At night, in the red-painted tower chambers beyond the eastern street of the manor, a dizzying, warm fragrance assailed the nose.
Xiao Yi led a small squad to the base of the tall building and went up personally to find Liu Linglin.
“Liu Linglin! Don’t think that just because that woman backs you up, you can do whatever you please! Bai Yao is my formally wedded primary wife! You’d better know when to stop!”
Xiao Yi’s face was twisted with rage, and with a hint of killing intent, he slammed his hand on the table.
Liu Linglin reclined lazily on the noblewoman’s couch, a strand of dark hair twined around her fingertip.
Her eyes shimmered as she calmly plucked a grape and placed it into her mouth.
“Know when to stop?”
She let out a light laugh.
“You’ve only met her a few times. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that little girl at first sight?”
“Don’t change the subject,”
Xiao Yi said, clearly unwilling to be led astray by her.
His voice rose half a notch, loud enough for the soldiers waiting below to hear.
“Bai Yao is a sect disciple personally chosen by the old master. By provoking her like this, you’re no different from dragging the old master’s name through the mud.”
“My dear husband, you really do underestimate your old master, as well as the royal family of the Xuan Kingdom.”
Liu Linglin sat up, her bare feet stepping onto the brocade carpet as she walked toward Xiao Yi one step at a time.
“You just watch. Not only will the Xia Prince Manor remain completely unaffected, my Hehuan Sect will be perfectly safe as well. That little girl thinks she’s broken my scheme, but little does she know that the moment she’s at her most triumphant is exactly when she’s at her most vulnerable.”
Liu Linglin extended her delicate hand, her seductive fingertips attempting to lightly trace Xiao Yi’s jaw.
But the gesture was immediately dodged as Xiao Yi stepped back.
Seeing that Liu Linglin was again trying to toy with him using her cultivation and his birth mother’s connection, Xiao Yi could only snort coldly and turn to leave.
Liu Linglin watched Xiao Yi’s retreating figure and let out a soft laugh, a sound that could make even the softest man harder than a divine pillar holding up the sea:
“Everyone’s attention is on the Ancestral Temple Ceremony, so naturally no one will notice that I’ve sent the Hehuan Sect’s exclusive agarwood into the Eastern Courtyard. That thing is harmless, carrying only a faint scent of ink—nothing more than a brothel courtesan’s little pretension of elegance. However, when combined with our sect’s soul-entrancing secret art… tonight, that untouched little girl will surely die. As long as she dies from qi deviation while cultivating the [Violet Yang Grand Harmony Art], who would dare say another word about my husband taking a new primary wife?”
No one could hear her words any longer, but the killing intent within them had already been laid completely bare.
In the Eastern Courtyard chamber, candlelight flickered unsteadily.
Bai Yao sat cross-legged on the bed, which carried a faint fragrance of magnolia blossoms, with the handwritten copy of the [Violet Yang Grand Harmony Art] spread out before her.
“Nothing exists outside the mind, no principle exists outside the mind. Attain innate knowing, unite knowledge and action…”
She murmured the words softly, but her brow was knitted into a tight knot.
She understood every single character, but when strung together, they left Bai Yao’s head filled with nothing but question marks.
At a loss, she could only close the book, shut her eyes, and begin attempting to circulate the technique through conventional breathing methods.
Soon, a wisp of warm qi swiftly formed in Bai Yao’s dantian.
The flow drifted slowly, far more lively than the ordinary Qi Refining Art.
“It works this well? Could that Qi Refining Art from my Xuan Yu Sect have been fake?”
Bai Yao was both puzzled and inwardly impressed.
And this technique didn’t particularly rely on spiritual root quality—instead, it depended on one’s own state of mind.
Especially with her upright, magnanimous, iron-straight masculine mindset, the true qi gathered at a speed that was thirty percent faster, without even needing low-grade Spirit Crystals to assist.
However, just as Bai Yao was about to deepen her breathing, the faint ink fragrance in her nostrils—distinct from the magnolia scent—suddenly amplified dozens of times over!
Bai Yao’s eyes snapped open as she warily glanced at the incense burner not far away…
“This agarwood is problematic?! How is that possible? Isn’t this the manor’s regular agarwood? No! The Ancestral Temple Ceremony!”
Realizing the problem, Bai Yao’s heart sank instantly.
The Ancestral Temple Ceremony was nothing more than a smokescreen to divert everyone’s attention, and Liu Linglin had already used that opportunity to cross the border under cover of darkness!
This was the Hehuan Sect witch’s true killing move!
“Damn it!”
Bai Yao cursed under her breath as her circulating true qi suddenly stalled—yet she could neither interrupt it nor pull herself out of the cultivation state.
Her consciousness grew hazier under the influence of the faint ink fragrance, until her vision suddenly went dark.
At that moment, the candle flames before Bai Yao’s eyes twisted and morphed into hazy water vapor.
And within that vapor, two entwined male and female figures emerged, scandalously alluring.
That was… Xiao Yi and Liu Linglin!
Their clothes were half undone, and an unbroken string of panting breaths pressed directly against Bai Yao’s eardrums.
“Damn… Liu Linglin, you’re vicious… Shit!”
Bai Yao’s body burned all over.
