Yin Wanderer gave the whisk in her hand a slight shake, breaking the spell of shock that had bound them.
Her gaze flickered, and with the lightest pressure of her fingers Qin Wanru quickly released her hold. Her eyes welled up with mist as she whispered, “Master…”
Her voice caught before she could begin.
Yin Wanderer only cast her a glance before lowering her eyes to the three pages in her hand.
She turned them over, and her attention was immediately drawn to the writing. After reading just two lines, she shook her head. “It really is the Yin Charm Scripture…”
There was a sigh, carrying with it a sense of weariness, mystery, and endless depth.
Qin Wanru felt her nose sting again. She quickly drew from her robes a thin book woven from ice-silkworm thread and offered it up with both hands in deep reverence.
“Master, your disciple has gathered the complete Yin Charm Scripture here. Please look it over!”
Without lifting her head, Yin Wanderer accepted it with a casual motion, her voice calm and detached. “Well done. These years must have been hard on you.”
It was nothing more than a simple word of praise, yet in Qin Wanru’s ears it broke her last thread of restraint. Tears streamed down her cheeks like pearls spilling free. Still, she remained standing where she was, proof of how strict the rules of Yin Wanderer’s household were.
Li Xun, meanwhile, was caught between shock, confusion, and dread. He didn’t dare look at Yin Wanderer. His scattered gaze only drifted to Qin Wanru, who was weeping openly.
Sensing his eyes, Qin Wanru brushed away her tears, then smiled at him. Her smile overflowed with joy. And with mockery.
Li Xun’s body stiffened. He took the smallest of steps backward. But even that tiny movement drew a cool glance from Yin Wanderer.
With a heavy thump, Li Xun collapsed onto the ground, his face ashen as death.
When Qin Wanru saw the look on his face, her smile faded a little. In that instant, it was as if time had flowed backward. Back to when the National Preceptor, the Young Preceptor, and Consort Qin gathered together. After all the cycles of fate, Li Xun was still the weak one.
After that one glance, Yin Wanderer lowered her eyes again to the complete Yin Charm Scripture. She read it carefully, page by page, from the beginning, her expression serene, her manner unhurried.
From the way she carried herself, it was as though she were in a study surrounded by the fragrance of books, not standing out in the wild with hares darting and hawks circling.
No one dared disturb her. In that atmosphere, the other two barely even let themselves breathe, afraid of provoking her displeasure.
So it went: Qin Wanru standing, Li Xun sitting, the silence stretched on, careful and fragile.
Li Xun remained on the ground, the look of fear still fixed on his face. But in truth, though there might have been “shock” in his heart, there was little room for “fear.”
What filled him more was suspicion and doubt: What’s going on with Nether Two? Wasn’t everything going smoothly just a moment ago? Keeping the air of mystery, trying to stay close to the memory of who she was, avoiding Qin Wanru’s eyes whenever possible… Everything was nearly perfect. So how did it all fall apart at the last step?
He stole a glance at the Yin Charm Scripture and began to regret not letting Nether Two look it over before handing it away.
Li Xun was also thinking: back then, Yin Wanderer had forced herself to study only half of the Yin Charm Scripture, which drove her into madness and changed her temperament completely. Now that she was seeing the full text, what kind of transformation might it bring?
Worried, he reached through the special channel of mental connection he shared with his Nethermyst Puppets, trying to sense what was happening.
But the moment he tried, he was utterly shocked. The spiritual link that connected his mind to the puppets had already been cut off!
Between a puppet and its controller there were, in general, two channels, separate yet complementary. One was the circulation and return of primordial qi, known in the classics as the Dark Conduit. Li Xun’s Nethermyst Shadow Body technique was built upon this pathway.
The other was the channel of spiritual resonance. Through this link, he could instantly sense every change in the puppet’s condition and also remotely direct its actions. The classics called this the Nether Vein.
The Nether Vein was intangible yet absolutely real, made up of hundreds of thousands of intricate qi mechanisms. Even with Li Xun’s powerful talent for deduction, most of the time he only understood that it worked, not why it did.
In his daily cultivation, all he could do was follow the text word for word, carefully nurturing it.
But right at that moment, the “Nether Vein” snapped!
If not for the fact that the “Dark Conduit” was still intact, and that the Nethermyst Shadow Body was running smoothly, Li Xun might have already jumped up and bolted for his life. Even so, dropping in an instant from “knowing everything” to “knowing nothing at all” made him so sick he almost coughed up blood.
On top of that, another deadly problem was surfacing: he was running out of time!
Ever since the Heaven's Nether Yin Pearl was struck again, Li Xun had been relying solely on his own cultivation to keep the puppet’s body anchored in this world.
Extracting the Nine Netherworld Earth Qi, keeping it flowing, and transforming it took as much balance and concentration as walking a tightrope. He had no idea how much longer he could keep it up.
The weather wasn’t hot, yet beads of sweat streamed down his forehead, his face growing paler and paler. At this rate, he feared he wouldn’t even have the strength to stand.
His eyes flicked to Qin Wanru. Gritting his teeth, he made up his mind. If it really came to it, he’d summon Nether One and tear the mask off!
But just as the thought rose, a shock ran through him. The “Dark Conduit” was faltering too. The aura on Nether Two’s body was growing stronger, but the Nine Netherworld Earth Qi he needed to draw was fading fast.
