Fairy Gushe shot Xu Ying a glare, though there was not the slightest deterrence in her gaze. On the contrary, it made her look exceptionally captivating.
"Fellow Daoist Ye Chui likely died because of that curse of yours. Fellow Daoist Xu, the karmic burden upon you is rather heavy. If you wish to achieve immortality, you must first sever your karma to avoid your mortal tribulation. Without circumventing the mortal tribulation, you will never be able to ascend, even if you survive the heavenly tribulation!" Fairy Gushe said. "Helping you resolve your karma will also aid my own cultivation."
Seeing how effortlessly she had broken King Tuyu's black lotus curse, Xu Ying was filled with admiration. He smiled and said, "If you can unravel it, Fairy, then by all means go ahead. I could ask for nothing better."
Fairy Gushe drifted up into the air, her silken sashes fluttering past Xu Ying. "Please follow me to my palace. I will need the aid of a magical treasure."
She rode the wind with a slight forward lean, flying with indescribable elegance. There was not the slightest trace of her consciously executing wind-riding arts.
Xu Ying marveled inwardly, *I possess no wind-riding technique so calm and effortless.*
Whenever he flew, he either leapt to become a streak of rainbow light or sprinted headlong across the sky with overbearing dominance, crushing the very space before him!
Fairy Gushe's wind-riding arts, however, were exquisite down to the subtlest detail—something he could never imitate.
Fairy Gushe resided on a small immortal mountain floating in the sky. It was not large, spanning a mere half-mu, and felt quite cramped.
The house she had built sprawled outward in all four directions. While the mountain itself measured only half a mu, the structure covered a full mu.
Xu Ying looked down in bewilderment. Vast expanses of land remained across the Penglai Immortal Mountain, hardly leaving anyone lacking room to build. He could not fathom why immortals here would reside on such cramped floating peaks.
As if reading his confusion, Fairy Gushe explained, "The size of one's immortal mountain is apportioned according to an immortal's contributions to Penglai. Those with great contributions may settle upon grand immortal mountains, while those with meager contributions live on smaller peaks. The size of the mountain also dictates the immortal qi received from the Immortal Realm. Smaller peaks receive less immortal qi, slowing one's cultivation, whereas grand mountains receive abundant immortal qi, making cultivation far swifter."
Xu Ying was utterly astounded. Though it seemed unreasonable, Penglai Immortal Realm was not necessarily wrong to organize things that way.
Fairy Gushe added, "It was only by helping other immortals resolve their karma that I managed to earn a peak this large. Look at that one over there."
Xu Ying followed her gaze. That immortal mountain was even tinier, measuring a mere three feet across.
A miniature house sat upon it, naturally built out over empty air in every direction as well.
Yet even with rooms branching outward on all sides, it remained quite small.
Suddenly, as if sensing their gazes, the immortal residing on that mountain stepped out of the dwelling. He appeared as a three-inch-tall little man, but with a shake of his body, he returned to ordinary human size.
Fairy Gushe hastily caught Xu Ying's hand and pulled him into her house, whispering, "Do not look him in the eye! That is Pavilion Master Yan Yu. He talks endlessly—if you catch his eye, he will corner you and speak for days and nights on end!"
*Could he be the ancestral founder of Pavilion Master Lin?* Xu Ying's curiosity was piqued, and he cast another glance toward Pavilion Master Yan Yu.
Fairy Gushe hurriedly warned, "If you look, he will come over! His family has many members, and several other immortals reside there as well, all from Penglai Pavilion."
Xu Ying was taken aback. "I heard several former pavilion masters of Penglai Pavilion ascended. Do they all live within that three-foot-wide mountain?"
Fairy Gushe nodded. "Every single one of them."
Xu Ying glanced back over his shoulder as Fairy Gushe waved her sleeve, bidding him to take a seat.
Sitting down across from him, Fairy Gushe channeled her Primordial Spirit and said, "I shall trace your karma and sort it through. Once I understand the karma bound to you, I will know the means to resolve it. When you sever those karmic bonds, my cultivation will advance as well."
Xu Ying knew nothing of her laws of karma, so he simply said, "Please proceed as you see fit, Fairy."
Fairy Gushe's Primordial Spirit took its seat amidst the void. With a soft cry, a resonance of Great Dao rippled forth. Around Xu Ying's body, countless gossamer threads surfaced—faint and ephemeral, drifting between being and nonexistence.
Fairy Gushe said, "Among the karmic ties obstructing your ascension, some can be severed at will. Affection between parents and children or devotion between husband and wife, for instance, can all be cut away."
Xu Ying looked at the varied threads swirling about him and reached out to lightly touch one. A strange voice immediately sounded in his ear.
"Ah Ying, come up the mountain with me to catch snakes." Xu Ying was surprised; that was the voice of his grandfather from Jiangjiatian in this lifetime!
He touched another thread, and another voice rang out: "First do this, then do that, and finally like this, and it will be done."
As if drawn by some unseen force, he touched yet another: "...What did they put in this Meng Po soup? Why does it get so addictive the more you drink?"
