Chapter 3: A Chilling Respite and a Sect in Chaos

The night finally deepened.

When the ‘Myriad-Year Profound Ice’ finally moved away from her back, Shen Zhaoqing felt as if her entire being was about to sublimate.

Not the sublimation of ascension, but the kind that comes from being chilled to the bone and ascending to the heavens.

She tremblingly opened her eyes, her lips frozen purple. When she parted them, the white mist she exhaled instantly crystallized into ice shards in the air.

“Sh-Sh-Senior Sister… is it over?” Shen Zhaoqing stammered, her teeth chattering a rapid, percussive symphony.

Gu Chang’an had already returned to her seat opposite Shen Zhaoqing. A faint, almost imperceptible blush seemed to grace her usually serene face.

‘Was that an illusion? Perhaps the room was simply too cold, flushing her cheeks,’ Shen Zhaoqing mused.

At this moment, Gu Chang’an felt an unprecedented sense of contentment.

The gentle vitality had meticulously refined ‘Frostbright,’ her destiny-bound flying sword, which had become excessively aloof due to the ‘Grand Dao of Emotionless Sword Art.’

The effect was more profound than three years spent in solitary meditation within the Sword Tomb!

Gu Chang’an gazed at the small servant disciple, who shivered like a quail before her. A profoundly complex emotion flickered within her star-like, icy eyes.

She knew she needed her.

Her Sword Dao needed her.

This realization sparked an unfamiliar irritation in Gu Chang’an, who had always adhered to the belief of ‘one sword, nothing else.’ It was accompanied by an even more potent desire to firmly grasp this ‘thing’ in her palm.

“Mm.” She responded indifferently, her voice still holding a chilling aloofness that kept others at bay. “Tonight, we stop here. You are dismissed.”

With that, she closed her eyes and entered a meditative state.

“Ah?”

‘Dismissed?’

‘In this desolate wilderness, there isn’t even a guest room!’

Shen Zhaoqing scrambled up from the meditation cushion, using both hands and feet. Her joints creaked and groaned, sounding like an ancient, unoiled puppet.

She surveyed her surroundings. The interior of Frostbright Abode was furnished with extreme minimalism. Besides a table, a chair, and a few meditation cushions, there wasn’t even an extra teacup. It was truly a model of ‘ascetic style’ decor.

Her only solace was that her precious wine gourd, which Gu Chang’an had casually brought back, lay forlornly in the corner of the room.

‘My savior!’

Like a hungry tiger pouncing, Shen Zhaoqing rushed over and clutched the wine gourd tightly to her chest. She yanked out the stopper, casting all pretense of image aside, and tilted her head back, gulping down several large mouthfuls.

The pungent liquor slid down her throat and into her stomach, where a wave of warmth instantly erupted, rapidly spreading through her limbs and bones, gradually dispelling the bone-deep chill.

“Haaah—” A few flecks of intoxication bloomed in her pale golden eyes. Shen Zhaoqing let out a long sigh, feeling as though she had been resurrected.

Indeed, wine was truly the light of human civilization, the only designated companion for dispelling severe cold and comforting the heart!

As Shen Zhaoqing hugged her wine gourd, pondering whether sleeping on the roof beam or the floor would be more ‘creative’ for the night, outside Frostbright Abode, the entire Azure Cloud Sect had erupted into chaos because of her.

****

Azure Cloud Sect, Council Hall.

The hall was brightly lit, yet the atmosphere was so heavy it felt as though water could drip from it.

All elders above the Golden Core Realm within the sect were present. Seated at the head was the Azure Cloud Sect’s Sect Master, Xuanweizi. This venerable old Daoist master, usually so serene that even a mountain collapse wouldn’t faze him, now had his brows knitted into a tight knot.

“…The sequence of events is as such.” A disciplinary disciple responsible for mountain patrols bowed after completing his report, cold sweat beading on his forehead. “The Demonic Venerable Ling Shuangjue personally arrived at our sect’s mountain gate, demanding by name to take away the outer sect servant disciple, Shen Zhaoqing.”

As his words fell, the hall erupted in an uproar.

“The Demonic Venerable? For a mere servant disciple?” A hot-tempered, red-faced elder slammed his hand on the table. “Preposterous! There must be a conspiracy at play here!”

