Chapter 1209: Those Who Use Their Beauty to Please Others are Bound by Their Beauty; The Spirit Link Connects Not Only Hearts But Also Souls!

Hundred-Li Green River had a mountain and water. The mountain was called Verdant Mountain, and the water was Blackwater River.

Along the riverbank, Luo Chen climbed Verdant Mountain step by step. Gu Caiyi walked side by side with him as she caught him up on what had happened while he was away.

"Decades ago, the Five Elements Divine Sect took us in and gave us a place to stay, but things still didn't look much optimistic. From outside, the demons were pressing in; inside, our disciples bore conflicting opinions... And what Lingjun did... Though time eventually revealed his true heart, his actions led to various negative consequences at the time. The faith of many members was so badly shaken that they were lured to join other sects. We were beset by both internal and external trouble. I and the other seniors did our best to raise our cultivation so that we could better protect the younger generation.

"At the time, our Adept force only consisted of Fu Jiusheng, Chu Kui, Wang Yuan, Xu Zhenhuan—he had barely advanced, and a guest elder who had joined us midway. Huiniang and I both felt an urgent need to break through to the Golden Core Realm, and that need only became more pressing when the Divine Sect ordered us to go to the Three Crossings River battlefield and recapture the strategic fortress there.

"One day, Huiniang experienced something strange out of nowhere; her cultivation suddenly shot straight to the Golden Core Realm and continued to climb madly, beyond her control. I was at the Three Crossings River at the time and I had no idea. All I knew was that when our situation in the battlefield fell into a dire state, and even Wang Yuan was locked in a bitter fight, she suddenly appeared and brought us all back alive.

"During that battle, our guest elder ran away, and Xu Zhenhuan died... And he had only finally condensed his Golden Core with great effort, too.... After we returned, Wang Yuan went into seclusion again. Our sect was severely weakened. But Huiniang's incredible display of late-stage Golden Core power became widely known and gave us so much confidence.... Thanks to that, when demons attacked the Five Elements Domain and the Five Elements Divine Sect was preoccupied with its own problems, we were able to quietly escape to the Windflower Domain."

Luo Chen had already learned of Qu Lingjun's matter. However, he was not blaming his disciple too much. He knew the disunity and eventual defection of some members weren't truly the latter's fault.

Although the Luo Tian Sect had boasted nearly ten thousand members at its peak, it was ultimately a small force established for barely a century. It lacked a solid foundation, a long-standing heritage, and deep cohesion. Most members had joined for personal gain, so it was normal that they scattered when disaster struck.

To be truthful, Luo Chen thought it wasn't half bad that they still had three hundred members left these days! The majority of them were related to him, meaning the century he had spent building the core of the sect hadn't been for nothing. Even after his departure, there were still people willing to stay because of him. Of course, the tireless efforts of Wang Yuan, Sima Huiniang, Gu Caiyi, and the others also deserved much of the credit.

Luo Chen found the death of Xu Zhenhuan quite regrettable. He was a beast tamer specifically recommended by Tantai Jin to Luo Chen. When they first met, Xu Zhenhuan was already a sixth-stage Initiate, higher in cultivation than anyone else there. He gradually came to approve of the Luo Tian Sect and chose to stay beyond their cooperation period.

To think that the man died on the battlefield so soon after attaining the Golden Core he had always dreamed of... According to Gu Caiyi, Xu Zhenhuan had used beast taming techniques to take control of demonic beasts, which had eventually drawn the attention of a powerful Demon King and got him brutally killed.

His rise had been thanks to his beast-taming skills, and so had been his fall.

But when Luo Chen heard that Huiniang's mana had suddenly surged and her cultivation had soared, his expression grew serious. He asked Gu Caiyi about the specific time, and to nobody's surprise, it matched the period when he had been in the Land of Fallen Devils.

It really is the work of the Spirit-Link Gu!

He sighed deeply in his heart and asked softly, "Even so, why doesn't Huiniang want to see me? Is it because of her younger brother?"

