With the Spirit Veins on the Brink of Extinction and Hearts Unable to Find Peace, Hidden Feelings Awaken Amid Peril.

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Morning mist wrapped the silver radiance steaming from the spiritual leyline, which streamed between Shen Yi’s fingers in ribbons of shattered light.

He knelt beside the crater that had erupted the night before. When his celadon jade hoe struck the remnants of the warding inscriptions, it rang with a crisp chime like a set of ritual bells. The Spirit-Sealing Formation, which should have been indestructible, was now riddled with fine cracks, like silk eaten through by worms.

“System, retrieve the spiritual leyline energy map.”

Shen Yi summoned a luminous screen within his sea of consciousness. From the corner of his eye, he saw the lightning-struck tree three paces away sprouting fresh buds at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The scorch marks left by last night’s battle were now oozing amber-colored resin. The unnatural vitality sent a chill down the back of his neck.

Gao Yao carried a food box around the wreckage strewn across the ground. When the cloud-patterned hem of her skirt swept over the scorched earth, it shimmered with a faint radiance.

Watching Shen Yi measure the cracks in the ward with the handle of his hoe, utterly absorbed, she suddenly remembered how, half a month earlier, the scoundrel had grinned as he tickled her earlobe with a stalk of foxtail grass. Her heart fluttered lightly, like a strand of spider silk moistened by dew.

“Great Hero Shen, breakfast is ready.”

She deliberately jabbed him in the lower back with her scabbard, only to have the hoe fling a spray of mud across her face when he turned around.

She was just about to lose her temper when she felt something warm being pressed into her palm: a glutinous rice cake wrapped in oiled paper and coated with osmanthus sugar. It even carried the scent of pine from the brocade pouch he wore close to his body.

With half a sesame flatbread clenched between his teeth, Shen Yi leaned toward the crack in the ward. His Adam’s apple bobbed as sugar crystals clung to his lips.

“This formation originally contained thirty-six circulating heavenly cycles, but now…”

He suddenly fell silent. The fragrance of apricot blossoms in the girl’s hair had drifted across his nose, while a soft warmth pressed against his back.

The instant Gao Yao wrapped both arms around his waist, a faint sound like a glass lamp shattering rang through the morning mist.

They turned at the same time.

Above the spiritual leyline, the star map completed with the bronze fragments from the previous night was taking physical form. The flowing points of light were unmistakably miniature versions of the region’s rivers and waterways.

“Shen Yi, look!”

Gao Yao condensed an investigative spell at her fingertips. Pale green spiritual energy outlined the irregular gaps along the star map’s edge.

“These gaps correspond to…”

She suddenly drew in a sharp breath. The veins on the back of the young man’s hand, gripping the hoe, had risen like cords. The locations where the star map was broken were precisely the sites of three century-old wells on the outskirts of Newbie Village.

Shen Yi swallowed the last bite of flatbread. The sweet osmanthus flavor on his tongue had turned bitter.

A scarlet warning icon flashed across the system screen before his eyes. He stared at the three tributaries of spiritual energy rapidly dimming on the map, then suddenly seized Gao Yao by the wrist.

“The Eight Trigrams Well beneath the old banyan tree west of the village—did it suddenly start spewing black water last month?”

Before he finished speaking, Lie Feng’s booming voice came from the southeast.

“Shen! Widow Wang burned the tonic soup and insists on making another batch. If you don’t go and talk her out of it…”

The burly man charged into the ward’s perimeter with a mountain-cleaving axe on his shoulder. At that moment, the jade pendant hanging from his waist suddenly erupted in blinding red light.

Shen Yi’s pupils contracted.

That pendant was the protective talisman he had carved with his own hands two days earlier. It was now warning of a disturbance in the earth’s malignant energy.

Gao Yao suddenly formed a hand seal and summoned her life-bound sword. The lovers’ knot tied to its tassel rustled violently as spiritual energy surged through it.

“Shen Yi, the gap in the northeastern corner of the star map is moving!”

Her voice trembled. The astral projection, which should have remained still, was now gliding like a living thing toward the village shrine. The coffins of the villagers who had died in battle the previous night were being kept there.

Shen Yi wheeled around and slapped the bronze fragment into the crater. The spiritual radiance it splashed into the air cast an eerie shadow across his face.

