Eastern Kingdom, Divine Wood Palace, Blooming Flowers Valley.
"Master, what is this Qiao Ruohe anyway? How could he possibly be worthy of becoming my cultivation partner?" said the Chief Disciple.
"Silence," snapped the Master, slamming her hand against the table.
"Do you have any idea who he is?
If you undergo Dual Cultivation with him, there are three distinct benefits that will serve you for a lifetime.
Moreover, you will also help your master achieve a tremendous breakthrough in cultivation."
Before the Master could finish listing the three benefits, the Chief Disciple interrupted, "But..."
Seeing an unprecedented wrath written across her Master's face, she shrank back in fear.
*I am going to kill him,* thought the Chief Disciple, consumed by grievance.
She was, after all, the proud Chief Disciple of Blooming Flowers Valley in the Divine Wood Palace, an object of adoration for thousands of junior brothers and sisters.
How could she ever willingly consent to marry a low-cultivation man from some impoverished village at the edge of the mountains?
How could a person like that ever be worthy of her?
Besides, she had been cultivating for five years. Now nineteen years of age, she possessed a refined and delicate beauty.
Furthermore, her comprehension was exceptionally high; she was already at the late Spirit Controlling stage and on the verge of breaking through to the Out-of-Body Stage.
Meanwhile, Qiao Ruohe's cultivation was shallow—he had only just learned the basics of spirit-controlling arts.
Even if she were to overlook his poverty and weakness, what he had done to her a month ago was utterly unforgivable.
...
A month ago, the Divine Wood Palace held a trial for new disciples.
Drawing upon his innate tenacity never to give up through the three trials, Qiao Ruohe had stood out among more than a thousand candidates.
He was one of the four initiates who passed the trial and earned the right to join the sect.
Yet to cultivate immortality, one must possess root bones aligned with any of the Five Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, or Earth.
Among the four, he alone was a mortal body utterly devoid of root bones.
Consequently, the Divine Wood Palace turned him away at the gates.
Dejected, he began his trudge back, only to be intercepted by a gang of youths who had long since failed and been eliminated from the trials.
The ringleader drove the others back, picked up a massive boulder, and prepared to bludgeon him to death.
Driven to a breaking point, Qiao Ruohe let out a roar and shoved his assailant away.
The man's hand slipped, and as he fell, his head struck the ground alongside the stone, cracking open his skull and killing him instantly.
Seeing Qiao Ruohe's hands and face smeared with fresh blood, and witnessing the unyielding determination in his eyes,
the crowd—though outnumbering him heavily—felt a sudden surge of terror.
And when they caught sight of the brain matter and pus continuously leaking from the ringleader's split skull,
the terrified lads grabbed their heads and fled in all directions, someone screaming, "Qiao Ruohe has killed a man!"
"Go back and tell the village elders to kill his crazy, violent father!"
"And his mother, his younger brother, and sister. Since he couldn't enter the immortal gates this time, his entire family is going to die."
Having walked all the way from his village to the immortal mountains, Qiao Ruohe had long since exhausted his food and water.
Now, his face ashen and his body utterly drained of strength, he collapsed to the ground and lost consciousness.
Had it not been for an elder of the Fengyu Forest in the Divine Wood Palace who took him in,
he likely would have been beaten to death on the spot by those youths returning with iron tools and heavy branches.
That elder had the hair of a crane and the complexion of a child, his eyes shining like stars.
The moment he laid eyes on Qiao Ruohe, he perceived the youth's extraordinary nature.
The trial officials of the Divine Wood Palace lacked high cultivation and could only detect that Qiao Ruohe possessed no Five Elements attributes, hence rejecting his entry.
Yet they failed to see that hidden deep within the youth's Origin Core was a lurking shadow, marking him as no ordinary mortal.
When the Elder flew across the trial forest on his sword and probed the shadow within Qiao Ruohe's Origin Core,
he first stood frozen in astonishment, then nodded with a smile.
Without delay, he took the boy into the Fengyu Forest to perform menial chores such as fetching water, chopping firewood, and stringing wind chimes.
Thus, although Qiao Ruohe had not formally entered as a disciple of the Divine Wood Palace,
he was permitted to move about the sect's Fengyu Forest.
Having entered the immortal gates to do odd jobs, he finally caught a glimmer of hope.
Over the past ten days to half a month, he had been sneaking over to the border of the Fengyu Forest.
From there, leaning against the cliff edge, he could gaze far down at the Blooming Flowers Valley thousands of feet below.
Qiao Ruohe wanted to sneak into the valley.
Not because immortals and maidens frequently flew there to gather flowers,
but because he had a strict deadline of three months.
