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Join the ServerWithin the Penglai Immortal Palace lay the Danzhu Hall, the very nerve center of the entire sect. It was here that the real-time operational data of the ancient divine artifact, the Longevity Cauldron—the sect’s greatest hope—was meticulously monitored.
Inside the hall, two inner-sect disciples, Qing Lan and Biyue, were on duty. They stared listlessly at the massive water mirror before them.
Upon its surface, countless intricate golden runes flowed like a waterfall. Each rune represented a specific piece of data from the Longevity Cauldron’s operation, and their stability was absolute.
“Oh, Senior Sister Qing Lan, when will these days ever end?” Biyue yawned, propping her chin on her hand. “Staring at these divine inscriptions every day, I feel like my eyes are going to give out.”
Qing Lan, a few years her senior and more composed, merely cast a faint glance at her. “Less complaining. Being assigned to guard the Danzhu Hall is a testament to the sect’s trust in us.”
“This is a matter of paramount importance, concerning the sect’s ten-thousand-year grand plan. Not the slightest mistake can be tolerated.”
Her words were undeniably true, yet a hint of weariness was discernible in her eyes. This duty, while crucial, was indeed so monotonous it could make a monk contemplate returning to secular life.
“Alright, alright, I know,” Biyue muttered under her breath, pouting slightly. “Who said we could actually discern anything anyway? Apart from the Holy Master and Senior Sister Bai, who truly understands the operating logic of this ancient divine artifact? Oh?”
Her gaze was fixed on the lower-left corner of the water mirror’s rune waterfall, an incredibly inconspicuous spot. A single rune there had flickered with an abrupt burst of light, lasting but a blink of an eye.
“Senior Sister, look quickly! Did that just flash?” Biyue straightened abruptly, pointing at the water mirror and exclaiming.
Qing Lan focused her gaze, but the runes in that area remained as steady as ever, their light gentle and their flow orderly. There was no anomaly whatsoever.
“Are you seeing things?” Qing Lan frowned. “I’ve been watching, and nothing happened.”
“Impossible! I distinctly saw it!” Biyue insisted, growing anxious. “Just a flash, truly!”
Qing Lan, still uneasy, called up the array’s records from the previous moment and meticulously compared them. The data curve displayed on the water mirror was perfectly smooth, without the slightest ripple.
“The records show everything is normal,” she concluded, her tone leaving no room for argument. “It must be a normal fluctuation of the earth fire spiritual脉. Don’t make a fuss. If you keep speaking nonsense and disturb the hall’s tranquility, I’ll report you to the Enforcement Hall.”
Biyue was choked into silence, only managing a wronged “Oh.” Yet, she still grumbled inwardly, ‘Could I really have imagined it?’
Neither of them noticed that a slender figure, clad in a glazed medicinal robe, had quietly appeared some distance behind them.
Bai Zhileng’s gaze was also fixed upon the water mirror.
Others might not have seen it clearly, but her eyes, steeped in the art of alchemy for centuries and exquisitely sensitive to the flow of life and death, had precisely captured that fleeting moment of stagnation.
It was not a fluctuation of earth fire.
It was a… an extremely faint ‘rejection response’ emanating from the very essence of existence.
It was akin to a highly sophisticated biological computer suddenly encountering an unrecognized, virus-laden garbled code. Although the system instantly formatted the corrupted data, that zero-point-zero-one-second lag had undeniably occurred.
And for a divine artifact like the Longevity Cauldron to exhibit ‘rejection,’ there was only one possible source.
Shen Zhaoqing.
Bai Zhileng’s fingertips curled slightly within her sleeve.
She knew that even with consciousness clouded and emotions stripped away, the ‘Dao Source Body’s’ resistance to having its essence plundered was an instinct etched deep within the soul.
It was like a patient under anesthesia; though they felt no pain, their body’s cells still screamed in protest.
Bai Zhileng slowly turned and departed from the Danzhu Hall. She did not go to report to her master, Holy Master Yaoguang.
She knew that even if she spoke, her master would only dismiss it as a normal phenomenon caused by the ‘medicinal ingredient’ being too vigorous, perhaps even increasing the suppression.
In her master’s eyes, Shen Zhaoqing was not a person, but merely a ‘primary ingredient’ possessing self-awareness, requiring careful handling.
Yet she… Bai Zhileng’s steps halted before the stone stairs leading to the Cold Moon Cave.
A chilling wind poured out from the deep, dark opening below, carrying an icy bite. She closed her eyes, and involuntarily, Shen Zhaoqing’s increasingly pale and lifeless face surfaced in her mind.
And those hollow, apricot-shaped eyes, as if capable of devouring all light.
Each time she entered that frigid stone chamber, under the guise of ‘regulating the body,’ to examine Shen Zhaoqing’s pulse, her fingertips conveyed a disconcerting sense of vitality slowly ebbing away.
It was like the most beautiful flower, being forcibly air-dried.
This image, like a fine, poisoned needle, pricked at her Dao heart day and night.
A healer’s true purpose was to save lives and heal injuries.
Yet, she had personally pushed a life that should have shone brightly into this sunless abyss, condemning it to be a ‘sacrifice’ for extending another’s life.
What caused her an even more ineffable irritation was her growing inability to tolerate Shen Zhaoqing’s ‘ignoring’ gaze.
She would bring her the softest cloud quilt, but Shen Zhaoqing remained unresponsive. She would prepare the most abundant meals for her, yet Shen Zhaoqing merely ate mechanically.
She even tried recounting interesting anecdotes from the outside world, but those eyes remained an icy wasteland of utter stillness.
Bai Zhileng knew this was her own doing.
However, this realization, far from bringing her peace of mind, instead fueled an even stronger urge to shatter that deathly silence.
