More than half a month had passed. One evening, Ming Fan excitedly carried a bowl of medicinal liquid and ran into Chen Liushang's bedchamber.
"Shang'er, I have finally gathered all the medicine. Drink it quickly." Chen Liushang glanced at Ming Fan with a hint of curiosity. Ming Fan pulled her into a gentle embrace while softly trying to feed her the medicine.
"Mm-mm..."
Chen Liushang blinked her innocent, wide-eyed gaze at him, smiled foolishly, and slowly drank it down, smacking her lips afterward.
"It's so delicious! Anything given by Fán'er is delicious. The flower nectar is delicious."
Hearing this foolish talk, Ming Fan's hand holding the medicine bowl trembled slightly. A sharp pain pierced his heart, and tears instantly burst from his eyes. Chen Liushang looked at the tear tracks at the corners of his eyes, not quite understanding. Without thinking, she reached out and slowly wiped the teardrops from his eyes.
"What's wrong with you, Fán'er?" she asked in a soft, silly, lisping voice.
"I'm fine." Ming Fan turned his head, took a deep breath, and tried to force the tears back. Then he turned around and smiled at her.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo..."
Just like that, she fell soundly asleep in his arms.
"Shang'er, this is the best way. It is also the method you left behind in the past."
Afterward, Ming Fan tucked the small quilt around her, walked over to the window, and gazed out at the misty moonlight, his mind sinking into memories from a hundred years ago.
"A myriad of stars fell, all flowers withered, and the immortals went mad. Her Immortal Body dissipated from that day forth, her divine soul and consciousness utterly destroyed... There is no longer any trace of her in this Xiuxian Continent."
He looked at the old tree outside the window; it still bore the same withered appearance as it had eight hundred years ago. Yet the old street outside was magnificent and resplendent, hung with festive lanterns and colorful banners.
"Shang'er, it seems as though all the tragic past events that shook the Xiuxian Continent nine hundred years ago never happened at all to anyone else."
"Buried beneath this endless, bright moonlight, day after day, year after year, only the courtyard of our Liushang Pavilion remains as desolate and withered as it has always been within the vast Xiuxian Continent."
At this thought, his eyes brimming with tears and his gaze unfocused, he turned to glance back at Chen Liushang, who currently possessed a mortal body. The pale white moonlight spilled across Chen Liushang's delicate, pretty face, making it appear as though she were veiled in a faint layer of Glazed Immortal radiance.
Ming Xuan became even more lost in thought, staring blankly at Chen Liushang bathed in the immortal light, his gaze filled with lingering attachment and fiery passion, as if nothing had ever happened and she had never left.
"Mmh."
Deep in sleep, Chen Liushang shifted onto her side, a look of discomfort crossing her delicate face.
Ming Xuan was startled. A flash of golden afterimage appeared instantly right beside Chen Liushang.
With a gaze full of lingering affection, he looked at Chen Liushang's sorrowful expression and pulled the clean little quilt up higher over her slender body.
"Shang'er's heart aperture has been opening more and more lately. It seems I still need to exercise some restraint."
A gradual look of joy surfaced on his face as he looked passionately into her sleeping eyes, watching her heart aperture open further and her expression grow increasingly clear, refined, and delicate.
"It seems the treasure I obtained is effective. The treasure given by the Great Elder truly has miraculous powers. Shang'er's divine soul must have been partially restored."
He thought to himself faintly, his hands holding Chen Liushang's as his devoted gaze refused to leave her small face. For eight hundred years, night after night, he had guarded her side just like this. Day after day passed, and unawares, eight hundred years had already slipped away.
"As long as there is a shred of hope, I will not give up, Shang'er."
Ming Xuan gazed at the Chen Liushang before him, a tear slipping from his eyes while wave upon wave of infinite longing and memories surged through his heart.
"Xuan'er!"
Suddenly, the sleeping Chen Liushang opened her eyes and woke with a start, shouting Ming Xuan's childhood name at the top of her lungs. She clutched her head in agony as wave after wave of intense, multicolored spiritual light erupted from her entire body. The large, elaborately arranged golden Barrier around the clean bedside shattered instantly.
