Chapter 35
Chapter 35: Xuan Xue Goes Home
Could there be an old ghost being raised down there?
Hu Qing trembled. She was terrified of ghosts.
Juan Bu snorted. “As if I’d believe your ghost stories.”
She used the Earth-escape technique to open a path, and she didn’t run into the “no further than ten meters” limit that Emotionless Thread and Xue Sha Pearl had warned about. Instead, she slipped down with unsettling ease, smooth as oil.
So smooth it made her dizzy.
Juan Bu shouted, “Slow down! Are you trying to prove you can’t miss someone else’s trap?”
Hu Qing shouted back, “I want to, but I can’t! Something’s sucking me down!”
Her mind filled with the image of a toilet flushing. Elder!
Whatever was buried below could be a ghost… or it could be a latrine pit.
Hu Qing’s face went green. Her thoughts weren’t doing much better.
But to her surprise, the underground was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that pressed on the eardrums—more like a night with no stars and no moon. Once the panic drained away, all Hu Qing felt was an eerie, almost soothing calm.
And she could sense it—dense extreme yin energy all around her. It didn’t invade her body. It wasn’t the imagined, bone-splitting cold. Instead, it felt… accommodating. Like being held.
She told Juan Bu what she was feeling.
Juan Bu mulled it over for a long moment, then said, “Maybe because you’re not threatening.”
Hu Qing didn’t even know how to answer. That couldn’t be it… but if it wasn’t, then what was? She had no clue.
Was every “father” in the immortal realm the same Father, and Father had decided to toss her a lucky break?
Who was she to deserve that?
The falling finally stopped. Hu Qing was pinned in soft darkness, unable to move. Pressure came from every direction, perfectly balanced—yet it didn’t crush her, and she still didn’t sense danger.
She couldn’t take out an illumination pearl. She couldn’t see anything. She opened her mouth, half expecting the yin energy to rush in, but it didn’t.
“Ahem… may I ask which Senior is present?”
Juan Bu’s voice was flat. “Stupid.”
No response.
Hu Qing tried again. “Is it… some kind of fated treasure?”
“Even stupider.”
Hu Qing flexed her fingers helplessly. “Can you… give me a hint?”
Where was the force that had dragged her down?
Was it only going to make her sink into oblivion?
Time passed. The darkness stayed silent.
In her sea of consciousness, Hu Qing stomped on the mirror and roared into the void. “So what good are you all? This is when you’re supposed to come out and help!”
The space fragment remained silent, as always. It was just a broken pocket-space. Apart from storing things, it couldn’t even move.
“You three!” Hu Qing snapped.
Emotionless Thread, Xue Sha Pearl, and the Devil Emperor Token answered at the same time: they were helpless against extreme yin energy.
If it were only a little, they could forcibly drive it away. But there was far, far too much out here.
Find someone else.
Hu Qing nearly spat blood. So these were immortal artifacts?
These were immortal artifacts!
Not an ounce of ambition. Not a shred of stubbornness. No pride, no fire, no nothing.
What kind of junk had she been picking up?
She couldn’t stay trapped here. She needed to get back to little li realm—fast. If little li realm couldn’t hold, she had to drag Hu Nuan out. And there was her son, and her dad, and her whole family besides.
Hu Qing’s anxiety spun in tight circles. This was an extreme yin land. If she got stuck for hundreds of years, for a thousand years… what would she be when she finally got out? A thousand-year corpse?
Juan Bu offered, very carefully, “Well… since you can’t get out anyway, didn’t I pass you that ghost cultivator encyclopedia?”
Hu Qing went dead silent.
Did he really have to make it impossible for her to be a normal person?
“I’ll see if there’s something I can use.”
Even the thunder dragon arm curled up in her dantian and didn’t dare come out. Hu Qing suddenly remembered the nest of mechanism bees she’d once collected—little scouts with no life and no spiritual power consumption. They might work here.
With a thought, she reached for them—
And her awareness snapped into the space.
Hu Qing froze for three full seconds before she realized what had happened. It wasn’t her body in the space. It was her soul.
