"How is he?"
"His injuries are grave. Extremely grave. I have never seen wounds this severe."
Insect Maiden Caidie fluttered her wings, her expression heavy as she looked at Qi Yuan, bloodied from head to foot.
Blood had dried on his tattered robe. Qi Yuan's eyes were shut tight, his breath faint as a hanging thread.
Shen Lingxuan held the unconscious Qi Yuan, her heart full of self-blame and guilt.
If not for her, Qi Yuan might never have come up, and he would never have suffered injuries this severe.
"If it were anyone else, wounds this heavy would already have killed him," Insect Maiden Caidie said, her face full of disbelief.
What had happened today had truly gone beyond anything she expected.
A mere... ordinary Divine-rank powerhouse of the Qingshan Realm had actually been able to cut down all ten of Fengti's lives.
Fengti was no ordinary Great Venerable.
Powerhouses beyond count filled this stretch of the Chaotic Star Domain, and at the Great Venerable realm, Fengti could almost be called invincible.
Qi Yuan had given him far too many surprises.
"I never thought... Brother Qi Yuan would be this powerful. If a talent like this were revealed, even ordinary Realm Lords would fight to take him as a disciple."
At that moment, Xianling Yingjun's figure appeared.
Fengti's single sword strike had split the Divine Wood Abyss and left no small number of gaps. Strong as he was, he had come in along those gaps.
Ji Wuyun and Chen Kangbao had no such strength.
"You are..." Insect Maiden Caidie watched Xianling Yingjun with open wariness.
Xianling Yingjun's name carried the word for handsome, yet his looks were utterly plain. Set him in a crowd, and no one would notice him.
"Rest assured. Brother Qi Yuan and I can barely count as friends. I mean no harm." Inwardly, Xianling Yingjun was astonished.
Of the battle between Qi Yuan and Fengti, he had glimpsed only a corner, yet even that had shown him how formidable Qi Yuan's talent was.
At the Great Venerable realm, when a cultivator condensed a Divine Domain, he would comprehend heaven and earth.
There was a slender chance that the cultivator would merge into the universe, comprehend the rules of the cosmos, and condense a Rule Heart.
Once a Rule Heart was condensed at the Great Venerable realm, the realm of ultimate reason—the second tier of Yang God—would hold no difficulty, and there was even a great chance of stepping into the third tier of the Yang God realm.
More important still, what Qi Yuan had unleashed at the end... seemed to be two Rule Hearts fused together.
The third tier of the Yang God realm was divided into the Rule Realm, the Myriad Things Realm, and the Heaven-Opening Realm. Only in the Myriad Things Realm could one fuse rules.
Even among Realm Lords of the Rule Realm, many could not fuse rules and step into the Myriad Things Realm in all their lives.
Qi Yuan had fused rules in the Yin God realm...
What did that mean?
It meant that if he ever had the chance to step into the Rule Realm, he would have nearly nine chances in ten of stepping into the Myriad Things Realm.
In the Myriad Things Realm, one need only condense nine first-grade rules to step into the Heaven-Opening Realm.
Nine, of course, was the minimum. The more one condensed, the stronger one became.
And so, looking at Qi Yuan in his blood-soaked, tattered robe, he seemed to see a future Realm Lord rising.
If Qi Yuan grew as he should, he would certainly become a Realm Lord, and no ordinary one.
In any universe, a Realm Lord was an absolute great figure, ruling rivers of stars, heaven and earth, and all the world.
"If you want to save him, I have a plan," Xianling Yingjun said. "Have him join the Void Paradise. Surely many Realm Lords of our Void Paradise would be willing to take him as a disciple."
The Void Realm Lord need not even be considered.
An existence that towering had no interest in taking disciples.
But the other Realm Lords would likely not pass over a seed with such potential.
"No." Insect Maiden Caidie spoke at once.
Qi Yuan was a Mandate bearer. He carried the Mandate of Heaven on his person.
If he joined the Void Paradise and became the disciple of a powerhouse from another universe, it would be nothing less than defecting with the whole city in tow.
