She pinched another lotus seed.
“Don’t thank me so quickly. This isn’t helping you; I just want to make the chessboard messier.”
She turned and walked deep into the bamboo grove, her figure gradually merging into the moonlight.
“By the way.”
Her voice drifted from the moonlight, carrying a trace of barely noticeable laughter.
“That disciple of mine—Lin Yatou thinks she can secretly eat in her dreams without anyone knowing. She doesn’t know that once the Dreamlike Floating Life Art reaches the fifth level, dreams will instead contaminate reality.”
The bamboo grove vanished.
Shen Mo suddenly opened his eyes.
He lay on the soft couch in the Quiet Room, his heartbeat pounding like a drum.
Outside the window, the lights of Boundless City were still bright, and the green smoke of Calming Incense rose slowly in the air.
It was not a dream.
At least, not entirely a dream.
He sat up and found an extra lotus seed in his palm—real, hard, and still carrying a slightly cool body warmth.
He turned the lotus seed over.
On its shell were carved two characters, the strokes clear and elegant as if cut by a knife: “Underground.”
Bone Ferry—
The tip of Qin Shuying’s sword still dripped with the rotting fluid of that Nascent Soul Corpse Puppet, while Han Yi panted heavily beside her, seven runes on the formation disk shattered.
She spent two hours breaking the Immortal Trapping Formation, then another hour killing the last pursuer under Yun Fuling.
Now her white clothes were stained dark red, impossible to tell whether it was the enemy’s blood or her own.
She impatiently poured spiritual power into the Mother Talisman. Blue light blazed, transforming into an extremely thin thread of light that extended toward a certain direction.
The holder of the Child Talisman was in that direction.
Chao’er and Blood Orchid caught up.
Their gazes met briefly in the air.
There was no excess hostility, nor any room for the slightest easing.
It was just that at this moment, infighting was meaningless.
Sword Light wrapped around the four, like a white rainbow sweeping across the dark purple sky of the Demon Domain, speeding toward the two sides.
In less than half an hour, she saw Su Wan’er, who was sitting collapsed by a shallow stream, her back against a giant rock covered in moss, the bloodstains on her robe half-dried, her face pale to the point of near transparency.
Her right hand was clenched tightly around something, knuckles white, pressed against the position of her chest.
Mother-Son Talisman.
The moment Qin Shuying landed, a cold spiritual pressure poured out, and the stream water formed a thin layer of ice.
Han Yi tactfully stepped back a few paces and unfolded her formation disk to guard the surroundings.
She crouched down, placed two fingers on Su Wan’er’s wrist pulse, and after probing for less than three breaths, her brow furrowed.
Spiritual Power exhausted.
Internal organs displaced.
Her spirit soul was unstable, as if its foundation had been shaken loose by something.
This was not a new injury; it was old wounds layered with new ones.
Qin Shuying was silent for a moment.
“Don’t worry about me first.”
Su Wan’er propped herself up on the ground with her scabbard and stood up shakily.
A trace of unwiped blood still hung at the corner of her mouth, but her stance was steady.
“Whether my cultivation is crippled or my foundation is completely destroyed, that is a matter for later. For now, chase him first.”
Qin Shuying turned her head and glanced at her.
That glance was very short, yet it contained a certain reassessment.
“Your spirit soul has already begun to loosen,” Qin Shuying said. “If you do not use spirit medicine to solidify your soul, then never mind chasing him—within three days your soul consciousness will scatter, and even a Great Luo Golden Immortal will not be able to save you.”
Su Wan’er opened her mouth, wanting to say something.
But another voice cut her off.
“She is right.”
A dark purple figure slid out silently from the forest.
Chao’er’s robe still bore the rotting fluid of Yun Fuling’s corpse puppet, her hair slightly disheveled, but her breathing had already steadied.
“Honored Teacher.” She called out once.
