The ascent to the Misty Peak Sect was a spectacle designed to crush the egos of mortals.
The colossal carriage, pulled by the four black horses, advanced slowly along a white‑stone path carved in a spiral around a pillar of colossal rock. Below them, the sea of gray clouds hid the lower world. Above, needles of black stone pierced the sky, connected by majestic suspension bridges made of iron chains and hardwood, wide enough for ten carriages to pass side by side.
The world up there was vast—a true suspended city. Yù Méi, sitting on the carriage's driver's seat, widened her eyes as she observed the sect's monumental structure.
It was not merely an isolated clan. It was an empire above the clouds. Tens of thousands of people lived on those peaks. On the lower paths, mortals and outer disciples in gray robes carried water and ore up staircases of ten thousand endless steps, their backs bent by the weight of servitude. Higher up, in pavilions carved directly into the mountain, inner disciples in blue robes meditated in unison, their voices echoing through the valley like a religious chant. And on the highest peaks, crossing the abyss between the stone needles, core disciples in white robes flew on swords, leaving trails of light in the air like daytime shooting stars.
The grandeur of the place was undeniable. It was a giant machine of power, hierarchy, and dogma that ruled the South with an iron fist.
Lín Xiù led the escort, flying gracefully on her silver sword a few meters ahead of the carriage. The white and blue silks of her robe fluttered perfectly, her chin raised at an angle calculated to exude nobility and purity.
From inside the luxurious cabin, Zhì Yuǎn observed the "fairy." But his black, unfathomable eyes did not see the woman's beauty or the sect's grandeur. They saw only the flow of energy, dissecting the farce with the coldness of a scholar examining a worm.
He watched how the old virgin's Qi was injected into her blade, forcing a crude vibratory resonance against the mountain air's density. It was a mechanical effort, rigid, full of leaks. The sect's flight technique required constant micro‑adjustments just to keep the sword from flipping over, draining the cultivator's energy every second. They did not understand the physics of space; they merely memorized mantras from a dead Transcendent Age, blindly imitating a science they could not read.
"She wastes seventy percent of her Qi just to keep her back straight and appear majestic," Zhì Yuǎn murmured, his deep, passionless voice dismissing the pathetic display as his eyes turned to the colossal pillars of the mountain—the true skeletons of the Spatial Matrices he had come to study.
Yù Qíng smiled. The sweet, dark smile of one who evaluates the quality of fertilizer before tossing it into the garden. In that moment of comfort, isolated in the luxury cabin's dimness, the Floating Lotus Step technique was deactivated. She did not need to repel the ground to avoid getting dirty when she could simply anchor herself in her heaven.
She was nestled in her husband's lap, her legs folded elegantly, her bare feet sinking into the soft bristles of the black velvet carpet. Her back rested against Zhì Yuǎn's broad, warm chest, absorbing the constant, oppressive pulse of his Inner Universe.
A low moan, a guttural sound laden with lazy sensuality, vibrated in Yù Qíng's throat as she slid her body minutely backward, rubbing against him.
"She needs an audience, my heaven," Yù Qíng whispered, her voice soft as velvet, her fingertips brushing her husband's neck. "Insects that build tall nests are very afraid that others might forget to look up."
Instead of turning back to watch the fairy preening outside, Yù Qíng lifted her face toward Zhì Yuǎn's lips. She pulled him down by the collar of his charcoal‑gray tunic, and what was meant to be a poetic, ironic comment transformed into a slow, deep, possessive kiss. The world outside, with its arrogant wooden bridges and deluded cultivators, simply ceased to exist.
The kiss stretched for long minutes, his infinite Yang and her submissive Yin dancing in a warm, wet exchange that quickly made her breath falter. His hands slid down to grip her waist possessively, and the muffled sounds of lust and saliva echoed through the closed cabin, drowning them in a visceral desire that completely ignored the existence of the sect awaiting them just ahead.
On the carriage's outer bench, Yù Méi rolled her eyes, aggressively chewing a piece of dried meat. For her, the entire journey was excruciating boredom. The pressure of Qi in the mountain air was thick and delicious, but the physical weakness she sensed in the auras of those thousands of disciples was disappointing.
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The Serene Wind Plateau was the peak reserved for "Honored Guests." It was an immense courtyard, adorned with white‑stone gardens, koi ponds, and pavilions of fine wood built directly onto the mountain's ancient black rock.
As soon as the carriage stopped, Lín Xiù dismounted from her sword with excessive grace, sheathing the blade in a fluid motion. She walked to the carriage, her eyes fixed on the cabin door, her eighty‑year‑old heart beating with the nervousness of an inexperienced maiden at the height of an imaginary romance.
Zhì Yuǎn was the first to descend. The charcoal‑gray tunic fell perfectly over his body, and the black silk cloak seemed to swallow the afternoon light. He did not look at Lín Xiù. He did not look at the stunning gardens or the dozens of bowed servants. He walked directly to the edge of the plateau, stopped before an exposed wall of black rock from the colossal pillar, and touched the stone, his mind instantly navigating the remnants of spatial laws embedded in the foundation.
Lín Xiù felt her chest tighten with admiration. A true Senior, she thought, sighing internally. Unmoved by worldly trivialities, indifferent to luxury. His mind must be communing with the Dao of the Mountain.
Before she could approach to offer him tea and company, Yù Qíng descended from the carriage.
