Chapter 57
Chapter 57: A Temper
Ling Bu Fei’s vision swayed.
In the next moment, he was out of the Flower Formation, standing before a small daoist temple roofed with azure tiles.
A daoist nun sat in a pavilion with her posture straight as a blade. A lotus crown rested on her head. She held a Flowing Pearl between her fingers and recited scripture under her breath.
“Martial Uncle Ancestor!” Ling Bu Fei shouted. “Why did you pull me out? The formation isn’t broken yet!”
Hua Wu Sheng glanced at him.
Only after finishing the passage did she answer, tone flat. “Listen to that. You’ve only been gone a few days, and you’re already yelling at your Martial Uncle Ancestor for someone else?”
Ling Bu Fei’s anger softened under the weight of her gaze. “I’m not yelling. I just… this isn’t right. She may be Golden Core Stage, but she got it from a lucky encounter. You’re making her break the formation alone—aren’t you going too far?”
Hua Wu Sheng didn’t budge. “Lucky encounter or not, Golden Core Stage is still Golden Core Stage. If she wants to enter Mirror Flower Water Moon, she breaks the formation.”
As she spoke, mist swirled—and Bai Li Xu stepped out.
Hua Wu Sheng tilted her chin toward him. “Look. Bai Li Xu has followed you for so long, and he still has to break it on his own.”
Bai Li Xu didn’t know what they had been talking about. He saluted first, properly. “Greetings, Martial Uncle Ancestor.”
Then he glanced around and realized someone was missing. “Young Master, you didn’t bring Miss Bai out?”
Ling Bu Fei’s mouth pulled into a miserable line. “I would if I could…”
The words died. The anger turned inward.
If he could, he wanted to be like that day in the valley—lift a hand and pin a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator to death, then casually carry Bai Meng Jin out of any formation as if the world had no right to obstruct him.
But he couldn’t.
He couldn’t use any spells at all.
Hua Wu Sheng watched his face and looked faintly amused.
[So the brat really has fallen in love.]
“Why are you in such a hurry?” Hua Wu Sheng said lightly. “Do you think I’d truly argue with a junior? If she performs well enough, I’ll let her in.”
She plucked a Flowing Pearl from her bracelet and flicked it outward.
The bead expanded into a water mirror, showing the scene inside the formation.
All three of them stared.
A breath later, Bai Li Xu blurted, “What is she doing?”
Inside the Flower Formation, Bai Meng Jin stood still with her eyes closed. The Yin-Yang Umbrella rested in her hands.
The Limitless Sect robes were mostly white with a few black accents. By chance, the umbrella was black on one side and white on the other—perfectly matching, as if fate itself had dressed her for this moment.
Devil qi flowed from her palm, ran along the umbrella’s bone handle, and drove the canopy into motion.
The formation’s spiritual qi stirred—and surged toward her.
Spiritual qi and devil qi met on the umbrella and began to twist, forming a whirlpool. The center of the vortex was Bai Meng Jin herself.
Wind rose, brushing loose strands of hair across her cheek, tugging at her robe.
As the umbrella spun faster and faster, the wind grew into a gale. Flowers and grass rustled violently under the gusts.
Bai Li Xu frowned. “Is she trying to blow all the flowers away? That won’t work.”
Of course it wouldn’t. The flowers were formed of spiritual qi. Blow them away, and they would simply reform. Without breaking the correct positions, there was no exit.
But Hua Wu Sheng didn’t look like she believed Bai Meng Jin’s goal was simple escape.
She watched the vortex where spiritual qi and devil qi met. Watched spiritual qi pour into the yang side. Watched devil qi spill from the yin side.
Something glinted in her eyes.
Interesting.
The formation, forced to resist the gale, began to run at full strength.
Bai Meng Jin suddenly opened her eyes. She raised her hand and tapped her brow, opening the Heavenly Eye.
A trace of devil qi had seeped into the formation’s energy pathways. In that instant, the flow of power became visible.
A formation was nothing more than a crafted current—an engineered flow of spiritual qi that produced strange effects. In the forward direction, it gathered and protected. In the reverse, it created illusion and slaughter.
That flow was like a body’s meridians.
The hidden mechanism.
Bai Li Xu’s eyes widened. “Her method isn’t bad. If she follows the flow, she can get out. Too bad we can’t do it. We don’t have her devil qi, and we don’t have her treasure.”
Hua Wu Sheng glanced at him, smiling without answering.
