Lian Yunzhi entered. With extreme, extreme regret, he cleaned himself… halfway.
Hmm.
Leave a little.
What if he could soon access his spiritual power and refine those things? He might even unexpectedly break through to mid-Golden Core stage.
Besides, what remained was out of reach anyway. Xiaoze State’s (former, brief) number one Golden Core cultivator’s hands were not suited for such delicate work.
But just as he picked up his clothes from the poolside to climb out, a splash of water sounded, and a figure appeared ghost-like behind him without warning.
Lian Yunzhi: “……”
He had not washed in vain after all.
He had washed for a long time.
In fact, it proved he had not washed in vain.
Because that person did nothing more to him. Instead, he turned Lian Yunzhi’s body around, held him in his arms, and forcibly cleaned the remaining half.
Lian Yunzhi felt despair.
What did Mu Cheng mean by this? Was he warning him not to delude himself—that he would never have the chance to refine those things?
He very much wanted to ask Mu Cheng when he would remove the strange power sealing his meridians, allowing him free use of spiritual power.
But he dared not ask.
Mu Cheng was no longer the Mu Cheng of old, and neither was he himself.
The once lofty “benefactor,” “beast master,” and “cauldron master” were dead.
Now the winds had turned. He should be the one bullied harshly, humiliated harshly, and avenged upon harshly.
Lian Yunzhi rested his head on Mu Cheng’s shoulder and thought sadly: One must know their place.
.
The very self-aware Lian Yunzhi unknowingly dozed off in the steaming, soothing Spirit Spring Pool.
Mu Cheng lifted him from the water, dried his body, and walked toward the bedroom.
At the bedside, Mu Cheng shifted his hold, cradling Lian Yunzhi with one arm. From his Storage Ring, he took out brand-new, soft bedding, pillows, quilts…
His movements paused.
Then, expressionlessly, he roughly stuffed the bedding back into the Storage Ring. He hastily cast a Dust Removal Technique on his own crude bed, tossed the battered Lian Yunzhi—without a single intact patch of skin, covered in bruises and bite marks—onto it casually, and turned to leave.
.
That absurd, brutal affair lasted a full seven days.
In seven days, it was enough for Lin Xian Sect’s eleven disciples to learn every detail of the events and hear every rumor about Mu Cheng circulating in the streets.
Thus, when Mu Cheng left Xiuzhu Courtyard and passed the Sword Field, not a single disciple practiced swordplay seriously. They all huddled together whispering, and upon spotting Mu Cheng, they immediately ceased all talk, their bodies and voices tenser than ever: “Eldest Senior Brother!”
Mu Cheng stopped and looked at them.
These people once gazed at him with joy, admiration, and reverence, but now those looks had turned to unease, fear, and doubt.
But Mu Cheng did not care about that.
His gaze swept over them.
If there were a second person in the world like Mu Cheng—born special, able to smell the stench on everyone and see the black mist on everyone—they would marvel in surprise:
These eleven people were all spotlessly clean, without a trace of black mist.
Second only to Lian Yunzhi.
The only difference was that they neither stank nor smelled fragrant.
.
This was not a common trait among outside cultivators. In fact, outside cultivators were no different from those in Xiaoze State; they all had the same black mist, the same stench.
But these eleven were different.
Mu Cheng had gone to great lengths to gather them and spent much time with them, yet even now, he still had not found the reason for their uniqueness—just as he still did not know why Lian Yunzhi was so clean, so fragrant, and even able to alleviate his Madness Illness.
“Eldest Senior Brother,” Feng Ming, the boldest, stepped forward and mustered his courage. “We’ve heard many rumors unfavorable to you outside… How should we handle those rumors?”
Mu Cheng: “No need. They’re all true.”
The air fell utterly silent.
Some panicked and bowed their heads. Some gulped nervously. Others exchanged bewildered glances.
“Chief Disciple,” Feng Xi, also at peak Golden Core, stepped forward, his cool face expressionless. “Why can’t we use the Sect Jade Tokens anymore?”
Every Lin Xian Sect disciple who ventured out carried a Sect Jade Token. It not only held a life-saving strike from their master but also allowed contact with the sect in emergencies.
But now, their tokens no longer worked.
“I swapped them,” Mu Cheng said slowly. “The moment you entered Xiaoze State.”
.
Mu Cheng left the Sword Field amid a dead silence hiding turbulent shock waves, walking steadily toward his destination.
He circled a lake, passed a rockery, and entered the grandest main hall of the Immortal Palace.
In the main hall, he turned a censer.
Rumble—
A massive underground palace opened beneath his feet.
Mu Cheng walked in.
He traversed a long, pitch-black, narrow passage before finally seeing a glimmer of light, arriving at his destination.
It was a gigantic prison.
.
In fact, if seven days ago Lian Yunzhi had ignored his cousins’ kneeling pleas and forced his way through the Lian Family gates,
He would not have needed to go to the “Mu Mansion” at all.
Because he would have found all the innocent people of the Lian Family huddled together in terror, while the corpses of those who had participated in Mu Cheng’s matter carpeted the entire courtyard of the main residence.
