Chapter 115: The Price of a Life

Yan Wusheng remained silent, her presence a heavy stillness.

Outside, a frigid wind howled across the scorched earth.

Gu Chang’an gripped her sword so tightly her knuckles blanched. In Ling Shuangjue’s blood-red eyes, madness and reason waged a fierce war. Yuange, head bowed, twisted a golden feather between her fingers until it was deformed.

They yearned to tear this enigmatic woman into shreds, but a deeper fear held them captive.

They feared the vision from the Heavenly Mechanism Plate, terrified it would become a harrowing reality.

Shen Zhaoqing, the lazy, cowardly woman who always masked her true feelings with a sharp tongue—they could fight over her, contend for her, even bind her and keep her captive on their own territory for a lifetime.

But they could not, under any circumstances, allow her to vanish without a trace.

****

An indeterminate amount of time passed.

“Heh.” Yan Wusheng’s soft chuckle finally broke the suffocating silence.

Yuange lifted her head, and in her amber-gold eyes, a flicker of the demon princess’s cunning and resolve reignited.

“This truly is an amusing game,” she remarked, a cold curve gracing her lips as she gazed at Yan Wusheng. “Very well, I agree to your terms, but I have a condition.”

“Speak.”

“Once she is rescued, she belongs to me. As for the two of you,” Yuange’s gaze swept dismissively over Gu Chang’an and Ling Shuangjue, “go find somewhere cool to rest yourselves.”

“Dream on!” Ling Shuangjue retorted, refusing to yield an inch. “She is a member of the Myriad Flower Blood Palace. Anyone who dares touch a single hair on her head will see their entire sect slaughtered!”

“She is my junior sister,” Gu Chang’an stated firmly. “It is only right that I bring her back to Qingyun Sect.”

Just as the smoldering battlefield threatened to reignite over the issue of ‘uneven spoils of war,’ Yan Wusheng finally frowned with impatience.

“These are matters you are only qualified to discuss after you obtain the ‘key,'” she interjected coldly, cutting off their renewed quarrel.

“Now, is your answer yes, or no?”

The three fell silent once more.

Eventually, Gu Chang’an slowly closed her eyes. When they reopened, only unwavering determination remained within their depths.

“…Lead the way.”

Two words, yet they carried the weight of a thousand jin.

They represented compromise, a desperate gamble, with everything they possessed as the stake.

And the life of that one person.

****

Penglai Immortal Palace, nestled high above the East Sea, at the peak of the clouds, lay the Cold Moon Cave.

Within, Shen Zhaoqing sat cross-legged on a millennium-old Cold Jade Bed, her face expressionless, her eyes vacant.

Her emotional system had been instantly sealed by the gentle needle of the day and night. She felt no fear, no anger, not even the familiar urge to quip and complain had been thoroughly suppressed.

‘Click.’ A crisp metallic snap echoed, shattering the profound stillness.

The silver ring felt chilling to the touch. It was intricately carved with dense runes that pulsed with a suppressive power capable of piercing bone. This power utterly locked away the minuscule spiritual energy within Shen Zhaoqing’s Dantian and Qi Sea, preventing even a single wisp from being mobilized.

It was the Soul-Suppressing Silver Ring, a top-tier magic tool specifically designed by Penglai Immortal Palace to restrain serious offenders.

Even a Soul Transformation Realm expert would instantly be reduced to a powerless mortal upon wearing it.

“From today onward, this will be your abode,” a woman’s voice cut through the air, as devoid of warmth as the stone chamber itself. She was Han Shuang, the medicine guard commander of Penglai.

Han Shuang scrutinized Shen Zhaoqing from her elevated position.

“Your name, your past—none of it matters anymore. Here, you have only one identity: ‘Main Medicine,'” she declared icily, each word like an ice-tempered steel needle. “Every day at Chenshi, the Holy Master will personally come here. All you need to do is cooperate. Do not make any unnecessary movements. Do you understand?”

Shen Zhaoqing blinked. Her clear, almond-shaped eyes were utterly blank. She neither nodded nor shook her head, simply gazing at Han Shuang in silence.

This complete, silent ‘disregard’ unexpectedly brought a flicker of offended anger to Han Shuang’s usually icy face.