Her blood felt like it had been set on fire, and her cheeks flushed red like iron blocks fresh from a forge.
“Nothing exists outside the mind! Unite knowledge and action!”
Though Bai Yao gritted her teeth and forced herself to recite the mantra, the images before her only grew clearer. Her eyes and ears were completely beyond her control, utterly unable to block out the carnal sights and sounds.
Just then, Liu Linglin’s voice burrowed into Bai Yao’s mind:
“Little girl, never experienced this before? Cultivation is about following nature. Dual cultivation is the true path that unites with heaven and earth. Why cling to that hypocritical purity? Why not let yourself go and cultivate with us in union with the cosmos? Hehehe…”
Bai Yao’s fingers dug desperately into the bedding.
The unbearable heat caused blood to drip from her nose onto her fingertips.
Hot energy surged upward from every limb and bone, and her clothes clung to her skin like they were being baked by fire.
Torment! Utter torment!
She violently tore open the sash of her outer skirt, and even the buttons of her inner garment were soaked through with fragrant sweat.
But this young maiden’s body was far too sensitive.
The slightest bit of heat made her scalp tingle, her earlobes burn, and a flush spread all the way down to her neck.
In the hallucination, Liu Linglin’s enchanting figure pressed close, blowing a gentle breath against her earlobe.
“Be a good girl… surrender. Qi deviation is only a moment away.”
“Surrender? Qi deviation? Like a slut available to any man, just like you? Old woman, are you seriously underestimating me?!”
Strangely enough, more than the scorching heat, a stubborn blaze of refusal-to-lose anger suddenly yanked Bai Yao’s dazed mind back.
She closed her eyes…
No more looking… No more listening… No more thinking.
Only four words remained in her mind: “Unite knowledge and action.”
She knew full well it was all fake. To achieve unity of knowledge and action, she not only had to know in her heart that it was false—her body must never treat it as real, either.
Liu Linglin’s Hehuan Sect secret art likely relied on the… within the human heart.
It was a desire amplified to infinity, so vast it made people fear the unknown.
But Bai Yao had already been completely alone back when she hanged herself.
She had nothing to fear!
“Nothing exists outside the mind! You lewd filth, trying to corrupt my dao heart? Ridiculous!!!”
The next instant, the true qi in Bai Yao’s abdomen suddenly cleared, and the scorching heat instantly receded.
The hallucinated Xiao Yi and Liu Linglin shattered like a cracked mirror, crashing to pieces with a loud crack!
The agarwood was still burning, but it had lost its effect.
Liu Linglin’s secret art had clearly been broken in that very moment.
Bai Yao took a deep breath and sat back down cross-legged.
She no longer resisted the surging flow of qi throughout her body, nor did she struggle against her state of mind.
At this moment, she only observed her own true nature.
One wisp of warm qi split into two, then a third, gradually converging into a stream that began to scour her meridians with unbroken, torrential force like a surging river.
From her dantian, two soft popping sounds came in quick succession.
Ten Qi Realm, second layer, broken!
And then… Ten Qi Realm, third layer, broken!
In a single night, Bai Yao broke through two realms!
Dawn light leaped across the horizon, and mountain sparrows chirped in the morning clouds.
The agarwood in the room had burned out, leaving only a pile of cold ash.
Bai Yao slowly withdrew her technique and opened her eyes, finally beginning to straighten her disheveled robes.
She picked up the long-cold tea and took a direct sip.
“Liu Linglin, I really should thank you. Without your secret art, I wouldn’t have been able to break through two realms in a single night, nor would I have been able to comprehend the true essence of the [Violet Yang Grand Harmony Art]. No wonder that in all these years, barely anyone in the Xia Prince Manor or even the entire Xuan Kingdom’s royal family has truly mastered this technique…”
Bai Yao walked slowly to the windowsill, gently pushed open the window, and looked up at the tall red building across the street, the corners of her mouth curving slightly upward.
Meanwhile, at the rear mountain of the Xuan Yu Sect, located at the edge of the Xuan Kingdom’s desolate border.
Law Enforcement Elder Hao Zhongyi knelt in the secret chamber. Before him lay an exquisite jade slip for transmitting messages.
The characters freshly carved into the jade slip glowed with a faint blue light, illuminating his aged face:
“Report to the Qinglan Sect Law Enforcement Hall. The guilty Xuan Yu Sect has privately married off its Saintess to a mortal in exchange for access rights to the [Cangjie Grotto-Heaven].
“This act has violated the upper sect’s rules. I now offer the spirit vein deed as collateral, requesting the upper sect’s protection.”
He gritted his teeth and crushed the jade slip.
The dim blue spirit light quickly transformed into the phantom of a flying bird, shooting straight into the clouds.
Three breaths later, a faint ripple appeared in the void.
An icy response echoed back:
“Granted. Within ten days, Qinglan Sect prodigies Luo Huai’an and Ye Tingyu will arrive at Chuyi City.”
“Revoke the Xuan Yu Sect’s grotto-heaven qualification, and strip Bai Yao of her Saintess title.”
“Any who defy this shall be executed.”
Hao Zhongyi kowtowed, pressing his forehead to the ground so hard that blood seeped out, yet he dared not raise his head.
Loyalty was worth nothing in the face of a sect’s survival and one’s own life or death.