She sat down cross-legged, closed her eyes, and began circulating the cultivation technique she had just obtained.
A stream of ice-blue spiritual energy rose from her dantian and smoothly coursed through her body along the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
The meridians damaged and severed when the original owner had forcibly attempted a breakthrough were rapidly repaired and widened under the nourishment of the technique. That swamp-like feeling of obstruction completely disappeared.
The spiritual energy continued circulating within her without pause. By the time the night had passed, there were faint signs that she was about to break through to the third level of Qi Condensation.
Shen Weilan opened her eyes, feeling a strength within her unlike anything she had ever experienced before.
Dawn had just fully broken.
She changed into a moon-white dress and casually tied her hair into a loose bun.
After undergoing marrow cleansing and bone tempering, the face in the mirror now resembled her face from her previous life by seven or eight parts. It was gorgeous and flamboyant.
The several overlapping blue and purple bite marks on her collarbone were still conspicuous.
Shen Weilan gathered a trace of ice-blue spiritual power at her fingertip and gently brushed it over that patch of skin. A layer of ice, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, spread across it, perfectly concealing every mark.
Only after finishing all this did she lazily push open the door to her cave dwelling.
Today was Yunxiao Sect’s monthly public lecture, and the one giving the lecture was Yan Qingxiao.
The Sword Venerable Qingxiao, who had not publicly taught a class in six hundred years, was suddenly going to lecture. The entire Cloudsky Peak erupted in excitement.
Even the stone steps outside the mountain gate were packed with people.
Shen Weilan slowly made her way toward the Lecture Hall.
It was not that she was interested in the lecture itself.
She simply wanted to see whether the Master who had lost six hundred years of solitary cultivation to her last night could still maintain that impassive, emotionless immortal bearing while standing on the high platform today.
……
The area outside the Lecture Hall was swarming with people.
But only inner sect disciples had the qualifications to enter the hall and hear the heavenly teachings from close by.
“Junior Sister Yao’er, as Master’s named disciple, you’ll certainly be able to listen to his teachings whenever you wish in the future. You truly make us envious.”
“That’s right. Unlike certain people, who occupy the title of personal disciple yet repeatedly frame their junior sister. Someone like that probably wouldn’t even have the nerve to come to an occasion like this today.”
At the very front of the crowd, surrounded by a group of personal disciples, stood Lu Yao.
Today, she wore a light-purple gauze dress. Her figure was slender and delicate, and a suitably faint smile rested between her brows and eyes. As she responded to the flattery of the Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters around her, she appeared gentle and proper, like a lotus carefully nourished by the morning dew.
The disciple’s words clearly carried an implication, and everyone exchanged knowing looks.
Lu Yao lowered her eyes, her voice so gentle it seemed almost able to drip water.
“Senior Brothers, please don’t put it that way. Senior Sister Weilan merely… made a foolish mistake in a moment of confusion. Let’s not discuss her anymore.”
Her words of “repaying hatred with virtue” drew another wave of praise.
Only Ji Mingyu, standing beside her, had been distracted from beginning to end.
His face was pale, and there were two obvious dark circles beneath his eyes.
Lu Yao concernedly tugged at his sleeve. “Senior Brother Mingyu, you look awful. Did you not rest well last night?”
Ji Mingyu jerked his arm back as if he had been pricked by a needle.
“N-no, I’m fine.” He avoided Lu Yao’s touch, his Adam’s apple rolling unnaturally.
Lu Yao was startled by his evasive movement and was about to ask again when a sudden commotion arose from the back of the crowd.
The originally noisy square seemed to be snuffed out from the edges by an invisible hand. The murmurs died away layer by layer until, in the end, everything fell into an eerie silence.
Everyone stopped moving, their gazes turning in unison toward the entrance of the Lecture Hall.
Against the light, a moon-white figure slowly approached.
The person walked very slowly, each step carrying a languid, unrestrained elegance, as though she had not come to listen to a lecture but to inspect her own rear garden.
“Clatter.”
A jade slip slipped from the grasp of an outer sect disciple and fell to the ground with a crisp sound that seemed especially jarring in the silence.
“Heavens… Who is that immortal maiden? When did our sect get someone so breathtaking?” A new disciple who had only just entered the sect stared at her in a daze and stammered out the question.
She was simply too beautiful. After undergoing marrow cleansing and bone tempering, that face had shed every trace of dust and ferocity. Its gorgeous brilliance was like that of an unparalleled famous blade freshly drawn from its sheath—its edge fully exposed, making people afraid to look directly at it, yet unable to tear their eyes away.
The Senior Brother beside him stared fixedly at that face. His expression went from astonishment, to strangeness, and finally twisted into the utmost disgust and disbelief.
“Are you blind? Look carefully. That’s the one from Cloudsky Peak—Shen Weilan!”
“What?!”
The new disciple sucked in a sharp breath, as though he had just heard something utterly absurd.
Shen Weilan? That useless woman with atrocious aptitude, who clung to Master and had a gloomy personality? The woman whose reputation in the sect was so vile because she was jealous of Junior Sister Lu Yao and had been punished repeatedly?
How could this be possible?
In an instant, the silent crowd exploded.
“It really is her! How did she become like this? Did she practice some kind of evil technique?”
“Heh, what use is changing her skin? Rotten straw is still rotten straw at heart. All she knows is how to use despicable methods.”
“She still has the nerve to come here! The fact that Master hasn’t expelled her from the sect is already an enormous mercy!”
