Chapter 490 - 489: Xuanji

Chapter 490: Chapter 489: Xuanji

Chapter 489: Xuanji

"It’s fine. That won’t be the first one, and it definitely won’t be the last."

A voice echoed through the void.

"That stupid fox just likes doing things like this. Does she really think she’d have the heart to bury someone as reliable and adorable as me? Just impotent rage, that’s all."

Luo Wusheng listened to this and wore a strange expression.

No matter what the little pink fox had originally been thinking, if she ever had the chance to hear that remark, she would absolutely take action for real.

Also... that white-haired loli really is lurking nearby watching everything.

Thinking about it, that made sense, she had personally orchestrated all of these things, so how could she not stick around to see the ending?

She just didn’t seem inclined to show herself.

Luo Wusheng didn’t really mind. While massaging the head of the girl in his arms—who had made a huge contribution this time—he spoke with helplessness.

"You Divine Transformation cultivators really know how to play... so what’s the situation now? Couldn’t you just let me wait properly for my revival?"

"...That’s actually what I want to ask. I was already prepared to leave, but then I realized you were dragging things out and hadn’t even started using the Ancient Phoenix Essence to revive. Instead, you somehow began condensing Phoenix incense fire. That’s why I turned back to see what on earth was going on."

Yue Xuanji’s voice paused, growing somewhat odd.

"But now, I know where the problem lies."

"Hm?"

"You already received the phoenix’s hint and know that you’re forming the Phoenix incense fire divine path, right?"

"I did get something like that..."

Luo Wusheng answered honestly, though his thoughts churned inside.

So... he’d wrongly blamed the white-haired loli this time? It wasn’t her meddling—something had genuinely gone wrong on his side?

Steadying himself, he heard Yue Xuanji speak again.

"Then do you know why no one in the present age can cultivate the incense fire Dao anymore?"

"Uh... not really." Luo Wusheng scratched his head. "Probably because something is lacking compared to ancient times?"

"Yes. This has to do with the ancient Heavenly Dao. After that era, the ’something’ that allowed incense fire to condense completely dissipated, and the incense fire path vanished from the world."

"Then what about my case?"

"You... just happened to be extremely lucky, and managed to piece together the conditions needed to construct an incense fire path in the present age."

Luo Wusheng raised an eyebrow.

"Your current body is neither alive nor dead. With the ancient phoenix essence being driven at full force, the meaning of phoenix nirvana reached its peak. On top of that, earlier you triggered an immortal tribulation and comprehended the Nascent Soul Dao, leaving behind a very dense aura of Heavenly Dao on yourself. Put together, that barely counts as meeting the minimum standard of an ancient ’divine’ body."

"And most importantly, within the ancient phoenix essence you’re using to revive, a trace of phoenix will has awakened. It influenced your sleeping consciousness, making you instinctively use the things around you to gather the power of sentient beings and turn it into incense fire, grafting the long-severed incense fire Dao from antiquity onto you in embryonic form."

"As for why that phoenix will revived..."

"That’s because of the girl in your arms."

Luo Wusheng: "?"

What did Little Yuli have to do with this?

Instinctively, he recalled the scene from earlier—him waking up and wildly sucking on the girl’s lips.

"You’ve also wondered why this girl can directly touch you when you don’t even possess a physical body right now, haven’t you?"

Yue Xuanji’s voice sounded complicated.

"I originally thought it was some special effect caused by the Sword Ancestor’s strike, so I even coaxed her earlier, saying she could do whatever she wanted while you were preparing to revive... but now I realize she’s merged with the will of the ancient underworld."

"As long as something exists within what she perceives, there is nothing she cannot touch."

"She herself doesn’t seem to realize this, though."

Luo Wusheng looked down at the little girl in his arms in disbelief.

"As for the ancient underworld, that was a special secret land in ancient times. After that era ended, almost everyone believed it had been buried along with antiquity... but now it seems the Sword Ancestor cleaved off a cross-section of it and turned it into a secret realm."

"For a period earlier, I couldn’t divine your whereabouts in Sword Province, presumably you were inside that secret realm then... and now that realm has been refined by this Sword Ancestor’s successor. The essence of the ancient underworld within it was therefore transferred onto her."

"She saw that you really seemed about to dissipate just now, and under the hints I’d given her earlier, she made up her mind to sneak a kiss... originally I was planning to leave behind an image to use later to annoy that stupid fox. But before I’d even gone two steps, you unconsciously started biting back—and even rubbed off a trace of the will of the ancient underworld from her lips..."

"That thing can bridge past and present shores, ferry life and death. Drawing out a strand of ancient phoenix will from the ancient phoenix essence isn’t difficult at all... mm, in short, that’s the current situation. You were affected by this as well, your existence has been forcibly stabilized. Unless you actively ignite the nirvana flames yourself this time, you’ll probably have to wait about an hour before re-entering the nirvana process."

Luo Wusheng listened in a daze.

After stroking his chin and thinking for a moment, he spoke in a strange tone:

"So... when the little pink fox isn’t involved, Tower Master Yue, you really can talk about serious business properly."

"...?"

Sensing that some gaze around him had suddenly turned unfriendly, Luo Wusheng immediately coughed.

"Ahem—so basically nothing bad happened, I just accidentally got some benefits? Uh, what exactly does this Phoenix incense fire do?"

"I don’t know."

The loli snorted lightly.

