The few memories he made from his short time there flashed in his mind as he was leaving the area, from the nervousness and rage he felt when he had just arrived, to the heaviness that came soon after as he thought of the fate of Hao Da and the rest and how desolate the branch seemed to be. A constant reminder of what had happened.

Immediately after he got to interact with Mo Guang, drinking from his cup of wisdom, and though their interaction wasn't a lot, he had grown to respect and admire the veteran administrator.

Then after, out of a sense of guilt, or responsibility, or the ghosts of the Ice Emerald Sect somehow still haunting him, he was all over the place investigating what exactly happened to Hao Da. He wasn't sure if it was out of vengeance, or was an excuse to not keep his mind idle, or a fear-driven agenda that maybe if he found out what happened, such a situation would be able to be prevented, but he threw himself into finding out what happened, finding a long thread that only bore more questions.

The longer he pulled at the thread, the more the primary culprits of the case, the Blue Soul Flame Crow Syndicate felt less and less like the primary masterminds of the whole event. The deeper he dug, the more it felt like some massive hand from the past had been pulling strings, as to what end, Yang Qing had no clue, all he knew was they had something to do with the Deer Mountain Kingdom, and they didn't seem to be the only culprits. The whole thing was a quagmire of unanswered questions that left Yang Qing's stomach churning as he wondered if he kept digging, what would he end up finding. Would he even get a chance to, or was it already too late, and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing exploded with them being none the wiser?

At least, he wasn't tormented by the demons of unanswered questions and foreboding all the time, as he got to enjoy a few good things, the top of which was Shi Hai's meals, followed by the friendships and unique experiences he inadvertently ended up creating such as befriending a rare sacred flame swan in Gu Xing, experiencing the hallowed sense of a graveyard torch,which in no small part helped him gain a general sense of the Deer Mountain Range. Experiencing the world for a day was better than reading a thousand books. He got to learn more about the range than he ever expected and in some sense feel the spirit of the region.

He also got to create a deep friendship with a quirky shy parasitic purple flower spore sycamore tree in Meifeng and create memories that would serve as an anchor for him during the heavy days, and he even got to meet a mysterious figure and have one of those lucky encounter chances from it. The same kind he had heard storytellers and bards speak about in tea houses and inns about mystical chance encounters that were able to transform a mortal into a dragon among men.

While all he got was wine and a precious wine gourd made from an empyrean world jade tree, they were worthwhile nonetheless, especially when he felt the effects of the wine during the party. Even without actively trying to refine it, everyone who drank it reaped massive benefits from it, and some of them had even experienced minor breakthroughs because of it such as Shi Hai who lept from the eighth stage directly to the peak of the tenth stage. Yang Qing felt in his case it was a combination of factors. It was the wine and his recent epiphany and interaction with the cooking dao.

By his estimates within half a year or less, Shi Hai would reach the peak of the core formation realm and to aid him in his efforts Yang Qing gave him a small wine pouch containing a bit of the wine from the mysterious figure. It was heavily diluted though, while he produced another pouch to give Longming the king of the White Baobab Kingdom.

Other than Shi Hai, Bolin, and Haishi experienced growths with their cultivations leaping to the seventh and sixth stages respectively. The two wanted to keep going, but Yang Qing put a dampener on that as they needed time to reinforce their foundations and stabilize themselves. The two had great combat sense even by the Order's standards owing to their time at the Green Fog Region, but because of how tumultuous the place had been when it came to Bolin, his foundations had a lot of flaws. The urgency to quickly improve himself was evident in his foundations and Yang Qing hoped to rectify that step by step, especially with Luo Meili already at the peak of the core formation realm, it was only a matter of time before she went into closed-door seclusion herself in preparation for the palace realm.

When she does, Yang Qing would have to take over Bolin's training. As for Haishi, strangely enough, she had better foundations than Bolin, despite being weaker in combat awareness. Yang Qing couldn't tell how or why, but Haishi's body was strange, even if he didn't know what, but he always felt some strange power within her which was later confirmed by some of the members of the Beast Hall. It seemed to be something she was born with. Those seniors having deemed it not to be something dangerous to her, didn't pry too deep as they could feel there was something sentient about it and just let it be.

Yang Qing didn't bother to dig too deeply into it after the discovery and revelation that it wasn't something harmful to her. Each person was entitled to their own secrets and trump cards and it wasn't his place to invade upon them, but he would still have to submit Haishi to the same rigorous training as Bolin even with her sturdier foundations and the reason for that was her slothful nature which was evident with her low cultivation base.

Haishi given the choice would just eat and sleep, while Yang Qing wasn't too much different in that regard, at least he was arduous when it came to cultivation and matters relating to it. Not once had he ever slacked off on it, but Haishi was different.

From the observations he made from interacting with her and the reports from Luo Meili and those from the Beast Hall,Yang Qing surmised her present accumulations were as a result of the mysterious force within her and not her efforts. If she had even made a quarter effort, her cultivation base would not have been at the fourth stage of the core formation realm, which was where it was when Feng Xin met her, by Yang Qing's guess, she would have already been at the peak of the core formation realmand possibly even at the palace realm considering how many years she spent languishing in the core formation realm despite her clear advantages.

Both he and the beast hall had already decided they would put her through the wringer. She would likely be thrown into the purple forest soon enough, but the mirage dragonfly in question had no idea as she gingerly used her communication bead stone to excitedly share something with Bolin.

Even though they had long gone past the borders of the Deer Mountain Range and it was already out of sight even within the sight range of a palace realm expert, Yang Qing couldn't help but turn back one last time as he engrained the experiences he had heard in his heart both the pleasant and the unpleasant ones.

"Ultimately, headquarters is still the best.."

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