"Open me, open me, open me..."
Even in her unconscious state, Wen Shuangbai could still hear that voice.
The voice she had been unable to ignore ever since sensing the presence of the thousand-year-old demonic tree's ghostly figure.
Though its tone was gentle, it was laden with pain and desperation.
Wen Shuangbai's consciousness drifted in and out, but under the relentless plea of that voice, she suddenly snapped her eyes open.
Her vision cleared, yet what lay before her was not the outside world—but her own spiritual sea.
Floating within the spiritual sea was a golden scroll, delicate as cicada wings.
This was the object that had flown into her spiritual sea from the head of the thousand-year-old demonic tree's ghostly figure.
At the time, the situation had been too urgent and perilous for her to examine it closely. Now, upon closer inspection, she noticed elegant characters carved at the bottom of the scroll:
[Method of Crafting Lingshan Silk]
So it was true.
She hadn’t been mistaken—this round of the competition in Zhuoguang City was indeed related to the crafting of Lingshan Silk.
Wen Shuangbai sensed no malice in the voice, only an inexplicable familiarity.
After a moment’s hesitation, she opened it.
The scroll unfurled slowly, its gilded characters dancing vividly before her eyes, dazzling and exquisite.
Just as Wen Shuangbai tried to focus, her consciousness was abruptly pulled into a series of fragmented memories.
...
A beautiful woman sat inside a refining chamber.
What she was crafting was none other than the spiritual saw Wen Shuangbai had obtained from the Qi family.
At this moment, she was attempting to modify the formation, seemingly encountering a problem as she muttered to herself, "If only Qingrong were here—she understands formations far better than I do."
"Yaoling." A middle-aged man entered.
Qi Yaoling smiled and looked up. "Father!"
Master Qi glanced at the night sky outside. "Still working so late?"
"Yes. There’s an issue with this new artifact’s formation—once activated, it can’t be stopped until the spirit stone’s energy is depleted," Qi Yaoling explained. "I thought I’d take advantage of the late-night inspiration to adjust it... Why are you still awake, Father?"
"I just finished my own work." Master Qi spoke meaningfully. "Yaoling, there will be some unusual activity in the manor at night these days. Your father and the other family heads and city lords are refining and adjusting a new artifact. Do not go to investigate."
Qi Yaoling frowned. "What new artifact?"
"Have you forgotten what I taught you since childhood? Some questions are not to be asked." Master Qi’s tone turned stern, his expression severe. "Just remember—do not go looking! This matter is confidential. Those who leak it will die. Do not bring ruin upon your father."
Though confusion lingered on Qi Yaoling’s face, she nodded in agreement.
In the following days, Qi Yaoling devoted herself to refining the spiritual saw and studying cultivation techniques, occasionally writing letters to Ye Qingrong. Beyond that, she rarely left her courtyard.
But when she lacked inspiration for refining, she would take walks by the lotus pond.
One day, while strolling, Qi Yaoling overheard an old guard named Wu Ren warning the new recruits not to venture out at night.
He claimed that over the years, many guards had mysteriously vanished after going to investigate strange noises in the manor’s depths—never to return.
That very night, after hesitating for a long time, Qi Yaoling stepped out of her room and walked toward the forbidden depths.
...
There, Qi Yaoling discovered the ghostly figures. She discovered Qi Family Town. She discovered everything the Qi family had been doing.
She couldn’t accept it—the ghostly beings that plagued the world, neither demon nor human, that had slaughtered her mentors, ravaged her sect, and harmed countless innocents… their existence was partly the work of her own family.
When Qi Yaoling attempted to send a message to her sect, her father caught her.
Steward Qi sealed her cultivation and brought her before Master Qi.
Qi Yaoling possessed exceptional talent in artifact refinement, and Master Qi hoped to persuade his daughter to join their cause.
This led to a fierce argument between father and daughter.
"Qi Yaoling!" Master Qi roared in fury. "Wrong? You say we’re wrong? What wrong have we committed? When you were refining that spiritual saw, did I ever interfere? No! I provided you with every material, every resource you needed! Ask yourself—among all your siblings, how have I treated you? I scolded and punished your brothers and sisters, but never once raised my voice at you! I always put you first! And this is how you repay the Qi family? How you repay your father?!"
Qi Yaoling replied weakly, "Father, these are two different matters..."
"They are the same matter!" Betrayed by his beloved daughter, Master Qi was nearly deranged. "Do you think the luxuries you’ve enjoyed since childhood, the exorbitant costs of your refining materials, appeared out of thin air?"
