Li Nanzhu felt the world spinning around her. She stumbled, nearly falling to the ground, but luckily Suisui supported her just in time.
Xiao Yan's figure appeared exceptionally clear amidst the collapsing secret realm. He raised his hand and formed a seal, and a burst of green light temporarily stabilized the space around them. "Listen, the inheritance secret realm can only last for half an incense stick of time at most."
Li Nanzhu's lips trembled. "Master..."
"There are only two choices now." Xiao Yan spoke rapidly. "Either let my inheritance vanish along with the secret realm, or..." His gaze landed on Li Nanzhu. "I will use the Empowerment Technique to transmit the rest directly to you."
Suisui suddenly chattered loudly, its bone claws pointing desperately at the green light within its own skull, then pointing back at Xiao Yan.
"It's useless, little skeleton." Xiao Yan gave a bitter smile. "Empowerment will drain my divine soul all at once. Even the Life-Giving Creation Pearl won't have time to replenish it."
Li Nanzhu's mind raced frantically. "Master! If we just need to preserve the inheritance, we could—"
"There is no time for slow teaching." Xiao Yan interrupted her, his voice unusually gentle. "Besides..." He looked at his already translucent palm. "This was the very reason for the existence of this strand of my divine soul."
As the pillars of the bamboo house came crashing down, Suisui quickly deployed its bone shield to protect the three of them. Tears finally fell from Li Nanzhu's eyes. "But..."
"No buts." Xiao Yan suddenly tapped her forehead with his fan, the touch as light as a feather. "There are three things I have been most proud of in this life—"
"First, at sixteen, I created the Qingming Alchemy Art."
"Second, at twenty, I made a few true friends."
He paused, the tip of his fan gently lifting Li Nanzhu's chin. "Third, I took a little fool like you as my disciple."
Li Nanzhu's tears splashed onto the fan, reflecting Xiao Yan's fading silhouette. Suisui paced in circles nearby, its soul fire burning so high it nearly reached the top of its head.
"Now, sit cross-legged." Xiao Yan's voice suddenly became solemn. "Li Nanzhu, the sole successor of the Qingming lineage, receive my inheritance."
Li Nanzhu bit her lip hard, not kneeling mechanically until she tasted the iron of blood. She knew this was her master's final command.
She could not let him down. She could not. This was his final wish.
Xiao Yan's sleeves began to turn transparent, yet he maintained his seal-forming posture.
When his fingertip touched the center of Li Nanzhu's brow, she shuddered violently—it was not a simple memory transfer. Instead, every detail of alchemy was carved into her divine soul as a tangible sensation of pain. In an instant, countless memories surged in like a tide.
Three hundred and sixty-five basic pill formulas unfurled like a scroll;
Seventy-two volumes of rare pharmacopeias turned their pages deep within her consciousness;
Twelve unique techniques manifested as shadow figures, practicing repeatedly;
Finally, a fragment of unfamiliar memory: a young Xiao Yan kneeling in the snow, while a white-haired elder pressed a jade slip against his forehead: "Remember, the Dao of alchemy is the Dao of the heart."
"Mas... ter..." she murmured deep within her consciousness.
In reality, Xiao Yan's figure was rapidly dissipating. Suisui desperately tried to pass the green light from its soul fire to him, but it had no effect. The specks of light drifted toward the collapsing eaves of the bamboo courtyard, toward the withered bamboo forest, and finally vanished into the cracks in the sky.
Xiao Yan's fan handle lightly tapped Suisui's skull, making a clear 'ding' sound.
This unique way of parting between them caused Suisui's soul fire to suddenly go still.
"Little skeleton," Xiao Yan's voice was already too faint to hear. "In the future... don't let her... work too hard..."
Li Nanzhu's divine soul began to vibrate violently. The excessive inheritance memories caused her vision to black out in waves, and a sharp ringing filled her ears. In the final moment before falling into complete darkness, she saw her master's last spectral image dissolve into a sky full of green light, and the green jade fan that never left his side began to slowly fall.
She reached out with the last of her strength—
The moment the cool handle of the fan met her hand, Suisui erupted with an unprecedented shriek.
The little skeleton's body clattered apart and reassembled in the air into a seamless bone cage. Li Nanzhu felt herself being wrapped in countless bone segments, and she vaguely heard Xiao Yan's final voice.
"The heaven won't fal—"
The roar of the entire secret realm collapsing swallowed the rest of the sentence. The bone cage shook violently in the spatial turbulence. Li Nanzhu's last perception before losing consciousness was the jade fan clutched tightly in her hand and the intermittent chattering of Suisui coming from her soul fire.
...
In the outside world, the mountain collapsed with an earth-shattering roar.
Countless fungal threads swarmed out. Everyone was doing their best to keep these mycelia confined within a certain range, not allowing even a single thread the chance to escape.
Just then, a dazzling green light suddenly erupted from the deepest part of the cave dwelling.
That green light was like the first ray of dawn, appearing exceptionally bright and piercing through the dust, instantly illuminating all the darkness.
Ling Xiao's sword qi suddenly froze. He stared intently at the depths of the cave dwelling—the place where the green light had erupted was the very core where the mycelia were most dense.
"That is..." Zhao Wufeng's spiritual energy also contracted sharply.
Wherever the green light passed, the blue mycelia melted away at a visible rate, like thin snow under a scorching sun.
"Get back!" Ling Xiao shouted, his sword qi forming a light screen in front of him.
In the next instant, the green light erupted again, and ten figures were forcibly ejected from the cave dwelling. They maintained their cultivation postures as they landed, their faces filled with confusion.
"What's happening?" Duan Xianxing sprang to his feet, his sword qi instinctively gathering in his hand. "Weren't we in—"
His voice cut off abruptly. Before him were three Soul Transformation cultivators standing as if facing a great enemy, surrounded by a floor of melting blue mycelia.
"Qu Chen?!" Ling Xiao's sword trembled for the first time. An unbelievable joy surfaced on his usually cold face.
He watched as his three disciples appeared before him unharmed—Qu Chen and Le Changxi were still in their sword-swinging stances, while Cang Dongqing even maintained her meditative posture.
On the other side, Lin Shuang's hands were covered in ice crystals, appearing as though she had also been in the middle of cultivation.
Zhao Wufeng was also stunned, the seal half-formed in his hands freezing in place. "You..." The usually steady sect leader of the Sword Heart Sect spoke with a trembling voice. "You're still alive?"
Liu Changhe rushed forward, grabbing Liu Qingyang's shoulder. "Qingyang!" The father's hand shook violently as he looked his son up and down. "Are you hurt?"
But before the other could speak, Liu Changhe's expression suddenly became extremely strange.
Liu Qingyang's headscarf had long since flown off. His head of green hair was exceptionally striking under the reflection of the green light, instantly making him the center of attention.
However, this joy did not last for more than a moment before everyone's attention was drawn back to the anomalies in the area.
"Quick!" Zhao Wufeng was the first to react. "Clear out the remaining mycelia first!"
The three Soul Transformation cultivators acted simultaneously. Ling Xiao's sword qi shredded the last few clusters of mycelia; Zhao Wufeng's spiritual energy turned into a sky full of rock spikes, precisely pinning down every escaping centipede; and Liu Changhe manipulated his magic tools to form walls of fire, completely cutting off any possibility of the mycelia regenerating.
As the last trace of mycelium turned to ash in the flames, and the elders were about to breathe a sigh of relief, Ling Xiao's sword suddenly left its sheath once more.
"There's still a fish that slipped through the net!"
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