Chapter 135 : Saintess Yaxi
Chapter 135: Saintess Yaxi
That afternoon, the docks before the mountain gate were already packed shoulder to shoulder, no less crowded than during the Disciple Recruitment Ceremony ten days earlier.
Countless disciples squeezed along the riverbank, craning their necks toward the waterway as the Hehuan Sect fleet slowly approached along the river.
Unlike ordinary immortal sect travels, they neither controlled cloud vessels nor rode spirit beasts.
Instead, like a mortal merchant caravan, they drifted downstream aboard an extraordinarily luxurious painted pleasure barge.
It was said that this Saintess rarely left her sect and wished to savor the scenery along the way, so she had taken more than a month to travel at an unhurried pace.
As a man of low cultivation who had yet to transcend low-level interests, Long Tao naturally could not avoid being worldly.
He took the time to come over and join the spectacle.
In truth, the feast of beauties two days earlier had already greatly satisfied the male disciples.
The Saintess of Guanghan Sacred Land, the Sixth Imperial Princess of the Suhuang Heavenly Dynasty, and the two legitimate daughters of the Chen and Bai clans were all peerless beauties in both bearing and appearance.
But the Hehuan Sect Saintess… the combination of those two words alone carried a different weight in men’s hearts.
It was something unique.
Soon, a thin mist rose over the river surface, and a painted barge adorned with carved beams and painted rafters slowly emerged.
The vessel seemed to sail out from some Illusion Realm, with phantom visions of idyllic peach-blossom paradises flickering into view around it from time to time.
The entire barge was carved from peachwood, silver bells of varying sizes hanging beneath the eaves and chiming with clear, melodious sounds in the breeze.
At the prow stood a slender, graceful figure.
The woman wore a blue-and-white long dress, its hem embroidered with dense peach blossom patterns that seemed to send real petals fluttering with every movement.
But what truly made it impossible to look away was her hair, flowing all the way down to her calves—faintly peach-pink in color, gleaming with a soft luster under the sunlight.
From afar, it looked like a wash of pink clouds.
Long Tao stared in a daze, briefly thinking he had transmigrated into some kind of two-dimensional world.
Although this world did have many people with unusual hair colors—among the Demon Race and the Rakshasa Race there were blondes, redheads, and brunettes—and the Saintess of Guanghan Sacred Land who had arrived a few days earlier had hair that had transformed into an almost silvery aqua-blue due to her cultivation method…
Pink hair, however, was something he had truly never seen before.
It was far too eye-catching.
No wonder the men on the shore were all stunned, as if she had stepped straight out of a dream.
When the Saintess lightly leapt down from the painted barge, her toes touching the bluestone slabs of the dock’s reception platform, a bell-like laugh drifted on the wind.
“Hehuan Sect Yaxi, here to pay a visit to all Dao friends of the Nine-Xia Heavenly Sect.”
Her voice was clear and sweet, every word sounding as though the ears had been gently brushed by a honey-coated tongue—sweet, yet not cloying.
As she spoke, the crystal pendants at her earlobes swayed softly, complementing her pink-violet eyes.
The men on the shore unconsciously held their breath.
The Saintess’s lips always carried a faint, elusive smile—both innocent and alluring, impossible to see through or predict.
Moreover, unlike the Hehuan Sect women everyone imagined, Saintess Yaxi’s demeanor was dignified and her temperament ethereal, with none of the overtly seductive bearing.
Yet in the eyes of every man, there was still a trace of charm hidden within the glance she cast over them.
At that moment, more than ten Hehuan Sect disciples filed out of the painted barge, forming a ceremonial escort behind Yaxi.
A steady and composed Golden Core female cultivator drifted down to her side, her gaze sweeping across the crowd like lightning—clearly the Saintess’s Dao Protector.
Yaxi surveyed her surroundings and offered a shallow smile to the welcoming disciples stepping forward.
Her pink-violet eyes curved into crescents.
“Along this journey, I have seen the myriad splendors within the Nine-Xia Realm. It truly lives up to its reputation as one of the foremost immortal sects of the age.”
