Madam, please ascend.

Chapter 24: Three Immortals Test the Mortal Heart

What a coincidence, what a coincidence.

The old man who calls himself Nangong Feitian asks Yun Yi to help clean up the mess. Coincidentally, Monkey Boss and Zhi Boss are also determined to die. However, these two events happened to collide with each other, making Yun Yi hesitate to make a choice.

After saying goodbye to Zhi Lao Er, he took the initiative to find Zhuque who was practicing diligently in the mansion.

Yun Yi asked, "What have you been doing these days?"

Zhuque replied, "Besides cultivation, it's all cultivation. At first, I thought it was a good place to cultivate because no one would bother me or engage in intrigue. But these past two days, I've gotten a little bored."

"Has your cultivation improved?"

"I'm in the late stage of the Spiritual Transformation Realm. Thanks to those jars of Monkey Wine, this trip wasn't in vain."

"In that case, didn't you secretly find a way to leave?"

"You really do understand my sister."

Zhuque chuckled and looked around cautiously before saying, "I've been to the way we came, but it's just an ordinary cave with no spiritual energy fluctuations. I'm afraid I can't go back."

Yun Yi nodded after hearing this: "It is indeed so."

"Why did you suddenly think of looking for me? Are you planning to leave?"

"Something happened that I'm kind of struggling with."

"tell me the story."

Yun Yi thought for a moment before finally telling Zhuque about the strange statue and the abnormal behavior of Monkey Boss and the others. Now he and Zhuque were in the same boat, and hiding it would only lead to trouble.

After hearing this, Zhuque didn't think too much and directly suggested: "It's a good thing to kill two birds with one stone. What are you hesitating about? Just kill Monkey Boss and Zhi Lao Er, take the treasure, and get another benefit from Nangong Feitian. Then you will become his only successor, and according to Zhi Lao Er's words, the secret realm will naturally open."

"I always feel that things are not that simple."

"It can't be that complicated. You just can't bring yourself to do it. How about this, you give me the Soul-Destroying Orb and I'll help you."

Of course Yun Yi couldn't agree to Zhuque. He just labeled the woman as "big-breasted and brainless" in his mind.

This is the style of the people in the Demon Sect. They are always bold but not careful. Otherwise, a group of people would not have surrounded and killed Song Xinci and all lost their lives.

Moreover, people who practice cultivation are not truly indifferent to fame and fortune. They are extremely greedy for treasures and skills. If Yun Yi were replaced by someone else, he would definitely not hesitate when encountering such a "good thing" and would have killed Monkey Boss long ago.

Yun Yi asked, "Have you seen Tao Sanniang?"

Suzaku replied, "I have seen her a few times, but I haven't run into the girl lately."

"Tell me briefly about her situation?"

"Very beautiful. Although she still looks like a girl, she already has the appearance of a disaster for the country and the people. So, are you planning to find a lover behind my young lady's back?"

"Don't talk nonsense, I'm just a little curious."

"Tao Sanniang looks like an innocent little girl, simple-minded, and longing for the outside world."

This coincided with Yun Yi's guess. He had seen Tao Sanniang in his dream. Although he had not communicated with her, he was able to roughly guess her character from the fact that Tao Sanniang peeked at him practicing sword.

According to the old man, Tao Sanniang was the daughter of Nangong Feitian. Her two senior brothers had used her to kill their master, but they didn't kill her afterward. They even allowed her to find a chance to preserve a trace of her father's divine consciousness.

Yun Yi thought about it and felt that this was the problem.

If Tao Sanniang was really innocent, how could she hide the secrets of Nangong Feitian from two Return to Void Realm masters?
And why has she not appeared in public these past few days, yet secretly glimpsed at Yun Yi in her dreams? Is she shy, or is there something else going on? Why do Monkey Boss and Zhi Boss turn a blind eye to this? Do they tacitly approve of Tao Sanniang's actions?
If the way out of the secret realm was really as Zhi Lao Er said, that one had to kill them both, then why were they so determined to die? Two vicious men who betrayed their master now wanted to be good people?

There were so many doubts, Yun Yi had a feeling that if he chose the most brutal method, killing someone directly, it might cause a huge mess. In his previous life, Gong Che had never mentioned these secrets within the secret realm, but judging by how he had left the Feitian Secret Realm unscathed, there must be a way out alive.