At that very moment, Ming Xuan was blasted out of Liushang Pavilion by the sudden, massive shockwave of spiritual light, leaving only a blur of an afterimage.
Enveloped entirely in multicolored spiritual light, Chen Liushang floated in mid-air. Flowers from all over the Xiuxian Continent flew into Liushang Pavilion from every direction, circling around Chen Liushang's body to form a powerful circular Barrier that slowly integrated into her flesh and blood.
Her brows and eyes turned ice-cold and aloof, her appearance otherworldly, and her features radiating a Glazed Divine Light. Her divine consciousness also grew pure and crystal-clear, making her an entirely different person from the usual, delicate mortal Chen Liushang.
"Qingchen!"
A multicolored divine light flew in from a hundred miles away across the Xiuxian Continent. Chen Liushang summoned the Qingchen Sword, which had been sealed in the icy depths of the Black Frost Lake for a hundred years. Grasping the Qingchen Glazed Sword, she soared swiftly out of Liushang Pavilion.
Powerful multicolored glazed spiritual light radiated from her entire body as she hovered in mid-air.
The Qingchen Sword felt like green vines winding around her hand, and the flowers pierced through her surroundings like a swirling pure breeze. Dressed in floating multicolored flowing sleeves, with a glazed, precious countenance and eyes like razor-sharp blades, she possessed the very same magnificent and peerless grace she had held nine hundred years ago. Hovering high above the bustling yet desolate Xiuxian Continent, she flicked her sleeve slightly, and the massive doors of the Cultivation Hall flew open with a bang, dissolving into a trail of afterimages and leaving behind only a scene of ruin and decay.
"Who is it?"
The Great Elder—seated in the center of the Cultivation Hall with white hair and beard, wearing a grand golden-and-silver embroidered long robe—turned pale with fright and sprang up from his high seat. Unable to believe the sight before him, he stared dumbfoundedly at Chen Liushang in her immortal form, radiating multicolored spiritual light, and stammered in disbelief:
"Spirit Ancestor?"
Holding a cup of clear wine in her left hand and the Qingchen sword in her right, Chen Liushang stepped with her left foot onto the gorgeous dais at the very top of the Cultivation Hall. Her gaze was chilling as she looked down at the upstart before her, a faint, lingering murderous intent flashing in her eyes.
"You still remember me, you old codger? A hundred years ago, when I founded the Cultivation Sect, it was I who recommended you to become the Great Elder of this Cultivation Hall."
Pacing back and forth within the hall, her ethereal and drifting voice echoed through the space as she calmly and repeatedly interrogated the terrified old codger before her.
"The Cultivation Secret Technique for Xuan'er—was it given by you? What is written in Chapter Seventy-Seven Thousand of the forbidden secret texts of the Xiuxian Continent's Cultivation Classic?"
"Spirit Ancestor, it is the Flower of Love Poison."
"Oh? It seems you haven't forgotten!"
Chen Liushang wore a calm expression, feigning a look of lethal interrogation as she held the Qingchen Glazed Sword against the terrified Great Elder's neck and rained down questions upon the upstart.
"Yes... yes... yes, it was the Young Master who begged me to..."
Chen Liushang's tightly furrowed brows relaxed as she thought to herself: *Just as I expected. My disciple truly has great ambition.*
She laughed out loud and flew away, casually tossing the fine wine she had been holding straight into the hands of the old man. The Great Elder's hands trembled slightly as his ceremonial cap accidentally slipped off.
"A reward for you!"
After waiting for half a momet and watching the Spirit Ancestor depart, the Great Elder felt a heavy load lift from his heart. He slowly opened the lid of the glazed wine flask and took a small sip of the wine inside.
"What kind of wine is this?"
A look of disgust crossed his face, and immediately afterward, he collapsed straight onto the floor of the hall, entirely unconscious.
"Old codger, how does my fine wine, aged for nine hundred years, taste? Haha!"
Suspended in mid-air, Chen Liushang sipped her wine as she overlooked the Xiuxian Continent she had created ten thousand years ago, admiring its timeless landscape.