You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

Qi Fei looked at him and suddenly smiled.

"If I had inherited the skill," he said, raising his chopsticks, "I would have run away long ago. Why would I be here slurping noodles?"

The Butterfly Prince was taken aback.

Yes!

Having received the inheritance, shouldn't one find a place to retreat into seclusion, cultivate, and comprehend the Great Dao?

Who would go to a small stall in town, wolf down two bowls of sour rice noodles, and eat with their mouth full of noodles, completely losing their composure?

Looking at the layer of bright red chili oil in Qi Fei's bowl, and then at his face covered in sweat from eating, Butterfly Prince suddenly realized that he must be having a brain fart.

"Have you ever met my master?" he asked again.

He saw many people returning from the inn, but couldn't find his master, so he went out to look for him and found Qi Fei slurping noodles.

"Him?" Qi Fei thought for a moment and said, "I saw him from afar when I came down the mountain. Why don't you go look for him?"

"Okay! Thank you!" He snapped the folding fan shut, stood up, and headed towards Nanshan.

Qi Fei nodded and continued slurping his noodles.

-----------------

In the depths of Nanshan, Ying Wanning looked at the frenzied Zhu Yixin, her delicate brows furrowed, and reached out to pull him back: "Yixin, Yixin, what's wrong with you?"

Zhu Yixin ignored him, his eyes unfocused, seemingly insane, repeatedly muttering the same phrase: "I am a Mahayana cultivator... a Mahayana cultivator!"

No one knows what he experienced in that illusion.

Reborn time and time again, escaping death time and time again, standing at the peak and looking down upon all living beings time and time again.

He remembered every death, every time he got up, and every time he trampled that seemingly invincible enemy under his feet.

I also remember the look of confusion, bewilderment, and despair on the faces of those who wanted to kill him in their final moments.

That look in his eyes gave him a pleasure more intense than anything else.

At that moment, he felt like a god.

An omnipotent God!

A god who controls everything, a god who reigns above destiny!

But now, he's back in the real world. He discovers he's not a god; all those victories, those comebacks, those exhilarating moments—they were all fake.

It was all a lie!

He's not a god, he's a clown!

This is what he truly cannot accept. This is what drives him crazy.

The moment Ying Wanning's hand touched his sleeve, Zhu Yixin abruptly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, like a wild beast awakened from a nightmare.

He saw Ying Wanning's face, the face that had been gentle to him countless times in the illusion, yet had also betrayed him countless times.

That face that leaned on his shoulder in the grass under the starry night, that rolled around with him in the grass, and that groaned in the next room.

"You bitch!" His voice was hoarse and inhuman, his eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his forehead bulged. "It's all your fault! You're the one who made me experience this ultimate humiliation!"

Ying Wanning was stunned.

Her hand froze in mid-air, and the concern on her face solidified inch by inch. She looked at Zhu Yixin as if she were looking at a complete stranger.

How dare this person speak to her like that?

In her eyes, Zhu Yixin had always been that lapdog wagging its tail.

When she's in a good mood, she throws him a bone, and he happily snatches it away.

When she's in a bad mood, she kicks him, and he shrinks into a corner, only to wag his tail and come back a few days later.

He listens to whatever she says. He gives her whatever she wants.

How dare someone like that point his finger at her and call her a "bitch"?

"You bitch! It's all your fault! You damn bitch!" Zhu Yixin had completely lost control, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth, her face contorted as if she were a completely different person.

"I'm going to kill you! Yes, kill you, only by killing you can I break this illusion!"

He waved the black banner in his hand.

"It's all a lie! It's all a lie!" he roared, his voice echoing through the valley. "Kill you, and this illusion will be shattered!"

He suddenly swung the black banner in his hand.

The banner fluttered in the wind, and countless shadows surged out from it, rushing towards Ying Wanning like a tidal wave.

The shadows twisted and rolled, emitting sharp howls, carrying undisguised killing intent.

Ying Wanning looked at the approaching shadow without taking a single step back.

"Yixin, you've really gone mad." Her tone carried a condescending pity, as if she were looking at a crazed wild dog.

She is the Holy Maiden of the Shadow God Cult, and in recent years she has secretly come into contact with many secret techniques of the Blood God Cult. The complexity and ruthlessness of her methods are far beyond Zhu Yixin's comprehension.

Faced with the overwhelming shadows, she calmly raised her hand and muttered something under her breath.

The voice was very soft and faint, as if it came from underground. It was the spell used by the Shadow God Cult leader and the Holy Maiden to counter the Black Banner.

The black banner in Zhu Yixin's hand trembled violently. The surging shadows on the banner seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand, instantly freezing in mid-air and no longer moving forward.

Zhu Yixin was stunned. Before she could react, Ying Wanning had already bitten her wrist.

A stream of blood spurted from his wrist, transforming into countless fine, hair-like blood threads in mid-air, meandering and swirling like living things, wrapping around Zhu Yixin.

The bloodstains had a sweet, fishy smell that made people nauseous and dizzy.

Although Zhu Yixin has gone mad, her fighting instincts are surprisingly sharp.

Countless rebirths and battles within the illusion had etched combat into his very bones. The moment the blood threads began to entangle him, he drew his Shadow God Sword with a backhand motion, and with a flash of light, severed the few blood threads binding his wrist.

"You bastard! You bastard!" he cursed as he brandished his sword, his eyes bloodshot.

Ying Wanning, however, was not in a hurry.

Her methods go far beyond these.

She took out a blood-red fan from her sleeve. The fan was not large, and strange patterns were drawn on its surface, resembling both blood vessels and tree roots.

With a gentle wave of her hand, Zhu Yixin felt a gust of foul wind hit her face. Her mind went blank, the world spun around her, and she staggered, as if she had been stuffed into a spinning millstone, unable to tell which way was which.

He swung his sword wildly, but couldn't even touch the hem of Ying Wanning's clothes.

Ying Wanning fanned herself twice more, unhurriedly.

Zhu Yixin's steps became increasingly unsteady, her vision increasingly blurred, and finally she collapsed to her knees with a thud, dropping her sword and gasping for breath.

Ying Wanning put away her fan, walked up to him, and looked down at him.

She held a dark red pill between her fingers; the thumb-sized pill gleamed eerily in the sunlight.

She pinched open Zhu Yixin's chin, stuffed the pill into his mouth, and then gently patted his Adam's apple, causing the pill to slide down.

Then, she formed a mudra with her hands and began to chant an even more obscure incantation.

Zhu Yixin's body began to convulse, her limbs trembled uncontrollably, and her pupils dilated and contracted intermittently, as if she were undergoing a silent transformation.