“No, no, no…” The disfigured female cultivator covered her face and pleaded, “Let me go, I beg you.”

The beautiful female cultivator sneered and released the disfigured female cultivator, letting her fall into the river. The disfigured female cultivator climbed up from the river. She lay at the riverbank, looking toward Kong Hou and the others, her eyes full of pleading.

“You still want others to rescue you?” The sarcasm in the beautiful female cultivator’s words grew heavier. “This face is disgusting to look at. It would be better if you died.”

The disfigured female cultivator covered her face and cried bitterly, from time to time looking toward Kong Hou’s side. She was expecting someone to stand up, to stand before her and say that appearance wasn’t important.

Jin Ling felt somewhat guilty being looked at with that kind of gaze and quietly hid back a bit, as if doing so could lessen the guilt in her heart. Her cultivation wasn’t high—she had entered this secret realm only to increase her experience. Who would have thought the secret realm would have problems? She relied on Lingbo, Huan Zong, Kong Hou, and the others to preserve herself, so how would she dare casually speak up and cause trouble for Kong Hou and the others?

“This…” The young junior brother from Zhaohan Sect was young and hot-blooded. Watching this scene, he was so angry he gasped heavily. If Lingbo hadn’t grabbed him, he would have rushed out long ago. Young fellows—they still carried several parts impulsiveness in their bones.

“You don’t understand women.” Facing her junior brother’s angry gaze, Lingbo used a sound transmission technique. “This relatively beautiful independent cultivator’s cultivation is at the Core Formation Stage. Her cultivation is good, and listening to the tone of her speech, her status in the Independent Cultivators Alliance isn’t low either. This kind of woman would absolutely never display such aggressive and bitter behavior in front of strangers, especially us personal disciples of major sects.”

Whether men or women, as long as they had some status, they would subconsciously make themselves appear more perfect in front of strangers. This beautiful female cultivator was very strange—constantly provoking, constantly doing things that challenged others’ bottom lines.

The disfigured female cultivator was even stranger. She clearly had cultivation, yet in the beautiful female cultivator’s hands, she was like an ordinary weak woman, allowing the other party to knead and flatten her at will. Apart from crying, there was no resistance behavior whatsoever.

“Many women, in front of outstanding-looking men, can’t help but show their good side. Just like most men become especially gallant and refined in front of beautiful women.” Kong Hou suddenly spoke. “Even if she’s not interested in men, just looking at how exquisitely she’s dressed up is sufficient proof that she’s someone who values face. Someone who values face wouldn’t display themselves so uglily in front of outsiders.”

Lingbo and Kong Hou’s gazes met, and they found several parts mutual understanding in each other’s eyes.

The young junior brother from Zhaohan Sect was stunned by their words that seemed reasonable yet also seemed to have no reason at all. But when he looked at those two female cultivators again, he couldn’t help speculating—was this deliberately performed for them to see, or had some conflict truly occurred?

“But what are they doing this for?” The Zhaohan Sect junior brother asked stammering, “To toy with us?”

“They’re not from the Independent Cultivators Alliance.” Huan Zong’s expression was calm, as if talking about whether the weather was good or bad.

“Not from the Independent Cultivators Alliance, and there aren’t these two people among sect disciples, so they… where did they come from?” The Zhaohan Sect junior brother felt a chill on his back. He couldn’t see anything wrong with these two female cultivators.

“Why won’t you help me?” The disfigured female cultivator looked hatefully at Kong Hou and the others. “Just because I’m ugly, you don’t treat me as human anymore?”

Her features twisted, hatred overwhelming, where was there any trace of the timid appearance from just now?

Just when everyone hadn’t reacted, the disfigured female cultivator suddenly extended her hand to the beautiful female cultivator’s face, tore off her face and placed it on her own face. She turned her head and grinned lightly, “Am I beautiful now?”

The poor Zhaohan Sect junior brother was so frightened by this sudden change that he retreated two steps and almost couldn’t catch his breath.

“Since you don’t like this face of mine, why don’t you give me your faces?” The female cultivator suddenly laughed strangely. Her torso and limbs twisted into a strange arc, and her bloodshot eyes swept back and forth over Kong Hou and Lingbo. “I like your faces. Give them to me.”

She licked her dark red tongue. “Why won’t you help me? If you had helped me, I could have let you go.” The female cultivator suddenly cried and laughed at the same time. “I hate you so much. I want you to compensate me with your faces.”

“Because your performance was too exaggerated.” Kong Hou tilted her head, appearing very innocent. “People who are frequently bullied, when being bullied, don’t have that many explanations, because only silence can make the other party strike a couple fewer times.”

The expression on the female cultivator’s face froze, then she roared, “You deceived me. You’re all a bunch of lunatics who judge by appearance.”

“You’re wrong. The one who truly judges by appearance is you.” With Huan Zong backing her up, Kong Hou enthusiastically argued with the female cultivator. “In your heart, ugly people should be timid and incompetent, beautiful people must be arrogant and domineering, completely unreasonable. You even hold a contemptuous attitude toward women—whether they’re beautiful or ugly, they’ll always become fierce and malevolent fighting over men.”

“I think you probably don’t know that the cultivation world has developed very quickly now. Female cultivators are all very busy—busy cultivating, busy traveling through mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, busy dressing up. They don’t have that much time to fight over men.” Kong Hou snorted coldly. “I’m not clear what kind of thing you are, but I’m very clear that you don’t understand human hearts well enough.”

The female cultivator was left speechless by Kong Hou’s words. She shook the bones on her body and straightened up. “You’re talking nonsense. Five hundred years ago, there were still two female cultivators fighting to the death over a man.”

