Upon the elevated platform, Yan Qingxiao spoke profound truths, every word carrying the mysterious resonance of the Dao.
Shen Weilan sat upright on her meditation cushion. All she could hear was talk of “the Great Dao’s mercilessness” and “severing oneself from worldly attachments.”
This old man was really good at putting on an act. Last night, on the Cold Jade Bed, when he was… how come he hadn’t remembered any of this “forgetting emotion” nonsense? The moment he pulled up his pants, he started acting like a sage.
After listening for just two sentences, Shen Weilan felt her eyelids begin to droop. Her consciousness sank into her sea of consciousness.
“System, come out and chat.”
“Listening to him spout this stuff is like listening to a lullaby.”
【A man who broke his abstinence and lost his virginity is standing onstage teaching you how to forget emotion. And you’re a top-tier playboy. If you could actually take any of it in, that would be the real miracle!】
“Then what am I supposed to do? I can’t actually fall asleep, can I?”
【The store just updated with a minigame feature. We recommend opening ‘Snake’ to pass the time. Your first top-up of six points will even get you a rainbow-skinned snake!】
“It’s too boring.”
【How about opening the system store? Today’s special blind box is: *Detailed Explanation of the Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Forms of the Dual-Cultivation Technique*—full-color, animated, and voiced. Only five points. Fair to both young and old. Would you like to exchange for it?】
Shen Weilan immediately perked up.
“Exchange it! Right now!”
The points were deducted, and a holographic screen visible only to her sprang open before her eyes. Its position happened to overlap with the tall figure seated diagonally in front of her.
That was the Eldest Senior Brother, Gu Changfeng.
The image on the screen was exceptionally clear. In her sea of consciousness, a sound instantly rang out…
“Senior Brother…”
The two people in the image…
Shen Weilan watched with great interest.
After seeing too many scenes of this sort—fragrant and stimulating—Shen Weilan’s cheeks took on a peach-blossom flush. Her red lips parted slightly, and she unconsciously bit her lower lip. A glistening sheen of moisture veiled her eyes.
She was completely unaware that the position of the projected screen perfectly overlapped with the tall figure seated diagonally in front of her.
Gu Changfeng, seated in the front row, was sitting ramrod straight, but his brows were faintly furrowed.
That gaze from behind him had already remained there for nearly an entire incense stick’s worth of time.
Under the pretense of arranging the jade slips on his desk, he swiftly glanced back from the corner of his eye.
It was Shen Weilan.
Gu Changfeng’s fingers tightened inexplicably around the jade slip.
Why had she been staring at him the entire time?
And with such… undisguised, blatant intensity.
In his impression, hadn’t Shen Weilan always revolved solely around Master?
Yet in that brief glance just now, he had clearly seen her staring fixedly at his back, her eyes shimmering with moisture and her cheeks flushed.
That expression of hers had lost some of its gloom and gained a touch more radiance.
Gu Changfeng’s Adam’s apple bobbed sharply.
Had she changed targets? Unable to gain anything from Master, had she set her sights on the Eldest Senior Brother instead?
Utterly absurd!
He was destined to inherit his Master’s mantle and pursue the supreme Sword Dao. In this life, he would never become entangled in the affairs of love. Yet this woman had dared to openly flirt with him in the Lecture Hall, in front of Master and all his fellow disciples!
Gu Changfeng tried to focus his attention on Yan Qingxiao’s lecture.
But Shen Weilan’s nakedly direct gaze clung to him like a bone-eating maggot. Whenever he so much as closed his eyes, all he could see was the peach-blossom expression she had worn moments ago.
An inexplicable restlessness and heat rose within his chest, beyond even his own awareness.
On the elevated platform,
as Yan Qingxiao lectured on the Great Dao of Forgetting Emotion, he also extended a thread of divine sense to envelop the entire hall.
During his lectures in the past, Shen Weilan’s sticky, obsequious, and infatuated gaze had always clung tightly to him, filling him with annoyance.