Lín Xiù stiffened. To the sect's "genius," the woman in the navy‑blue dress was nothing but an inconvenient ornament. Lín Xiù's gaze swept over Yù Qíng with calculated superiority, detecting the absence of aggressive Qi fluctuations (since Yù Qíng's Sea of Devotion was so unfathomable it appeared as still water to such limited vision). Jealousy of Yù Qíng's transcendent beauty had forced Lín Xiù's arrogant mind to a ridiculous conclusion: that pale goddess could only be an artificially beautified mortal.
"Madam," Lín Xiù said, forcing a tone of courtesy as she extended a small, luxurious sandalwood box. "The air of Misty Peak is heavy for unrefined constitutions. These are Crystal Dew Pills, forged in our finest furnaces. They will help preserve the luster of your mortal skin, so that the altitude does not punish your beauty, and so that you do not become a burden to the Senior's cultivation as the years pass."
Yù Qíng did not blink. Her black, unfathomable eyes descended to the box, then to the face of the "young" elder, dissecting in a second the decades of reclusion, the stagnant virginity, and Lín Xiù's fragile vanity.
Yù Qíng took no offense. On the contrary, her lips curved into a smile that exuded terrifying poetry.
"Young Mistress Lín is of admirably generous spirit," Yù Qíng replied, her voice melodious and velvety, tilting her head slightly in false reverence. "Few seeds are willing to offer their own nutrients to the soil before even sprouting. I will care for your offering with the same tenderness with which the tree receives the rain."
Lín Xiù frowned for a fraction of a second, confused by the elaborate poetry, but the submissive, polished tone massaged her inflated ego. She smiled back, feeling magnanimous for having exercised the charity of an "immortal" toward a mere concubine.
At the back of the courtyard, unloading a trunk from the cart, Yù Méi snorted, choking on a piece of apple.
Seed, tree, nutrients, Yù Méi translated in her carnivorous mind, shaking her head in disbelief. Holy shit. Sister just thanked the idiot for offering herself as fertilizer, and the fool actually smiles.
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Three days passed on the Serene Wind Plateau.
The Trinity's routine became a spectacle of mutual ignorance. Zhì Yuǎn spent entire days standing at the edge of the abyss or touching the black rock, sending threads of Primordial Qi to test the dead Matrix's resilience.
Lín Xiù began visiting them daily, always under the pretext of "checking the accommodations." She wore her finest silks and trained in the white‑stone garden just behind Zhì Yuǎn. She performed her most sophisticated Crescent Cloud Sword Dance, manipulating Qi to create illusions of light swallows and swirling wind currents around her body. She thought she was dazzling. A celestial spectacle.
To Zhì Yuǎn, she was the equivalent of a fly buzzing around a scholar in a library. He did not even turn his neck.
But if the sect's "genius" display was ignored by the god, the rest of the sect's training was a source of pure sadistic entertainment for the Brutal Blade.
Bored to the bone, Yù Méi began exploring the surroundings of the guest pavilion. On the afternoon of the third day, she found an observation terrace overlooking a training arena embedded a thousand meters below. Over five hundred inner disciples practiced there.
Yù Méi propped herself on the stone railing, chewing a roasted bird thigh, and watched.
The mortal cultivators in blue robes swung their swords in unison. They leaped into the air spinning like tops, shouting poetic names like "Autumn Leaf Cut" and "Phantom Swallow Step." Their swords gleamed with the thin Qi they could extract from their dantians. It was a beautiful display. Choreographed. Perfect for impressing city folk.
Yù Méi chewed a piece of bone, accidentally cracking it with the strength of her jaw, and spat the fragments into the abyss.
What a bunch of suicidal idiots, she thought, her predatory mind dissecting the movements with the cynicism forged in years of torture and brutal beatings. Why did he jump so high? The fool just left his liver and left ribs exposed for three whole seconds in the air. I could rip his spine out through his neck before he finishes that spin.
For the Impatient Petal, whose dense body had been flooded with Qi until her bones were harder than iron, this was not martial training. It was flashy dancing. A stupid waste of energy full of fatal openings. The boredom she felt began to transform into an uncontrollable urge to go down there and break some of those "dancers'" legs just to teach them the weight of reality.
She shook her head and laughed loudly, a nasal, disdainful sound that tore through the serenity of the mountain air.
The sound did not go unnoticed.
On the jade staircase near the observation terrace, a young man stopped. He wore pure white robes with silver embroidery on his shoulders—the uniform of a Core Disciple. His features were handsome, aristocratic, but marred by a sharp arrogance. It was Mù Chén.
For days, Mù Chén's blood had boiled with jealousy. The woman he courted, the untouchable Lín Xiù, had been demeaning herself like a lovesick servant around the "Mysterious Guest" who said not a word. Mù Chén's ego, forged in praise and subservience within Misty Peak, could not bear the humiliation. And now, to make matters worse, one of the guest's "mortal" concubines was on the sect's sacred terrace, eating meat with dirty hands and mocking the sacred Sword Art of his lineage.
Mù Chén narrowed his eyes. If he could not confront the unfathomable guest whom the Grand Elder had ordered treated with respect, he could certainly humiliate the vulgar women accompanying him, putting them in their proper place.
He placed his hand on the hilt of his sword and began climbing the stairs toward Yù Méi, deliberately emanating the crushing pressure of his eighth‑mortal‑realm Qi.
On the terrace, Yù Méi stopped chewing. She felt the "crushing pressure" trying to push her down, like a warm breeze trying to topple a boulder. She slowly turned her face, her almond eyes descending to the young white‑robed master approaching with hostile intent.
A wide, predatory, genuinely happy smile tore across the Untouchable Petal's face. Lunch could wait. Dessert had finally arrived.
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