Venturing into the unknown, they brave the surging waves; bound by love, they shatter the veils of illusion.

Moonlight pierced through the decaying window lattice, casting mottled lotus shadows upon Shen Yi’s palm.

He toyed with the wedding invitation, its corner burnt away. As his fingertips brushed against the pattern of the twin lotus flowers, the system suddenly issued a prompt: [Detected fluctuations of millennium-old Yin-Yang soil. Coordinates: Abandoned herbal garden, thirty miles west of the city.]

"They were certainly willing to pay a heavy price for this trap." Shen Yi ground the paper, soaked in mandara juice, into fine powder. Outside the window, the soft, rhythmic patter of footsteps approached.

Gao Yao leaned against the doorframe, clutching her Qingshuang sword, her moonlight-white robes damp with night dew. "Don't think for a moment that I believe any of the nonsense written in this wedding invitation."

"Yet, here you are." Shen Yi flicked the jade pendant at his waist; the crown feather of Leng Xuan displayed upon it was glowing with an eerie red light.

Gao Yao’s ears twitched. She suddenly flung three talismans, sealing the doors and windows. "Someone is spying with the Puppet-Linking Technique."

The moment their fingertips brushed, star-patterned orchids began to grow wildly, etching a winding map onto the walls.

Watching the outline of the herbal garden take shape, Shen Yi tossed half a shortbread cake into the air. "Care to bet on who finds the eye of the formation first?"

"Childish." Gao Yao’s sword aura swept through, splitting the cake into eight even pieces that landed perfectly on the oiled paper. "Midnight, at the western outskirts."

Beneath the archway entwined with withered vines, the Yin-Yang soil shimmered with a ghostly cyan-purple light. As Shen Yi stepped into the garden, his soles stuck to a gelatinous substance.

Gao Yao used the tip of her sword to lift a withered vine; its cross-section oozed a scarlet liquid. "It’s the remains of a blood-drinking vine. Be careful..."

Before she could finish, seven earthen pillars erupted from the ground. Withered plant remains hovered in the air, forming the Big Dipper constellation.

The star-patterned orchid in Shen Yi’s robe trembled violently, and the system panel flickered frantically: [Warning! Seven-Star Soul-Devouring Formation activated!]

"Three steps toward the Kan position!" Gao Yao slashed through the incoming poison-tipped thorns, the scent of fresh clearing-herbs lingering as her dark hair brushed against Shen Yi’s nose.

Shen Yi countered by scattering a handful of golden thorn seeds. Amidst sharp, explosive pops, thirty-six pottery jars burst from the ground, each carved with a twin-lotus motif.

The formation suddenly reversed; the withered Yin-Yang twin lotuses bloomed at the eye of the formation.

The cinnabar mark on Gao Yao’s forehead erupted in red light, and the poison manual in her hand turned its pages without the help of the wind. "The eye is a twin-gu parasite!" As she lunged toward the flower’s center, seven ice spikes erupted from the earth.

Shen Yi’s sleeve-vines coiled around Gao Yao’s waist to pull her back, but his left shoulder was slashed by an ice spike.

The moment his blood dripped, all the plant remains let out a shrill scream, transforming into thousands of steel needles that rained down upon them.

Gao Yao spun around, erecting a spiritual shield, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "The pottery jar at the southeast corner, now!"

"Catch!" Shen Yi pressed the star-patterned orchid seeds into her palm, then charged headlong into the rain of needles toward the formation's eye.

The price of the Heart-Protecting Lotus in the system store turned gray at that moment. Gritting his teeth, he activated the Farming System; a phantom of a nine-tailed fox suddenly manifested around him.

As the needles pierced the phantom, Shen Yi’s fingertips touched the withered pistil of the twin lotus. A familiar scent of mandara flooded his senses—it was identical to the fragrance on the wedding invitation!

He whipped his head around to see Gao Yao planting the star-patterned orchid into a pottery jar engraved with Leng Xuan’s birth date.

"Don't touch that!" Shen Yi’s warning came a second too late.

As the jar shattered, the Yin-Yang soil condensed into blood-colored chains, binding Gao Yao’s ankles. She barely managed to slash through the chains, but her back slammed against a stone sarcophagus that had appeared out of nowhere.

The Seven-Star formation went completely berserk, and countless pale arms reached out from the sarcophagus. Shen Yi channeled all his spiritual energy, causing the star-patterned orchid vines to bloom into twin flowers upon the lid of the coffin.

When the moonlight shifted by three degrees, he saw a lotus mark, identical to the one on the wedding invitation, manifest on Gao Yao’s neck.

"Shen Yi..." Gao Yao’s voice cut off abruptly, and the Qingshuang sword clattered to the ground.

Shen Yi caught her as she collapsed, noticing she was clutching half a piece of Yin-Yang jade—it fit the pattern on Leng Xuan’s crown feather perfectly.

The formation stilled. All the plant remains coalesced into a colossal human face. Staring at the visage that bore a seventy-percent resemblance to Gao Yao, Shen Yi suddenly heard the system prompt: [Fate line corrected. Unlocked hidden item: Pupil of Truth (Fragmented).]

