Chapter 313 Shen Qi's painting makes perfect sense now.

It was a messy letter from a bird, hastily folded, with loose creases at the corners, making it easy to unfold.

Ji Changying remained silent for a moment, but still didn't say those words. Instead, she looked at the letter and asked, "What is this?"

She replied, "It was Shen Qi's reply to me."

Ji Changying naturally recognized this person: "So it was him... Is the answer you're looking for here?"

He was about to unfold the letter when Lin Feiran pressed it down again. He was puzzled and looked up, only to hear her say, "Senior brother hasn't given me a direct answer yet. What method can be used to mend this rift? To regenerate a heart?"

Ji Changying lowered her eyes slightly, and after a moment of silence, replied, "I don't know either."

"Perhaps I know." A faint fragrance wafted from beside her, and the next moment, Ru Xian appeared at the table. "Considering that you have indeed helped me a lot in the past, I can take a look for you."

Ji Changying chuckled, then turned to look at Ru Xian. He seemed to be pondering something, and said noncommittally, "I always thought that on the day everything was laid bare, you would be unable to resist taking action against me."

Ru Xian sat down next to Lin Feiran, her expression unchanged. He raised an eyebrow: "Really? What did you do to make me angry?"

Ji Changying smiled, a small mole on her lips lifting slightly: "So, that was just what I thought. It was precisely because I had never done anything wrong and had worked diligently for you for many years that I dared to say goodbye to you that day."

Besides, my junior sister already knows who I am; if you make a move, she'll stop you anyway.

Ru Xian didn't look away: "But she won't stop me."

Before the two of them could look at each other, Lin Feiran had already stood up. She looked around and quietly tapped her forearm, which was as white as snowflakes: "We can catch up later. Right now, let's check on your health first."

As if a haze were rising, and then raising her hand again, several strands of gold thread had already draped over Ji Changying's wrist.

Lin Feiran kept kneading a corner of the letter, his gaze fixed on Ji Changying's wrist pulse. Although he didn't show it on his face, his actions revealed a hint of urgency and worry.

At this moment, Ru Xian was right behind her to the right. Unless she turned her head to look closely, she could hardly see his expression. In this place where she couldn't catch his gaze, his eyebrows twitched slightly, and his pair of green eyes lifted up slightly to look at the handsome man with a clear and bright face.

Ji Changying lowered her eyelashes, and as if sensing his gaze, she silently glanced at Ru Xian, her pursed lips moved slightly, and then returned to calm.

Everything happened so quietly and quickly, like ripples on the surface of water that suddenly spread out and then sank to the bottom, disappearing in an instant.

"..."

As Ru Xian withdrew her gaze, the gold thread on her wrist snapped, signifying the end of the consultation.

"So fast?" Lin Feiran immediately turned to look at Ru Xian, her eyes filled with a glimmer of hope. "How is it? If he recovers slowly, will his spirit still be able to grow? Will his body still be able to heal?"

Ru Xian's right palm twitched slightly. Instead of looking at her, he looked at the broken gold threads on the table, then coiled them back around his fingertips: "Your weakness is indeed due to serious injuries. Take some Rouge Pills, meditate and cultivate for a few more days, and you will be fine."

Ji Changying looked up, a smile on her lips, but her dark eyes were fixed on Ru Xian.

He took out a pill bottle and placed it next to Ji Changying: "Just as he said, no one knows if it can grow up. Let's raise it and see."

Ji Changying withdrew her gaze and said with a smile, "With so many Rouge Pills, they should be able to be healed."

With the orange blossom incident as a precedent, and with the situation regarding Ji Changying's serious illness becoming clearer, Lin Feiran felt a great weight lifted from her heart, and even her complexion improved considerably.

She breathed a sigh of relief, plopped back down in her seat, and smiled slightly: "Now we can see Shen Qi's reply. Senior brother, those things you didn't say were actually within my expectations. The outcome will be clear after reading this letter."

She pushed the letter out, and the two people on either side bent down to read it.

The letter was filled with densely packed small characters, but they were obscured by a secret method, making them very blurry. Thus, they looked like round ink blots. Beneath the ink blots was a very conspicuous ink mark, as if it had been accidentally scratched when the letter was received, but it also seemed very deliberate.

"Senior brother, are you aware that the Dao Lord once helped the Human Emperor seize a body to prolong his life, intending to use this to give mortals spiritual veins?"

Ji Changying frowned slightly, pondered for a moment, then shook his head, somewhat surprised: "Although we are all staff members, we are no longer naive and enthusiastic young people. We don't interact much on a daily basis, and each of us does different things, so we don't communicate with each other."

