Because of her words, everyone’s spirits were lifted, and they flew towards the East Sea, braving the fierce wind and hail.
They had already witnessed the beauty of the East Sea on a clear day, but the stormy sea they now encountered was entirely different from what they had seen before. The future sea had turned a dark gray color, churning and splashing like a boiling cauldron, throwing up countless white foam. The roar of the waves was deafening, creating an incredibly impressive scene.
Su Wan was beside herself with excitement, exclaiming, “When I was at home, I read some biographical anecdotes that mentioned immortals practicing various celestial techniques by the seaside during storms and high waves. They say that in such weather, the spiritual energy is extremely complex and chaotic, which is greatly beneficial for cultivation!”
“Really?” Ji Tongzhou was somewhat skeptical. He had read countless biographies, yet he had never heard of such a strange method.
“Who cares if it’s true or false? Let’s give it a try!” Su Wan conjured a fire lotus and ruthlessly threw it into the churning sea. In an instant, thousands of tongues of fire shot up with the waves, creating a spectacular sight.
Bai Ligelin also became interested and began throwing small leaves into the sea. Bai Changyu curiously tossed flying swords into the water, while Ye Ye sent an ice dragon spiraling around the flying swords. Finally, even Ji Tongzhou, half-believing, and half-doubting, summoned a black fire dragon. The sea roared incessantly under their manipulations, each wave higher than the last.
Li Fei stood silently at the back, watching them play with great enthusiasm. Lei Xiuyuan stood to the side with his arms folded, lost in thought. She mounted the Horn of the Rhinoceros and silently left, speeding towards the cliff.
The howling wind and hailstones the size of fists battered against her Earth Lord’s protection. Li Fei’s head and face were soaked as she flew to the cliff, where only devastation remained. As Lei Xiuyuan had said, everything had been burned clean by the Xuanhua Fire, and the giant boulder at the edge of the cliff had vanished without a trace.
She lowered her head and slowly searched through the scorched ground, finding nothing but black ashes. After aimlessly circling many times, her foot suddenly kicked something. Li Fei bent down to pick it up – a palm-sized piece of broken stone, its deep engravings blurred by the fire.
Li Fei felt her wrist begin to tremble. She summoned the Spring Rain Technique to wash the stone fragment countless times. Finally, the charred marks were washed away, revealing a single character: “Stay.”
Her heart suddenly stopped.
Countless images flashed through her mind, finally freezing on the face of the Qingcheng Immortal in the Yimin Tomb, who looked almost like a mummy.
She racked her brain trying to recall her master’s familiar face. He had a square face and a big nose, while the unrecognizable Qingcheng Immortal had a pointed chin and not such a large nose.
Was it him? Was it not?
Hu Jiaping’s words suddenly echoed in her mind: “Your master was a renowned immortal. How could he be hunted to death? Instead of worrying about him, you should take care of yourself.”
A renowned immortal…
She then remembered the books under the bed in the Qingqiu courtyard, books she had never noticed before, each one about overseas lands. Right, Qingqiu… Riyan was from Qingqiu. On the day her master left, she coincidentally met Riyan, who was being chased back to Qingqiu. Was it intentional? Or just a coincidence?
And then there was Lei Xiuyuan. In the Yimin Tomb, he had forced her to pay respects to the Qingcheng Immortal’s corpse, which was completely out of character for his usually aloof demeanor. Had he also guessed something?
Li Fei suddenly stepped back, instinctively reaching for her bosom where the black booklet was. She pulled it out, feeling her wrist trembling uncontrollably and her chest tightening as if she couldn’t breathe. She slowly opened the booklet, and unlike before, it was no longer blank. There were many ink marks, though large patches remained empty, but there were words!
Her eyes fixed on the familiar thin, elongated handwriting. Her hand went slack, and the booklet fell to the ground. She slowly crouched down, feeling as if she was falling into an inescapable abyss, continuously sinking. Her vision blurred, and she felt utterly confused one moment and extremely clear-headed the next.
Li Fei slowly crouched on the ground, flipping through the yellowed pages. It was her master’s handwriting, filling the pages. As she turned more pages, more text seemed to appear, all describing the various customs and landscapes of the thousands of islands overseas. She read page by page, not missing a single word.
[The 18th day of the 12th month of the Gengwu year. I, along with Riyan, reached an unnamed mountain. There was only one tree on the mountain, spanning heaven and earth, its height and circumference unknown. We flew along the tree for three days before reaching the top. Among the lush green leaves hung a single enormous white fruit, three to four feet tall, barely embraceable by two people. I cut it down, and instantly the earth split and the sea roared, with raging fire seas steaming up! How extraordinary! How bizarre! We fled in panic, returning to Manshan barely alive, fortunately with the fruit intact. I shall devote my life to studying this object.]
The handwriting that followed gradually became rounder and more pleasant, each stroke filled with gentleness. The proud, unyielding thin script was no longer visible.
