Once alone in his rented room, Li Feng stood before the cracked bronze mirror and carefully examined his reflection—or rather, Li An's reflection.
He closed his eyes and turned his spiritual sense inward, probing the meridians and spiritual roots hidden beneath the borrowed skin.
Mid-grade yin spiritual roots, he realized with quiet surprise. Li An was a cultivator. Or at least, she had the potential to become one.
Mid-grade spiritual roots were respectable—far above the low-grade roots of common disciples, though still a tier below the high-grade roots that marked true talents. But what truly mattered was not the grade itself, but the compatibility.
Li Feng's primordial yin spiritual roots—Wu Meng Ting's roots—were of the same yin attribute as Li An's. When he circulated his cultivation technique through the skin, the two sets of roots resonated in perfect harmony, amplifying each other's efficiency. The absorption speed rivaled that of a high-grade yin spiritual root.
"Perfect," Li Feng murmured, his voice soft and feminine. "This skin won't hinder my cultivation at all."
He sat cross-legged on the bed and began drawing in the ambient spiritual energy. The familiar wave of pleasure rolled through his body—warm, tingling, and insistent—but by now, he had learned to endure it. The sensation no longer overwhelmed him; it had dulled to the level of a pleasant, full-body massage. His breathing remained steady, his focus sharp.
Good. I can cultivate without losing control.
Next, he tested his physical coordination. He stood, walked across the room, reached for a teacup, set it down, then performed a series of basic martial stances.
His movements were slower than they should have been. Slightly clumsy. His balance felt off, as if his center of gravity had shifted—which, of course, it had. Li An's body was shorter and lighter than Wu Meng Ting's divine form, and both were vastly different from his original male body.
But the real issue was deeper.
My soul is still male, Li Feng thought grimly. Even after all this time, even after the influence of this body has softened its edges... the core of my soul remains what it was.
The mismatch between soul and flesh created a subtle dissonance in every movement. It was manageable for daily life, but in combat, that fraction of a second's delay could mean death.
"I'll have to be careful," he muttered. "At least until I reach Foundation Establishment."
He dressed in Li An's simple gray servant's robes, secured his belongings in his spatial ring, and left the inn without a word.
For the next day, Li Feng traveled westward on foot, avoiding the main roads and keeping to the forested hills. He needed isolation—a place where no one would witness what was about to happen.
By nightfall, he found it: a narrow valley surrounded by steep cliffs, far from any village or trade route. The spiritual energy here was thin but stable. It would suffice.
Li Feng set down his pack and gazed up at the darkening sky.
When I broke through to Foundation Establishment in my original body, the Heavenly Dao sent down nine lightning bolts. The entire sect witnessed it. Half the Southern Continent felt the tremors.
That tribulation had been extraordinary—a sign of his peak-grade yang spiritual roots and the heavens' acknowledgment of his talent. But it had also been a warning. The more exceptional the cultivator, the harsher the tribulation.
And now I'm in a body with primordial yin spiritual roots. The heavens will not be merciful.
He clenched his fists, feeling the soft, delicate skin of Li An's hands.
I can't undergo this tribulation in the Northern Continent. If I do, every sect and rogue cultivator in the region will know about it. They'll hunt me down before I even have a chance to establish myself.
No. He would break through here, in the Western Continent, far from his destination. And then he would disappear.
Li Feng spent the next three months in seclusion.
He cultivated day and night, consuming the spiritual-energy pills he had accumulated over the past century. His cultivation climbed steadily: seventh stage of Qi Condensation, eighth stage, ninth stage, and finally, the tenth stage—the peak of Qi Condensation.
During this time, he also adapted to the Supreme Yin Technique's effects. The constant, low hum of arousal in his body never fully disappeared, but he learned to compartmentalize it, to channel it into his cultivation rather than letting it distract him. The pleasure became a tool, a rhythm, a pulse that guided the flow of spiritual energy through his meridians.
He also spent hours each day reviewing the formations and talismans he had studied over the past 150 years. His hands moved with practiced precision, inscribing complex arrays onto jade slips and spirit stones.
I'll need a teleportation formation, he decided. One that can activate instantly, even in the middle of a tribulation.
The materials were expensive—spirit jade, lightning-resistant ink, formation flags imbued with spatial energy—but he had collected them over decades. Now, they would save his life.
