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The weather turned abruptly without warning.
It shifted as fast and cold as a heartless woman’s face.
In the wilderness, lightning flashed and thunder roared alongside a pouring rainstorm.
Lu Ke walked alone through the desolate outskirts, thoroughly spirit-broken.
He let the freezing rain fall freely, slapping wildly against his face.
Ning Qingzhu’s words echoed faintly in his ears: “My ideal partner… he must at least be a Soul Formation powerhouse… sharing a lifetime of romance.”
So it wasn’t that the icy fairy couldn’t feel love.
She simply hadn’t met a man outstanding enough to make her fall in love yet.
She liked powerful Soul Formation experts—top powerhouses who could bring her security and accompany her through life.
Looking at himself in comparison, he couldn’t even reach the Golden Core stage after all this time.
As the gap between them widened, her heart would only drift further away…
If he wanted to win her heart back, there was only one way: he had to become a Soul Formation powerhouse!
And the prelude to becoming a Soul Formation expert was forming a Golden Core!
Therefore, he had to form his Core!
Lu Ke’s eyes turned cold and resolved.
Without further hesitation, he immediately activated the secret technique: Reverse Circulation Core Formation.
Since the conventional path couldn’t lead him to a Core, he would abandon convention and achieve birth through destruction!
Boom!
A silent thunderclap suddenly erupted within him, striking fiercely into his lower dantian!
As the vast sea of qi boiled and rejoiced, a profound and immense force emerged from his dantian out of nowhere.
It wildly devoured the spiritual energy he had cultivated through years of painstaking labor.
At the cost of burning his own foundation, radiant sparks of miraculous life bloomed!
The next moment, Lu Ke’s aura surged violently, pushing him toward that invisible bottleneck.
Peak Foundation Establishment… Half-step Core Formation… False Core realm… True Golden Core!
Every single step was a hurdle, progressively harder than the last.
He could only grit his teeth and push forward through the pain.
He was close, getting closer.
Deep within the invisible sea of qi, wrapped in dense spiritual energy, the seedling of a Golden Core quietly took shape.
That was the Core Formation realm he had chased so desperately!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The lightning and thunder in the sky grew even more intense.
It was as if the heavens were amazed by this act of defying nature, playing a grand duet to accompany him.
“I’m putting everything on the line!”
Lu Ke bit the tip of his tongue and spat out a mouthful of essence blood.
Forcing his life essence to burn and sacrificing his lifespan, he charged toward his dream realm one last time for love!
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—
Inside his sea of qi, rolling spiritual energy evaporated rapidly like boiling seawater.
A violent hurricane of spiritual energy swept through his dantian.
This hurricane acted like an invisible whip, frantically lashing the unborn Golden Core and making it spin like a top.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Lash after lash, spiraling into the heavens.
In the exact center of his dantian, the Golden Core rapidly shed its impurities under the whipping, growing smaller and far more condensed.
Exquisite patterns were etched into its surface.
Finally, at a single moment, the Golden Core fully took shape, glowing with immense brilliance inside his dantian!
A magnificent golden legend!
“I did it!”
Lu Ke was overjoyed.
With a pale face and extreme weakness, he stared at this hard-won masterpiece.
“A golden pill swallowed into my belly, henceforth my destiny is mine to command! From now on, I am a Core Formation cultivator too!”
“This way, I can get one step closer to her…”
Before Lu Ke could even indulge in sweet dreams of the future, the situation took a sudden turn!
Crack, sizzle—
A faint, abnormal sound echoed from his dantian.
In the next second, hairline cracks rapidly covered the newly born Golden Core.
Before Lu Ke could even react, a loud snap echoed, and it shattered!
His Golden Core had broken!
“NO!!!”
As the Core shattered, agonizing pain swept through his physical body and reached deep into his soul.
Lu Ke’s sorrowful wails could not stop the torrential spiritual energy from leaking out of his dantian.
His sea of qi was now like a broken cloth bag leaking air on all sides.
Accompanied by unimaginable pain and the rapid departure of his spiritual energy, his aura withered, and his realm plunged downward!
Peak Foundation Establishment, Late Foundation Establishment, Mid Foundation Establishment, Early Foundation Establishment!
In just a few seconds, he was dragged down from being an invincible Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator back to square one.
He was kicked back to his initial state, leaving only a lonely three-inch white jade base in his dantian, preserving the absolute last shred of his dignity as a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
“Ugh… ah…”
With his realm regressing and his spiritual energy drained dry, Lu Ke lost all strength throughout his body.
He struggled and collapsed into the mud, wracked with pain and nearly fainting.
The good news was that he wasn’t dead.
The bad news was that his sea of qi was shattered and his cultivation was severely degraded.
