Chapter 1232: The Gentle Breeze Is Nowhere
The pain receded, replaced by a rapid expansion of his divine soul.
A world's will, even the remnant of a single province, was an incredible tonic for a cultivator.
In the past, as the Sage Emperor, Li Ping had always overseen the affairs of the Great Qi from a human perspective, processing countless trivial matters. But from this day forward, having absorbed the consciousness of the Cong Yun Sea, he might be able to view the Sacred Dynasty from the omniscient perspective of the world itself, taking in every detail at a glance.
After the consciousness of the Cong Yun Sea perished, the winds fell silent for seven days.
Li Ping stood poised between sea and sky, waiting for the fusion to complete.
Without even trying, Li Ping, having devoured the sea's consciousness, could effortlessly perceive every event unfolding within the Cong Yun Sea.
He saw the cultivators who had been afflicted by the demonic faces. Even after he had withdrawn his divine power, the vast majority had not recovered from their madness. In the aftermath of this calamity, not even one in a hundred cultivators remained sane.
He saw Crimson Flame, the Heavenly Spirit, brewing in the sky. With the demise of the sea's consciousness, there was no longer any need for it to descend and burn the ocean. The condensed power of law quietly dissipated.
He saw the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace at the center of the Cong Yun Sea. Its seals had been weakening, and it was on the verge of re-emerging, but after a mysterious blue halo flashed across it, it fell silent once more.
...
Although he had evaded detection for now, the faint sense of crisis in Li Ping's heart did not disappear.
"It seems this is no place to linger," Li Ping thought to himself after completely absorbing and digesting the sea's consciousness.
However, before returning to the Great Qi, there was one more thing he had to do.
His form flickered, and in an instant, Li Ping appeared on the seabed near Flowing Cloud Island in the Cong Yun Sea.
Here, in a deep-sea chasm, a peculiar whirlpool churned.
At the center of the whirlpool, a pale blue pearl emitted a faint light.
"The Canghai Pearl."
As part of the Cong Yun Sea consciousness's hedge, the Canghai Pearl was the final escape route it had prepared for itself.
Li Ping stretched out his hand, and the pale blue pearl flew from the underwater vortex into his palm.
"Since you have already become part of the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao, let's sever all ties with the past."
Golden energy enveloped the Canghai Pearl, then surged into it.
When the light faded, the pearl in Li Ping's hand had transformed from pale blue to a deep azure.
Yet it had lost its former spiritual vibrancy.
Li Ping had completely erased the final, faint trace of the Cong Yun Sea's will that had remained within the pearl.
"From now on, the Canghai Pearl is just the Canghai Pearl. It has no connection to the Cong Yun Sea."
Instead of keeping the pearl, Li Ping flicked his finger, sending it shooting off to a random corner of the Cong Yun Sea, to await its fated owner.
Having done all this, Li Ping finally departed from the ocean.
The cultivators of an entire province had been reduced to mindless fools.
When the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance finally noticed the calamity in the Cong Yun Sea, they were utterly furious.
As they dispatched investigators, the question of how to handle these dangerous, maddened cultivators became a difficult problem.
In the end, it took the combined efforts of five Dao Integration cultivators to barely bring the chaos in the Cong Yun Sea under control.
Among these five was Sun Luyuan, the head of the Sun family.
He had previously exhausted every means to finally contact Fairy Kongyou.
Sun Luyuan had already thoroughly investigated Fairy Kongyou's background. He knew she was simple-minded, wore her heart on her sleeve, and was intensely curious about novel things. So, he had concocted a half-true lie.
"I heard that you once turned an ungrateful male cultivator into a dog and tormented him day and night?"
"The scene was truly too gruesome to watch. Coincidentally, while traveling through a small world, I encountered something similar. They also transformed criminals into beast-like forms as a means of punishment..."
Sun Luyuan selectively recounted some of what he had seen in the Great Qi.
"The emperor of this small world thinks just like me? How interesting."
"And from your description, the level of development in this small world is quite extraordinary..."
After a few casual mentions, Fairy Kongyou was, as expected, intrigued.
She agreed that if the opportunity arose, she would visit it with a few other acquaintances from the Alliance.
Seeing his plan succeed, Sun Luyuan was overjoyed.
