"..."
"I said, you are no match for me. You haven't even stepped into the Earth Profound Realm yet—what do you think you can fight me with?" Mo Yang released his grip as he spoke, but at the very instant he let go, he lightly flicked the tip of the sword with his finger. The longsword hummed, and Xu Xin was forced back step by step, the sword nearly slipping from her grasp.
Xu Xin's face flushed crimson. She only managed to steady herself when she reached Su Feier's side, staring at Mo Yang with a mixture of shock and suspicion as massive waves churned in her heart.
Just now, Mo Yang hadn't channeled his true qi at all. How could he possibly possess such terrifying strength?
Five distinct fingerprints were clearly branded into the blade of the longsword, and the metal had actually been somewhat deformed by his pinch.
"Senior Sister Xu, what happened earlier was just a misunderstanding. It's not Mo Yang's fault!" Knowing how fiery her Senior Sister's temper was, Su Feier spoke up in a hurried rush, terrified that another fight would break out.
"Junior Sister, you're still covering for him? I swear, your brain must have been scrambled by his love potions!" Xu Xin looked at Su Feier with a mix of exasperation and disappointment.
She felt as though Su Feier had turned into a completely different person; in the past, her junior sister would have been right on the sidelines cheering her on.
"No, Senior Sister, you really can't beat him!" Su Feier said, her face red.
Lowering her voice, she added, "This guy is insanely strong right now. You have no idea—his cultivation is practically at the Heaven Profound Realm!"
Xu Xin had been on the verge of attacking again, but upon hearing Su Feier's words, her body froze in place. She shot a quick glance at Mo Yang before hurriedly turning back to interrogate Su Feier. "What did you say?"
"Half a month ago, he was already at the mid-level 3 Earth Profound Realm. The Supreme Elder said it himself!"
Hearing this, Xu Xin raised her head to look at Mo Yang. After a moment of silence, she said, "It seems Senior Brother Qi was right. You really are hiding a lot!"
Mo Yang let out a helpless, light sigh. "I'm not hiding anything. I just want to cultivate in peace and don't want to be disturbed by others!"
"Hmph! Polite on the outside, rotten on the inside. Just you wait, I haven't heard the last of you!" Giving Mo Yang a cold glare, Xu Xin turned on her heel and strode out of the courtyard.
With such a massive disparity in cultivation—a full major realm apart—she knew that staying any longer would only invite humiliation.
However, just as she reached the courtyard gate, she turned back around. Looking immensely irritated, she snapped at Su Feier, "Are you coming or not?"
With that, she grabbed Su Feier and dragged her straight out of the courtyard by brute force.
"Senior Sister, I need to talk to him!"
"You're too young, don't let him trick you. This guy doesn't look like anything good..."
"Senior Sister, I'm not that young anymore, and he's actually not a bad person..."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner that he was at the Earth Profound Realm?"
...
Listening to the fading sounds of argument, Mo Yang was left utterly speechless.
How could someone as handsome, dashing, peerless, and upright as himself...
ever be mistaken for a bad guy?
Was there even a more exceptional man in existence than him?
"Ah... the world is simple; it's people who are complicated..."
Mo Yang shook his head helplessly, then resumed his cross-legged meditation to regulate his breath.
Not long after, however, Su Feier returned. She sneaked quietly back into the courtyard, leaning against the doorway as she peered curiously at Mo Yang.
"Come on in, stop acting so sneaky." Mo Yang opened his eyes and added, "As it happens, I have something for you."
Excitement lit up Su Feier's face. She trotted over to Mo Yang and asked, "What good thing?"
Mo Yang took out two white jade bottles and handed them over. "One bottle is of Beauty-Preservation Pills, and the other is Marrow-Cleansing Pills. Take one Marrow-Cleansing Pill every day to purge the impurities and filth from your body..."
