Schemes

High-end medicinal ingredients often require only the most unadorned way of consumption. Xu Yuan had initially worried Tianyan might pull a trick on him—swallowing it whole without chewing, coating the Meishen flower in Source Qi. In the end, Old Man Luo bluntly informed him that the Meishen flower dissolved the moment it touched the tongue. Along the way, the old man also gave him a brief lesson: the reason Hehuan Powder was colorless, odorless, and potent enough to drug even a Saint into submission was precisely due to the medicinal power of the Meishen flower as its primary ingredient. However, consumed on its own, the Meishen flower possessed no aphrodisiac effect. It merely plunged a person into a prolonged hallucination. Refining it into Hehuan Powder required the addition of several other herbs, such as Flame Spirit Fluid. After swallowing the Meishen flower, Tianyan immediately transmitted her voice to Xu Yuan: "Xu Changtian, I... I've eaten it." Xu Yuan replied through voice transmission, "I saw. Don't fight back for now. Wait for my signal." "Wh-what?! Th—ha... That crazy woman is in the Transcendent Realm! If I... if I don't fight back—" "Be good. Do as you're told." "..." The young girl's flat chest heaved with fury. After a long pause, she finally ground out a single sentence: "If... if I die, I will drag you down to the grave with me!" "Don't worry, I have no desire to die in a lovers' suicide with a little runt like you," Xu Yuan replied with a chuckle. "#*&%!" Tianyan cursed silently. With those words, Xu Yuan paid Tianyan no further mind and immediately sped toward the back of the woman in red according to plan. As he flew, Xu Yuan asked in his mind: "Hey, Old Man Luo, does this Tianyan really have a way to drag me down with her?" "Aren't you two dying as lovers?" the Saint's remnant soul quipped dryly. "Seems you're not afraid of death at all, seeing as you're still in the mood to joke," Xu Yuan replied with a laugh. The Saint's remnant soul gave a soft snort. "The chances are slim." "Which means she might actually be able to drag me down?" Xu Yuan frowned. The Saint's remnant soul sighed. "The Heaven-Deducing Art is immensely powerful and bizarre. Even I only know of two of its sections—the Mantra Chapter and the Heaven-Deducing Chapter. I have no idea what miraculous powers the other two possess. Still, in her current state, it would be difficult for her to pose much of a threat to you." Asking was the same as not asking at all. This portable grandfather figure truly wasn't reliable in the slightest. Xu Yuan glanced toward Tianyan. After their conversation, Tianyan had obediently ceased attacking. Instead, she relied solely on a series of defensive mantras like "Fortify," "Shield," and "Focus Mind," struggling bitterly to hold her ground against the crazy woman's ghostlike, tide-like onslaught. And thanks to Tianyan, once the threat vanished, the crazy woman ceased darting everywhere. She hovered quietly in the air, staring at Tianyan and muttering lunatic ravings. Just as Xu Yuan was about to close within a hundred feet of the crazy woman, the Saint's remnant soul suddenly spoke again: "Boy, can you really be certain this madwoman won't attack you?" "..." The corner of Xu Yuan's eye twitched. He knew Old Man Luo was terrified of dying, but he hadn't realized the old man was scared to this extent. Yet right now, he could understand the old man's anxiety. After all, what they were about to do was genuinely dangerous. Charging up a massive ultimate technique right in front of this crazy woman to ambush her from behind. Forget the old grandfather—even Xu Yuan had no absolute certainty in his heart. In Cangyuan, once a player obtained the cherry blossom mark at the Meishen cherry tree, this crazy woman in red would turn into something akin to a neutral NPC. As long as you were careful not to attack her, you could happily dance around beside her without issue. In other words, the cherry blossom mark granted the player one opportunity to ambush this boss. Xu Yuan had done it before in the game. One ultimate move would shave off a fifth of the boss's health bar. Now that it had become reality, striking a fatal point might yield far more than just a mere fifth. Even so, with so many variables in reality, who could guarantee no accidents would occur? Pondering slightly, Xu Yuan nonetheless replied in a low voice: "Just do what you need to do. I've already mastered that sword art you taught me back in Jingjiang Prefecture. With the boost from your soul power, I should be able to teleport straight out." Pausing, Xu Yuan glanced at Tianyan, who was locked in a bitter struggle: "Tianyan has already consumed the Meishen flower. With a one-hour countdown hanging over her head, she will definitely fight with everything she has. If things truly go south, the worst we have to do is sell out Tianyan and