Sect Leader Qin seemed to have never considered what to do if Cui Xiaoxiao didn’t agree.

This wasn’t due to Qin Lingxiao’s arrogance and conceit. Whether in cultivation level, inner core, appearance, or reputation, Qin Lingxiao was beyond reproach.

Throughout the world, female cultivators who hoped to become immortal partners with Qin Lingxiao and ascend together weren’t limited to just junior sister Ling Zhishan. If he were willing to seek a bride, probably all the female cultivators in the world would be willing to be chosen by him.

And now, he was willing to take the initiative to favor and bestow attention upon a worthless female sect leader from a wild chicken sect – how could this Cui Xiaoxiao not be overwhelmed with gratitude and tearfully agree?

Precisely because of this, when Qin Lingxiao heard Cui Xiaoxiao refuse decisively without any hesitation, he finally looked at Cui Xiaoxiao with surprised attention.

“…My patience is limited, so you needn’t put on an act. If you’re dissatisfied with my simple wedding ceremony and want to make it widely known, I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your scheming. I have no patience for worldly affairs and no time to play house with you.”

Qin Lingxiao instinctively thought Cui Xiaoxiao wanted to retreat to advance, seeking more benefits for herself.

Cui Xiaoxiao suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and said very straightforwardly: “Sect Leader Qin, you seem to have misunderstood. I have no intention of marrying you, and I don’t want to waste your time cultivating immortality and ascending to heaven. You’re overthinking…”

Seeing that this woman had no intention of playing hard to get, Qin Lingxiao couldn’t help but frown even more tightly, but still patiently explained: “Since you’ve absorbed the Demon Pearl, even if you haven’t been demonized by it, you must suffer from the pearl’s yin poison. If you want to quickly force it out of your body, there are only two methods: either kill you, or you bathe with me in the cold pool while cultivating. Forcing out the Demon Pearl requires seven days, during which you must fully cooperate with me in cultivation. Marrying you is to protect your reputation and avoid dishonoring my Jiuxuan Sword Sect’s name! It’s a necessary strategy that benefits both parties.”

What? She had been poisoned by the Demon Pearl’s yin toxin? She needed to take an intimate bath with the man in front of her to completely resolve it?

Was this a proper method that righteous cultivators could speak of?

Cui Xiaoxiao looked down at her wrist, suppressed her inner anxiety, and raised her head: “Thank you for Sect Leader Qin’s reminder, but our Talismonger Sect also has some methods for driving away evil and detoxifying. Let me return and discuss with my senior brothers to see if we can resolve it ourselves. If we force out the Demon Pearl, I’ll take the initiative to hand it over to Sect Leader Qin. What do you think?”

Cui Xiaoxiao knew that Qin Lingxiao’s eagerness to save her couldn’t be because he had a great addiction to saving people.

It seemed this Sect Leader Qin was determined to get that Demon Pearl, even willing to sacrifice his marriage to quickly obtain the complete Demon Pearl.

Fortunately, this Qin fellow was very concerned with face, bearing the name of the righteous path, and she hadn’t yet become demonized. Otherwise, he would choose the first method without hesitation – killing the chicken to get the egg, cleaving her in half with one stroke…

However, this didn’t mean that just because he scared her, she would lose her head and let him manipulate her in everything!

Just as Cui Xiaoxiao was frowning in thought, Qin Lingxiao also gradually realized that this woman didn’t seem to be deliberately scheming to marry him, nor did she know the benefits of marrying him, or how severe the Demon Pearl’s yin poison outbreak could be.

Thinking this, he finally lowered his eyes and said coldly: “It seems you haven’t been cultivating for very long, so naturally you wouldn’t understand what I just told you. I’ll give you some time. When you’ve thought it through, come back to answer me. Of course, the prerequisite is that you haven’t become demonized – if that happens, it would be much easier for me to handle.”

After saying this, seeing that Cui Xiaoxiao was about to cup her fists in farewell without any intention of changing her mind to agree to marry him, he was somewhat displeased.

