Chapter 7

The Stone Platform Steps before the Azure Tide Sect's mountain gate seemed like an endless Immortal Ascension Ladder. Their end was nowhere in sight, and the gate towered into the clouds, as though the Azure Tide Sect existed in another world.

Su Yi shrank back a little. "I-I haven't even achieved qi induction yet. Won't I die on these stairs before I even reach the gate?"

Quite a few others shared his thoughts.

Someone was just about to question the cultivators behind them, only to discover that they had vanished at some point without anyone noticing.

Unease and agitation rippled through the crowd.

Just then, an ancient, lingering voice came from overhead. "Climb these stairs, and you can become true disciples of the Azure Tide Sect."

Once the voice faded, the commotion below seemed to grow even louder.

A disciple from some lineage shouted, "I have no cultivation at all! There's no way I can climb all of them!"

But no further voice came to guide them.

Su Mianmian spread her hands nonchalantly. "Looks like we don't have a choice. Up we go."

No one had expected a six-year-old girl to be the first to step onto the stairs.

Su Jiu said nothing. Looking at Su Mianmian's retreating figure, she smiled and shook her head, then stepped onto the Stone Platform Steps after her.

Soon, the others followed one after another, some reluctantly, others with utmost caution.

Meanwhile, several elders and peak masters sat around a mirror in the Rising Sun Hall, watching what had just happened at the mountain gate.

Naturally, Su Mianmian was the first to catch the peak masters' and elders' attention.

A woman in red laughed heartily. "With that temperament, she was born for my Blazing Flame Peak."

The Second Elder smiled as he looked over Su Mianmian's information. The eighty-percent purity of her fire spiritual root made his eyes light up.

"What makes her yours? The Flame Technique I practice is no worse than yours."

The red-robed beauty flared up. "Old man, I suggest you act your age. Taking disciples is the business of us Five Peaks. Just do your job as a sect elder and leave teaching to us."

The Second Elder refused to back down after being called an old man. "You, teaching? Teaching people how to take male cultivators as furnace cauldrons? I'd say you're ruining them."

Both were hot-tempered fire cultivators, and a fight was on the verge of erupting.

"Fighting is forbidden in the Rising Sun Hall!" A cool voice drifted through the room. Their anger immediately subsided, but neither seemed willing to yield. They might well come to blows as soon as they left the hall.

Everyone looked up at the speaker. He wore white robes, with patterns embroidered in gold thread along the collar and cuffs, and held a jade flute. His features were handsome, but his expression was far too cold.

He was Xia Jue, master of the Enforcement Hall.

The red-robed beauty's eyes brightened at the handsome young man before her. She gave a seductive little laugh. "Little Xia Jue, you've spent so long in the Enforcement Hall that you're becoming less and less accommodating."

The sect master frowned at her. "Hong Ling, stop putting on that act in front of my disciple."

Seeing that the sect master seemed displeased, the red-robed beauty called Hong Ling pursed her lips, bored.

A man in his forties beside her scoffed. "Junior Sister Hong Ling, you really are becoming indiscriminate. You won't even spare the younger generation." Then, as though something had occurred to him, he added, "But of course. How many of the men in your room aren't young lads?"

Hong Ling seemed accustomed to their mockery and remained utterly unconcerned. "It's all mutually consensual. I haven't harmed any of your disciples. At your age, even if you offered yourself up for me to ruin, I couldn't be bothered."

The man's face flushed with anger. With the sect master and Xia Jue present, however, he could hardly lose his temper on the spot. He merely snorted and stopped speaking to her.

Another elder, who looked quite young, waved the fan in his hand and chuckled. "Xie Ying, you argue with her every time, yet you never win. Why bother?"

Everyone's attention returned to the enormous mirror in the center of the Rising Sun Hall.

Su Jiu had climbed this Heavenly Ladder in her previous life, so she knew how difficult it was. It could magnify the Obsessive Fixation deep within a person's heart without limit, then conjure all manner of scenes.

The wind shrieked like the cries of cranes, and a streak of sword light flashed past. Su Jiu dodged almost on instinct. As a water spiritual root genius who had reached the Golden Core Stage in only a hundred years, her talent for combat was no less impressive.

The cultivator clearly had not expected a mere Golden Core Stage cultivator to evade his sneak attack.

