40. Death of Feng Jing – 3/3

"How dare you protect her after what she did to Feng Jing?" Screamed Feng Lian. Zhan Xia's expression remained impassive in the face of Feng Lian's accusations, her eyes narrowing slightly as she considered her words carefully.

"Feng Lian, your grief has clouded your judgment," she replied evenly. "You have no proof that this girl is responsible for Feng Jing's death. As for his injuries, perhaps you should consider the possibility that he met his end thanks to his spire, rather than at the hands of this girl. You know how bad he was in terms of fighting, right? If you knew how she did it then slow me and I will let you kill her."

With a pointed look, Zhan Xia gestured toward the scene before them, where Mei Lin lay battered and bloodied, her frail form a stark contrast to the accusations that had been leveled against her.

"Look at her," Zhan Xia continued, her voice softening slightly. "Does she seem capable of such an act, she is just a child and dint even have a cultivation stage. "

Feng Lian's expression softened slightly at Zhan Xia's words, though the grief and anger still burned brightly in her eyes. She knew that her emotions had clouded her judgment, but the pain of losing her son was still raw and fresh in her heart.

"I will show you proof and then kill her for what she did." Zhan Xia nodded in understanding, her gaze lingering on Mei Lin's prone form for a moment longer before turning back to Feng Lian.

"I understand your pain, Feng Lian," she said softly. "But let us not rush to judgment. The truth will reveal itself in time, of that I am certain. For now, let us focus on finding answers, rather than seeking retribution."

Feng Lian didn't say anything despite, that she saw what Mei Lin had done, her heart heavy with sorrow as she turned away from the scene before her. As they walked toward Mei Lin together, the weight of uncertainty hung heavy in the air, a reminder of the challenges that lay ahead in their quest for justice.

In the meantime, Mei Lin pulled the spear from her chest, without even making a sound, and tried to sit in the lotus position to absorb all her blood and blood from Feng Jing. She will slowly refine his blood into her blood and then heal the hole in her chest.

With grim determination, Mei Lin gritted her teeth against the searing pain as she pulled the spear from her chest without making a sound. Blood gushed forth from the wound, painting the snow around her red. Ignoring the agony that threatened to consume her, she focused all her energy on her desperate plan for survival.

Summoning the last reserves of her strength, Mei Lin struggled to sit into the lotus position. With each breath, she started refining Feng Jing's blood and along with her consciousness which entered into her cultivation sea, her mind was clear and focused despite the chaos that surrounded her.

As Mei Lin sat in the lotus position, both women witnessed the miraculous event and couldn't believe what had just happened. "She pulled out the spear from her chest and didn't bleed out. How is that possible?" Mei Lin completely immersed herself in her cultivation sea along with her blood and began absorbing the natural energy from Feng Jing's blood inside her stomach. She quickly collected all her blood from her body, and before everyone's eyes, she was completely mummified.

Feng Lian rushed forward and began searching for Mei Lin without care for whether Mei Lin wanted it or not. If she found the murder weapon, she intended to kill her immediately and as brutally as possible. With a single-minded determination, she rifled through Mei Lin's robe, her hands searching for any sign of the murder weapon. Every rustle of fabric felt like a betrayal, every pocket a potential hiding place for the instrument of death.

After searching through Mei Lin's robe with spirit sense, she didn't find a storage bag or any weapon. The only thing that Mei Lin had was a ring on her hand.

In a fit of frustration and rage, Feng Lian tore the ring from Mei Lin's finger, scanning it with all her might but it was just a crystal ring. With trembling hands, she subjected the ring to a thorough inspection, her spirit sense probing every crevice and etching with a relentless fervor.

Minutes passed like hours as Feng Lian scrutinized the ring, her expression a mask of fury and disbelief. Finally, unable to contain her anger any longer, she flung the ring to the ground, watching as it disappeared into the snow with a soft thud, swallowed by the icy embrace of the winter landscape.

"See? Feng Jing impaled himself. It's a disgrace. Such a pathetic display of incompetence with a spear. But then again, he never excelled at anything, did he? No loss that he's gone," Zhan Xia chuckled, glancing at Feng Lian with a twisted smile before turning to address the other spectators.