When his cultivation reached its peak, Li Feng made a brief journey north. He crossed the border into the Northern Continent, found a remote, frozen valley far from any sect or settlement, and set up the receiving end of the teleportation formation. The array hummed softly as he activated it, its energy signature locked to the matching formation he would place in the Western Continent.
"This will be my escape route," he whispered, his breath misting in the frigid air. "No matter what happens, I'll survive."
He returned to the Western Continent and prepared for the tribulation.
Li Feng stood in the center of the valley, surrounded by a complex web of defensive formations. Talismans hung in the air around him, glowing faintly with protective energy. At his feet, the teleportation formation was already active, its runes pulsing with spatial power.
He took a deep breath, then reached up and peeled Li An's skin from his body.
The moment the disguise peeled away, the slight constriction of wearing another woman's mundane flesh vanished, freeing the boundless primordial yin qi trapped beneath. She had not removed it out of yang conflict, but out of necessity—no matter how compatible Li An's mid-grade yin skin had been, attempting to withstand the heavens' judgment while cloaked in a borrowed mortal shell would disrupt the flow of heavenly tribulation lightning and invite catastrophic backlash.
"Even a compatible disguise is still a cage when facing the Heavenly Dao," Li Feng murmured, her soft, melodious voice lingering in the cool valley air as she stepped free of the discarded sheath. "To reforge the root, the true body must meet the lightning naked and unhindered."
Her true form emerged into the open twilight—Wu Meng Ting's body, breathtaking, radiant, and undeniably divine.
Standing completely exposed, the staggering contrast between this celestial vessel and the male body he had inhabited for nearly two centuries was impossible to ignore. Where his former self had been a rugged, hardened warrior of rough sinew, broad shoulders, and scarred skin dense with hot yang energy, this form was an intoxicating masterpiece of pure yin perfection. Her complexion was translucent and supple as warm suet jade, gleaming with a pearlescent luster that shamed moonlight. Her heavy, snow-white breasts swelled with breathtaking fullness, their exquisite, rosy-pink peaks puckering tight and hypersensitive against the biting wind. Her slender torso tapered into an impossibly narrow waist before blossoming into lush, soft hips and long, silky thighs that framed her dewy, pristine folds. Every inch of her flesh radiated an ethereal, devastating sensuality that far surpassed mortal imagination.
Li Feng stood naked in the fading sunlight, his skin glowing like polished jade. His long white hair cascaded down his back in silken waves, framing a face so beautiful it seemed sculpted by the gods themselves.
He retrieved one of the immortal dresses from his spatial ring—a flowing garment of shimmering white silk, inscribed with ancient defensive runes. The fabric clung to his body like a second skin, accentuating every curve, every line, every impossible perfection.
This is who I am now, Li Feng thought, staring down at his own body. Not the man I was. Not the crippled disciple.
He closed his eyes and began circulating his cultivation technique.
The spiritual energy in his dantian surged, pressing against the barrier between Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment.
And then—
CRACK!
The barrier shattered.
The sky above the valley turned black.
Red lightning crackled through the clouds, illuminating the landscape in violent, flickering bursts. The air itself seemed to tremble with the weight of the Heavenly Dao's judgment.
In the distance, cultivators from nearby towns and sects felt the disturbance. They flew toward the valley, drawn by the phenomenon, and stopped at a safe distance—far enough to avoid the tribulation's wrath, but close enough to witness it.
And when they saw the figure standing in the center of the valley, they froze.
"Is that... a woman?" one of them whispered, his voice trembling.
"Look at her face... I've never seen anyone so beautiful..."
"What kind of spiritual roots does she have? This tribulation is—"
"Quiet! Don't interfere, or the lightning will target us too!"
They watched in awed silence as the first bolt of lightning descended.
The first lightning bolt struck Li Feng's body with a deafening CRACK!
Pain exploded through his chest, his limbs, his core. But it was not the pain of destruction—it was the pain of transformation.
His skin, already flawless, became even more luminous, glowing with an ethereal radiance. His bones hardened, turning jade-like and unbreakable. His muscles, soft and supple, gained a hidden strength that belied their delicate appearance. His organs shifted, realigned, and strengthened.