But today, after he had lectured for an entire incense stick’s worth of time, that woman had not even lifted her eyelids to look at him once.
That alone would have been fine.
Yan Qingxiao’s divine sense followed the direction of her gaze.
He saw Shen Weilan gazing “affectionately” toward one particular direction, her cheeks faintly flushed and her eyes rippling with emotion.
And the direction she was looking in was unmistakably Gu Changfeng’s seat!
Then he looked at Gu Changfeng. The disciple who had always been calm and self-controlled was now visibly restless as well.
Good.
Very good.
The temperature around Yan Qingxiao abruptly dropped to freezing point. Even the Dao truths he was proclaiming acquired a trace of imperceptible killing intent, frightening the disciples in the front rows until they trembled.
This audacious rebellious disciple!
The day before yesterday, she had only just climbed into his bed, and today she already dared to openly seduce his direct disciple in front of the entire sect—and in front of him, her Master!
What did she take him for?
Some trifle to be discarded after use?!
Shen Weilan was watching with rapt attention as the little figures in the holographic illustrated book within her sea of consciousness moved in increasingly ingenious ways, their angles growing more and more bizarre.
“Change positions and do it again…”
She was watching with such intense concentration that she failed to notice the system frantically sounding alarms beside her.
【Host! Host!】
【Stop watching! If you keep this up, your Master is really going to draw his sword and purge the sect of you!】
Seeing that she did not react, the system directly forced the program to shut down. Her entire sea of consciousness instantly went black.
“What are you doing? I had just reached the important part!”
Shen Weilan complained inwardly in displeasure.
【The important part? No matter how important it is, is it more important than your life?】
The system switched to a mournful electronic voice.
【Why don’t you look up and see the expression on Yan Qingxiao’s face for yourself? That cold air is practically condensing into actual swords. Even my system core is about to freeze and crash!】
Only then did Shen Weilan lazily raise her eyelids.
Upon the elevated platform, the air around Yan Qingxiao seemed to have solidified. His invisible pressure had transformed into bone-piercing cold, making the teeth of several nearby disciples chatter.
Wasn’t he lecturing on the *Scripture of Supreme Forgetting Emotion*?
Why did it look as though he was about to start killing?
“Shen Weilan.”
The cold, clear voice was not loud, yet it struck every person’s heart like a block of ice, making the entire Lecture Hall fall so silent that even a needle could be heard dropping.
She had been called out?
Shen Weilan arched a brow, somewhat surprised.
Yan Qingxiao’s gaze passed over several hundred disciples and landed precisely on her. There was not the slightest trace of affection between Master and disciple in his eyes, only an ice field so deep that its bottom could not be seen.
“You. Explain what it means to ‘enter emotion’ and what it means to ‘leave emotion.’”
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone turned toward Shen Weilan, ready to watch the spectacle.
Who in Yunxiao Sect didn’t know that Shen Weilan was a good-for-nothing with a crippled five-element spiritual root? Aside from chasing after the Sword Venerable and Fairy Yao'er all day, there was nothing in her head.
Asking her to explain Dao theory in front of everyone—wasn’t that a public execution?
A trace of barely perceptible smugness passed through Lu Yao’s eyes. She had already prepared herself. The moment Shen Weilan failed to say a single word and stood there in embarrassment, she would immediately rise and extricate her in the gentlest, most considerate tone possible, while conveniently displaying her own profound understanding of Dao theory.
In the corner, Ji Mingyu also clenched his fists nervously.
Amid the deathly silence, Shen Weilan slowly rose to her feet.
It was merely the movement of standing up, yet the most ordinary moon-white disciple’s robe traced an astonishingly captivating curve at her waist, causing quite a few young male cultivators present to miss a breath.
She raised a hand and casually tucked a loose strand of hair that had fallen beside her cheek behind her ear, her fingertips brushing across her white-jade earlobe.
