Fu Yuanbo knelt by Luoyu's side. Even though blood was seeping from his own facial orifices, he still struggled to crawl over to her, his tall and slender frame shielding her.
"Sect Leader Fan, you are doing this for the Glazed Pure Fire inside Luoyu! Spare me this talk of master-disciple bonds! If you had an ounce of genuine care for her, how could she not even possess a single defensive magical artifact in such a perilous Secret Realm?"
"And your own daughter! She struck her fellow disciple down into the abyss without hesitation just to save her own skin. It is lamentable that my Senior Brother fell into demonic cultivation for the sake of such a venomous and vicious person! She deserved to die!"
"Such a malicious and scheming wretch—do you have any right to be the leader of a righteous sect?!"
"Impudent!"
Fan Guangchuan was enraged out of shame, unleashing his spiritual power without holding back as it swept toward the two of them.
"Sect Leader Fan!"
Xiao Shilin was sitting right beside Fan Guangchuan. With a single palm strike, he shattered Fan Guangchuan's spiritual power. A flash of red light cut through the air as the Natal Soul-Pursuing Blade hovered right between Fan Guangchuan's eyebrows, its blade energy shimmering. A bead of blood slowly trickled down the tip of Fan Guangchuan's nose. He did not dare to move, yet he firmly believed that Xiao Shilin would not dare to strike either.
"Xiao Shilin! Is your Canglan Sect planning to make an enemy of my Alchemy Sect just for the sake of a female disciple at the Nascent Soul early stage?!"
Third Elder Pan Sheng almost jumped out of his chair.
"Sect Leader, you must not! Put it down! Sect Leader Fan is a benefactor of our Old Ancestor, and the Canglan Sect is not your personal domain! The sect has been passed down for thousands of years—are you trying to destroy the entire sect with your own hands?"
"Ha, the Canglan Sect has always relied solely on the blades in our own hands! If the Third Elder is so terrified of the Alchemy Sect, you might as well hand Fu Yuanbo over to Sect Leader Fan to vent his anger! My disciple Liangchen fell into demonic cultivation for the sake of the Alchemy Sect, and my nephew Fu paid for Fan Ni's life with his own. I would just like to see who will hold up the pillars of the Canglan Sect a hundred years from now!"
Pan Sheng's old face flushed red. He forced the corners of his mouth up and managed a servile smile at Fan Guangchuan.
"Sect Leader Fan, Yuanbo is my disciple. Could you spare this old man some face and not hold it against him? He is still young and was merely temporarily blinded by beauty."
Xiao Shilin withdrew the Soul-Pursuing Blade and coldly sat back down in his seat. Pan Sheng fished out two medicinal pills, shoved them into Fu Yuanbo's hands, and returned to his own seat as well.
Fu Yuanbo fed the medicinal pills to Luoyu, placing his palm against her frail back and channeling his Spiritual Power to help her refine the medicinal potency.
Pan Sheng's mouth twitched. Those were sixth-grade healing pills! He should have just shoved them straight into his own disciple's mouth earlier. Now look at what happened—all that went to waste on that damned girl!
Everyone fell into a heavy silence, each calculating whether Luoyu was worth saving and how it should be done.
If Luoyu did not possess the Glazed Pure Fire, she would be utterly dispensable to Fan Guangchuan, and the other sects could fight over her. But things were different now—that was the legendary Heavenly Fire! To step in and contend for it now would be no different than severing the foundation of the Alchemy Sect.
Regardless of whether Fan Guangchuan decided to pour all resources into cultivating her or to take the Glazed Pure Fire within her for himself, this was, at the end of the day, an internal matter of the Alchemy Sect. If outsiders wished to meddle, they would have to completely sever ties with the Alchemy Sect.
The Alchemy Sect might not be formidable in direct combat, but uprooting them would be no easy task. Immortal Lord Muyun alone was a terrifying hurdle, not to mention the countless individuals who had received favors from the Alchemy Sect just like him.
Was it worth it for the sake of a mere Luoyu?
After a long silence, it was Xiao Shilin who finally broke the dead silence.
"Sect Leader Fan, is the marriage engagement between Disciple Luoyu and Fu Yuanbo still valid?"
"What this seat has said naturally still stands. However, Luoyu committed a fault first, so the wedding date must be postponed."
"How long? A few months or a few years?"
"Hmph, she incurred guilt by aiding Liangchen, so naturally her guilt will be absolved only when Liangchen is captured."
The main hall fell into silence once more. Luoyu remained unconscious, entirely unaware that her fate had already been sealed.
Xu Yu let out a soft sigh. The Immortal Lord had predicted that Luoyu's tribulation was unavoidable, and his words had indeed proven true. He had also said he would wait to offer Luoyu a glimmer of survival—though whether he would live to see that day remained uncertain.
Xu Yu said, "In that case, let us all return to our respective sects. Take the injured elders back to the Alchemy Sect as well; Sect Leader Fan will surely provide them with proper treatment, will he not?"