Gu Caiyi nodded, then shook her head. "That's part of it, but the main factor is actually her appearance."

"Hmm?" Luo Chen frowned.

Gu Caiyi sighed and continued recounting the past events.

Nothing comes without a price, and Sima Huiniang's huge leap in cultivation was not without its trouble. The immense mana gained out of nowhere was incompatible with both her physical constitution and her spirit root attributes, so it provoked a strong rejection right away. Sima Huiniang had forcibly suppressed it at first, but with time, the rejection had become increasingly intense, until she howled day and night in pain.

The physicians in the sect had been completely powerless against her condition. In the end, Wang Yuan had stepped in and taught Divine Breaker of Malevolence to Sima Huiniang. By practicing this technique, she could use the pain to temper her willpower and raise her pain tolerance simultaneously.

Sima Huiniang had successfully endured and overcome the pain. The spontaneous changes in her body, however, were beyond the control of willpower.

"From then on, she got used to covering her face with a black veil, and she started to avoid seeing people. The last time I saw her was before the Ten Decisive Battles began. She wasn't in her usual elegant attire. She wore a black dress that fully covered everything, including her arms. I'm afraid..."

There was pity on Gu Caiyi's face as she finished speaking. Even though she and Sima Huiniang had always been at odds, years of being together in the sect had forged a bond between them. Moreover, as a woman herself, she could understand the importance women instinctively placed on appearance. Otherwise, why would the cultivation world have "useless" pills like the Youth Preserving Pill? The fact that Sima Huiniang chose to hide herself away showed the extent to which the incompatible mana had ravaged her body.

As Gu Caiyi and Luo Chen talked, they arrived outside a cave residence that had only been established a few years ago on Verdant Mountain. She left so that he could spend private time with Sima Huiniang.

Luo Chen looked around. There was no greenery in this area, only scorched trees; this was an extremely rare sight in Hundred-Li Green River, a place abundant with medicinal herbs.

Making no attempt to conceal his aura or softening his footsteps, he walked toward the stone door. At his current cultivation, his divine consciousness could easily bypass the formation on the cave residence to see what was inside, and he saw a woman nervously approaching the door.

Luo Chen said, "Open up!"

The woman subconsciously raised her hand, yet hesitated to make the next move. This was the first time since they had known each other that she had hesitated at his command.

"I brought your brother back. That matter will be concluded, and no one will walk all over the Luo Tian Sect again. I, Luo Chen, am now a Sage, strong enough to stand tall in the Eastern Wilderness cultivation world!"

Upon hearing his declaration, the woman actually lowered her hand from the door handle, but she suddenly seemed lighter—as if a tremendous weight had been taken off her shoulders.

Luo Chen frowned, then suddenly said, "My dear, you have never used your beauty to please people, so why are you pitying yourself? Or do you take me for the kind of shallow person who judges people by their appearance?"

The woman in the cave residence took a few steps back, as if she had been hit hard by something. A perplexed look spread in her eyes.

He's right. I was never known for my beauty to begin with. My face has never been the reason I could go step by step from a rogue cultivator to where I am now, and it also wasn't the reason this man took a liking to me.

I'm truly laughable. Wallowing in self-pity just because my appearance was ruined.... I am only denying my own efforts and looking down on my husband's character.

Taking a deep breath, Sima Huiniang cast a spell, and the stone door separating them slowly rose with a rumble. The person she hadn't seen in a hundred years slowly appeared—his feet, his body, then his mouth, nose, and eyes...

She grasped her flowing sleeves and curtsied gracefully as her watery eyes brimmed with joy.

"Welcome back!"

***

"When something went wrong with the Spirit-Link Gu, I thought you... you..."

"It was just a minor mishap. How can a lucky man like your husband die so easily? But you, on the other hand... You told them I was alive even though the Spirit-Link Gu was destroyed. I didn't know you had so much faith in me."

"I wanted to protect what you left behind, so I did what I had to do to maintain morale. But you know, it can get quite hard to face those who've risked their lives for our sect after all the lies I told them. That's why I gradually secluded myself."