Living people couldn’t enter. Before, she had always manipulated things inside with divine sense alone. Now her spirit had condensed into a tangible form, and it could actually step into the space.
A genuine piece of good news.
The honeycomb rack stood on its own large frame. Hu Qing rushed over—then halted when she felt something shift.
The entire rack trembled with a soft rattling, like something had woken up.
Hu Qing stared. “Xuan Xue?”
She’d gotten Xuan Xue from the sealing grand array in qinmu bay—the one that had trapped the dragon girl. Back when Hu Qing had been trapped for ten years in the ancient graveyard of little li realmdevil clanhuan mo heaven, Xuan Xue had sheltered her, cutting off demonic qi and poisonous miasma, giving her a safe haven when there shouldn’t have been one.
After they left the ancient graveyard, Xuan Xue had stayed quietly inside the space, like a refined young lady who never left the inner chambers.
It even looked the part.
A black, round basin, with snow-white plants inside. Leaf after leaf layered like orchids. Between those leaves, it could lash out long soul-locking chains—or bloom huge white buds that served as little rooms.
Hu Qing had always known Xuan Xue’s background was extraordinary. Those three loudmouths in her sea of consciousness were nothing in front of it. It might not even be a “tool” at all.
And precisely because it was extraordinary, Hu Qing had never known how to fix it. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t know where to start.
Now, every leaf had sprouted a thin white filament. The filaments draped downward, each tipped with a small bud. The buds swayed, ringing with a crisp, silver-bell sound.
An idea flashed through Hu Qing’s mind.
Xuan Xue… was also extreme yin.
Those strange images she’d once felt from it—molded from extreme yin earth, watered with extreme yin water…
Was this place calling Xuan Xue?
The ringing grew faster. The white buds trembled, urgent and eager, like it couldn’t wait another second.
Hu Qing didn’t hesitate. With a thought, she pulled Xuan Xue out.
The world snapped back to darkness—and Xuan Xue lay cradled in her hands.
The moment it appeared, the extreme yin energy around them surged alive. It rolled and collided like a tide. It seemed to cheer.
Like countless beings had waited countless years for this exact moment, for this exact return.
Hu Qing’s chest tightened. She lowered her head until her lips brushed a leaf. “Xuan Xue… do you want to stay?”
The leaf shuddered, sending back a fierce, trembling emotion.
Home.
Hu Qing’s eyes burned. Her nose stung. She couldn’t let go.
She was rushing home so desperately. Of course Xuan Xue was desperate too.
Hu Qing wasn’t home yet—but Xuan Xue was.
She kissed it again and again, voice breaking. “All right. Xuan Xue is finally home. From now on… you have to be good, okay?”
It hurt. It hurt so badly.
Hu Qing loosened her grip.
A leaf curled around her finger, soft as a sigh.
She burst into tears.
How did she explain it?
When your home was full of unruly children, you always ended up overlooking the quiet, obedient one. And then, one day, that good child stood up and walked out—and never came back.
Hu Qing sobbed and clutched Xuan Xue to her chest. “Isn’t this like carving flesh out of me?”
If she’d known she’d feel this kind of heart-scooping pain in canyon realm, she would’ve charged straight for heaven’s grace continent even if it tore her apart.
It was all Juan Bu’s fault—what kind of rotten method had he taught her?
Juan Bu sighed. “Fine. Blame me. I’m terrible. But listen—you’re not marrying off a daughter. Xuan Xue is going back to its real home.”
Hu Qing cried until her throat hurt.
Xuan Xue and the extreme yin energy around them waited, patient and steady, until her sobs finally eased.
Hu Qing wiped her face and forced herself to breathe. She pinched the edge of a leaf like she used to. “Go home. Be good.”
The leaf tightened around her finger, then slowly let go.
You be good too.
A vast, invisible force pressed in and lifted Hu Qing upward.
Hu Qing shouted as she rose, “Be good—”
As Juan Bu brushed past the flowerpot in that instant, he sent a wordless message into the trembling hush:
You can come find Hu Qing anytime. You’ll be able to find her.