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They were willing to kill to preserve the purity of their bloodlines?

Then had Gu Qingluo turned him down to protect him? Or was this just wishful thinking that his affection was reciprocated?

Perhaps...... He needed to find an opportunity to verify it for himself.

Su Chen quietly pondered the situation.

As he thought of the possibility that Gu Qingluo might not actually dislike him but turned him down to protect him, his heart began to beat faster, filling with excitement.

He thought back to the gaze that Gu Qingluo looked at him with that evening,

the melancholy and sadness in her gaze spoke volumes.

He really was so stupid.

He had given up on trying just because he had been turned down once.

Could this really even be considered love?

How idiotic of him!

If he had applied the same persistence he had for continuing research even in the face of failure, everything probably would have taken care of itself by now, and he wouldn’t have needed to wait until now to figure it out.

As he thought of this possibility, Su Chen quietly cursed himself.

But now that he understood, he naturally also knew what he was supposed to do now.

Su Chen had already decided that he needed to go and have a talk with Gu Qingluo once this storm was over.

He was lost in thought when a student approached him. The student’s face was lowered, and he looked as if he was in a hurry. However, right as he walked past Su Chen, he suddenly reached out to grab him.

Su Chen instinctively shook him off and simultaneously stepped forwards with his right foot, his hand rushing towards the student’s midsection. The student raised his hand and grabbed Su Chen’s elbow while simultaneously clawing towards Su Chen. Su Chen dodged the blow by tilting his face and then tried to counter with a knee, but the student evaded it and charged forwards, leaning in with his shoulder.

The two of them rapidly exchanged a number of awkward blows, their fast reaction time making it difficult to discern their movements clearly. Their strikes were so fast that they didn’t even have time to activate any Origin Skills; all they could do was rely on their instincts to battle until the two of them were sent flying apart by a collision.

Su Chen took advantage of the respite to form an Erupting Firehawk as he said in a low voice, “Who is it? What are you trying to do by infiltrating the Hidden Dragon Institute?”

That student laughed darkly. “Not bad, Su Chen. But I’m not some sort of spy.”

The student lifted their head.

Upon seeing his face, Su Chen was caught off-guard. “He Sihong? It’s you?”

He Sihong was a student who was one year older than him. They had encountered each other twice before, so they were mutual acquaintances. They could not be considered particularly friendly, however, and Su Chen didn’t know why He Sihong had suddenly come looking for him.

“Someone wants to meet you and asked me to bring you to them. Originally, I just wanted to take you over immediately, but you were harder to control than I anticipated. All I can do now is ask you to go yourself,” He Sihong replied.

“What kind of person asks you to fight me in order to have a meeting?”

“You’ll know once you see them.”

“What if I choose not to go?”

He Sihong sighed, then pulled out an object and waved it in front of himself before quickly putting it away.

Although the movement was very quick, Su Chen saw it clearly.

His expression sank ever so slightly. “So it’s them? You belong to them as well?”

“Don’t waste so much time. Just follow me.” He Sinian turned around and left.

Su Chen thoughtfully gazed at his departing figure before deciding to follow along in the end.

They walked through a long, winding corridor before entering a section of dense forest. After walking for a bit longer, they finally arrived at a desolate, uninhabited corner of the forest.

A black-clothed individual stood there with his back turned to Su Chen.

He Sinian walked over to the man and said in a soft voice, “I’ve brought him.”

The black-clothed man slowly turned around.

Upon seeing this scene, Su Chen wanted to laugh.

You’re just meeting with someone. Is there a need to act so pretentiously?

But when that person turned around, Su Chen was stunned.

The stranger in front of him had a long face like that of a horse.

His nose was extremely long, like a thoroughfare that connected the two sides of his face. The first thing Su Chen thought of when he saw that face were the Mountain Demons they had encountered within the Falling Eagle Mountain.

They really did look a bit alike.

But no matter what the other party looked like, most importantly it was not who Su Chen had thought it was.

He knitted his eyebrows. “Who are you? And why are you looking for me?”

The horse-faced male replied, “I am called Ma Renze, the person in charge of the Immortal Temple’s affairs in Long Coiling City.”

As expected, the Immortal Temple had sent someone to meet with him.

The object that He Sihong had shown him was a triangular medallion that represented the Immortal Temple’s identity.

Su Chen originally thought that it was Sang Zhen who was looking for him, but he hadn’t anticipated that it would be Ma Renze, whom he had never met before.

However, that didn’t mean that he didn’t recognize that name.

The complete opposite was true. Unlike Sang Zhen and the others, who maintained a low profile, Ma Renze’s name echoed like thunder throughout Long Coiling City.

He was one of Long Sang Country’s most wanted individuals, and he was ninety-sixth on the country’s bounty list.

His cultivation base was in the Light Shaking Realm, and he was an experienced assassin. His temperament was vicious and his tactics brutal. Sang Zhen and the others were terrorists in name only, but Ma Renze was someone on the dark side who was genuinely powerful.

