A stunning comeback shocks all at the grand competition; waves of passion stir a sea of misunderstandings.

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Shen Yi lightly flicked the dew on the display stand with his fingertips. The droplets suspended in midair transformed into thirty-six glass beads, refracting the dark golden veins flowing across the star-patterned orchid leaves.

Behind him, the crisp sound of Cold Xuan crushing a jade slip echoed. A roguish smile curled at Shen Yi’s lips. “Do you all know why my star-patterned orchid matures in just fifteen days?”

The Master of Spiritual Plants at the judging panel suddenly straightened his stooped back, his cloudy eyes reflecting the pulsating mycelial network in Shen Yi’s palm.

Those silver threads, barely visible to the naked eye, spread along the wood grain of the display stand, weaving the entire venue’s spiritual energy fluctuations into a web.

“Because I rewrote the third volume of the Classic of the Spiritual Pivot,” Shen Yi suddenly poured the entire pot of spirit spring water into the stand’s groove. The mycelium, swollen by the water, grew into vines, lifting the star-patterned orchid into the air. “I irrigate the roots with Yellow Springs water and roast the leaves with Samadhi True Fire—”

“Absurd!” Cold Xuan abruptly rose, the jade pendant at his waist striking the edge of the stand with a clear chime.

A lightning summoning talisman hidden in his sleeve turned into blue smoke. The celestial thunder that was supposed to strike the star-patterned orchid strangely curved, scorching his hair crown to charcoal.

Laughter erupted from the audience.

Shen Yi feigned tidying his collar, disheveled by the shockwave, but in truth, he used the system’s light screen to intercept Cold Xuan’s second concealed weapon—a silver needle coated with Corrupting Spirit Powder, now lodged in the mycelium’s protective web. He melted it into molten iron using frost patterns painted with sugar glaze.

“Continue,” the Master of Spiritual Plants drummed his knobbly fingers on the table. “Yellow Springs water inevitably damages the spiritual veins. How do you resolve that?”

Shen Yi suddenly rolled up his left sleeve. The star-patterned orchid’s roots wound around his forearm, secreting a luminous blue sap. “I blend it with the morning dew of the Nine-Rebirth Resurrection Herb.” Before he finished speaking, the stand trembled violently as five or six gray-clad cultivators below simultaneously formed hand seals, attempting to overturn the display with earth escape techniques.

The mycelial network emitted a sharp buzzing.

At the moment Shen Yi’s pupils contracted, the dragon vein energy concealed in the ceramic pot sneezed suddenly. The spiritual power of the gray-clad cultivators reversed, burying them up to their necks in earth.

Ya’er burst into laughter, hurriedly painting a small flower atop their heads with sugar glaze.

“Continue.” Shen Yi snapped his fingers, shattering the third wave of poisonous powder. The star-patterned orchid’s leaves curled into trumpet shapes, transforming the spiritually toxic energy waves into clear, melodious phoenix calls.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a judge forming seals within his sleeve, a dark-patterned totem gleaming blood-red under the sunlight.

It was at that moment that Gao Yao burst into the venue.

Dew clung to her hair, and the mingled scent of cedar and honey was scattered by the gust.

Shen Yi was about to speak when he saw her sword tip pointed at the edge of the stand—where a soul-pursuing spike engraved with his name was hidden.

“Explain.” Gao Yao’s icy silk ribbon wrapped around Shen Yi’s wrist, the bells on the sword tassel clinking and shattering the words he was about to utter.

A crisp sound of cups falling came from the judging panel. The judge with the dark-patterned sleeve was secretly activating the soul-pursuing spike.

Seizing the momentum from the icy silk ribbon, Shen Yi leapt upward, pulling the dragon vein buried deep underground along with the star-patterned orchid’s roots.

The mycelial network exploded with dazzling silver light, reflecting all the concealed weapons in the venue back toward the judging panel.

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Amid the crowd’s exclamations, he whispered close to Gao Yao’s ear with a light laugh, “Fair lady, behold—”

The display stand suddenly sank three inches, the star-patterned orchid’s leaves trembling, each golden vein beginning to flow in reverse.

Shen Yi’s fingertips condensed a translucent orb, inside which was sealed the spiritual power map of the judges just analyzed by the system.

When Cold Xuan attempted to break the protective arrays for the seventh time, a satisfied burp echoed from the dragon vein underground.

“Time to close the net.” Shen Yi wiped the blood trickling from his lips as the mycelial network suddenly contracted into a cocoon.

Someone at the judging panel knocked over a cinnabar inkstone; the crimson stain spread across the Hundred Herbs Masterpiece chart, forming eerie patterns.

The system’s light screen flared a vivid red warning across Shen Yi’s retina, while the dragon vein beneath the stand emitted a ravenous pre-feast roar.

A burst of firefly light exploded from Shen Yi’s fingertips as the star-patterned orchid’s leaves peeled away layer by layer amid the mycelial tremors.