She had called this “Honored Teacher” countless times seven years ago—when Chao’er had just been brought into Jiaoyue Peak by Shen Mo, Su Wan’er was nominally her Honored Teacher, but she often secluded herself, and Chao’er learned more of her cultivation from books.
The master-disciple bond was as thin as a sheet of paper; later, when Chao’er fell into darkness and became a demon, that sheet of paper was completely torn.
Now, standing under the moonlight and calling out “Honored Teacher,” her voice held many indescribable things—like guilt, like jealousy, and like a child who, after causing a great disaster, dares not face her parent.
She did not see hatred in Su Wan’er’s eyes.
She had thought there would be.
It was not because she did not care, but because there was something more important at this moment.
Chao’er lowered her eyelids and walked closer.
She reached out and checked Su Wan’er’s pulse, her expression changing several times in an instant.
“Why has the loosening of your spirit soul been dragged out until now?”
“She has been holding on all along,” Qin Shuying said.
The few of them stood by the stream in silence for a moment.
Their identities were all different—wife, pursuer, disciple—and the tension between each relationship was enough to freeze the air.
But at this moment, no one poured their long-accumulated hostility onto one another.
Because they all knew clearly that winning an argument against each other was meaningless; Shen Mo was in someone else’s hands.
“Enough nonsense.” Qin Shuying took something out of her sleeve—it was a lotus flower.
Its petals were layered over one another, each petal seemingly carved from ice and snow, refracting cold, seven-colored faint light under the moonlight.
At the lotus’s heart condensed a thumb-sized crystal, pure as the first ice crystal at the beginning of heaven and earth.
Ice Soul Snow Spirit Lotus.
One of Heavenly Sword Peak’s treasures that guarded the peak.
It was said this lotus bloomed once every thousand years, and its heart could stabilize the spirit soul and reshape foundations, with heaven-defying effects for cultivators whose cultivation level had fallen.
One of the most top-grade healing sacred objects in the cultivation world.
It was rumored to be able to repair shattered foundations and reshape collapsed spiritual meridians; as long as one still had a breath left, it could pull a person back from the gates of hell.
Its preciousness lay not only in its medicinal effect, but even more in that it was Heavenly Sword Peak’s life-saving trump card for protecting a peak master who failed to break through.
Qin Shuying used it on Su Wan’er.
“Peak Master Qin—” Blood Orchid could not help but speak.
Qin Shuying removed the lotus heart from the petals, held it in her palm, and offered it to Su Wan’er: “Take it.”
Su Wan’er looked at the lotus heart and did not reach out.
She could not repay this kindness.
“It is not for you.” Qin Shuying’s voice was cold as ice, but there was a fine crack in the depths of her eyes.
Her tenderness was never spoken aloud; it was hidden only in those seemingly reasonable actions.
Su Wan’er took out a jade bottle from her bag.
The bottle was jade-white, and faintly, the sound of a dragon’s roar came through.
Chao’er’s fingers trembled slightly.
“Honored Teacher, if you fall, he will not forgive me.” She paused, her voice lower. “Besides, I would not forgive myself either.”
“If you die, Shen Mo will be heartbroken,” Qin Shuying said, her voice cold and hard as ice, yet when she mentioned the two characters “Shen Mo,” she unconsciously softened her tone.
Su Wan’er clenched the hem of her clothes tightly.
Chao’er snatched the lotus heart from Qin Shuying’s hand and stuffed it directly into her mouth.
Caught off guard, Su Wan’er had her jaw gripped; the ice-cold lotus heart slid down her throat, and a blast of extreme cold erupted from her dantian.
Her whole body shook violently, and she fell to the ground on the spot.
“Stop wasting words. If you are the Honored Teacher’s wife, you must live to go back. If you die, stealing him away will be less interesting.”
Han Yi quickly crouched down and placed both palms on the key acupoints of Su Wan’er’s spiritual meridians on her back, using her own spiritual power to guide the lotus heart’s medicinal power through her meridians.
