IVYSCP - Chapter 88

Chapter 88

Shi Du's hands and feet were bound by ropes of spiritual energy. Ming Yuan knelt beside the bed, casually toying with the short blade in her hand. The edge was sharp and glinted cold as it sliced effortlessly through Shi Du's sash.

Shi Du kept her eyes open, watching her movements without the slightest reaction.

"Your temperament is very much like hers. I hadn't originally intended to make you into this," Ming Yuan said as she gently stroked Shi Du's cheek. Her tone was soft and suggestive, yet buried deep within it was cruelty. "I've helped you so much. Why can your face change on a whim? Wouldn't it be nice if we cultivated together, took our pleasure together?"

It all went black before her eyes. A familiar delicate fragrance filled her nose. Ling Qingyue blinked, bewildered. "What are you doing?"

Pei Yin had covered her eyes.

"Don't look."

Ling Qingyue felt her face grow warm and a little indignant besides. "Then what about you? You're still looking."

Pei Yin's gaze on Ming Yuan was intent. She slowly lowered the hand she had raised to shield Ling Qingyue's eyes.

She had originally thought Ming Yuan meant to use charm arts to control Shi Du and cultivate with her through dual cultivation to raise her own power, but the situation before her seemed to differ somewhat from what she had imagined.

Ming Yuan's expression suddenly turned pained. Her eyes and lips rapidly went black, then purple. She realized she had likely been poisoned and immediately retrieved a detoxification pill and swallowed it, but the burning sensation inside her body did not abate.

"What's happening to her?" Ling Qingyue asked.

Pei Yin had been watching the whole time. She had in fact noticed that something was wrong with Ming Yuan even earlier than Ming Yuan herself. "Look at her neck and arms."

Ling Qingyue fixed her eyes on those spots, and her breath caught at once.

Because Ming Yuan practiced charm arts, her skin was thinner and more translucent than that of ordinary people, white and lustrous like jade, glistening and moist. Now, with absolute clarity, one could see the dense mass of black specks wriggling and crawling beneath that layer of skin, burrowing out from under her sleeves and collar, spreading and multiplying from deep within her body. In almost the blink of an eye, the black specks burrowed into Ming Yuan's eyes. Only then did Ling Qingyue see clearly that these black specks were all tiny, many-legged insects.

Ming Yuan reacted with extreme speed, immediately slashing open her wrist and driving her spiritual energy to force the insects out.

"It's useless now. If she wants to preserve her life, she can only abandon this flesh body," Pei Yin said, her tone detached. "If she does, all her charm arts will be cast aside with it."

One look at Ming Yuan's state made it clear her charm arts had already reached completion. For it all to be ruined through the fault of these insects, how could Ming Yuan resign herself to it?

As Ming Yuan desperately struggled to force out the insects, in her turmoil she failed to notice that behind her, Shi Du's eyes were gradually clearing.

The moment the cold blade slit her throat, Ming Yuan's eyes flew wide in disbelief.

Warm blood spattered onto the ground, onto both their robes, onto Shi Du's face.

The hand gripping the knife trembled uncontrollably. Shi Du's breathing was unsteady. Her eyes were red-rimmed as she watched Ming Yuan collapse before her, and then she reached up and wiped hard at the blood on her cheek. The bright red blood smeared, some of it clinging to her hair and dripping from the ends, one drop after another striking the floor.

After Ming Yuan died, a black insect crawled out from the region of her heart and shot toward Shi Du at extreme speed, finally concealing itself somewhere on her body.

But before Shi Du could breathe a sigh of relief, a white light abruptly burst from Ming Yuan's corpse. Shi Du raised a hand to block it, but the white light's impact was immense, driving her back so hard that she coughed up blood. Ming Yuan had spent the past half year forcibly raising her cultivation and teaching her mental techniques, but she had never been given the chance to consolidate any of it. Right now she carried the cultivation of Core Formation, but she was frighteningly unsteady with it.

The white light landed on the ground, faintly revealing a human form. Belatedly, Shi Du understood that this was Ming Yuan's soul, and her face drained of color at once.

Ming Yuan's soul was seething with fury. She had never imagined that all her charm arts would be destroyed by her own furnace.