"Interesting." He stepped out as he spoke.

Seeing that the newcomer was a demonic cultivator whose cultivation she could not discern, Su Jiu instantly went on full alert.

It was Gong Hao!

The scene shifted, and Gong Hao's palm was already pressed over her dantian. Her blood stained the ground beneath her red. Su Jiu stared at the sky in despair, feeling the spiritual energy within her slowly dissipate as her consciousness blurred.

Accept your fate. It's useless. You can't avenge yourself.

Her life had always been smooth sailing, and she had never once acted against her conscience. She had never imagined she would meet such a miserable end.

She watched the arrogant demonic cultivator contemptuously discard the Life-Bound Treasure that had accompanied her for years, tossing it onto the ground. Her fury kept rising, and she longed to tear him to pieces.

Accept your fate. It's useless. You can't avenge yourself.

The same voice sounded again, making her feel as though her head would split.

It was not her voice, yet it seemed to be hers.

But she would never accept her fate!

The scene froze. Cracks spread from a single point like a spiderweb, reaching the edges before it shattered.

Su Jiu came to her senses and abruptly realized that she had been standing on this step for a long time. She really could slip into an illusion realm without the slightest awareness.

Perhaps because she had already lived through one lifetime, she found that the Heavenly Ladder was much harder than it had been in her previous life. What surprised her most was how deeply her death in that life had affected her.

Su Jiu raised her still-childish hand. As she gazed at it, she began to smile. "Everything has begun anew," she murmured.

She looked around and found quite a few lineage disciples standing nearby, their eyes vacant. They, too, had fallen into illusion realms.

Su Jiu continued slowly upward. Each step grew harder, as though her legs weighed a thousand pounds. In truth, she had not finished climbing the Stone Platform Steps in her previous life, and new disciples were not required to finish them. Anyone who broke free of the first illusion realm they encountered would qualify.

In her previous life, she had been unable to escape the third illusion realm and had eventually been carried up the mountain by other cultivators.

This time, she wanted to reach the end.

By now, Su Mianmian had overcome the illusion realm in which her parents refused to let her go to the Azure Tide Sect. Wiping away cold sweat, she could not help wondering whether she would have failed this time if she had chosen to stay with the Su household.

After walking for who knew how long, Su Mianmian was growing increasingly exhausted when she spotted Su Jiu. What she had not expected was to see Su Qingqing beside her.

What she failed to notice was that her surroundings had instantly become the Su household's courtyard.

"Second Sister, Eldest Sister gave me all these injuries." Su Qingqing watched Su Jiu apply ointment to her wounds, her eyes red.

Su Jiu gently stroked the top of her head. "Then we won't play with Eldest Sister anymore."

Su Qingqing smiled and cast a provocative glance at Su Mianmian, who stood a short distance away. That single look made Su Mianmian explode. She drew her whip and lashed out. "Su Qingqing, you little bastard! When have I ever hit you?!"

Su Jiu caught the whip. Her expression was colder than anything Su Mianmian had ever seen, as though she were facing a stranger rather than the sister she had lived with for six years. "Su Mianmian, enough."

Su Mianmian hurried forward anxiously and grabbed Su Jiu's hand. "Believe me. I really never hit her." Then she turned toward Su Qingqing and cursed, "Your mother is no good, and neither are you!"

Su Jiu pulled her arm free of Su Mianmian's grasp and left, holding Su Qingqing's hand.

Su Qingqing turned back to look at Su Mianmian. The corners of her mouth slowly curled upward as she silently mouthed, "Trash."

Su Mianmian stood rooted to the spot, her eyes bloodshot, her grip tightening around her whip. She dared not act rashly. She knew that if she impulsively lashed out again, Su Jiu would surely despise her.

Aren't you angry and hurt? Kill Su Qingqing. Once Su Qingqing is dead, no one will be able to turn Su Jiu against you anymore.

She seemed to have heard this voice before, but she could not remember where.

She simply chose to obey it, instinctively raising her whip and lashing viciously at Su Qingqing.

Crack!

She could not tell whether it was the sound of her whip or the illusion realm shattering.

As she lost consciousness, she seemed to hear a faint sigh. "Such excellent aptitude, yet so easily carried away by impulse. She'll probably be a troublemaker in the future."