At that, Su Feier's big eyes curved into crescent moons. She eagerly snatched the two bottles, stashing them away carefully without even bothering to look inside. Then, she spun around a few times in front of Mo Yang and asked expectantly, "Do you notice anything different about me compared to before?"
Mo Yang desperately wanted to tell this little girl that her brain seemed to have short-circuited lately, but he managed to swallow the words before they left his lips.
"Didn't you notice I'm even prettier than before?" A trace of shyness crept onto her face as she spoke.
"Uh..." Mo Yang felt a jolt run through his entire body. Watching the bashful blush on Su Feier's face and listening to her coquettish tone made his scalp tingle and a layer of cold sweat break out across his back. He hurriedly nodded.
He wasn't afraid of Su Feier's fiery temper at all; what terrified him was when she *didn't* have one—like right now, which genuinely gave him the creeps.
"Brother Mo Yang, I want to follow you and cultivate..."
Mo Yang shuddered. He could no longer sit still, scrambling up and retreating a few steps while shivering uncontrollably all over. "No, please! I like cultivating in peace and quiet by myself. Junior Sister, you should head back now—it's getting late!"
He then instinctively wiped his forehead and muttered, "Man, this sun is scorching!"
Chapter 15: Drugged
"Brother Mo Yang, then cultivate in peace. I'll come see you tomorrow!" With a bright, beaming smile, Su Feier turned and skipped out of the courtyard.
Mo Yang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead nonstop, staring in stunned disbelief as Su Feier popped back into view, leaning against the courtyard gate to wave at him. He felt like his whole world had turned upside down.
"Brother Mo Yang, I'm really leaving now!"
Mo Yang nodded frantically. Only when the courtyard finally fell completely quiet did he let out a long breath of relief.
He felt like crying without tears. If Su Feier had kept her usual temperament, she'd be easy to handle, but right now he was completely powerless against her.
He hurried back into his room, slammed the door shut, and escaped into the Stone Pagoda to brew pills.
Little did Mo Yang know, because of the Marrow-Cleansing Pills he had given Su Feier, the entire Lingxu Sect would be thrown into absolute chaos by that very evening.
After leaving Wood Peak, Su Feier had returned to the main peak. Impatiently, she swallowed the entire bottle of Beauty-Preservation Pills in one go, and then polished off every single pill in the bottle of Marrow-Cleansing Pills as well.
When Mo Yang was explaining the effects of the Marrow-Cleansing Pills back on Wood Peak, Su Feier hadn't listened to a single word; she had simply assumed they were just like the Beauty-Preservation Pills—meant for skincare and looks.
Within mere breaths, she felt her entire body go haywire. Her consciousness grew murky, and it felt as though endless raging fires were burning inside her as those thirty pills transformed into two torrents of violent energy rampaging through her limbs and bones.
Let alone thirty, ordinary cultivators would find it hard to endure even two pills taken at the same time—let alone when the two medicines had entirely different effects.
As luck would have it, Xu Xin had gone looking for her at that moment, but the sight of Su Feier terrified her.
Su Feier's face was as red as a ripe apple, blue veins bulging on her forehead as beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolled down continuously. Her clothes were soaked through with frightening speed, and her mind seemed to be blurring.
At her wits' end upon seeing Su Feier in this state, Xu Xin's only thought was to rush her straight to the elders of the Lingxu Sect.
In an instant, every elder in the main sect hall was jolted into action.
The Supreme Elder and Sect Master rushed forward immediately to inspect her, but Su Feier's condition was so terrifying that even many of the elders were left at a loss.
"Supreme Elder, what on earth is going on here?" Even the Sect Master was completely baffled. More importantly, seeing the agonizing pain etched across Su Feier's face made him frantic with anxiety.
The Supreme Elder's first reaction was that Su Feier must have accidentally ingested something toxic, as these symptoms bore no resemblance to anything that occurred during normal cultivation.
"There are two massive forces rampaging wildly inside her body, and her true qi is completely out of control. If we can't suppress it, I'm afraid..." The Supreme Elder's expression turned grave as he immediately stepped in, channeling his own energy into Su Feier's body.
