Watching her master disappear, Liu Shiya instantly snapped back to reality.
"Master..."
Crying out for her master, Liu Shiya could no longer hold back her tears and burst out sobbing.
She had never imagined that her master would actually, truly recover.
Her caring Master Qingyu had finally returned.
The young girl's sobs echoed from inside the wooden cabin.
Yet, muffled by the pouring rain, the sound did not travel very far.
Several minutes later, Liu Shiya pushed herself up from the ground.
Having knelt for so long, her legs were quite numb.
Fortunately, her master had used his spiritual power to dry her clothes; otherwise, not only would she be numb, but she would also be freezing.
To escape from that woman's territory, Liu Shiya had exhausted every ounce of spiritual power in her body.
Right now, she didn't even have enough spiritual power left to keep herself warm.
Luckily, her master had not only dried her clothes but also channeled a strand of spiritual power into her body, making her feel deeply warm.
Standing up, Liu Shiya walked unsteadily toward the bed on trembling legs.
Her soft, fair, delicate feet clad in white silk socks stepped onto the clean floor, and clad in a light white gauze dress, she drifted toward the bedside.
Looking at the bed, Liu Shiya immediately began to talk to herself in her heart.
Master... usually sleeps on this bed, doesn't he?
Then, a very noticeable flush bloomed across her exquisite face.
Matched with her sleek, silvery long hair, she looked utterly adorable.
Swallowing hard, Liu Shiya turned around and gently sat down on the edge of the bed.
Her body relaxed completely.
Her soft legs, encased in white leggings, hung down naturally.
Her white-socked feet rested softly against the floor.
A profound sense of security washed over her entire body.
Though the wound on her back still ached, the mere thought that her master had returned to normal instantly eased much of the pain.
For what truly needed healing was not her body, but her soul.
And the only one who could heal her was her master.
Four years. Her master had been out of his mind for four full years.
Now, the gentle master of the past, who cared so deeply for his obedient disciple, had finally returned.
...
Night fell over the ruins of the Wendao Sect in Central Province.
The place was now dilapidated and overgrown with weeds.
Combined with its location high up among the rolling peaks of the Wendao Mountains, the ruins were not only crumbling but also blanketed in a layer of heavy snow.
At the ruined mountain gate of the Wendao Sect, a sudden spatial ripple occurred.
Qingyu, dressed in modern attire, appeared right there.
Looking at the Wendao Sect gate before him, Qingyu's expression gradually turned helpless.
If only he had transmigrated four years earlier.
Four years ago, the Wendao Sect was thriving and prosperous.
It had over two thousand disciples, hundreds of Golden Core cultivators, and more than a dozen Nascent Soul masters.
There were even three Soul Formation stage powerhouses like himself.
Yet now, apart from himself, his three female disciples, and a Mid Nascent Soul elder, everything else was gone.
Had it not been for the original plot, he would never have gone mad and tried to destroy the world.
And to make matters worse, instead of doing it himself, he had stubbornly kept sending his subordinates to carry out the destruction, reducing the Wendao Sect from a massive sect to these ruins.
Surveying the ruins of the Wendao Sect, Qingyu did not linger for long. Instead, he immediately released his divine sense, shrouding the entire sect ruins.
Soon, Qingyu sensed that the protective array around a basement where he used to store things had not been destroyed.
This proved that the items inside were still there.
Inside the basement was a storage ring.
The ring contained not only medicinal pills but also treasures capable of helping cultivators break through their bottlenecks.
In the original story, this storage ring was obtained by the female protagonist.
With the treasures inside, she directly broke through to the Mid Nascent Soul stage!
The current Immortal Cultivation World was known as the Xuantian Realm.
The main cultivation levels in the Xuantian Realm, from lowest to highest, were Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, Dao Integration, and Tribulation Transcendence.
Furthermore, each realm was divided into early, middle, late, and peak stages.
Beyond the peak lay the next realm.
The fact that the heroine could use the treasures in Qingyu's Storage Ring to break through to the Mid Nascent Soul stage showed just how extraordinary those treasures were.
For the higher the realm, the harder it was to break through.
Qingyu had reached the Soul Formation Peak over a hundred years ago.
Yet to this day, he still had not managed to break through again.
This showed just how difficult it was to advance through the higher realms.
Of course, his inability to break through was not his fault, but rather a limitation imposed by the Heavenly Dao of this world.
The Heavenly Dao of this realm remained incomplete, capping the maximum attainable realm at the Soul Formation Peak.
Qingyu did not waste any more time.
In the blink of an eye, he arrived at the basement in the Wendao Sect where he kept his storage ring.
With a wave of his right hand, the basement's protective array completely dissolved.
After a flash of light, a ring drifted before Qingyu's eyes.
Looking at the storage ring, Qingyu reached out and slipped it onto his finger.
Once he put on the storage ring, Qingyu's gaze softened gradually.
Inside the storage ring were precisely the pills his third disciple needed.
They could heal her sword wounds and poison wounds without any side effects.
Yet, thinking of what happened in the original story, Qingyu let out a helpless sigh.
In the original story, as her master, upon seeing his severely injured third disciple, Liu Shiya, return against all odds through the pouring rain—exhausted and kneeling before him in sheer terror—Qingyu had not hesitated for a moment before striking her across the face.
After unleashing a furious tirade, Qingyu had driven Liu Shiya out and severed their master-disciple relationship.
Back then, Liu Shiya had wept bitterly and brokenheartedly, yet stubbornly refused to leave, crying out for another chance.
Her crying had drawn her two senior sister apprentices, who stepped forward to plead with Qingyu not to cast away their third junior sister.
At this thought, Qingyu's expression grew even more helpless.
In the original novel, while he hadn't truly driven Liu Shiya away at that moment, he had forced her to undergo half a month of wall-facing penance.
She was forbidden from absorbing any spiritual energy, forbidden from sleeping, forbidden from eating, and forced to simply stand there.
When Liu Shiya's wall-facing penance finally ended, her mental state had completely shattered.
She became extremely extreme.
She would constantly linger near his wooden cabin, refusing to leave even an inch.
Moreover, she no longer dared to leave the mountainside where they lived; basically, every time she woke up, Liu Shiya would immediately hurry over to stay near the wooden cabin where Qingyu lived.
She stopped cultivating, stopped greeting Qingyu, and did nothing at all.
She was terrified that Master Qingyu would abandon her once more.
Whenever Qingyu stepped out of the cabin, she would hide, and when Qingyu returned to the cabin, she would move back close to it.
And because she lacked medical treatment, Liu Shiya's cultivation had plummeted all the way from the Golden Core stage down to Foundation Establishment.
The wounds on her back lingered without healing, causing her to suffer piercing, agonizing pain every time it rained—a pain that wracked her entire body and was completely unbearable.
Thinking about how such an obedient, sensible, and utterly adorable silver-haired disciple could have been driven to such a state by his past self in the novel, Qingyu could not help but be affected.
Yet now, none of those things would ever happen again.
Pulling a set of black robes from the storage ring, Qingyu unhesitatingly changed out of his modern clothing, then waved his right hand, summoning a flame to burn the modern outfit to ashes.
Then, with a single thought from Qingyu, without even needing to tear through space, he teleported away from the place.