The Source

Chen Ming's eyes flashed with streaks of azure and gold, and he too transformed into the appearance of a young Daoist.

The two walked at an unhurried pace, reaching the city as dusk fell.

Qing Ling pointed the way, and before long, they arrived at the Gao Family estate, which had been wiped out.

Ever since the Gao Family had been slaughtered, their estate had fallen into complete ruin. An almost imperceptible aura of Yin Resentment Qi shrouded the place, making people uneasy. Everyone gave it a wide berth.

"What's so special about the Gao Family? Or what secret were they hiding? And what exactly is their connection to the Mastermind?"

"Let's investigate and get to the bottom of it!"

Chen Ming stepped forward and gently pushed open the dust-covered gate.

A wave of Yin Cold Qi rushed straight at him.

If an ordinary person had been hit by it, they would surely have fallen ill.

But to Chen Ming, it was no different from an ordinary cool breeze.

As for Qing Ling, there was no need to mention it. She even felt that the Yin Cold Qi lacked a certain bite and wasn't cold enough.

Chen Ming trusted in his Supernatural Ability, but he wasn't reckless.

The Mastermind had hidden in the shadows, schemed against the Golden Light Divine Lord, and secretly sent a message to the Chayi Sect disciples, luring them to Cuiping Mountain.

The scheme had been elaborate, but it had also revealed the Mastermind's strength. At most, he was about as powerful as the Golden Light Divine Lord and Ling Yangzi; otherwise, he wouldn't have needed to hide behind the scenes and resort to such underhanded tricks.

Chen Ming swept the area with his Spiritual Sense and immediately discovered where the Yin Cold Qi gathered.

The place where it gathered was a woman's boudoir.

Yet the room had been decorated as a bridal chamber, with bright red everywhere. Golden hairpins and jade beads, a Dragon and Phoenix Hair Comb, and a Bronze Mirror sat on the dressing table.

Chen Ming entered the room. The extinguished red candles spontaneously sprang to life, and the Yin Cold Qi grew even stronger.

A strand of Golden Light Divine Flame gathered in Chen Ming's hand, burning the Yin Cold Qi in the room with a sizzling sound.

"Yinyin?"

"You shouldn't have come back!"

Suddenly, a clear voice rang out, faint and hollow.

Then a large amount of Yin Cold Qi poured out of the Bronze Mirror on the dressing table, gathered before it, and formed into a woman with long hair and a bright red wedding dress.

The woman appeared without warning and showed no fear of the Golden Light Divine Flame in Chen Ming's hand.

"The Golden Light Divine Lord died at your hands, didn't he?"

"Oh? Yinyin and that tree on Cuiping Mountain actually fused and became a monster."

"Good. Back then, I used a Secret Method to refine your head. I only hoped that you and your mother would be able to take revenge. The fact that you survived was a stroke of fortune!"

The Red-Clad Woman gently picked up the Dragon and Phoenix Hair Comb from the dressing table and slowly combed her hair.

Then she slowly turned back to the Bronze Mirror, penciled in her brows, and put on her hairpins.

For a moment, Chen Ming couldn't sense her strength at all, so he didn't dare act rashly.

"You were the one who turned Yinyin into a monster, weren't you? Ling Yangzi must have died at your hands too, right?" The woman placed the last Golden Hairpin and Dangle in her hair.

She slowly turned around and asked, out of the blue, "Am I beautiful?"

Chen Ming was already on guard, so the woman's Soul-Hooking Technique had no effect on him.

The Golden Light Divine Flame flew from his hand, but when it reached the woman, it went out without a sound.

The woman remained seated in silence. Then she turned back to the mirror and gazed at her reflection, smiling faintly. "I am beautiful!"

Alarm bells rang in Chen Ming's mind. Under the influence of the Yin Cold Qi, a layer of frost formed throughout the room.

"Big sister, I remember now. You were the one who kept my head alive!"

Qing Ling suddenly spoke. She had only said a single sentence when her eyes reddened.

The frost spreading and crystallizing through the room came to a halt.

"But my mother is dead, and Yinyin is dead too. The world is vast, but I have no home left. The only one alive now is Qing Ling!"

Qing Ling wiped away her tears and looked at the Red-Clad Woman.

"Ah..."

