Luo Yue had spent three whole days in secluded cultivation. During that time, quite a few major events had unfolded in Luo City.
Two of them seemed to have quite a lot to do with Luo Yue, and she heard about them almost as soon as she emerged.
The first was that, two days earlier, people from the Four Great Source Arts Families had arrived. Several elderly men had descended upon Qingyun Province and called at the Luo Residence, each scrambling to take Luo Yue as a disciple and bring her back to their families for intensive cultivation.
At the time, however, Luo Yue had been in seclusion, attempting to break through to the Divine Bridge Realm.
Besides, Old Master Luo had forcefully refused on her behalf. He had simply ordered Luo Yue's third uncle to show those old codgers from the Source Arts families out, declaring:
"Unless a [Source Earth Master] from the legendary Source King Lineage comes in person, Yue'er will take no one as her master!"
It was not hard to tell from Old Master Luo's words that he had little regard for the so-called Four Great Source Arts Families. After all, those families harbored plenty of sordid dealings and were notorious for excluding and suppressing anyone with a different surname.
If Luo Yue really were sent there, she might not even have a say in her own marriage someday! Some people wore the face of a saint in public, yet behind closed doors, there was no dirty deed they would not commit.
Those people had gall enough that even revealing her Jiang identity probably would not save Luo Yue from their schemes.
Deep down, the old master did not trust those Source Arts families' damned character at all. With that in mind, he had rejected them outright without giving them even a shred of face.
They wanted to take her as a disciple? Fine-go coax that Source Earth Master ancestor out of his many years of seclusion first!
The matter had caused quite a stir throughout the Northern Region. Clearly, no one had expected the old master to be so overbearing-not only rejecting the Four Great Source Arts Families' request to take her as a disciple, but even demanding that the [Source Earth Master] of the Source King Lineage emerge from years of seclusion and come himself.
The second event had taken place just yesterday. A supreme elder of the Fire Cloud Palace had personally visited the Luo Family with 110,000 jin of pure Source, offering an apology and taking Li Huan and his companions away.
This had caused quite a stir as well. Although the palace master of the Fire Cloud Palace had not come personally, the arrival of a supreme elder at the mighty expert level was telling enough.
Before leaving, the Fire Cloud Palace's supreme elder apparently met with the Luo Family's old master. The two had enjoyed a pleasant conversation in a secret chamber, but no one knew exactly what those two old monsters had discussed or what agreement they had reached.
In short, that farce had finally drawn to a close.
The third matter concerned the Divine Source Ancient Mine. For some unknown reason, all manner of eerie Visions had been appearing there frequently after nightfall over the past few days.
At night, terrifying pillars of bloody light shot into the sky above the Ancient Mine. Some claimed to have seen humanoid creatures with hideous faces and an ominous air, and to have heard indescribable roars coming from within. Others even said they had found strange red hair near the Ancient Mine...
Quite a few people had already died inexplicably while approaching the Ancient Mine. Whether the mine had killed them or they had been murdered was difficult to say.
Rumors abounded, and even the Luo Family could only investigate with all its might, unable to distinguish truth from falsehood.
After all, the Luo Family currently had no strength to spare for sealing the place off. For one thing, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak; for another, the mine had drawn far too many people.
Even with the Jiang Family added to their ranks, they could not stop the tide. They could only keep maneuvering and negotiating with the various factions, trying to secure as large a slice of the cake as possible.
Luo Yue had no interest in any of this.
She was now utterly certain that an entire nest of the Primordial Race lay sleeping inside. Her attitude was to stay as far away as possible, and she wanted no part of it.
"They really have some nerve. If they annoy whatever's inside and one or two living members of the Primordial Race actually jump out, even crying for their mothers and fathers won't help." Luo Yue shook her head.
She had already mentioned the possibility of unearthing the Primordial Race to Jiang Wei and her third uncle.
Neither had taken it seriously. Instead, their eyes had shone even brighter, and they had grown eager to act. Apparently, Jiang Wei was even considering asking his clan's Saint Lord to bring an [Emperor Weapon] over to hold the field...
Well, great. They're even planning to deploy an Emperor Weapon.
What else could Luo Yue say? She might as well just declare that they had won.
After all, theirs was not truly mindless courage, but courage backed by preparation. The [Hengyu Furnace] was what gave them their nerve.
People of Shrouding the Heavens, souls of Shrouding the Heavens!
They never lacked the courage to court death. Just tell them that Divine Source, an Emperor Weapon, or Immortal Divine Medicine could be dug up somewhere, and even if it was a Life Forbidden Zone, they would have to go take a taste first.
Their creed was simple: "If you die, your balls face the sky; if you live, live ten thousand years!" "Take a gamble, turn a bicycle into a motorcycle!" "I am the great immortal Nangong of the human race, boundless in magical power, wagering for a lifetime of immortality!"
Future me, you absolutely have to hold firm. Don't let them turn you into one of them.
That was what Luo Yue thought.
She did not want to become another reckless brute of Shrouding the Heavens someday...