Though it was nothing more than ordinary polite talk, when spoken by her it carried a unique resonance that naturally inspired goodwill.
Even the welcoming elder, long accustomed to seeing immortal maidens of all sects, unconsciously softened his voice before her.
“The Saintess has traveled a great distance. You must be tired.”
She gently shook her head, the peach blossom hairpin in her hair swaying with the motion.
“To witness your esteemed sect’s grand event and admire the display of cultivation by the various prodigies—how could that be called tiring? I’ll trouble this elder to lead the way.”
……
After the Saintess and her entourage disappeared beyond the towering mountain gate with the welcoming elder, the air at the dock seemed to flow again.
A chorus of noise, praise, and discussion erupted one after another.
Everyone felt the trip had been worthwhile.
Even some female cultivators who had originally arrived with critical gazes now wore only admiration on their faces.
Compared to such a figure, the gap truly felt vast—Saintess Yaxi genuinely lived up to the title of Saintess.
Long Tao also slowly came back to his senses from the earlier amazement.
Just as he was about to head back, a hand suddenly patted his shoulder.
He turned around and found that it was Fang Wuqi.
“Senior Brother Fang? You came to watch as well?”
“I’m a man too. Appreciating beautiful women is perfectly normal,” Fang Wuqi said with a faint smile at the corner of his lips.
“But you usually give off the impression of someone rather ascetic, fully focused on cultivation.”
“Is that so?” Fang Wuqi let out a helpless chuckle.
“I think I’m actually quite lustful. Besides, our Nine-Xia Heavenly Sect isn’t the kind of traditional Daoist sect that insists on abstinence. As long as one doesn’t go overboard, it’s fine. By the way, what did you think of Saintess Yaxi? Seeing her for the first time—did it feel like… all the women in the world paled in comparison?”
“Indeed,” Long Tao replied frankly.
“Such bearing is far too dazzling. Hearing Senior Brother say this… could it be that you’ve met her before?”
“Yes, over a decade ago. I saw her at another sect’s grand ceremony back then. At the time, she was only a Saintess candidate, yet she was already the focus of the entire audience. I nearly lost my composure to her charm myself. Seeing her again this time, I can finally keep my mental state in check. My temperament has improved somewhat over these years.”
“You’re being too modest. I’ve always heard that high-level cultivators of the Hehuan Sect are all outwardly dignified and detached. Seeing it today, it’s indeed true—this has broadened my horizons.”
“It’s not quite as simple as you think,” Fang Wuqi said seriously.
“The Hehuan Sect itself is divided into factions. In terms of ideology, there are two major branches: the Joyous Bliss Lineage, and the Forgetting-Emotion Dao Lineage. Just from the names, you can guess—the former advocates indulgence and pleasure, and the stereotypical impressions people have of the Hehuan Sect mostly come from them, like those cultivation furnaces and such.”
“Oh… I see. Then the Forgetting-Emotion Dao Lineage follows the so-called path of emotional tribulations?”
“Exactly.” Fang Wuqi nodded.
“They emphasize devotion to a single person for life, focusing exclusively on one partner. As a result, they are even more restrained and proper than ordinary women. That Saintess Yaxi just now is a successor of this lineage. Did you notice? She doesn’t even have a surname. It’s said she has sworn an oath to wait for her destined person, at which point she will directly take her husband’s surname.”
Hearing this, Long Tao could not help but be stunned.
“That’s a bit too extreme, isn’t it? She’s a Saintess, and so beautiful too. Normally, shouldn’t she be recruiting a husband instead?”
“Who knows. The thoughts of these love-struck men and resentful women are beyond the understanding of us normal people. In any case… the Grand Competition starts tomorrow. Let’s not overthink things. We should take advantage of today to rest and recuperate. There will be plenty of events tomorrow—don’t fall behind. After all… even seriously watching competitions isn’t that easy.”
Long Tao nodded solemnly.
Indeed, for him, tomorrow was not just a simple commentary job—it was a crucial step in whether he could complete the System Task.
If he couldn’t even endure the first day, then the subsequent tasks would be out of the question.