However, the result caused his expression to shift drastically: those two forces were completely uncontrollable, scattering through every corner of Su Feier's limbs and bones, defying all suppression.
"What on earth happened?" The Supreme Elder raised his head to look at Xu Xin. After all, Xu Xin was the one who brought her here, and a situation like this had to have a cause—it couldn't have happened for no reason.
"I... I don't know..." Xu Xin was completely panicked. Everything had been fine when she and Su Feier were heading toward Wood Peak, so how did it come to this...
Yet she remembered that after they left Wood Peak, Su Feier had sneaked away on the way back, claiming she had something to take care of. She recalled that the direction Su Feier headed had seemed to be back toward Wood Peak.
"Junior Sister seemed to go to Wood Peak... but..." She didn't dare jump to conclusions; after all, she wouldn't dare frame Mo Yang without any solid proof.
"Wood Peak? Mo Yang... Could he have drugged Feier?!"
The First Elder's face twisted with fury. The moment Wood Peak was mentioned, anyone would naturally think of Mo Yang, seeing as he was the only person living there. Combined with the gossip circulating around the sect lately and Su Feier's current appearance, his mind instantly leaped to a certain kind of illicit substance.
The expressions of the other elders, including the Sect Master, also changed drastically in an instant.
A group of powerful figures all began drawing the exact same conclusion, because judging from Su Feier's condition, it was undoubtedly caused by drugs—and specifically, it looked as though she had ingested a massive overdose of them.
Although the Supreme Elder's expression was grim, he simply couldn't believe Mo Yang would do such a thing.
At the same time, he knew that Mo Yang had been dabbling in various medicinal ingredients lately, consuming them in huge quantities. This matter probably really did involve him. With no other options left and no time to overthink, he swept Su Feier up in his energy and shot down from the main peak at top speed toward Wood Peak.
The reason the Supreme Elder took this step was because he had already prepared for the worst-case scenario: if it truly was *that* kind of drug, then perhaps the only way to neutralize it would be through the harmony of yin and yang.
The other elders hastily followed behind, trailing all the way to Wood Peak.
The main peak was in total pandemonium, and since the news was impossible to keep under wraps, it instantly sparked a massive uproar.
Yet when the group of anxious powerhouses arrived at Wood Peak, they discovered that Mo Yang wasn't even in the courtyard. The Supreme Elder nearly cursed aloud in frustration.
"Go find Mo Yang! No matter what he's doing, bring him back here by any means necessary!" the Supreme Elder ordered the First and Second Elders.
Then, turning to the others, he commanded, "The rest of you, help me channel our energy to protect Feier's meridians, or she'll burst and die before long!"
However, the First and Second Elders searched the entire Lingxu Sect from top to bottom without catching a single glimpse of Mo Yang. They even made a special trip to the back mountain, only to find him absent from the Fourth Elder's cenotaph as well.
Soon, every disciple in the sect was mobilized, coming close to turning the place upside down, yet they found absolutely nothing.
It wasn't until half an hour later that Mo Yang finally stepped out of his house.
The moment he emerged from the Stone Pagoda, he saw his front door hanging crookedly off its hinges and noticed clear signs that the room had been ransacked. Instantly sensing something was wrong, he froze in his tracks the second he stepped outside.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Before he could even process the scene, a barrage of angry gazes locked onto him. Though the elders couldn't figure out how Mo Yang had materialized out of that empty room, there was no time to ask questions now.
"Mo Yang, you damn bastard! Just how much aphrodisiac did you feed Feier?!" the First Elder roared first, his chest fit to burst with pent-up rage.
"You damned brat, what on earth did you do to Feier?! Think of a solution right now!" the Supreme Elder bellowed as well.
Mo Yang frowned, completely bewildered and instantly realizing something was wrong. Without waiting to reply, he flashed forward.
