The Ice-Cold Beauty Senior Sister Keeps Falling for Her Own Theories - Chapter 9

The vastness of the world holds countless paths, but she…

The ground visibly trembled as withered vines snaked across the earth, their thorns shooting skyward like bamboo shoots after rain. A single touch could pierce flesh or skewer a person like a kebab, ending lives instantly.

There was no time to wield weapons, everyone could only scramble for cover. Gongsun Muhan, clutching Feng Jie, rolled across the ground, barely evading the attack.

The earlier elixir had taken effect, and Feng Jie awoke mid-roll. Her first concern was for Gongsun Muhan: “Eldest Senior Sister, how is your hand?”

“It’s fine.”

Only after confirming the bandaged hand did Feng Jie relax, turning to survey their surroundings. The thorns gleamed coldly, relentlessly pursuing the fleeing figures, while the soil cracked wherever the vines passed.

Suddenly, a vine shot beneath them, sprouting multiple thorns aimed at both. At the critical moment, Gongsun Muhan shoved Feng Jie away and rolled in the opposite direction.

Feng Jie watched thorns brush past her face, had her senior sister acted a moment later or with less force, she’d have been impaled. Heart pounding, she pressed a hand to her chest, focusing on dodging the vines’ trajectories. Leaping and tumbling, she narrowly escaped death time and again.

But human stamina has limits. Feng Jie grew increasingly exhausted, her outer robe shredded, body marred with wounds. A deep gash on her right arm bled steadily, staining her white robes and the dark soil beneath.

Gongsun Muhan fared worse. Her bandages had come loose, and she stood gasping for breath, barely gripping her soft sword. Depleted of spiritual power, she relied solely on sheer will.

Noticing their struggle, Xuan Yuan Lianyue flew over, strumming her zither fiercely. Sound waves sliced through the air, severing thorns and blasting vines apart.

As the pressure eased, Feng Jie rushed to Gongsun Muhan’s side. “Eldest Senior Sister, are you alright? Who is that fairy? Did she save us before?”

“Mm, she’s from the Ten Thousand Sounds Sect,” Gongsun Muhan replied absently, her gaze fixed on the rising thorns. She’d realized the vines avoided her after her bandages loosened, they feared her blood, its poison. If she wished, she could escape alone using this advantage.

Misinterpreting her pensive expression as fear of death, Feng Jie reassured her, “Don’t worry, Senior Sister, you’ll be fine.” In the original plot, the eldest senior sister had survived the Centrifugal Cliff fall, surely she’d live now too.

Seeing Feng Jie’s earnest, almost vow-like demeanor, a gentle breeze seemed to stir in Gongsun Muhan’s heart, unsettling the resolve she had just begun to form.

“Forget it, let this be repayment for Feng Jie saving me and Xuan Yuan Lianyue giving me medicine. But this forbidden technique, judging by Xuan Yuan Lianyue’s earlier reaction, she must know about it. One can never be too cautious, and this immortal sect is no place to stay for long.”

After this, she would leave, leave Bixia Sect, leave this so-called righteous and virtuous paradise of immortal sects.

The world was vast, with countless paths. Gongsun Muhan refused to believe she couldn’t carve out her own way.

At that moment, everyone noticed that the severed vines had taken root upon hitting the ground, transforming into new vines and launching another wave of attacks. Worry spread among them.

“Senior sister, these vines just won’t die! What do we do?”

“If this goes on, we’ll be worn down to death.”

“Exactly. These vines have become sentient, they’ve sealed off the perimeter so tightly we can’t even escape.”

Not only were the disciples of Wanyin Sect anxious, but even Xuan Yuan Lianyue wore a grave expression. If they couldn’t find the vines’ weakness soon, they would likely be trapped here until death.

Everyone’s attention was fixed on the endlessly regenerating, thorn-covered vines. No one noticed the ripples spreading across the nearby pond or the countless withered, yellowish roots, thin as chopsticks, densely crawling ashore and slowly searching for something.

When they passed over a stone stained with dried blood, one of the roots suddenly froze, as if choked. It cautiously touched the stone, as if confirming something, then swiftly coiled around it and retracted into the depths of the pond.

Covered in fine, hair-like bubbles, the roots were extremely sensitive to scents. Once they identified the target’s smell, they surged with energy, rapidly spreading outward from the pond.

Suddenly, one drop, then two… Dark red bloodstains in the soil pointed toward the direction where Feng Jie and the others stood.

In an instant, all the roots converged, intertwining as they charged straight toward the two.

Xuan Yuan Lianyue was the first to notice the roots emerging inexplicably from the pond and shouted a warning, “Watch out! To your left!”

Feng Jie turned and saw the tangled, writhing roots, as thick as a wok’s mouth, rushing directly at them.

“Senior sister, be careful!”

In that critical moment, before her mind could process the danger, her body reacted instinctively. Using the last of her spiritual energy, she pushed her senior sister toward Xuan Yuan Lianyue.

“You, ”

Gongsun Muhan hesitated for only a second before drawing her soft sword and slashing it across her left palm without hesitation. A fresh wound now crossed the previous gash, slicing diagonally across her entire palm. Blood gushed out instantly.

“Fresh blood as sacrifice, draw the spirits to dwell…”

Like before, she used blood to draw a talisman. But this time, as she chanted the incantation, the blood talisman seemed like a bottomless pit, relentlessly draining her blood. Only as more blood flowed did the talisman gradually take shape from top to bottom.

Beside them, Xuan Yuan Lianyue watched with growing concern for Gongsun Muhan. She recognized it as a grand forbidden technique of blood sacrifice, Sacrificial Blood Manifestation. In simple terms, it involved evil spirits thriving on blood; by offering one’s own blood to these spirits, the caster could borrow their power. Legend had it that this technique was also called the “Desiccated Corpse Transformation,” as most practitioners couldn’t withstand the cost. The evil spirits demanded not only blood of high purity but also in vast quantities. Often, before the caster could even borrow the spirits’ power, they would be drained into a withered corpse.