And deep within his body, in the most intimate place, the delicate flesh that had been torn when he—still trapped in his original male form—had thrust into this current body of his during the coffin ritual, now tightened and reconnected beneath the red lightning's purifying touch. The Heavenly Dao restored the hymen to its pristine state, erasing the physical evidence of his own intrusion and restoring Wu Meng Ting's body its virgin purity. Li Feng felt the sensation acutely—a strange, intimate awareness of his own former self's mark being unmade, leaving only the flawless, unblemished flesh of a maiden who had never been touched.
Li Feng gasped, his back arching as the sensation overwhelmed him. "Ah—!"
The second lightning bolt struck.
This one targeted his yin spiritual roots directly. A wave of freezing cold surged through his meridians, so intense that his entire body shuddered. His teeth chattered. His nipples hardened into tight, aching points. His thighs trembled.
It's... reforging my spiritual roots, he realized through the haze of sensation. Making them purer. Stronger.
The third lightning bolt struck his dantian.
Li Feng's abdomen convulsed as if something inside him was expanding, tearing, reshaping. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and let out a low, guttural groan.
"Ngh—! It feels like... like I'm giving birth—!"
The dantian expanded, its capacity doubling, tripling, until it could hold a vast reservoir of spiritual energy.
The first three bolts were complete.
The next three lightning bolts descended in rapid succession.
But Li Feng was ready.
He activated the defensive formations around him. Barriers of light sprang up, layered one atop another. Talismans flared and burned, their protective energy absorbing the lightning's power.
The fourth bolt shattered two barriers but was stopped by the third.
The fifth bolt destroyed the remaining barriers and incinerated half the talismans.
The sixth bolt broke through everything and struck Li Feng's shoulder, tearing through the immortal dress and leaving a charred, bleeding wound.
He gritted his teeth and endured.
Three more, he thought. Just three more.
The final three lightning bolts were different.
They were larger. Brighter. More violent.
These were the bolts reserved for the truly exceptional—the cultivators whose talent provoked the heavens' jealousy.
Li Feng had experienced them once before, in his original body. He knew what was coming.
He sacrificed his remaining treasures—spirit stones, defensive artifacts, even the protective runes woven into his immortal dress. They shattered one by one, absorbing the lightning's fury.
The seventh bolt tore through his defenses and struck his chest, cracking his ribs.
The eighth bolt burned through his left arm, leaving blackened, blistered skin.
The ninth bolt struck his abdomen, and Li Feng screamed.
Blood poured from his wounds. His dress was torn and scorched, exposing his pale, jade-like skin beneath. His face was deathly pale, his breathing ragged.
It's over, he thought, collapsing to his knees. I survived.
But the sky did not clear.
The red lightning in the clouds turned black.
Pure, absolute black, as if the heavens themselves had decided to erase him from existence.
The pressure radiating from the clouds increased a hundredfold. The air became so heavy that Li Feng could barely breathe.
"No..." he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Not another one..."
The black lightning bolt descended.
It struck him—not his body, but his soul.
Li Feng's vision went white.
Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced tore through his consciousness. It felt as if his soul was being peeled apart, layer by layer, stripped down to its core.
His body convulsed on the ground, twitching uncontrollably. His mouth opened in a silent scream.
I'm dying, he thought distantly. My soul is leaving my body. If I let go now, I'll be destroyed.
But he didn't let go.
His soul had once reached the Golden Core realm. It was stronger, more resilient than the souls of ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators. And this tribulation—though devastating—was still only a Foundation Establishment tribulation. Its power was limited.
I can endure this, Li Feng told himself, clinging to consciousness with everything he had. I will endure this.
The black lightning continued its work.
It tore through the masculine shape of his soul, reshaping it, refining it, aligning it with the body it now inhabited.
The hard edges softened. The broad shoulders narrowed. The deep voice became light and melodic. The rough, calloused hands became delicate and smooth.
By the time the lightning exhausted its power, Li Feng's soul was no longer male.
It was female. Perfectly, completely female.
Identical to Wu Meng Ting's body.
The black lightning faded.
The clouds parted.
The sky returned to its natural blue.
Li Feng lay on the ground, gasping for breath, his body trembling with exhaustion.
But he was alive.
And he had broken through to Foundation Establishment.