He had virtually no chance of making progress ever again, effectively rendered a useless invalid.
“I might as well have died. At least it would have been quick.”
“Heh… what an unexpectedly absurd ending.”
“This trash foreign world… I’m never coming back next time.”
Lu Ke let out a bitter chuckle.
Surrounded by rain, wind, and utter despair, he had no energy left to resist.
He collapsed into the mud like a stray dog by the side of the road, quietly awaiting his end.
Flashes of light appeared before his eyes, like a lantern carousel running through scenes of his life.
Ten years.
Ten years of working like an ox and a horse on Bamboo Peak as the Chief Disciple.
During the day, he was the Chief Disciple of the Bamboo Branch.
He had to lead by example and charge ahead, not only winning rankings in major and minor sect assessments to bring honor to the Bamboo Branch, but also finding time to guide and care for the cultivation progress of his junior brothers and sisters.
Because the peak expanded too fast and funds were tight, he even covered the daily operational expenses of the entire Bamboo Peak.
He was forced to work odd jobs everywhere just to earn spirit stones so everyone could live comfortably.
After sunset, he became Ning Qingzhu’s dedicated servant.
He had to handle her clothing, food, and daily life, managing all her mundane chores so she could cultivate without distractions.
He also had to fulfill her strange and eccentric demands, searching heaven and earth, available at a moment’s call.
Any slight delay drew her dissatisfaction, followed by overwhelming criticism and pressure.
Ten years. A full ten years.
Did anyone ever care to understand how he survived these ten years of working himself to the bone from dawn to dusk?
He never expected that his complete and total devotion would ultimately yield a result like this.
Ten years of devotion and affection still couldn’t compare to a “Soul Formation”…
How laughable.
On a freezing rainy night ten years ago, the dying entrustment of the former Peak Master felt as if it were happening right before his eyes.
On her deathbed, she looked at the tearful girl before her, her eyes filled with maternal affection: “Qingzhu, when Mother is gone, you can no longer be as willful and spoiled as in the past. You must listen to Little Ke…”
“Little Ke…”
Facing the girl Ning Qingzhu’s grief-stricken gaze, the woman turned her head.
Using the absolute last of her strength, she pulled young Lu Ke’s hand and placed it into the girl’s soft palm, gripping them tightly together.
“You are a good child. I entrust Qingzhu to your care from now on. You two must stay tied together tightly and never separate. One day, I hope to see the news of your success and a full house of children and grandchildren from heaven…”
Farewells always come without warning.
Before she could finish her sentence, the former Peak Master’s eyes widened, passing away with endless reluctance for her child.
From then on, an inseparable boy and girl depended on each other on the declining Bamboo Peak.
Lu Ke had never forgotten those memories.
It was the Peak Master who picked him up and led him into the immortal path, changing his fate and granting him a second life.
It was the young girl who healed him, giving a home to a drifting wanderer like him so that he had roots in this unfamiliar and cold world.
The warmth of cultivating with her, huddling together during cold nights, and relying on each other felt as if it were still resting on his fingertips.
If possible, he also wished time could stop and that the beauty of the old days could last forever…
Unfortunately, time was heartless, and old friends changed.
That shy and adorable girl—the girl who would curl up in his arms, her eyes red as she gripped his hand and begged him “don’t leave”, the clumsy and endearing girl—was buried in the past after all.
From now on, there was only the cold and arrogant Bamboo Fairy in this world, the high-and-mighty head of the Bamboo Branch.
There would never be that fragile, soft, and pitiful young girl again.
Ning Qingzhu forgot those warm old days, and she forgot the promise, but he didn’t blame her.
After all, she had been kind to him, making her hard to let go of.
The only pity was that his strength was insufficient. Even after giving his all, he failed to form a Core and couldn’t answer her expectations.
The promise made in their youth… in the end…
He was simply unworthy.
Tap, tap, tap.
Soft footsteps sounded as if coming from beyond the heavens.
Amid the torrential rain, a figure walked against the retreating tide, slowly arriving before the dying Lu Ke and gently squatting down.
“Who… who is it?”
Lu Ke used every ounce of effort to raise his head, wanting to see the face of this person who was seeing him off on his final journey.
Yet his entire body was stiff, lacking even the strength to lift his head.
All he could see before his eyes was a pair of small, delicate, crystal-clear, and lovely bare feet.
“What pretty feet.”
At the very end of his consciousness, Lu Ke was somehow still thinking about such strange things.
But he really wasn’t a foot fetishist!
The next moment, a gentle force descended from above.
It felt like a cool, soft hand lightly stroking his head, resembling a mother’s caring touch.
“So warm…”
Lu Ke muttered unconsciously. For some reason, he suddenly didn’t want to die anymore.
