The “extremely frightened” Wen Jiayin was immediately scooped up by her shizun and carried back to the next room, the whole thing taking less than ten seconds.
“Shizun! There was a weird woman—a weird woman with no face—she pressed a ball of fire into my head in my dream! When I woke up, I found there really was a ball of fire in my spiritual sea! Shizun… what is this thing? It’s so scary!” Wen Jiayin clung to Xin Yun’s sleeve, looking like a pitiful little hamster.
“…Let shizun take a look at your spiritual sea.
Relax, don’t resist.” Xin Yun’s expression was grave.
The spiritual sea was an extremely private and fragile place for any cultivator, and no one would let others probe it easily.
With the difference in cultivation between Xin Yun and Wen Jiayin, if Wen Jiayin accidentally resisted even a little, Xin Yun definitely wouldn’t be the one to get hurt.
If the spiritual sea was damaged, at best the soul would be unstable, at worst it could lead to dementia or even death.
That’s why Xin Yun was so anxious when Wen Jiayin said there was suddenly a ball of fire in her spiritual sea.
“Okay.” Wen Jiayin obediently agreed.
As someone who had just started on the path of cultivation and was only at the second level of Qi Refining, Wen Jiayin’s spiritual sea was small and especially fragile.
Xin Yun only sent in a tiny wisp of her divine sense, and even then had to be extra careful.
Just as Wen Jiayin said, Xin Yun found a small flame right in the center of her spiritual sea.
What Xin Yun worried about most was that the fire might be hiding the soul of some cultivator trying to seize Wen Jiayin’s body.
She’d seen plenty of shameless tricks like this, disguised as a stroke of fortune.
But thankfully, there was no trace of any soul in the fire—it was exceptionally clean.
Xin Yun checked several times just to be sure, and only withdrew her divine sense after confirming there was no hidden danger.
“Don’t worry, Jiayin.
This fire is safe.” Xin Yun comforted her, giving Wen Jiayin’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Can you tell shizun what just happened? What did that weird woman look like?”
Hearing her shizun declare it safe, Wen Jiayin finally let her pounding heart settle back down.
“So, here’s what happened…” Wen Jiayin told Xin Yun everything she’d just seen in her “dream.”
“A scene from the beginning of heaven and earth?” Xin Yun’s arms tightened slightly around Wen Jiayin.
She glanced at the now-blank, completely erased remnant scroll, and a thought flashed through her mind.
“This is a divine artifact…” Xin Yun said.
“The woman who spoke to you might be its owner—a god who’s already fallen.”
“Huh?” Wen Jiayin was stunned.
That weird woman who didn’t even show her face was actually a god who only appeared in legends in the original story? Speaking of which, the original book’s background was that humans, demons, and ghosts could become immortals through cultivation, but in the legendary ancient times, heaven and earth gave birth to gods.
They were born with great power and long lives, but most of them perished in tribulations, becoming little more than background lore.
“I even asked her if she was human or ghost… Was that rude?” Wen Jiayin’s focus was clearly a bit off, making Xin Yun feel a rare urge to laugh and cry.
“If she really was a god, she probably wouldn’t hold it against a kid like you.”
Wen Jiayin thought for a couple of seconds.
She still felt that strange… god didn’t seem like the type not to mind.
Otherwise, why would she smack her on the head so violently…
“This is your opportunity, Jiayin.” Xin Yun spoke with a strange certainty, patting Wen Jiayin’s head and, where she couldn’t see, letting a faint cold smile slip.
That twisted, ferocious face flashed through her mind.
The man who’d tried every trick to get her to reveal the inheritance of the gods—wasn’t it right in front of him all along? He’d never have guessed that what he wanted was always hidden in the remnant scroll in her hands.
Truly ridiculous, ridiculous…
Xiaoyao Zhenjun, after all your scheming and harming so many, what isn’t yours will never be yours.
All of this belongs to A-Yin.
After all the twists and turns, things return to their rightful owner.
But the harm you did to A-Yin—I’ll settle every score with you.
To think the last face she saw before dying in both lives was his.
What rotten luck.
Wen Jiayin didn’t notice the slight change in Xin Yun’s tone.
Instead, she eagerly summoned the flame, cupping it in her hands to show Xin Yun.
“Shizun, shizun, that weird… that god said this fire was one of a kind, the best of the best.
Is it really that amazing?” For some reason, Wen Jiayin just couldn’t feel any awe toward that supposed goddess, and she was a bit skeptical about the fire, too.
As the owner of the fire, Wen Jiayin only felt the little flame was warm and cozy.
She couldn’t sense the power that god had described.
But Xin Yun, as an outsider, was different.
The fire that behaved like a kitten in Wen Jiayin’s hands radiated a violent energy to her.
If what that unknown god said was true, then the origin of this fire was extraordinary.
Once A-Yin grew up, its power would be terrifying.
Xin Yun reached out and brushed her hand through the flame.
Her dao body, which shouldn’t even be scratched by magical tools, was actually burned with a charred wound by the fire.
If Xin Yun hadn’t quickly used spiritual power to heal it, the black substance in the flame would have kept corroding her dao body.
And that was without any spiritual power added to the fire.
“Shizun!” Wen Jiayin jumped in fright, unable to imagine Xin Yun would test the fire’s power like that.
She hurriedly put the flame away, looking helplessly at the wound on Xin Yun’s hand.
“It’s fine, it’s already healed.” A tribulation-transcending cultivator’s self-healing was terrifying.
In the blink of an eye, Xin Yun’s hand was as good as new.
“But…” Wen Jiayin hesitated, looking at Xin Yun’s hand.
“Even if it heals fast, it still hurts when you get hurt, right? People aren’t made of stone, you know.
You should take better care of yourself…”
Wen Jiayin’s attention was all on Xin Yun’s hand, so she didn’t see her shizun’s eyes redden at those familiar words.
“Shizun~ You’re not made of stone, how could you not feel pain? And anyway, if you don’t hurt, I’ll still feel bad for you.
Promise me, okay? Take better care of yourself…”
That shamelessly affectionate figure, still acting spoiled even when faced with her cold face, overlapped in Xin Yun’s eyes with the child in her arms.
In her last life, Xin Yun never imagined that the parting words spoken at the door would turn out to be a final farewell.
“Okay…” Xin Yun tried hard to suppress the lump in her throat, pretending to answer calmly.
It was almost funny—she was so much older than A-Yin, yet not half as open-hearted.
Maybe her silence back then was the greatest hurt she gave A-Yin.
The soft sigh outside the door at their parting was full of regret… She deserved to lose everything she loved.
This “okay” was her answer, far too late.
