Forcing the Aloof Master to Madness - Chapter 26.1

“Master.”

Shen Lezhi called out weakly.

She still remembered how all this happened. While angry at herself for recklessly tasting a spiritual plant, she was also thinking about how to escape the predicament before her.

But Wang Xi did not let go of her, tightly restricting her, her gaze fixed on Shen Lezhi with intense aggressiveness.

Shen Lezhi pressed her tongue against her teeth, flustered, yet her heart rate quickened slightly.

Shen Lezhi could now see the red lines at the corner of Wang Xi’s eye more clearly. The shocking dark red color and the strange, ominous patterns made her heart tremble.

Wang Xi’s eyes were clearly cold, but when those dark red lines appeared, Shen Lezhi felt she was utterly enchanting, dangerously cold.

She was irresistibly drawn in.

Shen Lezhi knew she could not continue like this.

She closed her eyes, not daring to look again, and resolved to struggle violently.

She didn’t care if she angered Wang Xi again.

But Wang Xi didn’t seem angry this time. She looked at the girl for a good while, finally releasing her, and then silently watched Shen Lezhi’s series of defensive movements after regaining consciousness.

They were too obvious, and Shen Lezhi herself felt awkward.

“Master, I still need to go back and tend to the spiritual plants…” She wanted to escape; she truly couldn’t stay there any longer.

Wang Xi did not say a word, merely standing in place, her gaze chillingly fixed on Shen Lezhi’s face.

After waiting for a long time without a reply, Shen Lezhi simply took the liberty of bidding farewell, fleeing the cave dwelling as fast as she could.

She was not stopped by Wang Xi. Shen Lezhi ran outside the cave dwelling and secretly sighed in relief. Then, remembering that Wang Xi could certainly still see her from this distance, she tensed up again and carefully sped away.

In fact, it was still early, but because the Laughing Flower had tormented her so much, and Shen Lezhi hadn’t yet sorted out her own attitude toward Wang Xi, she truly had no face to stay there and interact with the Master.

After all, “Do you want to tie me up as well?”

“Master, I’m afraid of pain. Could you please not hit me with the whip?”

How exactly did those words leave her mouth?!

Just thinking of that scene, Shen Lezhi wanted to bash her head on the ground and commit suicide.

Shen Lezhi returned to her residence with a confused mind. She immediately caught sight of the Laughing Flower drying in the courtyard. Angrily, she walked over a few steps, before she could even catch her breath, and pointed at the petals on the ground to vent her anger: “Bad flower!”

And the Laughing Flower stalks she had collected—she was going to throw them all away right now!

Shen Lezhi aggressively picked up the square container holding the Laughing Flower stalks and quickly walked out the door, intending to discard the entire pot. However, one foot stopped just as it crossed the threshold.

Speaking of which, it’s not like they absolutely have to be thrown away, right?

Shen Lezhi’s fingers holding the container paused, and she sighed inwardly.

She knew it herself. When she first saw that the Laughing Flower had an aphrodisiac effect, she was curious and looked up exactly what kind of effect it had.

She knew clearly that the Laughing Flower could not completely seize one’s mind. It could control her lustful desires, but it couldn’t completely control her thoughts.

If she had been completely unwilling, she would have been able to resist.

But she didn’t. Not only did she not resist, but she also performed such excessive acts.

However, Shen Lezhi did not believe that her feelings for Wang Xi transcended mere physical desire, nor did she believe that she felt love for Wang Xi.

Shen Lezhi even felt that contemplating the word “love” was too presumptuous. She had no attachment to Wang Xi, and furthermore, all the overly intimate physical contact was due to the original female protagonist, “Shen Lezhi,” not the transmigrated her.

She was only filled with admiration—admiration for Wang Xi’s power, and admiration for Wang Xi’s astonishing beauty and talent.

But… because of their identity as Master and disciple, they were too intimate!

Shen Lezhi felt that she must have been brainwashed. She had previously acquiesced to Wang Xi’s intimate actions, leading her to feel that those acts were natural even after taking the Laughing Flower.

Shen Lezhi recalled the details of that moment: Wang Xi clutching her neck, her experiencing the agony of ice and fire. Her mind fluctuated in that instant, like a small boat on a vast ocean. She was thoroughly permeated by Wang Xi’s immense spiritual power in every inch of her body.

In moments like that, Wang Xi was truly overbearing to the point of being unbearable.

And their actions were… too much, really… In the modern era, they would be classified in the BDSM category.

Shen Lezhi’s face flushed and her heart pounded. She instinctively covered her face.

She really couldn’t think about it anymore! She decided to immediately delete this incident from her mind!

Anyway, she had run away, and they didn’t end up going all the way, right?

Shen Lezhi patted her face, returned to the room, picked up the Crying Soul Strand, and began to channel Wood Spirit into it.