The moonlight turned blood-red, and a lotus pattern appeared in Shen Yi’s pupils. The moment he saw the truth of the formation, the Gao Yao in his arms transformed into star-patterned orchid petals.

Shen Yi wiped the blood from his lips, the nine-tailed fox phantom flickering behind him. He tapped the jade pendant at his waist, and three green jade ginseng seeds rolled into his palm. As they took root in the Yin-Yang soil, they sprouted translucent formation veins.

"So that’s it!" He recalled the *Comprehensive Guide to All Flora* that the white-bearded judge had shoved into his arms during the herbal competition.

Driven by his spiritual power, the pages flipped rapidly, stopping at the chapter "Using Poison to Break Formations"—a yellowed illustration depicted the use of bone-corroding grass to dismantle a Seven-Star formation.

Gao Yao struggled to prop herself up, her pale face reflected in the Qingshuang sword. "The jar at the southeast Xun position..."

"Hush." Shen Yi suddenly pressed a star-patterned orchid leaf to her lips. The moment the juice seeped out, the thirty-six pottery jars suddenly shifted their positions.

He grabbed a handful of withered blood-drinking vine stems and, dipping them into the blood on his shoulder, drew a distorted incantation on the ground. "Do me a favor and lend me some spiritual energy."

Gao Yao glared at him, but pressed her palm against his back nonetheless. The instant their spiritual powers merged, the lotus pattern in Shen Yi’s pupils flared, and the withered Yin-Yang twin lotuses bloomed anew in the center of the incantation.

"Break!"

At his sharp command, all the plant remains burst simultaneously. A shadow hiding behind a withered tree groaned, and the jade pendant at its waist shattered with a crack.

Shen Yi flung a vine to snag the broken branch. The lingering cold scent on it made his eyes turn icy—it was the very same ambergris that Leng Xuan always used.

"Playing god, are you?" He crushed the branch, but as he turned, he met Gao Yao’s complex gaze. The lotus mark on her neck was fading, but the Yin-Yang jade in her palm grew increasingly searing.

"Let me see." Shen Yi pulled back her blood-stained sleeve without a word, revealing three gruesome ice-spike wounds oozing black blood. He frowned, chewing up some raw-flesh grass to apply to the wounds, his fingertips trembling. "Why are you always so stubborn?"

Gao Yao let out a soft laugh, poking his tense face with her bloodied fingertip. "Where did the grand Young Master Shen’s heroic formation-breaking demeanor go?" She suddenly groaned, and from her sleeve fell half a jade pendant engraved with the character "Yao." As it hit the ground, it resonated with the Yin-Yang jade.

Shen Yi bent to pick it up, only to see blood-colored patterns emerging on the surface of the pendant—identical to the demonic markings on Leng Xuan’s crown feather.

Before he could examine it further, the sound of pottery jars shattering echoed from afar.

"This is no place to linger." Gao Yao pulled her sleeve back, stumbling as she tried to stand, only to fall into Shen Yi’s arms. The crisp, clean scent of herbs on him made her ears burn. She feigned composure and said, "There is a spiritual fluctuation to the southeast."

Shen Yi stared at the star-patterned orchid petal caught in her hair, then swept her up into his arms. "Hold on tight." He leaped onto the archway, his feet treading on the wildly growing vines. Under the moonlight, thousands of plant remains were flowing in a single direction, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.

The bronze doors of the basement were covered in dark purple moss, and the door knockers were two inverted twin lotuses. The moment Gao Yao’s fingertips touched the rust, a blood-colored, vein-like pattern spread across the entire door.

The *Comprehensive Guide to All Flora* in Shen Yi’s arms flipped automatically, and new text appeared on a blank page: [Blood vine as the key, twin souls as the pact.]

"It seems we need a special kind of key." Shen Yi suddenly grabbed Gao Yao’s injured hand and, despite her exclamation, smeared a drop of her blood onto the door knocker.

The moment the blood seeped in, the bronze door gave a teeth-grinding creak, and the black mist leaking from the gaps coalesced into a ghostly face.

Gao Yao gripped Shen Yi’s wrist, her tone uncharacteristically panicked. "Wait! There’s a Soul-Linking Curse on the door..."

A cold wind whistled.

Decaying wood dust mixed with a fishy stench rushed toward them. As Shen Yi waved his sleeve to disperse the black mist, a hoarse sneer echoed from deep within the basement. The laughter sounded like fingernails scraping against the inner wall of a pottery jar, causing the leaves of the star-patterned orchid to drop in a flurry.

"Watch your step!" Gao Yao suddenly yanked Shen Yi back.

The ground where they had just been standing cracked open in a spiderweb pattern, oozing a viscous, scarlet liquid. Through his Pupil of Truth, Shen Yi faintly saw countless seeds, each the size of an infant’s fist, floating within the liquid.

The darkness in the basement began to writhe with a physical presence, staining their robes ink-black. Gao Yao’s Qingshuang sword emitted a warning hum, and the spirit stone embedded in its hilt dimmed at a visible rate.

Shen Yi suddenly tossed the remainder of the shortbread cake into the depths of the darkness.

The sound that should have been the cake hitting the ground turned into an eerie swallowing noise, followed by the clanking of dragging chains. Something colossal was waking up...