Hei Yu followed Wenren Li’s gaze and saw Chen Yixin appear soundlessly behind one of the three Golden Core cultivators. A round ball of blue flame came crashing down on the man’s head, and the Golden Core cultivator let out a scream as the flames swallowed his entire body.
Chen Yixin took a step back. The other two spun around but could no longer find him, and at that exact moment, the Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation came crashing down.
It was true that the addition of three Golden Core Perfected Masters had made the Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation even more powerful, but no one had ever said Chen Yixin himself had to bear all of it. Using the footwork of the Fentian Dance, he moved freely through the lightning, occasionally hurling a ball of blue flame at one of them for good measure.
“How stupid,” Hei Yu sighed. His gaze shifted toward Yun Zhenzi, but Yun Zhenzi’s expression was flawless, revealing not the slightest hint of anything unusual. Hei Yu curled his lip, finding him thoroughly boring. Their Demon Consort was much more entertaining.
Chen Yixin moved back and forth through the thunderclouds. He could not evade every bolt that descended, but compared with those few Perfected Masters who could do nothing but howl whenever the lightning struck them, he moved with remarkable freedom, advancing and retreating with effortless grace.
“Form up!” roared the Golden Core Perfected Master who had been struck first, his head split open and his robes soaked with blood. The other two gathered beside him, and together the three formed a Three Powers Formation, capable of both attack and defense as they joined forces against Chen Yixin.
They intended to leave Chen Yixin’s life behind before the remnants of the thunder tribulation faded. They had dared to enter the Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation partly because their own aptitude was not enough to provoke a tribulation so powerful that it would kill them outright, and partly because whoever had sent them had given them secret treasures capable of preserving their lives. That was why they could act with such confidence.
Of course, getting smashed by Chen Yixin’s blue flames and struck by lightning still hurt like hell.
“Who told you the tribulation was almost over?” Chen Yixin shifted his steps again and appeared above them. He stuffed three Duo-Duo Fruits into his mouth in quick succession, spiritual light surging around his entire body as he prepared to break through once more, this time to the second level of Golden Core.
The Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation gathered anew, and its terrifying pressure looked more than twice as powerful as before.
“You came here and still think you can leave? Who do you think I am?” Chen Yixin raised his eyes, not bothering to wait for their answer before supplying it himself. “I am the Dao companion of the Likui Demon Lord and the Demon Consort of the Likui Demon Palace.”
Even in the past, he had never been someone others could bully at will, much less now.
“I wasn’t forced into the demonic path. I willingly chose… to fall into it.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, purple thunder rolled violently across the sky, as though even Heaven itself considered the declaration outrageous. To certain people listening, the words were more piercing still. If Chen Yixin had gone willingly, then hadn’t everything they had done merely helped him get what he wanted?
“Such… wicked—” Miao Yin had barely begun when she felt warning gazes fall upon her from all directions. The sheer frustration nearly made her cough up blood.
Those warning looks were not coming only from the demonic faction. Several of the other Soul Transformation great cultivators among the Ten Immortal Sects were looking at her as well. Conflict between the two sides was already imminent, but they could not allow Miao Yin to ignite it in a manner like this.
“She’s over a thousand years old. How is her mouth still that foul?” Hei Yu commented bluntly. He apparently believed he was muttering under his breath, but his voice was so loud that even some of the low- and mid-level cultivators watching from much farther away could hear him.
Miao Yin’s face flushed crimson as she turned toward him. Hei Yu cleverly took two steps closer to Wenren Li, and before Miao Yin’s gaze could even reach them, she hurriedly looked away in fright. They were all Soul Transformation cultivators, so how could the difference between them and Wenren Li possibly be this enormous?
While the two sides traded verbal blows, Chen Yixin began a massacre inside the thunderclouds.
With divine lightning crashing down in overwhelming force, he broke straight through the three men’s Three Powers Formation. One of his sleeves suddenly lengthened and wrapped around a cultivator, dragging the man to his side. Chen Yixin turned toward him and smiled lightly. In the instant the man’s mind went blank, Chen Yixin’s hand shot through his sleeve and plunged directly into his dantian, while his other hand swept a mass of blue flame over the man’s head.
His Golden Core shattered, his sea of consciousness was destroyed, and a Golden Core cultivator who had trained for several hundred years was now thoroughly and irreversibly dead.
Chen Yixin released both hands at once and tossed the corpse away, where another flash of lightning reduced it to black ash.
Chen Yixin looked down at the blood staining his hand and frowned with faint disgust. The other two had only just recovered from being struck by the tribulation when they saw what had happened and roared simultaneously, “Big Brother! Perfected Master Heartslayer, you’ll die a miserable death!”