run away." The Saint's remnant soul fell silent for a moment before sighing softly: "Sigh... Even when I followed my disciples back then, I never risked my life quite like I do following you, boy..." "All right, cut the chatter." As they spoke, the two had already arrived right behind the crazy woman in red. The woman in red glanced at Xu Yuan, then paid him no further attention. Seeing this, Xu Yuan immediately drew Qingyu and assumed a stance, while the Saint's remnant soul began charging his ultimate move right in her face... Controlling the Sky-Peeking Array, Ran Qingmo witnessed this scene below and quietly withdrew her intent-soul from the formation. Around her was a rather gloomy secret chamber. Tangled roots almost entirely covered the room, with only a faint glimmer of light filtering through the end of the passageway. The ink-robed woman slowly rose and walked steadily along the root-entwined corridor toward the outside. As she walked, she drew a black sword. Her pace was neither rushed nor slow, as she needed to circulate her technique and condense her qi. The passageway was long, yet perfectly straight. As she strode through, the faint blue glint on the black blade grew brilliantly radiant. The end of the corridor was bathed in radiant sunlight from the outside world, like a gate of light. Amidst the silence, Ran Qingmo stepped out of this path of light. A scene of waterside pavilions and terraces came into view—it was none other than the ruined Cherry Leech Lake. A vermilion covered walkway had collapsed across the water, the lake surface was pitted and marred, and the green blood oozing from the corpses of leeches dyed the originally pristine water murky. Sweeping her cool gaze across the area, Ran Qingmo slowly looked back behind her. In stark contrast to the ruined waterside pavilions, the massive cherry tree standing at the center of the lake remained completely intact despite enduring the earth-shattering shockwaves of the battle between Tianyan and the crazy woman. Even the platform below it bore not a single crater. Ran Qingmo stared at the withered Meishen cherry tree for several breaths, then walked slowly around it in a wide circle. As she moved, a freezing chill radiated from her sword blade, and visible frost rapidly froze the surrounding lake water along with the leech corpses trapped within. Completing the circle, she finally came to a halt outside the tree hollow's entrance and stood quietly. After a few moments, the radiance upon the black blade reached its peak. Ran Qingmo lightly raised her slender hand, then abruptly slashed down. The sword tip acted like a brush. As it swept through the air, a fine line resembling a rift in space manifested! In a mere instant, the fine line crossed dozens of meters and imprinted itself upon the Meishen cherry tree's colossal trunk! Glacial cold spread across the trunk at blinding speed. Simultaneously, the frozen lake water around them surged, and eight massive icicles erupted from below, impaling straight toward the giant cherry tree at the center! Boom! Wood splinters flew, and in the blink of an eye, the center of Cherry Leech Lake transformed into a frozen hell of crystal ice. The trunk of the Meishen cherry tree was cleaved halfway through at its midsection. The oozing crimson sap froze into frost, and eight giant icicles surging from the lake pierced completely through eight points along the trunk from top to bottom! A bone-chilling frost spread from the points of contact up and down the tree. In an instant, the Meishen cherry tree was turned into a massive ice sculpture! Yet upon seeing this, Ran Qingmo's expression did not relax in the slightest. Instead, a trace of gravity surfaced in her quiet, beautiful eyes. The Meishen cherry tree had not been severed... Time ticked away, minute by minute. Once Tianyan abandoned her offense to turtle behind a stubborn defense, the battle within the Dao Domain of Heavenly Desire became entirely one-sided. However, none of this concerned Xu Yuan for the moment. Until he made a move, the crazy woman would not attack him. Standing behind the woman in red with an unruffled expression, Xu Yuan watched with keen interest as the barefoot girl of breathtaking beauty stood two hundred feet away. After fifteen minutes, Tianyan's small face had turned utterly pale, yet an unhealthy flush faintly lingered on her delicate cheeks. The Meishen flower had not yet taken effect, but the aphrodisiac vapor permeating the Dao domain seemed to have deepened her poisoning. A second-rank Origin Realm powerhouse could indeed threaten a Transcendent under certain circumstances, but the immense chasm between them remained despairingly wide—especially once the Transcendent deployed her Dao domain. An ordinary Origin Realm expert might perish in the blink of an eye under such an assault from a Transcendent. That Tianyan could hold out