Secret Realm

After that sound, the area fell silent again, but everyone knew perfectly well how this silence differed from the previous one.

After his initial surprise, An Jue was still somewhat incredulous. He slowly stepped forward and carefully examined An Su. After confirming that An Su's life force had been completely cut off, a surge of immense joy mixed with a faint sadness welled up in his heart.

He immediately checked his body and discovered that the curse that had been binding him had quietly dissipated. He almost couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Immediately afterwards, a sense of relief quietly surfaced in his heart—he had previously wanted to take Chu Li's life, but now it seemed that it was fortunate that he had thought of a way to use An Su to test him; otherwise, given the power of this attack, he would not have been able to dodge it at all.

His ultimate fate might be the same as Ansu's, ending up as nothing more than a corpse.

He was in a great mood and glanced at Nan Yi, who was guarding Chu Li: "I suppose you have no idea what her true identity is?"

Nan Yi didn't turn around, but quietly used his spiritual power to examine Chu Li's body. He found that there was no damage inside, and then he was slightly relieved.

Just when An Jue thought Nan Yi wouldn't answer, she suddenly heard him speak.

"She is my senior, and always will be."

An Jue shrugged. "Since you insist on believing what you've seen, I won't say anything more. If you have time, you can still go back to the Fox Clan for a visit. After all, the Fox Clan has been your home for so many years."

Nan Yi understood what he meant: after the curse was lifted, their fox clan no longer needed him, but if he wanted to go back, he could live as an ordinary fox.

Given his current condition, if the wound on his tail is not healed, he will only have a few hundred more years to live at most.

It seems that the fox clan has decided to abandon him after no longer needing him. However, he is not particularly sad, since he knew from the beginning that An Jue, the clan leader, has always been cold-blooded.

He could be willing to make enemies of everyone who opposed the fox clan so that the fox clan could continue to develop, but he could also discard any fox that no longer had any value to him.

An Jue waited for a while, and when he realized that Nan Yi had no intention of ignoring him, he shrugged, took the fox cubs, and left gracefully.

After he returned to the fox clan, he told all the foxes that the curse had disappeared. The foxes excitedly spread the news, and at that moment, they were as excited as if they would grow a ninth tail at any moment.

No fox will remember the fox that once brought them hope; after all, it's finished, isn't it?

An Jue sat in her room and waited for a while before several elders finally arrived. The first thing they asked was about An Su.

They are all from the older generation and know very well what happened in those years.

Anjue has a younger brother named Ansu. Ansu's talent has never been as good as his brother's, which is probably why he decided to take a different path.

He sought out many other races, using magical artifacts given to him by his tribe to first trap them, and then devour them.

He had been very careful all along, but he was eventually discovered. The other foxes were puzzled and fearful when they learned of his actions, but An Su thought it was normal. Wasn't it true that the more you eat, the faster your cultivation level increases? Moreover, he had given face to the fox clan and hadn't touched any of the foxes.

No fox could tolerate a fox like him living in the fox clan, so his brother, who was then the clan leader, pressed him into a cliff and demanded that he stay there for several hundred years to reflect on his actions.

An Su felt extremely unwilling, so he began to plan his escape and leave the fox clan. He eventually succeeded, and in order to quickly improve his cultivation, he completely embarked on the path of evil cultivation.

When his cultivation had just reached the Tribulation Transcending stage, he cast a vicious curse on the fox clan, vowing that since the fox clan wouldn't let him have an easy time, he would prevent all foxes from reaching the pinnacle of cultivation.

An Jue picked out a few things he could say to the elders. He didn't hide anything, only mentioning that a powerful cultivator at the Tribulation Transcending stage happened to pass by and helped him kill An Su.

Upon hearing that name, the elders sighed several times, but smiles quickly returned to their faces. Now that An Su was truly dead, they were relieved.

Myriad Manifestations Sect.

"What exactly happened to my senior sister?"

Standing by the bed were two figures. Besides Nan Yi, there was the elder from the Myriad Manifestations Sect who knew alchemy, and he was the girl that his senior sister had taken him to find before.

He initially thought that his senior sister had only temporarily exhausted her spiritual energy and fallen into a coma, since he had checked her with his spiritual energy and found that everything was fine except for the depletion of her spiritual energy.

But on his way back, he found that his senior sister still hadn't woken up, so he went directly to the elder. When the elder heard that something had happened to his senior sister, he rushed over immediately, followed by a large group of people.

Inside were the sect leader, Wen Xiangluan, and two elders he didn't recognize, but he didn't have the mind to think about anything else. He just asked the question he most wanted to know.

The girl rolled her eyes, still feeling somewhat incredulous that the person in front of her was the partner chosen by her master. She wasn't sure if he had discovered her master's true identity.

He only vaguely said, "She consumed too much energy before, and is now repairing herself. It will just take a while. It would be best to put her in a place with abundant spiritual energy later so that she can recover faster."

At this moment, Wen Xiangluan suddenly poked her head out: "I know where the spiritual energy is most abundant! Isn't it Grandmaster..."

The sect leader standing behind him covered his mouth expressionlessly: "Look, Senior Sister has already checked on her. She's fine. If there's nothing wrong, go cultivate and don't get in the way."

Hearing Xiangluan make a few "uh-uh" sounds, how could he be considered a hindrance? Look at his senior brothers and sisters, they are all outside. Now that it's time to really show loyalty, isn't he the more useful one?