Bai Li Xu hesitated. “Martial Uncle Ancestor… did I say something wrong?”
The one who answered was Ling Bu Fei.
He stared hard at Bai Meng Jin in the mirror and said quietly, “I don’t think she’s doing all this just to walk out.”
Bai Li Xu stiffened.
Ling Bu Fei’s voice sharpened, as if remembering the valley. “She looks obedient and soft, but she’s vicious as hell. A Nascent Soul Stage cultivator—she slapped him dead without blinking. No hesitation.”
Then, as if the fear of her was also a strange pride, Ling Bu Fei leaned on the railing and turned to Hua Wu Sheng. “Martial Uncle Ancestor, she’s a new disciple. Testing her like this on the first meeting isn’t fair. If she passes, shouldn’t you reward her?”
Hua Wu Sheng raised a brow. “Oh? You have that much confidence? My formation—when even Nascent Soul Stage cultivators come, they still have to work for it.”
“Then say whether you dare to bet.” Ling Bu Fei grinned, smugness returning like sunlight. “The person I brought can’t be bullied for nothing, right?”
Hua Wu Sheng laughed, indulgent in her eyes. “Fine. If she manages it, I’ll give her three talismans as a greeting gift.”
Everyone in the Limitless Sect knew Hua Wu Sheng’s talismans were used to save lives. One was hard to obtain.
Three at once was generous.
Ling Bu Fei wasn’t satisfied. “I have plenty of talismans. What do I need those for?”
“Then what do you want?”
Ling Bu Fei’s gaze slid to Hua Wu Sheng’s wrist. He grinned wider. “That Flowing Pearl bracelet is nice.”
Hua Wu Sheng tucked her hand into her sleeve as if shielding it from a thief. “You really have an appetite. That’s your Martial Uncle Ancestor’s coffin money.”
The bracelet was a treasure she had refined when she first stepped into Divine Transformation Stage—108 beads, marking the cycle of the stars.
Unlike ordinary treasures, each Flowing Pearl held a spell and could be used separately.
Over the years, only 36 beads remained.
A single Divine Transformation Stage spell bead was enough for most people to treat as a priceless heirloom. Who else but Ling Bu Fei would dare demand the entire strand?
Ling Bu Fei didn’t argue. He just stared at her, unmoving.
Hua Wu Sheng stared back—and finally clicked her tongue. “Fine, you little brute. That strand has been with me too long—I’m not giving it to her. But I refined a smaller set originally meant for you. I’ll give that to her instead.”
Then she shoved him away in disgust. “Don’t celebrate too early. She only gets it if she breaks the formation.”
As they spoke, devil qi spread fully through the Flower Formation.
It mixed into the formation’s spiritual qi and flowed along the hidden pathways.
Then Bai Meng Jin moved.
She clasped her hands. The spell ran through the umbrella’s bone handle and surged across the canopy.
Boom.
Devil qi detonated on an orchid.
It was like a signal.
Linked by devil qi, the azaleas beside it withered next.
Then lotus. Then plum. Then daylily. Then asparagus fern.
Outside the formation, Ling Bu Fei began to recite under his breath, voice low but steady. “Earth position… Return… Marrying Maiden… Innocence… Small Exceeding…”
When the chain reached the peonies at the Heaven position, the entire garden was swept clean.
Petals filled the sky—then dissolved into spiritual qi as they fell, returning to nothing.
Hua Wu Sheng stared at the empty, ruined formation in the mirror and smiled helplessly.
All these years, disciples had tried every method imaginable to break her Flower Formation.
None had ever simply destroyed it outright.
It was only a test—yet she struck so hard.
This little miss had a truly nasty temper.
Nothing like what Qiu Yi Nong described.
Ling Bu Fei held out his hand cheerfully. “Martial Uncle Ancestor. A bet is a bet.”
“Fine, fine.” Hua Wu Sheng reached into her sleeve.
Just as she was about to take something out, her expression froze.
She sensed something.
She turned sharply.
In the water mirror, threads of devil qi were already crawling around the little temple.
Boom…
A heavy roar rolled outward. The surrounding fog was swept away, revealing the surface of Cloudmist Marsh. Formation flags at the four corners had lost all their light, standing bare and lifeless.
Hua Wu Sheng sprang to her feet.
This miss hadn’t only ruined the Flower Formation.
She’d ruined mirror, water, and moon as well.
*