[The 25th day of the 12th month of the Jiashen year. It has been several decades since returning to the Ganhua realm. At the third watch of the night, the shell suddenly cracked, transforming into a piece of jade-colored swaddling cloth. Within the cloth was a whimpering baby girl, still covered in amniotic fluid and blood. How extraordinary this world can be! This being, born from a fruit – is it human? Not human? I know not how to nurture it. Its immortal disposition and jade-like quality make it unable to drink human milk. Fortunately, the fruit’s flesh can still be juiced to feed it. At first, it had clear eyes and delicate features, quite a beautiful sight. However, after half a year, it began to resemble the face I showed with my illusion technique more and more. How peculiar, how peculiar indeed!]
So that’s why she looked like her master? Li Fei let out a couple of laughs. So his face had always been an illusion. No wonder, no wonder… Her fists gradually clenched as she focused on reading further.
The following passages describe her unique physical characteristics. In the first two years, almost all the demonic energy near the Qingqiu courtyard had been purified by her, with only Riyan remaining unaffected, seemingly due to having eaten the fruit. As she grew older, his originally rampant primordial spiritual energy was gradually absorbed into her body, yet it still caused fear among demons. She couldn’t eat meat, not even cow’s milk or human milk. Her body was naturally filled with spiritual energy, and before the age of three, she could manipulate spiritual energy without needing to draw it in from the outside. Her unique method of spiritual energy circulation was named Riyan: Spirit Absorption and Spirit Release.
After the age of three, she suddenly became no different from ordinary children, unable even to manipulate spiritual energy. All her special traits were hidden within an ordinary body, and she began to grow mischievous, causing great headaches for the Qingcheng Immortal. Riyan was even more exasperated, seemingly extremely irritated by her.
The last line, however, read: [How different is she from humans? How different? Riyan says this girl will surely be unrivaled under heaven in the future and urges me to teach her the ways of cultivation. But I have committed a great error. Emotional ties have formed, and I cannot bear to let her leave her homeland. Her many peculiarities will surely make it difficult for her to find peace in life. The great mistake has been made; I can only devote all I have, to protecting her with my life.]
The handwriting gradually became blurry. Li Fei, gasping, helplessly looked around. Hailstones struck her head and face as if trying to shatter her. She remembered the emaciated corpse in the Yimin Tomb, the way he had looked at her in the end, the hand that had grasped hers. She suddenly let out a cry, clutching the booklet tightly to her chest, and holding it close.
She didn’t know where to go. Turning around, she ran wildly for several steps, then suddenly fell off the cliff. Her body slammed hard against the sharp rocks, only to be bounced back by the Earth Lord’s protection, rolling onto the rough ground. She alternated between running wildly and rolling on the ground, wanting to scream one moment and howl with grief the next.
If only her body could be torn apart, she thought. Then she could release all the turmoil inside, freeing herself from this agony. From the day he left, it had already been a final farewell. She had been deceived for seven years, seven whole years of a beautiful dream. Why didn’t they tell her? Riyan, Lei Xiuyuan, Hu Jiaping – they all knew, yet said nothing, nothing at all.
She knew the reason. She was too fragile, so fragile that she couldn’t recognize her master even when face to face with him, too fragile to bear such a tragedy.
She could only hold onto this black booklet, never to see him again – that ragged, carefree old trickster, that brilliantly talented and unyieldingly righteous Qingcheng Immortal. She would never see him again.
Li Fei fell headlong into the mud. She told herself she couldn’t stand up again, as if all her strength had been exhausted. She was in so much pain that she couldn’t find a way out, only able to bang her head against the ground repeatedly, wanting to cry, wanting to scream, yet unable to make a sound.
A soft white light began to seep through her skin. She gradually lost all physical sensation. Once again, she wondered if she should shed all of this. Let her possess supreme power, kill those immortals of Wuyue Palace, kill Cuixuan, Shouzhong, kill all those who had harmed her master.
And then what? Return overseas, return to that enormous tree spanning heaven and earth, her birthplace, return to the end of solitude? Was this the best punishment for her?
She listlessly turned over to look at the gray-black sky and the churning, roaring dark gray sea. Hailstones fell all over her body, but she felt nothing.
Suddenly, a broken red short sword was thrown beside her. Li Fei listlessly watched as a pair of feet appeared in her field of vision. Lei Xiuyuan was holding a weakened red-haired spirit, looking down at her intently. His long hair was loose, with two thin black strands hanging by his temples, softly clinging to his ears. His pupils flowed with golden light, appearing cold yet brilliant.
The red-haired spirit gradually dissipated into smoke in his hand, and the broken red short sword slowly lost its spiritual light, becoming an ordinary piece of iron.
Lei Xiuyuan suddenly crouched down and firmly patted her head. Li Fei felt all her lost sensations instantly return to her body. Her chest felt so tight she thought she might die. She opened her mouth and began to cough violently, coughing so hard she could barely breathe. She opened her mouth as if to vomit, curling up into a ball on the muddy ground, as if dead.
He took off his outer robe and wrapped it around her, gently picking her up. Li Fei’s cheek brushed against his cold, hard horn as she murmured, “You…”
Lei Xiuyuan pressed her head to his shoulder and said softly, “Don’t speak. Let’s go.”