It's alright, I won't die.
It is an unwritten rule that cultivators should not interfere too much in the affairs of the mortal world.
But if Yun Qian were to stand by and watch that tyrannical monarch continue to wantonly harm innocent children in pursuit of the elusive dream of immortality, she knew she couldn't bring herself to do it.
However... within an hour, she used three extremely ominous talismans in succession. This ruthless and cruel method was indeed unlike her usual style of haggling even over a bowl of medicine.
What's wrong with her today? Why is she so filled with resentment, as if an unnamed fire is burning away her reason?
Thunder rumbled in the sky.
Bai Chuan, enduring the burning pain in his chest, clutched his chest and staggered to Yun Qian's side, standing shoulder to shoulder with her. He looked up at the dark, oppressive sky, his eyes filled with an unprecedented determination. During the last tribulation, he wasn't present, leaving his senior sister to bear it all alone. This time, even at the cost of his life, he would protect her; he would never let her face it alone again!
Another thunderclap boomed, shaking everyone to their core.
Bai Ji, who was on the ground, was slowly awakened by the thunder. The tearing pain in his body brought him back to his senses. His vision was blurry when he saw Yun Qian's tall but thin back not far away. He suddenly realized that his senior sister had come. It was they who had dragged his senior sister into this dangerous situation!
The doors and windows of the Golden Palace were all shattered, and outside the palace, which was completely exposed, the howling wind rushed in, stirring up dust and debris, and making people's clothes flutter.
Yun Qian's hair was not tied up; the half-updo at the back of her head was whipped around by the wild wind, dancing in the air. The inexplicable anger and restlessness in her heart still lingered, as if something inside was clamoring, wanting to tear it apart, wanting to destroy it. Somewhat bewildered, she raised her hand to her chest and looked up at the increasingly dense, almost overwhelming, calamity clouds outside the palace.
Dark clouds loomed over the city, their destructive aura suffocating. She knew perfectly well that the most urgent task at this moment was to immediately take her two junior brothers back to Cangmin Mountain and use the mountain-protecting spiritual array to resist the heavenly tribulation.
However, the Golden Palace had already been enshrined with a restrictive array by the old Taoist Qingfeng. This array was ineffective against mortals, but it allowed cultivators to enter but not leave!
Normally, finding the array's core and breaking it wouldn't be difficult for her. But right now, with heavenly lightning hanging overhead, she had to be constantly vigilant and had no time to carefully deduce the location of the array's core. While her Nascent Soul stage cultivation could allow her to attempt to forcefully break the array, since the array's creator was far less powerful than her, forcibly breaking it would inevitably consume a huge amount of energy. At that point, she probably wouldn't have the strength to withstand the ensuing heavenly lightning. Furthermore, Bai Chuan and Bai Ji were severely injured and lacked sufficient cultivation; if they were caught in the residual force of the heavenly lightning, they would likely lose their lives in an instant.
Bai Chuan is not proficient in formations. If Bai Ji were awake, he might be able to find the core of the formation more quickly.
Severely injured, Bai Ji's thoughts were like mush. After struggling for a while, he suddenly remembered that they were trapped in a formation and unable to escape.
"Senior Sister..." he said weakly, his voice barely a whisper. He had to break the formation, at least to let his senior sister know that he was awake and that there was still hope of breaking the formation.
Hearing his voice, Yun Qian felt slightly relieved and quickly turned her head, saying, "This formation can be broken; the key to the formation is..."
Before the words were even finished!
"Snap—!!"
A blindingly bright purple bolt of lightning, like a sword of divine punishment, tore through the thick clouds and struck down from the sky! Its target was Yun Qian!
Yun Qian's pupils contracted, and she immediately clasped her hands together, unleashing a torrent of spiritual power from her Nascent Soul stage, which condensed above her head into a thick barrier of spiritual light, forcefully meeting the attack head-on!
boom!
The lightning and spiritual energy collided violently, and the energy shockwave blew all the debris in the hall away! At the same time, Yun Qian used a gentle force to push Bai Chuan next to her to Bai Ji's side, away from the center of the lightning strike.
"Senior Sister!" Bai Chuan knelt on the ground, extremely anxious, trying to use the remaining spiritual power in his body to help, but as soon as he had the thought, his chest churned and blood gushed out of his mouth uncontrollably again.