After some careful analysis, Yun Yi suddenly had a flash of inspiration and grasped an extremely important idea.

Why was he guided by a voice to find the strange stone statue after he entered the Qi Refining Realm?
Why did Hou and Zhi change their attitude towards me after I entered the Qi Refining Realm?

Why did Tao Sanniang refuse to show up and instead only peek at me in dreams?
The root of these things is that Yun Yi advanced to the Qi Refining Realm, and Gong Che was also in the Qi Refining Realm when he left the secret realm, which shows that the benefit that the Feitian Secret Realm can provide is to allow a mortal to reach the Qi Refining Realm.

Therefore, the problem he faces now is how to leave the Feitian Secret Realm.

After figuring this out, Yun Yi suddenly became enlightened and couldn't help but chuckle. "To put it bluntly, asking me to make a choice is the second test you've given me. The treasures from the Immortal Mansion were a test of my greed, but now it's to see how ambitious I am after I've achieved success in my cultivation."

Suzaku seemed to understand: "What do you mean?"

"I won't explain it to you for now. You don't understand anyway." Yun Yi kept the secret on purpose, which made Zhuque angry.

He returned to the mansion's main gate and discovered that Monkey Boss and Zhi Second had already gathered there, seemingly waiting for him. The two stone lions, who normally would greet Yun Yi, now seemed preoccupied and silent.

The monkey boss got straight to the point and asked, "Are you ready?"

Yun Yi asked knowingly, "What preparations are you making?"

"Kill us both and leave the secret realm."

"I didn't intend to kill anyone."

The eldest monkey said, "Zhi Lao Er told you that you can't leave unless you kill us both."

Yun Yi said shamelessly: "Then I won't leave. I will continue to practice here."

Monkey Boss, Zhi Boss, and Suzaku: "?"

"This place is beautiful with clear water and mountains, and I have no worries about food and drink. I might as well stay here for a few decades. If I'm lucky enough to improve my cultivation, maybe I can find another way out. If not, I'll trouble you two to collect my body when the time comes."

Zhuque heard the hidden meaning in Yun Yi's words and echoed: "Well, since you are not leaving, then I won't leave either."

This made the monkey boss anxious: "Why are you still relying on us?!"

Yun Yi suddenly changed the subject: "Tao Sanniang is pretending to be a stone statue over there in the pond. It's really hard for her. She has the heart of a young girl but wants to pretend to be an old man."

The eldest monkey was stunned. Seeing this, the second monkey quickly pulled the monkey's arm.

Yun Yi smiled and said, "Don't act, I already understand everything."

After saying that, he took out two soul-destroying beads from his sleeve and threw them directly to Monkey Boss, indicating that he had absolutely no intention of killing anyone.

Yun Yi said, "Tao Sanniang deliberately pretended to be Nangong Feitian and made up a fake story to trick me into helping her clean up the mess. You two just happened to tell me that if I leave the secret realm, I must kill you two and obtain the inheritance. This gave me a reason to kill.

"In this test of the heart, if I had been a little greedy, had I desired to cultivate more, I might have fallen into your trap. Unfortunately, my cultivation emphasizes going with the flow and never forcing anything."

After he finished speaking, a beautiful girl suddenly flew over, accompanied by countless petals, and muttered, "I told you this method is useless. You two insisted that I lied to you."

Yun Yi laughed and said, "That's not true. If it was Suzaku who made the choice, the consequences would be unpredictable."

Upon hearing this, Zhuque glared at Yun Yi and said, "Okay, okay, you're just smart, okay?!"

Yun Yi continued, "This must be the rule passed down by Senior Nangong. Those who are destined to come to this secret realm must have a pure and kind heart and cannot commit all kinds of evil. That's why you set up a trap to test me after I reached the Qi Refining Realm. If you discover that I have a very evil heart, you will try every possible means to take back the benefits, right?"

Seeing his lie exposed, the monkey boss stopped pretending, "That's exactly what I meant, but no one has ever taken this far in the past thousand years, so we weren't very skilled at deceiving people, and that's why you saw through our trick."

(End of this chapter)