Ye Fan walked a few steps upon hearing the words and found that it was indeed Zhao Yelü and his companions.
Several core elders were clearly beyond saving, some of their heads having been blasted off to unknown locations.
Zhao Yelü had lost an arm and a leg, and now, with a deathly pale face, he looked at Ye Fan.
"Senior Ye... I know you are a very powerful senior..." Zhao Yelü’s words were punctuated by blood flowing from his wounds, "Zhao humbly implores Senior for a favor..."
Zhao Yelü painstakingly shifted his body, revealing his wife and daughter whom he had been protecting.
They were unharmed, appearing to have merely fainted.
"I hope... Senior can escort them out..." Zhao Yelü's voice grew weaker, "I dare not ask... for Senior to bestow any fortune upon them, even if they were merely servants who fetch tea and water by your side... I only beg... that mother and daughter can be safe..."
"Senior Ye..." Zhao Yelü tremblingly grasped Ye Fan's pant leg, "I beg you..."
Zhao Yelü's desperate plea, as if entrusting his wife to his care, made Ye Fan hesitant.
*Boss, are you mistaken?*
*My surname isn't Cao...*
In truth, Ye Fan hadn't intended to agree.
Having survived in this world for so long, he had long grown accustomed to death.
Monks who embarked on the path of cultivation should have long anticipated such a day.
It was simply their fate.
However, thinking about it, the Yelü Gang had quite a tragic end.
From its inception to now, it had lasted only a few months in total, and now it was gone...
"How pitiful..." the Little Demoness muttered softly.
She had spent most of her time imprisoned and playing, her mindset still stuck at the level of a novice cultivator.
Her previous decisiveness in killing was only because those were enemies.
Having only met Zhao Yelü once before, she now felt a degree of sympathy.
However, the Little Demoness did not try to persuade Ye Fan to agree.
She did not want to interfere with any of Ye Fan's decisions, as long as she could remain by his side like this.
Unfortunately, Zhao Yelü gave Ye Fan no time to react.
As soon as he finished speaking, his head lolled, and he was done for...
"Fine," Ye Fan sighed and stored Zhao Yelü's corpse in his ring.
Now that the man was dead, there was no point in dwelling on other matters.
"Shanzi, you take care of them," Ye Fan casually instructed.
"Leave it to me!" Shanzi slung the mother and daughter over his shoulders, one in each arm.
"Should we wake them up...?" the Little Demoness whispered.
"No need," Ye Fan quickly said, "If they wake up soon, they'll just cry and wail, I can't handle that."
However, after they had walked for a short while, the mother and daughter woke up on their own...
Upon learning what had happened from the Little Demoness, tears gushed from their eyes...
Perhaps out of deference to Ye Fan's status as a powerful figure, they did not dare to cry out loud.
For the remainder of the journey, they were sensible and stayed behind, quietly acting as background props.
Along the way, the number of wreckage increased, and some new things also appeared.
"It seems more than one group has been here before," the Little Demoness glanced at the white bones on the ground, "The lowest level of this person when alive was Void Comprehension, and it looks like they died at least a thousand years ago."
The bones were severely weathered, appearing quite incomplete.
Scattered beside the bones was a broken sword, likely the weapon of this person in life.
"Probably more than a thousand years," Ye Fan picked up the broken sword beside the bones, "A weapon forged from Scarlet Abyss Demonic Iron, weathered to this extent would take at least ten thousand years to start with."
"What a shame," the Little Demoness glanced at the white bones, "Sparkling clean, nothing left behind."
"I thought you weren't short of money?" Ye Fan looked at her with a headache, "Besides, you don't need these cultivators' materials, why are you always acting like a little miser?"
"I'm not short of money right now, but what about the future?" the Little Demoness retorted righteously, "In the future, our son will need to cultivate, get married, and found a sect. All these miscellaneous expenses add up. Our son will have grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. No, no, the more I think about it, the poorer I get!"
Ye Fan: ...
*Damn it...*
*Never mind, as long as you're happy...*
"Hey, this flower is quite pretty," Shanzi, bored, suddenly spotted a wild flower by the roadside and happily walked over, "I remember a girl in the pleasure house before seemed to like flowers, she'd surely be happy if I gave it to her."
As he spoke, Shanzi had already plucked the flower.
"Five-Colored Yin-Devouring Flower. A single whiff can incapacitate anyone below the fifth layer of Void Comprehension for half a month," Ye Fan casually glanced, "If refined into a pill, it can easily knock out someone in the Void Refinement stage."
"Holy cow!" Shanzi shrieked and threw the flower away.
"But you don't need to worry," Ye Fan smiled kindly at Shanzi, "Let alone touching it, even eating it won't harm you, it might even benefit your cultivation."
"Really?" Shanzi clearly blinked.
"Of course," Ye Fan pointed to a grass on the ground, "Combined with this Heart-Relief Grass, the effect is even better."
Although these two were poisonous, it depended on who was using them.
Shanzi's Vermillion Bird bloodline was no joke.
Let alone the poisonous plants in the cultivation world, even most poisons in the immortal world would have no effect on Shanzi.
At most, it would be like eating spicy chips.
Well...
The taste wasn't that great...
Trusting Ye Fan, Shanzi quickly collected the two herbs.
Then Shanzi took out some clean water from his ring and carefully washed the herbs.
After confirming there was no dirt, Shanzi stuffed them into his mouth.
And then...
Shanzi's face instantly turned green...
The burning sensation in his throat was secondary; the key was that the taste was too overpowering!
"How does it feel?" Lord Banana beside him asked curiously.
"I heard humans on the street say a phrase before: 'Money is hard to earn, shit is hard to eat'," Shanzi said with a green face, "Now I understand what it means..."
Lord Banana nodded and stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"There should be other companion herbs around here," Ye Fan murmured, "It seems the ones who came before picked them."
Judging from the traces around, the way these people harvested them was certainly not professional.
If they were taken back to refine into pills, the medicinal effect would be reduced by at least thirty percent.
Unfortunately, this had nothing to do with him anymore; he was just a lazy fish now.
Ye Fan dropped the broken sword and clapped his hands, "Alright, let's go."
On the rest of the journey, the frequency of herbs appearing by the roadside increased.
Judging from the traces, some were harvested peacefully, while others were the result of a fierce battle.
The few that were preserved intact were, without exception, poisonous.
These cultivators might not know the exact poison, but they could deduce it from the clues.
For amateur cultivators, these poisons were sometimes more dangerous than enemies and ferocious demonic beasts.
Just like the unfortunate souls on the ground before them.
They had clearly collapsed upon smelling the scent, having no time to escape.
Their faces were now green, and some of their bodies were even beginning to rot...
"The herbs here are distributed too carelessly, almost indistinguishable from weeds," the Little Demoness couldn't help but sigh, "The owner must have been quite wealthy."
"Let me add," Ye Fan squatted down and began to collect them, "Definitely wealthier than you can imagine."
"Didn't you just say these were all poisonous herbs?" the Little Demoness asked curiously, "Are you planning to refine poison pills?"