The Red-Clad Woman sighed and withdrew the Yin Cold Qi from the room.

"Since this fellow Daoist saved her, I can see what sort of person he is. Please, sit down and let's talk."

Without making any other movement, she reached out and brushed a hand over the Bronze Mirror. The room's scenery turned upside down, and they found themselves in the courtyard.

The moon shone bright. A stone table and stone stools stood in the courtyard, with teacups set on the table.

"Please, have a seat, fellow Daoist!"

The woman sat down first and invited Chen Ming to join her.

Although the woman's methods were hard to fathom, Chen Ming had sensed her movements, and she hadn't gone beyond the Contemplation Realm.

Chen Ming hadn't revealed his trump cards either, so he wasn't afraid of her. He sat down calmly.

"Are you a Ghost Cultivator, fellow Daoist?"

Chen Ming noticed that the woman's body was insubstantial, formed entirely from condensed Yin Cold Qi, so he asked.

The woman picked up a teacup and shielded it with her sleeve as she took a sip. Then she set it back on the table. "Yes and no."

"Since we're sitting down to talk, I won't hide anything from you."

"I was originally a Spirit Condensation Realm cultivator. I was injured in a fight with someone, and my body was damaged, so I had no choice but to hide here in this form for a while."

The woman's name was Situ Yuelan. She had once been a Spirit Condensation Realm cultivator, but after falling into misfortune, she had, by a stroke of fate, hidden herself inside that Bronze Mirror.

She had been asleep inside the mirror. She never expected that the Gao Family, hoping to curry favor with the powerful, would marry off their daughter.

But the Gao Family's daughter refused and ran away in the middle of the night.

So the Gao Family found a girl with a similar appearance to take her place. To prevent future trouble, they also slaughtered all of the girl's family.

The girl was controlled by the Gao Family's poison. She had already accepted her fate and only hoped that the family would receive enough money to live a little better.

When she finally learned that her entire family had been killed, she steeled herself and hanged herself in her room, consumed by immense resentment.

That resentment awakened Situ Yuelan, who had been asleep inside the Bronze Mirror.

Using the Yin Cold Qi and resentment, Situ Yuelan managed to recover a little, then hid inside the mirror to slowly recuperate.

In secret, she spread the incomplete method of refining the spirit through Incense and Fire and breaking through to the Spirit Condensation Realm, ensnaring the Golden Light Divine Lord and Ling Yangzi.

However, to settle the karmic debt owed to the girl who had awakened her, Situ Yuelan had promised to wipe out the entire Gao Family.

Later, time ran short, and the Gao Family could no longer find another bride to take their daughter's place. They also paid out a great deal in benefits before finally placating the anger of the powerful House they had been trying to curry favor with.

But that powerful family gave the Gao Family a recipe and had them find girls of a suitable age to refine into Evil Pills.

The Evil Pills merely allowed ordinary people to sense Heaven and Earth Origin Energy and cultivate a trace of magical power.

But that was as far as they could go. They couldn't even be considered to have reached the Qi Gathering Realm.

When Yinyin was killed, Situ Yuelan had just calculated that the Golden Light Divine Lord and the Spirit Tree on Cuiping Mountain had reached the right point.

So she used Yin Cold Qi to refine Yinyin's head, then relied on Yinyin and her mother to wipe out the Gao Family.

That way, she had settled the karmic debt from before, and Yinyin had taken her revenge. It should have been a perfect ending, with neither side owing the other anything.

Who would have thought that after the Gao Family was wiped out, Situ Yuelan would realize that the karmic debt had not vanished?

She calculated carefully and discovered that she had overlooked Gao Yuzhu, the Gao Family daughter who had run away from her wedding.

Gao Yuzhu had encountered a stroke of fortune and had already joined the Chayi Sect.

Situ Yuelan was shrewd and scheming. Hoping to kill several birds with one stone, she lured Yinyin and her mother to Cuiping Mountain, then used other means to secretly draw the Chayi Sect people there as well.

Once they started fighting, Situ Yuelan could profit from the shadows, devouring the Golden Light Divine Lord and the Spirit God formed from the mountain's Spirit Tree to restore her own strength.

After regaining her strength, she could follow the tangled karmic threads to draw out Gao Yuzhu, who had joined the Chayi Sect, kill her, and then leave without a trace.

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