Xiao Shuang placed his hand over his abdomen, lowered his eyes, and slowly recounted what he knew. Yue Zuan roamed everywhere, capturing those with Spiritual Roots, committing countless blood sins. As for those without Spiritual Roots, he would either kill them outright or plant a mark upon them, granting them a crude ability to detect Spiritual Roots.
He would then send them to places with heavy human traffic to act as his spies. Xiao Shuang was one of them. But he was more fortunate than most—he encountered Hong Qisheng, who brought him into Ji City.
At that time, Yue Zuan had yet to recover his cultivation base, and with many rogue cultivators in the city, he dared not act recklessly. Xiao Shuang lived in the Hong Family for over ten years in peace. Later, Yue Zuan performed evil arts to restore his Spiritual Foundation, once again stepping into the Foundation Establishment Stage.
The spies he had left in Ji City in the past became useful once more. He opened a cave dwelling in the Wind-Stopping Forest outside the city, secretly ambushing rogue cultivators from within the city. Compared to relying on mortals to detect Spiritual Roots purely by chance, this was far more efficient.
Yue Zuan used the lives of the Hong Family’s three members as leverage, forcing Xiao Shuang to provide him with the whereabouts of rogue cultivators. In a single month, more than a dozen cultivators fell victim to him.
“Every three months, he would go out once, and only return the following month. When he came back, he was often full of rage, cursing one man’s greed.”
Xiao Shuang’s face grew paler and paler. Unknowingly, he fell to his knees, as if all his blood and energy had drained away. Zhao Chun stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, only to feel the blood vessels beneath his skin throbbing, as though something was constantly devouring his blood.
“After that… when the Hong Family sought a son-in-law, he set his eyes on you all… Ah!!”
Suddenly, Xiao Shuang clutched his own throat, rolling on the ground and screaming. Zhao Chun immediately realized—this must be the mark Yue Zuan had planted in him, preventing him from speaking the truth. Xiao Shuang’s already pale face swelled instantly as blood pooled within.
He flipped over and collapsed on the ground.
“Let me speak… let me speak…”
Zhao Chun didn’t know how to remove such a mark, so she could only use her True Qi to slowly restrain Xiao Shuang’s neck, arms, and legs, slowing the reverse flow of blood. She scolded, “Stop talking for now!” But tears streamed endlessly from his eyes as he murmured, “I only have this one chance…
He’s dead now, everything should have ended… It’s just that I was too greedy, and ended up like this…” After Yue Zuan’s death, he and the Hong Family’s mother and daughter went to Lakewater Town.
At first, life was peaceful. But back then, after Hong Qisheng attained the Dao, he had gone to seek immortality alone, abandoning his kin, and secretly accumulated many grudges. Later, there was also the matter of forcing Hong Qian into marriage, and the two sides completely fell out.
In a fit of rage, Xiao Shuang resolved to seek the Dao elsewhere. After wandering about, he returned once more to the Wind-Stopping Forest. At the place where Yue Zuan had died, he met Qiu Jianying, and learned that she was the one who had met with Yue Zuan in the past.
Qiu Jianying had provided cultivation resources to Yue Zuan, and in return, Yue Zuan extracted items from cultivators that could aid in enhancing Spiritual Roots, handing them over to her. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement, the origins of which were unknown. Unfortunately, Yue Zuan died, breaking the closed loop of their trade.
She had no choice but to perform this art herself. The mark planted in Xiao Shuang’s body was also one of these evil arts, called the Spirit-Seeking Guide. If planted in a mortal, it could detect whether a cultivator had Spiritual Roots.
If planted in a cultivator, it could detect the number and attributes of their Spiritual Roots. Qiu Jianying kept him around for his usefulness, also to study this technique. As for why Xiao Shuang was willing to serve her—it was because of an empty promise.
“She said… if this matter succeeded, she would plant Spiritual Roots in me, and I could step onto the path of cultivation. Then… I could bring Young Miss and Madam back to Ji City, and we could live as we did before…”
Blood gushed from all seven orifices of Xiao Shuang’s head, yet the expression on his face was one of bliss. Zhao Chun could feel that the life force within him was nearly gone, leaving behind only an empty shell. He murmured intermittently, “Young Miss… why…”
Until the moment his body completely collapsed to the ground, Xiao Shuang still clutched the bloodstained White Jade Token at his chest. His lifelong unwillingness stemmed from nothing more than the word “mortal.” The divide between immortal and mortal—yet it had separated two mere mortals.
