He squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, the crack was still there.
Silence walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, the medicinal power of the Returning Origin Pills slowly merging within her body.
Silence reached into her robes and, from close to her skin, pulled out an object.
The Heavenly Rank Top-Grade Universe Pouch.
This was no ordinary storage magic tool, but a token unique to dao companion contracts on Bright Moon Peak, refined from special materials alongside the essence blood and spirit souls of both partners.
Its interior space was protected by a double prohibition seal, which outsiders could never open unless both wearers perished simultaneously, or a great power whose cultivation level far surpassed the refiner’s forcibly broke it at great cost to their own origin.
That vial of Soul-purifying Dragon Marrow Essence, along with the crucial Mother-Son Talisman for contacting Qin Shuying, was at this moment lying quietly inside the storage pouch.
It also contained the greater half of her belongings accumulated over two hundred years of cultivation.
Cultivation method jade slips, elixirs and spirit stones, several spare spiritual artifacts, and miscellaneous objects she’d brought back from various perilous places whose uses she herself could no longer recall.
She entrusted all of it to him, like a mortal wife handing everything she owned to her husband for safekeeping.
In a female-dominated world, this was inverted.
He hadn’t understood what it meant back then; he only felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders grow heavier.
Now he understood.
She had given him her life.
That night at the Ten Thousand Flower Pavilion, he’d also put the Dragon Marrow Liquid inside.
Along with it, he’d placed the Child Talisman of that Mother-Son Talisman set.
The Mother Talisman was in Qin Shuying’s hands.
Within a thousand li, the Mother Talisman could sense the Child Talisman’s position.
Not tracking. Sensing.
Like a mother who could feel her child’s presence among a crowd with her eyes closed.
On the first night in this residence, afraid Chao’er might discover it, he’d secretly kept the Child Talisman inside the Universe Pouch, which Su Wan’er kept close to her body at all times.
He never dared take it out, because a demonic cultivator stronghold, the Old Ancestor’s residence, couldn’t possibly lack precautions.
He knew too well how many unseen eyes existed in the core zone of any power.
Blood Orchid walked one circuit along the corridor every evening at a moderate pace, as if taking a stroll.
But the rhythm of her steps matched perfectly with the frequency of her spiritual sense scans—every three steps, her spiritual sense spread outward once, covering the entire inner courtyard.
That green oil lamp in Chao’er’s study burned unceasingly from morning to night.
When he rose in the middle of the third night and passed the study window, he noticed the lamp flame shift direction ever so slightly the instant he passed, like an invisible eye rotating its pupil to follow his footsteps.
The leaves on that ginkgo tree swayed in the wind, but their swaying rhythm was too uniform.
Not the random cadence of wind, but some prohibition maintaining a synchronized motion.
He dared not make any suspicious move.
He could only wait.
Wait for a signal, wait for the right moment.
Wait for Qin Shuying.
He knew her too well.
She would definitely come.
The Mother-Son Talisman’s sensing limit was a thousand li.
Beyond that distance, the Mother Talisman could only perceive the general direction of the Child Talisman, not pinpoint it.
Qin Shuying had traveled south from Fallen Immortal Ridge, and Nan Gong Jin’s residence was hidden deep within Southern Wilderness Demon Cultivation territory, surrounded by prohibition and formations that disrupted spiritual sense.
She needed time—time to search inch by inch, to fight battle after battle, to sift through countless true and false leads to discern which one led to that western wing room beneath the ginkgo tree.
She would find him, because she was Qin Shuying.
But before she found him, what Silence needed to do was avoid being found first by Chu Yi’s side.
She’d deployed thirteen corpse puppets at the Ten Thousand Flower Pavilion, raised the Soul Prison Locking Heaven and Earth Formation outside the city, and joined forces with Yun Fuling to drag everyone into chaos, all for the chance to spirit Silence away as her ingredient amid the confusion.
Chao’er had snatched her prize right from under her nose, carrying off the prey she’d schemed over for so long, cage and all.
With Chu Yi’s temperament, she wouldn’t let it go.
She’d invested too much cost in Silence.
Until those chips were recovered, she wouldn’t leave the table.
And then there was Yun Fuling.
Her reason for wanting Silence was even simpler than Chu Yi’s—a Pure Yin Constitution was the finest material for refining a perfect corpse puppet.
Chu Yi wanted his vital essence; Yun Fuling wanted his body.
Two women, like two predators dividing a kill.
These threads wove into a net in Silence’s mind.
Each day he sat by Su Wan’er’s bedside, outwardly just caring for a comatose patient, hiding everything else beneath that layer of truth.
On the sixth night, after wiping Su Wan’er’s arms, Silence placed her hands back under the blanket and tucked in the corners.
Then, as usual, he sat down on the chair by the bed, closed his eyes, and feigned sleep.
His breathing was long and even, hands folded over his abdomen.
A wisp of divine sense—extremely faint, thinner than a silk thread—emerged from between his brows, slid down along the chair’s back grain, hugged the floor, slipped around the bed leg, and soundlessly crept into Su Wan’er’s dangling sleeve.
It touched the Universe Pouch.
Entered the space within.
Everything inside was as he remembered.
Cultivation method jade slips were neatly arranged on the east side, elixirs and spirit stones sorted in piles on the west, a few spare spiritual artifacts hung on the north wall, and those miscellaneous objects lay scattered in the corner.
He skipped past all of it, his divine sense landing directly on the Child Talisman.
The talisman was folded into a small square, resting quietly inside a white jade box.
Qin Shuying was still a thousand li away.
With the Mother Talisman’s link to the Child Talisman not yet activated, the Child Talisman was just an ordinary strip of talisman paper, emitting no spiritual energy fluctuation detectable by divine sense.
That was why he dared look at it.
