A thousand enlightenments in one night, starting from being a menial apprentice.

Inside the cave, the wicks of the eternal lamps on the stone walls still burned with tiny flames.

The faint firelight illuminated the deep cave.

Duan Rong stood there, his gaze sweeping over the shadowy objects deep in the cave. Suddenly, he noticed a dark red porcelain bottle on the ground not far from his feet.

With a slight shift in his gaze, Duan Rong picked up the porcelain bottle.

He recognized the porcelain bottle; it was the Blood Food Pill that Ding Ze had obtained from Shang Xiangyu. It seemed that Fu Yi and the Blood Infant had indeed been so shocked and fled in panic that they hadn't even had time to take the bottle of Blood Food Pills with them.

Duan Rong uncorked the bottle, took a gentle sniff, and a strong smell of blood mixed with a strange medicinal fragrance rushed into his nostrils. He frowned slightly, put the bottle back on, and put the porcelain bottle away.

Continuing deeper into the cave, they soon came to a stone platform with a shriveled and filthy futon on it. The edges of the futon were also worn in several places.

On the ground in front of the stone platform, there was a pair of straw sandals, which were already quite worn.

"It seems that Fu Yi has been living a secluded life in these deep mountains for many years, practicing asceticism like a hermit," Duan Rong muttered to himself, looking at the old and worn-out straw sandals. At this moment, he felt even more interested in Fu Yi.

Unfortunately, Fu Yi had already been captured by the patriarch Lü Yinlin. Otherwise, he really wanted to interrogate him personally, or rather, talk to him.

Thinking this, Duan Rong slowly walked around the stone platform where Fu Yi often meditated and cultivated, and arrived at the deepest part of the cave.

In the shadows, behind the stone platform were piles of miscellaneous items, including two chests, some other miscellaneous items, scattered bamboo slips, and some yellowed books.

Duan Rong walked over and casually picked up a scattered bamboo slip at his feet. He stared at it and saw that the writing was mottled in the dust. He could roughly make out that it was a note about the local customs and culture of various places in Kyushu. The section that Duan Rong casually flipped through was about Yongzhou.

In the dim light, Duan Rong's eyes shone brightly. These scattered bamboo slips and notes indicated one thing: Fu Yi had at least once considered escaping Qingzhou.

The Nine Provinces are so vast! With Fu Yi's cultivation level, where couldn't he stay? Why did he have to stay in Qingzhou and become an enemy of the Taiyi Sect? Now he has ended up with his Blood Infant destroyed and his own fate uncertain.

Duan Rong flipped through some more bamboo slips, most of which were travelogues written by ancient people about various parts of the Nine Provinces. However, these bamboo slips were scattered, broken, and covered in dust, clearly indicating that they had been left here for who knows how many years.

Duan Rong ignored the scattered bamboo slips and instead opened the innermost box. Inside the box were writing brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, jade pendants, hairpins, and several scrolls.

Duan Rong's eyes flickered slightly. He pulled out a scroll, untied the rope, and unfurled it in the dim light.

The painting depicts a young woman with a graceful figure and serene expression, carrying a flower basket as she walks leisurely. Duan Rong observed that the brushwork was somewhat immature, purely realistic with little regard for technique.

But it was clearly drawn with great care; the brushstrokes were extremely delicate around the woman's eyebrows and eyes.

Duan Ronghe opened one scroll, then picked up another and opened it. Upon seeing it, he was immediately struck by a sudden realization. The painting depicted the same woman.

However, the previous painting depicted a young girl, while this one exudes a more mature charm, and her hairstyle has also changed. But for some reason, the woman's eyes in this painting appear somewhat dull, completely different from the lively and spirited eyes of the previous one.

Moreover, in the blank space next to the painting, there are four large characters: "Things are not what they used to be."

These four characters surprised Duan Rong even more, because they seemed quite out of place with the woman in the painting.

The woman in the painting sits on a green stone beside a bamboo grove, her face serene. But the four characters "物是人非" (things are not what they used to be) are written with ink, exuding a murderous aura, and the characters are frighteningly large, each stroke like an iron hook or sword.

Duan Rong was puzzled, so he put down the painting and opened another box.

The moment he opened the trunk, his eyes widened in surprise. Inside were neatly folded clothes, all in shades of pink and green, all women's attire.

Duan Rong was quite surprised. Fu Yi was clearly a man obsessed with cultivation and unkempt. His own clothes were wrinkled, filthy, and unwashed. Moreover, there wasn't a single piece of his clothing in the cave. Yet, there was a whole box of women's clothes.

"Is this guy crazy?!" Duan Rong even suspected that Fu Yi might have a cross-dressing fetish. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how a hermit could have a whole box of women's clothing hidden in his secluded cave.

