Shrouding the Heavens: Those Years as the Empress's Strictest Master

Welcoming Your Emperor

"With Life Spring cultivation, you managed to endure here for so long and even break through at a critical moment. That is truly rare..."

Accompanied by a heavenly voice like a breeze stirring a flute, Gu Qingying gracefully descended from the Cloud Leopard's back and arrived before Li Qingjue.

The little girl with ram-horn braids swayed from excessive blood loss, but she clenched her teeth and steadied herself.

In her eyes, this unfamiliar fairy was wreathed in hazy immortal radiance. She possessed an ethereal, holy temperament and an inviolable majesty.

Simply standing before her, the woman seemed to become the center of heaven and earth.

She had never seen a woman so beautiful. Standing beside her felt like comparing an ugly duckling to a white swan.

For no reason, she thought of her master.

Perhaps only someone like her master—even with only a wisp of remnant soul remaining—could display such a towering presence that the shock it gave her would easily surpass this moment.

And precisely because she had seen her master before, although she found this woman stunning, her heart remained incomparably calm.

Tap... tap...

Gu Qingying took light steps, sizing Li Qingjue up from head to toe.

The girl's composed behavior made the surprise in her eyes deepen further.

Ordinary people, male or female, would become entranced if their gaze lingered on her for more than three breaths while their cultivation was far below hers. Yet this little girl, merely at the Life Spring realm, was an exception today.

For no apparent reason, a thought flashed through her mind.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, she lifted her fair hand. A gentle divine glow poured into Li Qingjue's body, instantly stabilizing the girl's injuries.

"Are you willing to join Spring Autumn Pavilion and become my disciple?"

Her beautiful eyes fixed on the girl as Gu Qingying spoke directly, her tone carrying a trace of unquestionable authority.

She could see that Li Qingjue possessed an ordinary nature, scarcely better than a typical Mortal Body. Yet she also saw her astonishing talent, ruthlessness, and rare clarity of mind.

According to Spring Autumn Pavilion's rules, the Diagram-Bearing Goddess served as the face of the lineage, one of its foremost combat powers and foundations. So long as she still had room to advance in cultivation, she neither needed nor was permitted to accept disciples, lest it distract her.

However, upon encountering this girl today, she wanted to make an exception.

Though the girl's face was thin, she was under ten years old, and her features had yet to fully mature, Gu Qingying could tell that if this uncut jade were carefully polished, her future looks, temperament, cultivation, and attainment—every aspect—would absolutely not fall beneath Gu Qingying's own.

That was her intuition!

Yet the girl's reply greatly surprised her.

"Thank you, Senior, for saving my life, and thank you for thinking highly of me. But Qingjue already has a master."

Li Qingjue looked up at the peerlessly elegant goddess of Spring Autumn Pavilion. Despite her weak voice, it was filled with resolve.

"If you have a master, how could your elder have allowed you to be alone here? Perhaps I did not make myself clear earlier. You would be my first disciple, as well as my final disciple..."

Gu Qingying's delicate brows furrowed as she prepared to continue.

The feeling of being rejected was something she seemed never to have experienced, from childhood until now, over the course of nearly a thousand years.

Even when her father, the Zhaotian Martial Lord, perished while attempting to break through to the Great Saint Realm and Heavenly Martial Holy Land fell into chaos, so long as she had been willing to accept the conditions of several old fossils within the lineage, she still could have...

Suddenly, before she could finish speaking, a drastic change erupted.

Boom!!!

At the underground palace several thousand miles away, an indescribably terrifying pressure surged step by step before explosively erupting without the slightest concealment!

Buzz...

The powers of Lunar and Solar Holy Emperor frantically poured forth here, like the separation of clear and turbid qi when the universe first opened, pouring down like a river of stars.

Rumble...

At that moment, the entire first layer of heaven and earth... no, the entire ten layers within the tower, even that damaged Quasi-Emperor Array Diagram which had existed for nearly a million years, seemed to be cheering and leaping with joy.

Every living creature that had grown within these ten layers—whether exotic beasts, flowers, birds, fish, insects, or even every wisp of life essence—began to hum.

As though welcoming their emperor!

"What?!"

"What happened?"

"What is wrong with this small world? Is it about to collapse?"

"..."

The sudden upheaval made every cultivator who had entered the Drill Tower—whether engaged in battle or exploring upward from the lower levels—stop in horror.

Their minds shook violently as they involuntarily looked toward the lowest level, where the disturbance originated.

Boom...

Suddenly, the fluctuations of the Quasi-Emperor Array Diagram became too overwhelming, causing a trace of its aura to leak out.

Thud!

Thud... thud...

In an instant, every cultivator in the tower without a heavy treasure to resist the pressure had their knees bend and their backs hunch. All of them fell prostrate to the ground.

Perhaps because she was too close to that underground palace.

Even someone as powerful as Gu Qingying, a peak Saint King expert, had a strand of the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden Diagram unfurl above her head, dropping countless rays of divine light.

Even so, beneath that pressure and a trace of the Quasi-Emperor Array Diagram's aura, her delicate body trembled slightly, while an unbelievable brilliance burst from her beautiful eyes!

Before that aura, the pride and aloofness in her heart, everything else, vanished without a trace. At that moment, she too nearly could not resist kneeling down and kowtowing toward a certain direction.

Invisibly, she seemed to sense a supreme majesty standing above all living beings, as though directly facing an ancient emperor of the Primordial Era!

Yet strangely, her Half-Saint spirit pet, the Cloud Leopard, and the little girl with ram-horn braids seemed utterly unaffected.

The Cloud Leopard's vertical eyes watched her disheveled, miserable state. Seemingly bored, it yawned.