"Anyone who cultivated the incense fire path in the past is already lost to history, and there’s no such Dao in the world now. Where exactly do you expect me to find information on what it’s for?"

Luo Wusheng smacked his lips.

Fair enough, he couldn’t refute that at all.

He then fell into contemplation.

Not about the mysterious incense fire divine path, but about something else entirely.

Although the white-haired loli looked rather reliable when talking seriously right now, for some reason... he suddenly missed the troublemaking version of her.

Humans really were a bit cheap at heart, when she’d been causing trouble every day before, he’d wanted nothing more than to pin that little loli across his thigh and spank her hard. Now that she’d become much more proper all of a sudden, he found himself oddly unaccustomed to it.

Of course, Luo Wusheng wasn’t really being masochistic, he just felt that something about Yue Xuanji at this moment was a little strange.

He frowned slightly without knowing why.

"You—"

Before he could finish, he was interrupted.

"—Alright, since everything’s fine, I’m in a hurry to go use that recording I just made to irritate that stupid fox. The little girl in your arms is about to wake up too... ah, almost forgot—I still need to take away that slice of time where I tricked them into thinking you were my daddy. Mm, that way they won’t remember having such an adorable daughter like me, what a pity..."

"You’d better remember not to bring that up either, or some kind of rejection reaction might occur, you know?"

"Then... see you after you revive, Daddy~"

The voice vanished in a rush.

"Wai—"

Luo Wusheng tried to stop the Heavenly Divination Tower’s master—who had clearly only appeared to explain things—but he had barely spoken a single syllable before he distinctly felt that gaze around him disappear.

Luo Wusheng’s eyes flickered.

It was as though some realization had just dawned in his heart.

Slowly taking a deep breath, the aura around him became incomparably profound—within his eyes seemed to flow sun and moon, mountains and rivers, with the Great Dao contained inside.

Maintaining that posture for three breaths, he finished and muttered to himself:

"It’s fine... when I’m with the little pink fox..."

He let out a sigh of relief—only to realize that the girl in his arms had stirred.

"I... I didn’t sneak a kiss..."

She muttered under her breath, opening her eyes in confusion.

Those newly opened eyes reflected Luo Wusheng’s figure, though she still didn’t quite look awake.

"Why do you... look like you’ve got something on your mind? Didn’t everything already end?"

"Mm... I feel like I forgot something?"

"Oh right, there’s still one more thing... I want to kiss you fair and square..."

Her small lips seemed to land quite naturally.

...

Netherland.

Yao Ji snapped her fingers softly.

The small tombstone stuck in the ground shot upward, floating in midair.

"Climb on by yourself."

The emotionless voice had barely fallen when a tiny figure appeared sprawled across the little tombstone.

It was a little girl who looked only five or six years old, wearing robes far too large for her. She had rolled the sleeves up with her chubby little arms, one small hand tightly gripping a jade bracelet that didn’t quite fit her, her whole body curled atop the floating stone like a salted fish, blinking a pair of beautiful star-like eyes.

A head of white hair—far too long for her—trailed down to the ground, swaying gently in the wind.

Yao Ji watched the girl’s slightly pale little face for a while. The chill on her own expression faded a little, but she turned her head aside.

"And you still say you don’t love him, that you were just trying to provoke me... If just to spite me you can push yourself this far, then how much must you hate me?"

The little one lying on the stele in salted-fish posture glanced at the fox demon in front of her but didn’t answer, instead fiddling with the jade chain in her hand.

Yao Ji continued:

"The power of the Nine Yin Candle was originally meant to suppress the Heavenly Dao backlash from the time you lost. Every use throws your timeline out of balance, and this time you even used it to confront the Dao of Time... tch, he’s my young master, yet you were even more desperate than I was."

"You only dared provoke me so hard earlier because you knew that in this state I wouldn’t have the heart to retaliate. Do you think I don’t know you? After all these years, in the end I’m still the one who has to drag you to the Shadow Candle River."

"The one thing I can’t figure out... is how you ended up falling for him."

The fox-like, star-sparked eyes suddenly met those starry pupils, as though trying to peer into the thoughts within.

But the starry eyes didn’t waver at all. They merely rolled in annoyance.

"Stupid fox, you talk too much. Can’t you let an injured patient rest properly for once?"

Yao Ji’s eyes blinked, then narrowed slightly, flashing with a hint of strange amusement.

"I can’t be bothered with you, old hag. But since you love pretending to be young and you’ve turned into this state again, why don’t you call me ’mother’ and let me hear it?"

"No way... I want to call him ’Daddy,’ and then we’ll be sisters, let’s see what you call him then."

"...He was right. Your personality really is awful, I kind of want to spank you."

"Abuse of the adorable little Xuanji is forbidden."

"There’s no such regulation in the Netherland."

Under the long smoke and setting sun, the pink fox dragged the tombstone, gradually heading deeper into Netherland’s core.

She failed to notice that the little one lying atop the stele glanced back toward the distant sky and murmured softly to herself:

"I did it for myself..."

<+>

Cultivation Realm:

1, Qi Refining

2, Foundation Establishment

3, Golden Core

4, Nascent Soul

5, Divine Transformation (Formerly Known as Tribulation Crossing)

6, Tribulation Transcendence

7, Land Immortal

Note: Link to the character Illustration:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lkIcPnCxeyuyZA4Kkb621dPC05UvWjhD