She detested that kind of gaze most of all.

It was just like her senior sister, Bai Zhileng, who was always gentle, considerate, and beloved by their Master. It was as if they were born with a detached compassion, seemingly kind to everyone, yet truly holding no one in their eyes.

What was even more infuriating was that this ‘Main Medicine’ before her had been personally brought back by that woman, Bai Zhileng. A surge of nameless jealousy welled up in Han Shuang’s heart at the thought of her senior sister’s demure expression when accepting praise from their Master.

‘Just a more perfect ‘medicine guide,’ nothing more.’

Han Shuang scoffed, then roughly pinched Shen Zhaoqing’s chin, forcing her to look up.

“Don’t think that just because you’re currently a ‘treasure’ in Master’s eyes, you can become arrogant,” her voice dropped several octaves, laced with undisguised warning and malice. “Medicine must know its place. If anything goes wrong, I have a hundred ways to make you experience every torture device in this Cold Moon Cave before you are refined into a pill.”

With that, she violently flung Shen Zhaoqing’s hand away and turned to leave. The heavy stone door rumbled shut, cutting off the last sliver of light.

The stone chamber returned to darkness and dead silence.

Shen Zhaoqing remained in the same posture, as if nothing had just happened. Her reddened chin was the sole evidence of the one-sided bullying.

For her, Han Shuang’s threats were like a gust of wind blowing over an icy surface, unable to stir even a ripple.

She merely felt a sense of emptiness.

It was as if a piece of something had been dug out of her body.

This sensation instinctively made her feel uneasy.

****

Day after day, precisely at Chenshi, the stone door would open. The one who entered was no longer Han Shuang, but a stunning woman shrouded in a soft glow, clad in a platinum medicinal robe.

She was the Holy Master Yaoguang, the leader of Penglai Immortal Palace.

This esteemed medical expert, revered as a “living Bodhisattva” in the outside world, always wore a smile as gentle as a spring breeze. Her voice was mild, every word seemingly imbued with a soothing power.

“Do not be afraid, child. We are merely guiding the vitality within your body; it causes you no harm,” she would say.

Then, she would extend her well-maintained jade hands and, from a distance, tap Shen Zhaoqing’s glabella.

At that very moment, Shen Zhaoqing would experience an invasion a thousand times more terrifying than Han Shuang pinching her chin.

A vast, ocean-like force, yet so gentle it was impossible to resist, would probe from her glabella into her Sea of Divine Soul. It would precisely locate the densest concentration of her vitality, which the Holy Master, revered as the “Supreme Healer,” would then delicately and gently strip away, wisp by wisp.

It was the core of her origin, the strand of vitality known as the Dao Source Body.

Then, much like an experienced fruit farmer carefully plucking the sweetest fruit, Holy Master Yaoguang, with her supreme Void Return Realm cultivation, would guide that incredibly pure vitality, meticulously peeling it away from Shen Zhaoqing’s body, wisp by wisp.

The process was not painful. In fact, under the powerful wood-element spiritual energy of Holy Master Yaoguang, there was even a warm, pleasant illusion.

But that feeling…

That feeling was akin to someone forcibly logging into your soul account without your permission, not only rummaging through all your private files but also establishing an ‘automatic upload’ backdoor program in your core database.

Your life, your essence, the most fundamental ‘proof’ of your existence in this world, was being uncontrollably siphoned away, flowing towards an unknown destination.

Shen Zhaoqing could see the extracted golden vitality flow along Holy Master Yaoguang’s fingers into an inconspicuous array node in the corner of the stone chamber. The node would flash, and the vitality would vanish without a trace, as if teleported to another distant cosmic space.

She knew that at the end of that cosmic space lay the legendary ancient divine artifact: the Longevity Cauldron.

Despite her emotions being sealed, the instinct for survival could not be erased.

Each time her vitality was extracted, Shen Zhaoqing’s body would instinctively feel a wave of weakness and emptiness.

That feeling was very familiar.

What was it like?

In Shen Zhaoqing’s frozen sea of consciousness, a rare, faint ripple stirred.