"It's a pity. But Feng Jing met his end by his hand, quite literally. He attempted to murder a guest of the Merchant caravan for his sick satisfaction and ended up impaling himself instead. Take heed, everyone. Beware of the Feng family, unless you want to meet a similar fate as the poor girl in the red," Zhan Xia's voice echoed across the gathered crowd, spreading fear and uncertainty like a disease among the people.

After that chilling declaration, murmurs and whispers erupted amongst the caravan members, questioning the safety of their surroundings and what actions they should take. Feng Lian, though filled with a desire to act, found herself paralyzed by the weight of the public accusation, rendered speechless in the face of such brazen cruelty.

Just as Zhan Xia was telling her twisted truth to the observers, the crystal ring that was in the snow slowly disappeared and once again appeared on Mei Lin's hand. No one noticed this, but if Feng Lian saw what happened, she would kill Mei Lin despite that it had nothing to do with Feng Jing's death.

Feng Huayuan suddenly appeared near three women, his gaze immediately drawn to Mei Lin, who was covered in blood and with a hole in her chest. He didn't spare a glance to look at Feng Jing and only inspected Mei Lin with spirit sense. After looking at her for a second he discovered that none of her blood was in her body and the wound looked like it dried up. Mei Lin looked more like a corpse, but her life energy was still inside her body.

"Do something! Kill her! What are you waiting for? She is the one who killed our son and you are just watching her." Feng Lian was screaming with all her might and her powerful cultivation base was sending her voice to everyone who was less powerful than her directly into their minds. As she urged Feng Huayuan to act and kill Mei Lin Feng Huayuan didn't move at all. He looked at Mei Lin without moving a step, looking like a statue.

Despite that Feng Huayuan looked like his son's death was nothing, but his hard bled as he saw Feng Jian, but he was ordered to take Mei Lin away, not to kill her. Just a Feng Lian was about to go to kill Mei Lin Feng Huayuan placed his hand at Mei Lin's shoulder and teleported away. As unexpectedly as Feng Huayuan appeared, he and Mei Lin suddenly disappeared leaving everyone who was watching the fight to stop talking.

Everything fell silent. Mei Lin, the main culprit in the fight, had suddenly disappeared, and everyone who had been watching lost interest. "So even Feng Huayuan didn't care about what happened to his worthless son," a voice suddenly spread among the crowd. Intense bickering and chatter immediately resumed once again.

By noon, everything had been cleaned up and the blood left by Feng Jing and the field was buried deep under the snow. No one was talking about Feng Jing anymore, instead, the topic of discussion had shifted to Mei Lin's glorious execution of the tyrant from the Feng family.

*****

After ten days, Mei Lin released her blood from the cultivation sea back into her body. She also discovered that someone had healed the hole in her chest, preventing her from bleeding out immediately when she woke up. 'I sacrificed half of her natural energy from my cultivation base and managed to create nearly half a liter of blood. If I didn't do it I would probably never recovered my blood and die sooner or later.' This ability was one of the specialties of blood cultivators. They can forcefully convert their natural energy into their blood.

The only disadvantage was that Mei Lin lost her cultivation progress, but compared to death, that was a small price to pay. If she hadn't done it, she would have had to wait a long time before her body naturally produced enough blood. However, the transfer wasn't ideal. She lost half of her natural energy in the process. When she opened her eyes, she realized she was only at thirty percent of completing the first stage BT. Compared to before, she had lost nearly two months of her cultivation progress.

As Mei Lin's cultivation waned, so too did her strength and vitality, leaving her as frail and vulnerable as she had been in her days before cultivation. Each movement became a struggle, every breath a laborious task, as the weight of her diminished power bore down upon her like a crushing weight.

However, she had more than a hundred milliliters of first-stage BT blood from the attendant in the shop, and now she also had all the blood from the hand of the guard inside the storage ring. It was fortunate that the collected blood inside the storage ring couldn't escape anywhere. Mei Lin deliberately positioned the hand inside the ring as far from everything as she could, to prevent the blood from being absorbed by the robe or anything else.