this long while purely defending was already testament to the terrifying might of the Heaven-Deducing Art. Yet the Heaven-Deducing Art was not invincible. When a battle dragged into a war of attrition, the clash boiled down to a contest of Source Qi reserves. As Tianyan cast art after art, her transmitted voice took on a slight tremor: "Xu Changtian, h-hurry up!" Xu Yuan offered her a slight smile. "Don't rush. It'll be ready soon." Tianyan grew exasperated. "Th-this is already the third time you've said that!" Hearing this, Xu Yuan shook his head, severed the voice transmission, and asked in his mind: "Old Man Luo, are you ready?" The Saint's remnant soul chuckled in reply: "A quarter of an hour has passed. Naturally, I am ready." Once the Saint's remnant soul realized the crazy woman did not attack them even as he channeled his soul arts, his entire being relaxed. Xu Yuan raised his eyes to glance at the pale Tianyan across from them. "How much longer do you think Tianyan can hold out?" The Saint's remnant soul pondered briefly and chuckled in a low voice: "Transmitting her voice without leaking a trace of energy—this girl can probably hold out for a while longer. What, do you want to wait until she's on the brink before striking?" "..." Xu Yuan looked at Tianyan and the crazy woman, offering no immediate answer. Among the three parties present, though his side had the most people, they were the weakest. Both Tianyan and the crazy woman were their enemies, and either one of them possessed overwhelming power capable of crushing him and Ran Qingmo. To leave this secret realm successfully, he had to kill with a borrowed knife. Xu Yuan didn't care whether the crazy woman or Tianyan was the knife. All he cared about was that while using the knife to kill, the knife itself had to be broken in the process. After a long pause, Xu Yuan made up his mind: "Then let's wait a bit longer. If Tianyan truly can't hold on, she definitely won't sit idly by and wait for death. Besides, Ran Qingmo hasn't sent word yet. Let's wait until she's about to break—" "I heard that! Xu Changtian, you bastard! I heard everything!" "..." Xu Yuan. Glancing back, he saw the young girl's face had darkened completely. Huh? She could hear them from this far away? With an odd expression, Xu Yuan asked the Saint's remnant soul in his mind: "From this distance, she can even hear our conversation?" "Two hundred-odd feet isn't all that far..." Pausing, the Saint's remnant soul gave a low chuckle. "Though it isn't close either. For this girl to use the Heaven-Deducing Art to eavesdrop on us from such a distance, she must have plenty of strength left to spare. Tsk tsk... Look at that pale, flushed little face—she's mostly putting on an act." "..." Tianyan. Hearing that, Xu Yuan immediately focused his gaze on Tianyan's pale face. Their gazes locked across the distance, and the young girl glared at him with venom. Xu Yuan rolled his eyes at her. Sure enough, flat-chested women were hard to fool. The giant ice block and Miss Succubus were still the cutest. Tianyan urged, "Xu Changtian, attack already!" Clearing his throat, Xu Yuan sent a voice transmission: "The timing isn't right yet..." "Ten breaths. I give you ten breaths!" "Don't be impatient. It's not that we don't want to strike, it's just—" "If you don't attack, I'll aim straight at you!" "..." Xu Yuan sighed. Their fragile alliance was teetering on the verge of collapse. To preserve this temporary pact, Xu Yuan whispered to Old Man Luo: "Old Man Luo, wait another ten breaths. Strike the moment ten breaths have passed." With that, Xu Yuan gripped Qingyu and settled into the starting stance of Sweeping Blade. Oh no, it was Void-Stepping Slash now. The name Sweeping Blade was far too unlucky. Ten breaths passed in an instant. The Saint's remnant soul struck right on time. What he unleashed was a soul seal. Shaped like an inverted triangle, it radiated an eerie black light! It drove straight into the woman's soul body from behind, then abruptly detonated! "Ahhh!" With a bloodcurdling shriek, half of the red-robed woman's soul body—which had been condensed to look indistinguishable from a living person—was blasted apart in an instant! Turmoil erupted throughout the pink Dao domain, and simultaneously, countless plumes of mist packed with intense killing intent surged toward Xu Yuan! "..." Seeing this, Tianyan's eyes narrowed. The flush on her pale little face returned in full, and without a second thought, two words slipped from her red lips: "Swift!" "Flash!" Empowered by the mantras, her body lightened, and she prepared to make a run for it. She had been waiting all along for Xu Changtian's strike to draw the crazy woman's attention so she could seize the chance to flee this eerie Dao domain. The Meishen flower would take at least forty-five minutes to kick in—more than enough time for her to find a