"Damn you, you deserve to die!" Ming Yuan rushed at Shi Du. "You destroyed my flesh body, so you'll pay me back with yours!"

She meant to possess Shi Du!

Shi Du was trapped where she was, unable to move, forced to watch helplessly as that white light shot toward her brow. She was so frightened and terrified that she shut her eyes on instinct.

Her body shivered uncontrollably, and her breathing grew rapid and sharp.

Tears traced tracks down the corners of Shi Du's eyes. A surge of fury rose in her heart, and she gathered spiritual energy in her hand, suddenly opening her eyes to fight Ming Yuan to the death. But when her eyes opened, what stood before her was an unfamiliar woman. Ming Yuan's soul was clutched in this woman's hand, toyed with like a plaything, squeezed and twisted at will.

"…Who are you?"

"Who is she?"

The moment Shi Du asked the question, Ling Qingyue was tilting her head and asking Pei Yin the same thing.

Pei Yin studied the woman who had suddenly appeared and said quietly, "If there are no surprises, she is the sect leader of Liuyun Immortal Sect, Lian Yange."

"Lian Yange?" Ling Qingyue took advantage of the fact that no one but Pei Yin could see or hear her and swaggered right up to Lian Yange. "When the elders gave lectures in the past, I think I heard about this person before. Isn't she the one who cultivates the Six Desires Path?"

When she was younger, Ling Qingyue had loved listening to the elders recount stories of famous people and events. When they discussed cultivation paths, the elders would often list notable figures from each path, and Lian Yange was one of the people frequently mentioned in connection with the Six Desires Path. Unlike the Emotionless Path, the Six Desires Path had very few practitioners, and in the last several hundred years, only Lian Yange had ever achieved any real renown in it.

"Yes," Pei Yin nodded. "The fact that Liuyun Immortal Sect indulges its disciples to this degree, without imposing any discipline or restraint, is probably related to Lian Yange as its sect leader."

"My name is Lian Yange, sect leader of Liuyun Immortal Sect." Lian Yange looked at Shi Du with an expression of keen interest.

"Sect Leader!" Ming Yuan struggled and shrieked from within Lian Yange's grasp. "It's her! She's the one who destroyed my flesh body! Sect Leader, let me possess her at once! I can still rebuild my charm arts, I can still serve you— Ah!!!"

The soul scattered and dispersed. Lian Yange had merely moved a finger.

Shi Du stepped back half a pace on reflex. Every instinct told her the person before her was extremely dangerous.

"Possession is a major taboo in the immortal realm. As sect leader, it is only right that I deal with it severely." Lian Yange gave a soft laugh and clapped her hands. Her gaze swept Shi Du from head to toe, and she said, puzzled, "Your aptitude isn't bad. How is it that I've never seen you before?"

Shi Du raised a hand in a salute, though her manner was not especially warm. "I entered the sect only half a year ago. The sect leader is occupied with countless matters of state every day. It's perfectly normal that she has not seen me."

Lian Yange caught the discontent in these words, but rather than taking offense, she instead asked, "Would you be willing to take me as your master?"

Shi Du stared at her blankly. "What?"

Ling Qingyue's eyes also went wide off to the side.

Lian Yange repeated herself.

Shi Du did not rush to agree. "Why?"

Liuyun Immortal Sect had so many disciples. Why single her out to take as a disciple?

Lian Yange burst out laughing at how she bristled as if ready to explode at any moment. "What kind of expression is that? As sect leader of Liuyun Immortal Sect, is there anything I lack? Still, if you're unwilling, then forget it. Although I said I wish to take you as my disciple, I didn't mean for it to be settled this hastily. Since you have been at Liuyun Immortal Sect for half a year, you should know of the Ten-Thousand Names Stele within the sect. When your name has been carved upon the Ten-Thousand Names Stele, we will discuss the matter of taking a master again."

Having said this, Lian Yange turned to leave. After two steps she suddenly seemed to recall something. Tilting her head, she added, "Since Ming Yuan is dead, this place is yours now."

Shi Du had brushed past life and death once. After thinking through the whole night, she understood that if she wished to remain here, she had to become strong.

