For the next few days, Shen Mo’s life was reduced to a single task: cultivation.
The exhaustion after each depletion of spiritual power, the numbness in his arms after swinging his sword until he couldn’t lift them… it all made him feel… that he was still alive, that he was still doing something.
Qin Shuying watched over him in silence. When Shen Mo was utterly spent, she would flick an elixir pill his way without a word.
When Shen Mo’s unsettled mind caused him to cultivate erratically, she would forcefully correct his energy flow with an even colder surge of spiritual power, scolding him for being ‘fickle and impatient.’
Late at night, while he meditated, she would linger at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.
On the evening of the seventh day, Shen Mo could finally execute the basic forms of the Jinghong Three Styles with relative fluidity.
Though the power was still worlds apart from Qin Shuying’s, the tip of his sword could now stir up a faint, chilly wisp of sword qi.
Qin Shuying watched him execute the ‘Fleeting Shadow’ thrust, leaving three faint afterimages in the twilight, and gave a slight nod.
“Passable.”
Just two words, yet they loosened the taut string in his heart ever so slightly.
Lin Jingzhe watched this scene from afar.
A sudden, inexplicable irritation welled up inside her.
That woman, cold as ice… she wasn’t just moved by his looks, she was genuinely smitten…
What kind of enchantment must a man be, to move even her heart?
For the first time, Lin Jingzhe set aside her prejudice and re-examined Shen Mo.
Today, he wasn’t wearing his usual loose, plain robe. Instead, he wore a form-fitting, ink-black martial outfit suitable for sword practice.
The fabric was pulled taut, tightly wrapping his lean waist and long legs. With every sword swing and pivot, the hem would stretch with the movement, outlining the tense lines of his inner thighs.
There was nothing overtly seductive about it, not even his wrists were exposed, hidden within arm guards.
Yet, the more it concealed, the more alluring it became.
The dark fabric rubbed with his movements, emitting a faint rustling sound, like countless tiny hands scratching at her heart.
Suddenly, he twirled his longsword into a beautiful flourish and came to an abrupt halt.
Due to the momentum, his waterfall of black hair cascaded loose, a few strands sticking to his slightly sweaty cheek.
From the intense exertion, Shen Mo’s breathing was a bit ragged, his chest rising and falling sharply beneath the close-fitting outfit.
One of the frog buttons at his collar had come undone at some point.
It revealed a small patch of snow-white collarbone and, in the hollow of it, a thin sheen of sweat that made one want to… taste it.
Even worse, as he sheathed his sword, the hem of his garment rode up, exposing a section of his lean, powerful ankle.
The line was so beautiful it seemed carved from jade by a master artisan, exuding a fragile yet resilient sensuality.
Lin Jingzhe’s throat bobbed violently.
“Hmph, just a pretty vase, all looks and no substance.”
She bit her lower lip, trying to use harsh words to mask the fire threatening to blaze from her eyes.
Trying to use disdain to suppress the urge rising in her heart to ‘defy the proper order.’
But deep down, she knew.
She was craving him.
Craving him to the point of madness.
She wanted to rush over, press this man—who was always so proper and gentle-spoken to everyone—down onto this muddy ground covered in fallen leaves.
She wanted to see his eyes, which were always lowered as if indifferent to all worldly desires, stained with the red of lust. She wanted to hear his clear, spring-like voice break into ragged gasps.
But she couldn’t.
He was the Honored Teacher’s husband.
Lin Jingzhe slammed her fist into a rocky outcrop.
The skin on her knuckles tore, blood seeping out, but she felt no pain.
An immense, twisted sense of grievance surged through her.
Why can they, but I can’t?
Just because I respect my teacher and honor the proper way, I deserve to go without?
In the training ground, Shen Mo sensed the gaze and slightly turned his head, his cool eyes sweeping over.
Their eyes met.
Lin Jingzhe snapped back to reality.