"Heeey~ Little Yue'er, are you out of seclusion yet~? Your auntie's here to see you~" A sweet, almost cloying voice drifted in from outside the courtyard.
The moment Luo Yue heard that familiar voice, she could not help rolling her eyes.
Lately, Luo Qingluan, the Luo Family's young lady, had been riding high on the spring breeze of success, like a rooster victorious in battle-the kind that wanted to become a phoenix the moment it sprouted wings.
That enormous gamble a few days earlier had not only let her cast off her [loses every bet] label, but also vent a pent-up grudge. She had finally held her head high before outsiders and won herself quite a bit of spending money into the bargain.
Although the family had taken most of the 110,000 jin of Source, they had left Luo Qingluan a little. With such an enormous sum, even the slightest trickle through a crack was enough to keep the young lady happy for a long time.
"But she's come at just the right time. I can test what I gained from these days in seclusion."
A mischievous glint flashed through Luo Yue's eyes.
Outside, Luo Qingluan eagerly pushed open the courtyard gate, her voice arriving before she did, tinged with pride and an eagerness to please. "Little Yue'er, your auntie's here to see you~"
Before she finished speaking, an indescribable chill, as though rising from the depths of the Nine Netherworlds, thundered out through the gate like a glacial tsunami bursting through a broken dam!
Whooo-!
It carried the innate power of the Divine King Body and the pressure of a newly attained Divine Bridge Realm within the Sea of Bitterness Secret Realm, mingled with a trace of the Heaven-Mending Stone's ancient, restrained Dao resonance, born of chaos.
The air froze instantly, groaning beneath the unbearable strain. A thick layer of mystic ice, glittering with deep-blue starlight, visibly formed across the ground, the gateframe, and even the air outside the gate.
Tiny pale-blue ice crystals condensed out of thin air and swept straight toward her like a blizzard.
Hiss-!
The smile on Luo Qingluan's face froze instantly, replaced by a terror more profound than any she had ever known.
She was a Dao Palace Realm cultivator, after all.
Among Qingyun Province's younger generation, her talent and strength might only have ranked in the lower-middle range, but she was certainly not someone to underestimate.
Sensing a lethal threat, she felt her Dao Palace roar within her. Her Heartfire Divine Treasury instantly erupted with scorching fire-element divine power, instinctively forming a crimson layer of Protective Divine Flame around her body to fend off this sudden, terrifying cold front.
Yet those Dao Palace divine flames, hot enough to melt metal and iron, were like a candle in a gale before that bitter chill, which seemed capable of freezing divine power and divine souls alike. They could not endure even a single breath.
Pfft!
The crimson divine flames that had just risen around Luo Qingluan flashed for only an instant before giving an overburdened wail, extinguishing and freezing solid.
The bone-deep chill ignored her vaunted Heartfire Divine Treasury. Like hundreds of millions of icy steel needles, it pierced her clothes and stabbed savagely into every limb and bone, driving straight into her marrow.
"Ah~!"
Luo Qingluan could not suppress a short cry of pain. Her slender body shuddered violently, as though she had fallen into a cavern of ten-thousand-year-old mystic ice.
She felt the circulation of her divine power turn sluggish in an instant. Even her blood seemed about to congeal, while a stabbing sensation of freezing spread through the depths of her divine soul.
Her beautiful phoenix eyes widened into circles, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints in extreme shock.
Was... was this really the work of her little niece, who was only seven and had barely begun cultivating?! This was even more frightening than facing those old monsters in the family's Dragon Transformation Realm.
Good heavens! Was she seeing ghosts?! Towering waves surged through Luo Qingluan's heart. She could not begin to understand what was happening before her.
She instinctively tried to retreat, only to discover that her legs seemed frozen in place and had almost lost all sensation. As she stepped backward, her legs went stiff and numb, her body tilted, and she stumbled straight onto the ground.
She could only watch helplessly as that terrifying cold front swallowed her completely. All she could see was the ever-spreading deep-blue mystic ice, the dancing ice crystals, and the hazy figure deep in the courtyard that seemed to have become the Ice Sovereign herself.
Just then, the terrifying chill that seemed about to freeze everything abruptly receded like an ebbing tide.
The glacial cold front vanished without a trace, leaving only a courtyard covered in white frost and Luo Qingluan stiff at the gate, shivering from the cold and still shaken to the core.
Luo Yue's tiny figure appeared a few steps in front of her. Her silver hair cascaded like a waterfall down to her waist, and deep within her icy-blue eyes, faint images of a Divine Bridge spanning the sky and a cold moon hanging high slowly faded away.
Looking at her aunt's utterly bedraggled appearance, so much like a little bird frozen stiff, she curled the corners of her lips upward ever so slightly.
Then she held out her small, pale, icy hand and asked in bewilderment, as though she had no idea what had happened:
"Auntie, how could you be so careless? The ground is slippery. Here, let me help you up."
Looking at the small, pale hand extended toward her, Luo Qingluan fixed her with a deeply aggrieved stare.
Little Yue'er was getting more and more devious...