Qi Yaoling closed her eyes and smiled bitterly. "So... you’ve been doing this for a long time?"
"The creation of demonic soldiers is no overnight endeavor!" Master Qi exclaimed. "You have no idea how much we’ve sacrificed—how much time, effort, and manpower we’ve poured into this! But now, we’ve succeeded! Do you see, Yaoling? Do you see the demonic legion in Qi Family Town? The demonic soldiers conquering battlefields beyond? They are our life’s work!"
Master Qi spread his arms and laughed wildly. "Soon, very soon, the Qi family will claim our rightful place on the Xuantian Continent! We will no longer be just another family in a small city like Zhuoguang—we will be immortalized in history!"
"No... it shouldn’t be like this." Qi Yaoling pleaded, "Father, please stop this madness. There’s still time to turn back..."
"Never!"
Qi Yaoling cried in anguish, "Father, there are countless ways for the Qi family to rise—why choose this path? Look closely at your demonic legion! Can’t you see they’re evolving? Developing their own consciousness? They will turn on you! Your ambitions are impossible—this path leads only to ruin! You’ll bring about your own destruction!"
"The Demon-Subduing Melody controls them," Master Qi said coldly. "We’ve tested it countless times. And even if they rebel, we have the Bone-Eroding Spider Nest in the caverns. If they truly run amok, we’ll seal Qi Family Town and release the spiders to dissolve the legion. The Qi manor will remain unharmed."
Realizing her words were futile, realizing the true nature of the man she had once revered, Qi Yaoling fell into despair.
She looked at her father and said, "You’ve shamed me, Father. You’ve burdened me with sins I did not commit. From this day forth, I can no longer face those I love, my mentors and friends, or the people of this world..."
"To think the Qi family bred such a traitorous wretch!" Master Qi struck her across the face, his expression twisted with rage. "If I’d known this would happen, I would never have sent you to the Thousand Mechanisms Sect! You ungrateful creature—I should have strangled you the day you were born!"
...
After that, no matter how her siblings and Steward Qi tried to reason with her, Qi Yaoling steadfastly refused to contribute to the Qi family’s schemes.
Master Qi was seething with rage as he said to Steward Qi, "Last time, the city lord instructed us to find a cultivator with exceptional talent for a new experiment."
Steward Qi hesitated. "Master, you mean…?"
Master Qi glanced at Qi Yaoling, who stood unmoved beside him, then flicked his sleeve and stormed off. "We shall offer our own prodigious Third Young Lady."
Afterward, the physicians sent by the city lord’s residence continuously fed Qi Yaoling strange medicines and forcibly bound her to a thousand-year-old tree demon, subjecting them to a horrifying fusion.
They carved out an arena space atop a nest of bone-devouring ants.
There, they placed the monstrous fusion of the ancient tree demon and Qi Yaoling, then threw innocent cultivators into the arena, observing their new experiment from behind the protective barrier of a formation.
Throughout this ordeal, Qi Yaoling’s consciousness was slowly eroded.
Yet she fought desperately to resist.
Until one day, a slightly plump woman burst through the steel-engraved Eight Trigrams Gate on the other side of the arena and roused her from the darkness.
"Qingrong," Qi Yaoling whispered. "I’ve been waiting for you."
"Don’t cry. Don’t stay too long—we must be quick."
"The Qi family obeys the city lord’s residence." A vine stretched out, placing a small pouch into Ye Qingrong’s palm. "These are the medicines they’ve been forcing on me. There’s something unnatural about them. You said you needed to uncover the origin of the specters—perhaps the answer lies here."
Ye Qingrong tucked the pouch away, her voice steady but thick with unshed tears. "I’ll find the truth, no matter the cost."
"I know you will." The vine gently brushed away her friend’s tears as Qi Yaoling murmured her final words. "Qingrong, don’t tell my sect… or Li Hanshan. Don’t let them know what I’ve become…"
Ye Qingrong wrapped her arms around the tree trunk, silent tears falling. "Alright."
"I wish I could see the blue sky and white clouds again," Qi Yaoling murmured, gazing up at the lightless void of the arena’s spatial formation. "See the world in its golden age. But I won’t get that chance."
Her last wisp of spiritual awareness was fading.
"I’ll make sure you see it." Ye Qingrong retrieved a sacred scroll from her spiritual sea.
