By the time Xu Yuan and Ying’er, having met up with Ran Qingmo midway, returned to the ruins of the Xu Residence estate, Xu Changge had already been waiting inside for quite a while.
This, Xu Yuan was not surprised by.
Just moments after Ying’er had set him down on the rooftop of a building in the marketplace, he noticed that this older brother had already appeared above the Xu Residence.
However, at that time, the other party had merely glanced at him from afar before descending directly into the residence.
At this moment, Xu Changge sat quietly on a large stone, his eyes lowered as he fiddled with an ancient ring, his robe of azure undisturbed by any dust, fluttering in the wind.
Approaching closer, Xu Yuan was drawn to a blood-stained cloth package next to Xu Changge.
He remembered that his brother seemed to possess the Sumeru Ring, so why not put it into the ring?
With slight hesitation, he extended his will-spirit to see what was inside the package.
But what he saw inside the cloth made Xu Yuan’s breath catch for a moment.
It was a woman’s head, her eyes closed, her death very peaceful.
His will-spirit swept over it,
the woman’s eyes suddenly opened.
A head from someone of the Primordial Realm.
No wonder it wasn’t placed in the Sumeru Ring.
In a moment of distraction,
Xu Yuan suddenly caught sight of Xu Changge tossing the ring in his hand to him.
Catching it, he looked down and a hint of surprise appeared in his eyes.
This was a Sumeru Ring, empty, but its internal space was actually more than twice the size of the one he originally had.
But didn’t his older brother know he already had one? What was the meaning of giving him another?
Xu Yuan opened his mouth to ask, but Xu Changge didn’t give him the chance to speak, his calm gaze shifting towards Ran Qingmo behind him.
Ran Qingmo instinctively tightened her grip on the sword hilt, stepping back slightly in a defensive manner.
This Xu Changge, he was very dangerous.
Xu Changge locked eyes with Ran Qingmo, his tone gentle as he spoke:
"Mr. Ran, our last departure was quite hasty, Changtian is grateful for your care in the Wanxing Mountain Range."
Upon hearing these words, Ran Qingmo silently pushed up on the sword hilt a bit, her cultivation technique quietly beginning to circulate.
Xu Changge raised an eyebrow, his eyes lingering on her sword hilt for two seconds, a hint of regret flashing through them.
If only this woman had been born a decade earlier, it’s possible that this world would have truly had someone of her generation who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
"Mr. Ran, I have no intention of confronting you. Since Changtian does not intend to pursue the matter, I, as his brother, naturally will not either."
Xu Changge slowly stood up, walked up to Ran Qingmo, gathered his sleeves, and bowed respectfully to the woman before him:
"Xu Changge, thank you, Mr. Ran, for lending a hand."
Once the courtesy was concluded,
Xu Changge turned to look at Xu Yuan beside him, then glanced at the ice sculpture behind Ran Qingmo.
"...." Xu Changge repeated his earlier action.
Xu Yuan cleared his throat:
"Ran Qingmo, could you hand over the soul body and Qin Mo’s corpse to us?"
Ran Qingmo blinked and then nodded:
The two connected ice sculptures were thrown onto the ground by her.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan smiled slightly, only to find that his older brother was still staring at him with a placid expression.
Xu Yuan suddenly seemed to understand what his elder brother meant by giving him the Sumeru Ring.
Although Zhou Chen and his two companions had fought with all their might for a long time, their efforts were mostly in vain, merely dragging out the inevitable.
The Saint’s Remnant Soul inside the Soul Ring was almost exclusively sealed by Ran Qingmo on her own.
This was her spoils of war.
Given Xu Changge’s strength, he could have directly demanded Ran Qingmo to hand it over, but because of Xu Yuan, Xu Changge, acting as his elder brother, did not feel it right to simply take the spoils of someone else.
After a slight hesitation,
Xu Yuan took off the Sumeru Ring from his index finger, emptied it, and after swapping it with a larger capacity one, he handed it to Ran Qingmo:
"Ran Qingmo, I’ll exchange this with you."
Ran Qingmo’s clear and tranquil eyes flickered slightly.
She stared at the ring on Xu Yuan’s fingertip without speaking or reaching out to take it.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan pondered for a moment and then said with a soft laugh:
"Take it. The favor earlier was for helping me kill them, and this Sumeru Ring is to exchange for that Remnant Soul in the Soul Ring."
Ran Qingmo pursed her lips, looking at Xu Yuan for two seconds with clear eyes that revealed nothing of her thoughts, but this time she accepted it:
She gently took it, placing Xu Yuan’s Sumeru Ring on the index finger of her right hand.
After pausing for a moment,
she also took down the bulging travel bag from behind her back and put it inside.
Watching the two finish their exchange, Xu Changge seemed resigned as he sighed, then suddenly waved his hand.
The ice sculpture, as ancient as the permafrost, emitted a series of fine crackling sounds, and cracks began to spread at a visible rate.
Xu Yuan immediately turned back to look.
the ice sculpture that had sealed the main character shattered directly into the fine dust of the heavens and the earth.
Seeing this, Xu Yuan felt an unreal sense for a moment.
Although Ran Qingmo had informed him personally, until that opponent’s head fell to the ground, a sense of unease lingered nonetheless.
After all, those two snake demons who had died in Cang Yuan could have been the female lead or just passersby in the story, but Qin Mo was undeniably the protagonist in every thread of the world line.
Now that he had turned to dust, there was absolutely no chance of survival.
Qin Mo was truly dead.
As his thoughts spread out, Xu Yuan shook his head slightly.
Indeed, there was no such thing as a plot protagonist.
Based on his experiences, Qin Mo’s opportunities really fitted the protagonist template, but weren’t Xu Changge, Ran Qingmo, and even his father in the Imperial Capital also the same?
The difficulty in killing Qin Mo was simply due to his hard-to-kill traits.
Whether it was his own strength to fight beyond his level, the grandfather on his back, or the aid from Qin Weijiu, all were reasons for his tenacity.
Regathering his thoughts, Xu Yuan focused on the Saint’s Remnant Soul.
The Saint, having broken out of the ice, did not go mad again. After glancing around to roughly understand his situation, he obediently returned to the Soul Ring.
Xu Changge bent down to pick up the Soul Ring and turned to ask:
"Changtian, you’ve done well this time. Is there anything you want?"
On hearing this, Xu Yuan’s eyebrows rose, and without hesitation, he said:
Xu Changge chuckled lightly and with a wave of his hand, all sorts of Elixir Medicines, over twenty bottles of various kinds brought from the Imperial Capital, were all thrown to Xu Yuan from the Sumeru Ring:
"These are from father. He entrusted them to me to give to you."
After a pause, Xu Changge said with a soft laugh:
"Anything else you want?"
After a brief hesitation, Xu Yuan glanced at the Soul Ring in Xu Changge’s hand.
Xu Changge’s eyes twitched, pretending not to see.
But after a few moments of silence, he still explained:
"Father needs that item for something else, choose another."
Xu Yuan was only testing the waters and, glancing at Ran Qingmo next to him, he then asked softly:
"Xu Changge, I’d like to take this opportunity to go out for a while, may I?"