"Brother Ying, you seem familiar. Have we met somewhere before?"
Fairy Gushe instructed, "Do not tamper with them recklessly. Allow me to examine and categorize these karmic ties first..."
"Wait—your karmic debts of parental upbringing number over ten thousand!"
No matter how still and impassive her heart had become through cultivation, she could not conceal her shock.
Over ten thousand threads of parental debt tied to a single person—she had never witnessed such a phenomenon!
Tracing along these lines one by one, she breathed a slight sigh of relief, though deep curiosity welled within her. *How strange. These threads all span roughly ten years, the longest lasting only several decades. How could this be?... Wait, here are two karmic threads that span forty-eight thousand years!*
Fairy Gushe took a deep breath, steadying her pounding heart, and followed one of those two threads backward. *Parents who lived for forty-eight thousand years? I don't believe it!*
Tracing the path, she drew near the very end of the thread, eager to see who Xu Ying's parents truly were. Just as she was about to reach the culmination, she suddenly met a pair of eyes.
Those eyes enveloped her very soul. In the next instant, Fairy Gushe's divine sense spun dizzyingly out of control, flung straight back to where she began.
A chill ran through her heart. Not daring to investigate Xu Ying's parents any further, she turned her attention to his threads of marriage. To her disbelief, Xu Ying possessed hundreds of matrimonial cords!
*This Fellow Daoist Xu is an absolute rake! His romantic entanglements could form a million-strong army!*
Tracing along those hundreds of matrimonial threads, Fairy Gushe suddenly saw them converge into a single strand.
When she reached the end of it, she beheld a peerless female immortal seated in the void, bridging the myriad heavens and worlds, radiating an immeasurably terrifying aura.
As if sensing something, the female immortal swept a dark, profound gaze toward her. Fairy Gushe hastily severed her divine sense, not daring to probe any further.
Yet that boundless, overbearing divine sense pursued the trace of her aura, instantly enveloping her entire being and scanning her thoroughly from head to toe!
Cold sweat drenched Fairy Gushe's back.
Only then did that formidable consciousness recede, vanishing without a trace.
Steadying her nerves, Fairy Gushe dared not look at Xu Ying's romances again. She thought to herself, *Better to examine his vendettas and enemies. Generally speaking, those who ruin someone's chance at immortality are vengeful foes seeking retribution.*
She immediately set to work, intending to sort out Xu Ying's enemies.
Her expression instantly changed. Tens of thousands of karmic threads surged toward her, all bound tightly to Xu Ying's body!
*This man has far, far too many enemies!*
Horrified, Fairy Gushe allowed her divine sense to brush against those threads, and furious roars of grief and rage instantly assailed her ears.
"Great Villain, you severed my heavenly road!"
"I, Zhou Hao, refuse to accept this! Even to the day I die, I dare not face the tribulation!"
"Had that Great Demon King not concocted that super heavenly tribulation, how could I, Kang Peng, have been barred at the Ascension stage, forever unable to take that final step?"
Those shrill, sorrowful screams came not only from the Yuanshou world, but from the myriad heavens and realms across the cosmos!
Nor did they stem merely from the present; they stretched back into the distant past!
They were the karma of countless Ascension-stage Qi Refiners bound to Xu Ying—hatred etched into their very bones, longing to tear Xu Ying to shreds!
Fairy Gushe even discovered a karmic thread of her own tied to Xu Ying's body.
*He was the Great Villain who cut off the heavenly road, the Great Demon King who barred me from my tribulation!*
Her heart trembled violently. Back when she had cultivated to the Ascension stage, she too had lacked the courage to face the heavenly tribulation, leaving her no choice but to seek out Penglai Immortal Mountain.
She, too, had once hated Xu Ying to the marrow of her bones!
Suppressing the turmoil in her heart, she quietly severed that thread of karma and thought, *I am already an immortal now. Though merely an immortal of the Penglai Immortal Realm, I have ultimately transcended life and death. Better to sever this grudge so it will not hinder my cultivation.*
Seeing the sheer mountain of karma entwining Xu Ying, she knew it would be nigh impossible to resolve. For Xu Ying to cross his tribulation and ascend would be harder than scaling the heavens.
*This man is a Great Villain, a Great Demon King who has committed every evil under the sun. Why should I help him sever his karma?*
Just as she prepared to withdraw her power and wash her hands of his karma, she suddenly noticed several immensely thick threads coiled around Xu Ying's imperishable true spirit.
Her interest was piqued. *Karmic threads of immortals? Just who are these people?*
Touching one of them, she immediately witnessed an enormous rift tearing across the sky from east to west. Within the tear stood colossal, towering figures of terrifying majesty!
Fairy Gushe's heart hammered against her ribs. She instantly snapped her divine sense, daring not look any longer.
*Weixu! Mighty figures of Weixu are entangled with him in karma!*
After a long moment, Fairy Gushe calmed her racing thoughts. Hesitating briefly, she touched the next thick thread.
