The long-haired man sat cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by scattered stars emitting a faint glow.
Yin Xuan glanced at his two despondent junior sisters and then at his beaming junior brother, Lu Jiayao. With a slight tilt of his head and a nod, he made up his mind.
Without hesitation, he handed his collected stars to Lu Jiayao and asked gently, "Junior Brother Jiayao, could you open these for me?"
"Of course!" Lu Jiayao, ever the helpful soul, immediately set aside his own stars and picked up one of Yin Xuan's. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t pry it open. Apologetically, he said, "Senior Brother Yin, it seems I can’t open it. Maybe it has to be you?"
The fallen stars from the sky seemed to have already chosen their owners before landing.
Yin Xuan sighed and smiled wryly. "Fine."
His silver hair cascaded around him as he leaned on one knee, lazily stirring the pile of stars before picking one up at random. He opened it without any expectations—given his luck over the years, most were probably empty.
But the moment the star cracked open, it exploded with a loud pop!
Yin Xuan was caught off guard, his beautiful, silky silver hair instantly transformed into a frizzy mess.
Yin Xuan: "Uh…"
Lu Jiayao, standing nearby but miraculously unharmed, gaped in shock: "…"
Not far away, Li Zhuohua was aggressively opening stars, growing increasingly frustrated as each turned out empty. She turned to Wen Shuangbai and exclaimed, "Junior Sister, I envy those two—at least theirs weren’t empty!"
Wen Shuangbai was busy checking the Mystic Heaven Mirror.
A new notification had just appeared:
[You and your teammates have unfortunately obtained an [Exploding Star]. Ten Sacred Stones have been deducted. Please take note.]
Wen Shuangbai: "………………?"
Ten Sacred Stones—that meant ten thousand spirit stones!
She slowly looked up and replied gloomily, "I’d rather have gotten nothing."
At least empty stars didn’t cost them money!
Lu Jiayao tried to console Yin Xuan, "Senior Brother, don’t worry! I’ve opened plenty of Sacred Stones."
"Good. Then I’ll leave it to you," Yin Xuan decided, giving up entirely. He lay back comfortably in the pile of stars. "I won’t open any more." These stars clearly weren’t worth the trouble.
But the moment he spoke, a star flew toward him, crashing into his chest and forcing itself open!
In an instant, a sharp sword aura burst forth from the star, streaking like a meteor toward Yin Xuan with deadly intent.
Yin Xuan: "?"
…What kind of terrifying stars were these?!
He immediately slid backward, but the sword aura locked onto him, relentlessly pursuing him.
Groaning in frustration, Yin Xuan drew his silver sword and began fending off the aggressive attack.
Meanwhile, Wen Shuangbai checked the Mystic Heaven Mirror again—another -50 Sacred Stones—and then looked at her senior brother, the pile of stars now following him like predators waiting for their turn to ambush him. Her face darkened.
Seriously, what kind of nonsense was this? Why did even sword auras deduct spirit stones?! Damn these stupid stars!!!
Li Zhuohua, however, was envious. "I want to get a sword aura too!"
Without hesitation, she sped up her star-opening spree. By the sixth one, she got her wish—a sword aura erupted from it.
As more stars were opened, the Mystic Heaven Mirror kept vibrating nonstop. The Sacred Stone count fluctuated wildly: +267, -58, -89, -107, +537, -1200, +3467…—more volatile than the stock market.
The positive numbers came from Lu Jiayao. The negatives? All from Senior Brother Yin and Li Zhuohua.
Wen Shuangbai, meanwhile, remained perfectly stable.
Stably at zero.
She sighed, watching the self-opening "negative" stars.
What could she do?
Sitting to the side, she focused on opening her own stars, gradually noticing a pattern.
These stars had fallen because their starlight had been absorbed by the cultivators. Whoever absorbed a star’s light was fated to be "hit" by it—inescapable, unavoidable.
It felt like a forced transaction.
Resigned, Wen Shuangbai put away the Mystic Heaven Mirror—out of sight, out of mind—and sped up her star-opening, figuring it was better to suffer now than drag it out.
Since all hers were zero, she finished quickly. Within half an hour, she became the first to complete her "star blind box."
Out of 372 stars, the total Sacred Stones obtained: zero.
