Chapter 71

Chapter 71: Secrets Beneath the Lake

Shao Heng rarely found herself amused. She snorted. “Shameless Little Dragon.”

As for the demon core Ao Chuan never mentioned and quietly pocketed, Shao Heng let it go. Considering how well he’d behaved lately, she chose to turn a blind eye.

A demon core contained the essence of a demon cultivator’s life. Compared to Human Clan cultivators, demon cultivators’ spirit power was often more violent, their qi and blood more turbid. Most of the time, demon cores were used for pill-making, talisman crafting, or as materials for arrays and artifact refinement.

With Shao Heng’s current cultivation, refining a demon core directly to increase her realm would take far too long. Origin-Nourishing Qi-Raising Art circulated with a calm, gentle rhythm. To use such a violent core, she would need to spend endless hours purging impurities bit by bit—slower than normal cultivation, and not worth it.

Ao Chuan, however, was a heavenly demon. His body was strong enough, and the True Dragon inheritance techniques in his bloodline were fierce and overbearing. If he swallowed a demon core, he could increase his cultivation quickly. For him, the gain was real.

Shao Heng hadn’t taken any serious damage dealing with the queen. She’d only burned through spirit power. After swallowing two Origin-Restoring Pills, she continued east at a measured pace.

As she walked, she recovered. More than an hour later, she returned to the lake.

Ji Xuan Yin and Ji Fei Guang were no longer there.

The lake spread wide and still. The last time Shao Heng dove, she hadn’t been able to reach the bottom.

Ao Chuan’s voice drifted from her arm, suspicious. “Why did you come back? Haven’t we already been here?”

“The secret realm’s been open for over a month,” Shao Heng said quietly, eyes scanning the surface. “Plenty of people have come to dig spirit lotus roots and search for Shattered Moon. But look.”

Lotus leaves layered the water in deep green, broad and healthy. Lotus blossoms still stood delicate and bright, untouched by any true decay. It didn’t look like the roots had been stripped at all.

She glanced around. There were 70 to 80 percent fewer cultivators than last time. The two sects’ disciples had clearly grown tired of wasting effort here.

“Cultivators can’t find spirit lotus roots or Shattered Moon,” she continued, “but the lotus still has nourishment. It hasn’t withered even a little.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Which means the source isn’t on the surface.”

Ao Chuan went quiet.

“Maybe there’s something strange at the bottom of this lake,” Shao Heng finished.

She’d returned because it was close—and because she’d wanted to see if the Ji siblings were still nearby.

But seeing the lake’s stubborn vitality, she changed her plan.

Shao Heng dove in headfirst. A water-avoidance spell wrapped her in a faintly glowing membrane, and she shot downward through the cold, dark water.

Sludge rose in drifting clouds. She pushed through it and asked, “How is it? Can your Dragon Pupil Art see anything?”

“No,” Ao Chuan replied, irritated. “Same as before. The lotus interferes. All I can make out is layer after layer of illusions.”

Shao Heng’s spirit sense had strengthened—she could split it into four threads now—but it didn’t help. She still couldn’t sense anything beneath the lotus’ veil.

[The roots were taken and the flowers lost their stems, yet they haven’t weakened. They still disrupt every probing method just like before.]

Her curiosity sharpened into certainty.

She kept diving. The water pressure grew heavier. The membrane of her water-avoidance spell began to tremble, close to shattering.

The dragon-mark on her arm flashed white.

Dragon-scale patterns unfurled across the membrane, and it abruptly hardened, as solid as iron.

Bang!

Hiss!

Long snakes appeared, just like before. The moment they emerged, they slammed into the barrier in a frenzy, trying to crush it with their bodies.

Ao Chuan’s tone turned smug. “Tiny snakes, behave. My dragon-armor heavenly demon art isn’t something you can break.”

He’d only recently broken through to late First Realm, and his confidence swelled with it.

The snakes crashed again and again, but the dragon-scale light held. Not a single crack appeared—at first.