But doing this was not easy. Even though Shen Lezhi had successfully used the Wood Spirit last time, once her spiritual power recovered, the Wood Spirit in her body would vanish, as if a restrictive spell had been cast on it.

Wang Xi, who had raised Shen Lezhi since childhood, did not know the secret in her body. Furthermore, in Shen Lezhi’s understanding, the original book never mentioned the female protagonist’s special spiritual root. It was likely that the spell restricting her Wood Spiritual Root was very powerful and had been planted when she was born or as an infant.

That suggested the spell might have originated from her parents or her parents’ enemies.

In the book, the original female protagonist was an orphan, accidentally found by the Sect Master, and was naturally weak. This setting suggested she carried a birth defect and was ruthlessly abandoned by her parents.

Shen Lezhi originally thought so, but the ability to hear the voice of spiritual plants and the discovery of a powerful restrictive spell in her body made Shen Lezhi’s original identity questionable.

An ordinary person could not cast a restrictive spell that could evade Wang Xi’s detection, especially since Wang Xi had entered Shen Lezhi’s meridians and spiritual hall countless times without noticing anything.

But these were the original female protagonist’s issues. Shen Lezhi felt no personal connection and didn’t want to delve into them, choosing only to focus on the task at hand.

She infused the Wood Spirit into the Crying Soul Strand using the same method as before. Seeing that the tender shoot of the Crying Soul Strand seemed to have grown a little longer, Shen Lezhi smiled, feeling tired but satisfied.

Although the Laughing Flower had caused such a ruckus, the petals put out to dry still needed to be collected. The Laughing Flower itself dislikes water. Its petals are beautiful and have extremely low water content, so they dried quickly. It only took three days to dry to the point where they could be used to make sachets.

Making sachets also required care. Although the Laughing Flower itself has a persistent fragrance, this kind of decorative item has always been required to be delicate and beautiful, from ancient times to the present.

The fabric used to make the sachet is a flower skin called Butterfly Whisper (Diefa). Shen Lezhi had seen it in the Spiritual Plant Cultivation Manual.

The Butterfly Whisper usually grows in damp places. The stalk is very thick, and each bud only has two petals. When it blooms, it spreads out like the fluttering wings of a butterfly.

The outer skin of the Butterfly Whisper is extremely hard. Each one is the size of a palm, with butterfly-like patterns on it, making it exceptionally beautiful.

But peeling the outer skin of the Butterfly Whisper is not easy. It requires extremely precise knife skills to probe into the root of the flower’s heart, cut a small opening, and then peel the skin off little by little.

Because the Butterfly Whisper, by the time it reaches the flowering stage, can already be considered a high-level spiritual plant, these plants often have the opportunity to cultivate spiritual consciousness. Once spiritual consciousness is cultivated, the Butterfly Whisper’s resistance becomes extremely strong. There was once a cultivator who encountered a Butterfly Whisper with spiritual consciousness and was strangled to death by it while attempting to peel its skin.

However, not all Butterfly Whispers develop spiritual consciousness. This situation is relatively rare.

The Butterfly Whisper skin Shen Lezhi obtained had already been shaped into a sachet. She bought it from an Elder Sister at Herb Peak. The Elder Sister had heard her name mentioned in the large classroom on Herb Peak and learned that Shen Lezhi wanted to try making sachets, so she sold it to her.

Shen Lezhi lamented, Immortal Venerable Jiyue’s disciple is so easy to get along with.

Although she knew the sun-dried Laughing Flower petals would no longer have an aphrodisiac effect, Shen Lezhi still collected this batch of petals with extreme care.

She only made two sachets, keeping the remaining petals in reserve.

She hung one on her body. A faint floral scent wafted over. Shen Lezhi felt that this floral scent was superior to even the most expensive perfumes of the modern world.

Its scent would not be overpowering, nor would it dissipate. The fragrance would subtly change in different environments, always maintaining a pleasing aroma.

However, making sachets was just a casual attempt for Shen Lezhi. She didn’t intend to focus her energy on this.

Today, she wanted to finish cultivating the remaining fields and plant a new spiritual plant: the Gourd Treasure Silk (Hulubaosi).

Shen Lezhi had already seen the Gourd Treasure Silk. The magical artifact Elder Sister Qi gave her to hold the spirit spring water was refined from Gourd Treasure Silk.

The seeds of the Gourd Treasure Silk were vine-like. Shen Lezhi traded an entire bag of Azure Cloud Branch fruits to acquire the Gourd Treasure Silk seedlings.

Shen Lezhi had planted gourd-type plants before. During the seedling stage, they only needed to be in the soil, but the vines grow quickly, and later require a trellis to provide space for them to wind around.

