Chapter 32: Another Great Achievement

The only regret was that he hadn’t boarded the carriage yet!

But that was only natural—he was self-aware enough to know his place. If nothing else, his identity as Master Mo’s menial servant alone would surely make Yan Kongyi suspect him of being in league with Master Mo. He had no complaints about this.

Moreover, just before Yan Qingwan vanished, the look of guilt in her eyes as she glanced at him was something he saw very clearly.

“Oh dear, oh dear! Now the Yan family patriarch will truly be alarmed!” Master Mo beat his chest in regret, then lost all interest in watching Li Ji’an any longer, rushing outside.

He left behind only a single sentence: “I’ll go inform Master Wei! Hurry up—deal with this man!”

The beast tamer who controlled the spirit beast frowned slightly, casting a careless glance at Li Ji’an, who still lay limp on the ground.

A sudden explosion sounded from outside.

“The Wei family dares to go so far? What do they think of my Yan family?” At the same time, a deep, ancient voice resonated, steady and even gentle, yet unable to mask its underlying fury.

“How’s the progress? I can hold out for ten more breaths!” With the Yan family’s Foundation Establishment patriarch taking action, Wei Huairen’s anxious voice came in.

Hearing this, the beast tamer’s mind grew frantic.

He urgently pressed the frog to hurry.

The frog croaked laboriously, but had managed to devour only three-tenths of the medicinal field.

Another thunderous crash sounded outside.

“Enough, enough! We must leave now!” The beast tamer could bear the pressure no longer and halted the frog’s pillaging.

The frog immediately closed its mouth, feeling much lighter.

Yet before it could relax, the beast tamer pointed at Li Ji’an on the ground: “Swallow him!”

The frog retreated two steps, its eyes like bronze bells full of resistance—especially when Li Ji’an looked right back at it, making it clamp its mouth even tighter.

“Hm? Wretched beast! You’re asking for trouble.” The beast tamer snorted coldly, producing a beast pouch and touching the soul stone embedded in it.

The frog instantly writhed in pain.

“Fall back!” Just then, another urgent shout came from outside the cave.

Clearly, the Yan family patriarch had a hidden move that exceeded Wei Huairen’s expectations.

“Useless!” The beast tamer cursed, giving up on commanding the frog, slapped the beast pouch to retrieve it, and while running toward the exit, flung a blade of wind at Li Ji’an.

As the wind blade was about to strike him, Li Ji’an—who had been limp on the ground—suddenly moved.

Dodging the wind blade, he appeared behind the beast tamer and, without hesitation, punched.

A dull boom sounded; the beast tamer, who hadn’t even activated his magical shield, had his chest shattered, dying before he could react.

“Brother Liang, retreat quickly—You! How dare you!” At the instant the beast tamer’s chest exploded, three figures rushed back into the cave, witnessing the scene. Aside from the black-robed man whose face was obscured, the other two—especially Master Mo—were utterly dumbfounded.

“Go!” Wei Huairen gritted his teeth in fury, but dared not delay. He glared fiercely at Li Ji’an and crushed a teleportation talisman in his hand.

The three figures blurred and vanished without a trace.

“Hmph! Where do you think you’re going?” The next moment, a powerful pressure surged into the cave, and a fire dragon exploded at the spot where the three disappeared.

Without pause, the figure transformed into a blaze and pursued them.

Meanwhile, more Yan clan members poured into the cave.

Li Ji’an glanced at the beast tamer’s corpse; a storage pouch and beast pouch lay at his feet. In the end, he shook his head and abandoned them.

With the Yan family’s crucial medicinal field having suffered a loss of thirty percent, there was no way he could easily cover up his involvement.

However, killing the beast tamer at the last moment counted as a monumental service to the Yan family. Now, there was no need to conceal anything from Master Mo—he would surely reap considerable rewards.

Years of rivalry between the Wei and Yan families had led them to recruit outsiders with lavish rewards, let alone such a tangible achievement.

“Master Mo… In the next life, I’ll make sure your wishes come true!”

He gazed in the direction where Master Mo and his companions had fled, recorded today’s events in his heart, and cleared away the negative emotions, refusing to let them disturb his state of mind.

What needed to be done would be noted down, and when he was fully prepared, he would do it—no need to let it trouble him in the meantime.

Indeed, with his current body cultivation strength, if he set his mind to pursue Master Mo, he had an eighty percent chance of success.

But never a hundred.

He possessed the power to “reverse aging”; he had future lives ahead. Unless absolutely unavoidable, he had no desire or reason to act recklessly.

He preferred overwhelming his enemies with confidence.

He liked bullying the elderly at his peak.

Even dancing atop their graves was fine.

Soon enough, the Yan family patriarch returned empty-handed.

Yan Kongyi and Yan Qingwan were also brought back.

Aside from revealing his late-stage first-tier body cultivation strength when killing the beast tamer, Li Ji’an truthfully described how Yan Kongyi and Yan Qingwan escaped using their life-bound teleportation talismans.

“Li Chang’an, you’ve rendered great service once again!” Once the Yan family patriarch confirmed Li Ji’an was not lying, he gave his approval.

The frog was released and spat out the devoured medicinal field.

After inspecting the beast tamer’s storage pouch and beast pouch and finding nothing of particular value, the Yan patriarch tossed them to Li Ji’an: “You killed this one—his spoils are yours. Rest assured, your rewards for twice rendering meritorious service will not be affected.”

“Patriarch, it’s not just twice. If not for Li Chang’an, my pill-crafting would never have progressed so far. Especially now that Master Mo escaped, without Li Chang’an’s years of assistance, I could not have shouldered the burden of the pill shop!” Yan Qingwan added from the side, somewhat guilty.

In that fleeting moment, she truly thought it was a final farewell.

And the promise to protect her descendant would never be fulfilled.

She had never imagined that his first-tier body cultivation would prove to be the decisive factor.

Had he not acted at the last moment, the Yan family’s hidden medicinal field would have lost thirty percent.

“Indeed! He deserves a grand reward! When Zongsheng returns, you may decide the rewards.” The patriarch set the tone.

Yan Zongsheng was Yan Qingwan’s father and the current Yan family head.

With this, Li Ji’an was firmly established within the Yan clan.

His identity shifted from Master Mo’s former menial to Yan Qingwan’s partner.

To fill the vacancy left by Master Mo’s departure, Yan Qingwan devoted herself even more deeply to refining pills, and began to craft essential medicines for the clan.

The clan spent considerable sums to acquire many pill recipes from outside.

These recipes became Li Ji’an’s trove for studying and comprehending the Dao of alchemy.

Two years passed in a flash…

One day, as Li Ji’an returned from the Yan family’s pill chamber, the massive frog poked its head out of the courtyard pond and croaked.

Two years ago, after the Yan patriarch gave him the beast pouch, Li Ji’an devoted himself to studying the art of beast taming in this cultivation world.

By imprinting a spirit beast’s soul onto a beast soul stone, whoever controlled the beast pouch with the embedded stone could command the beast.

However, in beast taming, control is not the crux—the key lies in nurturing and unleashing their potential.

As his understanding deepened, Li Ji’an conceived new ideas for his “reverse aging” ability. If successful, his childhood phase would become far safer!