Chapter 1630, A Year The woman frowned and asked back doubtfully, “Does Junior Sister know this person too?” When she asked, Su Yan realized that she had made a mistake. When she was walking just now, she suddenly heard someone talking about Yang Kai and rushed over immediately. Su Yan took a gentle breath and restrained her swirling emotions before nodding lightly, “En, I know him. Senior Sister, can you tell me when you met him and how he was? If you can, Junior Sister will be incredibly grateful.” “The relationship between Junior Sister and him seems to be quite good,” The lead woman giggled lightly but did not dig any deeper into the subject. “Telling you is naturally not an issue; however, this was a matter from several years ago.” “A few years ago?” Su Yan frowned. “Yeah, Junior Sister, you also know that the Emperor Garden opened a few years ago and that I and several others from the Sect entered to explore it, right? It was there that I met him. If it were not for his help at that time, we Senior Sisters would likely have suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Brilliant Flame Sect’s Kong Wen Dong! He even helped us kill that Kong Wen Dong.” “He killed Kong Wen Dong?” “Kong Wen Dong is a Third-Order Origin Returning Realm master, being able to kill him must mean that man is very powerful, yes?” The group of women who had gathered previously all chatted in amazement. If Yang Kai was here, he would recognize this woman leading the group. During his expedition to the Emperor Garden, the first real fight Yang Kai had encountered was between this woman and Kong Wen Dong over an ancient cave mansion. Yang Kai’s True Alchemy Enlightenment Scripture and Purple Origin Alchemy Furnace were obtained at that time. “Could you tell me more about that encounter?” Su Yan’s beautiful eyes flashed as she looked towards the woman expectantly. The woman looked back at Su Yan thoughtfully, seemingly becoming aware of something, and nodded, “Sure.” The lead woman began telling the story of what happened to her in the Emperor Garden a few years ago, entrancing the group of disciples from Ice Heart Valley, but Su Yan had long ago fallen into a daze. [He’s already so strong.] She did not know who this Kong Wen Dong was, but from the reactions of her fellow disciples, Su Yan was able to infer some information. Kong Wen Dong was definitely a peak level master in the Third-Order Origin Returning Realm, and Yang Kai was already able to kill him a few years ago when he was just a First-Order Origin Returning Realm cultivator! Several years had passed now, so what realm had Yang Kai reached? Just how powerful was he now? Her Junior Brother, her man, was already so outstanding. A light smile filled Su Yan’s face, one that seemed to brighten the entire Pure Ice Island. “Junior Sister Su, please come with us now. Don’t make things more difficult than they need to be!” The tall woman in charge of guarding Su Yan urged impatiently as the happy look on the latter’s face somehow annoyed her. “Yes, if we are delayed here and Great Elder finds out, we will be the ones who are punished, or is Junior Sister Su saying you are willing to take responsibility for us?” The shorter woman snapped. The others all looked at them in surprise, then at Su Yan, not understanding what was going on. Su Yan thanked the Senior Sister who told her about Yang Kai before quickly saying goodbye and continuing to walk towards her ice mansion, walking briskly as she tried to sweep away her previous sorrows. ..... At the bottom of a blue river, the Sealed World Bead sat silently covered in silt for almost an entire year. One day, however, a school of fish swam by, close enough to disturb the silt covering the Sealed World Bead, exposing it from its hiding spot. One curious fish from this school spotted the Sealed World Bead, opened its mouth, and swallowed it down. Twisting about a bit uncomfortably for a moment, the fish then casually caught up with the rest of its school. Ten days later, these fish swam into a vast lake, and as soon as they entered this place, a huge black shadow appeared from the depths. This black shadow opened its mouth wide, like a whale, and inhaled deeply, swallowing almost eighty percent of the school of river fish. A short time later, this black shadow belched and left contentedly. A few days later, ten thousand kilometres away from the entrance of the lake, an iron ship was sailing along slowly. Aboard this iron ship, a group of cultivators were pushing their Saint Qi to use Secret Technique and artifacts in combat with a huge black shadow below the water’s surface. Half an hour later, the shadow was killed, and the cultivators happily fished up the shadow from the lake. This strange fish was nearly twenty metres in length and had large, bulging red eyes. Its mouth was filled with jagged fangs, giving it a truly terrifying appearance. Most notable however was its tail, which was ball-shaped and filled with spikes. Many of the cultivators aboard the ship were injured while fighting this strange fish, but at this moment, they all had joyful looks upon their faces as they examined their spoils. “Uncle Wang, this Flowing Star Fish is enormous! From the struggle it put up just now, it’s likely a peak Eight-Order Monster Beast,” A young man at the First-Order Saint King Realm stood next to the strange fish and kicked its belly lightly with his foot, smiling as he called out to an old man in green robes nearby. The old man smiled and stroked his beard as he nodded, “En. This is a Flowing Star Fish that has grown to its limit, a genuine peak Eighth-Order Monster Beast.” “Hahaha, we’ve struck it rich this time. The Flowing Star Fish’s Monster Core is extremely rare and worth at least 200,000 Saint Crystals, much more than the Monster Core of other Monster Beasts of this level,” The young man laughed. “Yes, with this