It was a faint glimmer, dense with Spiritual Energy.
The “Speech Ban Spell” was directly cast upon Gu Monian. His eyes turned cold, and with a casual flick of his sleeve, he tried to block it—in Gu Monian’s perception, this was merely a lucky spell thrown out by Xie Bing in a coincidental moment, like a dying spark from extinguished embers, incapable of harming him.
However, the golden light instantly revealed a faint, translucent blue hue. It was an exceptionally pure, extremely powerful water-element Spiritual Energy!
It was too late to block it again!
Gu Monian’s pupils constricted slightly. The words on the tip of his tongue—”Only you… are my one and only female disciple”—became stuck in his throat. He couldn’t utter a single sound!
He coughed once, tried to speak again, but no sound whatsoever came out. Gu Monian’s face instantly changed color!
…He had actually been attacked by his waste of a disciple?
Everyone present was utterly shocked.
“How is this possible? Isn’t Xie Bing a Waste Spirit Root? How could she cultivate?”
“Have you forgotten? She’s not just any Waste Spirit Root, but the top-tier waste among wastes! The kind that works sometimes and fails at others. When it works, that Spiritual Energy is terrifyingly pure and powerful, even more formidable than an ordinary Golden Core Stage Cultivator.”
“In that case, isn’t she actually quite good? Why does everyone call her a waste?”
“Actually, this kind is the most terrifying! She can briefly touch the purest Spiritual Energy, but then quickly plummets to rock bottom—cut off from the Great Dao!”
Yes, this kind of Waste Spirit Root—sometimes connecting, sometimes not; one moment communicating with Heaven and Earth, the next being loathed by the Heavenly Dao—was the most pitiful.
Everyone discussed animatedly, and Xuan Yao’s expression also changed somewhat.
The delicate and soft woman was startled by such an unexpected turn of events. Unconsciously, she stepped forward and grabbed Gu Monian’s hand.
Her slender, pale fingers were like the tenderest scallion stalks, carrying a slight coolness and a tremble. Gu Monian’s gaze lowered, and instantly, a fleeting ripple passed through his eyes.
He gently patted Xuan Yao’s hand, reassuring her.
Do not fear.
Xuan Yao, holding back her tears, bravely looked towards Xie Bing and questioned, “Xie Bing, how could you do this to Shifu?”
Xie Bing raised an eyebrow.
Seal one mouth, and there’s yet another mouth.
Xuan Yao would rather call Xie Bing by her full name than address her as Senior Sister. She had directly used Xie Bing’s name.
Yet everyone present looked at Xie Bing with condemnation, paying no mind to Xuan Yao’s discourtesy—after all, she was the Female Lead. Such an act would only be seen as stepping up for her Shifu, forthright and adorable, worthy of praise.
If this were the Xie Bing of her past life, she would certainly be groveling in fear right now, begging for Shifu’s forgiveness. But she had already died once. The water in her brain had been completely poured out!
In her heart, Xie Bing thought, To hell with you, but on her face, panic, guilt, and bewilderment intertwined.
She spoke sincerely to Gu Monian: “Shifu, I know I am foolish and dull, utterly unable to compare with Junior Sister. However, as Junior Sister has just entered the sect, I merely wished to demonstrate a new spell I just learned—the Longevity Spell! Unfortunately, due to my Waste Spirit Root, I don’t know how it happened, but I used the wrong spell. Shifu, please do not blame me.”
Everyone: Completely baffled. Longevity Spell?
Gu Monian wanted to say something but found himself completely unable. He thought of writing in the air, but at that very moment, Xie Bing’s little mouth started rattling on: “Shifu, I know what you want to say. You want to tell Junior Sister not to be afraid. Under your tutelage, we two female disciples will henceforth rely on and support each other, absolutely sparing you the worry over us female disciples’ affairs.”
She emphasized the words “two female disciples.”
Gu Monian: No, that’s not it!
Xie Bing said earnestly, “Therefore, I will certainly fulfill, to the utmost, my responsibility as the Eldest Senior Sister, diligently guiding Junior Sister.”
Gu Monian: ??