Before long, the blood talisman had absorbed enough energy. Not only did its markings deepen, but the entire talisman swelled up. Gongsun Muhan rose into the air along with it, almost roaring as she shouted:

“Break!”

She saw the blood talisman explode with a bang, releasing several streams of crimson spiritual power. The strongest one shot directly toward the tree root that was about to reach Feng Jie…

It should be over now. After this, they would be even.

Her eyelids grew so heavy that Gongsun Muhan couldn’t hold them open for another second. She closed her eyes and drifted downward like a leaf laden with late spring frost.

“Senior Sister, ”

Feng Jie watched helplessly, powerless to intervene. In that moment, she even resented the system for making her transmigrate as Feng Jie. Why couldn’t she be stronger? Why wasn’t her cultivation and spiritual power greater?

Seeing this, Xuan Yuan Lianyue swiftly flew over and caught Gongsun Muhan.

“Let me go!”

“Let, let go.”

Her struggles and cries grew fainter.

The previously overwhelming vines had all turned to ashes under the blood talisman. As the gray smoke cleared, the crowd was astonished to find that the tree root had only paused briefly, completely unharmed.

Seeing this, Xuan Yuan Lianyue handed Gongsun Muhan to a junior sister beside her. With swift steps, she positioned her qin and sent a series of sound waves continuously toward the tree root.

Unexpectedly, the tree root seemed to have anticipated this. It quickly split into several strands, one coiled around Feng Jie and retracted into the pond, while the others instantly wove into a shield, forcefully blocking the sound waves and even provocatively advancing toward Xuan Yuan Lianyue.

“Xiao You, raise the drum!”

In the blink of an eye, drumbeats harmonized with the qin’s melody, transforming into a massive seven-tiered musical note that struck toward the tree root.

The combined attack was indeed formidable. A cloud of black smoke erupted on the spot, carrying countless particles with a pungent odor that rushed toward them. Xuan Yuan Lianyue and the others instinctively covered their faces with their sleeves.

When they opened their eyes again, only the sound of the wind remained.

“Senior Sister, that old tree root is too cunning! It was just a diversion!” Jiang Xiaoyou stomped her feet in frustration, feeling tricked.

“Senior Sister, what do we do now? Could that fellow cultivator have already been wrapped up like a dumpling and swallowed by that old dog tree?”

Xuan Yuan Lianyue was also annoyed at her own carelessness. These two fellow cultivators were together and seemed to share a deep bond. Now that Gongsun Muhan had righteously saved their Wan Yin Sect, they had failed to protect her friend. It was truly inexcusable.

However… their mission here was ultimately for the Bixin Sword.

After a moment of contemplation, she said, “Junior Sister Shi Shan, you’re skilled in water. Come with me to explore the bottom of the pond. The rest of you, take a brief rest on the shore and wait for our return.”

If they could save her, they would. But if it truly proved impossible, then she would have no choice but to leave this place and apologize to Gongsun Muhan after she awoke.

At that moment, Feng Jie was completely disoriented by the shaking. After the tree roots split apart, they inexplicably began to grow continuously, weaving a cocoon around her in a circular motion, as if afraid she would be harmed by the spiritual energy explosion nearby.

The cocoon was soundproof, so no matter how loudly she screamed for help or cried out to the heavens, her voice didn’t reach anyone outside. She could only watch helplessly as everyone fell into the trap, while she, cocoon and all, was dragged into the water.

Within seconds, she reached the bottom of the pool. She had intended to peek through a gap in the cocoon to see what the rainbow-colored light outside was about, but then she noticed the roots peeling away on their own.

She emerged effortlessly.

Then, just as effortlessly, she was swept into a teleportation array, the center of which was the suddenly appearing, multicolored vortex of spiritual energy.

“Ah…”

It felt like sliding down an extremely long, enclosed slide. When Feng Jie opened her eyes and saw light again, she shuddered in fright.

She was lying on top of someone’s coffin lid.

With a jolt, she quickly jumped down, clasped her hands together, and bowed three times.

“Really, I swear, I didn’t mean to intrude or climb onto your roof. I hope you can forgive my disrespect, honored ancestor.”

This was an underground tomb chamber. At each corner, candle stands held half-burnt red candles, their flames eerily still. In the faint, flickering candlelight, the stone walls were covered with murals depicting what seemed to be the life story of one person.

There were no doors or windows, not even a hint of wind, evidently, this was a completely sealed tomb chamber.

That usually meant there were either hidden mechanisms or arrays at play.

She had to find a way out! She still needed to protect her senior martial sister.

With that thought, she walked around the stone chamber, searching for anything unusual.

Suddenly, she noticed a line of vermilion characters in the lower right corner of the mural on the eastern wall.

“Su Meng, born with a wasted body, spiritual yet unascended, shunned by her clan, different and difficult to eliminate.”

Su Meng? That name sounded so familiar, wasn’t she the former owner of the divine artifact, the Bixin Sword, mentioned in the plot book?

Combining this with the four scenes on the mural, a child abandoned by an immortal clan, weeping before a testing orb, being hunted by humans, demons, and immortals, and scavenging for food in alleys, Feng Jie roughly understood.

So, it meant that Su Meng was born with a unique constitution, utterly incapable of cultivating spiritual energy, and was then regarded as an anomaly that everyone wanted to eliminate?

A flicker of doubt crossed Feng Jie’s mind. Wasn’t she known as the foremost cultivator, the Celestial Sword Venerable?

Following the sequence of the murals, Feng Jie read through all of them but felt something was off.