The vine blocked her. "Qingrong, think clearly—this is your sect’s most precious treasure. You can’t waste it on preserving my fading consciousness…"
"In today’s Xuantian Continent, everyone struggles to survive. No one cares what talismans they use. In this era, it’s just a worthless scroll." Ye Qingrong wiped her tears and placed the scroll into the tree’s core, wrapping it around Qi Yaoling’s remaining awareness. "Yaoling, when this scroll is opened again, I believe it will reveal a world of prosperity. You’ll see it then."
……
As Wen Shuangbai lost herself in the memories of five hundred years ago, she suddenly heard Qi Yaoling’s voice calling to her.
"Your name is Shuangbai, isn’t it?"
Wen Shuangbai snapped back to the present, realizing she had somehow wandered into Qi Yaoling’s room.
A faintly blurred figure sat at the desk, flipping through a notebook before turning to her with a gentle smile.
Wen Shuangbai blinked, then nodded. "Yes."
"Forgive me—I caught glimpses of your memories." The woman’s voice held genuine remorse, but her smile was warm. "How wonderful… Xuantian is at peace. And after five hundred years, I even got to see Tian Sang again. It’s been so long."
Still shaken from the vision, Wen Shuangbai opened her mouth, unsure what to say.
She was usually quick with words, skilled in diplomacy, but now, nothing felt right.
So she simply shook her head and smiled back. "It’s alright. I saw yours too—fair exchange."
"Then did you see the second layer of the cultivation method?" The fading figure tilted her head, laughter like wind chimes.
Wen Shuangbai shook her head. "No."
"Because it’s here." Qi Yaoling tossed the notebook to her. "Thank you—you and your friends for opening me. I have nothing to give in return, so consider this a parting gift. As for your companions, please thank them for me. Though… I only deduced up to the second layer back then. The rest, you’ll have to find yourself. Qingrong must have completed it."
Wen Shuangbai caught the book instinctively and glanced down.
The moment her eyes touched the pages, the characters seemed to come alive, rushing into her mind.
Enlightenment struck like a thunderclap, and Wen Shuangbai fell into deep meditation.
As she did, a wisp of golden mist drifted from her body, slipping out of the Endless House. It lingered among the emerald leaves outside before rising gracefully into the boundless blue sky.
——
The six disciples emerged from the Sacred Tower only to collapse into unconsciousness.
Cao Xing and the other elders rushed them to the Endless House for treatment.
Five days later, their conditions stabilized.
Cao Xing led Pavilion Master Xu on a visit.
"Of the six, Shen Hefeng is the most severely injured," Cao Xing said, eyeing the bald youth soaking in the spirit spring. "Fortunately, his spiritual bones and sea are unharmed. The healers say prolonged immersion will restore him."
Xu Jingshu rolled up her storybook and lightly rapped her disciple’s sprouting stubble. "Expected. Diviners who pry into heavenly secrets pay a steeper price. But this little fool might actually gain deeper insight from this ordeal. Let him meditate undisturbed."
She tapped his head a few more times—best to enjoy it before his hair grew back.
Cao Xing: "……"
Xu Jingshu left Shen Hefeng’s room. "And the others?"
"The other four have similar, slightly milder injuries. They’ll recover with rest," Cao Xing said. "All show signs of imminent breakthroughs. Just now, Wen Shuangbai even entered deep meditation."
Xu Jingshu nodded, then paused. "Wait—that’s five. Where’s the last one?"
"Ah." Cao Xing pointed outside, where a pink-robed youth stood staring skyward. "There."
The boy had been yelling about golden smoke before bolting off, ignoring all calls.
Xu Jingshu frowned. "Why is he so lively?"
She remembered Lu Jiayao had been at death’s door in the Sacred Tower—worse off than the other five. His injuries should have been dire.
"Lu Jiayao’s injuries were the lightest," Cao Xing said, exasperated. "He woke the first night and fully recovered before dawn the next day."
Since then, he’d been pestering Cao Xing daily about when the others would wake up.
As if he’d know—he wasn’t a healer!
Xu Jingshu: "No signs of a breakthrough?"
"None." Cao Xing barely suppressed a sigh. Despite everything in Zhuoguang City, despite mastering the Demon-Subduing Melody, the boy had gained no enlightenment. Just endless cheer, relentless gossip, and questions like "If you’re not a healer, what kind of cultivator are you?"
Cao Xing would never reveal to any of his disciples, especially Lu Jiayao, what he cultivated.