Then it moved on all fours to the girl's side. Under Li Qingjue's puzzled gaze, it raised its left forepaw and pressed it against the location of her Sea of Reincarnation through her clothes.

"You..."

The girl took a step back, but it was already too late.

The foundation of the Yin-Yang Mill Scripture she cultivated within her Sea of Reincarnation was erased in an instant, causing even her cultivation to regress.

The mixed foundation of divine power from the Devouring Source Scripture seized the opportunity to occupy the spring eye of the Sea of Bitterness, becoming the only one.

Seeing the fury in the girl's eyes, the Cloud Leopard could not help revealing a trace of helplessness in its vertical pupils.

Honestly, it was innocent too. It was merely a handy tool used by someone else.

It had only happened to carry Gu Qingying past this place because that person sensed the girl was in danger.

Otherwise, how could there possibly be such a coincidence in this world?

As for why it had erased the traces of the girl's Yin-Yang Mill Scripture cultivation just now, it was because that person believed the commotion from the fusion of the true soul fragments was too great and would inevitably draw the investigation of certain beings.

Everything related to the girl in its memories could be temporarily concealed by the wonders of Inverted All-Causes Vision, but the divine power she had cultivated in reality could not be faked.

It would not withstand investigation. One poke would expose it.

And the Yin-Yang Mill Scripture had been created by that person.

If it were discovered, then even if she was merely expendable material for that gray-robed Daoist's experiments, she would still have only one path left: death.

"What exactly... is happening in this tower...?"

At the side, Gu Qingying was suppressed by the array diagram and struggled to hold on. She had no spare attention to notice the Cloud Leopard and the girl.

Nor was she the only one. At this very moment, countless people in the tower were terrified beyond measure, like clay bodhisattvas crossing a river.

Fortunately, just as the slender white legs beneath her plain skirt became faintly visible and her jade knees bent bit by bit, about to give way and collapse to the ground—

The disturbance within the tower abruptly ceased without warning, as though it had never appeared.

Gone Is the Old Friend on the Yellow Crane, Leaving Only Yellow Crane Tower Here

Buzz...

Within the Drill Tower, as the disturbance suddenly vanished, the ten layers of heaven and earth in the tower seemed to fall silent for a brief instant.

First Layer of Heaven and Earth, outside the Yin-Yang Stone Forest.

The anger in Li Qingjue's eyes over the Cloud Leopard erasing the foundation of her Yin-Yang Mill Scripture had disappeared, replaced by a faint confusion.

Yet even that confusion vanished in an instant.

Everything regarding Tan Lin in her memories had now been completely hidden, while every gap in her memories had been neatly stitched together by an unseen force, temporarily making them seamless.

"Since you are unwilling, I cannot force you. You are alone here, so take care of yourself..."

Before her, the rainbow ribbons hanging from Gu Qingying's slender waist fluttered gently.

As she spoke, she sat sideways upon the Cloud Leopard's back. Her jade fingers tucked several disheveled strands of hair from her forehead behind her ear.

Roar...

The Cloud Leopard pushed off with all four limbs, stepping upon winds formed from divine power. With a single leap, it carried its "master" into the distant world and vanished from Li Qingjue's sight in an instant.

In truth, if Gu Qingying had asked her about becoming a disciple once more at this moment, she might have agreed.

After all, she was only a girl who had recently embarked upon the path of cultivation, still lost and uncertain about the future.

She was under ten. Though already independent enough, in such a perilous environment, she would still instinctively seek a new pillar of support and direction.

And Goddess Gu, who had just "happened" to save her from a desperate situation, undoubtedly met all those conditions.

Unfortunately, Gu Qingying's cold temperament and pride caused the future Empress's sole chance to enter her sect to slip through her fingers.

Moreover, due to the rules of these Weapon-Refining Grounds, her spirit pet, the Cloud Leopard, had already lifted its cultivation suppression and leaked its Half-Saint aura. It had to leave this layer as quickly as possible.

Rustle... rustle...

Li Qingjue stood where she was as wind and sand struck her thin little face.

She looked over the boundless desolation around her, and an inexplicable sense of loneliness welled up within her.

The feeling was strange. After her brother left, she had clearly survived alone for several years. That sense of solitude had long since been buried deep in her heart.

The person most important to her was gone. Was there anyone left in this world who could make her feel something similar?

"Huff..."

After steadying her breathing, Li Qingjue emptied herself of those inexplicable emotions and touched the only piece of metal she kept close to her body.

The Bronze Ring transmitted its familiar icy touch through her fingertips.

It was the only memento her brother had left her. She had always kept it safe. Even when she was injured in the previous battle, she had refused to let the ring suffer the slightest damage.

"Why does the ring feel much lighter...?"

Her brows knitted slightly, and she assumed it was another illusion.

Then she took a deep breath, and her eyes became resolute once more.

No matter what happened, surviving and becoming stronger were obsessions carved into her bones after suffering the blow of her brother's death.

Tap...

After briefly identifying her direction, she skirted far around the stone forest and headed toward the direction Goddess Gu had departed.

She had her own thoughts and analysis. Perhaps following this direction would bring some unexpected gains and "nourishment"?

Besides, most of the dangers along the way should have already been eliminated.

Meanwhile, several thousand miles away in the opposite direction from Li Qingjue's path.

Deep within the underground palace.

Tan Lin's remnant soul, enveloped in crimson mist, floated above a small stone platform carved with secret patterns of the Heavenly Mystic Ancient Clan.

This was a secret formation platform left behind by the Heavenly Mystic Ancient Clan since the Mythological Era. In the past, that ancient emperor's daughter from the Heavenly Mystic Ancient Clan had been unwilling to let her clansmen or the soldiers under his command know. To conveniently meet him here in secret, she had paid an enormous price to restore it.