Yue Wuti’s death had been planned and executed by this man single-handedly. Su Chen had discovered this upon investigating the circumstances behind Yue Wuti’s death after returning from the Falling Eagle Mountain.

Even so, Su Chen remained expressionless, as if he had never heard of Ma Renze before. He spoke in a calm voice, “I don’t know you. Where is Sang Zhen?”

Ma Renze replied, “He is no longer responsible for what you do. In the future, I am the one who will take over any matters related to you.”

“You?” Su Chen was a bit dissatisfied by this. “I don’t recall you notifying me before making this decision. In addition, if you wanted to notify me of something, why not do it outside of the Institute? Do you know how dangerous this is? If you are discovered by the instructors of the Institute......”

Ma Renze interrupted Su Chen. “First of all, there is no need to notify you. Your opinion on this matter is useless. Second, I am very clear about whether this is dangerous or not. Just because that piece of trash Sang Zhen isn’t able to get into the Hidden Dragon Institute doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to. Since I am confident enough to talk with you here, I am not worried that I will be discovered by the instructors within the Institute, and this is also exactly what I wanted to tell you...... The Hidden Dragon Institute is not something you can rely on!”

Their initial interactions were anything but friendly.

Su Chen squinted his eyes. “Relying on? What do you think I am relying on the Hidden Dragon Institute for?”

“Is that not the case? You spend every day holed up in your instructor’s Origin Energy Tower, hiding inside the Institute like a little girl. You’re like a damned turtle! You provoked so many enemies, but there’s nothing they can do to you. Even the Immortal Temple needs to send a greeting party to just see you. If you don’t leave, everyone can only wait...... But that kind of thing is over. I’m here now. If you still think that you can hide from your responsibilities by holing up like a turtle within the Hidden Dragon Institute, you’re dead wrong.”

Upon hearing these words, Su Chen finally understood what Ma Renze was getting at. “You’re here to force me to make the medicine?”

Yes.

Ma Renze was here to coax him to make medicine.

More precisely, to make the Spirit Sobering Medicine!

Su Chen had already been in the Hidden Dragon Institute for over four years, and he had been studying alchemy for half a year before that as well.

Thus, after waiting for over four years, the Immortal Temple finally could not wait any longer, and they began to urge Su Chen to hurry up.

In fact, this urging had been going on for half a year already, but Su Chen had never agreed.

Su Chen didn’t turn them down because he couldn’t make the Spirit Sobering Medicine. In fact, he was already skilled enough to be considered a high-level Qualified Alchemist, and he was capable of concocting the Spirit Sobering Medicine.

He hadn’t agreed to it because his current success rate in concocting the Spirit Sobering Medicine was still too low.

The Spirit Sobering Medicine was a rare-tier ingredient. Although high-level Qualified Alchemists could concoct them if they specialized in it, their success rate would still be much too low.

There was no way that the Immortal Temple would allow Su Chen to just concoct as many medicines as he could. Thus, just like their previous interactions, the two parties had struck a deal.

Three thousand vials!

No matter how many Corpse Spirit Flowers Su Chen was able to find inside the Spirit Burying Terrace, he absolutely needed to deliver three thousand vials of Spirit Sobering Medicine. If he couldn’t do it, he would need to offer himself up to the Immortal Temple and join their ranks.

This was one of the reasons why the Immortal Temple had put up with Su Chen’s blackmail. Even if the mission failed, they would at least obtain a talented individual.

The Immortal Temple’s calculations were not wrong at all. They had precisely calculated how many Corpse Spirit Flowers there would be, and then they calculated roughly how many vials of medicine could be made from them. Afterwards, Su Chen discovered that their estimate was very close to the actual number of Spirit Sobering Flowers that he had found.

Under these circumstances, if Su Chen didn’t want to lose money, he would need to ensure that he didn’t fail.

However, the Immortal Temple evidently didn’t think that way.

In any case, the number had already been set, so to them, Su Chen’s success rate didn’t matter to them at all.

As long as he could deliver three thousand vials, that was enough. What did they care about his costs?

In fact, the higher his costs were, the happier they would be!

Thus, after four years, the Immortal Temple had finally begun to coax Su Chen to make the medicines faster.

Su Chen had delayed them again and again. Under these kinds of circumstances, he had managed to delay for another half a year.

In the past few years, Sang Zhen had interacted with Su Chen quite often, so he understood Su Chen’s intentions. He knew that Su Chen wasn’t trying to delay on purpose; instead, Su Chen wanted to wait until he reached the Distinguished1 level before concocting the medicines, so he hadn’t been in much of a hurry.

While Sang Zhen was willing to wait, the Immortal Temple clearly wasn’t.

Perhaps because they were unhappy with Sang Zhen’s performance, they had replaced Sang Zhen with Ma Renze.

Ma Renze’s appearance today was to give Su Chen a warning.

1. Note: I made a mistake back in Chapter 29 when listing the rankings of the alchemists. The actual ranking is: Novice, Qualified, Distinguished, Master, and Legendary. I swapped Master and Distinguished previously, which was incorrect.