Returning Things to Their Rightful Owner

Lin Qi rubbed her head and sorted through her thoughts.

It seemed she had transmigrated back to five days after Lin Yun and her mother entered the household.

Five days ago, Lin Family Head Lin Jue had brought a mother and daughter to the doorstep. Great-Aunt Grandmother had been so furious that she opened the ancestral hall and had Lin Jue beaten first.

In the end, it was only because Lin Qi's mother, Gong Shaojun, spoke up that he was spared his life.

Gong Shaojun had also agreed to take Lin Yun and her mother into the Lin Family, on the condition that Lin Jue be stripped of his position as family head and that four-year-old Lin Qi take over instead.

This matter had stirred up no small amount of controversy within the Lin Family.

Yet in order to placate Gong Shaojun, a Nascent Soul cultivator, the Lin Family's Great-Aunt Grandmother had agreed to it all and even sworn a Soul Oath to wholeheartedly assist Family Head Lin Qi for the rest of her life.

Just when everyone thought the matter had settled, Gong Shaojun suddenly opened a cave dwelling and announced that she was entering closed-door cultivation unto death.

Unless it concerned a calamity that would wipe out the Lin Family, she would never emerge again in this lifetime.

The entire Lin Family was shocked.

By the time little Lin Qi learned the news, Gong Shaojun had already arranged everything.

She only had time to watch the cave dwelling close, her mother's back vanishing completely from before her eyes.

Little Lin Qi had cried outside the cave dwelling for an entire day and night until her voice turned hoarse, yet she still could not soften Gong Shaojun's heart.

Misled by the servants, little Lin Qi believed that Lin Yun and her mother had caused her own mother to abandon her. She foolishly ran to the side room and beat Lin Yun up, then collapsed from exhaustion on the way back.

When she woke again, she had become someone else.

Lin Qi sighed for little Lin Qi. She moved her short little legs, intending to get out of bed and look around, when the door to the cultivation room her original mother often used suddenly opened.

The room was empty, yet she instinctively walked inside.

Lin Qi did not see that, at the instant she lifted her foot, an invisible barrier rippled for several seconds before disappearing.

After Lin Qi stepped into the cultivation room, a pale blue Ice Phoenix mark appeared between her brows.

The empty, bleak cultivation room before her eyes instantly became a vast field.

Night hung heavy overhead, and a mysterious formation drawn in blood was reflected beneath the cold moon.

The frigid wind howled. A female cultivator with an ethereal bearing stood in the boundless field with her hands behind her back, her aura majestic and cold, as though she had nearly merged with heaven and earth.

As the female cultivator slowly opened her eyes, freezing energy that blanketed the sky swept across the entire deserted city, transforming into a raging dragon that shot toward the heavens.

The blood-red formation erupted with dazzling light in an instant.

The formation—activated!

Immediately afterward, the female cultivator vanished, and a phoenix cry rang through heaven and earth.

Pale blue light shrouded the skies above the entire deserted city as the powerful pressure of an emperor poured down from all directions.

A gigantic Ice Phoenix soaring toward the heavens seized Lin Qi's attention.

Countless vortices appeared in the dark sky, filled with purple-black lightning. Each bolt was stronger than the last, radiating world-destroying might.

Not a trace of fear showed in the Ice Phoenix's eyes as ice wrapped around her entire body. Abundant spiritual energy floated around her.

Five patterns—virtue, righteousness, benevolence, trustworthiness, and propriety—lit up across the Ice Phoenix's body, transforming into an ice storm that swept through heaven and earth.

Bolts of lightning fell one after another, dense as raindrops.

The Ice Phoenix beat her wings, carrying frost and ice that blanketed the sky, charging forward without hesitation as she soared straight into the heavens.

The sky was torn open with a crack, threads of white light shining through.

An abstruse aura that transcended the Heavenly Dao seeped into the Cangwu Realm.

In the blink of an eye, the Ice Phoenix disappeared and transformed back into the female cultivator.

A bright red drop of blood slid from the female cultivator's jade-like fingertips. As it fell, it turned into an ice-blue bead and drifted toward a corner of the Cangwu Realm.

