Purple Jade Bees

After giving the surrounding mountains a simple initial tidying, Yellow Dragon returned to the courtyard.

From the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl, he took out a small tree no more than a few feet tall, its verdant leaves seemingly dripping with green and bearing naturally formed silver Dao patterns.

It was a branch Yellow Dragon had separated from that Enlightenment Tea Tree. Planted in Nine Heavens Breathing Soil and regularly nourished with the Sweet Dew Technique, along with a small amount of merit, it had finally been cultivated into an Enlightenment Tea Tree of lower postcelestial grade.

As for the Enlightenment Tea Tree bestowed by Green Dragon, it had already taken root within the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl. Rashly removing it would cause upheaval in the world within the pearl and affect that world's growth.

Next, Yellow Dragon took several clumps of soil from the Mysterious Yellow World Pearl. They were Breathing Soil formed when that piece of Nine Heavens Breathing Soil had transformed the soil around it. He buried the tea sapling, together with the Breathing Soil, in the center of the courtyard. The moment it was planted, the tea tree's branches and leaves stirred without wind, producing a faint, pleasant rustling that drew one into the Dao.

As he looked over the grotto abode, which was beginning to take shape, Yellow Dragon thought: though the sparrow was small, it possessed all five organs. The medicinal fields brimmed with vitality, pale light flickered within the lotus pond, crimson qi rose from the jujube grove, and the tea tree's Dao tones rang without cease, making this grotto abode appear all the more extraordinary.

Once everything was done, Yellow Dragon took out a meditation cushion and sat cross-legged beside the tea sapling. Closing his eyes, he listened in his mind to the voice of the Yuanshi Golden Canon expounding upon the Great Dao of heaven and earth. It intertwined with the tea tree's rustling, faintly resonating with the fluctuations of the Dao laws between heaven and earth, further deepening his comprehension of the Yuanshi Golden Canon.

In the days that followed, Yellow Dragon rose with the sun to open up spirit fields and tend to the various immortal herbs and spiritual medicines in the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven. At sunset, he returned to meditate upon the Yuanshi Golden Canon beneath the Enlightenment Tea Tree.

One day, while Yellow Dragon was searching the mountain ranges around the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven for rare flowers and exotic herbs, a dense yet loud buzzing suddenly reached his ears. At the same time, a fresh, sweet fragrance of flower nectar drifted over on the wind. After searching back and forth, he discovered a cave the size of half a person on a cliff face behind a mountain peak.

Bees the size of human heads, their bodies entirely purple, flew in and out in an endless bustle.

Yellow Dragon split off a wisp of his Primordial Spirit and attached it to one of the bees, entering the cave. After passing through the long tunnel, a vast stone cavern appeared before his eyes.

The stone walls were plastered with a thick layer of beeswax, warm and lustrous like yellow jade. Upon it stood an enormous beehive dozens of meters high. Within its exquisitely structured hexagonal cells was sealed spiritual honey, thick as amber yet emanating a seven-colored glow.

Deep within the hive, the huge royal chamber resembled a natural palace of purple jade. A queen bee as large as an adult human, her entire body crystal-clear and translucent, lay within it lazily. Gentle purple light flowed beneath her carapace, as though she had been carved from the finest purple jade.

A faint spiritual gleam unique to newly born intelligence flickered in her compound eyes, slightly muddled and uncomprehending. The aura around her was weak yet pure, proclaiming that she had only just embarked upon the path of cultivation and had barely crossed the threshold of intelligence.

The worker bees surrounding her were each as large as an adult's head, their carapaces a soft pale purple. Every beat of their wings stirred fine yet distinct ripples of spiritual qi, leaving faint purple trails in the dim light of the hive.

"Purple spirit bees? To think they're such a rare variant!" A flicker of delight passed through Yellow Dragon's heart as he hid in the shadows. He had been feeling that his Five Elements Grotto-Heaven was too still and lonely, lacking living creatures to handle its miscellaneous upkeep. This nascent spirit bee colony was like a pillow delivered just when he was sleepy—nothing could have suited him better.