A Mandate bearer represented not only himself, but the will of a world, even the will of a universe.
Why had the Radiant Society kept killing Mandate bearers?
To seize the right to speak for the Divine Wood Universe.
As for the Void Paradise, its ties with the Renqi Society were fairly close, but those not of one's own kind... their hearts would surely differ. How could they be trusted?
Xianling Yingjun shook his head. "This method truly will not do."
After all, he was not qualified to meet a Realm Lord either.
If he proclaimed Qi Yuan's terrifying talent, he might draw no Realm Lord at all, and instead draw certain old monsters.
In the Zhou Universe there were many Yang Gods who could not break through. If they discovered Qi Yuan's terrifying talent, they might well carry him off.
What they would do with him then could not be known.
"Aside from this, I have no better way." With that, Xianling Yingjun's figure vanished.
Once more, only Insect Maiden Caidie, Shen Lingxuan, and the unconscious Qi Yuan remained.
Caidie's gaze shifted again and again. At last she looked at Shen Lingxuan, her thoughts tangled. "I have a method that may wake him. But... it may damage your foundation."
"What method?" Shen Lingxuan's delicate frame gave a tremor as she realized.
"Profound Yin..."
"I understand." Shen Lingxuan bit her lip. A flush rose beside her ears, vivid enough to drip.
About an hour later, in the ice chamber, Qi Yuan lay flat upon an ice bed, the blood wiped clean from his body.
Shen Lingxuan gazed at Qi Yuan's handsome face, uneasy, not knowing how to begin.
What if...
After all, he was still a patient.
She watched him for a long time before she finally hesitated, slipped a hand into her robes, and took away her chest wrap and underclothes. Even though Qi Yuan was still unconscious, she was shy, and did not want her bare body shown.
"Husband..."
A blush lay across her cold, snow-pale face, like a plum blossom opening in a scene of snow. Shen Lingxuan lifted her skirt and bared a long stretch of snow-white, fine-skinned thigh.
Her legs were long, even, and straight, smooth as white porcelain and lustrous as jade, without a thread of excess flesh.
Brows faintly knit, Shen Lingxuan still did not know how to begin. She could only bend her knees, hold up her skirt, and sit astride Qi Yuan.
She wanted to move, and did not dare, and still did not know how to begin.
An immortal cold and clear as jade, meeting such a thing for the first time, was somewhat at a loss for where to set her hands.
She remembered what Zhishuang had once taught her. Her hands crept upward, stealthy and searching.
Perhaps the feeling of sneaking was simply too strong. Qi Yuan, who had still been unconscious, suddenly opened his eyes.
"Hey. How am I supposed to sleep through something like this and just lie there like a dead fish?"
On television, there were always plots where the male lead was unconscious and the female lead pushed him down.
Then he woke without even knowing he had slept with her, to say nothing of that night's experience amounting to zero.
Qi Yuan naturally had no wish for that to happen to him.
He looked at Shen Lingxuan sitting astride him. His gaze was weak, but exceptionally firm.
"You may be on top right now, but in the end it has to be me who... rides..."
Mm. A man who kept his word had to make good on what he said.
If he said ride, then he would ride.
"You're awake?"
Delight showed on Shen Lingxuan's face, and then a shyness even thicker than before. Skirt gathered, sitting astride Qi Yuan, she felt his response.
"Mm. Can you take off the veil? Otherwise this feels strange." Qi Yuan could not see, yet he could still sense the veil covering Shen Lingxuan's snow-pale face.
A little spice was one thing.
"...All right." Shen Lingxuan hesitated, then removed the veil from her face.
That veil protected her. She almost never took it off.
Now, facing Qi Yuan, she removed it all the same.
Qi Yuan studied Shen Lingxuan as she took the veil away.
In that instant he could see nothing, yet he felt as if he had beheld the greatest bliss in the world.
What met that sense seemed a pure young girl in a JK uniform, and a cold immortal seated in the Ninth Heaven, and the lovely, bewitching saintess of a demonic sect, and a full, enticing imperial consort, and a cold, lonely princess secluded deep in a palace, so pitiable that anyone who saw her would ache for her.
