Blood dripped from the longsword, following the patterns along its spine, drop by drop, falling into his palm.
As Xie Yun crushed the droplet of blood in his hand, the leader of the Joyous Union Sect’s head hit the ground. The battle was over.
Murong Yan remarked, “The Joyous Union Sect has always been cunning and avoided direct confrontation. Why were they so reckless this time?”
She thought to herself: And they even came in a group… were they trying to gang up on us?
Xie Yun said, “I contacted fellow cultivators from other sects. They were also ambushed by cultivators claiming to be from the Joyous Union Sect.”
He used the word “claiming.” Murong Yan was sharp: “Captain, do you think those who stopped us weren’t actually from the Joyous Union Sect? But they were definitely using Joyous Union secret treasures.”
Xie Yun replied, “If they were truly Joyous Union Sect cultivators, that would be even more troublesome.”
Conflicts among disciples in secret realms were common, but they were usually small-scale. Once it escalated to the sect level, it would bring a storm of bloodshed.
The sky was just beginning to brighten, and a damp wind pierced through the forest, producing a hollow, mournful sound. The group looked at the scattered corpses and fell silent.
Xie Yun felt nothing inside, but to match the team’s mood, he also suppressed his smile. “Check for important clues, like storage pouches and heart’s blood. We’ll hand them over to the elders once we leave the secret realm.”
One teammate asked, “When a person dies, their spirit disperses. What’s the use of extracting blood?” Another teammate shouted, “The storage pouches on a few corpses are missing!” and “The ties look like they were bitten off by birds.”
Xie Yun walked over to demonstrate: “Seal the essence blood into a talisman. The spiritual energy within will last for three to five days.” Murong Yan praised his extensive knowledge. Xie Yun maintained a humble and bright smile: “It’s a minor technique my Fifth Senior Brother taught me years ago.”
After extracting the blood, Xie Yun did not stand up. Instead, he examined the broken ties around the corpses’ waists.
“The wood spirit energy on these ties… carries Fifth Senior Brother’s aura.”
Xie Yun felt a surge of interest inwardly, but his expression remained tense.
He had a ledger in his mind: Ten years ago, Fu Yun taught him but also harmed him. Merit and fault canceled each other out, so he didn’t report it to Qingzun. Last month, when he broke through, Fu Yun sent him problematic pills. The night before last, he took action another offset.
But this morning, Fu Yun lured the Vine Demon King to attack him, and he hadn’t repaid the favor yet.
Murong Yan said, “Captain, are you saying the missing storage pouches are related to Senior Brother Fu? But he wasn’t even here during the battle.” Her words trailed off.
The problem was precisely that he wasn’t present, yet his spiritual energy was.
Murong Yan was quite shrewd, keeping her suspicions to herself. She shifted the topic to rescuing their missing teammates.
“Lingjun and Senior Brother Fu fell into the stone wall, Captain. Should we wait here to receive them?” Several others had tried to break through the stone wall but couldn’t. There must be a mechanism, but they couldn’t solve it in a short time.
Xie Yun said, “Set up a formation here. Hang the enemies’ heads nearby as a warning, then use spells to isolate the blood scent to avoid attracting demon beasts.”
“One person stays with me to study the mechanism. The rest can train in the surrounding area, but don’t scatter.”
With that, he sheathed his sword.
Fu Yun tossed the sword scabbard aside.
The character “restraint” on it carried the Sword Venerable’s sword intent, which he disliked intensely.
The scabbard spun a few circles in the water, splashing everywhere, before flying back into Xie Lingjun’s storage pouch.
Forcing the fire spirit this was Fu Yun’s first attempt at a harvesting technique, and the results were quite satisfactory. He channeled spiritual energy into the sword, and immediately, the blade hummed.
Sword energy erupted, leaving cuts on Fu Yun’s face and hands. He paid no mind. This sword was sentient; it was only natural for it to have a temper.
Once the sword calmed down, Fu Yun was about to stop the bleeding on his hands, but there were only cuts no blood. Yuzhao had absorbed his blood.