The lotus heart dissolved as soon as it entered her body, and spiritual light surged through Su Wan’er’s limbs and bones like a tide.
Wherever it passed, shattered spiritual meridians healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and her shrunken dantian, stimulated by the extreme cold, burst forth with vitality again.
At the same time, Qin Shuying looked at Chao’er: “I need your demonic qi—the purest yin-attribute demonic qi that belongs to your own origin. Do not mix in Nangong Yao’s violent will.”
“Use the yin meridian of this place as a guide, simulate a pure yin environment, protect the core of her residual soul, and help her absorb the medicinal power.”
The healing process was led by Qin Shuying.
She crushed the heart of the Ice Soul Snow Spirit Lotus into powder, used Soul-purifying Dragon Marrow Essence as a guide, and laid a Soul-Stabilizing Formation around her body.
Every line pattern of the formation was outlined by spiritual light.
After embedding into Su Wan’er’s meridians, it was like fine stitches, sewing her loosening, about-to-scatter spirit soul back together inch by inch.
She used Sword Intent to protect Su Wan’er’s heart meridian, preventing the medicinal power from being too fierce and backlashing against her internal organs.
Chao’er’s demonic power was domineering and sharp, yet within Su Wan’er’s body it transformed into extremely fine and soft threads, traveling between her meridians without the slightest deviation.
The night quietly passed in the warm light of the formation.
Who knew how long had passed—perhaps four hours, perhaps longer—when the formation patterns suddenly brightened, then scattered piece by piece like petals.
A strong milky-white radiance suddenly burst out from all around Su Wan’er!
That originally illusory figure had already become completely solid.
Nourished by two rare treasures of heaven and earth, her cultivation level not only recovered rapidly, but even broke through her previous shackles!
Her aura climbed all the way until it reached a certain critical point, then violently broke through!
She clenched her fist, feeling the spiritual power in her dantian that was abundant to the point of almost overflowing.
Her face was still gentle, but her temperament was already completely different.
The spiritual breath of Nascent Soul Great Perfection circulated around her, soft and deep, unassuming yet solid as substance.
When the five of them swept out from the edge of Moyun Ridge, the sky was in the Demon Domain’s unique false daylight—the firmament turning from purple to gray, as if someone had brushed a layer of diluted ink across the dome.
In the distance, the beacon towers went out one after another, and the Southern Wilderness Demon Territory fell silent for a moment in the gap between day and night.
Chao’er suddenly stopped.
The movement was abrupt, as if an invisible rope had caught her ankle while she was speeding along.
Qin Shuying noticed first. The Sword Light traced an arc in midair, then turned back and landed.
Su Wan’er and Han Yi followed close behind, and the four landed among a field of weathered stone forest.
“What is it?” Qin Shuying asked.
Chao’er did not answer.
Her eyes were closed, and the purple pattern between her brows, which had been faintly visible ever since she fell into demonhood, was glowing slightly.
A very faint dark fragrance spread through the surrounding air—not cosmetics, nor spirit medicine, but some scent between sandalwood and blood rust, subtle and lingering.
The spiritual light on Han Yi’s formation disk flickered once, then returned to silence.
“It is a signal from Shadow Hall,” Han Yi said quietly to Qin Shuying. “The Southern Wilderness Demon Cultivation’s intelligence network, belonging exclusively to Nangong Ancestor’s direct line.”
Just as her voice fell, a black shadow slid down silently from a crevice in the rocks above the stone forest.
It was a palm-sized black falcon, without a single stray feather on its body.
After landing on Chao’er’s shoulder, it transformed into a thumb-sized Jade Slip, embedding steadily into her palm.
Chao’er opened her eyes.
The process of her reading the Jade Slip was very short.
But the more she read, the tighter her knuckles clenched.
“Boundless City.” She said, her voice unnaturally calm.
“Last night at 9:45 PM, Chu Yi’s Flying Artifact entered the city through the east gate. There were two people in the carriage, one man and one woman. The man—” She paused. “The man is him.”