Five hundred years ago…

Kong Hou turned her head to blink at Huan Zong, then continued speaking to the female cultivator. “Even you know that was five hundred years ago. Times change—the current cultivation world has long had new trends and new appearances. This kind of conservative, clinging-to-the-old concept of yours isn’t very good.”

“Really?” The female cultivator’s expression became serious.

“Of course.” Kong Hou pointed at Huan Zong beside her. “Look at this male cultivator beside me—profound cultivation, handsome appearance, so perfect he has almost no flaws. But did we three female cultivators fight over him or compete for him?”

The female cultivator looked at Huan Zong. Not knowing what she thought of, her expression became somewhat unpleasant. She snorted coldly. “Since that’s the case, this trial counts as you passing. You can scram now.”

“As the saying goes, meeting is having fate. You’re so familiar with the secret realm—can I ask you one small question?” Seeing that the female cultivator didn’t seem to have the intention to pounce on them, Kong Hou began to scheme about her.

“No, you cannot.” The female cultivator tore off the skin on her face and threw it heavily to the ground. The skin disappeared upon touching the ground, and that voluptuous beautiful female cultivator also vanished into nothingness.

“Don’t be like that.” How could Kong Hou not understand? This wasn’t some two women fighting over one man at all, but rather the secret realm’s test of human nature.

Probably the secret realm wanted to test whether they valued appearance or inner character. Looking at the current situation, they should have messed up this test.

“I just want to ask, where is the Cloud-Seeking Tree in the secret realm?” Kong Hou looked expectantly at the female cultivator who had once again become ugly, not shifting her gaze because of the other party’s terrifying face. “Please, help us out.”

“The Cloud-Seeking Tree blooms once every thousand years and bears fruit once every thousand years. After the fruit it bears matures, its branches wither and leaves fall, and its roots and stems die.” The female cultivator’s tone was ordinary. “There truly was a Cloud-Seeking Tree in the secret realm, but that was five hundred years ago. Five hundred years ago, the Cloud-Seeking Tree bore fruit once. Now it has long since withered, even its roots have rotted in the mud.”

“Withered?” Kong Hou’s heart emptied, and her mind buzzed. These past days, she had accompanied Huan Zong to find several medicines, thinking they would soon gather them all and, according to the prescription, help Huan Zong heal his body. Who knew that entering this secret realm, she would learn the Cloud-Seeking Tree was long gone.

How joyful she had been when she heard this news at Pavilion Master Sun’s place—that was how disappointed she felt now.

A warm palm grasped her hand. Kong Hou looked up blankly at Huan Zong’s gentle eyes, opened her mouth but couldn’t say a single word. Her heart felt uncomfortable, as if stuffed full of messy cotton that couldn’t be cleared away no matter what.

“It’s alright. We can search slowly. Even if we can’t find it, it doesn’t matter.” Seeing Kong Hou’s cheeks turn deathly pale with an appearance of not being able to accept this, Huan Zong hurriedly reached out to pat her back. “It’s alright, it’s alright. If it’s not here, there are other places.”

Kong Hou slowly came back to her senses and tightly gripped Huan Zong’s hand in return. “You’re right. We’ll definitely find it.”

“The Cloud-Seeking Tree isn’t that easy to find.” The female cultivator said flatly. “The reason it’s called the Cloud-Seeking Tree is precisely because its form is ever-changing, its whereabouts ethereal and traceless, even more elusive than clouds.”

“Anyway, I have good luck. I’ll definitely be able to find it.” Afraid that Huan Zong would overthink, Kong Hou hurriedly blocked the female cultivator’s mouth. “You can leave now.”

Female cultivator: “…”

When she was begging it just now, this wasn’t her attitude at all.

Have female cultivators in the current cultivation world already become this hypocritical?

It rolled its eyes and transformed into smoke, disappearing between heaven and earth.

Jin Ling looked at the empty riverside. “What was that female cultivator just now?”

“Should be the secret realm’s spiritual intelligence.” Lin Hu said. “The mural we saw before, and those few words at the Gate of Life and Death, were all a kind of hint to us, making us subconsciously only crudely divide right and wrong according to personal preferences when encountering certain matters.”

The secret realm wanted them to learn to face their inner hearts squarely, be good at distinguishing truth from falsehood, value human nature and look lightly upon outer appearances. Unfortunately, these testing methods used on them didn’t seem very successful.

Learning that the Cloud-Seeking Tree had already died, Kong Hou’s emotions were somewhat affected. Just afraid of being seen through by Huan Zong, she kept forcing a smile.

Huan Zong either saw through it or didn’t—all along the way, he held her hand and didn’t let go.

Over the next few days, the secret realm was calm and peaceful. Kong Hou’s group dug up quite a few spiritual herbs. One night, when Lin Hu and Kong Hou went together to pick fruit from the trees, he mentioned that Huan Zong’s complexion had been especially good these past few days. “During those two days when I was transported to another place, did anything strange happen?”

“Strange things?” Kong Hou carefully recalled and shook her head. “No.”

Lin Hu’s confusion deepened. Could it be that the young master, influenced by the illusory demon, had suddenly achieved great enlightenment?

“Wait, there was one thing.” Kong Hou threw the freshly picked fruit to Lin Hu. “Huan Zong and I dual cultivated.”

“Dual cultivated?” Lin Hu looked at Kong Hou’s small frame. Miss Kong Hou was how old, and the young master he…

“Finished picking?” Huan Zong appeared behind the two, his expression calm as a deep pool.

**Author’s Note:**

The Secret Realm’s Spirit: It is the most failed secret realm spirit in the cultivation world.