"The affairs of the imperial city have always been handled by Ding Yi. He rarely appears in the council, and although we have both lived through several generations, I am not familiar with him."

He paused, then seemed to remember something: "However, I did hear Master mention that Ding Yi has been pondering how to enable mortals to develop spiritual veins ever since the war between the two realms. It seems he's the only one left researching this now."

...Could it be through possession?

“It shouldn’t be.” Lin Feiran pointed to the small print in the letter. “Although it was the Human Emperor who possessed the body, the one who truly began cultivation was Chen Qi. However, it is still unclear whether he has truly developed spiritual veins. At least, he cannot use spiritual power without the Reincarnation Pearl.”

Senior brother, you've been practicing esoteric Buddhism for many years, have you ever heard of a revolving bead?

Upon hearing the words "Rotating Beads," Ji Changying's expression shifted slightly, clearly recalling a past event. He looked at Lin Feiran, hesitant to speak.

She immediately understood: "If it's related to your incantation, then there's no need to say anything more, senior brother, just read the letter."

Ji Changying's silence was also another answer. Seeing his hesitation, Lin Feiran became more and more certain that her guess was correct.

She raised her hand to form a seal, using the agreed-upon mark to unlock the secret technique on the letter. The chaotic writing gradually became clear, and the three of them looked at it.

My dear friend, it is as if we are meeting in person upon reading this letter.

I received your letter recently, filled with concern, which made me feel quite embarrassed. Please don't worry about me. Although I only recently regained consciousness, thanks to the care of my teachers and fellow disciples, I am now out of danger.

I've actually been meaning to tell you about the unusual thing about the rotating beads, but I haven't had the chance until now.

When she was under house arrest by Bi Sheng and others, she would actually come to see me every day. She wasn't looking at me, but at the revolving bead inside the □. Thanks to her, I was also able to catch a glimpse of it.

It's quite surprising, I wonder if Fei Ran still remembers what that rotating bead looked like when we accidentally witnessed Father Emperor's possession of another body in the Luoyang Imperial Palace.

It wasn't a perfectly round bead; instead, it was quite rugged, with strange bumps and depressions.

Upon reading this, Lin Feiran paused, then formed another hand seal. Immediately, patterns appeared in the ink mark below, and then the ink faded, revealing a bead that was drawn extremely realistically.

It was a clear, translucent blue-green color, and as described in the letter, it was uneven and difficult to discern its shape; it was exactly the one she remembered.

Shen Qi cultivated the Dao of the Wonderful Brush, so drawing a bead was naturally no problem for him.

Although this bead has an odd shape, much like a stone picked up casually by the roadside, neither of us paid it any attention.

During my house arrest, Bi Sheng would come to examine me daily, performing hand seals and feeding me. Over time, I also noticed the changes in the bead.

The rotating beads in the ink began to change, and the protruding, horn-like parts on the outline of the beads began to change. At first, it was just a short, inconspicuous undulation.

Gradually, the depression began to deepen, and these small, protruding corners became slender, like several elongated tentacles.

Meanwhile, other parts of the rotating beads also began to change. To the left of these protrusions, where there were originally some messy, uneven lines, they gradually began to become more regular.

There are two indentations at the top, two in the middle, and two at the bottom.

At first glance, it looks like the Qian trigram in the Bagua splitting into the Kun trigram. After the Qian and Kun trigrams changed shape, these depressions began to adjust slightly over time.

The two lines at the top are elongated and gradually curve into an arc.

The two middle lines began to tremble, and something was clearly wriggling beneath them, trying to break through the lines and burst out. So at a certain moment, it stretched the two lines until they were round and bulging, even protruding.

It was a scene that was very difficult to describe.

Like a grape whose flesh keeps pushing and struggling from the inside, the skin tries its best to hold it back, making a sound of being overwhelmed. But at a certain moment, the skin can no longer hold on, and the plump flesh suddenly bursts out and starts to rotate!

The line was also split in the middle, separating the top and bottom, but the two ends of the line were always connected at one point, using this small force to imprison the rotating bead within the line.

The lower line is sunken inwards, without any other movement; it just keeps sinking inwards.

It was a very long time. At first, I thought it was just a precious pearl, but as time went by, it remained inside my body and began to change little by little.

The bead, originally the size of a walnut, gradually grew to the size of a fist.

Those messy lines became orderly, forming eyebrows, eyes, nose, and mouth.

This is absolutely horrifying...

I watched as it transformed inside me into a fist-sized infant; although some details were off, it had indeed taken on a human form.

At this point, the changes in the rotating beads below gradually stopped, stopping at a shape resembling a jade carving, with both hands clasped in front of the chest.