"Didn't think you could be so crafty, darling!"

"Well aren't you the pot calling the kettle black! I only learned from you...."

Now that they had finally united, it was a tender time for catching up.

However, Sima Huiniang's smile still seemed somewhat forced. She looked at Luo Chen, who had sat across from her with his eyes closed, and asked with trembling lips, "Can this... be fixed?"

Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes, and what he saw was a face completely disfigured. Her hands, which he was holding in his, were covered in uneven blisters that spoke of terrible burns. Under her clothes, her skin was similarly wounded, utterly horrifying to look at.

Luo Chen thoughtfully assessed her state and concluded that it was, indeed, caused by his own mana. As he recalled, when he underwent physical rebirth in the Land of Fallen Devils, his mana had suddenly vanished in response to the collapse of the fleshly vessel. He had initially thought it was just gone, but then realized it might have been transferred to Sima Huiniang through the Spirit-Link Gu. As it turned out, that was the case.

The method itself was not flawed. The problem lay in Luo Chen's overbearing mana. At that time, he was at the sixth stage of Golden Core, and on top of that, his fire-attribute mana was of supremely yang nature, virtually unrivaled in the world. Even he himself had struggled to withstand the constant erosion of his mana, hence his perpetually flushed face and other such symptoms. Sima Huiniang had merely been a ninth-stage Initiate; how could she possibly have withstood it?

Her water and wood spirit roots, and the Waterside Pavilion Art she practiced, all conflicted with Luo Chen's fire-attribute mana. While she had barely been able to take in the mana with the Spirit-Link Gu's help, she had been utterly unable to harness it. The Golden Core she had proceeded to condense through the Spirit-Link Gu was not a true one, causing her actual control to be extremely lacking!

Furthermore, Luo Chen's mana was not only domineering but also abundant. He had always had several times more mana than a same-realm cultivator; for example, when he was only a sixth-stage Adept, he had as much mana as a regular ninth-stage Adept. As a result, Sima Huiniang had shot to the seventh stage of the Golden Core Realm in one fell swoop after receiving his mana.

The plenitude and domineering nature of this mana had ultimately caused nigh-indelible damage to her. It had poked holes in her sea of qi and constantly eroded her body. Her meridians were now burnt and dried.

All that damage could have been alleviated, though, had she released the mana to the environment instead of taking it all in. Luo Chen wondered why she hadn't done so, but after taking into consideration the century of hardship the Luo Tian Sect had endured, he understood why.

Wang Yuan had taken a shortcut and picked up a demonic transformation art, all to seek greater power. Min Longyu had painstakingly studied formations and drained himself to the point his hair turned gray, all to seek greater power. Qu Lingjun, lacking cultivation aptitude, could only choose an indirect route; he had joined the Windflower Palace also to seek greater power, even if it was external. All they ever wanted was to protect Luo Tian.

Under these circumstances, how could Huiniang, who cared most for the sect, possibly abandon the powerful mana within her?

Luo Chen was so touched that he couldn't help caressing her face. "I'm sorry you've had to suffer."

Sima Huiniang blushed and subconsciously turned her head away. That was when she heard something that filled her with happiness.

"I can deal with all of this, so don't worry."

"Really?"

She turned her head back sharply and stared at Luo Chen. He nodded gently and ruffled her hair.

"It might hurt a little, but bear with it."

"Mm, I'm not scared."

Luo Chen smiled and instructed Sima Huiniang to remove all her clothes. Treating her festering wounds as if they were nothing, his divine consciousness sank beyond them. Instantly, the immense mana in the woman's body seemed to sense something and began to stir.

"Alright, come back now!" Luo Chen cast a hand seal and guided the mana toward him.

At the end of the day, all this mana had been painstakingly cultivated by him across more than a century. Even though it had been transferred to Sima Huiniang through the Spirit-Link Gu, it still recognized its master.