He even considered using Fairy Kongyou's name to lure more of the Alliance's young prodigies there.
Who would have thought that before his plan could be implemented, a tragedy would strike the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance? The scheme had to be put on hold.
Originally, the mess in the Cong Yun Sea had nothing to do with him.
However, Xu Yuanxian, the Chief of the Law Enforcement Hall, had privately given him a task.
That was why Sun Luyuan had no choice but to make the arduous journey.
"Qingfeng Hall. This is the place."
After subduing and gathering all the maddened cultivators who attacked on sight, Sun Luyuan arrived at a building on Ten Thousand Immortals Island.
He felt no presence of living beings inside.
But when Sun Luyuan stepped inside and saw the state of the interior, his pupils constricted abruptly.
An old man lay on a wooden chair, his entire body sprouting tree-like roots that bound him tightly to the floor.
Although the old man was not completely dead, a faint breath still remained. But in Sun Luyuan's eyes, he was no different from a corpse.
It was as if his divine soul had been completely drained by the strange roots, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.
"This must be the keeper of Qingfeng Hall that Elder Xu mentioned. He was a Nascent Soul cultivator, at least, yet he died so inexplicably."
Sun Luyuan shook his head slightly.
His gaze moved away from the old man, scanning the interior of Qingfeng Hall.
A moment later, he discovered a hidden entrance.
On high alert, Sun Luyuan strode through the faint, shimmering green opening.
A somewhat empty space.
*Thump! Thump! Thump...*
The sound of the ground trembling echoed continuously.
Sun Luyuan looked toward the source of the noise and saw, to his astonishment, a large tree that had grown two human legs.
It was running across the ground.
In the center of the tree's trunk was an incredibly ancient-looking face.
At this moment, the tree's face was filled with endless terror.
The tree was running frantically, so fast that its two legs could not support its body, causing it to fall and scramble up again and again. Yet, it never stopped running.
It mumbled to itself, "Again, the calamity has come. This terrifying sight... I've never seen it, not even in my father's most malevolent curses!"
"But it never happened!"
"It's not fake! It's not fake!"
...
The tree-man's words were incoherent and contradictory, making it impossible to understand what he meant.
It was deeply lost in its own hysteria, and even Sun Luyuan's attempts to communicate were futile.
"A-Liu is mad."
Just then, a clear female voice suddenly sounded in Sun Luyuan's ear.
"Hm?" Sun Luyuan started in surprise.
He had already searched the area thoroughly and was certain there was no one else here besides the tree-man.
But then, he recalled the task Elder Xu had entrusted to him.
He immediately asked, "Are you Fellow Daoist Qingfeng?"
The female voice did not reply.
"I have come to take you back, at the request of Elder Xu."
"According to him, this spirit wood has gone mad, and the passage within it is unusable, trapping you here."
Sun Luyuan spoke while carefully observing his surroundings.
He wanted to pinpoint the location of this "Qingfeng".
But despite the perceptive abilities of his Dao Integration realm, he found nothing.
"A-Liu is mad," the female voice repeated, still not giving a direct answer.
Sun Luyuan frowned slightly. Could this female cultivator have also been driven mad by the demonic faces?
"A-Liu and I were the best of friends. Now that he's mad, who will play with me?"
Her melancholic voice echoed in the small space.
Overlapping with the tree-man A-Liu's occasional cries of grief, it sent a chill down one's spine.
For some reason, Sun Luyuan felt the same creeping horror he had experienced while wandering through the Great Qi.
"Fellow Daoist Qingfeng..." Sun Luyuan cleared his throat, forcing himself to speak.
Although he didn't know the relationship between this female cultivator named Qingfeng and Elder Xu.
...the fact that the typically stern and impartial Xu Yuanxian had made an exception to privately seek him out was enough to show that their connection was anything but ordinary.
Fortunately, things did not unfold as Sun Luyuan had feared.
Qingfeng seemed to sob quietly for a moment before finally emerging from her sorrow.
"So you were sent by Little Xu. He hasn't forgotten me after all."
Qingfeng's simple sentence made the hairs on Sun Luyuan's neck stand on end.
"Little Xu? Xu Yuanxian?"
Sun Luyuan almost couldn't believe his ears.
