"Where could I even go? I heard the mainland is also experiencing outbreaks everywhere," Xiao Shou said with a bitter and helpless expression, he leaning in as if sharing a secret. "I will go take a look outside first."

After speaking, he cupped his hands and left without acknowledging the landlord’s troubled expression.

Once outside, Xiao Shou immediately felt that everything was different.

Every dozen steps, he saw Yingzhou soldiers, officials, cultivators from Fanghu Mystic Isle, and monks, all drenched in sweat as they worked frantically.

Even many cultivators above the Golden Core stage looked tense, their foreheads covered in sweat.

What was going on?

He extended his divine sense and discovered that they were capturing traces of the Seven Deadly Sins within the spiritual energy and dragging them into wooden-type magic treasures.

Was it really that difficult?

Each person was only catching a tiny amount, yet they looked like they were risking their lives.

Had the Seven Deadly Sins grown stronger in just two days?

He cautiously avoided the stiff, zombie-like divine senses around him and casually grabbed a large cluster of the Seven Deadly Sins.

It was still the same as before.

In a good mood after refining the Terrestrial Fox Black Flame, Xiao Shou saw the exhausted and desperate expressions of the surrounding cultivators, especially the many low level ones.

His sympathy flared up.

At the same time, he sensed the simple, eager desire of his little flame.

So as he walked, he once again used illusion to transform into the extravagant old cultivator persona, the same lavish spender from before while strolling leisurely along the safe route.

Wherever he passed, all traces of the Seven Deadly Sins vanished.

After crossing two streets, a palm sized dark green sphere formed before him and it was condensed from a large amount of the Seven Deadly Sins.

The surrounding cultivators who were still trying to capture it sensed the dense concentration within the sphere and they are immediately turned pale with fear.

Only then did Xiao Shou realize he had frightened them.

Thinking of his Frostheart Fleeting Battleship’s speed and the idea he had just come up with, he casually snapped his fingers and completely ignoring how strange it looked for an old man to do so.

At the sound of the snap, a small black flame appeared beneath the dark green sphere in his palm.

In an instant, like oil meeting fire, the black flame surged upward and swallowed the sphere whole.

Crackling sounds rang out, like dry straw burning.

"Hiccup!"

The little flame let out a sound as if it had burped in satisfaction.

Its body suddenly expanded more than tenfold, evolving from a small wisp of black fire into a compact black flame.

Sensing its joy, excitement, and desire for more, Xiao Shou maintained his old man demeanor and continued walking forward at a leisurely pace while capturing the Seven Deadly Sins as he went as if he did not notice the stunned expressions of those around him.

However, after only a few steps, his path was blocked.

A familiar figure, someone he had encountered twice before and who gave him an inexplicable sense of closeness, stood in front of him with hands pressed together.

"Amitabha. This humble monk, Tongchan, greets you, benefactor."

"Tongchan?"

Tongchan...

Xiao Shou tapped his forehead and thought carefully.

After a while, he finally recalled where this person had appeared in the novel.

Thinking of this part of the story brought up the entire sequence after Xiao Ran arrived in the sea region.

Her first foothold had been Yingzhou Celestial Isle.

After experiencing numerous events there and obtaining various opportunities, she eventually fled the island after assassinating the Crown Princess to avenge one of his lover who had died because of her.

She was then relentlessly pursued by Emperor Yingzhou all the way to the vicinity of Northfrost Isle, where she fell into the Sea of No Return.

Believing she could not survive, the Emperor then left.

But instead, she obtained ten thousand year profound ice and the Source of Profound Ice beneath the sea, greatly enhancing her ice spiritual root.

At the same time, she released the Seven Deadly Sins, infecting the northern sea.

Driven by revenge, she deliberately spread it, then secretly returned to Yingzhou Celestial Isle in disguise and reconnected with one of her followers, a man known as General Ping Guo.

It was this very general who following her plan proposed a solution when the abbot temporarily sealed the Seven Deadly Sins inside the spirit treasure Purple Gold Singing Bowl but failed to completely suppress it.

He suggested secretly gathering the souls of nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine young girls born at yin hours to refine a sealing treasure, even presenting the design, which also came from Xiao Ran.

Later, not long after the sealing was completed, the general exposed the Emperor’s secret order of using young girls’ souls to refine the artifact.

He spread the information to righteous cultivators and to the families of the victims, secretly organizing them to overthrow and assassinate the Emperor.

In truth, those victims had all been carefully selected by him and Xiao Ran.

In the end, the Emperor fell, and even after death, his name was cursed by all.

General Ping Guo then supported a newborn child from a collateral branch of the imperial family to become the new Emperor.

He himself became the Grand General who controlled all power in Yingzhou and also holding authority over the entire sea region.

The Penglai Immortal Isle also played some role in all this.

As for Fanghu Mystic Isle, the monks from top to bottom were filled with guilt.

With grim expressions, they left Yingzhou Celestial Isle.

After returning, Abbot Kumu took responsibility and stepped down, passing the position to his chief disciple.

After completing her revenge, Xiao Ran stayed on Yingzhou Celestial Isle for some time, plundered the national treasury, and then moved on to Fanghu Mystic Isle in her original appearance.