Every manner of allure, and a coldness like frost. The utmost seduction beneath the utmost icy beauty.
In every lift of her hand and turn of her body, she gave off the charming aspects of all living beings.
Every one of them seemed to land exactly on what Qi Yuan found beautiful.
"So this is the Profound Yin Physique. No wonder she has to wear a veil."
Who could withstand this?
Even though Qi Yuan was blind, one look at Shen Lingxuan's face with his mind's eye stirred a nameless desire in him.
He wanted to keep her and raise her in a cage. He also wanted to tear her apart.
But Qi Yuan would not be moved by a force from outside. He had always followed his own heart. Do As One Pleases.
"I..." Shen Lingxuan looked at Qi Yuan, her thoughts in some disorder.
Wasn't her husband blind? How could he still offer an appraisal like that?
But then she thought that he was temporarily sightless and could not see the state she was in, and an inexplicable relief rose in her heart.
Her skirt was hitched high now, fallen to her slender waist and covering her hips again, while the jade legs she could not hide were folded beneath her as she knelt astride him, allure without limit.
A pair of hands circled her waist. Shen Lingxuan seemed to drop into the clouds. Waves of red spread from the corners of her eyes, vivid enough to drip, and her soft hands left marks along Qi Yuan's back of their own accord.
"Mm..."
When moonlight spilled into the Divine Wood Abyss, the cold and lonely Shen Lingxuan lay against Qi Yuan's side like a little bird nestling close.
Her delicate body still wore her robes, though they were especially disordered. Not a bit of what ought to have been covered was covered, and a flush spread over her snow-white back, fine as a cicada's wing.
She was like a narcissus battered after rain. Even in sleep her lovely brows were still knit, stirring pity in anyone who saw her.
But there was even more allure, and even more seduction.
What drew the eye most was, of course, that pair of long legs laid out beside him. Even asleep, her delicate bare feet still held their arches drawn taut.
Qi Yuan glanced at her, his thoughts complicated.
"Master?"
"No."
"A pity I'm blind. Otherwise, one look a day, and I might have known."
"No. She is herself. She isn't anyone else."
Qi Yuan smiled. His mood was very good.
From the battle with Fengti he had gained a great deal. He had glimpsed the path of the third tier of the Yang God realm, slain Fengti ten times, and his experience bar had risen considerably.
From his battle with Shen Lingxuan he had also gained plenty. He had tasted one of the great pleasures of life, and his portrayal was complete.
Of course, on Blue Star he might have worried about his kidneys. This was another world. He was not afraid.
"Still, the reward for completing the portrayal of Matrilocal Son-in-law Qi Yuan is rather a chicken rib."
The final reward was Matrilocal Son-in-law Qi Yuan's talent as an implement forger.
That talent was not even as good as Qi Yuan's own. Given back to Qi Yuan, it could only count as passable.
A little more talent for forging implements was always a good thing.
【Portrayal of Matrilocal Son-in-law Qi Yuan complete. Portrayal Role Five unlocked.】
【Portrayal Role Five: Stone.】
"This is telling me to portray a stone... and pretend to be the Handsome Monkey King?"
When it came to portraying a stone, all Qi Yuan could think of was Sun Wukong.
He closed his eyes and began to receive the memories this stone brought with it.
A stone had no memories.
Yet Qi Yuan saw the whole of its life.
It stood lonely upon a mountaintop, day after day, year after year, taking wind and rain as sun and moon turned.
A grapevine put forth shoots across it and bore grapes. But the years flowed on. The grapes fell, and new grapes grew, and time was the most merciless thing of all.
Until at last the withered vine bore no more fruit, and the grapevine vanished completely.
The stone grew lonely again.
Now and then a little bird landed on it. Now and then dead leaves kept it company. None of them stayed for long.
Then, one day, heaven collapsed and the earth split.
Qi Yuan's heart stirred.
"Nüwa mending the heavens?"
"No. Mending the earth!"