Although Qin Lingxiao usually devoted himself to cultivation and never gave those women who admired him a second glance, now having an unorthodox female sect leader from a wild path show disdain for his goodwill indeed made him quite uncomfortable.

Thinking this, he couldn’t help but mock again: “If cultivation doesn’t involve learning from famous masters, it’s like a woman marrying into the wrong family – it ruins a lifetime. But if you can marry a husband with advanced cultivation, it’s comparable to finding a master again. You’ve already chosen the wrong sect to join – don’t miss this opportunity too.”

Cui Xiaoxiao wanted to cultivate, but became a disciple of someone like Tang Youshu, who was so worthless. In the end, after all that cultivation, she was still just a mortal. If she weren’t stupid, she should naturally seize this marriage opportunity and give herself a chance to change her fate.

Unfortunately, even though he had spoken so transparently, this girl with a fox-tail braid remained unmoved.

When she heard him mock her for joining the wrong sect, Cui Xiaoxiao’s large eyes narrowed slightly, and a mocking smile appeared at the corner of her mouth: “Although I don’t understand cultivation at all, I understand quite a bit about human nature and worldly affairs. I’ve never heard of cultivation masters having the habit of marrying lowly wives. Looking down on me so much yet wanting to marry me – Sect Leader Qin, you’re quite contradictory. Moreover, you said I have a fate that harms ten people – aren’t you afraid I’ll curse you… to death if you marry me?”

As she said this, she tilted her head slightly, her large eyes flashing with cunning light, her fox-tail-like long hair swaying lightly behind her head, looking extremely infuriating.

Qin Lingxiao discovered that this unorthodox female sect leader really loved holding grudges. Just because he had mentioned her poor fate, she was now getting back at him here.

Cui Xiaoxiao looked at Qin Lingxiao’s frost-covered face and continued probing: “Your sect looks down on our Lingshan Talismonger Sect from top to bottom. Why would you do wrong to yourself to marry someone like me from an unorthodox sect? Could there be no benefit for you? What are you sacrificing for? Sect Leader Qin, if you won’t tell the truth, there’s no need for us to continue talking, is there?”

In terms of cultivation, she definitely couldn’t match Qin Lingxiao. But when it came to scheming and calculating people’s hearts… Xiaoxiao had seen more scoundrels and swindlers of all kinds than demons that this Qin fellow had subdued!

Qin Lingxiao was once again harshly confronted by this little girl’s words. Faced with such an unteachable woman, Qin Lingxiao felt like he was casting pearls before swine and was too lazy to continue persuading her, so he simply decided to speak more frankly.

“Your bloodline is special, and you’ve been poisoned by the Demon Pearl’s yin toxin – I’m afraid the outbreak will be even more severe. At that time, you’ll probably wish you were dead rather than alive… Sect Leader Cui, take care…”

Cui Xiaoxiao was momentarily silenced by his description of the yin poison outbreak.

She thought of the Demon Pearl that had suddenly appeared in her pocket. Qin Lingxiao had said her bloodline was special – could that Demon Pearl have sought her out deliberately?

If that were true, did this Demon Pearl want to assimilate her into a demon? Make her like that Bai family woman from before?

Having said this much, Qin Lingxiao was too lazy to look at that sharp-tongued Cui Xiaoxiao again.

He was determined not to care anymore, letting Cui Xiaoxiao experience the pain of the Demon Pearl’s yin poison outbreak. Otherwise, this little girl would think she was a national beauty who had bewitched people into having to marry her!

Thinking this, Qin Lingxiao flicked his sleeves, summoned his energy sword, leaped up gracefully, and departed with an immortal bearing, riding his sword through the air.

This ability to travel by sword was not something ordinary people could witness.

Cui Xiaoxiao sensed the coldness in Qin Lingxiao’s tone just now, as if her ungrateful refusal had made that Sect Leader Qin feel she was rather tactless.

However, she now had no time to consider the prodigiously talented one’s feelings and only stared fixedly at that line on her arm.

Could what Qin Lingxiao said be true? Had she been poisoned by the Demon Pearl’s yin toxin?