Without that supply of Nine Netherworld Earth Qi, how could the puppet possibly remain anchored in this realm?
What made it even worse was that as the demand for Nine Netherworld Earth Qi kept dropping, the “Dark Conduit” was flickering too, half open and half closed, as if it meant to follow the “Nether Vein” into complete collapse.
Li Xun was already standing at the edge of a cliff. He had to decide right then, and he did.
Turning against Qin Wanru is still better than losing Nether Two altogether. I’ll risk it!
Without another moment’s hesitation, Li Xun snapped into a hand seal, doing the technique to pull Nether Two back.
But what made his heart sink and his blood run cold was that after the seal was formed, Nether Two gave no response at all!
The stream of qi he sent over was like a stone thrown into the sea, swallowed without a ripple, not even an echo. And the faint thread of the “Dark Conduit” was fading away fast.
Eyes wide, he looked toward Nether Two. The beautiful puppet was still there, leisurely turning pages and savoring the text, her slender fingers brushing the silk-like sheets with a touch of grace.
At that very moment, she happened to finish the page of ice-silkworm silk and let her gaze fall onto the three handwritten pages. Maybe she felt Li Xun’s eyes on her, for she turned and glanced his way.
And it was just then, in that instant when the “Dark Conduit” hung on the edge of breaking, that Li Xun saw it in her eyes. The dazzling brilliance that had been gone for sixty years!
This was not the divine radiance born from reaching the pinnacle of cultivation, nor the glow of Nine Netherworld Earth Qi shining through the eyes. It was something deeper, springing from the very core of life itself. It was the faint, mysterious soul-light that is the most unfathomable thing in the heaven and earth.
Gazing into those bright eyes, Li Xun felt as though he had been cast into a vast, desolate wilderness, thousands of miles with not a soul in sight, heavy crimson clouds stretching endlessly across the sky.
Every flicker of her gaze was like waves of suffocating gloom rolling through the heavens. Each surge carried a chill vast enough to freeze a thousand miles, cold enough to still a person’s very soul.
A fear he had not felt in countless years. Pure, unfiltered fear suddenly crashed down upon him.
Under that crushing weight, some taut string in his mind began to hum, sending tremors through every muscle in his body, tightening him to his limit.
Perhaps in the next instant, that string of reason would snap in two.
But it did not. His sanity held.
A few breaths later, stirred by some hidden qi mechanism, an immense flood of information suddenly poured into his mind. In that same instant, the “Nether Vein” flared open again. Yet at the same time, the “Dark Conduit” was cut off!
It was an impossible phenomenon. If the breaking of the Nether Vein signaled the loss of Li Xun’s control, then the severing of the Dark Conduit almost certainly meant the puppet had lost its very foundation for existing in this world.... unless it had already gained the ability to draw in Nine Netherworld Earth Qi on its own.
Before long, the flood of information confirmed it, though Li Xun only grew more confused.
Was this the beginning of a form anchored forever, or the start of a shocking rebellion?
The sudden upheaval left him stunned, unable to react. Just then, Nether Two finished the last of the manuscripts, closed the thin booklet with a light tap, and let out a quiet sigh.
“What a pity, to have come so many years too late.”
The moment those words reached his ears, Li Xun’s eyes lit up.
That odd and stilted phrasing was no accident; it was the secret signal he and Nether Two had agreed upon earlier. It meant that from this moment forward, she would act according to their plan.
Holding onto that renewed hope, Li Xun lifted his gaze again and once more met Nether Two’s now “transcendent” eyes.
This time, their eyes brushed past one another, but Li Xun clearly saw it. The pale gray imprint still etched beneath her deep, unfathomable gaze.
He let out a long breath in secret. He was still somewhat bewildered, but it seemed that for once, the tide of events was shifting in his favor.
Could it be that Heaven itself had finally begun to look kindly on him?
After that brief moment of eye contact, Nether Two—now more fittingly called Yin Wanderer—didn’t so much as glance back at Li Xun. She turned slightly to the side, gave a light sweep of her dust-whisk, and let her gaze fall upon Qin Wanru.
That single look was enough to make Qin Wanru’s eyes brim with tears once more.
Just like that, the flaw Li Xun had feared most was neatly covered up.
Yin Wanderer played the role of a master reunited with her beloved disciple after many long years. Yet because she and Qin Wanru had been in “close contact” for some time already, she could not afford to show too much eagerness. Striking the right balance was critical.
From what Li Xun could see, she carried it off perfectly. No extra words, just a faint, understated command: “Wanru, come with me.”
Qin Wanru answered softly, but her eyes drifted toward Li Xun, who was still slumped on the ground.
Catching her glance, Li Xun quickly arranged his features into a mask of mixed fear and confusion, finally letting it settle into a dazed, helpless blankness.
With her eyes, Qin Wanru sought guidance: what should be done about this “pitiful fellow”?
Yin Wanderer’s lips curved ever so slightly into a knowing smile. With only the barest sidelong glance, she gave a low chuckle and said, “Why trouble yourself? A clever man ought to know exactly what he must do.”
Li Xun’s eyes shifted ever so slightly. That tiny movement was enough to pass a message to Qin Wanru.
Sure enough, she showed no hint of suspicion. Instead, she offered him one last triumphant smile before leaving with Yin Wanderer.