Duan Rong's eyes flickered slightly, and then he bent down and took out a jewelry box and a bronze mirror from the bottom of the chest filled with peach-colored and willow-green clothes.

Duan Rong's face twitched involuntarily.

He looked at the pink and green box in front of him, then turned to look at the worn and dented prayer mat on the stone platform not far behind him.

The objects on both sides made it really difficult for him to integrate them into one person.

Duan Rong sighed to himself, and without thinking twice, he began to devour the spirits of these objects.

He wanted to understand Fu Yi, and he felt that Fu Yi's continued presence in Qingzhou must have a reason. And that reason might be related to him.

He had a vague feeling about it.

At this moment, in this dark cave, Duan Rong resumed the same behavior he had shown in the antique street of Xiangu County, which was to "touch" everything. Duan Rong devoured all the objects in the cave, regardless of size, including the scattered bamboo slips, as well as the writing brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, jade pendants, and hairpins that Fu Yi had used.

After devouring them, he sat cross-legged on a futon on a stone platform not far away and began to concentrate on digesting the artifact spirits.

Duan Rong had already mastered the twenty-second level of the Fetal Treasury Sutra. With his current spiritual strength, and considering that most of the artifact spirits he had devoured in the cave were low-level and lacked any martial arts essence, although there were many of them, he had already digested and absorbed them all in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

Duan Rong, lying on the futon, suddenly opened his eyes. Under the dim light, a deep, cold glint flashed in his eyes.

He devoured a large amount of miscellaneous items, many of which were things Fu Yi used frequently before, otherwise they wouldn't have been stored here. After Duan Rong absorbed the information from these artifact spirits, it intertwined and merged, gradually connecting many scattered pieces of information into a coherent whole.

Duan Rong learned a great deal in an instant.

Fu Yi did not have a cross-dressing fetish. The pink and green clothes, jewelry, and bronze mirror in the box did not belong to Fu Yi, but to a woman named Jiang Yun'er.

Jiang Yun'er is Fu Yi's wife, the woman in the picture book in the other trunk.

Fu Yi was not good at painting, but he still picked up his brush and painted one clumsy painting after another for the woman because he loved her deeply.

His delicate brushstrokes are full of deep love.

Now, Duan Rong finally understood why the four characters "物是人非" (things have changed, people are no longer the same) in that painting had such a murderous aura. It was because the woman named Jiang Yun'er, Fu Yi's wife, was killed by Fu Yi himself. After killing Jiang Yun'er, he betrayed the Taiyi Sect. Within Qingzhou, he founded the Filthy Blood Sect, and for two hundred years, he remained an enemy of the Taiyi Sect.

Fu Yi clearly loved that woman deeply, so why did he kill her?

In fact, when Fu Yi killed Jiang Yun'er, Jiang Yun'er was no longer Jiang Yun'er. That's why Fu Yi wrote the four words "Things have changed, people are no longer the same".

The key point of these four words is that people are no longer the same.

Things have changed, people have changed; people are no longer people, they are things. Jiang Yun'er is no longer a person, but a puppet.

She already possesses the Nightmare Seed and is controlled by Lü Yinlin.

Like Fu Yi and Chu Wushang, the complete copy of the Fetal Treasury Scripture they obtained was not the version passed down through generations, meaning it lacked the Soul Devouring Seed technique.

Moreover, Fu Yi's cultivation of the Fetal Treasury Scripture could not be as fast as Duan Rong's; his speed would be similar to that of Chu Wushang and the others.

Lu Yinlin regarded Fu Yi as the most talented prospect and wanted to nurture him with all his might, but he was also worried about him because he could see from the information that Duan Rong had absorbed that Fu Yi was actually a rather bloodthirsty guy.

As a result of all these factors, Lü Yinlin eventually planted a nightmare seed on Fu Yi's closest person, turning him into his puppet to monitor Fu Yi day and night.

Fu Yi could sense the change in Jiang Yun'er, but he didn't know what had happened. However, by chance, he discovered that Lü Yinlin knew a very secret about him, a secret known only to him and Jiang Yun'er.

The only way Lü Yinlin learned this was from Jiang Yun'er.

Fu Yi has a violent temper, and he actually went directly to question Lü Yinlin. When Lü Yinlin saw Fu Yi questioning him, he no longer hid anything and told Fu Yi the truth, saying that he did this for Fu Yi's own good, fearing that Fu Yi's cultivation and temperament might have some deviations.

Fu Yi was already going crazy inside, but the more he went crazy, the calmer his expression became.

In Lü Yinlin's eyes, Jiang Yun'er was nothing more than a woman.