He had once told the soundless voice the story of the divine maiden mending the earth.
And now the story he had told had actually come true within this stone's memories.
The earth ruptured. Endless magma surged out, swallowing everything.
The common people knelt and prayed that Heaven would put out the fires of the earth.
At last a divine maiden appeared. She surveyed the four realms and took away the stone that stood among the mountains and rivers.
With supreme power she used the stone to mend the earth, and at last stopped the earthly fire from spreading.
"Isn't this... the story in the Secret Essentials of Origin?"
The Secret Essentials of Origin recorded many myths and legends of the Divine Wood Universe. Later Qi Yuan had found the book as well and read the fragmentary text to the end.
Those fragments recorded the story of the divine maiden mending the earth.
"So many of the myths in the Secret Essentials of Origin are real. Then what about the Classic of Mountains and Seas?"
A sudden fancy struck Qi Yuan.
The Secret Essentials of Origin was the Divine Wood Universe's Classic of Mountains and Seas.
"In the end, after the divine maiden mended the earth, this stone broke into pieces. Most of it was used to fill the ground. What remained..."
All at once, Qi Yuan seemed to see a tombstone.
But because he was the stone, every scene he saw was hopelessly blurred, not even as clear as his mind's eye.
"The remaining stone was made into a tombstone. And what was left after that... is me?"
Qi Yuan turned it over in his mind.
He had never portrayed a stone before.
The knack of it would still have to be slowly felt out later.
For now, though, the urgent task was still portraying the Blind Implement Master.
...
"There's a blind girl in the Divine Wood Deep Abyss. I have to go back down and keep forging."
Above the hot spring, Qi Yuan spoke calmly.
"I want to go down too," Insect Maiden Caidie said.
She was curious what the legendary Divine Wood Deep Abyss actually held.
"Don't go in. It hurts," Qi Yuan said.
He had chosen not to take Shen Lingxuan into the Divine Wood Deep Abyss.
The pain of passing through that point of light was not something a mortal could endure.
"I've lived for tens of thousands of years. What pain haven't I tasted? Let me smash right into—"
With a splash, Insect Maiden Caidie charged the entrance of the Divine Wood Deep Abyss.
All at once, her body dropped.
The pain knocked her unconscious.
Seeing this, Shen Lingxuan looked at Qi Yuan with even more pity.
Qi Yuan had once endured pain like this, yet he had come to the Divine Wood Abyss as if nothing were wrong, slain Fengti, and saved her.
"All right. I'll go down for now. If the two of you run into danger, I'll come up anytime."
With that, Qi Yuan returned to the Divine Wood Deep Abyss without the slightest hesitation.
"Sure enough. The restraints of the Divine Wood Deep Abyss are terrifying."
"No matter how strong a man is, once he gets here he has to admit he can't."
In the Divine Wood Abyss, facing Shen Lingxuan, Qi Yuan had felt like a god of war. Riding her any number of times in a day would have been nothing.
But in the Divine Wood Deep Abyss, if Shen Lingxuan came looking for him day after day, he figured he would be clutching his waist and dodging.
"Huh? Where is she?" Qi Yuan made a circuit of the Divine Wood Deep Abyss and sensed no trace of the blind girl.
He found it a little strange.
"Forget it. Forging first."
After awakening his mind's eye, Qi Yuan felt he was powerful to an absurd degree.
The speed at which he forged implements had quickened as well, as if the gods were lending a hand.
"Sure enough, going blind affected me far too much. Awakening the mind's eye is better. Tempering these materials used to take an hour. Now it only takes a quarter-hour."
Qi Yuan sighed at the thought.
A person ought to have eyes.
No eyes, then one ought to have a mind's eye.
No mind's eye, then at least an asshole, right?
So long as there was some kind of eye, that still counted as a skill, and one would not be out of work.
Qi Yuan sat beneath the ladder, tempering materials.
"The mind's eye really is a great help. Give it another half month... and I figure I can forge a Divine-rank implement."
"But... an implement like Divine Descent is not so easy as an ordinary Divine-rank implement."