Bai Ji, standing to the side, was just as anxious, but he could barely lift a finger and could only watch helplessly as his senior sister took the heavenly lightning alone.
Pure true energy was continuously drawn from Yun Qian's body and flowed into the barrier above her head. After taking a direct hit from a bolt of heavenly lightning, her arms were slightly numb, and her fingertips trembled uncontrollably.
The heavenly lightning that struck her during her last advancement to the Nascent Soul stage came one after another, showing no mercy. Yun Qian didn't know if it would be the same this time. If there was only one, she could barely withstand it. As she was concentrating on estimating, the tribulation clouds in the sky surged again!
The second bolt of lightning followed without pause!
Yun Qian: "..."
I was left speechless!
Forced to withstand the second, even more ferocious bolt of lightning, Yun Qian felt a sweet taste in her throat, followed by a metallic taste, which she forcibly swallowed. She even tried to find a bittersweet humor in the thought that she might be gaining experience from being struck by this lightning... But the waves of weakness and stinging pain in her body clearly told her that she probably couldn't withstand a third one.
Just as the third bolt of heavenly lightning was about to condense and strike down!
A soft yet powerful white spiritual light, like moonlight, instantly enveloped Yun Qian, Bai Chuan, and Bai Ji completely!
With a flash of light, the three figures rippled like water before vanishing without a trace from the perilous Golden Palace.
Inside the main hall, only an emperor, whose mind had been clouded by the death talisman and who was laughing maniacally, and a few children whose eyes were still glazed over and who had not yet recovered from their fear remained.
The third bolt of lightning, having lost its target, flickered a few times unwillingly in the clouds before slowly dissipating. The thick tribulation clouds also began to gradually recede.
When I opened my eyes again, the familiar, cool mountain air rushed into my lungs, and the oppressive feeling of heavenly might that made my heart palpitate suddenly disappeared.
They returned to Cangmin Mountain.
With a mysterious protective array covering the entire mountain, even the Heavenly Dao could not easily lock onto Yun Qian's aura, so the Heavenly Tribulation triggered by her unstable spiritual power could not descend.
Bai Yan stood quietly beside the jade platform, the spiritual energy surrounding him not yet fully subsided. Clearly, it was he who had used his supernatural powers from thousands of miles away to forcibly bring them back from the Golden Palace.
Strangely, the moment Yun Qian stepped into the Cangmin Mountain area, the lingering resentment in her heart that had made her act ruthlessly vanished as if washed away by a mountain spring.
She subconsciously looked at Bai Yan, intending to ask about her earlier strange behavior, but her gaze was involuntarily drawn to a young man standing behind Bai Yan.
The boy was about seventeen or eighteen years old, with his dark hair tied up high and meticulously. He had a high nose bridge, well-defined lips, and clear, bright eyes that seemed to hold stars. His appearance wasn't the kind of aggressively handsome, but rather a very "fair" kind of good looks.
Yun Qian was taken aback by the description that popped into her mind. But it was indeed her most direct feeling. The boy's features were perfectly proportioned, and together they formed a handsome and upright demeanor that was unforgettable, as if he was born to be a righteous person standing in the sunlight.
Could this person be Qin Wu, the protagonist of the original book?
Countless questions surged in Yun Qian's mind, but before she could speak, she was interrupted by Bai Yan's cold voice.
“Yun Qian disobeyed her master’s orders and went down the mountain without permission,” Bai Yan’s gaze fell on her through the silver mask, without any emotion. “She is to go to the forbidden area in the back mountain to reflect on her mistakes. Without permission, she is not allowed to take a single step out.”
The forbidden area in the back mountain is where the sect leaders of all generations have secluded themselves for cultivation. It was also a restricted area established at the very beginning of the Cangmin Mountain sect, and disciples are strictly forbidden from entering it without permission. The snow there never melts, making it the coldest, most desolate, and most bitterly cold place in the entire Cangmin Mountain.
"Master!" Baichuan was the first to speak. He struggled to stand up, his face full of confusion and anxiety. "Senior Sister did it to save us! She did nothing wrong. The one who is at fault is me!"
Bai Ji forced herself to speak, her voice weak but urgent: "Yes, Master! If you must punish someone, punish me! It's my fault for not being skilled enough, which has implicated Senior Sister!"
