"The cultivators here... have fled."
Li Ming considered the tone of his words, thinking that no matter how he put it, he couldn't erase the sudden sense of astonishment, so he bluntly laid out the whole truth.
"They fled?"
Qingcheng Zi was flabbergasted, somewhat slow to react, but once he understood, a wave of shock washed over his face.
He looked at the long journey he had taken and thought about how he had kept vigil here for a whole day, his prior anticipation of the cultivators stepping forward to avert the catastrophe... it was absurd.
"I am to blame. Had I allowed learned man to rest at the base the day before yesterday, such a thing would not have happened."
Li Ming regretfully shook his head and thought for a moment, then selectively shared the information that he had obtained from Gu Zhuo's mind with this Taoist priest: "This is the only memory from an ability user who had contact with cultivators that I know of. All signs indicate that these cultivators…indeed fled."