“Indeed,” another lean-faced elder mused, stroking his beard. “What is Shen Zhaoqing’s background? Why would she attract the Demonic Venerable’s personal presence? This matter requires a thorough investigation!”

A cacophony of discussions rose and fell. All eyes, filled with scrutiny and suspicion, landed upon a solitary, aloof figure standing in the lower part of the hall.

The Head of the Enforcement Hall, Ning Jihe.

Today, she was once again clad in her snow-patterned Daoist robe, her ink-black hair bound high with a jade crown. Her expression was even colder than the frigid winds outside the hall.

As Gu Chang’an’s Senior Sister, and a fellow cultivator of the ‘Grand Dao of Emotionless Sword Art,’ Ning Jihe’s cultivation had reached the late stage of the Void Refinement Realm. Her status within the sect was second only to a few reclusive Supreme Elders.

Three years prior, it was during her testing of the ‘Pure Law Heart Lock Array’ in the back mountains that she first discovered Shen Zhaoqing’s ‘anomaly.’

That gentle, soothing aura, capable of calming all restlessness and even filling the emotional void left by her ‘Emotionlessness,’ had both astonished and frightened her.

In her view, such an existence — unbound by ‘rules’ and capable of easily swaying others’ Dao hearts — was the greatest ‘variable,’ a ‘source of demonic allure’ that absolutely had to be imprisoned and disciplined!

Sure enough, after hearing the disciplinary disciple’s report, Ning Jihe’s lips pressed into a cold, thin line. She slowly stepped forward and bowed to Xuanweizi, who was seated at the head.

“Reporting to the Sect Master, this disciple believes there is no need for further investigation into this matter.”

Her voice, clear and cold as ice pearls falling onto a jade plate, instantly silenced the noisy hall.

“Shen Zhaoqing possesses a unique constitution, making her highly prone to inciting inner demons and disrupting cultivation. Three years ago, this disciple reported this, but it failed to garner sufficient attention.” Ning Jihe’s gaze swept across the entire hall, carrying the undeniable authority of an enforcer. “Now, even the Demonic Venerable of the Myriad Flower Blood Palace has come for her, which is sufficient proof that she is a source of chaos. If we allow her to remain in the sect, I fear it will bring about the destruction of our Azure Cloud Sect!”

She paused, then articulated each word with resounding clarity: “This disciple implores the Sect Master to issue an order to immediately detain Shen Zhaoqing in the ‘Snow Law Forbidden Courtyard’ for isolated interrogation, to eradicate future troubles!”

“The Snow Law Forbidden Courtyard!”

As those four words were uttered, many elders in the hall gasped sharply.

That was where the Enforcement Hall imprisoned serious offenders. Within the forbidden courtyard, the ‘Heart Lock Triple Binding Array’ was deployed, capable of sealing one’s cultivation, binding their soul, and eroding their will. Not to mention a servant disciple with no cultivation, even a Nascent Soul cultivator confined there would become a mere walking corpse within three months.

“Senior Nephew Ning, isn’t this action overly harsh?” An elder, a contemporary of Xuanweizi, frowned. “After all, that girl is merely a mortal. Why go to such extremes?”

“Uncle-Master Zhang, your words are mistaken.” Ning Jihe retorted coldly, unyielding. “A source of calamity is not determined by cultivation level. Today, the Demonic Venerable came; who will come tomorrow? The Joyful Union Sect? The Myriad Demon Nation? Must we wait for a war between immortals and demons to erupt right before our Azure Cloud Sect’s mountain gate before it is considered ‘extreme enough’?”

Her words rendered everyone present speechless.

The Heavenly Dao was crumbling, the path to ascension severed. The current cultivation world was already a powder keg, ready to explode at the slightest spark. No one dared to gamble the sect’s ten-thousand-year legacy on a servant disciple’s ‘innocence.’

Xuanweizi gazed at his eldest disciple, whose adherence to the law was as unyielding as a mountain. A trace of helplessness flickered in his eyes. He knew Ning Jihe acted for the sect’s benefit, but her method was undeniably too ruthless.

Just as he was about to speak, a clear, cold voice echoed in from outside the hall.

“I disagree.”