Elder Xu had been the Chief of the Law Enforcement Hall for over three thousand years; he was an undisputed old monster.
Yet this girl, who sounded so young, called him Little Xu...
If she wasn't mad, then how old was she?
And what exactly was the identity of this being called Qingfeng?
Countless thoughts flashed through Sun Luyuan's mind, but he dared not dwell on them. His expression grew cautious.
He no longer dared to address her as "Fellow Daoist Qingfeng." Instead, he carefully changed his tone and asked, "Senior, why do you not show yourself? Has this junior done something wrong?"
After a moment of silence.
Qingfeng's peculiar voice sounded from behind Sun Luyuan.
"Haven't I been here all along?"
"Oh, right. I forgot. Ordinary people can't see me."
Qingfeng's words made cold sweat bead on Sun Luyuan's brow.
"Elder Xu said he will send someone to deal with this mad spirit wood later. For now, Senior, please come back with me," Sun Luyuan said hastily.
"Ah! That's wonderful! I knew A-Liu could be saved," Qingfeng chirped, suddenly as cheerful as a simple little girl.
"It's all because that scene of apocalyptic wailing was too scary. It frightened him witless. If you hadn't come, I would have had no one to talk to for a long time."
Qingfeng's voice grew closer and closer to Sun Luyuan.
Finally, it seemed to settle on his back.
"Alright. I'll listen to Little Xu and leave this place for now."
"The atmosphere here has changed. It's not very pleasant anymore."
Feeling a seemingly real weight on his back, Sun Luyuan's heart pounded. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
"So... junior can just leave?" he asked tentatively.
"Yes, I'm already on your back."
Qingfeng's words confirmed Sun Luyuan's suspicion.
Sun Luyuan didn't dare to linger, and he immediately left the strange space.
The cries of the mad spirit wood continued to echo behind him.
"Shall we... return to the Alliance headquarters?" Sun Luyuan asked as he flew through the Cong Yun Sea as a streak of light.
"Not there. That place is also unpleasant. Let's go to Luoyan Province."
Qingfeng's mood seemed to have improved. She spoke in a cheerful tone.
"Luoyan Province?" Sun Luyuan nodded.
Elder Xu's task was only to get Qingfeng out and settle her in a Qingfeng Hall in another province.
Sun Luyuan didn't argue and headed for Luoyan Province.
Along the way, he pondered the true identity of the being on his back.
With the immortal artifact, the Immeasurable Mirror, at home, Sun Luyuan considered himself well-versed and knowledgeable.
Yet he had never heard of a strange existence like Qingfeng before.
He couldn't even gauge her power.
Did Elder Xu really make him travel thousands of miles just because he was worried she was trapped?
Looked at this way, Qingfeng's strength couldn't be that high.
But her strange way of speaking and all her bizarre behaviors made Sun Luyuan's scalp tingle.
It was obvious that this formless, shapeless being called Qingfeng was anything but simple.
Sun Luyuan cursed his luck internally and increased his speed.
He just wanted to finish the mission and get away from her as soon as possible.
Qingfeng was silent for the rest of the journey.
And he was getting closer and closer to Luoyan Province.
Just when liberation seemed within reach, Qingfeng's next sudden words plunged Sun Luyuan into an icy abyss.
"You're getting a little impatient, aren't you?"
"As I thought, there are very few people in this world who are kind to me."
Sun Luyuan felt a chill rise from the bottom of his heart.
Although Qingfeng said nothing more, his sense of unease grew stronger and stronger.
"What's wrong?"
Sun Luyuan knew some change was happening to him.
But he couldn't perceive the specific details of the change.
It wasn't until he entered Luoyan Province and glanced down casually that he was suddenly jolted with realization.
He was flying close to the ground.
A blazing sun hung overhead.
But strangely, he cast no shadow on the ground.
Sun Luyuan knew for a fact that he hadn't cast any spell to conceal his form.
But his shadow was gone.
He stretched out his arms, bewildered.
He... seemed to be turning ethereal.
His very existence was fading.
He was about to become formless and shapeless, just like Qingfeng.
The change happened so quickly that Sun Luyuan's mind didn't even have time to register fear.
His mind was just a blank haze.
Just as Sun Luyuan felt his connection to the world growing fainter...
A brilliant golden light suddenly erupted from within his body.
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