9 - Yin is Yin!

An old man with silvery white hair, still strong as a bear in the waist and supple as a tiger in the back(1), appeared in between the unconscious Yin and the fleeing black-robed man.

"You think you can come and go as you like? You do not really put the Ye Clan in your eyes, do you?" he snorted, pushing his hand forward before making a grasping motion. "Come back here!"

The old man was no other than Ye Wuqing, the current Patriarch of the Ye Family and one of the strongest experts in Leaf City!

Without letting out a word, the black-robed man released his hidden weapons before dodging to one side. However, would the mighty Patriarch of Ye Clan, a venerated expert of his generation, allow him to escape?

Of course not! Not only for safety, but also for face!

As Ye Wuqing dealt with the intruder, a thirty-something-year-old man ran out from a nearby residence, to be followed by a young couple with weaker cultivation levels and thus slower to leave their courtyards. The three of them looked horrified at the sight of Yin bleeding on the ground.

"Little Yin!"

Ye Hua moved the quickest as he checked Yin's pulse. "So cold!"

"Cold?" His wife broke down crying. "She's not... she's..."

It might have been only hours since they found Little Yin, but Wu Xuan'er had totally fallen for the little girl's crazy antics. For her, Yin was already her dear younger sister.

Ye Hua had a calm expression on his face, but his unsteady hands were stretched taut, the veins showing, betraying his emotions. "Her body is like touching a millennium-old block of ice. No mortal could survive this."

"No!" Wu Xuan'er sobbed. "Save her, gege. You have to do something!"

"I can't..."

"Little Yin is still alive. I could still sense a wisp of life force inside her. This brat, she's like a cockroach. How many times had she almost died today?"

Yet as Ye Mo said this, his face was grim, obviously worried about Yin.

Ye Mo, as the youngest elder of the clan, had a cultivation base of early Nascent Divinity Realm that allowed him to extend his consciousness and check the presence of vitality in Yin's body. What he had found astounded him.

There was almost no vitality inside her!

It's a miracle she's still alive!

"Uncle, you can't speak like that, especially towards a girl." Wu Xuan'er frowned.

Ye Mo harrumphed. "And here I thought women were gunning for equality."

"Uncle is right," Ye Hua started, but Wu Xuan'er glared at him like a mother tigress.

"You are a cockroach! Your family are cockroaches!"

Ye Hua was covered in sweat. What happened to his gentle wife? Who's this man-eating woman who replaced her?

"No, not that... I mean, Uncle is right that Little Yin is alive. Although she is not breathing, her life force is intact. There's a coldness inside her body that my qi could not dispel," Ye Hua said after pressing a finger on Yin's Shen Men acupoint. "The coldness is... innate."

"Innate? You mean she has a Spiritual Body?" Wu Xuan'er crouched before Yin and carried her into her arms. "So cold! W-We need to bring her to the Medicine Pavilion as soon as possible. Uncle Mo, please carry her since you can fly. Hua-gege and I will follow behind you."

"No, bring her to the city branch of Ming Yue Sect," Patriarch Ye Wuqing cut her off. When the imposing old man suddenly appeared beside the four, there was no trace that he had been in a fight. He looked like not even dust could taint him.

On the ground behind his feet, there was the corpse of the black-robed man. His eyes were all white, and his face was bluish purple. It could be seen that when he realized it was impossible to leave, he had resolutely committed suicide by poisoning himself.

"Patriarch!" The three of them hastily bowed.

"This looks like an Absolute Yin Body. Our clan is not the best place to treat her." After saying that, Patriarch Ye Wuqing then vanished. He was normally in isolated meditation. If not for the chilling fluctuation from awhile ago, he would not be alarmed and pulled out from meditative training. Now that the threat was gone, he could go back to his spiritual cave.

"This brat Yin's body is a Yin body?" Ye Mo could not help but exclaim. "But don't Yin Spiritual body owners have innately cold and unfriendly temperaments?"

"Oh, and Elder Mo, clean this mess up before dawn breaks. We have important guests coming."

"Yes, Patriarch." Looking around at the damaged courtyards, Ye Mo could not help but cry inside.

In his heart, he could not help but curse. 'Who else will clean this but the one in charge of this part of the manor? These are the houses of my branch of the family, dammit!'

"Uncle, I'll handle this here. Please, just focus on bringing Little Yin to the Ming Yue Sect," Wu Xuan'er pleaded and passed the unconscious girl to him.

Though Ye Mo gravely nodded, he was in fact relieved deep inside. What a good daughter-in-law!

"Don't worry. If this brat survives this, I'll take her in as my adopted daughter."

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(1) Quote from the novel The Three Kingdoms