When Cui Xiaoxiao returned to see her senior brothers and sisters and told them about the Demon Pearl’s sudden evil intrusion into her body, several fellow disciples immediately jumped back in alarm.

A’Yi was even quicker, slapping an evil-dispelling talisman on his sect leader’s forehead.

Cui Xiaoxiao removed the talisman irritably: “I haven’t become a demon yet!”

The second senior sister first approached apologetically, looked at Cui Xiaoxiao’s wrist, then, as if remembering something, told Cui Xiaoxiao to quickly flip through the Master’s secret manual to see if there were any methods for breaking the curse.

Cui Xiaoxiao flipped through it several times and felt that the only thing related to poison was this passage.

Tang Youshu liked to record every detail of his cultivation life in his autobiographical secret manual, and Tang Youshu had also visited the Po Hun Snake cave that Wei Jie had broken into two hundred years ago, witnessing the power of that two-headed Po Hun giant python.

The Po Hun Snake dwelt in the deep valley below Qilao Mountain’s Phoenix Pool. As the name suggests, once contaminated by snake poison, even masters with a hundred years of cultivation would suffer soul-scattering agony from the snake venom.

Especially during the first three days of poisoning, all the blood in the body would boil, making it impossible to concentrate on expelling the poison. No matter how great one’s cultivation abilities, they would be scalded to death by their blood, dying in a horrible state.

Tang Youshu had personally witnessed in the Po Hun Snake cave by Phoenix Pool that someone had survived after being bitten.

That person was Tang Youshu’s later master, the demon Wei Jie!

Master had been very puzzled about how his master had managed to do this.

It wasn’t until later that Master discovered that Wei Jie had, after being poisoned, desperately captured that snake, and after cutting off the snake’s head, he had cut his wrist and exchanged blood with the two-headed snake in a life-or-death struggle.

This extreme approach allowed Wei Jie to survive by chance, and it was precisely because he had replaced most of his body with snake blood that he eventually became covered in snake scales all over his body, with a temperament as perverse and sinister as a snake. However, Wei Jie seemed unwilling to be controlled by the snake blood in his body forever.

So when his cultivation became increasingly profound, he devised a solution: refining the yin poison within his body into Demon Pearls and forcing them out of his body.

Unfortunately, doing so would temporarily greatly reduce his magical power and cultivation. It was precisely because of this that Qin Lingxiao had the opportunity to kill his master.

Reading this, Cui Xiaoxiao finally understood that the Demon Pearl within her body was closely related to the Po Hun Snake and was refined from Wei Jie’s demonic turbid energy.

It seemed Qin Lingxiao’s words weren’t simply meant to frighten her.

However, Master’s book also mentioned in passing that there were detoxifying miraculous herbs in the Po Hun Snake cave that had once helped Wei Jie endure the snake poison.

Fortunately, the place they were heading to was Phoenix Pool at Qilao Mountain – perhaps they could find this strange herb in the valley below Phoenix Pool.

Thinking this, Cui Xiaoxiao’s heart settled slightly.

When the second senior sister heard that Cui Xiaoxiao had declined Qin Lingxiao’s marriage proposal, she couldn’t help but exclaim: “My heavens! Qin Lingxiao was willing to marry you to save you! And you had the heart to refuse!”

By the end, her voice carried endless regret. It seemed that cultivation masters as handsome as Qin Lingxiao were indeed very capable of capturing women’s hearts. There was a reason for his pride.

Even the eldest senior brother expressed that if she could marry Qin Lingxiao for dual cultivation, her cultivation would skyrocket in a short time. Cui Xiaoxiao’s refusal without even thinking showed not only that her cultivation wasn’t progressing, but her brain wasn’t clear, either!

However, he thought Qin Lingxiao’s brain wasn’t clear either, willing to sacrifice his marriage to save a female swindler. Could he have been bewitched by Cui Xiaoxiao’s pretty appearance? If he truly had so little determination, he wouldn’t be able to ascend past the heavenly tribulation!