Chapter 172: CH. 172 | Spring Valley Pavilion
Lin Tian went quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowing, focus staying locked ahead.
The qi radiating from the woman before him was powerful, dominant, though nowhere near the level Yun Feng carried.
Still, her claim about Yun Feng, that he was none other than her husband, struck Lin Tian with genuine surprise.
Now I understand why Senior Yun Feng knew her temper so well.
So this is her. Ling Weixi is his woman.
Lin Tian raised both hands to chest height, bowing his head in respectful greeting, "Greetings, Senior. This junior came to meet Senior Yun Feng entirely by accident."
Ling Weixi stepped to the side, her attention drifting elsewhere as she spoke, "Nothing here happens by accident. The Heavenly Golden Jade Palace isn’t a place someone like you simply wanders into."
"The primordial golden qi within that palace would crush your bones, drain every ounce of your spiritual energy, and burn you down to ash within seconds."
The woman in blue turned, her sharp gaze cutting into Lin Tian, "You’re still standing here, alive, marked with a golden seal. That isn’t a coincidence."
She raised her hand, a blue spiritual qi orb forming at her fingertip, then released it forward, sending it straight into Lin Tian’s body.
The man flinched, eyes going wide, his body suddenly locking up, refusing to move.
His focus stayed fixed ahead as a blue light flared within Ling Weixi’s eyes, a simple sign she was examining his condition from the inside.
"Nothing remarkable here. Even your Nascent Soul is damaged."
"But I know Yun Feng. He wouldn’t hand his blessing, his inheritance, to just anyone," Ling Weixi said.
Her slender hand rose and clenched tight. A burst of blue qi detonated inside Lin Tian’s body, though it left no lasting damage on him.
He found he could move again, his focus returning to Ling Weixi.
"Still, Yun Feng’s eyes see things mine don’t. Perhaps he noticed something in you that escaped me," Ling Weixi said.
"Even so, your cultivation remains far too shallow. If you force your way into accepting his inheritance now, your body would simply shatter into pieces."
Ling Weixi raised her hand and swept it forward. Stones rose from within the pool, drifting to hover just above the water’s surface, forming solid footing.
The arrangement of stones stretched out like a bridge, connecting the shore to the small pavilion at the pool’s center, the very spot where she’d been cultivating before.
Reading her reaction, Lin Tian sensed something was about to unfold. He braced himself for whatever might come next.
Ling Weixi did one final thing, offering Lin Tian a fragment of her own soul’s awareness.
The qi orb she’d sent was more than enough to help him break through the pressure barrier ringing the outer edge of the pool.
Lin Tian’s body flickered briefly with blue qi light before it faded away entirely.
"Follow me."
In an instant, Ling Weixi vanished from where she stood, reappearing at the pavilion within the pool, while Lin Tian had to make his way there on foot, crossing the stone bridge she’d raised.
Nothing strange happened as his feet touched the stone path. He glanced briefly to the side and noticed the pool’s depths shading into a deep blue, almost black.
Only two explanations made sense: something dark lay hidden at the bottom of that pool, or the pool had no bottom at all.
Truly... a place shrouded in mystery.
His steps came to a stop before the pavilion’s curtain. He could see clearly inside now, the space simple, sparse, barely furnished.
All that filled it was a wooden table and two ceramic cups carved from blue jade resting atop it, along with a matching kettle held steady by Ling Weixi’s qi.
"Since you’ve given me the answer I needed, I’ll help you," Ling Weixi said.
"I refuse to be seen as inferior to him," she added quietly.
Lin Tian drew a long breath and stepped inside, taking a seat across the table, meeting Ling Weixi’s gaze directly.
"Countless Nascent Soul cultivators have come to me over the past thousand years. They all gave me the same answer."
"’I have no need for heavenly understanding, for I have walked alongside the heavens themselves throughout my life.’"
"But your answer was different. It opened my eyes to the possibility of an unresolved karma," Ling Weixi said.
"A karma still lodged in my dao heart, one that binds me to worldly affairs and keeps me from breaking through the peak of the Mortal Realm."
She tilted the blue jade kettle and poured warm tea into Lin Tian’s cup. Strangely, he noticed her own cup remained empty, untouched by the tea she’d poured.
Lin Tian accepted the cup, which felt cold to the touch despite the tea inside steaming as though freshly boiled.
"May I ask you, Senior Ling Weixi?"
"Go ahead."
"Are Senior Ling and Senior Yun... already dead?"
Ling Weixi went quiet for a moment, setting the blue jade kettle down on the wooden table.
With graceful poise, she glanced ahead, her eyes meeting Lin Tian’s directly.
"I prefer to call it my final act of devotion. I shattered my own path to immortality to create this opportunity, so that cultivators of the future wouldn’t have to suffer what I once did."
"I forged this Spring Valley from a manifestation of my own primordial qi, at the very threshold of Ascension."
"The power of heaven and earth gathered here suits anyone seeking to grasp the understanding of the heavens they need."
She let out a soft breath, "Few have ever managed to break through here, because they always grew arrogant the moment I tried to teach them the true meaning of dao and heaven."
"To grasp your own dao concept, what you truly need is to understand yourself, and understand your purpose."
Lin Tian kept listening closely to every word she spoke. Her voice carried weight and wisdom, each phrase measured with deliberate care.
Words like these... only someone who has already understood the heavens, who has witnessed true heavenly power firsthand, could ever speak them.
"Drink that tea. Let it restore your body, Junior."
"This junior will drink it for you, Senior Ling Weixi," Lin Tian said.
He lifted the blue jade cup with both hands and drank it down completely, draining it in a single decisive swallow.
The instant the tea passed his lips, his heart began pounding violently, adrenaline surging through his body.
His hands shook, his breath came ragged, and a fierce turbulence erupted deep within his dantian sea, stirring up an uncontrollable wave of force.
"AAAGH!" Lin Tian groaned.
"You’ve just drunk the Seven Will Essence Leaf Tea. Your Nascent Soul will heal from this."
"Don’t fight it. Don’t try to run from it."
"Reflect. Think deeply on who you are, on the purpose of your life, on everything you understand of the heavens."
"If fortune favors you... you may come to grasp your own dao concept."
Even as his body convulsed under the strain, he kept listening closely to every word Ling Weixi spoke.
His hands snapped into a cultivation seal, and he began drawing in the valley’s spiritual energy at once.
The golden mark etched into his forehead pulsed with every surge of turbulent qi, each pulse accompanied by a faint boom of qi, strong enough to stir the pavilion’s curtains.
Ling Weixi watched what Lin Tian was doing, clearly impressed. She rose to her feet, stepped past the wooden table, and walked out of the pavilion.
Her gaze drifted upward and to the side, settling on the third statue at the center, the one bearing both moon and sun motifs.
"My husband..."
"Your inheritance, your will, rests in his hands from this day forward."
"May he be the one destined to carry our will in the future."