Celestial Master Exits Seclusion, Casually Bestows Divine Jade Pendant

Ten thousand miles away.

Tiandang Mountain.

The mountain range stretches for a hundred miles, its main peak hidden above a sea of clouds.

The morning mist is so thick it refuses to dissipate, wrapping the entire mountain in a layer of gray-white gauze.

From the mountainside upward, ancient trees tower into the sky, their foliage so dense that only a few slivers of sunlight can filter through.

Continuing upward, the forest thins out, replaced by craggy, strange rocks and winding streams. The water is ice-cold and clear to the bottom, where unknown small fish swim against the stones.

The summit of the main peak.

Taixu Temple.

It is not a grand architectural complex.

Three stone halls, a bell tower, and a bluestone path winding from the mountain gate to the alchemy room in the backyard.

The hall walls are mottled, moss grows in the gaps of the tiles, and the edges of the stone steps have been rounded by a century of wind and rain.

Yet, the spiritual energy is dense—so dense that ordinary cultivators would not dare to imagine it.

With every breath, one's internal organs are cleansed anew.

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth gathers here from all directions, neither dispersing nor escaping, all held within a hundred-foot radius by some invisible force.

The deepest part of the back mountain.

A stone chamber.

The door is chiseled from a single block of bluestone, three feet thick, its surface carved with intricate Daoist patterns.

The patterns are ancient, some already blurred, but the remaining parts still slowly circulate with a faint purple shimmer, completely isolating the stone chamber from the outside world.

Inside the stone chamber.

Shen Yichen sits cross-legged on a meditation cushion.

White robes.

A clean, pristine white, unstained by dust or ash; from the collar to the cuffs, there is not a single wrinkle.

His hair is tied atop his head, secured by a plain white jade hairpin, with a few stray locks falling against his temples.

His face is refined, his features sharp yet not aggressive.

His skin is fair, his jawline well-defined.

His eyes are closed, his breathing long and steady; his chest barely shows any movement.

He sits there in complete stillness, with no soul power fluctuations leaking from his body, nor any spiritual light swirling around him—yet the dense spiritual energy of heaven and earth in the chamber, thick enough to almost condense into liquid, is all orbiting his body.

It is not that he is absorbing the spiritual energy; it is that the spiritual energy itself is submitting to him.

"Hmm-hmm-hmm~ hmm-hmm~"

On the mountain path outside the stone chamber.

An eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl carries a wooden bucket, stepping lightly up the bluestone stairs.

Her pace is brisk, humming an off-key tune. The water in the bucket sloshes with her movement, spilling two drops onto the stone steps.

Ye Lingling.

The only attendant of Taixu Temple.

A successor of the Nine-Heart Begonia lineage.

Though called a successor, she is actually just a level 32 Soul Elder; in the wider world of soul masters, she wouldn't even make a splash.

But with the bloodline of the Nine-Heart Begonia in her body, her spiritual power is naturally inclined toward healing and nourishment. Tasks like cleaning the seclusion chamber, maintaining the array patterns, and tending to spiritual herbs are much easier for her than for ordinary people.

Her ancestors once received a great favor from the Celestial Master.

That was over a hundred years ago.

Her great-grandmother was being hunted and fled to Tiandang Mountain, on the verge of death, when the Celestial Master saved her with a casual wave of his hand, incidentally wiping out her pursuers.

Since then, the Ye family has remained at Taixu Temple. The first generation guarded it for thirty years, the second for forty, and with Ye Lingling, it is now the third.

Three generations, guarding an empty mountain, serving a tightly shut stone door.

"Hmm-hmm-hmm~"

The tune cuts off halfway.

Ye Lingling stands before the stone door of the seclusion chamber, sets the bucket on the ground, and shakes out her sore wrists.

She comes to wipe this door every day; the Daoist patterns on it must be moistened with spiritual spring water regularly, or the lines will gradually fade.