Luo Chen's treatment plan was not complicated. To ensure the problem was removed from its source, he would first drain the mana and destroy the Golden Core resulting from it, so that her cultivation would drop to the Foundation Establishment Realm. Then, he would use medical arts to repair her body to how it had been before... everything. From there, she could resume cultivation and one day break through to the Golden Core Realm again.

The only problem was probably her lifespan. Sima Huiniang was well past the 250-year limit of the Foundation Establishment Realm. She had only been able to live until now because the Golden Core formed by the Spirit-Link Gu had been sustaining her. A Golden Core was a Golden Core, genuine or not. If it was destroyed, coupled with the damage to her body over the years, she might not have much longer to live.

Luo Chen, however, already had a solution to this!

Back in the Mirage Dragon Pocket World, after he had successfully refined the Penglai Eightspire Pavilion, he had obtained a longevity-extending herb from one of its most hidden spaces, something called the Hundred-Head Asparagus Root.

Luo Chen knew this spirit herb couldn't have been grown by the Penglai Immortal Sect; it likely had been harvested by their disciples from the Wood Plains in the Land of Fallen Devils. That was why he had been overjoyed to find it in the Penglai Eightspire Pavilion, to the point that he felt that the decades of lifespan he lost in the pocket world weren't a big deal anymore. This was also one of the reasons his resentment toward Fu Chaosheng had eased.

The Hundred-Head Asparagus Root was around the fourth tier, and its properties actually prolonged the lifespan of whoever consumed it by a hundred years. Moreover, the expansion would be greater if the herb was refined into a pill.

Now, he was going to use the herb on Huiniang. He had no recipe, so he could not refine it into a pill and she would have to take it directly, but the raw medicinal power in the herb was good enough on its own. With his support, forming a Golden Core within a hundred years would be a piece of cake for her!

Time slowly passed as Luo Chen absorbed the uncontrollable mana in Huiniang's body and qi sea. When only the blood-red Golden Core was left, he stopped for some reason.

"Huh?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Luo Chen replied softly, then began to channel his mana and cast various medical arts he had already improved to Perfected Mastery: Organ Realignment of the Five Elements, Bone Mending followed by Meridian Unblocking, then Spring Wind Rain Transformation...

Later, he retrieved a stock Blue Sea Pill from his storage ring, a pill specifically used to repair the meridians and the sea of qi.

After sending the pill into her body, he moved fast. He spat out a wisp of greenish-white flame from his mouth, and with a single thought, the flame turned into a pure green color.

In the arena in Skypiercing Pass, this wisp of Withering-Flourishing True Fire had been a deathly white color, but here and now, it was green and full of vitality. Luo Chen carefully spread it thin and let the fire cover the woman entirely, like a veil. The burning process then began, going from her dried-up skin to her dark-red blood, gradually giving them new life. Her sparse hair began to visibly grow as a side effect, reaching her shoulders, her neck, then her waist.

The Blue Sea Pill set in place earlier rapidly melted into a viscous liquid, which blanketed the woman's sea of qi and started repairing it.

Luo Chen stopped here and drew back the Withering-Flourishing True Fire, knowing that doing too much at once would only be detrimental.

"Have a good rest. I'll come back to continue the treatment in a few days. Once your body is completely healed, you can take the Hundred-Head Asparagus Root to restore your energy and increase your lifespan."

As he spoke, Luo Chen draped a thin blanket over her now fair, jade-like body. Sima Huiniang stared blankly at him.

"Are you leaving?"

"No. And when I leave, I'll take you all with me."

"Mmm..."

The woman blinked as she finally let the century of accumulated weariness wash over her. Enveloped in that long-lost comfort and sense of security, her long eyelashes fluttered, and she gradually drifted off to sleep.

As Luo Chen tucked her in, his gentle expression turned grave; Huiniang's condition was not where he had expected it to be at this moment. Her cultivation was still at the middle stage of the Golden Core realm, and within her gradually recovering sea of qi, a Golden Core was throbbing in the tight wrap of over a hundred restrictions!

"What the hell is up with this Spirit-Link Gu? Since when does it connect souls?!"