Wiping the corner of her mouth, she sneered, “Peak Master Qin treats you very well.”
Shen Mo said nothing.
She spoke bluntly, “I ask you, you and my Honored Teacher—”
“My Matriarch treats me well,” Shen Mo interrupted, his voice calm. “For seven years, she has never mistreated me.”
Lin Jingzhe was taken aback.
Never mistreated.
Never mistreated.
What kind of answer was that?
Was he praising the Honored Teacher for being good to him, or was he saying—
He had never been truly well-treated?
Lin Jingzhe felt flustered and irritated.
“The secret realm reopens tomorrow at dawn,” she said without looking back. “Rest well tonight.”
The seven days of waiting had been an agony like fire.
For those who cultivated the Dao, seven days was but the snap of a finger. A single session of seclusion, a moment of enlightenment, or alchemy pill refinement could easily take ten days to half a month. But these seven days felt longer than seven years to Shen Mo.
His mind was filled with Chao’er’s parting look, the glance back, eyes brimming with tears.
Morning came, the sky a somber leaden gray.
The seal transformed into countless firefly-like golden specks of light, dissipating into nothingness.
A dark blue rift slowly opened above the chasm.
Like a cold, indifferent eye opening in the heavens.
Revealing a chaotic, kaleidoscopic scene within.
Faint sounds of wind, thunder, and unknown beastly roars echoed out.
At the edges of the rift, spiritual power fluctuated violently, forming visible, distorted ripples.
A fierce gale suddenly picked up, making Shen Mo’s white robes flap loudly. He stood there like a string stretched to its limit, ready to snap at any moment.
Qin Shuying stood to his right, hand on her sword, her face expressionless. Only the thin layer of frost forming on her scabbard betrayed her inner state.
Lin Jingzhe leaned against a rock wall with her arms crossed, appearing casual, but her gaze was locked fiercely on the spatial rift.
Disciples and elders from various peaks, here to receive their own or to investigate, had long since gathered in the designated safe perimeter.
One, two, ten…
More and more cultivators emerged, some ecstatic, some weeping in sorrow, some supporting each other.
Each face bore the daze of surviving a calamity and the fierce aura left by battles within the secret realm.
Continuously, trial participants flew out of the rift—disheveled, wounded, their auras weakened, or radiant with triumph—landing within the reception areas of their respective peaks, triggering waves of cheers, sobs, or sighs.
At Jiaoyue Peak’s area, however, the atmosphere was so tense it was nearly suffocating.
Shen Mo stood at the very front, his face pale to the point of transparency, lips pressed into a thin line.
Jiaoyue Peak’s outer sect disciples, one, two… came out.
They bore injuries, light or severe. Seeing Shen Mo, they stepped forward to pay their respects, reporting what they’d seen and heard in the secret realm. Yet no one mentioned Chao’er, their eyes evasive.
Shen Mo’s heart sank bit by bit into an icy abyss.
‘It seems I have no choice but to go in myself.’
Lin Jingzhe stood half a step behind and to his side, dressed in dark green martial attire, her expression calm, eyes sharp as an eagle’s, meticulously checking her magical tools and talismans.
The storage bag Qin Shuying had prepared for him hung at his waist. Inside were three magical tools, fifty talismans, and two bottles of elixirs.
He had gone over those items countless times.
Memorized every property by heart—offensive, defensive, escape.
How to use the tools, when to take the elixirs—he had rehearsed it in his mind endlessly.
But he was still afraid.
Not of death.
But of not finding her.
Yet, no one could have anticipated what happened next.
A dark figure, like a bird with a broken wing, plummeted straight out of the rift.
Thud!
A dull impact sounded.
The person crashed heavily onto the bare rock, tumbled several times, and lay there motionless.
Clothes in tatters, stained with blood, long hair disheveled and covering the face.
Shen Mo’s pupils contracted violently.
He stumbled forward, his hands trembling as he pushed aside the tangled hair covering the face.
It was Chao’er.