Chapter 149: The Light That Breaks Chains

“Wah wah wah… Master! You bullied the tree! You scared me to death, wah wah…”

“I thought you didn’t want this potted plant anymore…”

“I already prepared your dragon dung fertilizer, wah wah…”

True Monarch Xuanming: “???”

Gu Chang’an: “…”

Ling Shuangjue: “…”

Yuan Ge: “?!”

Shock, confusion, and… a thick, absurdly intense jealousy.

Shen Zhaoqing looked down at the little sapling clinging to her leg, crying with snot and tears. A crack appeared on her eternally expressionless face.

She reached out and patted Mu Qingli’s head stiffly.

“Stop crying.”

“It’s noisy.”

Though her tone was still dismissive, her actions were honest.

Mu Qingli cried even harder. It was her master, no doubt!

After pacifying the leg attachment, Shen Zhaoqing’s gaze passed over the sobbing Mu Qingli and fixed on the distance, in the direction of the coldest, most remote forbidden ground of Penglai Immortal Palace—the Cold Moon Cave.

After merging the fragment of the Sansheng Stone, her eyes could now see what ordinary people could not glimpse.

Threads of causality. Traces of fate.

In her vision, the entire Penglai Immortal Palace was shrouded in a vast gray net woven from desire, calculation, and false compassion. Deep within this web, there was a place of pure, heart-stirring darkness.

Within that darkness, a faint moonlight-white point of light was struggling alone, as if about to be extinguished at any moment.

That light was tightly bound by countless thick black chains engraved with vicious runes. The other ends of the chains were deeply rooted in the earth veins of the immortal palace, continuously draining her life force.

Shen Zhaoqing saw that soul.

She saw a silver-haired girl, her hair reaching her ankles, curled up on a cold stone bed, her eyes hollow, devoid of life. A black ring-shaped brand on her wrist marked where medicinal liquids had eroded her skin.

She saw the girl carving the date of escape on the wall day after day, until her nails broke and blood ran dry.

Xuan Yue.

Another pitiful soul, like herself, used as a medicine ingredient and a material by this hypocritical immortal palace, discarded without a second thought after all value was drained.

The same fate. The same cage.

Except, Shen Zhaoqing had someone to rescue her.

She had nothing.

Shen Zhaoqing’s eyes gradually turned cold.

She slowly raised her right hand.

“What is she going to do?” Yuan Ge keenly sensed the change in Shen Zhaoqing’s aura and instinctively tightened her grip on her bone flute.

Gu Chang’an’s Frostbright let out a soft hum, her sword heart sending a warning. She could feel a power vast enough to overturn this immortal island gathering in Shen Zhaoqing’s palm.

Ling Shuangjue’s red eyes narrowed, but a bloody smile curled at the corner of her lips.

Salvation and destruction were two sides of the same coin.

Amidst everyone’s shocked and uncertain gazes, Shen Zhaoqing spread her five fingers, aimed her palm toward the Cold Moon Cave, and pushed forward.

Buzz—

A power beyond words erupted from her palm as the source.

A cyan-golden light, like a divine spear spanning heaven and earth, ignored spatial distance and the myriad layers of restrictions and formations of Penglai Immortal Palace. It tore through the sky, pierced the earth, and descended upon the gloomy, deathly still Cold Moon Cave in an instant.

—

“BOOM!!!!!”

Deep inside the Cold Moon Cave.

Xuan Yue, imprisoned for decades and having lost all perception of the outside world, suddenly felt warmth.

She slowly raised her moon-white, hollow eyes.

And then she saw it.

She saw that cyan light descending like a miracle.

The light did not destroy a single rock or harm a single plant. It only gently fell upon the cold iron chain that had bound her ankle and imprisoned her for decades.

“Crack…”

With a crisp sound like heavenly music, the cold iron chain, personally laid by the Penglai elders and unbreakable even by Return to Void realm experts, melted away inch by inch under the light, transforming into the purest spiritual energy and feeding back into Xuan Yue’s body.

The shackles that had bound her for half her life… shattered just like that.

Xuan Yue stared blankly at her now-free ankle.

On the sacrificial altar, Shen Zhaoqing slowly withdrew her hand, her expression calm. Her gaze fell on Bai Zhiling, who had been sitting collapsed on the ground, utterly lost, from beginning to end.

“I didn’t come here to hear your apology.”

“What I want to take is not just my freedom.”

She paused, her voice clear to everyone present. “But also every soul in this hypocritical immortal palace that you have trampled like weeds.”

—

Bai Zhiling’s face turned even paler than a corpse’s.

Yes. She had thought that sacrificing a hundred years of her lifespan to save Shen Zhaoqing was an act of mercy, and bringing her back to Penglai was a form of protection.

But in the end, in this hypocritical immortal palace, what essential difference was there between her, her master, and those elders who regarded human life as mere grass?

It was just that the executioner recited an extra ‘Amitabha’ before the blade fell.

Shen Zhaoqing did not look at her again. For the woman who had personally cast her into the cage, all debts could be settled slowly. Now she had more important things to do.

She turned and calmly swept her gaze over the three women before her, each with a different aura but equally suffocatingly powerful. They had come for her, fought for her.

This debt of gratitude was as heavy as a mountain. But this love was also three ornate cages, each inscribed with a different name yet all leading to the same end—eternal loss of freedom.

Gu Chang’an’s Frostbright sword had not yet been sheathed. The cold air around her made her look like an ice sculpture that would never melt. She looked at Shen Zhaoqing, and in her eyes, always cold as winter stars, an almost imperceptible panic appeared for the first time.

Ling Shuangjue leisurely wiped the blood off her Abi Original Sin sword.

Yuan Ge crossed her arms, her amber-golden eyes narrowing slightly.

Shen Zhaoqing looked at them quietly, then gave a slight nod.

“Thank you.”

“But…”

Here it comes! The hearts of Gu, Ling, and Yuan all leaped to their throats at this moment.

“…From now on, I will walk my own path.”

“Nonsense!” Gu Chang’an’s voice was colder than the sword aura around her. “Walk your own path? Where can you go? The Heavenly Dao has collapsed, and all the world is your enemy. Do you think you can resist the greed of the entire cultivation world alone?”

“Return to Qingyun Sect. I will explain to my master and clear your name. Under my sword, no one will dare harm you.”

Shen Zhaoqing found these words laughable.

“Under your sword?” She looked up, her tone flat. “Gu Chang’an, can your sword protect me for a moment, or can it protect me for a lifetime? If your sword protects me, then who will protect your Dao heart, which is already shattered because of me?”

“I…” Gu Chang’an was momentarily speechless, her face turning even paler.

“Heh.” Ling Shuangjue stepped forward, her white robe and red cloak billowing without wind. “These hypocritical words of the righteous path are dirty to my ears.”

Her red eyes blazed as she stared at Shen Zhaoqing, as if looking at her most perfect collection. “Little drunkard, ignore that sanctimonious one. Come back with me to the Ten Thousand Blood Flower Palace. I will make you the vice lord of the demon domain. Of the nine domains under heaven, whichever land you fancy, I’ll conquer it for you. My path is your path. There’s no need to walk alone.”

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