After discarding 172 purely mischievous notes, she gathered the remaining scraps that held some value.
Some stars contained a single piece, others had boxes with dozens inside. In the end, she had exactly 2,000 fragments.
The pieces were small squares with smooth edges, seemingly ordinary except for their high-quality material.
Wen Shuangbai felt they resembled puzzle pieces.
She began trying to assemble them.
But without a reference image, and with the edges uniform and the lines on each fragment appearing unrelated, she soon hit a wall.
Just as she was growing frustrated, Li Zhuohua’s excited voice rang out: "Junior Sister! This—this feels like Hanshan’s Sword Aura!"
Wen Shuangbai immediately turned.
Even from a distance, she could faintly sense the sword aura surrounding Li Zhuohua—heavy and imposing, like towering mountains.
Their Qingling Mountain’s founding ancestor, Li Hanshan?
Wen Shuangbai sat in thought, brows furrowed.
Li Hanshan had lived five hundred years ago. If this was his sword intent, then this starry sea must have been left behind from that era.
She ran her fingers over the fragments. Were these also left by someone from five centuries ago?
Who? And what would the completed picture reveal?
Her curiosity grew.
She recalled the previous trials they’d faced—each connected to the Mystic Heaven Calamity five hundred years ago and the legendary figures of that time.
Tian Sang of Tian Family Village. Yaoling of Zhuoguang City.
And Ye Qingrong, who had passed through both places during that era.
These figures had all known each other—gifted disciples from Qingzhou’s major sects.
Li Hanshan, Qingling Mountain’s founder, had even shared a mutual affection with Yaoling.
And now, in Star Moon Valley’s secret realm, his sword intent had appeared.
These copies seemed to be intricately connected, yet none of these storylines had appeared in the original novel.
Wen Shuangbai pondered carefully. From the moment their group—the unfortunate cannon fodders of the original story (with the exception of Lu Jiayao)—replaced the protagonist team to participate in the Profound Heaven Competition, the trials within the Sacred Tower had diverged completely from the book.
How strange.
Unable to figure it out for now, Wen Shuangbai refocused her attention on the puzzle before her.
The lines on the paper fragments appeared chaotic. As she pieced and adjusted them, she became so absorbed that she lost track of time. In this sea of stars, time lost its meaning. Amidst the shifting constellations, she couldn’t tell how much time had passed.
She managed to assemble the pieces by instinct, but as she stared at the messy result, she frowned.
"That doesn’t seem right." Suddenly, Lu Jiayao’s voice sounded beside her.
"..." Wen Shuangbai snapped out of her daze and turned her head, her eyelids twitching slightly. "What are you doing here? Did you finish dismantling your stars?"
"I finished ages ago." The pink-robed youth propped his chin on his hand, sighing dramatically. "Shuangbai, do you know how long you’ve been lost in that? I’ve been calling you, but you ignored me. Senior Brother Yin, Senior Brother Xie, and Senior Sister Zhuohua ignored me too. I’ve already wandered around this starry sea three hundred times alone!"
"?" Wen Shuangbai glanced around.
The piles of stars at the feet of Yin Xuan and Li Zhuohua had vanished, and both were now meditating.
Judging by the fluctuations of spiritual energy around them, they must have gained some insights from the relentless sword qi attacks.
Xie Ziyin remained in the exact same state as before.
"Has it been that long?" Wen Shuangbai confirmed.
Lu Jiayao: "Mhm!"
After a brief silence, Wen Shuangbai’s first concern was practical: "How many Sacred Stones did you extract?"
Lu Jiayao: "Over thirty thousand!"
"What about Senior Brother Yin and Senior Sister Zhuohua?" Wen Shuangbai was worried their Sacred Stones might have decreased instead. When Lu Jiayao told her they had lost twenty thousand in total, she sighed in relief and patted his shoulder approvingly. "You’re amazing! We still made a profit of ten thousand!"
The pink-robed youth tried to suppress his grin but failed miserably, his smile stretching ear to ear. "No, no, I just got lucky. My mother always said I had good fortune—even when I got lost as a kid, kind strangers would bring me home!"
Wen Shuangbai: "..."
On the Mystic Heaven Mirror, Shen Hefeng dryly remarked: [Seems the heavens are blind, favoring fools.]