“Hahaha!” Chen Yixin burst out laughing. He laughed for quite some time before finally stopping, the mockery on his face impossible to miss. “You came here to kill me, but somehow I’m wrong for killing you? Don’t worry, I won’t drag this out. I’ll send you to reunite with your brother right away.”
With a deafening boom, another bolt of lightning descended, but its power far exceeded everything that had come before. This was the kind of tribulation pressure only a Nascent Soul True Lord should have faced. The blue flame above Chen Yixin’s head dimmed beneath the lightning and nearly went out entirely. His complexion worsened as well, but his advancing figure did not slow in the slightest.
Bang! Bang! With two consecutive strikes, Chen Yixin smashed the heads of the remaining two Golden Core Perfected Masters into pulp. His steps suddenly halted, his figure vanished, and in the next instant he appeared at the very center beneath the thunderclouds.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his expression cold and merciless. “If I say I’m going to kill someone, then I kill them. Do I look like the sort of person who goes back on his word?”
Chen Yixin had just endured two consecutive thunder tribulations, killed three people in succession, and done so while a Nascent Soul True Lord had entered the tribulation as well. Naturally, his condition was nowhere near as good as he made it appear. Yet even so, the great cultivators of both the immortal and demonic paths could not deny a certain admiration for him.
The faces of the great cultivators on both sides were faintly flushed. Hei Yu and the others simply thought Chen Yixin’s words and actions suited their tastes perfectly, while Yun Zhenzi’s side felt that Chen Yixin had been deliberately mocking them.
If Chen Yixin had also been a Soul Transformation great cultivator, then such barbed words between peers would hardly have mattered. But Chen Yixin was barely over a hundred years old and only at Golden Core, yet he still dared mock them so pointedly. It was difficult for them not to feel humiliated.
“Our Demon Consort has quite the temperament.”
Hei Yu stroked the tiny tuft of beard on his chin and spoke to Wenren Li in an ingratiating tone.
Wenren Li’s gaze had never once left Chen Yixin. The hand concealed within his sleeve had unconsciously tightened into a fist. He was nowhere near as calm as he appeared, but he also knew that unless it became absolutely necessary, he should not interfere. This was part of the growth and tempering Chen Yixin himself had to experience.
“A-Rong is very good,” Wenren Li said, a trace of tenderness flashing through his eyes.
Hei Yu did not even need to decipher the expression in Wenren Li’s eyes. Those few words alone were enough for them to understand exactly what was going on.
Chen Yixin had openly declared that he had gone to the Demon Palace “willingly.” From the look of things, their Demon Lord Wenren Li had probably fallen for him even earlier.
Hei Yu shook his head and sighed inwardly, feeling as though someone had just forced him to sit through an extravagant display of affection.
Chen Yixin’s danger, however, had not yet passed. The three Golden Core Perfected Masters had entered the Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation and failed to do anything to him, but now a Nascent Soul cultivator had entered as well. This was no longer a divine tribulation Chen Yixin could maneuver through so freely.
Chen Yixin stuffed another Duo-Duo Fruit into his mouth and stopped trying to locate the Nascent Soul True Lord hidden somewhere within the tribulation. Instead, he devoted himself entirely to resisting the Purple Cloud Divine Lightning.
The blue flame above his head continued to burn. Again and again the divine lightning struck it until it nearly went out, only for it to ignite once more each time. And every time it rekindled, the flame burned a little brighter and its color deepened another shade. Aside from his breakthrough in cultivation, this was Chen Yixin’s greatest gain from the divine tribulation.
Yun Zhenzi, Miao Yin, and the others all grew much more solemn. They had not expected Chen Yixin to possess so many Duo-Duo Fruits. Each time a bolt of divine lightning struck, he swallowed another one and instantly restored all of his spiritual power. At this rate, even a tribulation of Nascent Soul-level strength might truly be something Chen Yixin could survive.
“Oh my, which one of you old fossils plans to go down there next?”
Hei Yu’s tone was outrageously exaggerated, the picture of someone enjoying the spectacle far too much. The other side remained silent. Or rather, they were all waiting for an opportunity to act, but none of them intended to court disaster through such a blatant method.
At that moment, Wenren Li lifted his foot and began walking toward the Purple Cloud Divine Tribulation. Hei Yu’s mouth fell open so wide he nearly forgot to close it.
“Lord Likui…” He had only meant to provoke and ridicule the immortal cultivators. He had certainly not meant to encourage this venerable ancestor to go over there himself—though compared with Wenren Li, every last one of them really was little more than a child…
Wenren Li had no intention of undergoing a tribulation inside the Fentian Nether Abode. If he did, the secret realm would cease to exist afterward. As he walked forward, his black hair began turning dark green from the roots outward, little by little, and the color of his eyes changed along with it.