Shao Heng continued downward. As she pushed through thicker sludge, she found two lotus-root segments buried deep. They weren’t the snowy white spirit lotus roots from earlier. These were thicker, tinged purple-white, and faintly luminous even through the mud.

At the same time, the pressure grew heavier. More snakes gathered. Their bodies packed around her like a writhing wall.

A crack finally appeared in the barrier.

Ao Chuan stopped boasting. He simply poured in more spirit power, silent and stubborn, reinforcing the dragon-scale light as it wavered on the verge of collapse.

Finally, Shao Heng reached the deepest part of the lakebed. The snakes were packed so tightly she couldn’t count them, layered over each other, winding around the barrier and straining to shatter it.

She landed on the lakebed.

The soil beneath her feet was firmer than the sludge above, but still loose—unnatural, as if something beneath had been disturbed and never settled back into place.

Shao Heng pressed her toes down.

Her eyes brightened.

Without hesitation, she used an earth-escape technique and drilled downward.

The snakes that had pursued her so fiercely scattered at once, as if repelled.

The icy aura vanished.

Heat rushed at her face.

She pushed toward the source. The barrier around her had already broken. Water was left behind; dry air baked her skin. Her pale flesh flushed red, then began to sting, then burn.

By the time she reached the core, her whole body felt parched and peeling. If Azure Emperor hadn’t been feeding her life force nonstop, she would’ve been roasted into a husk.

Shao Heng wrapped spirit power around her hands, reached forward, and seized the heart of the heat.

A pale red orb, crystal clear.

When she looked closer, she saw a lotus shadow suspended inside it, like a bloom trapped in glass.

“Little White Dragon,” she asked, keeping her breath steady, “can you tell what this is?”

Ao Chuan rummaged through his bloodline inheritance, then grudgingly admitted, “No. It should be some kind of natural spiritual treasure.”

In this world, yin and yang balanced each other. Extreme yin birthed yang. This lake was thick with yin qi and had spawned countless long snakes—yet at the bottom sat a pure yang treasure like this.

The moment Shao Heng held it, she understood why the lake had blocked every probing method.

“Pure yin qi can’t sustain life,” she murmured. “The lotus leaves and flowers survived because this orb provided light and heat. When yin and yang intertwine, it stirs the lake’s flow into chaos. That’s why scouting spells failed.”

She worked her spell, letting moonlight seep into the yang orb. When the scorching heat finally dulled in her palm, she knew she’d refined it at a basic level.

Then she drew it into her qi sea.

Ao Chuan’s voice went hoarse with desire. “That—this spirit orb…”

He sounded like he was trying not to drool.

Shao Heng didn’t even look at him. “Don’t even think about it. This pearl is rare. The yin qi here is unbelievably dense, so when things swung back, the yang qi that was born became incredibly pure. It’s a secret treasure on the level of the Phoenix jade ring.”

She paused, feeling the new warmth settle into her meridians like a steady sun behind cloud.

“With it supporting me, the Golden Crow Sun-Embracing Visualization Art—limited because I lack sun radiance—might recover its true power.”

Ao Chuan grumbled, but he knew that if he made a scene, Shao Heng would tighten his leash instead of letting him roam. So he swallowed his frustration and went silent.

Once Shao Heng took the pearl, her spirit sense snapped into clarity.

She didn’t linger. She drilled out at top speed and shot upward through the lake.

The lotus flowers across the surface hadn’t fully withered, but they’d lost their earlier vitality. Cultivators in the water stared, stunned—and then, one by one, their expressions changed as they realized their spirit sense could finally function normally again.

The lake erupted into chaos.

Everyone began gathering what remained of the spirit lotus roots and Shattered Moon with frenzied speed. Shouts rang out. Swords flashed. Spells collided.

Shao Heng didn’t leave immediately. She blended into the scramble instead, gathering quickly with her restored spirit sense and Ao Chuan’s Dragon Pupil Art assisting.

If she withdrew the moment probing returned, someone sharp-eyed would notice.