Those eyes that had once always been filled with obsession and fixation were now clear and lucid.
“Master.”
She spoke. Her voice was not loud, yet it entered every person’s ears with perfect clarity.
“This disciple is dull-witted.”
The crowd snickered inwardly. Sure enough, she was about to admit defeat.
“But this disciple believes that if one has never loved deeply, then how can one speak of forgetting emotion?”
What?
An uproar erupted throughout the Lecture Hall.
Shen Weilan paid no attention to the discussion around her. Her gaze passed over everyone and met the cold eyes on the elevated platform head-on.
“Master teaches us that in cultivating the Dao and seeking immortality, we must sever the seven emotions and six desires before we can prove the Great Dao.”
“But if one has never set foot in this boundless mortal world, never experienced love, hatred, anger, or infatuation, then what is called severing them is nothing more than a castle in the air—a self-deception.”
She paused, the corners of her lips curving into the faintest arc.
“What is severed is merely a false emotion one has never possessed, not true emotion after seeing through it.”
When she finished speaking, the entire hall fell silent.
The disciples who had been waiting to see her make a fool of herself now stared at her dumbfounded, as though they had been struck by lightning.
Was this really the same Shen Weilan who knew nothing?
This insight was even more lucid than that of many elders!
The gentle smile on Lu Yao’s face completely froze.
Gu Changfeng’s mind was shaken even more violently. He remembered the girl who had stubbornly practiced swordsmanship in the heavy snow all those years ago. He remembered the madness with which she had later pursued Master. He had always thought that she had lost herself and refused to repent.
Only now did he realize that perhaps she saw through things more clearly than anyone else.
It wasn’t that she didn’t understand. She had simply… loved too truly.
As for Ji Mingyu, a roar exploded inside his head.
Love gu, bodies pressed intimately together, whispering beside one another’s ears… These words struck his tottering heart like thunder, draining all color from his face.
Upon the elevated platform, Yan Qingxiao’s expression had already darkened so thoroughly that it seemed water might drip from it.
Shen Weilan, however, seemed not to notice the chill capable of freezing and cracking metal and stone. Meeting his gaze, she spoke again, a trace of seriousness in her voice.
“This disciple also believes that what cultivation most fears is not entering emotion.”
Her gaze was like a feather, neither heavy nor light as it brushed across Yan Qingxiao’s taut jawline, finally settling on his thin lips, which had gone entirely bloodless from the force with which he pressed them.
“But rather, having clearly developed feelings, yet not daring to admit it; chanting the Heartless Dao with one’s mouth while desires surge within one’s heart, one’s spiritual platform remains unclear, and one’s Dao heart is unsettled.”
Every word was like a precisely aimed hammer, pounding heavily against Yan Qingxiao’s heart.
This rebellious disciple!
How dare she!
How dare she insinuate all this about him in such a manner, in front of the entire sect!
Yet he could not refute a single word.
Could he really tell hundreds of disciples and disciples’ disciples that he had not developed feelings, but had merely been drugged the night before and dragged their good-for-nothing Senior Sister into performing the rites of Duke Zhou?
Shen Weilan tilted her head slightly. Her alluring peach-blossom eyes blinked, making her look innocent and pure.
“Master.”
she asked softly.
“Would you say that is correct?”
“…”
The fingers with which Yan Qingxiao gripped the scripture had already turned white at the knuckles. The precious jade book creaked in his grasp as though it could not bear the strain.
He was a Sword Venerable in the Deity Transformation stage, yet at this moment, a little disciple in the Qi Refining stage had rendered him speechless.
The humiliation of having slept with her, yet being unable to say a single word about it.
Not one disciple in the hall dared to breathe loudly.
Everyone could feel the Sword Venerable’s fury, nearly powerful enough to destroy heaven and earth, yet none of them could understand.
Although Shen Weilan’s words had been bold, there was nothing wrong with them in principle. Why was Master so enraged?