Chongming Sect.
Deep within the Inner Sect, cold winds howled and chill mist swirled. Heavenly Vast Palace loomed high in the air, its scales gleaming through the blue haze.
Rear hall.
A three-legged bronze cauldron stood on the floor, carved with a surging sea of blood where countless demons and ghosts writhed and howled in agony. Dense clusters of incense sticks burned fiercely inside, their flames blazing as pale violet smoke filled the room, roiling and surging like green mountain mists.
On the gleaming floor tiles, a scarlet outer robe embroidered with a phoenix clutching a flower, trimmed with golden thread and gauzy silk, trailed like clouds. Si Hong Qingyan wore her dark hair in a high, elaborate bun, adorned with layer upon layer of pearl hairpins. One shoulder was bare, and her skin, fairer than snow, still glistened with the faint moisture of a recent bath, tinged a peach-blossom pink. Seen amid the billowing mists, she was the very picture of delicate beauty, radiant and alluring.
At that moment, she held a round silk fan and paced slowly around a screen of Illusion-Heaven Gauze. The screen was set in a jeweled, openwork frame of moon-essence pearwood, carved with kui-dragon patterns and depicting ghost infants playing with skulls.
Moon-essence wood was an exceptionally precious spirit plant. Its color was as warm as jade, yet it was clearer and more lustrous than flawless spirit jade. In a dark room, it could even emit a gentle moonlit glow, and its fragrance could nourish the bones and muscles.
As for Illusion-Heaven Gauze, it was woven from thread spun by dozens of top-grade Gu worms, using a process so complicated and arduous that only the most painstaking work could complete it.
The rarest among them was the Evil Qi Gu King.
This Gu was