---
The assembled puzzle looked all wrong.
Wen Shuangbai racked her brain. She felt she had used the wrong method, but she couldn’t pinpoint what the correct approach should be.
When she asked Lu Jiayao for his opinion, he was even more clueless, admitting honestly, "I don’t understand it."
Wen Shuangbai then said, "Then try piecing it randomly for me."
Maybe the lucky idiot’s haphazard attempt would accidentally stumble upon the right configuration.
But no—it only made things messier.
"...Never mind." Wen Shuangbai gave up and stored the puzzle away, standing up to explore the starry sea with Lu Jiayao.
She wanted to see if there was another exit in this place.
After all, their goal was to obtain the most valuable treasure in the secret realm, then leave Star Moon Valley and conclude the third round of the competition.
"There isn’t one." Lu Jiayao, finally having someone to talk to, couldn’t stop chattering. "I’ve walked three hundred laps and found nothing."
Wen Shuangbai asked, "What about the moon? Didn’t you see it?"
Lu Jiayao shook his head. "No, just stars. No Star Moon Divine Tree either."
"That’s strange." Wen Shuangbai crossed her arms. "How can Star Moon Valley have only stars?"
Muttering to herself, she looked up.
The once-brilliant starry sea had dimmed significantly after thousands of stars had fallen. Now, the night sky was sparsely dotted with lackluster stars—except for one, the brightest of them all, still glowing resplendently.
It hovered directly above Xie Ziyin’s head, its radiant light slowly flowing into him.
The four of them had absorbed over a thousand stars combined, and they had long finished—even dismantled their star "blind boxes."
Yet this man was still absorbing that one star?
Though the exact duration was unclear, Wen Shuangbai estimated they had been in this starry sea for several months.
After all this time, the star’s light showed no signs of dimming. How was it so enduring?
Could this star be the key to clearing this trial?
After scrutinizing Xie Ziyin’s face for a moment, Wen Shuangbai cautiously circled the starry sea once more. Finding nothing else, she dragged Lu Jiayao back to continue studying her puzzle.
The key might lie there instead.
In the following days, Yin Xuan and Li Zhuohua awoke one after another and joined the puzzle-solving team.
---
Time passed slowly.
Xie Ziyin guided the starlight into his body, gradually purging the demonic energy left by the Nine Infants’ curse.
When the last trace of corruption vanished, he realized the starlight didn’t dissipate—instead, it flowed toward his spirit bones, nourishing them.
An indeterminable amount of time later, as the starlight within him faded, he became aware of his surroundings again. The voices of his companions reached him clearly.
Wen Shuangbai sounded hesitant: "You’re sure this is how it goes?"
Lu Jiayao was confident: "Yeah! Doesn’t this part look like a little chick?"
Li Zhuohua shot him down mercilessly: "No!"
Wen Shuangbai agreed, relieved: "See, Senior Sister? I told him it doesn’t resemble one at all."
Yin Xuan excused himself: "...Junior Sister, my head hurts. I need a break."
Li Zhuohua scolded: "Again?!"
Yin Xuan: "Well... because my head hurts?"
Xie Ziyin: "..."
Xie Ziyin slowly opened his eyes and stared at the group huddled together on the ground. After a silent pause, he asked coolly, "What are you doing?"
They looked like a bunch of escapees from a mental asylum.
The moment he spoke, all four whipped their heads toward him—or rather, toward the space above his head—with unsettling excitement.
Xie Ziyin: "?"
He looked up just as a star plummeted straight at him. Instinctively, he caught it.
The moment the star landed in his palm, its light erupted brilliantly. The entire starry sea—and the Star Moon Valley secret realm—began to collapse.
The ground quaked violently.
In the chaos, Wen Shuangbai’s first instinct was to stash away her two-thousand-piece puzzle. Xie Ziyin, however, immediately seized her free wrist.
Wen Shuangbai froze.
A blinding white light flashed, forcing the five of them out of Star Moon Valley and ejecting them from the Sacred Tower.
Along with it came a notification from the Mystic Heaven Mirror:
[Congratulations to you and your team for obtaining the [Starstone]. A reward of 60,000 Sacred Stones has been granted.]