If he failed to return to his village with the immortal art of soul-returning or a Soul-Returning Immortal Pill, his entire family would die.
Half a month ago, his father had encountered a calamity on his way home from trading medicines,
turning into a delirious, inhuman blue-eyed ferocious beast that went on a rampage, killing and injuring people in the village.
Led by the village chief, the villagers bound the deranged father with iron chains in the woodshed.
Piling firewood all around, they prepared to burn him alive.
Draped in the white mourning garb of filial piety,
Qiao Ruohe could only prepare for his father's funeral.
Had a wandering Daoist priest not happened to pass by,
directing him to seek out an immortal cultivation sect to apprentice and find a cure,
claiming he could either obtain immortal arts from the Divine Wood Palace or find a Soul-Returning Immortal Pill in a place called Blooming Flowers Valley within the palace grounds to restore his father's soul,
his entire family of five would surely have perished after his father's death.
Thus, Qiao Ruohe was forced onto this path of seeking immortality and medicine.
Having originally been rejected by the sect and left with nowhere to turn,
he now clutched at the shelter provided by Elder Fengyu like a drowning man grasping a straw.
Yet why did Elder Fengyu refuse to teach him the foundational ways of immortal cultivation?
Even less would he impart the immortal art of soul-returning.
Let alone the difficulty of finding a Soul-Returning Immortal Pill, he had not even seen a single ordinary pill.
Every day, apart from fetching water and chopping firewood, his only companions were the wind chimes.
Seeing that fourteen or fifteen days of the three-month limit had already slipped by,
anxiety gnawed at his heart for the safety of his family.
Now that he had finally managed to stay within the Divine Wood Palace, he was resolved to use any means—even unprincipled ones—to bring the immortal pill back.
On this particular day, the wind chimes in the Fengyu Forest remained silent.
He immediately understood that the Elder was not in the forest today, making it the perfect opportunity to slip down to Blooming Flowers Valley and procure the soul-returning medicine.
Returning to his bamboo hut, he packed dry rations and coarse flatbreads, slung a water skin over his shoulder, grabbed a dagger, and prepared to climb down the cliff toward Blooming Flowers Valley.
The Fengyu Forest was quite vast; after walking for about an hour and a half, he was still seven or eight li away from the cliff edge.
Qiao Ruohe sat down behind a blue boulder and began to gnaw on a coarse flatbread.
Suddenly, the sounds of combat echoed from the heavens.
Three flying cultivators were locked in a fierce battle.
Two immortal maidens were ganging up on a man in black.
The black-robed cultivator unleashed a fireball spell three zhang wide,
hurling it toward the two maidens soaring on swords in the sky.
One of the maidens evaded it in time, emerging completely unscathed.
The other was half a beat too slow, and a piercing scream rang out as the raging flames engulfed her.
Unsteady on her flying sword amidst the roaring fire,
she plunged down into the Fengyu Forest, crashing directly into the opposite side of the boulder where Qiao Ruohe was taking shelter.
With a thunderous crash and a violent shock,
even Qiao Ruohe's water skin was dislodged and thrown onto the forest floor.
He tilted his head to look, seeing the woman screaming, rolling, and struggling frantically.
Yet the demonic flames refused to be extinguished.
Terrified and panicked, she cried out to the cyan-robed maiden in the sky, "Chief Disciple, save me!"
Before her voice even faded, the blazing inferno swallowed her face.
The other maiden formed a hand seal, executing a vine spell designed to entangle human bodies,
engaging the man in black in a clash of spells against his palm-fireball.
After fighting for the span of an incense stick, the cyan-robed maiden gradually began to lose the upper hand.
Suddenly, she brandished a strange Dharma Treasure that radiated a cyan light bright enough to outshine the night sky,
instantly blinding the man in black.
Seizing that exact moment, the maiden hurled a dozen or so talismans from both her hands, scattering them in all directions.
"My Master will arrive in a fraction of an instant. Let's see where you, vile thief, can run to."
Hearing this, the black-robed cultivator let out a cold laugh, channeled the spiritual Qi beneath his feet, and fled swiftly away.
Not long after the man departed, the cyan-robed maiden, who had been standing steadily on the tip of her sword, suddenly swayed from side to side.
Plummeting from the sky, she crashed down beside the charred corpse and lay entirely motionless, without the slightest stir.
Fearing that the black-robed cultivator might return, Qiao Ruohe waited, hiding for a short while.
Only then did he step out from behind the blue boulder and approach the fallen maiden.
He saw that she possessed a cyan robe and a jade-like face, with a cinnabar mole embedded right between her eyebrows.
Though her face was smudged with some mud, it could not conceal her exquisite beauty.