Chapter 25: Broken Mirror Ahead

Shen Yuwei woke up to find the sky outside the window still dim.

Morning mist pressed against the paper window, and the room still carried a lingering, stubborn heat.

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Absurd.

Utterly absurd.

She, a dignified Golden Core Realm cultivator, had been influenced by demonic energy into doing something like this.

Even more absurd was that.

Xu Ning was Han Yi’s ex-husband.

He was a junior she had been looking after all this time.

Shen Yuwei closed her eyes, but her bright red earlobes betrayed the turmoil within her heart.

Having cultivated for many years, she understood the romance between men and women even without experiencing it firsthand.

But understanding was one thing.

Being trapped in it herself was another.

Everything from last night was vivid in her mind, leaving no room for doubt.

The pure body she had guarded for so many years had been given away so carelessly.

Shen Yuwei snapped her eyes open.

Kill him.

The thought surfaced almost uncontrollably.

With a single palm strike, no one would ever know about last night.

Xu Ning had only just achieved Qi Introduction.

Even with his miraculous spiritual roots, there was no way he could withstand a Golden Core cultivator’s wrathful blow.

Shen Yuwei lowered her gaze to the sleeping Xu Ning, her fingertips gradually clenching the soft quilt beneath her.

The killing intent lasted only a moment.

The next breath, pain surfaced in her eyes.

She couldn’t do it.

Xu Ning had been tormented by demonic energy last night, his mind clouded.

When he was lucid, he even begged her to knock him unconscious.

At the root of it all, she had underestimated that demonic energy.

And she had underestimated the pull that spiritual energy inside Xu Ning had on her.

She had thought that with her cultivation level, plus her previous experience, she could resist that miraculous green spiritual energy.

But when Xu Ning’s spiritual energy invaded her body again, Shen Yuwei realized how terribly wrong she had been.

That nearly addictive desire dragged her straight into the abyss, and even a dignified Golden Core cultivator couldn’t muster a single thought of resistance.

In the end, she was the one who eagerly leaned in.

Recalling that image, Shen Yuwei’s face flushed so red it seemed to drip blood, the pressure making the full, unswaying curve before her tremble.

This was the first time she had encountered such a situation.

She had to properly investigate where the hell that damned demonic energy came from!

Shame and fury flickered in her eyes.

Just then, the golden core within her suddenly shook heavily.

Shen Yuwei’s expression shifted slightly, and she immediately closed her eyes to look inward.

Within her dantian, the golden core hovered above the surging sea of qi, its radiance far brighter than before.

The dark red burned by fire poison had faded, and the demonic energy had been washed clean.

In its place was a layer of gentle green light.

That green light traveled along the core’s patterns, and with every inch it passed, the golden core trembled.

The sea of qi was full, and the foundation of her spiritual platform was being stirred.

If she cycled her qi a few more times, she could break through her current realm without even needing other spiritual treasures.

How was she about to break through so carelessly?!

Shen Yuwei looked at Xu Ning in disbelief.

Beneath his gentle brows, his face was pale—he looked like nothing more than a youth who had just begun cultivating.

Shen Yuwei stared at him for a long time, then reached out and placed her hand on his wrist.

A wisp of true essence silently probed into Xu Ning’s body.

This time she was far more careful.

Her own realm was loosening, and that much spiritual energy had entered his body—she worried his dantian had been drained dry.

His meridians were undamaged.

Though his dantian was empty, his miraculous spiritual roots had not been affected in the slightest.

Shen Yuwei’s fingertips stiffened.

She knew exactly where that spiritual energy had gone.

Shen Yuwei was silent for a long time, and the redness she had just suppressed crept back onto her face.

If she hadn’t watched him cultivate with her own eyes, she would have suspected Xu Ning of practicing some deviant technique like dual cultivation.

No.

Even those deviant techniques might not have such an effect.

Those methods mostly harmed others to benefit oneself, plundering essence.

But Xu Ning was different.

Not only had he not plundered her golden core’s true essence, he had instead fed his own spiritual energy back to her.

She had no idea where such a massive amount of spiritual energy came from, but it had actually helped her golden core reach perfection.