Xie Bing grabbed Xuan Yao’s hand, pulling it from Shifu’s grasp. With the fervor of villagers welcoming the Eighth Route Army, her eyes brimming with two hot pools of tears: “Junior Sister Xuan Yao, though you are young and naive—not yet understanding the proper respect for seniority, not knowing to call me Senior Sister—it doesn’t matter! Senior Sister loves you! Senior Sister will teach you! Senior Sister will lead you toward tomorrow’s glory! Every bit of your accomplishment will be silently guarded by Senior Sister!”
Everyone: !!
Xuan Yao looked aggrievedly at Gu Monian, then turned her tear-filled eyes towards Xie Bing: “…Thank you… Senior Sister.”
The delicate flower, seeming battered and swaying precariously in the storm stirred by Xie Bing.
However, Xie Bing felt that Xuan Yao very much wanted to use the Spirit Sword she had just received, aimed directly at her own mouth, and thrust it through.
Xie Bing’s on-the-spot nonsense left Gu Monian helpless before the public eye. His Speech Ban Spell actually lasted a full incense stick’s worth of time. By then, saying anything else was too late.
Just as the apprenticeship ceremony was drawing to a close, an ink-colored sword light appeared at the edge of the sky.
The Sword Intent was pure, the Spiritual Energy abundant. The only person in the entire sect whose magical power was comparable to Shifu’s was Eldest Senior Brother, Yin Juanzhi.
Eldest Senior Brother Yin Juanzhi had returned.
Even though he was dissolute and unconventional, his magical power was rare and powerful. He was highly revered on the Righteous Path and hailed as “The Light of the Sect.”
Xie Bing silently took a step backward, shrinking her presence to its smallest, smallest possible measure.
She tried her utmost to evade, striving her hardest not to let Yin Juanzhi notice her.
Xie Bing was accustomed to being an invisible person. Even though she had just stolen the show and made a huge wave of presence, if she wished to hide, it was actually still quite easy. This was perhaps one of the innate talents of a corporate slave.
Fortunately, Eldest Senior Brother didn’t return often. The warmly inquiring Shifu, Shibo, and Shishu swarmed around him attentively. Xie Bing successfully concealed her movements.
After the apprenticeship ceremony ended, Xie Bing was completely mentally prepared. She was about to face Gu Monian’s wrath.
…
“Three days of confinement. Do you accept this?”
Shifu Gu Monian looked down darkly at Xie Bing kneeling before him.
Xie Bing kept her head deeply bowed, kneeling on the icy cold white marble floor. She seemed to look at him with shock and fear. Immediately after, she lowered her head: “This disciple… accepts.”
Since the confinement five years ago, Xie Bing had been terrified of confinement. This was a warning to her.
Outwardly, Xie Bing appeared panicked, but deep inside, she was utterly unperturbed.
Wasn’t it just confinement? She no longer loved him. What was there to fear in being confined by him?
This was the perfect opportunity to use confinement as an excuse to avoid Eldest Senior Brother, while also calmly and undisturbedly meditating on the reward she had just received.
Gu Monian: “…”
He fell silent for a moment, suddenly feeling that he didn’t quite recognize this Xie Bing.
Ever since five years ago, when she had the audacity to confess her covetous feelings, had her finger severed, and was confined, Xie Bing had become somewhat insecure and withdrawn, rarely daring to speak out. Her various behaviors and actions at today’s apprenticeship ceremony had momentarily given him a sense that he couldn’t quite grasp her.
However, it was only that fleeting moment.
Now, she knelt obediently before him, uneasy and fearful due to his command. It was no different from the past—as if it had merely been his imagination.
Could it be that because he accepted Xuan Yao today, Xie Bing was jealous?
Thinking this, Gu Monian’s tightly furrowed brows relaxed slightly.
Xie Bing was still the same weak and cowardly Xie Bing. Only such a woman was extremely easy to control.
According to the current progress of her tempering, in two more years, the perfect Cauldron would be completed.
A bottle of pills materialized out of thin air in his palm and floated down before Xie Bing. “These are your tonics for the next seven days.”
Xie Bing’s curled fingers trembled involuntarily.
