasn't Wei Zhao who had come to harm, she would not trouble herself over whether anyone else lived or died.

After looking around the room, Leng Leng did not find her treasure. She could not tell whether Wei Zhao or Sun Baimei and his people had taken it—but she hoped it was Wei Zhao.

Looking at this place where she had lived for only half a month, yet which had given her so many warm memories, Leng Leng fell into a momentary daze. Scene after scene from those days kept surfacing in her mind, and in her trance she even felt as though someone was knocking at the door. If only she opened it, she would see Wei Zhao waiting at the threshold with breakfast in hand.

Sadly, such days were gone forever. At the time she had not thought anything of them, but now, looking back, how wonderful it would have been if such days could have gone on and on.

Leng Leng could not help but grow somewhat entranced. They had spent only a brief half month together, yet Wei Zhao had already walked fully into her heart. Every single thing he had given her back then was now a treasure she regarded as her very life.

Of course, many of the things Wei Zhao had given her were priceless treasures to begin with—those large quantities of pills for Foundation Establishment and Golden Core, and the top-grade spirit jade. In the Primordial Little Jianghu, such things were beyond price, with no market to speak of. Yet what warmed Leng Leng's heart most was not these, but the clothes Wei Zhao had accompanied her in buying, and the phone.

The phone! At this thought, Leng Leng's eyes suddenly lit up. She had forgotten that a phone could be used to make calls. To find out where Wei Zhao was, all she had to do was call him!

Leng Leng immediately dialed Wei Zhao's number in a flurry—but the voice that came from the phone left her somewhat disappointed: "The number you have dialed cannot be connected at the moment. Please try again later..."

This was only to be expected. Wei Zhao had simply tossed his phone into the jade pendant's space. How could there be any signal in there?

Having spent three years on Cloud Terrace Island, Wei Zhao was, frankly speaking, long since out of step with the mundane world. A phone was something he took out and used only when it occurred to him; ordinarily he simply tossed it into the jade pendant's space. This was a habit formed over a long time—whatever it was, he would instinctively toss it into the jade pendant's space. After all, it was far more convenient than carrying things on his person.

What was more, he was currently a primordial spirit body; every inch and every part of him was conjured from spiritual-consciousness energy. To additionally sustain a phone would waste no small amount of spiritual consciousness. Even a primordial spirit, however powerful, could not go squandering it so carelessly.

But Leng Leng knew nothing of this. Her experience with phones was limited to this short span, and she had only ever called Wei Zhao; she had never once encountered a failure to connect. At the phone's prompt, her first reaction was for her heart to sink. Could Wei Zhao really have met with disaster?

Recalling what Wei Zhao had said the last time before they parted, Leng Leng truly did not know whether it was true or false. At her level, she simply could not comprehend such words. In truth, even Wei Zhao's very existence was already an incredible, inexplicable thing to her. He had said he would not die, that after some cultivation he could come back—could she really believe these words?

She wanted them all to be true, yet reason told her that once a primordial spirit was destroyed, it was doomed beyond all redemption. This was the most basic common knowledge of the cultivation world. As for whether Wei Zhao was an existence that transcended common knowledge—perhaps he was, perhaps he was not.

"Nothing must happen to you!" Leng Leng murmured, gripping the phone tightly. She swept her eyes around the room once, gathered up the clothes Wei Zhao had bought her back then, and left at once. She had never been a woman to dither; in truth, her temperament was bolder and more decisive than that of most men.