"Naturally. This seat will certainly not fail your trust."
"Everyone, I shall take my leave first."
As Xu Yu stepped out of the main hall, he turned back to look at Fan Guangchuan and said in a deep voice:
"By the decree of the Immortal Lord, her life must not be harmed, or else a heaven-sent catastrophe shall befall us. May Sect Leader Fan bear this firmly in mind!"
Everyone who heard these words was slightly stunned. It was common knowledge that Immortal Lord Qingchen excelled at divination, but calling it a "heaven-sent catastrophe" felt a bit too exaggerated, didn't it? She was merely a female cultivator at the Nascent Soul stage. Fallen into Fan Guangchuan's hands, her fate would undoubtedly be miserable, yet even if she didn't die, this decree protected her—how could she possibly trigger a catastrophe?
Fu Yuanbo still held Luoyu tightly in his arms, pressing his forehead against her hair and gently stroking it.
"Junior Sister, I have failed you. I didn't kill Fan Ni, which is why you were dragged into this state. Rest assured, from this moment on, I will no longer be that indecisive Fu Yuanbo of the past. I will rescue you from here. Wait for me."
A few Alchemy Sect disciples came over and carried Luoyu away. Fu Yuanbo quietly loosened his grip, though no one saw the ice-cold hatred frozen deep within his eyes.
The sect disciples were all busy packing up and preparing for the return journey. Liao Xing looked from afar at Luoyu's tent—it was the most ordinary tent allocated by the sect to every disciple, furnished with nothing more than a single wooden bed, a small table, and a futon, completely devoid of anything else. The Alchemy Sect had always been wealthy; probably even the food, clothing, and daily provisions of outer sect disciples were far superior to Luoyu's. Over a dozen disciples stood guard outside the tent, yet not a single person went inside to tend to her injuries.
Liao Xing recalled the soft, faint smile Luoyu had worn before their departure. Dressed in azure robes and a bright red cloak, she had looked like the last lingering rays of sunset reflecting upon the water—tranquil and beautiful, shimmering with fragmented light.
"I remember she once saved your life too."
Liao Xing looked at Fu Yuanbo, who was walking up from behind, and let out a self-deprecating laugh. "Indeed. After you all left, we were besieged twice by monster beasts at the Nascent Soul stage. If not for her, I might have perished in the Secret Realm. What a pity I could only watch from afar, and so could you."
"I heard your family isn't doing too well in Yunshi City."
"Back then, my Master accepted me as a disciple, and in exchange, my family handed over a seventh-grade pill formula to him. Who could have anticipated that he would seize the exclusive rights to sell the medicinal pills, and even forbid Zhiwei Pavilion from selling any spiritual herbs to my Liao Family? It is truly laughable. The family all believed I would bring them supreme glory, yet in the end, I became the eternal sinner."
"Fan Guangchuan's nature is simply like that; the world at large is just ignorant of it! I wonder if the Liao Family would be interested in cooperating with my Fu Family?"
"Name your terms."
"I want to know every piece of news regarding Luoyu within the Alchemy Sect, as well as the locations and times when the Alchemy Sect disciples venture out for training."
"Very well."
The two exchanged sound-transmission talismans and returned to their respective sects. Liao Xing sat alone in the darkness, the hatred in the depths of his heart churning endlessly.
In the past, the Liao Family had been the preeminent clan in Yunshi City. They not only possessed the seventh-grade Nascent Soul Condensation Pill formula passed down from their ancestors, but also held numerous other pill formulas with remarkable efficacy, their medicinal pill business stretching across the entire cultivation world.
After the death of their ancestors, the Dao of alchemy was gradually monopolized by the Alchemy Sect. The disciples the Liao Family could recruit possessed only inferior spiritual roots and talent, and by his father's generation, seventh-grade medicinal pills could no longer be refined.
Consequently, the family made the decision to surrender the seventh-grade pill formula in exchange for Liao Xing's opportunity to enter the Alchemy Sect—and it was precisely this decision that ruined the future of the Liao Family.
As the family fortune steadily declined, Liao Xing's father was forced to take the daughter of the Li Family, the second-largest clan in Yunshi City, as a concubine, and this woman was the one who drove his mother to her death.
On the day of the funeral, Liao Xing had looked upon his mother's emaciated, skin-and-bones corpse. He could not even begin to imagine how much torment the gentle mother of his memories had endured—a grown adult reduced to a mere fifty or sixty catties. Though she had just passed away, her body already exuded a rotting stench—the foul decay of bedsores and festering flesh from being bedridden for years.
He hated her—he hated his stepmother's ruthlessness, he hated his father's cowardice and incompetence, and above all, he hated the mastermind behind all of this: his Master, Fan Guangchuan!
Yet he was far too weak. Much like Luoyu, he was submerged within the prosperous splendor of the Alchemy Sect, where no one remembered them, no one cared about their life or death, leaving them to stand silently at the edges of the crowd like ghosts, bearing witness to the glamorous and dazzling lives of others.