Purple Silk...

"Master..."

The entire cave was empty.

Lin Sui awoke after sleeping for three days, feeling a deep sense of loss. He picked up his neatly folded robes and put them on. Sure enough, his spiritual power circulated normally, and his sight had returned.

He swept his gaze over the rather small cave. Not a single trace of the earlier absurd affair remained.

Unwilling to give up, Lin Sui carefully swept his spiritual sense through the entire cave. Suddenly, deep inside, he spotted an extremely well-hidden glimpse of purple in a corner beneath a rock.

He immediately beckoned, and a rosy-purple silk ribbon drifted gently into his hand.

A purple ribbon he knew all too well.

His large hand clenched abruptly, gripping the ribbon tightly in his palm.

"Master, you can't run away."

When he reached the cave entrance and saw that the protective restrictions were still intact, the sense of loss in Lin Sui's heart finally eased a little.

Master was softhearted after all. A little light returned to his eyes. He stepped forward, transforming into a streak of sword light that sped into the distance.

When he reached the forbidden formation from that day, he reactivated the bell, but it did not ring. It remained dim and silent.

Only the sound of gusts of chilly wind remained. The sky was dark, and rain would soon fall.

Lin Sui trembled. She had concealed her identity, yet she still refused to see him?

Why?

Even if she's unwilling to come clean about it, I'm willing to play along and pretend I don't know for now. It's not as if I'd use it to threaten her into acknowledging our relationship.

Why won't she even see me now?

Lin Sui searched aimlessly for several days, but found nothing. He had no choice but to find a place to enter seclusion first. His spiritual power had been restrained, and though it was called dual cultivation, Su Fuxi had been the only one cultivating by taking from him for half a month.

With his spirits low as well, he now felt greatly drained and unable to do what he wanted. He decided to look for her again once he had recovered.

Su Fuxi, meanwhile, had long since traveled more than ten thousand li away.

She tracked the Red Robe Daoist to several possible locations, but after a month, she had found no clues.

Perhaps the Golden Core experts from the ancient ruins had all come to the outskirts to try their luck. Su Fuxi encountered one Golden Core cultivator and two Foundation Establishment cultivators.

"Greetings, senior!"

When she encountered the last Foundation Establishment cultivator, Su Fuxi decided to show herself. A new moon-white silk ribbon covered her eyes as she looked at the junior bowing respectfully but warily before her.

"No need to be nervous. I just want to ask whether you've seen a red-robed cultivator who excels in insect techniques."

She asked without much hope, since a Foundation Establishment junior who had encountered Red Robe might already have lost his life.

But after searching for so long without finding him, she decided to try a different approach.

Red Robe presumably wanted to kill her too, so she would lay her cards on the table and declare war!

The young Late Foundation Establishment cultivator said cautiously, "Senior, I haven't seen this person. Are you looking for him to...?"

"Take revenge."

Su Fuxi said kindly, "I have a grudge against him. Oh, if you have friends, you can pass the word along. Every piece of information about the Red Robe Daoist is worth ten thousand spirit stones.

"I'm about to go to Ink Spirit Hill, where a Gold-Birth Fruit will soon ripen. If you have any information, you can come find me there."

With that, she transformed into a streak of light and departed. Only after she had gone far away did the Foundation Establishment cultivator dare leave. Su Fuxi sensed him sending a message with her spiritual sense.

She knew that word about the Red Robe Daoist and the Gold-Birth Fruit would certainly spread.

She had spiritual herbs hidden behind restrictions in several places. She had chosen to spread word of the Gold-Birth Fruit because Red Robe's golden cicada was especially fond of treasures with the metal spirit attribute. He was also looking for Su Fuxi, so once he heard the news, he would certainly come!

Ink Spirit Hill was a region of black-soil hills more than a hundred li across, only a few thousand li away. Su Fuxi arrived there early to wait for the Gold-Birth Fruit to ripen, collecting several spiritual medicines along the way.

After Lin Sui emerged from seclusion, he first returned to the place they had agreed to meet, but there was no sign of Su Fuxi. Undiscouraged, he continued searching over a range of ten thousand li, until he heard news of the Red Robe Daoist, a purple-clad woman, and Ink Spirit Hill.

The description of the purple-clad woman was very familiar, and Lin Sui's spirits immediately rose. He set off for Ink Hill at once and arrived even before the Red Robe Daoist, but, like a man afraid to approach home, he dared only watch Su Fuxi secretly from the outskirts of the hills.

The secret realm was truly vast. A month and a half had passed since Su Fuxi encountered that Foundation Establishment cultivator. At the moment, she was sitting in meditation beside the entrance to a sinkhole among the hills, where golden light shone in every direction, keeping watch as the Gold-Birth Fruit ripened.