Lin Qi suddenly brought her hands together and caught the ice-blue blood bead falling from the void.

The blood bead landed in her palm and instantly transformed into a droplet-shaped piece of jade, bone-piercing chill spreading through her entire body.

A faint, blurred sentence drifted from afar through the void.

Lin Qi could not make out what she was saying. She merely jolted awake and examined the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood in her hand.

"This seems to be the drop of essence blood Lin Yun crushed in my previous life!"

In the novel, Lin Yun had used this drop of Ice Phoenix Essence Blood to temper her muscles and bones, raise the purity of her bloodline, and escape death countless times.

This Nine-Revolution Ice Phoenix Essence Blood was one of female lead Lin Yun's greatest golden fingers.

Lin Qi remembered Lin Yun's final words. "'Fulfilling you is also fulfilling myself'... So this drop of essence blood was actually Lin Qi's golden finger, but Lin Yun took it away by chance."

"So this is returning things to their rightful owner."

That made sense. Lin Qi's mother had chosen to enter closed-door cultivation unto death after losing all hope, but before that, she had made many arrangements for Lin Qi. It was impossible that she had left nothing behind for Lin Qi.

Just as Lin Qi put away the Ice Phoenix Essence Blood, she discovered a letter on the table in the cultivation room, with a blue feather pressed atop it.

To my daughter:

When you see this letter, you will surely have recovered your Spiritual Wisdom Soul and become no different from an ordinary person. If you wish to cultivate, take the Phoenix Feather to Tianyi Sect and seek a master. True Monarch Qingyun is my friend and will certainly look after you.

When Lin Qi saw the letter's contents, her entire body shook.

In the book, Lin Yun had caught True Monarch Qingyun's eye at the disciple recruitment assembly and had been accepted as her disciple in one stroke. From then on, she had been protected every step of the way.

So Lin Yun had not only stolen Lin Qi's Ice Phoenix Essence Blood—she had also stolen the life that was originally Lin Qi's?!

Go cultivate at Tianyi Sect!

At the very least, she had to reclaim everything that belonged to Lin Qi.

With a calm expression, Lin Qi tucked the Phoenix Feather into her clothes, already setting her goal in secret.

The moment she turned around, she saw a pale-faced, frail-looking man standing in the doorway.

It was Lin Qi's biological father, Lin Jue.

His eyes were red and bloodshot. No one knew how long he had been standing there.

Lin Qi froze for a moment before she could speak, but he had already limped inside.

"Little Qi, where is your mother?!" Lin Jue's voice carried a hint of restrained emotion.

After being beaten unconscious in the ancestral hall, Lin Jue had remained asleep. When he woke and heard that Gong Shaojun had entered closed-door cultivation unto death, he refused to believe it no matter what. He had dragged his injured body to the cultivation room Gong Shaojun usually loved to stay in.

Lin Qi opened her mouth to explain, only to discover that her mouth was half a beat slower than her brain.

Before she could speak, Lin Jue impatiently swept his sleeve.

"I forgot. You're an idiot!"

After saying that, he called outside, "Tian Qi, carry the young master out!"

Lin Qi had barely been carried outside the cultivation room when she heard Lin Jue's furious roar.

"Gong Shaojun, where are you? Get out here!"

"I don't believe you've entered closed-door cultivation unto death! You went to such painstaking lengths to scheme against me—wasn't it all for the entire Lin Family? You heartless, ruthless woman!"

"Gong Shaojun, get the hell out here!"

By the end, Lin Jue was furiously casting spells to attack the walls surrounding the cultivation room.

Afraid that Lin Qi would be frightened, Tian Qi deliberately covered her ears with both hands. To Lin Qi, though, it did not mean much.

She heard every word Lin Jue shouted with perfect clarity.

Since she was an idiot now anyway, she could openly watch Lin Jue go mad.

A trace of doubt also arose in Lin Qi's mind.

If she had not awakened, would Lin Jue have been the first person to enter her mother's cultivation room?

Could the Phoenix Feather in Lin Yun's hands have been taken by him and given to her?