"Alright, since it's not a big problem, let's not stay here any longer and let her get some rest."

The sect leader gestured for the others to follow her away, but as for Nan Yi, whether intentionally or unintentionally, she left him by Chu Li's side.

“Senior sister, I was right before.” After walking a distance, Lu Qianfeng raised an eyebrow at Xie Wanqiu.

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Xie Wanqiu said slowly, though she was a little surprised. “That’s why I left Nan Yi here. Maybe when Master wakes up, he’ll prefer to see him.”

The last sentence inevitably carries a slightly sour tone.

It's hard to believe how long the three of them, the three siblings, have been by their master's side, yet their current treatment is somehow inferior to that of the fox. This is quite heartbreaking.

However, it might not be a bad thing for Master to have a partner. But once her memories are restored, I wonder what kind of judgment she will make about this relationship.

If you calculate the time carefully, the secret realm will be opening soon. Once that secret realm opens, the countdown to Master's memory recovery will begin.

She once said that she would wake up, whether or not this time she succeeded.

After Nan Yi and the others left, he bent down, pressed his cheek against Chu Li's, and gently closed his eyes: "Senior Sister, who exactly are you?"

Chu Li's recovery took a long time; she spent several months in bed.

When she woke up again, she had completely forgotten her battle with An Su in the domain. She only remembered that after entering the domain, she suddenly felt her consciousness become blurred, and when she regained consciousness, she was already in the Myriad Manifestations Sect.

"Senior sister, how are you feeling now?"

"I'm fine..." Chu Li took a deep breath and then said to Nan Yi, "It's just that you might need to stay away from me for now. I think... I'm about to break through."

Perhaps it was because she had overexerted herself that she turned misfortune into blessing, as there was now a very strong energy fluctuation in her spiritual meridians.

Almost immediately, a vortex of spiritual energy appeared. Nan Yi stood guard at the door, looking up at the suddenly appearing vortex.

"He actually broke through again..." In fact, ever since that seed of doubt was planted in his heart, all those unusual things seemed to have an explanation.

Just like when he first entered the sect, his senior sister's cultivation level was only at the mid-Nascent Soul stage, but in just one or two years, she was able to break through directly to the peak of the Nascent Soul stage—even the most talented cultivator would find it difficult to improve so much in such a short period of time.

Unless they used evil methods... But he could be quite sure that his senior sister was cultivating steadily and taking each step very solidly. In other words, her current peak of the Nascent Soul stage was entirely achieved through her own cultivation.

The vortex's fluctuations were immense, and it startled the people in the Wuxiang Palace almost instantly upon its appearance.

Xie Wanqiu looked up at the enormous vortex that emitted a faint light and couldn't help but sigh, "As expected of my master, even the timing is so precise. But since she broke through at this time, does that mean that the secret realm is just around the corner?"

"It'll probably be about a month. There seem to be some subtle movements starting to appear in the area where the secret realm is located," Lu Qianfeng said casually, leaning lazily against a chair.

"Is Master going in alone this time?" Lu Qianling asked Xie Wanqiu with some concern.

Of the two people in front of her, she trusted Xie Wanqiu more. As for her brother, he was utterly unreliable.

“Well, others are more likely to become a burden to Master…” Xie Wanqiu said, then paused suddenly, her eyes narrowing involuntarily, “But this time, it’s possible that a certain fox will be brought along.”

Judging from the previous instances, it seems that Master really does bring the fox with her no matter what she does. If she brings the fox along again this time... Xie Wanqiu found herself not finding it strange at all.

"Alright," Lu Qianfeng yawned. He had rushed over as soon as he heard that his master was sick, and hadn't even had time to sleep. "There's nothing more for me to do. I'm going back to sleep. You can do as you please."

"Brother, wait a minute, I'm leaving too."

The two figures disappeared inside the hall.

Xie Wanqiu just smiled faintly. The two siblings always complained about each other, but no matter where they went, they always stayed together.

"Master?" A head peeked out from a side hall. Seeing that the other two uncles had left, the head quickly came out.

"I just heard that our grandmaster is finally going to the Time Rift Realm this time?"

Xie Wanqiu gave him a half-smile: "How do you know which secret realm it is? I don't recall the name of the secret realm being mentioned in our conversation just now."

“Master, don’t worry about these details,” he had overheard during one of his grandmaster’s conversations with his master. “Tell me quickly, did grandmaster deliberately suppress his cultivation this time just for this secret realm?”

"That's right, anything else?"

“Master, I’m the one asking you this question. Can you back out?”

He overheard a bit about it that year and learned that his grandmaster had suppressed his strength and used virtual memories for the sake of that secret realm. Not long after, he heard that his grandmaster had become their senior sister. Unlike the other senior brothers and sisters who were resistant, he was extremely excited.

I wanted to take this opportunity to get closer to my master, but to my surprise, she was not easy to approach. During that time, although she taught me, we hardly talked about anything other than cultivation.

But the opposite of him was Nan Yi. His master had been extremely good to him, taking him everywhere. Now that they had this new relationship, he was the least surprised.

“Your grandmaster once accidentally entered the Time Rift Realm more than two thousand years ago and retrieved a Time Amber from it. This amber will serve as proof that she can enter again…”

Time gap, meaning a gap in time, in that secret realm, time has long been distorted.