Ming Yue Sect's third princess was quietly following behind Ye Mo the entire time.
No matter how fast Ye Mo was, Zhi Ruo was always just a little distance behind him. However, even with her willowy body and exquisite movement technique, it was difficult for her to remain neck and neck with him. Especially when they entered the Patriarch's Main Hall, she had nearly lost sight of him several times and had to rely on her divine sense to catch up to him. The icy wind and the thick, white fog did not seem to affect his speed.
He was worthy to be called Sword Flash!
His speed could already be said to be the pinnacle of the Divine Awakening Stage! He could probably even rival those of the middle Nascent Divinity Realm, the Divine Profound Stage!
One had to understand that in cultivation, the small gap between levels could already spell a person's life and death, much less the difference between stages.
The Nascent Divinity Realm was the cultivation of the powerful figures and extraordinary personages—the elders, the patriarchs and even the great Elders—of big families and most sects in Qing Blessed Lands.
Divided into three stages, more than three-fourths of all these important figures were only in the first stage of the Nascent Divinity Realm, the Divine Awakening Stage, while those of the older generation belonged to the second stage, the Divine Profound Stage. Only a handful, like the Ye Clan Patriarch Ye Wuqing, belong to the strongest existences, those of the third stage, the peak of Nascent Divinity, the Divine Ascension Stage!
A speed that could fight against a Divine Profound Stage cultivator! With only two decades of cultivation to reach that level, it could be seen that Ye Mo is a heaven-defying genius.
Still, Zhi Ruo did not give up. She gritted her teeth and also rotated her entire cultivation base in order to keep up with Ye Mo's frantic searching.
'I wonder what kind of girl this Little Yin is.'
She had grown curious over this orphan girl who Ye Mo claims to be his daughter. Last night, she had only been informed by her maids that the Ye Clan's Tenth Elder was in the Leaf City sect branch bringing with him an injured little girl, but little was known about the girl herself.
At that time, Zhi Ruo had just come out from isolated meditation and had only finished consolidating her cultivation base after a breakthrough. Hearing his name mentioned, she was quite eager to pit herself against a worthy opponent.
Ye Mo was a good sparring partner, as he was always serious in executing his sword moves and never purposely gave her handicaps when they were exchanging notes. He was not like the other young masters who liked to talk and flaunt, or worse, pander after only exchanging a few sword moves.
Zhi Ruo actually did not care much about the little girl. However, after watching Ye Mo's behavior, it seemed like there was a big secret waiting for her.
Could it be... that little girl is actually his real daughter?
Without any indication, Ye Mo stopped running in front of her. This abrupt stop caused Zhi Ruo to nearly collide against him. She had to quickly change her direction and flip in the air once before lightly stepping back on the ground to disperse the force of her speed.
She was glaring daggers at Ye Mo, but the man had his back on her and could not see her anger.
"Little Yin?!" she heard him say.
A tinkling, melodic laughter of a child could be heard in front. Zhi Ruo could easily imagine an image of an adorable little girl with big, black eyes, looking like a perfect doll, running in joy towards Ye Mo. To be stuck in this world of ice, the little girl must have been very scared.
However, the next words caused Zhi Ruo to nearly faint.
"Oh, old fogey! You are here! Perfect! Can you help me bring these back? You have a spatial storage container with you too, right? I have three already, yet the spaces inside are so small, there are still leftovers I can't fit inside."
Old fogey?
Complaining that her spatial pouch was too small?
Can't fit inside?
Why does she sound like a bandit?!
Facing the direction of the voice, Zhi Ruo stepped around Ye Mo to finally see this 'Little Yin'.
The girl was only a little more than a toddler, with a sweet heart-shaped face framed by an unadorned silky black hair that reached her waist. Her eyes were large and clever, and her cheeks looked rosy and tender that an overpowering urge to pinch them suddenly arose in Zhi Ruo's heart.
Clad in an overly-large white robe, Little Yin's thin frame was the picture of innocence and fragility.
However...
"Hey, hey, what are you standing there for, looking in a daze?"
Little Yin frowned imperiously at Ye Mo, and while talking, her hands were busy waving around to collect frozen herbs and making them disappear out of thin air. Zhi Ruo could feel fluctuations of spiritual energy in the air. It was obvious that Little Yin was storing those frozen herbs inside her three spatial pouches.
Really a bandit...
The adorable little girl image inside Zhi Ruo's heart shattered like glass.
The frozen Ye Mo statue beside her, who she forgot was there, finally moved.
Ye Mo crouched towards the little girl and pulled her in a tight hug.
"Thank the ancestors, you are all right! Do you know how worried I am about you?!"
The little girl opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out.
"Not just me, everyone was so worried about you!" Only Ye Mo's aggrieved voice could be heard in the entire pocket dimension. "Hua'er and Xuan'er came here early in the morning to check up on you, but I have to chase them away because letting them stay here would only burden them more. Oh, you little brat! I don't know what I should do about you!"
It was then that the little girl noticed Zhi Ruo standing nearby.
Little Yin blinked slowly, as if she suddenly woke up from a dream. Her face went tomato red. With a grimace, she squirmed out of Ye Mo's embrace.
"You are still not a woman, yet you actually dare to touch me!" Little Yin threateningly waved her fist in front of Ye Mo's face. "What can happen to me? I can protect myself. I am actually strong, you know!"
"Yes, yes, you are strong." Ye Mo dotingly patted her hair. "Our Little Yin is brave and strong."
"No! I'm not lying! I'm really strong now!" The little girl grimly turned to face Zhi Ruo. "Tell him I'm strong. If you don't agree, I'm going to call you old lady!"