Only when he reached Chen Yixin did the transformation of his hair finish completely. Wenren Li raised his head toward the sky and gently swept one hand outward. The purple thunderclouds dispersed entirely.
He slowly crouched down and carefully studied the weakness Chen Yixin could no longer conceal. The heartache in his eyes was equally impossible to hide. “I came to take A-Rong home.”
Unlike a hundred years ago, this time he had kept his promise. He had waited here for Chen Yixin, and now he would take him home—to their home.
Chen Yixin slowly opened his eyes. For an instant, the man before him was so beautiful that Chen Yixin was stunned, and his traitorous heart immediately began beating faster.
“A-Li,” Chen Yixin called softly. He grabbed Wenren Li by the collar and pulled him closer, lifting his chin to place a kiss upon Wenren Li’s lips. “A-Li, I missed you.”
The little sapling was also Wenren Li, but for Chen Yixin, having only the sapling beside him was not enough.
The Wenren Li he had truly fallen in love with was the man who had spent ten years with him day and night in that strange realm, the Wenren Li who had cared for him with endless tenderness in the Demon Palace, the Wenren Li standing before him now—the Wenren Li he could kiss and hold without reservation.
Wenren Li gently stroked Chen Yixin’s face. A faint blush had already appeared on his cheeks. He nodded and answered with complete seriousness, “I missed A-Rong too.”
His spirit form had accompanied Chen Yixin, and to Wenren Li there was no distinction between it and himself. Yet throughout the days Chen Yixin had spent undergoing his tribulation, Wenren Li’s main body had only been able to watch from afar. Chen Yixin’s words now brought all the longing and worry from that separation surging back to the surface.
Chen Yixin’s eyes narrowed happily, and then he smiled, brilliantly and without restraint. He lifted his arms around Wenren Li’s neck and simply let the man pick him up. “If A-Li carries me, I won’t have to waste another Duo-Duo Fruit.”
As he spoke, he kissed Wenren Li’s cheek again and felt enormously pleased with his own decision. How wonderfully thrifty and domestic of him.
Wenren Li naturally had no objection. He stood with Chen Yixin in his arms, but rather than leaving immediately, he stepped into the air. A crack tore open in the void, and a black figure fell out of it. Wenren Li’s eyes narrowed slightly, and the figure dissolved into nothingness.
“No wonder I couldn’t find him…” Chen Yixin muttered as he stared at the place where the figure had been torn from hiding. He was exceedingly good at holding grudges. Even though the thunder tribulation had exhausted him in both body and mind, he had still been thinking about how to make sure that Nascent Soul True Lord died inside it.
“Just a Nascent Soul avatar.”
Wenren Li stepped forward, but instead of returning to Hei Yu and the others, he carried Chen Yixin back into the central palace while everyone outside was still too stunned by their intimacy to react.
Chen Yixin had paid absolutely no attention to anyone’s expression or thoughts except Wenren Li’s. After resting against him for a while, he finally remembered something important. “Why wasn’t A-Li affected by the thunder tribulation?”
As he asked, he reached up to touch Wenren Li’s hair. He suspected it had something to do with Wenren Li’s little sapling spirit form; otherwise Wenren Li would not have come to collect him looking like this.
“My spirit form is no ordinary plant. It is not bound by these rules.” That was why his sapling could accompany Chen Yixin into the central palace, and why Wenren Li could borrow the properties of his spirit form to remain unaffected by the Purple Cloud Divine Lightning.
“Oh.” Chen Yixin acknowledged him, then lifted his head and kissed Wenren Li on the cheek again before beginning to tease him in complete seriousness. “A-Li looks good like this too.”
He looked like some delicious male yao spirit, tempting enough to melt Chen Yixin’s heart…
Wenren Li turned his head. When Chen Yixin met those exceptionally clear eyes, all his improper thoughts abruptly stalled, replaced by a strange sense of guilt. He lowered his voice. “A-Li, I wasn’t thinking anything indecent.”
Wenren Li, who genuinely had not been thinking anything indecent, swallowed at those words and glanced at Chen Yixin. His voice became lower and gentler still. “A-Rong will have to endure a little longer.”
“Hmph.” Chen Yixin huffed and kicked his feet lightly. Confusion appeared on Wenren Li’s face, but he still understood what Chen Yixin wanted and set him down.
“Why did we come back here?”
Chen Yixin looked around the hall where he had spent ten years—no, twenty if he included the ten years from a century ago. There was no nostalgia in his expression. He listened carefully and heard the Soul Transformation great cultivators outside attempting once again to break their way inside.
He had already obtained every inheritance here, and half of the hall’s remaining power had dissipated with them. It would not be long before those cultivators broke into the central palace. From there, finding the inheritance hall would only be a matter of time.