"At the very least... the Eight Arts of Implement Crafting have to be fused."
When he had finished murmuring, Qi Yuan shrugged, rose, and went on toward the blind girl's dwelling.
"Wonder if she's back."
Along a road both familiar and strange, Qi Yuan arrived before the blind girl's room.
The soft sound of water came through, and Qi Yuan brightened.
The blind girl was home.
"Hey, I've awakened my mind's eye. I'm short on materials. Give me some." Qi Yuan called.
The blind girl, fresh from washing her face, came out of the room with a wooden basket full of all sorts of materials.
"You've awakened your mind's eye?"
"Yes." Qi Yuan looked toward the blind girl.
Unfortunately, even with his mind's eye awakened, all that met his sight was a haze. He could not see clearly at all.
"Barely passable." The blind girl handed him the wooden basket. Her delicate nose wrinkled. "You reek of sweat. Go take a bath."
In the Divine Wood Deep Abyss, Qi Yuan was no different from an ordinary person. Sweating from work was only normal.
"Thanks." Qi Yuan took the basket and returned to his own dwelling.
He had been forging for a long time and was somewhat tired. He needed to wash and sleep.
"Pity there are no ants in this Divine Wood Deep Abyss. Otherwise I'd duel an ant."
After his bath, Qi Yuan ate fruit and murmured to himself.
"There isn't even a worm in this fruit. Otherwise, fighting a worm, I might even break through my own limits."
So Qi Yuan thought.
The Divine Wood Deep Abyss was far too lovely. The fruit was all sweet, without a trace of worms having gnawed it.
The water was clear as well, with nothing foul in it.
Everything was splendid beyond measure, as if it were not real.
With that thought, Qi Yuan slowly sank into sleep.
The moon was bright and the stars were few. The night was enchanting.
Suddenly a faint fragrance drifted in, and a delicate body crashed into Qi Yuan's arms.
"Lingxuan?"
Half asleep, Qi Yuan instinctively thought it was Shen Lingxuan.
In the Divine Wood Abyss, on the second day, Shen Lingxuan had already come to him in the night. She had been gentle and considerate then. Qi Yuan could not see, so she had leaned in of her own accord and let him taste.
So when a delicate body arrived, he took the chance to draw her in and kissed her.
Soft, fragrant and tender, sweet with moisture.
Qi Yuan's mind snapped awake in that instant.
"No. This is the Divine Wood Deep Abyss. Lingxuan can't get in."
"Who are you?" Qi Yuan asked.
The woman did not answer him.
He was somewhat dumbfounded.
But he could not stay dumbfounded for long.
Because... he, grand master of Five-Element Qi Refinement, Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, a Stellar Golden Core, and a Purple Mansion of purple qi and the Netherworld, an existence who commanded two Supreme Ultimate Principles, had been pushed down and taken.
He could not see who the woman was at all. His strength was no greater than hers, either. In the Divine Wood Deep Abyss, his combat power was not much above a mortal's.
As for crying out for help?
Please. That would be far too shameful. Not to mention that his mouth was still stopped.
After a night of red seas churning, Qi Yuan slowly woke, his head splitting.
Last night's memories rolled back, and a thoughtful look came over his face.
"Did I have an erotic dream?"
"No."
His nose gave a slight sniff. On his stone bed there was a faint scent of flowers, a very familiar smell.
A bold guess rose in Qi Yuan's heart, and with it a great deal of anger.
"She covets my body?"
She had saved his life, yes, but he had not repaid her with his body.
If it really had been the blind girl, then, setting aside that she had saved him, she would truly be Qi Yuan's new white moonlight.
If this had happened on Blue Star, many people would have laughed at him—a man pushed down by a woman.
But Qi Yuan was different. He was the victim.
Nor would he turn harm done to a man into entertainment.
"Was it her?" A thick confusion filled him.
He felt that it was, and he felt that it was not.
But that floral scent truly came from the same source as the blind girl.
He felt he had to go and confront her face to face.
A man's innocence was innocence too.
The handsome ought to stand up boldly!
Chapter 541