"It was all my idea!" Bai Chuan's tone grew increasingly urgent, taking all the blame upon himself. "I wanted to get rid of that tyrant first, and my senior sister only came to save me out of necessity! Please, Master, investigate thoroughly and punish me alone!"
Bai Yan seemed not to hear their pleas, his tone remaining calm and unwavering, carrying an unquestionable authority: "Within Cangmin Mountain, only Yun Qian is forbidden from descending. You have not disobeyed orders, so what wrong have you committed?"
"Master!" Bai Chuan and Bai Ji exclaimed in unison, wanting to argue further.
With a gentle flick of his sleeve, Bai Yan unleashed an invisible barrier, instantly choking the two of them. They could no longer utter a sound, only anxiously widening their eyes and futilely gesturing. In his desperation, Bai Ji even reached out and grabbed the hem of Bai Yan's snow-white robe.
Seeing this, Yun Qian understood. She bowed respectfully to Bai Yan and said, "This disciple accepts the punishment."
"I'm punishing you, do you accept it?" Bai Yan's gaze returned to Yun Qian, the silver mask reflecting a cold luster in the cool mountain light.
"Disciple knows her mistake and is willing to accept punishment." Yun Qian lowered her head. If it weren't for her master's timely intervention today, Bai Chuan and Bai Ji would probably have perished from the heavenly lightning. And that heavenly lightning was specifically aimed at her. Without the protection of the protective array of Cangmin Mountain, in her state at the time, there was absolutely no way she could have survived the heavenly tribulation. Her master's punishment was justified.
Bai Yan nodded slightly: "Go."
"yes."
Yun Qian said no more, took one last look at her two anxious junior brothers, and then flew straight towards the forbidden area behind the mountain, riding on her sword.
Seeing her senior sister leave, Bai Chuan and Bai Ji, who were silenced, were even more anxious. Bai Chuan was too badly injured and collapsed to the ground, exhausted. Bai Ji, disregarding her own injuries, reached out again and grabbed Bai Yan's robe tightly, her pale face filled with grievance and accusation.
Bai Yan flicked his index finger and thumb lightly, and a barely perceptible fluctuation of spiritual energy shook Bai Ji's hand away.
Bai Ji slumped to the ground, looking up at his master with red eyes, but he was unable to speak and could only express his dissatisfaction with his eyes.
Bai Yan ignored this as if nothing had happened. He turned around and spoke to Qin Wu, who had been standing quietly by, his expression calm: "The one who was punished and sent to the forbidden area in the back mountain was your senior sister, Yun Qian. The two on the ground are your second senior brother, Bai Chuan, and your third senior brother, Bai Ji."
He paused, his voice as calm as ever, yet carrying the air of a formal announcement: "From this day forward, you are Qin Wu, the 148th generation disciple of Cangmin Mountain."
Having witnessed such a "wonderful" scene of his sect on his very first day, Qin Wu's face remained largely unmoved. He respectfully replied, "Yes, Master," in accordance with proper etiquette.
Bai Yan nodded, said no more, and with a flicker of his figure, he vanished from the stone platform like smoke, leaving behind three disciples, one old and one new.
Qin Wu showed no embarrassment whatsoever. He turned around calmly and respectfully bowed to his two senior brothers, who were in rather unseemly postures on the ground, saying in a clear voice, "Qin Wu greets his two senior brothers."
Bai Chuan: "..."
Bai Ji: "..."
The two senior brothers were lying limply on the ground, one collapsed and the other sat down, both covered in blood and looking utterly disheveled, a far cry from their usual senior brother demeanor.
Bai Chuan was completely exhausted and didn't even want to move a finger. Bai Ji, on the other hand, was too badly injured and overwhelmed by anger; he closed his eyes and fainted.
Seeing his two senior brothers "fall down" one after another, Qin Wu, who had remained calm and composed, finally revealed a hint of panic on his face.
He was new to the area and seemed unable to do anything.
Bai Chuan still retained a sliver of consciousness. With his last bit of strength, he laboriously moved his fingers and grabbed the wrist of the unconscious Bai Ji beside him, placing his fingertips on his pulse.
His breathing was weak, but still relatively steady... He was alright, he wouldn't die. Bai Chuan felt a little relieved, but then he couldn't hold on any longer, everything went black, and he lost consciousness.
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