Looking at him, panic flickered in Shen Yuwei’s eyes.

She actually found him alluring—more captivating than any heavenly treasure.

Noticing this, she jerked her gaze away.

How could she treat Xu Ning as some kind of elixir for her breakthrough?

Shen Yuwei forced herself to rise.

She couldn’t stay here any longer.

She urgently needed to find a quiet place to break through.

The moment her toes touched the floor, a cold sensation came from the soles of her feet.

Her slender ankles peeked out from the disheveled clothing, and her pale, elongated bare feet still carried a pink tint.

A sharp ache shot through her legs.

Shen Yuwei hastily gripped the bedpost, a flush of shame and annoyance rising to her face.

Xu Ning.

She bit down on that name in her heart and turned back to glare at him in irritation.

Damn man, he really knew how to wear a person out.

She didn’t want to see those traces on the bed anymore, so she swept a beam of spiritual light across them, erasing everything.

Especially that irritating smell—she scrubbed it clean with spiritual power several times over.

After handling the traces, she took out a fresh set of robes from her storage jade bracelet.

As the fabric touched her delicate skin, Shen Yuwei’s brows suddenly knitted slightly.

It stung a bit.

She pressed her lips together, lowered her head to tie her sash, and layered on her outer skirts one by one.

A jade belt cinched her slender waist, and her disheveled hair was coiled up anew.

Before long, her face had regained its usual gentle composure, leaving only a faint redness at the corners of her eyes.

After confirming everything was cleaned up, Shen Yuwei took out a pill and placed it on the small table by the bed.

Shen Yuwei paused.

With last night being so scandalous, and now leaving a pill this morning, it almost seemed like…

“Stop thinking such nonsense.”

She scolded herself in a low voice.

But after the scolding, her face only grew redder.

After a moment’s thought, she added two more pills.

The Meridian Nourishing Pill wasn’t an ordinary medicine—one was worth a thousand Qi Nourishing Pills, and even Foundation Establishment cultivators were reluctant to use them.

For Xu Ning, it could warm his meridians and replenish what he’d lost.

Shen Yuwei then took out a talisman and lightly tapped it with her fingertip.

The talisman instantly transformed into spiritual light and vanished into Xu Ning’s wrist.

Just then, he suddenly murmured softly.

“Shen…”

Shen Yuwei’s body went stiff.

She carefully looked over and saw that his brows were merely furrowed—he hadn’t woken up.

But was he calling for Shen Yi, or Shen Yuwei?

Shen Yuwei didn’t know.

She didn’t dare to know, either.

Voices drifted in faintly from outside the door—people were already moving around in the front courtyard.

Shen Yuwei turned and walked to the window.

Her fingers had just touched the frame when she looked back at Xu Ning one more time.

“When you wake, just pretend you don’t remember anything.”

As her voice faded, Shen Yuwei’s figure dissolved.

In moments, she had already appeared deep in the mountains several hundred li away from Medicine Manor.

She found a cave, swept aside the vines with her sleeve, and walked inside.

Several beams of clear light followed her in.

The cave entrance was quickly sealed with spiritual power.

The morning mist outside continued to drift, showing no sign of anything unusual.

Shen Yuwei bit her lip, the flush on her face not yet faded, but a deeply complex turmoil stirring in her eyes.

Her dantian’s sea of qi churned violently, and that wisp of green spiritual energy still coiled around the core’s patterns.

The spiritual energy within her could no longer be suppressed, and she didn’t dare delay any longer.

Shen Yuwei took out more Nourishing Origin Pills and sent them flying into the formation points around her.

In an instant, a simple spirit-gathering formation took shape within the cave.

The pills shattered the moment they hit the ground, and dense spiritual energy began to converge.

After that, she added another restriction at the cave entrance to conceal her aura.

When breaking through, a massive amount of heaven and earth spiritual energy would gather, easily drawing the attention of nearby cultivators.

Unfortunately, this opportunity had come too suddenly, and she had no time to prepare more.

Shen Yuwei sat cross-legged at the center of the formation.

As she entered meditation, the last image in her mind was still Xu Ning’s pale face.

“Karmic debt…”