To my shame, when it took shape, I was so shocked that I almost lost my speech. But Bi Sheng restrained me and used a peculiar magic seal to send a continuous stream of pure spiritual energy into my spiritual platform. Later, the bead stabilized and there were no further changes.

...It is remarkable that they obtained this bead with great effort and it must be very important. Now that it has been taken away, who knows what kind of evil magic they intend to use it for.

I can't offer much help right now, but my teachers said that if you need any assistance with anything urgent, you can write here and the Imperial Academy will not refuse.

To know that you are not gone and are now at peace fills my heart with joy...

The most important things in life are nothing more than life and death. Take care and stay safe.

Ji Changying stared at the pearl in the picture, remaining silent for a moment. After scrutinizing it for a while, she said, "Could it be that their so-called birthday is actually a celebration of birth?"

Lin Feiran lowered his eyes: "It should be so."

She raised her hand to stroke the pearl on the painting, her brow twitching involuntarily, her thoughts already intertwined.

She thought that this made sense.

Among the three bets made by the Dao Lord, besides the spiritual veins of heaven and earth and the lives of everyone, there was another inconspicuous treasure that she had long overlooked: the Reincarnation Pearl.

She had been pondering the connection between the treasures Bi Sheng and his group had found, but she couldn't figure it out.

The spiritual veins of heaven and earth, the vital energy, and the Revolving Bead—these three elements are connected, giving rise to countless conjectures in her mind. However, because this bead is so mysterious and has not revealed any unusual features, she has been unable to reach a conclusion.

Until recently, she was suddenly reminded by this "birthday" event, and many of her guesses suddenly came together, vaguely forming one, but she still dared not be sure.

No one knew the origin of this bead. Even the Grandmaster and the saints had never heard of it. Lin Feiran was more inclined to believe that it was a spiritual treasure they had created themselves. Shen Qi was the only one who had been with this spiritual treasure day and night. So, after considering all her speculations, she immediately wrote to him.

Shen Qi lived up to expectations and brought extremely important news.

Lin Feiran paused, then looked up at Ji Changying: "Senior brother, the Dao Lord is formless and without a body, right?"

Ji Changying didn't speak, but just looked at her with a calm gaze.

Silence is another answer.

Because he is formless and without a body, Ji Changying needs to make a body for him from time to time so that he can walk in the world. Because he is formless and without a body, no matter who meets him, they cannot see his true appearance.

Since she was formless and without a physical body, on the day she was reborn in Luoyang, he happened to seize the Reincarnation Pearl from Shen Qi's body, and thus truly obtained a physical form, with a shape, a face, and a body.

Because they are formless and without a physical body, they try every means to seize the spiritual veins of heaven and earth, hoping to make them their own.

Since he is formless and without body, his birthday is approaching.

Lin Feiran looked at the letter in front of her, as if she were asking them a question, or as if she were talking to herself.

"Could it be that all of this was for his birth?"

The moment the words fell, a burst of spiritual light surged in the courtyard, the Iron Khitan Book rustled, and one figure after another flew out from it, their sharp eyes all fixed on the radiant pearl on the paper.

Jin Lan also appeared, her gaze fixed on the person in her memory, her brows furrowing involuntarily.

Finally, the Grandmaster appeared. He stood beside Lin Feiran, his fingertips brushing against the corner of the paper: "So that's how it is."

With a deafening roar of thunder, eerie, winding bolts of lightning flashed across the sky. A damp wind began to howl, and the condensed moisture, almost solidified, piled up heavily, clinging to Lin Feiran's sleeves.

She looked up, and a flash of lightning suddenly streaked across her eyes.

The grandmaster said in a deep voice, "It's going to rain."

As soon as the words were spoken, a raindrop fell, its dark color reflecting the pitch-black world and bringing a decaying vitality.

With a soft patter, the raindrop struck the flower branch before everyone's eyes, splashing out blankly. Wherever the water droplet landed, the flower branch instantly withered and decayed, as if all life had been sucked away. The once lush flowers and grass instantly turned into gray ice.

A look of surprise flashed across everyone's eyes, but thankfully there was only one drop of rain.

In an instant, a net of golden light spread across the dark night sky, holding back all the dark clouds, and the damp, cold air instantly receded.

Lin Feiran looked in the direction of the light and saw that it was in the direction of Luoyang City.

The grandmaster raised his hand and placed it on her shoulder. He didn't look in that direction, but instead gazed at the dark sky and the lifeless flowers and plants, and said softly, "Feiran, we don't have much time left."

After the rain falls, everything will be set in stone, with no chance of turning back.

Author's Note: I've started working on the Dao Lord's storyline. [emoji]