To be safe, the two did not stay the night out in the open by the riverbank. Instead they found a large tree nearby and hollowed out a modest cavity in it with their bare hands, so that they could rest easy inside.

Wei Zhao even went to the trouble of summoning his water-lily clone to ask after Leng Leng and the others, and only after confirming that they were in no immediate danger—all of them gathered and resting in one spot not far from the River of Divine Consciousness—did he set his mind at ease.

The night was still and quiet, and there was no one about. A lone man and a lone woman sharing a single tree hollow would have made most women uncomfortable, but Duanmu Yu felt no such misgivings at all; even as she rested, she kept studying Wei Zhao closely.

"What are you looking at me for?" Wei Zhao asked, taken aback, and stopped what he was doing.

"You... you're not by any chance practicing Withering Leaves Bring Spring, are you?" Duanmu Yu asked, her expression somewhat odd. Her perception was far keener than most people's, and the true qi fluctuations she had just sensed from Wei Zhao were all too familiar to her.

True, she had only spoken a few words about the essential principles without revealing any actual cultivation method, so by rights there should have been no way for him to practice it. But the problem was that this was Wei Zhao they were talking about—if the man could imitate even the signature art of a devil-cultivator overlord like the Soul-Hooking Hand on his own, what was Withering Leaves Bring Spring to him?

"Is that not allowed?" Wei Zhao said, looking at her.

"I don't mind. Even if you really did master it, it would be something you figured out yourself anyway." Duanmu Yu shrugged. Turning a blind eye was a little irresponsible, perhaps, but how a person chose to poke and pry was his own business—she truly had no say in it.

"Don't worry, I'm not actually trying to learn your Leaf Spirit Sect's Withering Leaves Bring Spring," Wei Zhao said, making an inference. "If I'm not mistaken, all those techniques of your Leaf Spirit Sect form a system in which each supports the next. You have to start from the very beginning and work through the entire sequence of cultivation—it should be impossible to study Withering Leaves Bring Spring in isolation like this, no?"

"You could figure even that out? You really are a freak!" Duanmu Yu said in amazement.

Just as Wei Zhao had said, the essence and meaning of every technique in the Leaf Spirit Sect advanced layer by layer, from the shallow to the deep, forming a most complete system. Without grasping the essential principles of the foundational techniques, no one could hope to master an advanced technique like Withering Leaves Bring Spring, no matter how gifted. Conversely, of course, if one could grasp even the essential principles of Withering Leaves Bring Spring, then grasping those of the foundational techniques followed as a matter of course—one would already know them without any special cultivation at all.

"You flatter me." Wei Zhao gave a chuckle. In truth, his ability to deduce all this was not purely a matter of exceptional insight; it was mainly that his true body was of a sufficiently high level and his horizons sufficiently broad. Having seen so many mental cultivation methods and martial techniques, his eye had naturally grown sharp enough to strike the mark at a glance.

"If you're not trying to learn Withering Leaves Bring Spring, then what are you doing?" Duanmu Yu could not help asking.

"I have a vague sense that the essential principles of Withering Leaves Bring Spring are very useful to me, but I don't yet know exactly how to apply them. I need to explore and study them properly first," Wei Zhao admitted frankly.

Put plainly, the essence of Withering Leaves Bring Spring was to forcibly awaken the life force latent within the body. In a sense it was somewhat similar to the supreme body techniques and ultra-limit body techniques he had mastered before, and yet greatly different as well. After all, the latter merely stimulated the physical body purely to give it sharper reflexes; they could not restore the true qi within the body as Withering Leaves Bring Spring could, still less produce its wondrous effect of self-healing. Compared side by side, Withering Leaves Bring Spring was plainly far more exquisite.

But whether it was restoring true qi or healing oneself, both of these miraculous effects of Withering Leaves Bring Spring were mere chicken ribs to Wei Zhao—he could already do both, and without any aftereffects besides. Use Withering Leaves Bring Spring, and a long period of weakness was sure to follow. Now that would be a real pain in the ass!

Wei Zhao was not about to do something as foolish as taking the long way around when the short way lay right before him.

Of course, chicken ribs or not, Wei Zhao still made an attempt to explore it. He wanted to grasp the knack and then draw inferences from it. He had no need of true qi restoration and no need of healing, but if a similar effect could be transferred to his primordial spirit, that would be a real windfall—need he be reminded that he was currently a primordial spirit body?

Duanmu Yu watched in silence as Wei Zhao explored and extrapolated this way and that, and the profound, mysterious quality that surfaced from time to time genuinely opened her eyes. It was a feeling she had never experienced before—even her master had never left her so utterly unable to see through him.

One had to understand that her master was no ordinary Golden Core expert, but a veritable Nascent Soul old monster, a being who stood at the very pinnacle of the entire Primordial Little Jianghu.

It was just a pity that the top tier of the Primordial Little Jianghu amounted to no more than that—nothing at all compared to Cloud Terrace Island. How could a mere Nascent Soul old monster possibly be mentioned in the same breath as a freak like Wei Zhao, who could even dispose of an overlord of the Mountain-Opening stage?

The two of them sat facing each other in silence for who knew how long, when suddenly Duanmu Yu opened her eyes. She had felt Wei Zhao's aura inexplicably surge by a great deal in that instant just now, yet looking at him now, there was clearly nothing unusual about him at all—no different from a moment ago. She could not help muttering, "Was that my imagination?"

Wei Zhao paid her no heed, seemingly still wholly immersed in his own exploration and extrapolation, utterly oblivious to the world outside. Duanmu Yu even believed that if she were to stab him with a knife right now, Wei Zhao would not show the slightest reaction.

"Is this fellow genuinely thick-skinned, or does he just trust me too much?" Duanmu Yu shook her head in exasperation. She went on sitting in meditation and resting, while carefully keeping watch over the sounds outside. Since Wei Zhao had shut out the world entirely, this was a duty that could only fall to her.

What Duanmu Yu had not expected was that Wei Zhao would sit there far longer than she had anticipated.

"Hm? The tide hasn't ebbed yet?" Wei Zhao finally opened his eyes slowly, a flash of keen light passing through them before they returned to normal.

"Hasn't ebbed yet? Brother, the tide has already ebbed five times," Duanmu Yu said crossly.

"What?" Wei Zhao was stunned at the words. He had merely been exploring and extrapolating within his own mind—it had not felt like much time had passed at all.