Wenren Li did not answer. He stepped forward, took Chen Yixin’s hand back into his own, and roots began spreading from his feet throughout the hall. “Come out!”
Chen Yixin immediately moved closer to Wenren Li and stuffed another Duo-Duo Fruit into his mouth, his whole body going on alert. As Wenren Li’s voice fell, a flickering shadow that looked ready to disperse at any moment rolled out from within one of the cracked stone statues.
“Demon Lord, spare me! This little spirit has only just awakened. I was not deliberately hiding from you.”
The phantom took the form of a white-haired old man, only half the height of an ordinary person. He bowed so low that he looked even smaller.
He straightened and looked at Chen Yixin. Something suspiciously like watery mist gathered in the corners of his disproportionately large eyes, and he immediately kowtowed again. “This old servant greets Master.”
Chen Yixin did not answer. Instead, he looked at Wenren Li. If Wenren Li had not brought him back, Chen Yixin would never have noticed that another presence had existed in this hall all these years besides himself and the little sapling.
“It is the Abode Spirit of the Fentian Nether Abode. Calling you Master is only proper.” Chen Yixin had learned the Six Fentian Arts and inherited the Fentian Nether Abode. No one could have had a more legitimate claim.
The Fentian Nether Abode was said to be an Immortal Abode that had fallen from the Upper Realm. For anything at all to have survived after falling from an immortal realm into the lower cultivation world of Taixuan was already remarkable, so the miserable condition of its Abode Spirit was understandable.
Chen Yixin nodded, then raised his joined hand with Wenren Li and gave it a little shake in front of the Abode Spirit. “I’m your master, and he’s my Dao companion, so he also counts as your master. Remember that.”
“Yes. This old servant will remember.”
The Abode Spirit bowed once more to both Chen Yixin and Wenren Li, then transformed into a streak of light and wrapped itself around Chen Yixin’s right thumb, becoming a dark-red ring. It looked ancient and worn, with numerous cracks running across its surface.
At the same time, information flowed into Chen Yixin’s sea of consciousness: some of the Fentian Nether Abode’s layout, formations and mechanisms, along with a handful of other details so sparse that they were almost insulting.
“It’s in terrible shape…” Chen Yixin could not resist complaining.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll repair it slowly.” Wenren Li drew Chen Yixin closer into his arms. With a slight movement of his fingers, the faces of all six stone statues were erased completely, and at the same time, the two of them disappeared from the hall.
Rumble—! With one enormous crash, the central palace—the only part of the Fentian Nether Abode that could still be called relatively intact—was destroyed by more than ten great cultivators attacking together.
“Which factions are they from? A-Li remembered them all, right? When we have time, we should visit their private treasuries one by one.” They had destroyed his palace. Surely some compensation was only fair.
Chen Yixin buried his face against Wenren Li’s neck in indignation. Two breaths later, Wenren Li’s hair and eyes returned to their normal black. His aura was no longer faint and elusive, and the full, piercing presence of a Soul Transformation great cultivator returned.
“All right. We should.” Wenren Li nodded. He needed resources to repair Chen Yixin’s Fentian Nether Abode anyway, so visiting those treasuries had already become necessary.
Without even discussing it beforehand, the two of them had reached exactly the same conclusion: the private treasuries of Taixuan’s great cultivators were fair game.
Chen Yixin looked around. The place they were traveling through was extremely remote. There were no Soul Transformation great cultivators nearby, and even low- and mid-level cultivators were rarely seen. He could still tell they remained inside the Fentian Nether Abode, but the destruction here was so severe that many regions had been torn apart into isolated fragments, making the surroundings difficult even for him to recognize.
He did not ask where they were going. He simply leaned against Wenren Li. His anger gradually faded, the corners of his lips slowly curved upward, and after nuzzling against Wenren Li’s neck, he smiled again.
“When I’m with A-Li, I’m always smiling.”
Not the habitual smile he once wore like a mask, but a smile that rose naturally from the heart simply because he wanted to smile. Wenren Li was the reason for that change—because Chen Yixin loved Wenren Li.
“A-Rong looks beautiful when he smiles.” Wenren Li turned his head and gently kissed the center of Chen Yixin’s brow. After thinking for a moment, he added, “I love watching A-Rong smile.”
Chen Yixin raised his eyes, looking both shy and delighted. He leaned close to Wenren Li’s ear, his lips parting as though to speak, but before a word came out, he caught Wenren Li’s earlobe between his lips. Only after licking and kissing it thoroughly did he finally let go.
“I love watching A-Li bloom for me too…”
Whenever Wenren Li was happy, every flower and plant throughout an entire garden would begin growing wildly. Chen Yixin was very fond of that uniquely Wenren-Li way of showing happiness.
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