According to the calculations of the elders from the Heavenly Secrets Sect, today was supposed to be a day of clear skies and auspicious events, especially suitable for marriage.
On this day, a pair of prodigies from the Wanyi Sect were to form a bond, officially becoming dao partners with their souls intertwined.
Originally.
Now, it seems it might turn into a joke.
The once bright sky changed colors in the blink of an eye. Within a few breaths, dark clouds rapidly gathered and intertwined, forming a vortex hanging upside down in the mountains. Faint dark purple lightning flashed within the black clouds, and the immense energy surging beneath the dark tide made everyone’s faces change instantly.
“It’s a heavenly tribulation!”
An elderly man in a light gray dao robe, with white hair and a youthful face, usually kind and amiable, now had an unusually serious expression. He squinted his eyes, focusing intently, and his heart sank to the bottom. Originally:
“—It’s a double heavenly tribulation, everyone spread out! Avoid it as much as possible!”
In fact, he didn’t need to say it. The disciples with lower cultivation levels were already reluctantly leaving under the protection of their teachers. The guests who came to witness the ceremony had cultivated for many years and were not lacking in self-awareness. Those below the Nascent Soul stage naturally retreated as far as they could, stopping only hundreds of miles away. They turned back, condensing their spiritual power in their eyes, and through the layers of protective formations of the Wanyi Sect, they could vaguely see the scene under the thunder tribulation—even in such a situation, many couldn’t help but be curious, attempting to explore this rare romantic legend of the world’s number one immortal sect.
This shows that no matter how immortal-like their appearance, or how profound their strength, cultivators are still human. Their hearts are stained with dust, and they are not the ethereal beings that mortals imagine and yearn for.
At the center of everyone’s attention, on the main peak of the Wanyi Mountain Range of the Wanyi Sect, the thunder tribulation enveloped a man and two women.
The white-bearded elder—who was the current Sect Leader of the Wanyi Sect, Qu Ting Zhenjun—waved his whisk, and together with several elders, placed a sealing barrier over the thunder tribulation. It was like a transparent bowl turned upside down, covering the three people at the center of the tribulation.
Qu Ting Zhenjun let out a slight sigh of relief—fortunately, it was just a thunder tribulation from the Qi Condensation stage to the Nascent Soul stage. Otherwise, if it were a higher stage, under the double thunder tribulation, whether they could suppress it would be another matter.
Thinking of this, his worried gaze fell on the woman in red among the three: “Yun Lian, calm down! Everything can be discussed after the tribulation.”
But Yun Lian, caught in the vortex, couldn’t calm down at all. Her true qi, which was already fluctuating due to her impending advancement, was violently churning. Her wedding dress billowed in the fierce wind, and her once clear eyes now showed a terrifying red.
This was a sign of a heart demon, a precursor to falling into demonic cultivation.
At the critical moment of her advancement, she was about to fall into demonic cultivation!
But Yun Lian couldn’t control it, nor did she want to.
Yun Lian looked at the pair of men and women in front of her, her eyes wide open, veins bulging on her forehead, and with endless suppression, she said word by word, “Yunqing, make her leave—”
Even at such a critical moment, Feng Yunqing remained calm, with little sign of anxiety on his face. He nodded slightly, trying to push away the woman clinging tightly to him: “Yun Lian and I will undergo the tribulation here. You should leave—let’s talk later.”
“Later?”
Wu Yihan clung tightly to Feng Yunqing, wishing she could melt her entire delicate body into the man’s embrace. Her thin black clothes entwined with the blood-red wedding dress, creating an indescribable allure in the eyes of others.
“If I leave today, what future do we have!”
Feng Yunqing felt the wetness on his chest and remained silent, unable to say a word.
Amidst the rumbling thunder, Wu Yihan’s voice carried a sob: “You always say we are on different paths, refusing to accept me, and now you want to marry another woman… But I’m just so pathetic, unable to let go even at this point… I will not leave. If we can’t survive together today, then let’s perish together!”
Yun Lian’s eyes remained fixed on them, and the impending thunder tribulation above her head was not as despairing as the scene before her.
Long before entering the cultivation world, Yun Lian and Feng Yunqing grew up as childhood sweethearts in a small town. They were fortunate enough to be chosen together to enter the Wanyi Sect, holding hands as they walked the path to immortality. Later, they both became disciples under Elder Qu Ting, entering the Qi Condensation stage one after the other. They traveled the world together, overcoming countless hardships and experiencing many adventures.
They were childhood friends, partners, senior martial siblings, and lovers, having known each other for nearly two hundred years.
The path to immortality is fraught with challenges, and in the vast Canghai Realm, couples who support each other from beginning to end are few and far between.