She sensed Lin Sui as soon as he came within three hundred li, but she remained unmoved, pretending not to know he had arrived.

Only after he had waited for several days and could not resist slowly approaching within fifty li did Su Fuxi send him a voice transmission, telling him to find a place to hide and not disturb her.

"Yes, Master..." Lin Sui tightened his jaw and took a deep breath. He withdrew his spiritual sense, then turned and went to find a cave to enter seclusion, utterly dejected.

From behind, he looked as pitiful and forlorn as a pet cat or dog abandoned by its owner.

"..." Su Fuxi frowned. Who was he putting on that face for?

A good master was a master, and a vicious master was a master. Either way, she was his master. They could not possibly have any other status or relationship!

A disciple was a disciple, and a cultivation furnace was a cultivation furnace. They could not possibly have any other status or relationship either!

Su Fuxi had the strange feeling that she had committed an utterly unforgivable crime-had she led her disciple astray?

From the very beginning, she had taken special care to avoid a scenario in which a rebellious disciple violated his master. She considered herself a truly qualified elder. Aside from the absurd affair with the Crimson Immortal Gu, she had done nothing improper whatsoever!

Tens of thousands of li away.

The Red Robe Daoist hunted down a Golden Core cultivator and learned from him about the purple-clad woman's bounty on him and the Gold-Birth Fruit. He smashed the Golden Core cultivator's skull with a slap, dug out his Golden Core, and threw the body to the Spirit-Corroding Insects. In the blink of an eye, the corpse had become a ghastly white skeleton.

"Hmph! Ink Spirit Hill... I didn't expect that bitch to be so hard to kill. She must have found someone to cure the poison."

"You damned woman, just you wait!"

Su Fuxi guessed that Red Robe should be arriving soon.

Sure enough, three days later, the pressure of a Peak Golden Core Stage cultivator descended over all of Ink Hill without the slightest concealment.

In an instant, the pressure hung oppressively over the heads of all the cultivators who had heard the news and come to watch, like a layer of murky black clouds.

Even the mountain wind stilled for a moment.

Over the past few months, quite a few cultivators had gathered in this place.

Some had come to watch the battle between the Red Robe Daoist and the purple-clad woman, who had recently made names for themselves, while others had come for the Gold-Birth Fruit.

Among them were three Peak Golden Core cultivators, more than a dozen ordinary Golden Core Stage cultivators, and a handful of bold Peak Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators who loved watching a commotion.

Along with the pressure came a voice roaring like thunder.

"Jie jie jie, hahaha... I have arrived..."

"Bitch! I let you escape last time, but this time I'll make sure you die without a place to be buried-"

Buried... buried...

The echoes lingered over all of Ink Hill for a full thirty breaths.

Aside from peak cultivators, who could resist the pressure with ease, everyone else felt its weight to some degree. The few Foundation Establishment cultivators hiding in caves were shaken so badly by it that they could scarcely breathe, and the voice sounded like thunderbolts striking their very minds.

A few Foundation Establishment cultivators were shaken so severely that blood flowed from all seven of their orifices.

Lin Sui formed hand seals to resist the pressure. Hearing this, he understood why Su Fuxi had been poisoned: it had to have something to do with the Red Robe Daoist.

"Hmph, Gu Sheng, you old thief, I've been waiting for you for a long time!"

At that moment, Su Fuxi stepped into the air and looked at the red-robed cultivator who had appeared thirty zhang away in an instant.

Behind her, a large restriction banner unfurled. It gave off purple qi as its defense activated, wrapping her up tightly.

She formed a seal with one hand and pointed. A dark, pointed cone crackling with lightning whistled through the air, the pressure of the Peak Golden Core Stage stirring invisible waves of qi as it swiftly tore through the air.

The air burst silently, yet seemed to make a sound.

Dozens of li away, Lin Sui saw the auras they gave off, and his heart immediately began to pound with alarm. Red Robe's cultivation was unfathomable; there was no telling how many years he had cultivated. As for Su Fuxi, this was the first time Lin Sui had seen her display such a fierce aura.

He remembered that when she had slain the yellow-robed Golden Core cultivator in the Demonic Beast Mountain Range, she had done it without any effort at all.

Indeed, the difference between cultivators was not only a matter of cultivation realms; even cultivators at the same level differed from one another. As far as he could sense, none of the Golden Core cultivators present could compare to Red Robe.

As for Su Fuxi, Lin Sui felt that she relied more on magical treasures to win. After all, her innate aptitude was what it was. He remembered that she possessed the sect master's sword intent, so he was not too worried about the battle.

He even thought that once he grew stronger, he would be the one to protect Master!