A faint, tenuous connection, linked by that blood thread. Fu Yun briefly gained control over Zhao Ying, no longer needing to inject fire spiritual energy each time to provoke its sword aura.
Yet Fu Yun still asked one more question: “Are you willing to fight for me?”
The sword aura remained sharp and fierce, but it no longer attacked Fu Yun, surging forward with unwavering determination. A faint smile flickered across Fu Yun’s pale face, the bloodstain at the corner of his eye curving along with it. “Good Zhao Ying.”
With the sword aura protecting him, this time as he emerged from the water, Fu Yun’s body was wounded but his goal achieved.
At the tip of the sword, a strange and eerie flower was impaled.
The demonic flower withered the moment it left the soil, its lingering spiritual consciousness emitting a mournful, seductive plea, sorrowful and pitiful.
Eat me.
Let me live within your body. You will become as beautiful as I am, and everyone will fall in love with you, devote themselves to you.
They will willingly offer themselves to you for nourishment.
Fu Yun channeled all his spiritual energy to snuff out the demonic flower’s consciousness what use did he have for love?
He wanted it to submit.
As the demonic flower died, Fu Yun felt a searing heat on his collarbone. Using the sword as a mirror, he saw a faint pink flower mark appear on his chest.
The real formation had been seized, the space now recognized its master.
In the distance, a new demonic flower bloomed on land.
Nearby, a faint red hue of blood slowly spread through the water.
Fu Yun pressed the jade slip he had seized against his chest. It was no longer scorching hot but cool to the touch, so calm and peaceful. yet his heart was pounding wildly.
He had succeeded. The price was a body covered in wounds and, most troublesome of all the poison formed from the lake’s cold energy and the ancient tree’s venom, which had seeped deep into his meridians.
Yet Fu Yun felt somewhat dazed: Was it really this simple?
Just a little bloodshed, a moment of pain, and he could obtain what he desired?
Why, in the past thirty years, had he never truly thought of venturing out?
In his memories, from the moment he entered the outer sect, Fu Yun had been introduced to the Internal Affairs Division and had since been trapped in trivial duties. He had even felt proud with no powerful family backing, how fortunate he was to be able to connect with the elders of the great sect through this.
The sect had only taught him to forget his original aspirations.
Fu Yun took a moment to calm himself, then sent his spiritual sense into the jade slip, memorizing the cultivation method and having the system record it once more.
Immediately after, he crushed the jade slip, cutting off any possibility of others learning from it.
With another thought, he commanded the demonic flower’s love poison, using it to cleanse the toxins from both his and Xie Lingjun’s bodies.
After a moment of consideration, he retained a portion of the cold poison in his own meridians and hid a trace of it within Xie Lingjun’s dantian.
When Xie Lingjun awoke, the love poison in his body was gone, leaving only a faint restlessness.
In the lake, there was a figure countless petals of the demonic flower, severed by sword aura, floated in the air, an extreme and vivid color, like shards of blood blades, clustering around a single person.
The moment Xie Lingjun broke free from the immobilizing talisman, Fu Yun looked over.
His face was pale, his lips parched like the withered flower in his hand, its petals squeezed dry of any juice. Fu Yun tapped the surface of the lake, shattering the moon’s reflection as he landed before Xie Lingjun.
Xie Lingjun: “I…”
Fu Yun: “You?”
Xie Lingjun: “We engaged in dual cultivation with our spiritual energies.”
The intertwining of spiritual energies, drawing from each other, was not Fu Yun’s intention he had only wanted fire spiritual energy, not to give Xie Lingjun his own water spiritual energy.
A twist of fate had led to dual cultivation.
Fu Yun asked: “So now, do you want to kill me or repay the favor?”
“I had pollen on me, which could catalyze the love poison it was your spirit bird that scattered it, wasn’t it?” Xie Lingjun said. “I nearly lost control and went into qi deviation. Should I kill you or repay the favor?”
As Fu Yun pondered his response, he heard a low, muffled chuckle.