This was supposed to be her and Feng Yunqing’s bonding ceremony.
But now, the husband and dao partner who should have been standing by her side were about to live and die with another woman.
How cruel, how laughable.
“I’ll say it again—” Yun Lian, undoubtedly enraged by this glaring scene, shouted, “Make her leave immediately!”
Sensing the man’s arms beginning to exert force, trying to push her away from this embrace, a trace of hatred flashed in Wu Yihan’s eyes. She looked up at Feng Yunqing and gritted her teeth: “If you drive me away, I’ll die in front of you!”
Feng Yunqing, usually decisive, was not one to be indecisive. He knew that having Wu Yihan leave was best for everyone. After all, he and Yun Lian unexpectedly broke through to the Nascent Soul stage simultaneously, and the sudden tribulation was already extremely dangerous. Adding a third person would only make the thunder tribulation even more formidable.
However…
Wu Yihan’s eyes were filled with tears, much more pitiful than Yun Lian’s eyes, tainted with heart demons and blood: “Unlike your prestigious and righteous fiancée, I’m already a notorious demoness from the demon realm. If I can’t get what I want, I’d rather die—”
Qu Ting Zhenjun had already had a bad feeling when Wu Yihan barged into the bonding ceremony, but he had comforted himself that this was just the demoness’s one-sided obsession, harmless in the grand scheme. But now, seeing the subtle expression on Feng Yunqing’s face, he finally had to admit that this was going to be a disaster.
“…Yunqing, this is a heavenly tribulation, not something others can interfere with.” In the end, he could only remind powerlessly.
This statement carried deep meaning.
Heavenly tribulations have always been a trial from the heavenly dao for cultivators who defy the heavens, and they can only be faced alone. If someone else intervenes, the heavenly dao will sense it, and the thunder tribulation will become even more dangerous. Wu Yihan’s refusal to leave would automatically be considered by the heavenly dao as a trick used by the tribulation taker.
Now, with Feng Yunqing and Yun Lian both advancing to the Nascent Soul stage, their respective tribulations intertwined, making it several times more difficult than facing it alone. Adding Wu Yihan to the mix…
Feng Yunqing couldn’t possibly not understand this logic, but just as he was about to forcibly push the woman in his arms away, the first bolt of heavenly lightning had already descended with unstoppable force.
This bolt of lightning was the combined tribulation of Feng Yunqing and Yun Lian, further intensified by Wu Yihan’s presence. Its terrifying power far exceeded that of an ordinary Nascent Soul tribulation. The black and purple lightning poured down from the sky, its blinding light covering an area of dozens of miles. Even Qu Ting and the others had to close their eyes tightly, using their own methods to shield themselves from the soul-shaking, foundation-shaking lightning.
There were a total of three sets of nine heavenly lightning bolts. After the first set, there was a brief respite, during which Qu Ting took the opportunity to open his eyes and look at his two beloved disciples.
They were only about two zhang apart, both sitting cross-legged to undergo the tribulation.
Yun Lian’s dress was already somewhat charred, the cumbersome phoenix crown split and fell to the ground, her long hair disheveled. If not for the wedding dress she was wearing, no one would recognize her as the bride who was full of happiness just a moment ago.
This was only a third of the way through, and she was already struggling. Even though this tribulation was extraordinary, with her cultivation level, it shouldn’t be this bad. It could only be said that the heart demon was more difficult to endure than the thunder tribulation, and the demonic energy on her was almost overflowing, making it difficult for Yun Lian to focus.
In that blinding lightning, she stubbornly kept her eyes open, as if wanting to imprint the scene before her deeply into her mind and heart.
Blood tears flowed from the corners of her eyes, making her look particularly terrifying. But the usually dignified and composed Yun Lian, who never showed a hint of distress in front of others, didn’t care at this moment.
In her blurred vision, she saw the figure of Feng Yunqing, the man who had supported her in times of crisis, now with his eyes closed, slightly bent over, holding another woman on his lap, protecting her in his embrace.
Feng Yunqing slightly opened his eyes to look at Yun Lian.
“Focus on the tribulation—”
Yun Lian didn’t understand how he could remain so calm while holding another woman in front of her.
She found it laughable and couldn’t help but think, if it were Feng Yunqing himself, being cuckolded at their bonding ceremony, and the whole world knew, could he still “focus on the bigger picture”?
Soon, a new round of heavenly lightning gathered, more formidable than the last.
Yun Lian’s cultivation was on par with Feng Yunqing’s, but her unstable state of mind, under the attack of the heart demon, made it impossible for her to concentrate, making it particularly difficult to cope.