She immediately suppressed it, tightly clutching the medicine bottle, and said in a trembling, fawning voice: “Shifu, I will obediently take my medicine, obediently nurse my body back to health, and spare you any further worry. If possible… could I perhaps be a little more greedy and ask for a bit more tonic?”
She bit her lip. “I thought, if by taking tonics I could achieve even one ten-thousandth of Junior Sister’s spiritual endowment, then I would no longer bring shame upon Shifu, and my heart would be content.”
Gu Monian’s expression flickered, a faint, barely perceptible trace of guilt crossing his features.
In the end, he only sighed: “Xie Bing, you are truly sensible.”
Of course she was sensible. How else could she swindle pills from her Shifu?
“Your teacher will soon open the furnace and concoct pills to nourish your body.”
Inside the dark, confined little room where even stretching her legs was difficult, Xie Bing curled up in a corner, her eyes closed, seeming to tremble slightly.
Gu Monian’s Divine Consciousness probed this scene, finally dispelling his last lingering doubt. He had other matters to attend to, such as settling Xuan Yao.
Within her Spiritual Sea of Consciousness, Xie Bing was also trembling.
The difference was, she was trembling with excitement.
[Plot Triggered: First confrontation with the Heartthrob Female Lead—Prove Your Rightful Place!]
[Plot Progress: Rounded out successfully! Publicly acknowledged as one of the two female disciples under Gu Monian’s tutelage. Achievement Unlocked: “Guardian Senior Sister of the Charming Female Lead”]
[Reward Settlement: Attack Spell—”Speechless, we gaze at each other, only a thousand lines of tears.” Effect: Hold the entire audience! Peak sorrow value reached, Disarming Weapon, one-hour weeping. Cooldown: 24 hours.]
Indiscriminate attack! Full-field AOE attack! Unable to use weapons! Although it could only be used once a day, it meant she now had a means of self-preservation! For someone who had always been a waste, this was truly, incredibly precious.
Inside her Spiritual Sea of Consciousness, she practiced the newly acquired spell. She also meditated on the various books she’d retrieved from the Scripture Library. A blink of an eye, and three days hurriedly passed.
She left the Confinement Chamber and learned two pieces of news:
Shifu had finished preparing extra rations for her.
Eldest Senior Brother still hadn’t left.
Xie Bing looked at the body-tempering tonics in her hand.
She had to take them. Otherwise, if her vital signs changed, Gu Monian would notice immediately.
She opened the bottle and poured out a dark-colored pill, which emitted a faint, exotic fragrance. Just as she was about to put it in her mouth, a hand with clearly defined knuckles snatched the pill away.
It was Eldest Senior Brother Yin Juanzhi.
He held the pill to his nose and sniffed lightly, a complex, unreadable smile at the corner of his lips.
Xie Bing’s heart jolted with alarm. She reached out, snatched the pill back, and without hesitation, swallowed it clean. She even put on a miserly expression, as if fearing her treasure would be stolen:
“Eldest Senior Brother, if you want tonics, go ask Shifu for them. Don’t steal mine.”
Steady. She mustn’t break character in front of Eldest Senior Brother Yin Juanzhi.
Yin Juanzhi’s gaze lingered on Xie Bing for a moment before he smiled.
“Junior Sister, do you trust Shifu?”
Eldest Senior Brother Yin Juanzhi always carried an aura of sharp unruliness that the righteous sects considered too unrestrained. Back then, they had believed Yin Juanzhi might inherit Gu Monian’s orthodox path, and had been both critical and anguished about him. At that time, Xie Bing thought it was merely that Eldest Senior Brother was recklessly untamed.
Xie Bing froze, lowering her eyes to conceal the thoughts within. She said softly, “Shifu is of high moral standing and great prestige, renowned throughout the Cultivation World. As Shifu’s disciple, I naturally trust Shifu.”
Yin Juanzhi curved his lips into a smile. “Then why are you still coveting Shifu? How did playing with fire feel?”
Xie Bing’s breath hitched. The memory of Shifu severing her finger five years ago resurfaced. She lowered her head. “I harbored feelings I shouldn’t have. It was my fault. These years, I’ve come to understand: only by being strong myself can I protect myself. So, I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Yin Juanzhi studied her thoughtfully, leaning in slightly.