Once each night, for only a breath’s span.
Counting tonight, that made six times.
He was about to withdraw his divine sense when he suddenly stopped.
A small section of cinnabar pattern along the Child Talisman’s edge was glowing.
Not the whole talisman—just an extremely tiny branch at the end of the pattern, like the lit tip of an incense stick, giving off a firefly-like glimmer.
The light was too faint.
If he hadn’t memorized every line of the talisman’s patterns to perfection, he never would have noticed.
The edge was glowing.
It meant the Mother Talisman had entered the edge of the Child Talisman’s sensing range.
Like two people walking toward each other in thick fog, unable to see each other yet, but already hearing each other’s footsteps.
Qin Shuying had arrived.
Silence withdrew his divine sense.
Extremely slowly, extremely gently, like a snake retreating from the grass without brushing a single blade.
He opened his eyes, rose, and walked to the window.
He pushed it open, and wind poured in, stirring the broken hair scattered across his forehead.
He took a deep breath, his chest expanding, ribs stretching, air flooding into the depths of his lungs—cool, carrying the faint bitter fragrance unique to ginkgo leaves.
He had waited long enough.
The only thing left to do was this: at the moment Qin Shuying was less than a thousand li from him, bring the Child Talisman out of the pouch.
Because the storage pouch’s space could isolate all spiritual energy fluctuations.
That was how it managed to conceal the Dragon Marrow Liquid residue and the Child Talisman.
But precisely for that reason, as long as the talisman remained inside the pouch, the Mother Talisman could never sense its exact position.
Qin Shuying could perceive his general direction, but not pinpoint it.
She would search in rings around the residence, like a hawk circling in the night sky, knowing prey was on the ground below yet unable to see which patch of tree shade concealed it.
He needed to let the Child Talisman appear at the right moment.
That moment was not now.
Because right now, he didn’t know if there were eyes outside the window.
At the same time, a thousand li away.
Several days had passed since the demonic cultivator riot that had swept Jinyun City and the upheaval at the Flower Queen Competition.
The city was still in ruins, scorched earth not yet cold, blood not yet dispersed.
The Ten Thousand Flower Pavilion had suffered heavy losses.
Yu Furen and Old Woman Ling were overwhelmed, clearing debris and investigating traitors while fielding accusations and compensation claims from various factions.
Chu Yi had vanished in the chaos, along with Yun Fuling under her command and that corpse puppet, leaving behind only a mess.
As for that young master who had stunned everyone by winning the Flower Queen title, then mysteriously disappeared during the turmoil, he had become the most widespread and tantalizing topic of private conversation.
Some said demonic cultivators had seized him in the chaos and he’d met with foul play; some said a great power had secretly hidden him away; others went further, linking him to the abrupt demonic riot and speculating that he himself was the source of the disaster.
Out in the desolate wilderness, atop a cliff sheared flat by sword qi.
Qin Shuying had scoured nearly every inch of several hundred li around Jinyun City, even venturing deep into several dangerous ancient battlefields and earth vein rifts, yet found nothing.
Her right hand gripped a longsword, its tip pointing at the ground; her left palm lay open.
The Mother Talisman rested in her palm, the cinnabar patterns on the talisman paper lighting up one by one.
Not all at once—spreading from the paper’s edges toward the center, like a tree beginning to green at its branch tips in spring.
“Found him?”
Han Yi’s voice came from behind. She was leaning against a toppled stone pillar, her moon white dress covered in dried blood and dust, the tiger’s mouth of her right hand split open, crudely wrapped in a cloth strip.
The cloth was white, stained dark red by blood.
Qin Shuying didn’t answer.
She drew the Mother Talisman back into her palm, curled her fingers closed, feeling that faint point of light pressing against her life line through the talisman paper.
She raised her head, gazing toward the southern direction.
The night sky was thick, no light on the horizon, only the mountain silhouettes rolling in a continuous line, like a pack of crouching beasts.
“The Mother Talisman points to the depths of the southeast earth vein, but demonic qi contamination is severe and I can’t pinpoint it precisely. Also… more than one powerful aura is interfering, erasing traces.”
“How far is it from here?” Han Yi asked again.
“Less than twelve hundred li,” Qin Shuying said.
Han Yi pushed herself up from the ground and patted the dust off her skirt. “Let’s go. Time waits for no one.”
In another direction, deep in a dense forest about eight hundred li from the mountain god temple, Chu Yi sat beneath a dead old banyan tree, a palm-sized bronze mirror floating before her.
What reflected on the mirror’s surface was not her face, but a blur of gray mist.
Deep within the mist, the faint outline of an enormous ginkgo tree was barely visible.
“Still can’t see clearly,” she said to the bronze mirror.
A low female voice emerged from within the mirror. Yun Fuling.
“Nan Gong Jin’s prohibitions can block even my old friend’s Ten Thousand Soul Banner, let alone that cracked mirror of yours. Stop wasting your effort.”
Chu Yi didn’t put the mirror away.
Her gaze fixed on that blurry ginkgo tree silhouette deep within the gray mist, and the corner of her mouth curved upward.
“It can block divine sense, block a sky-viewing mirror, block the Ten Thousand Soul Banner—but can it block a person from walking in?”
Yun Fuling was silent for a breath.
“You have someone in mind?”
“I don’t,” Chu Yi said, tucking the bronze mirror into her sleeve.
“But someone does. Nan Gong Jin killed plenty of people in that secret realm and made plenty of enemies along the way—those whose sect brothers she slew, whose fate opportunities she stole, whose magic tools she seized. Just spread a few rumors out there, saying her residence hides this year’s Flower Queen, and the gravely wounded Bright Moon Peak Lord is among them as well. We won’t have to lift a finger—someone will clear the path for us.”