This sense of emptiness reminded her of a long, long time ago, in that dilapidated tavern in Qingzhou, whenever she awoke from a hangover with an empty stomach.

What would she do then?

Oh, right.

She would pull out her cherished wine gourd from beneath the counter, tilt her head back, and gulp down several mouthfuls of the spicy liquor. As it slid down her throat into her stomach, a warmth would rise, instantly filling that void.

Wine…

This thought, like a stone dropped into stagnant water, created a barely perceptible ripple in her quiet consciousness.

****

Another day, another Chenshi.

Holy Master Yaoguang arrived as scheduled, her face still adorned with that standard, compassionate smile.

“How do you feel today, child?” she asked softly.

Shen Zhaoqing remained unresponsive, merely watching her in silence. Holy Master Yaoguang paid it no mind, accustomed to her silence, and habitually raised her hand to begin today’s ‘charging process.’

The familiar, gentle force once again probed into Shen Zhaoqing’s Sea of Divine Soul, and the golden Dao Source vitality began to be slowly drawn out.

The sense of emptiness arrived as expected, more intense than any previous time.

Perhaps the continuous daily extractions had already caused a slight depletion in her fundamental essence.

It was at this moment that, deep within Shen Zhaoqing’s sealed consciousness, the thought of ‘wine’ resurfaced.

She subconsciously began to recall the sensation of drinking.

She imagined the crisp liquor sliding over her tongue, rolling down her throat, and settling in her stomach, bringing with it a warm, vibrant vitality.

Within her abdomen… she imagined the warmth radiating from within, enough to dispel all emptiness and cold.

She was so focused on ‘recollecting’ that she didn’t even notice a faint, almost imperceptible aura, subtly mingling with the extracted golden vitality, following her ‘will.’

It wasn’t actual wine, but rather a wisp of peculiar aura carrying the ‘law of intoxication,’ instinctively transformed by the Dao Source Body as it simulated the concept of ‘wine.’

This wisp of wine aura was utterly minuscule, like a drop of ink in an ocean, instantly enveloped and assimilated by the vast Dao Source vitality, rendering it undetectable.

The golden energy flow, guided by Holy Master Yaoguang, was injected into the array node in the corner of the stone chamber as usual.

Light flashed, and the energy was transported.

Far away, at the core of Penglai Immortal Palace, the Longevity Cauldron, a hundred-zhang-tall vessel suspended above a geothermal furnace, saw countless runes on its body light up steadily and orderly, devouring this supreme vitality from the ‘Dao Source Body.’

Everything was as usual, perfect and smooth.

However, the moment that wisp of wine aura-infused vitality merged with the Longevity Cauldron…

‘Buzz…’ A barely audible, even fainter than a mosquito’s wingbeat, sound of stagnation flashed within the Longevity Cauldron.

On the body of the cauldron, among tens of thousands of circulating runes, one rune’s light dimmed for a fleeting zero-point-zero-one second.

It immediately returned to normal.

This subtle change was so swift that even the Penglai elders overseeing the grand array remained completely unaware.

Inside the stone chamber.

Holy Master Yaoguang completed today’s guidance, slowly withdrawing her hand. She looked at Shen Zhaoqing’s slightly pale face and nodded with satisfaction.

Everything was under control.

Her grand scheme had not been in vain.

Yet…

For some reason, she felt that today’s guiding process seemed just a touch smoother than usual?

It was as if a somewhat obstructed pipe had been cleared by something.

Holy Master Yaoguang slightly furrowed her brow, her divine sense sweeping over Shen Zhaoqing’s body once more, then probing the array node again.

Everything was normal.

The Dao Source Body remained pure, and the array continued to operate smoothly.

“A mere illusion…?” she murmured softly, then smoothed her brows. Perhaps she was overly tense; after all, this concerned her future and the future of the entire Penglai, allowing no room for error.

She cast one last glance at the ‘medicine guide,’ who sat as still as a jade sculpture. A gentle smile returned to her face as she turned and floated away.

The stone door boomed shut once more.

In the darkness, Shen Zhaoqing slowly raised her hand.

She stared at her empty palm, and for the first time, a faint flicker of confusion crossed her otherwise placid eyes.

Just now…

She seemed to have caught a faint whiff of… wine?

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