Feng Yunqing, with one hand firmly protecting Wu Yihan, was not at ease under the strikes of the heavenly lightning.
In fact, everyone knew there was a way to remedy this tribulation, made more difficult by the intrusion of an outsider.
That was to kill the person. Once the person died, the intensity of the heavenly lightning would naturally return to normal.
Especially since Wu Yihan was from the demon realm, inherently opposed to them as cultivators. Who knows how much righteous blood stained her hands? For anyone else, to successfully advance to the Nascent Soul stage, killing this inherently hostile person would be the most logical course of action.
If Feng Yunqing truly had no feelings for this demoness, as he had claimed for nearly a hundred years.
But Feng Yunqing clearly wasn’t considering this option. He instinctively protected Wu Yihan beneath him, taking the brunt of the devastating lightning tribulation, without showing any intent to kill.
The true qi within her body gradually transformed into demonic energy, the overwhelming blue-purple rising and falling, the fierce wind growing stronger, almost as if it would sweep the entire earth away. Yun Lian’s vision slowly filled with blood red, unable to see the man who had walked alongside her for hundreds of years.
The elders of the sect, watching from not far away, saw the once pure true qi on Yun Lian’s body tainted with strands of black, and immediately became as if facing a great enemy. Some instinctively tightened their grip on their magical artifacts.
Qu Ting had long known that the external speculation about Feng Yunqing and Wu Yihan’s relationship was a knot in Yun Lian’s heart. Their entanglement was too complex, and even though Feng Yunqing appeared indifferent, with a peerless beauty persistently clinging to her dao partner, no woman, no matter how magnanimous, could be completely free of resentment.
For cultivators, the greatest taboo is obsession. Once a heart demon is unresolved, falling into demonic cultivation becomes irreversible. But matters of the heart are never simple to resolve. As a master, Qu Ting was more worried that as her cultivation deepened, Yun Lian would be vulnerable to the heart demon when advancing to the Nascent Soul stage.
Thus, he could only advise his disciple to suppress her cultivation as much as possible, hastening the bonding of the two, hoping that once they truly became dao partners, this knot would naturally be untied, and advancing to the Nascent Soul stage would be a natural progression.
Who knew that despite all calculations, the demoness would be so bold, risking her life to crash the bonding ceremony, “stealing the groom” in front of these immortal elders, almost trampling the face of the Wanyi Sect underfoot.
Even though Feng Yunqing showed signs of driving her away, it was clear to anyone with eyes that compared to the relentless pursuit of other demonic cultivators, he indeed showed mercy to the woman who disrupted his wedding. Forced by her threat of death, he even failed to restrain his cultivation, stepping into the Nascent Soul stage amidst the surging true qi.
…One can only imagine what Yun Lian, already struggling to suppress her heart demon and cultivation, would think.
Now it’s all too late. It’s not even a question of whether they can survive the heavenly tribulation. A cultivator who falls into demonic cultivation due to a heart demon is entirely different from a “demonic cultivator.” They lose all reason, recognize no kin, and have nothing in their hearts but slaughter. More terrifyingly, their cultivation will rapidly increase, and such a cultivator in the cultivation world is one that everyone seeks to eliminate.
And they, all they can do is eradicate Yun Lian before she completely falls into demonic cultivation.
This was a disciple Qu Ting had watched grow up, but when necessary, no matter how reluctant, he could only sacrifice personal feelings for the greater good.
It’s impossible to focus on two things at once. Facing the heart demon would lead to death under the heavenly tribulation, while focusing on the tribulation would make falling into demonic cultivation inevitable.
At this moment, Yun Lian cast one last glance at Feng Yunqing, who was focused on the tribulation, and finally lowered her eyes in exhaustion.
Amidst various meaningful gazes, she gave up resisting the heavenly tribulation.
A bolt of heavenly lightning struck down, hitting Yun Lian’s unprotected body directly. Her spiritual foundation wavered, and her already unstable soul platform suffered unprecedented damage. The spiritual root in her lower dantian appeared as a miniature version of Yun Lian, with a deep, bone-revealing crack on its tender face.
But she made no sound.
The pain was excruciating, so much so that even as blood flowed from her seven orifices, she couldn’t open her mouth.
How could it hurt so much?
Was it the pain of being betrayed by her dao partner at the brink of life and death, or the pain of her spiritual foundation and nascent soul being torn apart? Yun Lian couldn’t tell.
She didn’t know how long it had been, perhaps a long time, or maybe just a blink of an eye. Finally, the last bolt of heavenly lightning struck, and at the moment when everything—cultivation, true qi, even life—disappeared, Yun Lian finally heard Feng Yunqing’s emotionless voice:
“Yun Lian…”