Chapter 42: Bad Woman

The area affected by Mu Chunxiang grew larger and larger, spreading over a thousand miles centered on Juenian Mountain.

Fortunately, because demon beasts inhabited the vicinity, only those demon beasts and ordinary animals were affected within the surrounding area.

No mortals suffered as a result.

Seeing this suddenly appearing snowfield, Mu Qiu Ying quickened her pace.

No matter what, Mu Chunxiang was still her sister, and she didn’t want her to leave.

Swooping down through the snow-covered forest from above, Mu Qiu Ying landed on the summit of Juenian Mountain, both familiar and strange to her.

She had seen it in her dreams.

Seeing it now in person, there was almost no difference except for the layer of white snow.

Holding the spirit tablet in her hand, Mu Qiu Ying followed its guidance to a Immortal Pool behind the mountain.

Her sister was on the other side of the bamboo forest surrounding the pool.

“Sister.”

Mu Chunxiang lay prostrate before a tombstone, staying still.

As if hearing the call, some of the snow on her body fell off.

“Has he returned…?”

Mu Chunxiang lowered her arm that was propping her head, letting her sister see her current pale face.

And Mu Chunxiang also saw that her sister had come alone.

“No one can save me anymore.”

Seeing her sister in this state, Mu Qiu Ying couldn’t believe that the sister she had always envied could be in such a miserable condition.

“There’s still hope. Sister, take this.”

Mu Qiu Ying crouched down, took out a pill, and fed it into Mu Chunxiang’s mouth.

The moment it melted inside her mouth, Mu Chunxiang seemed to realize something.

Back when she was on the verge of death from the malignant disease, she had taken this same pill.

The taste of that pill was something she would never forget in this lifetime.

This pill had never been recorded in any pill manual.

Since then, Mu Chunxiang had never seen it again with her own eyes.

Only her Master could refine it.

“Where did you get this…”

Pushing herself up from the ground with her hands, a glimmer of vitality appeared in Mu Chunxiang’s pale blue eyes.

She looked at her sister, wanting to get a definite answer from her.

“Sister, here is another pill.”

Mu Qiu Ying bit her lip and took out another pill, completely black in color.

Originally, she should have been ruthless—after all, this was personally given to her by Chen Juenian to feed to her sister.

She shouldn’t have hesitated either.

Since her sister’s feelings ran so deep, after surviving this ordeal, she would definitely stop at nothing to find Chen Juenian and snatch him from her hands.

But after meeting her sister’s gaze, she softened.

Mu Qiu Ying had almost never seen her sister so joyful.

Her eyes had always been filled only with melancholy and sorrow.

“Qiu Ying, can you tell me first… is he still here?”

“This is what he gave you, sister. Take it.”

In the end, Mu Qiu Ying understood that she should not be soft-hearted.

She had always been jealous of her sister.

She was a jealous bad child, a bad woman.

Taking advantage of Mu Chunxiang’s extreme weakness, Mu Qiu Ying forced the pill into her sister’s mouth.

The frozen meridians slowly melted away by the pill’s power.

Mu Chunxiang’s stiff limbs regained a bit of strength and sensation.

But… she suddenly realized something.

Panicking, she looked at her dantian.

She could feel something slipping away.

What was slipping away?

Mu Chunxiang, who possessed emperor-level strength, quickly figured everything out.

At the same time, she realized that she absolutely could not let this happen.

Otherwise, she would be worse than dead.

Under Mu Qiu Ying’s gaze, Mu Chunxiang gathered all her remaining strength and struck a palm toward her own dantian.

“Sister!”

A muffled sound echoed from the mountaintop.

Even someone as strong as Mu Qiu Ying was forced back a few steps by that palm strike.

The tombstone shattered under the impact.

Leaning against the broken stone, Mu Chunxiang panted heavily and wiped away the blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

“Sister, why did you do that?”

What did damage to the dantian of this magnitude mean?

Given Mu Chunxiang’s cultivation base, it wouldn’t kill her, but it would severely affect her strength.

Placing her hand on her sister’s abdomen to investigate, Mu Qiu Ying saw her current state.

Her dantian, though still intact in form, could no longer circulate spiritual power.

She had blocked those two pills from entering her dantian.

As a result, the dantian—untouched by the pill that could dissolve the malignant disease—was now individually frozen.

It could no longer freeze her meridians and kill her, but it left Mu Chunxiang no different from a mortal.

“I trust you, Qiu Ying… I believe it was Master who told you to give me that pill…”

Mu Chunxiang guessed something but didn’t say it outright.

It was only natural that things turned out this way, because she knew very well just how enticing her Master was.

“So Sister would rather cripple her own cultivation just to take him from me?!”

Reaching out to wipe the tears from the corner of Mu Qiu Ying’s eye, Mu Chunxiang replied calmly,

“No, Sister won’t fight you for him. Because Sister… knows she was wrong.”

“…”

After carrying Mu Chunxiang to the wooden cabin she once lived in, Mu Qiu Ying suddenly didn’t know what to say to her sister.

“So, what exactly happened that I don’t know about?”

Looking at her somewhat similar-looking sister, Mu Chunxiang asked with a faint smile.

“The immortal has returned. The reborn immortal was picked up from the mountain by the eldest daughter of the Xuanyuan Clan and taken in as her son.”

“The Xuanyuan Clan…”

“It’s the niece of the Xuanyuan Mingye you know.”

Mu Chunxiang frowned slightly.

“Master didn’t fare well after his rebirth, did he?”

“Mm.”

A little boy… That little boy was her Master?!

At the same time, Mu Chunxiang also remembered what the Thousand Arms Sect elder had said—that her sister had been in contact with a man about seventeen or eighteen years old.

She didn’t say anything aloud, instead silently filing that information away.

“What do you plan to do now, Sister?”

“I will keep my promise and not disturb your relationship with him… But since my strength is now limited, I naturally have to seek shelter. Qiu Ying, you and Master are the people I trust most…”

“Then please stay temporarily in the Thousand Arms Sect.”

Although Mu Chunxiang no longer had any power and couldn’t possibly harm Chen Juenian, who possessed Foundation Establishment Stage strength, Mu Qiu Ying still didn’t want her to see Chen Juenian.

Even if there was only a slight chance, she didn’t want it to happen.

“I’ll follow your arrangements, little sister.”

Mu Qiu Ying had never seen her sister so soft and gentle.

All along, Mu Chunxiang had been strong, intelligent, bold, and decisive in her eyes.

Perhaps because she had seen this unprecedented side of her sister, Mu Qiu Ying chose to trust her this time.