She has been doing this work since she was thirteen—five full years, without missing a single day.

She crouches down, fishes a cloth out of the bucket, wrings it out, and is just about to wipe the door—

Her hand stops.

The Dao patterns flickered out.

The pale purple lines that had been slowly circulating on the door for over a hundred years dimmed one by one before her eyes.

Without a sound, they extinguished in sequence from the top of the door to the bottom.

The moment the final line vanished, the three-foot-thick stone door let out a "click."

A gap.

The door opened a crack.

Ye Lingling froze completely.

The cloth was still clutched in her hand, and water dripped down through her fingers, hitting the stone steps drop by drop.

Five years.

She had stood before this door for five years, ever since her grandmother told her on her deathbed—the Celestial Master would emerge from seclusion one day, and she must wait patiently.

Only when that day came would the debt of the Ye family be truly repaid.

She had been waiting all this time.

Sometimes, she felt she would never see it happen.

Now, the door was open.

Ye Lingling's hands were trembling.

She tossed the cloth into the bucket, raised a hand to tidy the stray hairs on her forehead, and looked down at her dress—faded blue cloth.

There was no time to change.

She wiped her hands on her skirt and gently pushed the stone door open.

The light in the stone chamber was dim, with only a sliver of daylight leaking through a crack in the dome, illuminating the fine dust floating in the air.

A person sat on a meditation cushion.

Dressed in white, wearing a jade hairpin, with refined and handsome features.

His eyes were open, looking right at her.

Those eyes were excessively calm, devoid of the disorientation one might expect after a century of seclusion, and lacking the wariness of seeing a stranger for the first time.

He simply looked at her with indifference, tinged with a hint of languor and gentleness.

Ye Lingling's knees went weak, and she dropped to the floor with a thud.

The wooden bucket was knocked over by her skirt, and water spilled out, flowing down the stone steps.

"Ce... Celestial Master!"

Her voice trembled, and she could barely articulate the words.

"You have finally emerged from seclusion?"

Shen Yichen did not move. He remained in the same posture, one leg resting over the other, his hand perched on his knee.

His gaze swept over her face, then swept over it again.

"Rise."

Three words, his voice light and clear, carrying a laziness as if he had just woken from a nap.

Ye Lingling stood up, shivering; she dared not lift her head, keeping her eyes fixed on the tips of her shoes.

The overturned bucket was still leaking water by her feet, soaking a patch of her skirt.

"Your name is Ye Lingling, correct?"

She jerked her head up.

Shen Yichen tilted his head, observing her with a casual air—his chin resting on the back of his hand, his eyes half-closed.

"When you were born, your mother even brought you to see me."

Ye Lingling's mind went blank.

The Celestial Master remembered her name.

The Celestial Master had been in seclusion for a century, yet he remembered her?

Her nose stung, and tears threatened to well up.

She bit her lower lip hard, swallowing the bitterness back down.

"Celestial Master... you still remember..."

Shen Yichen gave a hum.

A very short syllable, with the tail end drawn out.

He turned his head, his gaze lingering on her for two breaths.

Level thirty-two, Soul Elder; the bloodline of the Nine-Heart Begonia was pure enough, but her cultivation resources were too poor, leaving her foundation quite unstable.

There were three blockages in her spiritual meridians; with no one to help clear them over the years, it had already begun to affect the speed of her soul power circulation.

No wonder her cultivation had been so slow all these years.

Shen Yichen said nothing. He reached into his robe with his right hand, pulling out an object from the inner lining.

A white jade pendant.

It was small, only two knuckles wide.

The jade was translucent and warm, with a faint, flowing light drifting slowly within.

There were no gaudy carvings, only a ring of extremely fine patterns etched along the edge, nearly impossible to notice without a close look.

With a flick of his finger, the white jade pendant traced an arc through the air, flying straight toward Ye Lingling.

"A little trinket, consider it a gift."