Half a year later, when she stepped outside again, Shi Du saw several familiar faces. Those people saw her too, and their expressions were exceedingly colorful, most likely because they had never expected her to still be alive.

Shi Du knew in her heart that the mental techniques Ming Yuan had made her practice were nothing good. She had no three thousand gold, and even less was it possible for her to reach out to Yuelou. She asked all over Rising Moon Prefecture and learned that there was an arena where one could earn gold, jade, and spirit stones.

Using the wound medicine Ming Yuan had left behind, Shi Du rolled and battered herself through life-and-death arena matches for three months. No one could say how much blood she shed or how many bones she broke.

She took everything she had earned in those three months and exchanged it all for a single mental technique manual. Shi Du began to cultivate anew.

At first Shi Du could feel that the hostile stares around her were gradually dwindling. Yet she did not know why, once she began cultivating anew, those people encircled her again. It was not only that they looked at her with those disgusting eyes; they also spoke foul, humiliating words to her face and even interfered and disrupted her when she cultivated.

In the first Grand Disciple Tournament, Shi Du faced off against the person who had been strutting around in front of her all along. Shi Du lost. Her opponent kicked her off the platform with a single strike. The sword she had earned through bitter arena fights was broken and tossed to the ground. The way that person looked at Shi Du's sword, looked at Shi Du herself, was like looking at inconspicuous dust on the ground.

"So long as I am here, someone like you will never make it onto the Ten-Thousand Names Stele!"

Someone like her. What kind of person was that? Someone who had come from the mortal realm?

Shi Du picked up her broken sword and lifted her head. She saw Lian Yange, and she also saw the disappointment in Lian Yange's eyes.

After the Grand Disciple Tournament, Shi Du was forced to move from the original disciples' dormitory to a dilapidated mud hut in the remotest corner of Liuyun Immortal Sect.

That dilapidated hut did not house Shi Du alone. There were several other fellow disciples who had come from the mortal realm just like her. All of them had exerted the full strength of their nations or families to come here to cultivate and become immortals.

Shi Du learned from them that if you did not want to live here, you had to produce three thousand gold to buy a residence elsewhere.

They had cast aside lives of fine clothes and rich food, had come here filled with earnest hope, and what faced them was a ruined hut whose doors and windows could not even keep out the wind.

When they could not accept such a reversal as vast as heaven and earth, they had no choice but to hand over the three thousand gold.

People kept walking out with their three thousand gold, and people kept walking in wearing splendid robes and fine garments.

Only Shi Du remained here the whole time.

In the second year, Shi Du defeated the person who had boasted and provoked her, but she still could not make it onto the Ten-Thousand Names Stele.

In the third year, Shi Du defeated the person who had defeated her the year before, and she still did not make it onto the Ten-Thousand Names Stele.

In the fourth year, the Ten-Thousand Names Stele bore no name for her.

In the fifth year, Shi Du gripped her sword and looked at the person on the platform with unwillingness.

The person on the platform curled her lips in a mocking sneer, looking down at her from on high.

Five years had passed, and Shi Du's features had grown considerably sharper. She sheathed her sword, rose to her feet, and turned to leave.

It was also in this year that Shangtianqiong produced a sword prodigy, someone designated as Young Sect Leader at barely over twenty years of age.

That Young Sect Leader proclaimed that she would eradicate demons, uphold the Dao, and slay all evil spirits.

The hundred immortal sects and the demon race had always clashed frequently. Few people took such youthful, arrogant words seriously.

Not long after, a new sovereign was suddenly born among the demon race. Her cultivation was unfathomably profound, and she began to launch large-scale attacks against the hundred immortal sects. From that point on, the conflict between immortal sects and demon race never ceased.

One day, a group of demons arrived at Rising Moon Prefecture. Shi Du was dispatched to eradicate them. That was the first time she saw Lian Yange take action. The demons who struck terror into people's hearts were reduced to ash and scattered smoke in an instant, which completely ignited the thirst deep in Shi Du's heart for power, for supreme strength.

"Fake."

"Not right."

Ling Qingyue and Pei Yin spoke at the same time. The two exchanged a look, and both saw something amiss with these demons.

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