The moment her divine sense made contact, her consciousness plummeted precipitously into boundless, suffocating darkness!
Terrifying roars echoed from the dark, throwing her mind into chaotic frenzy.
Fairy Gushe severed her connection, trembling in shock. *The demonic realm! It is a horrifying existence from the demonic realm!*
By this point, her curiosity had only grown. She desperately wanted to know just what kind of dreadful beings Xu Ying's enemies truly were.
She looked toward the very thickest cords, and as if possessed, her divine sense brushed against one of them.
The instant she made contact, the scenery before her shifted at blinding speed. It felt as though she were ascending, soaring upward through layer upon layer of swirling, kaleidoscopic time and space!
Only when her divine sense rose before a colossal, towering portal did she regain her clarity.
*The Southern Heavenly Gate! This is the Immortal Realm!*
Just as Fairy Gushe prepared to sever her divine sense to escape the cord, an immortal guarding the Southern Heavenly Gate flicked a finger, shattering her consciousness.
"A mortal madman dares probe the Immortal Realm with divine sense? What insolence," the immortal remarked blandly.
Fairy Gushe gathered her scattered thoughts, realizing that the thickest threads were of terrifying importance, far beyond her ability to investigate.
Had she forced her way further, she likely would have dropped dead on the spot, her body destroyed and her Dao extinguished!
She looked toward a somewhat thinner thread and thought, *There is still this one I haven't seen...*
Her divine sense brushed it. Her vision blurred, and her awareness extended through a portal, coming face-to-face with the countenance of the Immortal Master of Penglai.
Fairy Gushe's hair stood on end. At that very moment, the Immortal Master of Penglai seemed to notice, raising his head to look back along her divine sense.
A blinding glare burst before Fairy Gushe's vision. Knowing disaster was at hand, she stirred her divine sense into a voice and transmitted, "Immortal Master, Gushe was practicing her Dao arts and momentarily lost track..."
The Immortal Master of Penglai chuckled. "So that is all. Our Penglai is about to withstand the demonic realm's invasion. Cultivate diligently; I look forward to seeing you display your prowess in the demonic realm!"
Fairy Gushe acknowledged him and withdrew her divine sense.
After a moment's frantic thought, she immediately shook Xu Ying awake, sprang to her feet, and began packing her belongings at breakneck speed.
Xu Ying opened his eyes to see the graceful fairy darting around the room, hurriedly packing. He asked curiously, "Fairy, what are you doing?"
"Fleeing!"
Fairy Gushe said urgently, "I saw things I shouldn't have seen! There is no place left for me in Penglai; staying means certain death, so I am running for my life! Fellow Daoist Xu, I cannot resolve your karma. You had best seek someone more capable!"
Xu Ying was dumbfounded. He hadn't done anything at all—how had this pure and aloof fairy been driven to the point of fleeing for her life?
Having bundled up her possessions, Fairy Gushe paced restlessly about the room, muttering under her breath, "I just probed him, so fleeing now will definitely arouse suspicion. Besides, I consumed Penglai's Longevity Grass and overcame my tribulation here to become an immortal. If I leave Penglai, I will lose my immortal status and my longevity..."
Indecision tore at her. Fleeing Penglai would strip away her divinity, reducing her back into a mere Ascension-stage Qi Refiner.
Furthermore, would the Longevity Grass she had consumed still remain effective?
Yet if she did not flee, given the Immortal Master's temperament, his suspicions would surely fall upon her, and staying would still mean certain death!
Her composure entirely shattered, she paced back and forth in frantic anxiety.
Xu Ying asked curiously, "Fairy, what is troubling you so? Why not speak of it? Perhaps I can help you find an answer."
Fairy Gushe hesitated for a moment, then gritted her teeth and said, "I traced your karmic threads to investigate your enemies, only to discover that one of your greatest foes is right here in the Penglai Immortal Realm!"
Xu Ying chuckled. "Could it be the Immortal Master of Penglai?"
Fairy Gushe gasped, "How did you know?"
Xu Ying merely smiled without answering, then said, "So that's what happened. Your probe touched upon him and he caught you, didn't he?"
A blush crept onto Fairy Gushe's cheeks. Though she appeared cold and detached on the outside, her curiosity was stronger than anyone's. She stammered, "It wasn't just him I investigated, and he wasn't the only one who noticed me. I probed many of your enemies, and all of them caught me..."
Xu Ying's eyes went wide. Only after a long silence did he exhale a breath of turbid air and murmur, "Fairy, even if you manage to escape Penglai, what good will it do? Wouldn't you still end up dying without a place to be buried?"
Fairy Gushe froze in place, a wave of profound sorrow washing over her. Tears welled in her eyes as she wept, "I was cultivating peacefully in Penglai—how did I end up doomed to die without a grave? Wait, that's it!"
She grabbed Xu Ying's hand, prying his fingers open, and cried, "Quick, let me see! Is that black lotus curse still there? The curse must have taken effect, making me the second sacrifice aboard this sinking ship!"
Chapter 321