Flowing Star Fish, our trip this time has already been worthwhile! Selling the Monster Core will provide our Wang Family’s cultivators six months worth of cultivation resources.” “Uncle Wang, should I process it, or do you want to do it yourself?” The young man looked at the old man. “You do it, of course! This old master is too old to do such bloody work!” The old man said, drawing a laugh from everyone on the boat. The young man did not complain and immediately took out a small silver dagger before pouring his Saint Qi into it to form a long blade which he stabbed into the fish’s body. A moment later, the young man extracted a fist-sized Monster Core from the fish’s head. The young man then respectfully handed the Monster Core to the old man. The old man took a closer look and nodded, “En, this is an excellent Monster Core, one that contains an extremely rich Water Attribute energy. If this is used by a cultivator who cultivates a Water Attribute Secret Art, they will be able to rapidly improve their strength. Alright, this old master will look after this Monster Core for the time being and hand it over to the Patriarch when we return. Everyone here will be rewarded well for this merit!” Hearing this, the cultivators who participated in the battle just now cheered in excitement. “This Flowing Star Fish is quite rare, and its flesh is also a delicacy that cannot be wasted. Call someone over to process it,” After the old man gave the order, he turned around and entered his cabin. The young man standing next to the fish then called over a few of the younger disciples to handle it. This young man was naturally unwilling to handle such menial work and assigned the disciples with the lowest cultivation onboard to handle it. Generally, these low-level disciples wouldn’t participate in the battle and were only responsible for doing chores to earn some Saint Crystals for their cultivation. Although the Flowing Star Fish was quite big, it was not too much trouble to handle. A short time later, everything was processed, and the fish meat was specially preserved to not lose its freshness while its organs which were of no use were thrown overboard. Somewhere at the bottom of the boat, in a rather crude room, a young girl about sixteen or seventeen years old closed her door tightly and sat on her bed. Looking left and right, with a guilty expression her face, she carefully reached into her pocket and pulled out an unremarkable-looking bead. This bead was only about the size of a longan and did not seem to be anything special. But this did not stop the young girl’s heart from pounding. “Is this a Monster Core?” The girl muttered to herself, her face flushing with excitement as she bit her thin lip and looked at the bead in her hand anxiously. Just now, she was one of the lower base disciples who had processed the fish and at the time she had accidentally found this bead in its belly, after which she quickly hid it from the others. She thought it might be the Flowing Star Fish’s Monster Core! Now, thinking about what she had just done, however, she couldn’t help feeling fearful. Since she came out with her family’s iron ship, everything she obtained should technically belong to the family. She did not know what came over her at the time to actually try to pocket this bead for herself. It was obviously impossible for her to turn it in now; if she tried to, she would likely be punished by the Family Law for theft. “This isn’t a Monster Core,” The girl was not able to calm herself, so she instead tried to convince herself that she hadn’t done anything wrong to ease her guilt. The Monster Core had been taken away by her Uncle Wang, and she had never heard about a Monster Beast that formed two Monster Cores. Moreover, this bead had no energy fluctuations, so 0bviously it could not be a Monster Core. But since it wasn’t a Monster Core, what was it? Why was it in the belly of that fish? The girl tilted her head to the side and kept staring at the bead in her hand in confusion. Suddenly, the bead flashed and mysteriously disappeared from her hand. At the same time, strangely, a person appeared in front of her. The girl turned pale when she witnessed this and quickly lifted her head to examine this stranger. Standing in front of her was a young man who seemed to be around twenty-five or sixty years old. His expression was also slightly confused, seemingly puzzled by his current situation. Four eyes suddenly met, and the girl’s beautiful eyes flashed with terror as she opened her small mouth to try to shout. Yang Kai moved faster though and quickly managed to cover her mouth. The girl struggled, punching and kicking Yang Kai as her face filled with panic, obviously thinking Yang Kai was some kind of heinous criminal. “Don’t shout and don’t move!” Yang Kai frowned as shouted in a low tone. He still does not quite understand what had happened, but he quickly discerned that after coming out he had appeared on an iron ship that was carrying several cultivators. Although the strongest cultivator aboard was only at the First-Order Origin Returning Realm, nothing he needed to worry about, Yang Kai did not want to stir up trouble unnecessarily. As such, he would first need to deal with this girl, albeit, a bit roughly. The girl remained undeterred however and continued struggling. Yang Kai saw that any attempt at gentle persuasion here would be ineffective and instead wore a vicious grin and as he swept his eyes over the girl’s figure and whispered maliciously, “If you don’t cooperate obediently, this King will have his way with you first then feed everyone else on this ship to the fishes!” The young girl’s tender body shivered as a pleading look appeared in her beautiful eyes. She kept shaking her head as tears flowed out, obviously uneasy. But despite being terribly frightened, she really calmed down and stopped struggling.