When the last golden-veined leaf fell into the stand’s groove, the entire spiritual plant transformed into a flowing water mirror, reflecting the dragon vein’s slumbering essence three hundred miles away in the spirit field—the jade-colored cyclone nestled deep within the earth’s veins inhaled and exhaled clouds rhythmically with the mycelial network.

“With the spiritual plant as the eye and the dragon vein as the breath,” the Master of Spiritual Plants’ teacup clinked on the table, the tea surface revealing seventy-two hexagrams. “You little rascal have reversed the meridian theory of the Classic of the Spiritual Pivot!”

The glass dome above the venue suddenly drizzled fine rain, each droplet wrapped in the luminous blue sap secreted by the star-patterned orchid.

Cold Xuan was about to mock when he noticed green buds sprouting from his rain-soaked hem, blossoming instantly into a string of jade flowers that could neutralize all poisons.

The judging panel was filled with sharp intakes of breath. An elderly man with a white beard was so excited he tore his own dust whisk.

“This can cure the miasma of the southern border,” Shen Yi casually plucked a flower and tossed it toward the audience, a roguish smile concealing the system’s newly refreshed spiritual power map. “If combined with the morning dew at midnight…”

Before he finished, the display stand was bathed in a seven-colored glow.

The mycelial network, carried by the dragon vein’s energy, surged skyward, forming a hundred-foot-tall spectral image of the spiritual plant beneath the dome.

When the phantom bloomed its ninth bud, all the spiritual plants in the venue bowed their leaves toward the stand—an oath of submission from the flora.

“The champion of this session…” The Master of Spiritual Plants had yet to finish when Gao Yao’s icy silk ribbon brushed past Shen Yi’s ear, pinning a gray-clad attacker to a corridor pillar.

Her snow-white skirt swept the edge of the stand, and Shen Yi caught a faint, unusual scent of bitter almond.

The award ceremony dissolved into farce.

Shen Yi retreated into the shadow of a pillar holding the gilded trophy, his fingertips still tingling with the coolness of Gao Yao’s icy silk ribbon.

Ya’er was tiptoeing to pin a magnolia flower on his collar when a group of chattering girls jostled her aside.

“Senior Brother Shen, could you teach me about your mycelial network?” A girl in goose-yellow robes held a cinnabar brush to her lips, the bell chain on her wrist—the same as Gao Yao’s—glinting as her sleeve slipped down.

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Just as Shen Yi was about to step back, the girl suddenly stumbled and fell into his arms, the honey fragrance in her hair identical to the incense Gao Yao favored.

Gao Yao watched clearly from outside the carved window.

Her jade bottle containing antidote pills still in hand, she saw Shen Yi supporting the girl’s waist, whispering and laughing.

The frost on the icy silk ribbon suddenly grew three inches, cracking the window frame into a spiderweb of frost.

“Daoist Shen, can you explain?” When the seventh “admirer” approached with a flask of peach blossom brew, Gao Yao finally appeared at the corridor’s corner.

Dew clung to her sword tassel, and the sleeve bore the tear from her recent pursuit of the gray-clad attacker.

Shen Yi was about to speak when the goose-yellow girl let out a soft moan and fainted into his arms.

The system’s light screen flashed wildly, the warning bar erupting with a blood-red alert—the dark pattern appearing on the girl’s nape was unmistakably the mark of the immortal realm’s forbidden technique, “Puppet Silk.”

“Yao’er, listen to me…” Shen Yi reached out to grasp the dispersing icy silk ribbon, only to be cut lightly by the frost’s sharp edges.

Gao Yao retreated, knocking over a glass lamp; the spilled oil burned black holes in the mycelial network.

A figure wearing a bronze mask flashed outside the Moon Gate, the air lingering with the unique sandalwood stench of Puppet Silk control.

As Ya’er squeezed through the crowd clutching the trophy, she witnessed Shen Yi crushing three soul-pursuing spikes barehanded.

The totems etched on the fragments perfectly aligned with the cinnabar ink stains spilled on the judges’ table.

“Got it.” The system’s light screen suddenly projected the judges’ spiritual power fluctuation map. Among the data of a supposedly neutral Nascent Soul expert, taint from the immortal realm’s forbidden land was mixed in. “But the evidence chain still lacks the key…”

Shen Yi wiped the blood from his lips as the mycelial network quietly wrapped around the half-length sword tassel Gao Yao had dropped.

When the crisp sound of Cold Xuan deliberately shattering the trophy reached him, the star-patterned orchid roots on his wrist suddenly gave an alert—the dragon vein underground was restlessly churning.

Under the moonlight flooding the corridor, Shen Yi stood before Gao Yao’s frost-cracked window frame.

Mycelium clung to a blood-stained fragment of the bronze mask; the system’s light screen was analyzing the immortal realm’s taint affixed to it.

Ya’er ran over with a basket of sugar glaze, her skirt hem dusted with the unique fragrance of rosewood ash from the judges’ table.

A wailing moan from the dragon vein came from the display stand. The star-patterned orchid on Shen Yi’s wrist trembled violently.

The mycelial threads severed by Gao Yao’s sword qi were slowly condensing under the moonlight into a translucent form…