His ice-cold fingers tilted her chin up. “You love whomever you trust?”
Forced to look up, she collided directly with a pair of deep-colored pupils.
“Then, Junior Sister, do you trust me? If you trust me, I can help you cultivate, so you never have to be a waste again.”
Yin Juanzhi’s gaze flickered dimly, like will-o’-the-wisps.
Clearly the highly acclaimed Eldest Senior Brother of the Three Major Sects, he inexplicably carried an extra layer of bewitching, ghostly allure. His words, for the original Xie Bing, were an utterly overwhelming temptation!
This plotline hadn’t happened in her previous life!
Xie Bing: “…”
In that instant, a chill ran sharply down Xie Bing’s spine.
Help her how?
Of course, she knew exactly how Yin Juanzhi intended to help her!
She nearly failed to suppress the shudder in her heart.
In her last life, she had been refined into Medicine Dregs, then discarded at the bottom of a bottomless abyss, where she was gnawed by ghostly flames, barely retaining human form. The Devil Venerable of the Devil Realm, Nangong Wumei, had picked her up. Her Heart’s Blood was taken, turning her into his controlled Puppet. She was taught Devil Arts, and from then on, this world’s villain… his vicious, bootlicking, sidekick female supporting character made her entrance.
The Devil Venerable was temperamental and volatile, a killer of countless people, feared by all. And she just watched him slaughter, watched him become more and more terrifying with each passing day.
It wasn’t until after Xie Bing’s death, when she was flipping through that book in the void, that she learned—at the very end of The Path of the Charming Beauty’s Immortal Harem, the Male and Female Leads teamed up to defeat the ultimate boss. They exposed the conspiracy of Nangong Wumei, the Devil Venerable who constantly hounded them, making him their relentless, mortal enemy.
It turned out that the Devil Venerable, Nangong Wumei, had yet another hidden identity: he was actually the sect’s Eldest Senior Brother, Yin Juanzhi!
That elegant, noble Eldest Senior Brother, Yin Juanzhi, whom countless people revered!
In the book, the life of the Devil Venerable Nangong Wumei was only briefly sketched in a few strokes. She didn’t know what Eldest Senior Brother had gone through—no, rather, she didn’t know why the Devil Venerable was hiding within the sect. This was a major plot point in the later parts of the book. It seemed Nangong Wumei became entangled with the Female Lead. The jealous Male Lead had a big fight with the Female Lead, and after they teamed up to slay the Devil Venerable, they reconciled.
The death of Nangong Wumei merely served as an opportunity for the quarreling Male and Female Leads to make up. In the book, after they destroyed the Devil Venerable, there was another tumultuous stretch of dog-blooded love-hate drama, but by then, Xie Bing had no mood to read any further.
Now, standing before Xie Bing was not just the Eldest Senior Brother Yin Juanzhi she knew, but the most terrifying, bloodthirsty tyrant of the Devil Realm: Nangong Wumei.
She knew his fearsomeness all too well.
Thus, Yin Juanzhi’s “Juanzhi” (Weariness) and Nangong Wumei’s “Wumei” (Sleeplessness) held meanings that were exact opposites! This madman of an Eldest Senior Brother had blatantly revealed his true identity right before the world’s eyes!
Yet not a single soul connected the Righteous Path’s Eldest Senior Brother with the tyrant Nangong Wumei.
Now she understood. This, perhaps, was Yin Juanzhi’s true face.
He was the one who truly dared to play with fire using his very life!
Xie Bing, who only wanted to preserve her wretched life, suddenly sensed extreme danger.
In her last life, the Devil Venerable Nangong Wumei’s way of “helping her” was taking her Heart’s Blood and controlling her, making her his Puppet. The Devil Arts she cultivated had inherent flaws!
The days and nights of her Qi Deviation were truly terrifying suffering. What about this life?
If Yin Juanzhi helped her, would he also want to make her his puppet to control?
Xie Bing smacked Yin Juanzhi’s hand away. For a moment, panic surged in her heart again.
…Don’t panic. Steady! Steady, don’t panic!
As long as she could cling to her miserable life in front of Shifu and Yin Juanzhi, she could rely on studying to survive in this Cultivation World!