Before his consciousness finally sank into endless darkness, he seemed to hear an extremely tender, soft voice.
It flowed gently across his dried-up heart like a trickling stream.
“How pitiful… Whose little puppy is this?”
…
“Ugh…”
Inside the pitch-black seclusion room, Ning Qingzhu suddenly woke up.
She looked up at the Spirit Gathering Array at the top of the room, which had quietly burned out long ago.
Instantly flustered and annoyed, she stretched her neck and shouted loudly:
“Lu Ke! Lu Ke! How are you managing the logistics?!”
“The spirit stones in the Spirit Gathering Array are completely used up, and you didn’t even replenish them! The array should always have a year’s worth of spirit stones prepared for my seclusion. Do I really need to teach you basic common sense like this?!”
“Come swap them out right now! If you slow down my cultivation progress, you’ll get what’s coming to you!”
“…”
No one responded.
“Hmm? What’s going on?”
Ning Qingzhu found it a bit strange.
Lu Ke’s room was only separated from this seclusion room by a single door.
Usually when she cultivated in seclusion, Lu Ke guarded the outside without moving an inch.
It was both to protect her and to ensure he was available whenever she needed anything.
“Is he not outside the door? That shouldn’t be…”
Ning Qingzhu didn’t think much of it and used divine sense voice transmission, spreading it across the entire courtyard:
“Lu Ke! Lu Ke, get over here to this lady!”
“…”
Silence. A deathly silence.
In the empty courtyard, there were only the quiet echoes of her voice transmission bouncing off the cold walls from all directions.
No one answered.
Only now did Ning Qingzhu finally believe that Lu Ke might really not be outside the door, nor anywhere in the courtyard.
“Strange, where could he have gone?”
Ning Qingzhu was somewhat puzzled. She pushed open the door of the seclusion room and walked under the eaves.
She tilted her head, gazing blankly at the gloomy, terrifyingly dark night sky outside.
On normal days, Lu Ke was a complete homebody.
Aside from his daily tasks and guiding the junior brothers and sisters on the peak, he barely stepped out the front door.
He always circled around her like a loyal dog.
Even on the rare occasions he had urgent business outside, he would report to her in advance and make proper arrangements to ensure her affairs weren’t delayed.
Leaving home without saying a single word like today had never happened in the past.
With the large Bamboo Courtyard suddenly missing a lively presence, she genuinely felt a bit unaccustomed to it!
Boom!
A severe flash of lightning pierced the heavy night sky and struck down violently.
Its speed and force didn’t resemble a normal natural phenomenon. Instead, it looked like the heavenly thunder anomaly triggered when a cultivator broke through.
However, the high-level cultivators in the sect were all well-known. Who would suddenly break through out of nowhere and trigger a natural anomaly?
It couldn’t possibly be some brave, unlucky bastard trying to defy heaven, only to get struck by lightning, right?
“Heh~”
Ning Qingzhu let out a soft laugh, finding her sudden strange thought amusing.
Boom! Rumble!
The lightning on the horizon grew even more violent and swift, striking at increasingly tricky angles, as if it were truly punishing someone.
For no apparent reason, Ning Qingzhu felt a sudden palpitation in her heart.
It felt as though something precious was being stripped away and crushed by an invisible force in the dark.
“What is it?”
Ning Qingzhu was a powerful Nascent Soul cultivator, immensely knowledgeable and capable of sensing the heavens and humanity.
She believed this sudden feeling in her heart was definitely no illusion.
Resting her chin on her hand, she silently pondered the source of this strange sensation…
Suddenly, an unexpected name popped into her mind all on its own: “Lu Ke?”
“How could that be?”
How could Lu Ke be connected to her intuition?
Could he have secretly taken a magic treasure linked to her?
She immediately checked her body and found that not a single magic treasure was missing.
Furthermore, a massive pile of spirit stones had appeared out of nowhere inside her storage bag, stacked sparklingly in the corner.
“Maybe it’s just an illusion~”
Ning Qingzhu put away her storage bag without giving it much thought.
She believed that since she and Lu Ke spent every day together and had a deep relationship, it was normal to feel a connection.
Even if his name popped into her mind occasionally, it didn’t prove anything.
Besides, even if something really happened, she could just ask him face-to-face when he returned.
He certainly wouldn’t hide anything from her anyway.
Uncovering the truth would be effortless~
“Lu Ke…”
Ning Qingzhu stared blankly at the gloomy, terrifying sky outside, softly repeating a name she had long taken for granted.
Yet her mind wandered to another trivial matter:
“What should I eat tomorrow?”
She unconsciously pouted her red lips, murmuring softly under her breath.
Little did she know that on this very day, the Lu Ke she knew, was familiar with, and was accustomed to… would never return.
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