Contemptuous, jealous, and disdainful gazes and mutters surged toward Shen Weilan like a tide.
Yet Shen Weilan herself seemed to be walking through an uninhabited land. She paid no attention to anything around her and could not even be bothered to lift her eyelids.
She passed through the silent crowd and walked straight toward the frontmost position—the spot belonging to Lu Yao, where everyone had gathered around her like stars surrounding the moon.
The gentle smile on Lu Yao’s face finally failed to hold. The curve of her lips sagged slightly before she forcibly pulled it back up.
【Warning! An unknown variable has been detected in target Shen Weilan! Her destiny is obscured by the Heavenly Dao’s mist and cannot be detected!】
The shrill warning in her mind made Lu Yao’s heart jolt violently.
Wasn’t Shen Weilan already a useless nobody whom she had trampled into the mud, doomed never to rise again? Where had this bearing and appearance come from?!
Before she could figure it out, Shen Weilan had already reached her.
Lu Yao quickly suppressed her suspicions and stood up first, once more putting on that flawless expression of fragility and concern.
“Senior Sister Weilan, you’ve finally agreed to emerge from seclusion. You really had everyone worried.”
As she spoke, she extended her hand with extreme naturalness, intending to take Shen Weilan by the wrist.
As long as she made contact, her system would be able to discern the truth of her condition!
However, before her fingertips could touch that cold, pale skin, Shen Weilan elegantly shifted to the side. Her movement was smooth and effortless, without the slightest trace of worldly roughness.
Lu Yao’s hand stopped awkwardly in midair, unable either to extend farther or withdraw.
Several stifled gasps rose from the surrounding crowd.
Lu Yao’s face shifted between green and white. She could only force a smile as she drew her hand back.
“Looking at Senior Sister’s face… it seems quite different from before. Did you use some kind of spirit medicine to preserve your appearance?”
Shen Weilan raised a hand and lightly tapped the tip of her finger against her own smooth, delicate chin.
“Oh, this?”
She lifted her eyelids and looked lazily at Lu Yao, her red lips curling into a malicious arc.
“Perhaps the wind in my cave dwelling was too cold and blew away all the dead skin that had accumulated on my face for more than a decade.”
“Pfft—”
Several muffled laughs escaped from the crowd.
Lu Yao was left speechless for quite some time. The color drained from her pretty face, and she trembled all over with rage.
Meanwhile, Ji Mingyu, whom she had been shielding behind her, had already shrunk beside one of the hall’s pillars, wishing he could embed himself inside it.
That terrifying gaze had already fallen upon him, like a red-hot needle stabbing him and making his entire body feel uncomfortable. The sweet fragrance in his stomach began churning violently again.
Just as the atmosphere reached its most rigid point, a deep, composed male voice came from behind the crowd, carrying an authority that allowed no argument.
“What are you all gathered here for? No loud disturbances are permitted in front of the Lecture Hall!”
The voice was not loud, yet it was like a basin of ice water, instantly extinguishing all the clamor.
Upon hearing it, the disciples scattered like startled birds and beasts.
A tall, upright young man slowly walked over. He wore the cloud-patterned white robe unique to Yunxiao Sect’s Chief Senior Brother, and his ink-black hair was tied up with a white jade hairpin, every strand in perfect order.
Gu Changfeng.
The Chief Senior Brother who oversaw the sect’s discipline laws was famous for being impartial and unsparing, rigid to an extreme.
He was also the most stable fish in Lu Yao’s fish pond. Because the original owner had repeatedly bullied Lu Yao, he had punished the original owner several times, making him Lu Yao’s most solid backer.
Gu Changfeng’s cold gaze swept across the entire scene before landing on the tearfully aggrieved Lu Yao and the moon-white figure standing before her, so completely “out of place.”
His brows drew together slightly. He was just about to open his mouth and rebuke them when his movements paused upon seeing Shen Weilan’s face clearly.
This was… Shen Weilan?
Shen Weilan looked at his rigid, abstinent appearance, with his collar buttoned all the way to the very top. Not only did she not avoid his gaze, she met it directly and silently curled her red lips.
Another one who’s all repressed inside.
Gu Changfeng’s heart jolted. He swiftly shifted his gaze away and resumed his impartial, iron-faced manner. In a deep voice, he ordered, “The time has come. All disciples, take your seats in order!”
The disciples no longer dared to watch the spectacle and hurriedly sat down on their respective meditation cushions.
Ignoring Lu Yao’s ugly expression, Shen Weilan walked straight to the central position in the very front row. It was the seat of the foremost personal disciple—the original owner’s seat. She swept her hem aside and lazily sat down.
The entire Lecture Hall fell silent.
A dazzling white sword light tore across the sky from the horizon.
Before the sword light arrived, a bone-chilling sword intent had already enveloped the entire Lecture Hall.
The temperature in the square abruptly dropped. The disciples felt reverence rising from the depths of their souls and lowered their heads one after another.
The sword light receded, and a snow-white figure descended silently onto the white jade high platform at the very front.
It was Yan Qingxiao.
The entire venue fell silent in an instant.
From atop the high platform, Yan Qingxiao’s cool gaze slowly swept across the hall. When it passed over Shen Weilan, his indifferent eyes paused for an instant so slight it was almost imperceptible.
He forcibly suppressed the emotions surging within him, closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, they were already clear and tranquil.
“Today, I shall lecture to you on the *Scripture of Supreme Forgetfulness of Emotion*.”