hiding place within this secret realm. The plan flashed through the young girl's mind, and her figure flickered as she bolted toward the edge of the pink Dao domain... And then, she found the silhouette of a man suddenly appearing ahead of her. "..." Tianyan. She froze for an instant. Before she could even process it, that figure flashed again, reappearing entirely outside the Dao domain. Wind rustled his clothes and wide sleeves fluttered as Xu Yuan dove straight into the palace hall below without looking back, vanishing from sight... Tianyan's mouth parted, but no words came out. Once again, she was the only one left. The woman in red, who had been blown apart by the Saint's remnant soul's sneak attack, reassembled herself in the blink of an eye. Only now, her soul body was visibly more ethereal than before, but in contrast, the frenzy on her face had grown even more manic! "..." Tianyan. *** The Hall of Dharma Transmission. The colossal hall boasted a ceiling a hundred meters high, and footsteps echoed hollowly against the ground. Xu Yuan finally collapsed onto a decayed prayer mat, panting heavily. The protagonist's Void-Stepping Slash consumed far too much energy. Even with the boost of Old Man Luo's soul power, executing it twice had drained him dry. Yet the burst of speed was truly astonishing. Two uses of Void-Stepping Slash had carried him past a thousand feet in the blink of an eye. Of course, that was Old Man Luo's doing. Had he used it on his own, he could have moved a hundred feet at most. The Saint's remnant soul drifted out of the soul ring, looking at Xu Yuan with a hint of admiration and a chuckle: "Boy, I truly never thought that the Void-Stepping Slash modified by that Qin kid could be used as an escape art." Xu Yuan chuckled, looking thoroughly relaxed: "There's plenty you don't know. To tell the truth, that kid truly possesses monstrous talent." One only realized the profound ingenuity of this sword art upon using it. Qin Mo, who had created it, truly lived up to his status as a protagonist. If used properly, it might genuinely be able to dodge Xu Changge's Karma Strike. What a pity it consumed so much energy. Hearing this, the Saint's remnant soul showed little reaction, merely shaking his head gently: "There are too many geniuses in this world. Only a genius who has grown to fruition can be considered a true genius." Xu Yuan smiled and looked at the Saint's remnant soul, preparing to tease him, but suddenly noticed the old man's originally dense form had grown significantly fainter. Frowning, he asked: "Old Man Luo, what happened to you?" "What?" Xu Yuan pointed at his soul body. Realizing what he meant, the Saint's remnant soul shook his head: "It's nothing. That soul seal just now consumed quite a bit of energy. Once you get out and find some soul-nourishing pills or medicinal herbs, I'll recover." Xu Yuan hesitated slightly. "Can't you recover on your own?" He wasn't worried about soul-nourishing herbs—after all, his father possessed immense wealth and influence, enough for him to squander at will. The Saint's remnant soul grinned. "I don't even have a physical body, so how am I supposed to recover?" Xu Yuan considered this. "In other words, your soul power is permanently depleted every time you use it?" "Naturally." The Saint's remnant soul nodded, sighing faintly. "Without a body, one is like duckweed without roots." Xu Yuan could roughly understand why this old man was so eager to obtain a physical vessel. Chuckling softly, he changed the subject: "By the way, how much damage did that soul seal of yours deal to that crazy woman?" The Saint's remnant soul pondered a moment and said quietly: "It should have injured her origin soul, though the wound shouldn't be too severe." Saying so, the Saint's remnant soul glanced toward Cherry Leech Lake and murmured: "If you want to kill her, the crucial step is for your little lover to sever that Meishen cherry tree, shatter her Dao domain, and let Tianyan finish the job." Pausing for a beat, the Saint's remnant soul asked solemnly: "Boy, are you certain that Meishen cherry tree is that crazy woman's body?" Xu Yuan shrugged: "Aside from divine trees of this caliber, what else have you seen that can live for tens of thousands of years? Besides..." Saying this, Xu Yuan tapped the cherry blossom mark between his brows, leaving the rest unsaid. The Saint's remnant soul focused his mind for a moment, then sighed softly: "If that's the case, then that woman named Yuchu actually has two souls in one body. One was refined into the cherry tree's soul with nothing left but an obsession, while the other occupies that Meishen cherry tree as a vessel. "One wonders why this woman went mad in the first place." Xu Yuan fell into thought, then pointed at the intact, massive Hall of Dharma Transmission around them: "That should be tied to the fall of the Qionghua Sect."