A sudden disturbance came from the system inventory. The remnant of the white bone lamp wick he had stored the previous night was frantically absorbing the spiritual energy seeping through the cracks in the ward.

He touched the fragment of the lamp base inside his pouch. It was faintly hot.

Then he bared his teeth in a wicked grin.

“Brother Lie Feng, please lift the third roof tile of the shrine.”

While everyone scrambled to move a ladder into place, Shen Yi leaned against the old locust tree and rubbed the dark-gold patterns etched into the fragment.

Dawn filtered through the hair falling over his forehead, casting trembling shadows across his eyelids. The spiritual leyline energy on the system screen was declining at a rate of 0.3 percent per minute, while the amount of spiritual energy absorbed by the lamp wick in his inventory corresponded to that figure exactly.

Gao Yao’s sword suddenly rested against his throat, though her voice was gentle enough to melt into honey.

“Shen Yi, the corner of your eye twitches every time you start plotting against someone.”

The blade reflected the young man’s suddenly widened pupils, as well as the shadow of a beast taking shape within the star map behind him.

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“Unjustly accused, my fair immortal.”

Shen Yi raised both hands. The bronze fragment in his palm refracted the rosy dawn into blood-colored specks of light.

“I was merely thinking…”

He suddenly spun around and knocked Gao Yao to the ground. The section of locust tree against which he had been leaning was torn into splinters by a bone claw that appeared from nowhere.

Amid the flying wood chips, the white bone lamp—which should have been shattered—hung intact in midair. Within the dim blue flames dancing at its wick, Night Shadow’s broken face was faintly visible.

Shen Yi’s nose nearly brushed Gao Yao’s eyelashes. The girl’s hurried breath swept across the tooth mark on his throat that had not yet healed.

Fragments of locust wood pattered down between their overlapping sleeves. Ten paces away, the white bone lamp hung suspended, while Night Shadow’s afterimage within its blue flames twisted and warped like melting glass.

“Southeast, the Wind Trigram position. Fire at the Gate of Life.”

Shen Yi whispered beside Gao Yao’s ear. Spiritual energy surged from his palm into the bronze fragment, which suddenly burst with golden light.

Gao Yao understood at once and flipped to her feet. The lovers’ knot on her sword tassel suddenly came undone, and the red cord wrapped around the base of the white bone lamp like a living creature.

The two moved together with the silent understanding of dancers who had shared a thousand performances. When Shen Yi flung out three spirit stones carved with Eight Trigrams, Gao Yao’s sword aura drove the white bone lamp precisely into the center of the formation.

Lie Feng came charging over with the ladder just as the bronze fragment collided with the white bone lamp, sending out a violent shock wave.

The burly man was thrown back three steps. Only by driving his mountain-cleaving axe deep into the earth did he manage to steady himself.

“Damn it, you could at least call me when you start fighting…”

His complaint died in his throat. Blood was seeping from Shen Yi’s fingertips and flowing along the grooves in the hoe handle into the earth’s leyline. Wherever the blood passed, the blackened lightning-struck tree began to blossom and bear fruit at an uncanny speed.

“System, activate terrain simulation.”

Within his sea of consciousness, Shen Yi summoned a holographic projection of Newbie Village. Data streams flickered endlessly in his pupils.

The spirit-plant markers buried throughout the village the previous night suddenly lit up in his field of vision. When he discovered that the spiritual fluctuations of the old well at the village entrance and the shrine’s roof tiles were forming a kind of resonance, he abruptly seized Lie Feng’s axe and drove its blade into the ground.

“Brother Lie Feng, please pour seven ounces of black dog blood over the shrine’s threshold.”

Shen Yi continued staring at the system screen. With his left hand, however, he accurately caught Gao Yao’s wrist as she tried to bandage him.

“If the immortal maiden is worried about me, why not tie the red cord from your sword tassel around the old banyan tree west of the village? Make it a lovers’ knot.”

Gao Yao glared at him, though the tips of her ears flushed faintly red.

She formed a hand seal and summoned three paper cranes to carry messages. As she turned, the hem of her skirt brushed against Shen Yi’s bloodstained sleeve.

“If you gamble with your life again, I’ll use a binding cord to tie you to…”

Her threat was cut short by a sudden tremor.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Shen Yi slapped the bronze fragment, stained with both their blood, into the formation’s core. In an instant, all thirty-six spirit-plant markers lit up with cyan radiance.