At that moment, a layer of black, viscous filth was beginning to ooze out across Su Feier's skin, accompanied by a sickening, pungent stench.
"It's over... I'm afraid she's beyond saving..." The Second Elder blurted out when he saw this. Earlier, although Su Feier had been in pain, her body had still looked normal, but now...
Rushing up close and taking one look, Mo Yang understood immediately: this was clearly the effect of the Marrow-Cleansing Pill.
Only, judging by Su Feier's current state, she seemed to have taken way too large a dose.
He hurriedly grabbed one of Su Feier's arms to check her pulse, and his own expression changed involuntarily. Two violent forces were rampaging inside her body like a pair of wild horses with broken reins.
Having taken a Marrow-Cleansing Pill himself previously just to verify whether the Beauty-Preservation Pills had been successfully refined, he instantly deduced that Su Feier must have ingested an excessive amount of them.
"Oh, crap... This little miss didn't swallow both whole bottles I gave her, did she?!" Mo Yang was utterly dumbfounded, though he vividly remembered giving her strict instructions.
Chapter 16: You Really Did Drug Her
Hearing Mo Yang's muttered realization, the Supreme Elder could hardly believe his ears. It really *was* Mo Yang who had drugged her!
And two whole bottles at that!
"You beast! How could you do such a thing? Two bottles?! You... you really are a beast!" The Second Elder looked ready to raise his hand and slap Mo Yang across the face.
"You wretched brat, you've been messing around with medicinal herbs lately—hurry up and think of something!" The Supreme Elder retained a shred of calm. Though Mo Yang's actions were extreme, if worst came to worst, he could accept letting them consummate their relationship so long as Su Feier's life was out of danger.
Mo Yang's expression grew dead serious. This was no laughing matter; given Su Feier's current condition, if the situation couldn't be defused, her life would genuinely be in peril.
Ignoring the elders' scoldings, his mind raced as he searched for a solution. The only way to fix this was to force the medicinal potency out of Su Feier's body, but conventional methods wouldn't work.
Moreover, these elders *looked* like they were trying their best to suppress it with their cultivation, but they were actually achieving the exact opposite effect—only making the medicinal power more violent.
"Old timers, stop right now! Are you trying to kill her outright before you'll be satisfied?" Mo Yang frowned and barked coldly.
"Mo Yang, I don't care about anything else right now! As long as Feier's life is saved, get her into the house immediately!" the Sect Master said in a deep voice. Though his expression was pitch black, he knew panicking would only make things worse and solve nothing.
Things had already reached this point; he had no other choice.
Though Mo Yang found the wording rather strange, he didn't have the luxury of overthinking it. He did indeed plan to bring Su Feier inside because he needed to take her into the Star Emperor Pagoda.
After turning it over in his mind, he decided the only viable method was to treat the potency of the Marrow-Cleansing Pills and Beauty-Preservation Pills as a poison, and brew an antidote known as the Detoxification Pill. It was the only solution he could think of.
"Nobody is allowed to step foot within half a step of this room while I'm in there!" Without time for explanations, Mo Yang scooped Su Feier up in his arms, dashed straight into the house, and tossed the warning back over his shoulder to the elders.
Outside, the elders looked as though they wanted to tear Mo Yang limb from limb, but none of them had any alternatives.
Watching the heavy wooden door slam shut, the Supreme Elder trembled, consumed by anxiety and fury. What in the world kind of mess was this?
He let out a helpless, light sigh and said to the rest of the elders, "Everyone leave the courtyard and wait further away!"
With medicinal potency like that, the commotion inside couldn't possibly be small. It would look ridiculous for a bunch of old men to just stand around watching.
His primary concern was whether Su Feier could hold on.
Since Su Feier's consciousness was completely blurred, Mo Yang didn't worry about exposing the secrets of the Star Emperor Pagoda, carrying her straight up to the second level of the Stone Pagoda.
He swiftly pulled the seven required medicinal ingredients from his Storage Ring. Brewing this pill was far more difficult than anything he had attempted before, and he had no idea if he would succeed, but he had no choice left except to try.