As thoughts raced through his mind, Yellow Dragon's figure had already appeared soundlessly beside the Purple Jade Bee Queen like a ghost. A faintly intrigued smile rested on his face as he quietly studied this newborn spirit.

"Buzzz—!!!"

Yellow Dragon's sudden appearance was like a rolling boulder cast into a placid lake, instantly throwing the entire hive into an uproar!

The densely packed Purple Jade Bee swarm let out deafening cries filled with terror and fury. Like a surging purple tide, they charged the intruder fearlessly to the death under the queen's command.

Their venomous stingers, gleaming with cold purple light at their tails, all aimed at Yellow Dragon and stabbed fiercely toward him with piercing whistles!

A cloying yet dangerous scent of Purple Jade Bee venom filled the air.

Yellow Dragon did not even raise an eyelid. With merely a shift of thought, the vast aura of the Profound Immortal realm silently spread from him like an invisible undercurrent in the deep sea.

The bee swarm that rushed within ten feet of him seemed to strike an indestructible and all-pervading invisible barrier. Their violent momentum was instantly dissolved into nothingness.

A dense series of muffled puffs rang out. The foremost Purple Jade Bees fell to the ground like dumplings dropped into a pot. Their wings vibrated frantically and futilely, yet they could not stir even the faintest breeze. They could only twitch slightly on the ground, completely bound by that invisible pressure and unable to move.

Yellow Dragon's gaze fell upon the royal chamber. There, the newly born Purple Jade Bee Queen had long since been utterly crushed by the overwhelming pressure. Her crystalline body pressed tight against the hive wall as she trembled violently, able only to release faint, hurried buzzing cries of grief. Her compound eyes were filled with terror and the desire to survive.

Yellow Dragon's divine sense directly pierced through the queen's fragile Primordial Spirit barrier, clearly branding his will upon her soul. "My grotto abode lacks a spirit creature to tend to its mundane affairs. Are you willing to follow me, or... are you willing to follow me?" His voice was calm, yet it carried an unquestionable pressure.

"Buzz... Immortal... buzz... spare me... buzz... willing... I'm willing to go... buzz..." The queen's thoughts came in broken fragments, full of panic. She could not even gather a complete thought, yet her intent to submit was unmistakable.

Yellow Dragon shook his head slightly, seemingly somewhat helpless at this newborn intelligence's muddleheadedness. He withdrew the pressure he had released, and the invisible force binding the bee swarm dissipated with it.

The fallen worker bees felt as though they had been granted a pardon, yet they did not dare make another move. They merely huddled trembling in a corner of the hive, emitting low buzzes.

He extended a slender finger, and a point of pure, warm golden light suddenly lit at its tip. That golden light was not flame, yet it contained the supreme true meaning of enlightening intelligence and awakening living beings—the incomparably pure power of spiritual awakening.

Yellow Dragon lightly tapped with his fingertip, and that point of golden light gently imprinted itself upon the Purple Jade Bee Queen's cool, crystalline head carapace like a falling dewdrop.

"Buzz—!" The queen bee's entire body jolted violently! It was as though a thunderclap that split heaven and earth had exploded within her sea of consciousness.

The faint, muddled spiritual gleam in her eyes was like a flame fed with fuel, instantly surging brighter and becoming clear and lively.

Countless mysterious golden runes flowed from Yellow Dragon's fingertip, swiftly coursing and weaving across the queen's purple-jade-like body like living things. At last, like a brand, they carved themselves deep into her head and merged with the origin of her Primordial Spirit.

A moment later, the golden light withdrew. The Purple Jade Bee Queen swayed her two sensitive antennae, and when her compound eyes turned toward Yellow Dragon again, fear had been replaced by a strange dependence and reverence.

"From now on, you shall be called Ziling."

Timidly, yet with far clearer speech, she gave a respectful reply. "Ziling... greets Master."

Yellow Dragon nodded. His gaze swept over the vast hive and the still-frightened bee swarm before he instructed the queen at his feet, "Call back all your subjects. I will take you all to a new home."