Chapter 20 : Chapter 20
Chapter 20 – The Arrival of a Calamity Star
Ye Liuyun felt as though she had opened the door to a completely new world. It was as if she had arrived at the Water Curtain Cave of Flower-Fruit Mountain and witnessed a crowd of monkeys howling.
More importantly, the scene before her was simply too astonishing. No matter how composed Ye Liuyun usually was, even her expression darkened.
“Pfft!”
She nearly spat out a mouthful of blood. Quickly covering her mouth, Ye Liuyun retreated back into her cave residence.
The moment she returned, she saw Lin Qingyou staring at her with a cold expression.
“Was it fun?” Lin Qingyou asked calmly.
Ye Liuyun’s mouth twitched uncontrollably. She still had no idea what had actually happened.
“Uh… old demoness, what exactly just happened? Am I still inside an illusion? Are the scenes outside just my hallucination?” Ye Liuyun suspected she had not fully regained her senses yet.
Lin Qingyou took a deep breath and briefly explained the situation outside to Ye Liuyun.
When Ye Liuyun heard that the chaos outside had been caused by her, she was completely stunned.
The hot mist emanating from her body had actually summoned dark clouds, which then produced rain—rain that contained both icy and fiery power.
No wonder she had heard people shouting about being hot one moment and cold the next.
“My heavens… if what you say is true, then I, Ye Liuyun, am truly a genius of alchemy. Tsk, tsk. What a pity. A bunch of men is not interesting at all. Hehe—if it had been a group of girls, that scene would have been far more entertaining,” Ye Liuyun said with a mischievous laugh.
Lin Qingyou’s face darkened as she listened to such shameless remarks.
“You still sound quite proud of yourself. If you had just listened to me and practiced alchemy properly, none of this would have happened. Instead you insist on experimenting with all sorts of strange nonsense. I am starting to feel that you are going to become a walking calamity,” Lin Qingyou said helplessly.
“Hehe. What is the fun in ordinary alchemy? I want to pioneer a new path—the Unorthodox Dao of Alchemy. Oh right, old demoness, what did you think of the scene outside?” Ye Liuyun suddenly asked.
Lin Qingyou did not react immediately and answered casually.
“Hmph. In the eyes of cultivators, mortals are no different from beasts. What kind of thoughts do you think I would have?”
But the moment she finished speaking, she immediately realized something was wrong. She suddenly turned to look at Ye Liuyun.
At that moment, Ye Liuyun was staring at her with a teasing and mocking expression.
“Oh? Old demoness, I thought immortals were all pure and noble. I never expected that you would enjoy that sort of thing too. So you saw everything that happened outside?” Ye Liuyun said with a mischievous grin.
Lin Qingyou instantly realized that she had fallen into Ye Liuyun’s trap.
She could not hold back anymore. Her face turned alternately red and black with anger. Taking a deep breath, she waved her hand, and a golden whip appeared in it.
“You brat, I have tolerated you for long enough,” Lin Qingyou said with a murderous glare.
Seeing Lin Qingyou explode with anger, Ye Liuyun immediately put on a frightened expression.
“Wait! Old demoness—no, Master—I was wrong! I should not have teased you,” Ye Liuyun hurriedly begged for mercy.
But Lin Qingyou had already decided that Ye Liuyun needed a lesson.
“Too late. I think you deserve a proper beating.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she lashed the whip across Ye Liuyun.
“Ah!”
“Spare me!”
Ye Liuyun screamed repeatedly as she was whipped. Of course, this was certainly not the first time she had been beaten. Her painful cries echoed throughout the cave residence.
After more than a dozen lashes, however, the sounds finally stopped—because Lin Qingyou had also stopped.
Meanwhile, the disciples of the Yunxia Sect who had been drenched by the rain gradually returned to normal after about an hour.
The upper leadership of the Yunxia Sect had gathered together to discuss the strange phenomenon that had occurred that day.
“Everyone, what are your thoughts? That rain was far too strange. At first we believed another cultivator was attacking the Yunxia Sect with a spell, but now it appears more like a manifestation of some natural force,” Yun Yun said.
“Yes, we did not sense any cultivators attacking us. If it had been a cultivator’s assault, the sect’s defensive formation should have been activated automatically. Yet the formation did not react when the rain first fell,” the Grand Elder replied.
“But there must be some reason, right? That rain turned the entire sect upside down. You did not see those male disciples… I was too embarrassed to even look at them,” one of the female elders said with a dark expression.
As soon as she said that, Yun Yun herself looked slightly embarrassed.
“Ahem… Fifth Junior Sister, why bring that up?” the Second Elder quickly interrupted the Fourth Elder.
“Sigh… I have a bad feeling about this. Why do I feel as if misfortune has descended upon our Yunxia Sect?” the Third Elder sighed.
After discussing the matter for a long time, none of them could come up with a convincing explanation.
“Enough. Let us stop discussing this. Go and calm the disciples,” Yun Yun said, unwilling to continue the topic.
That rain of ice and fire had nearly tortured more than half the sect’s disciples to death.
However, the rain was not entirely without benefits.
Some disciples who had been stuck at their cultivation bottlenecks actually broke through after enduring the torment of ice and fire.
And there were quite a few of them.
“I broke through! I reached the Spirit Pattern Realm! My heavens—I have been stuck at the peak of the Spirit Sea Realm for more than ten years, and today I finally broke through!” some disciples shouted excitedly.
And he was not the only one.
Breaking through a cultivation bottleneck often required intense trials. For many disciples who needed such trials to advance, the experience of ice and fire had been like a blessing from heaven.
To be honest, if such rain could help them break through, they would gladly endure it several more times. After all, it only caused temporary discomfort.
News of the numerous breakthroughs quickly reached Yun Yun and the other elders. The sect’s leadership suddenly realized that this rain might not necessarily have been a disaster.
By the next day, more than a dozen disciples had advanced into the Spirit Pattern Realm. Over thirty had entered the Spirit Sea Realm, and more than fifty had advanced to the Spirit River Realm. As for smaller breakthroughs, there were too many to count.
The overall strength of the Yunxia Sect’s disciples had practically risen by an entire level.
Those who had not broken through could only watch with envy.
Within a single day, so many people had advanced in their cultivation. It was impossible not to connect it with the strange rain from yesterday.
“Oh heavens, let it rain again! I want to break through too!”
Those who had failed to advance were mostly the disciples who had hidden indoors during the rain. Because they had not been drenched, they had not experienced the ordeal of ice and fire.
Now they regret it deeply.
Female cultivators, however, reacted somewhat less strongly. Compared with cultivation progress, many of them still cared more about their reputation and dignity, and the experience had frightened them.
Early the next morning, Ye Liuyun walked out of her cave residence with an indignant expression. She had not been treated lightly yesterday.
“Damn that old demoness. I only teased her a few times. Did she really need to get that angry? If she did not want to watch, she could have simply looked away. She watched it herself and still claimed I was wrong—completely unreasonable,” Ye Liuyun complained inwardly.
“Eh? Miss Ye, did you see what happened yesterday?”
After only taking a few steps, Ye Liuyun saw Xiao Hansheng emerging from his own cave residence.
Xiao Hansheng had not been caught in the rain either, so he had not been among the chaotic crowd yesterday.
“Uh… that… I… hehe…”
Ye Liuyun was instantly stumped by Xiao Hansheng’s question.
How was she supposed to answer that?