"What a handful of trouble. You're really forcing your grandpa here to use you as a guinea pig..." Mo Yang was filled with wordless resignation.
Pulling his thoughts together, he focused entirely on the task, tossing the herbs one by one into the Creation Dan Furnace. As a rich, thick medicinal aroma drifted out, it finally masked some of the foul stench emanating from Su Feier's body.
...
Back on Wood Peak, the group of elders all retreated from the courtyard, falling back several hundred feet.
"This little beast... actually..." The Second Elder gnashed his teeth in fury. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got; he had always disliked Mo Yang, and now look at what happened—Mo Yang had gotten a massive windfall for free, the raw rice was already cooked.
"I never expected him to do something like this either. I even tested him beforehand, thinking..." The Supreme Elder's expression was unusually unsightly. As he spoke, his gaze drifted toward the courtyard, followed by another helpless sigh.
The Sect Master's face remained dark. After a long silence, he said, "This matter must never leak out. Once this blows over, we'll find a time to hold their wedding!"
Time slowly ticked away. Inside the Star Emperor Pagoda, Mo Yang finally finished brewing the Detoxification Pill. The moment the pill coalesced, he let out a long breath of relief, his forehead beaded with sweat. Refining such a large variety of ingredients had severely taxed his mental energy.
Because the pill had barely managed to form a single pellet, its efficacy was completely untested—he would simply have to use Su Feier to verify it.
Without daring to delay, he quickly propped Su Feier up, flicked the pill into her mouth, and then focused all his attention on monitoring the changes within her body.
Outside, the group of elders paced back and forth incessantly. As time dragged on, their anxiety spiked because the courtyard remained deathly quiet, without a single sound coming from inside.
The Supreme Elder was deeply puzzled, but at this stage, it wasn't appropriate for him to sweep his divine sense inward to investigate, leaving him completely in the dark about what was happening inside.
Half an hour, an hour...
Full two hours later, a creaking sound finally broke the silence of the courtyard as the door was pushed open.
The Supreme Elder and the Sect Master rushed toward the courtyard at once, only to find Mo Yang standing in the doorway, stretching lazily.
"How is Feier?"
The two men blurted out their question simultaneously.
"The medicinal force hasn't been completely neutralized yet, and she hasn't regained consciousness. Let her rest in bed for a while!" Mo Yang answered lazily.
Hearing this, the heavy boulders hanging in the Sect Master and Supreme Elder's chests finally dropped, but the next moment, their eyes glared daggers at Mo Yang.
"What the hell, old man? What kind of look is that? You're not thanking me, so what are you glaring for?" Mo Yang immediately bristled. If he hadn't been smart enough to think of using an antidote pill to counteract the drugs, Su Feier would likely be cold in the ground by now.
"Thank you? You drugged Feier, and now you've eaten your fill and gotten off scot-free, and you expect me to thank you?!" the Supreme Elder snapped coldly.
The thought of this incident still infuriated him; he had always believed Mo Yang possessed a pure and kind nature, never imagining the boy was actually this kind of person.
The Sect Master was likewise on the verge of exploding, murderous intent flickering in his eyes.
Mo Yang blinked. Originally, he hadn't wanted to explain, but if he didn't clear this up, he wouldn't be able to wash clean even if he jumped into the Yellow River.
"Old man, your grandpa here isn't as filthy-minded as you think!" Mo Yang protested. "I was just being kind and gave her two bottles of pills, and I *explicitly* warned her to take only one at a time! Furthermore, what I gave her were Beauty-Preservation Pills and Marrow-Cleansing Pills—not some damn aphrodisiac!"
"If you want to blame anyone, blame her for not listening and swallowing them all at once. It's a miracle she didn't just drop dead on the spot!"
"What? Not an aphrodisiac? Then... kid, what the hell were you two doing just now..." The Supreme Elder was left completely bewildered.