The system notification exploded inside his mind:

[Earth-Leyline Resonance activated. Defensive formation completion: 63 percent.]

He licked the blood from his canine tooth, then suddenly seized Gao Yao’s sword and cut a fresh wound across his own palm.

“You’re insane!”

Gao Yao’s cry was drowned out by the increasingly violent rumbling of the earth.

Shen Yi only laughed recklessly, allowing his blood to drip into the formation’s core. The beads of blood flowed along the leyline patterns toward the three ancient wells, forming scarlet symbols of the Supreme Ultimate at their mouths.

When the final formation mark lit up, the entire spiritual leyline suddenly released a deep hum like a dragon’s roar.

Lie Feng came running over, grumbling as he carried a bucket of black dog blood. The cuffs of his trousers were still stained with the sachet Widow Wang had insisted on giving him.

When he saw the blood-red Supreme Ultimate rotating above the well, his copper-bell eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.

“Shen, why does this formation of yours feel so sinister?”

“Good and evil are only matters of method.”

Shen Yi flicked away the blood crusted along the hoe. From the corner of his eye, he saw the countdown flashing on the system screen.

Two hours remained before the spiritual leyline collapsed.

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He suddenly leaned close to Gao Yao’s pale face, drained by spiritual overexertion, and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear.

“If I fall into demonic possession, would you be willing to personally…”

“Shut up!”

Gao Yao abruptly shoved her life-bound sword into his hands. The hilt still retained the warmth of her palm.

When she turned to reinforce the formation’s northeastern eye, Shen Yi saw the wound at the back of her neck begin to bleed again. It was proof that she had taken the bone claw’s ambush for him the previous night.

As dusk spread across the sky like ink spilled from an overturned inkstone, the first thread of sinister wind sent the soul-summoning banner outside the shrine flying.

Shen Yi crouched in the crown of the lightning-struck tree, chewing on a sesame flatbread. The sweet fragrance of osmanthus mingled with the taste of blood on his tongue.

When he noticed countless red dots appearing along the edge of the system map, his Adam’s apple suddenly bobbed hard. The markers representing enemies were closing in on the spiritual leyline from every direction.

The song of Gao Yao’s sword suddenly became urgent. The red cord on its tassel stirred without any wind.

Shen Yi flipped from the treetop and landed deliberately on half a blue brick, crushing it beneath his foot.

The cracks spread along a precise path toward the edge of the formation, activating the concealed Fire Trigram array.

Amid the flames surging into the sky, he saw Night Shadow’s white robes fluttering a hundred paces away like a banner calling for death.

“At last, you’ve come.”

Shen Yi licked the crumbs from the corner of his mouth and rubbed the inscription on the bronze fragment with his thumb.

The instant Night Shadow raised his hand and condensed the phantom of a skeleton, Shen Yi suddenly turned toward the shrine roof and shouted:

“Aunt Wang, pour it!”

Boiling tonic soup mixed with black dog blood rained down from above. When it touched Night Shadow’s protective aura, it sizzled corrosively.

Taking advantage of the opening, Shen Yi dragged Gao Yao behind the ancient well.

When the girl was enclosed in his arms, she heard the young man’s heart pounding against his chest like a war drum. It turned out that even this perpetually grinning scoundrel could become so tense that every muscle in his body locked tight.

“System, activate the final contingency plan.”

The instant Shen Yi pressed the confirmation key within his sea of consciousness, the entire spiritual leyline suddenly fell into an eerie silence.

Night Shadow’s shattered face reassembled in the firelight. When he raised his bony, sharply jointed finger toward the formation’s core, Shen Yi suddenly realized that the sickly pale fingertip perfectly overlapped with a certain totem he had seen on the bronze fragment the day before.

The sinister wind swept dead leaves past the bronze bell beneath the shrine’s eaves. A pressure surpassing the Qi Refining Realm surged across the defensive formation like a tide.

Gao Yao suddenly clasped Shen Yi’s trembling hand, mingling the cold sweat in his palm with the blood between her fingers.

When nearly a hundred black-robed cultivators appeared behind Night Shadow, Shen Yi heard the girl say softly amid the system’s warning alarms:

“The lovers’ knot… I tied two of them.”

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