Finally, the vines bear fruit, producing gourd-shaped fruits.

The Gourd Treasure Silk in this world shares similar growth habits. It loves water and needs to grow near water sources.

What is different is that the Gourd Treasure Silk in this world is a storage artifact. When the fruit matures, it can be inlaid with spirit stones and then refined into a magical artifact similar to a storage bag. It works on the same principle as a storage ring, but the cost is much lower, and it can store flowing liquids.

The quality of the spirit stone determines the storage capacity of the Gourd Treasure Silk. The one Shen Lezhi held was of low-grade quality.

Shen Lezhi decided to plant the Gourd Treasure Silk because she had discovered a pond behind the fields recently. It was perfect for clearing out the pond, planting spiritual plants, and later checking if she could raise fish or something in the pond.

However, she was not in a hurry. Stepping over the vine-covered path she had cleared last time, the dirtiness of the pond was revealed before her eyes.

An unpleasant smell filled her nostrils. She frowned slightly, but she didn’t find it too disgusting.

In the countryside where she grew up, when the family raised pigs, the smell in the summer was even worse than this. Although she no longer experienced this after going to school, in her childhood memories, this was nothing remarkable.

At that time, every household was like this, and those who could afford to raise pigs were considered major households, which only filled her with pride.

Shen Lezhi was strong now and worked quickly. Although her methods were still somewhat primitive, since she didn’t need rest, the cleaning process was faster than she expected.

Yet, she was still slightly displeased. This is a cultivation world. Why can’t I use magic!

This brought her back to the fact that Wang Xi had been slow to teach her spells.

However, Shen Lezhi only lamented during work that she couldn’t use magic to make the tools work automatically. Most of the time, she was interested in learning spells but not in a hurry.

Only in sword practice and seated meditation practice was Shen Lezhi now much more earnest.

However, as her familiarity with the first three forms of the Jade Profound Sword Technique deepened, Wang Xi finally began to teach her spells.

At least in the eyes of others, Shen Lezhi had a single Water Spiritual Root, so Wang Xi was going to teach her Water-based spells.

However, because Shen Lezhi’s previous sword had broken, she had been using a small wooden sword recently, which was quite inconvenient.

Cultivators of the Jade Profound Sect who establish their foundation can go to the Mystic Armory Pavilion (Xuanbing Ge) to select a magical artifact. In her previous life, the original female protagonist didn’t have to choose; Wang Xi had already prepared her natal magical artifact.

It was a jade-white long sword forged from the scales of a flood dragon. The Water-based spiritual energy of the dragon permeated the sword itself, and the dragon’s demon core was inlaid at the top of the hilt.

The sapphire-like demon core had been carefully purified by Wang Xi for a long time, removing the beast’s evil aura and leaving behind only the dragon’s immense power.

The sword body had densely packed scale patterns. These patterns were not just for aesthetics; the tail end of each scale was slightly raised, and with the infusion of spiritual power, they would lift up like the scales of a real flood dragon.

If Shen Lezhi thrust the long sword into an enemy’s flesh, pulling it out would certainly rip their skin open.

Wang Xi had certainly experienced this firsthand.

Wang Xi had long finished crafting this sword for Shen Lezhi. In the previous life, she presented it to the girl when she finally reached the late stage of Qi Refining. In this life, Wang Xi no longer wished to give this treasured sword, into which she had poured her heart and soul, to Shen Lezhi.

Was she supposed to give it to Shen Lezhi just to be killed by her again?

Therefore, according to the rules of the Jade Profound Sect, Shen Lezhi went to the Mystic Armory Pavilion of the Artifact Refining Peak to choose a weapon.

“Master, what kind of weapon should your disciple choose?” Shen Lezhi asked, confused.

She had absolutely no idea about this and could only ask Wang Xi.

The two of them were standing at the entrance of the Mystic Armory Pavilion. It was not entirely an entrance. The ground and sky before them were full of weapons. When they arrived, there was no obvious path. Wang Xi brought her on her sword and stopped in the sky above the Mystic Armory Pavilion. All four sides were packed with countless weapons, making it impossible to tell direction.

The air was filled with the smell of rust and gunpowder. The Mystic Armory Pavilion seemed like a boundless space, a dazzling weapons cache with flashes of cold light and wafts of faint smoke. Shen Lezhi felt a little dizzy just looking at it.

“Follow your preference,” Wang Xi responded.

The Mystic Armory Pavilion of the Jade Profound Sect did not contain weapons of extreme immortal quality. Most were artifacts left behind by the elders of the Artifact Refining Peak. The truly immortal-grade weapons were in the hands of the various Peak Masters, the Sect Master, and the Elders of the Jade Profound Sect. Most who came here to choose weapons were inner-sect disciples with little talent, whose Masters had not prepared their natal weapons for them.