But Fu Yi deeply loved Jiang Yun'er and regarded her as his life. Otherwise, he wouldn't have spent more than two hundred years cultivating in this deep mountain cave, yet still carrying Jiang Yun'er's picture album, as well as her clothes and jewelry from her lifetime.

Because Lü Yinlin himself viewed women as playthings, he couldn't understand how Fu Yi, such a ruthless and bloodthirsty man, could be so infatuated with a woman.

Fu Yi calmly left Lü Yinlin's cave. Upon returning, Fu Yi personally killed Jiang Yun'er.

Lu Yinlin didn't take it seriously, thinking that Fu Yi just didn't want him to use a puppet to monitor him.

However, three years later, after obtaining the Bloodstained Divine Skill, Fu Yi betrayed the Taiyi Sect.

In fact, if it weren't for the Bloodstained Divine Skill, Fu Yi might still be staying by Lü Yinlin's side.

He stayed with Lü Yinlin, but his real purpose was to kill him.

In Fu Yi's view, it was Lü Yinlin who killed Jiang Yun'er. When he eliminated the "puppet," the Jiang Yun'er he deeply loved was already dead.

Fu Yi harbored such deep hatred for Lü Yinlin that he wanted to devour his flesh and sleep on his skin, but Lü Yinlin was completely unaware of this.

Firstly, it was because Fu Yi hid it well, and secondly, Lü Yinlin never expected that a woman would be so important to Fu Yi.

This is the "ill-fated relationship" between Fu Yi and Lü Yinlin, the master and disciple.

If he hadn't suddenly obtained the Bloodstained Divine Art, Fu Yi wouldn't have betrayed the sect. Because he was staying by Lü Yinlin's side, he didn't know when he would be able to condense his Nascent Soul and find an opportunity to grind Lü Yinlin to dust.

The Filthy Blood Divine Art can condense a blood infant. Although the method is brutal and bloodthirsty, Fu Yi is a bloodthirsty person by nature, so this cultivation method poses no mental obstacle for him.

His ability to conjure a blood infant demonstrates just how many lives he has taken!
Fu Yi originally planned to leave Qingzhou, go into hiding elsewhere, focus on cultivation, and seek revenge on Lü Yinlin once he had achieved sufficient skill.

But he obtained a treasure that changed his mind.

This item is called the "Ten Thousand Crows' Fire-Separating Scarf." This item can conceal one's form even when detected by divine sense.

Because of this object, even though Fu Yi was clearly in the cave, everyone's divine senses detected that the cave was completely empty.

"The Ten Thousand Crows' Fire Scarf!?" Duan Rong's expression changed slightly when he detected this item from the information he had digested and absorbed.

This item is naturally very magical; it can even conceal one's form under the detection of a Nascent Soul cultivator. If he could obtain this item, his infiltration of the Dharma Aspect Sect to steal the cultivation technique would be much safer.

It was only after obtaining this item that Fu Yi dared to remain in Qingzhou, unafraid of Lü Yinlin's pursuit, and even founded the Filthy Blood Sect, deliberately going against Lü Yinlin.

After going through all the information in his mind, Duan Rong was still quite surprised.

He never imagined that the root cause of Fu Yi's defection from the sect was a woman. The inextricable feud between him and Lü Yinlin stemmed from this.

In fact, knowing this about Fu Yi's true feelings actually put Duan Rong at ease. He had initially thought there was some grand conspiracy involved. He had guessed that Fu Yi had discovered some secret about Lü Yinlin, which was why he had betrayed the sect and become Lü Yinlin's enemy at every turn. He even worried that this secret might be related to him.

After all, Duan Rong himself had deep contact with Lü Yinlin, and in a sense, his cultivation and growth were all under Lü Yinlin's shadow.

If Lü Yinlin has some kind of secret that no one knows about, and this secret can harm Fu Yi, then it can also harm him.

This has always been a source of worry for Duan Rong. But now it seems that the tragedy between Fu Yi and Lü Yinlin will not be repeated between him and Lü Yinlin.

It seems that Lü Yinlin learned from Fu Yi's lesson, or perhaps for some other reason. In any case, he directly passed on the complete and authentic Embryo Sutra to Duan Rong, including the Heart-Devouring Seed from the twenty-second level of the technique.

In that deep cave, Duan Rong lowered his guard against Lü Yinlin. It wasn't that he completely trusted Lü Yinlin, but at least his suspicions lessened.

Duan Rong himself did not want the tragic fate between Lü Yinlin and Fu Yi to be repeated in their lives, because being an enemy of a Nascent Soul Realm expert was by no means a pleasant thing.

Fu Yi, a ruthless and decisive tyrant, still ended up half-dead. (End of Chapter)