Fortunately, the Yunxiao Treasure Pavilion moved quickly. After a two-day wait, news finally arrived for Wen Li and her group.
Inside a private room on the third floor of the Yunxiao Treasure Pavilion.
A man clad in a brown robe wore a large black cloak that obscured his face.
Once the attendant withdrew, he spoke.
“I only have one question. What do you want with the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit?” His voice was rough and hoarse, clearly altered.
Yao Dai and Xie Tinglan remained silent, acting as mere background.
All three of them still wore their veiled hats.
Wen Li countered, “If I answer, will you tell us what you know about the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit?”
The man nodded.
Yao Dai clenched the fabric over her knees. She knew that stealing another person's spiritual root was something abhorred and reviled throughout the cultivation world.
“Isn't the purpose of the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit to nourish a spiritual root? Since you know about it, I assume... you must have a connection to someone with a damaged spiritual root.” Wen Li spoke candidly, without beating around the bush.
The cultivator sitting across from them clenched his fists tightly.
“We are looking for the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit to resolve a spiritual root issue as well. Now that I have answered, you can tell us your information about the fruit.”
Silence fell over the room.
The man opposite them seemed to be weighing his options.
None of the three rushed him, sitting quietly.
After a long while, the man spoke. “I have a request. If you find the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit, please let me see it once. Then I will be able to die without regrets.”
Wen Li frowned. “The agreement was only for me to answer a question. You're breaking our deal.”
“My apologies, but my time is almost up. I merely feel regret.”
The man slowly pulled down his hood, revealing a hideous face that sent a chill down Yao Dai's spine. Xie Tinglan's expression changed as well.
Root-like veins sprawled across the middle-aged man's face, contorted into the eerie appearance of a demon beast. His eyes glowed blood-red, but unlike Xie Tinglan's vivid crimson, his were crisscrossed with prominent bloodshot veins.
Even the skin on the back of his exposed hands bulged grotesque ridges. Yet it wasn't muscle structure—it looked as if something were wriggling and living underneath, devouring his flesh and blood.
He could no longer be called human.
He was a monster.
From the moment he had walked into the room, Xie Tinglan had caught a faint, foul odor of rot and blood coming from him.
Wen Li remained entirely unbothered, focusing only on the terms. “Tell us your information about the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit first. Then I'll consider whether to agree to your request.”
“My name is Wan Yinxun,” the man began. “Sixty years ago, I was an inner sect disciple of the Zhaixing Sect in Cangling Kingdom, a Third-Grade Cultivation Kingdom. Back then, Cangling Kingdom held a trial secret realm specifically for a competition between the disciples of its four major sects. As a disciple of the Zhaixing Sect, I participated. Before entering the realm, my master instructed me to find an item called the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit, claiming he needed it to refine a new pill. He promised that if I retrieved it, he would recommend me to the sect master to become a core disciple. I agreed.”
“Armed with the drawing of the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit my master gave me, I entered the secret realm, which turned out to be extremely dangerous. Some sect disciples suddenly went mad—or were provoked by something—and began slaughtering one another. I managed to hide in a cave for three days. When I came out, the ground was littered with corpses. Later, I lost my way in a dense fog and accidentally stumbled into a man-eating flower that swallowed me whole. When I woke up again, I found myself at the bottom of a lake.”
“I searched around and found that all the survivors had been driven to that same place. After another seven days, we decided to put aside our grudges and unite to find a way out. But unexpectedly, we were ambushed by a vast horde of bloodthirsty vines. Almost everyone was slaughtered. I contracted this strange affliction, leaving me in this state—neither human nor ghost.”
As he reached this point, the middle-aged man's eyes filled with tragic sorrow and deep hatred.
Yao Dai couldn't help asking, “Then how did you get out alive?”
The middle-aged man looked up to meet her eyes, sending an instant wave of goosebumps over Yao Dai's skin. She subtly shifted her hips closer to Wen Li.
The man didn't mind her reaction and continued, “Because the trial period had long passed on the outside, the elders of the sects sensed something was wrong. To prevent the younger generation of their sects from being wiped out entirely, they joined forces to force open the trial barrier and entered together. They found me, already turned into a monster, and brought me out.”
“Afterward, I went looking for my master, but the sect told me he had died inside the secret realm while trying to save me. The Zhaixing Sect could no longer accommodate a creature like me, so I voluntarily requested to leave. For all these years, I've never been able to let go of the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit. I want to know what it actually does—what destroyed my entire life.”
His expression grew agitated as he spoke. “Recently, this strange disease has become increasingly agonizing, making me want to end my own life multiple times. But I'm unreconciled! I refuse to accept dying without ever even seeing the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit that cost me everything!”
“If you find it and let me see it just once, I am willing to offer all the treasures I've accumulated over my lifetime. Consider it fulfilling the long-cherished wish of both myself and my late master.” He rose from his seat and dropped to his knees on the floor, his eyes red and brimming with tears as he pleaded in desolate anguish.
Wen Li leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed, her expression indifferent as her fingertips tapped lightly against her arm.
“Do you still remember the detailed route inside the trial secret realm from back then?”
“I remember!” Hearing this, the man immediately pulled out a map and handed it to Wen Li. “After I got out back then, I drew a map based on my memory. That trial secret realm only opens once every thirty years. Even though it has opened again since then, the geography shouldn't have changed much.”
Yao Dai caught onto a point. “If you wanted to see the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit so badly, why didn't you ask your sect to let you back in later? Or hire someone else to bring it out for you?”
The man answered, “The sect had already given up on me. Back then, my cultivation was only at the Early-Stage Foundation Establishment, and now, ruined by this strange disease, it has withered to the Tenth Level of Qi Refinement. I did look for disciples from the four major sects, but some didn't want to take such a risk for me since the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit was useless to them. I managed to convince two people who agreed, but in the end, they both died inside, and I never saw them again.”
Wen Li examined the map in her hand. It was indeed very detailed, and most of the locations aligned with what he had said.
“I already have the map now. Whether I show you the Soul-Severing White Mi Fruit after finding it doesn't seem very important anymore.”
“You!”
The middle-aged man looked up in shock, clearly not expecting her to be so cold and ruthless. Yet he gritted his teeth, powerless to do anything.
“Forget it. My time is almost up anyway. Whether I see it or not is merely an obsession in my heart. That secret realm is extremely treacherous. If you truly intend to go, you must be exceptionally careful.”
With that, he slowly stood up, accepting the outcome.
Just as he reached the doorway—
“We'll contact you once we get it.”
At those words, the middle-aged man named Wan Yinxun turned back in shock. Emotional and grief-stricken, he gave his word, all his thousands of words and gratitude consolidating into a single “Alright.”
He left, and the three of them did not linger in the Yunxiao Treasure Pavilion either, departing immediately.
Upon returning to the inn, Wen Li set up an isolation barrier.
She tossed the map to Xie Tinglan and Yao Dai to examine and stored the communicator the man had given them into her storage bag.
“Master, do you really pity him?” Yao Dai didn't believe her master would act out of random kindness to meddle in someone else's business.
Wen Li walked over to a chair and sat down, answering with a question of her own.
“What do you two think of what he said today?”
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