It came from Xie Lingjun. That perpetually tense face, softened by a frivolous smile, no longer seemed cold and aloof. His eyes narrowed slightly as he laughed, tinged with impatience and a hint of malice.
He performed an action that Xie Lingjun would never do he tossed the approaching lifebound sword into the grass.
Fu Yun instantly retreated several steps.
This was not Xie Lingjun.
Yet it was indeed Xie Lingjun’s body, Xie Lingjun’s lifebound sword… How strange, why did everyone love impersonating Xie Lingjun?
Xie Lingjun seemed to sense Fu Yun’s thoughts, flashing a bold, unrestrained smile. “Just because I’m not expressionless, you decide I’m not Xie Lingjun?”
He said, “But I am the real Xie Lingjun.”
Next, scorching fire spirits formed a cage, trapping Fu Yun. He listened as “Xie Lingjun” told a story.
Two children, with conflicting spiritual roots, had been fighting since the womb. Their mother sought a powerful cultivator to eliminate one of them.
But the chosen child injured the cultivator instead, fled into his brother’s consciousness, and lay dormant for months.
The brothers’ souls had fused together; forcibly separating them would gravely injure both.
“I am clearly the master of this body, yet they claimed I was ‘afflicted by fire poison’ and ‘unable to dispel my malice,’ sealing me away.”
Xie Lingjun’s words seemed to drip with blood.
“Only on the full moon, when yin energy is strongest and the fire poison weakest, can I barely take control of the body.”
Fu Yun thought there was some logic to this.
A fire spirit of extreme yang without experiencing a major upheaval in childhood, it would be difficult to develop a rigid, cold temperament. The word “restraint” engraved on the sword scabbard also made sense now.
Fu Yun wasn’t particularly concerned with the truth of the story, but having heard a secret, he couldn’t remain indifferent. “What do you want me to do?”
Xie Lingjun laughed. “You speak directly I like that! Unlike that Xie fellow, who twists and turns, confusing even my brother!”
Fu Yun, piecing together the context, guessed that “that Xie fellow” referred to Xie Yun.
Fu Yun said tactfully, “You are handsome and distinguished. If you’re longing for romance, you could seek another beauty.”
Xie Lingjun said, “I want you to cultivate with me on the sixteenth of every month until my fire poison is completely purged.”
His gaze fixed on Fu Yun, a deliberately gentle curve lifting the corners of his mouth. “I won’t seek anyone else. After all, right now, ‘I’ like Senior Brother Fu the most.”
The full moon hung in the sky, coldly watching as people used the name of romance to engage in disgraceful acts.
Fu Yun merely frowned and asked, “Cultivating together every month can you hide it from the original Xie Lingjun?”
Xie Lingjun replied, “I have my ways.”
He threw out a threat to cut off Fu Yun’s next words: “When you channeled the fire spirit, you used a harvesting technique, didn’t you? Practicing unorthodox methods, what would Taiyi think if they found out?”
Fu Yun said, “Fine, I agree.”
Xie Lingjun raised an eyebrow. “Senior Brother, aren’t you going to ask what will happen to my brother after the fire poison is purged?”
Fu Yun replied, “What does our business have to do with him?”
His eyes met the moonlight, seeming to hold infinite tenderness yet empty of everything.
Xie Lingjun was momentarily dazed, then alert, but it was too late the Yuzhao Sword he had tossed aside earlier had somehow fallen into Fu Yun’s hands, its tip aimed directly at his heart meridian.
Xie Lingjun did not dodge.
His expression turned strange. “The seduction arts of the Hehuan Sect?”
Fu Yun said, “It’s poison.”
Suddenly, his body felt as if ten thousand ants were gnawing at him, dense and endless. Xie Lingjun forced a smile. “Senior Brother, what do you want?”
Fu Yun used Xie Lingjun’s lifebound sword to lift his chin, his tone intimate. “You said it cultivate with me.”
“On the sixteenth of every month, you come to me. Otherwise, when the poison flares, you’ll wish for death but find it impossible.”