She yearned to see her own reflection in those eyes again.
Even anger or resentment would be preferable to being treated like a cold, inanimate stone.
‘What am I thinking?’ A cold sweat broke out on Bai Zhileng as this thought flashed through her mind.
She snapped her eyes open, inhaling a deep breath of frigid air, forcefully suppressing the tumultuous thoughts within her heart.
No.
This could not continue.
A master’s command was absolute, but a healer’s bottom line could not be repeatedly trampled upon.
At the very least, that child should face their final moments with a ‘complete soul.’
A plan quietly began to form in her mind.
****
That night, the moonlight was like water.
In the forbidden Medicine Pavilion of Penglai Immortal Palace, Bai Zhileng evaded all patrolling guards and arrived alone before a row of inconspicuous medicine shelves.
She extended a delicate, jade-like finger and, with a specific rhythm, gently tapped three times on a row of jade boxes inscribed with names like ‘Spirit-Calming Grass’ and ‘Clear Heart Lotus’—common medicinal ingredients.
“Om…”
The medicine shelf silently slid open to either side, revealing a true secret chamber behind it.
A clear, tranquil medicinal fragrance wafted forth.
In the center of the secret chamber, a peculiar small grass floated, entirely crystal-clear like jade, emitting a soft moonlight glow.
Its leaves were as thin as cicada wings, appearing to shimmer with moonlight, and with every breath it took, a faint halo formed around it.
Moon Soul Grass.
The most Yin and soft spiritual medicine in all the heavens and earth, rumored to grow only at the core of the Taiyin Star, maturing only once every ten thousand years. Its greatest efficacy was not in increasing cultivation, but in nourishing the Divine Soul, silently cleansing all impurities and restrictions from the soul.
This item was one of the Penglai Immortal Palace’s foundational treasures. Normally, even Holy Master Yaoguang would be reluctant to use a single fraction of it.
Bai Zhileng gazed at the Moon Soul Grass, a flicker of determination in her eyes.
She carefully plucked a leaf from its very top, smaller than a fingernail. The moment the leaf detached, it transformed into a drop of milky white liquid, which she collected in a specially crafted jade vial.
Having completed this, she swiftly restored the medicine shelf to its original state, as if no one had ever been there.
****
The following day, the Cold Moon Hall.
The stone door opened, and Bai Zhileng entered slowly, carrying a bowl of warm medicinal broth.
“It’s time for your medicine,” her voice was as gentle as ever, betraying no hint of abnormality.
Shen Zhaoqing still wore that expression of ‘Who am I, where am I?’ She sat cross-legged on the cold jade bed, her eyes unfocused. Bai Zhileng knelt before her, scooped up a spoonful of the emerald-green medicinal broth with a small white jade spoon, gently blew on it, and brought it to her lips.
“Open your mouth.” Shen Zhaoqing obediently parted her lips.
The medicinal broth entered her mouth, carrying a faint bitterness of herbs and an almost imperceptible, cool sweetness like moonlight.
Bai Zhileng fed her spoon by spoon, her movements gentle and focused.
Her fingertips occasionally brushed against Shen Zhaoqing’s cool lips, the soft touch causing her hand to pause for a moment.
She looked at the defenseless, sleeping face so close before her, and the emotion called ‘guilt’ surged within her once more.
Soon, the bowl of medicinal broth was empty.
Bai Zhileng wiped the medicinal residue from Shen Zhaoqing’s lips and softly said, “Rest well.”
With that, she rose, preparing to leave.
However, just as she turned, she suddenly sensed an extremely subtle and utterly different aura slowly emanating from within Shen Zhaoqing’s body.
Bai Zhileng abruptly turned her head.
Shen Zhaoqing still had that vacant look, but her entire being seemed enveloped in a faint, invisible halo.
Her complexion, which had been somewhat pale from days of having her vitality extracted, had miraculously taken on a hint of subtle rosiness.
“The Moon Soul Grass… it actually stimulated the Dao Source Body?” Bai Zhileng’s pupils suddenly constricted.
She had miscalculated.
She had only intended for the Moon Soul Grass to nourish the Divine Soul and resist restrictions, but she had overlooked that the Dao Source Body itself was the existence closest to the original source of the Great Dao.
For it, a divine treasure like the Moon Soul Grass was a catalyst.
It was like throwing a top-grade accelerant into a pile of seemingly extinguished charcoal.
Shen Zhaoqing’s suppressed and dormant life essence was thoroughly ignited by this drop of Moon Soul Grass essence, and that warm, fragrant aura of life began to grow increasingly potent.
It no longer merely lingered around Shen Zhaoqing; instead, as if endowed with life, it began to spread outwards.
It ignored the stone chamber walls, disregarded the layers of restrictions laid by Han Shuang, and even bypassed the suppressive power of the Cold Moon Cave itself.
This aura, for any restriction array, was not ‘energy,’ but ‘rules’ themselves.
Like air, it could penetrate any mesh sieve.
Bai Zhileng watched, wide-eyed, as that life aura, bearing an alluring fragrance, pierced through the heavy stone door, drifting out of the Cold Moon Cave, and floating towards…
The deeper reaches of the forbidden area.
A dark corner, a place even she had never set foot in, classified as Penglai’s highest secret.
“This is bad!” Bai Zhileng’s heart instantly sank to rock bottom.
She knew that in the deepest part of that forbidden area, an existence a hundred times more terrifying than the crazed women pursuing them outside was imprisoned.
That was Holy Master Yaoguang’s only ‘failed experiment’ in her life.
And that Dao Source aura, filled with fatal temptation for any living being, was nothing short of…
A life-saving sweet spring in the eyes of a traveler in the desert, for that ‘failed experiment’ which had been withered for nearly a century.
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