From Xiao Shuang’s corpse, a thin thread of blood emerged, trembling as it reached toward Zhao Chun. She severed it with her Crimson Gold True Qi, but the instant the blood thread snapped, Zhao Chun suddenly felt as if this act had been observed by someone else. Moments later, the strange sensation vanished.
Far away, in a hidden place beyond the Southern Region, the sound of a thin thread snapping brushed past a man’s ear, causing him to lose focus for a moment.
“What is it?” asked the female cultivator beside him—it was none other than Qiu Jianying, who had defected from the True Spirit Sect.
“A little worm died,” the man said.
“I just don’t know who killed it.”
Qiu Jianying tilted her head slightly, showing no other expression, her tone as cold as ever.
“Haven’t enough of your underlings died already?”
“That’s true,” the man chuckled.
“But it’s best to be cautious. Once the Lord replaces your junior martial brother’s Spiritual Roots with yours, he will take you to the Upper Realm. The things you’ve done will soon spread throughout this realm. If those few from Mount Yue join forces with people from the Northern Region, it will ultimately not be in our favor. Pack up your things, say your farewells—after this, the Drifting Clouds World will have nothing to do with you.”
“There is no one left,” Qiu Jianying said lightly.
“No one and nothing worth saying farewell to.”
With that, the two walked deeper inside. A shackled youth within slightly raised his eyes.
“Senior Sister?”
“Don’t call me that,” Qiu Jianying replied without a flicker of emotion.
She glanced sideways at the man beside her, as if urging him to act quickly. The man had seen many ruthless people, but cultivators like the woman before him—who showed almost no emotion—were rare indeed. He sighed softly.
Even for him, working alongside such a person often sent a chill down his spine. He stepped forward alone and placed a small effigy before Zheng Chenqing. It was humanoid yet not human, a demonic creature with four horns on its head, sitting cross-legged on a stone, its crimson eyes adding to its eerie presence.
The man cut his hand, and the blood that flowed was a strange purplish-red. He smeared it onto the effigy, and at once, a black wind arose, swallowing Zheng Chenqing whole. The scene was utterly silent, as if even the screams he should have made were devoured.
No one knew how much time passed. When the man saw the black wind beginning to dissipate, he made a rough estimate in his heart and said to Qiu Jianying, “The Spiritual Roots are out—quickly, open your Dantian!” At his words, two slender strands of clear Qi drifted out from the black wind.
Qiu Jianying followed his instruction, dispersing the True Essence in her Dantian, allowing the two strands of clear Qi to enter her body. She sat cross-legged on the spot, refining Zheng Chenqing’s Wood-Water Dual Spiritual Roots.
“These two-attribute Spiritual Roots are the most suitable for supplementation. You also had him practice the secret art passed down by the Lord, doubling the effect. Now that you’ve refined them, although you are now a Three-Element Spiritual Root cultivator, in terms of cultivation speed and talent, you are not far behind a Heavenly Spiritual Root cultivator.”
The man put away the effigy. The black wind had already ceased, and Zheng Chenqing’s body and soul had been completely erased, as if he had never existed in this world. Qiu Jianying felt that the obstacle that had troubled her for decades was entirely gone.
Her mood was greatly lifted. She rose to her feet on the spot and said, “All these years of painstaking effort were for this moment alone.” The two looked at each other, and suddenly felt that her words were cruel to the point of absurdity.
They both gave a low laugh. The man said, “From now on, there will be no more Qiu Jianying. Tomorrow, the Lord will take the two of us to the Upper Realm, and you will see for yourself what it means for the heavens to be vast and the earth boundless, with talents emerging everywhere.
When that time comes, don’t let yourself feel unwilling again.” Qiu Jianying rested her hand on her sword and cast a cold glance at him, as if denying his words. But the man knew—once greed had arisen, it was hard to ever calm it again.
(End of Chapter)