Are you really trying to cultivate immortality? Something feels off.

Tan Suiting stared at him blankly, a dull ache spreading through her chest.

"I don't understand," he murmured blankly, utterly bewildered. "Kunkun, I don't understand."

Xie Weixing felt awkward.

If you don't understand, how could I possibly understand?

[It's like I'm doing you a disservice by letting you have more early relationships back then]

[The most hopeless combination in the world: the one who knows how to flirt is clueless, and the one who knows how to flirt doesn't know how.]

[I understand. Kunkun, you're afraid that Long'er's kindness towards you isn't genuine affection, but rather an attempt to repay a debt of gratitude. It's just an unconscious dependence on your senior brother that comes with being so young and immature, right?]

Xie Weixing was in a state of confusion and turned off the live comments.

When faced with a dilemma, he considered going into seclusion.

"I'm going to the grotto in the back mountain to find the Azure Lion," he said. "I'll come out when I've made up my mind."

"Senior brother." Tan Suiting grabbed the hem of his clothes, his brows furrowed, and his eyes reddened.

Why leave?

Xie Weixing's words were so harsh. His heart was aching terribly, and yet the other party was about to leave.

Do you want to cut ties with him completely?

Is it because you want to keep your distance from him?

Yes, you don't want to raise dragons anymore.

Xie Weixing looked at the other person and sighed three times in his heart.

He himself hadn't figured it out, so how could he give Tan Suiting an answer?

A thousand words gather in my heart, forming four characters.

Wang was very tired.

"Alright," Nie Zhao frowned, his face pale. "Have you argued enough? Stop talking."

Yu Xintang turned her head, her brow furrowing: "Senior Sister? What's wrong?"

Nie Zhao clutched his chest, his knuckles gripping the crimson fabric of his clothes, creating wrinkles. His voice was hoarse: "It's alright, you can all go about your business."

Shen Chunri's eyes sharpened: "Senior sister, is your heart still aching?"

Tan Suiting, who was closest, reached out to support Nie Zhao, no longer having time to grieve: "What happened? Senior Sister, are you hurt?"

Shen Chunri stepped forward, placed his fingertips on Nie Zhao's neck to check her pulse, and explained, "Senior Sister has been experiencing occasional chest pain and tightness for the past two years. I have taken her pulse before, and there is nothing seriously wrong with her body, but she still feels pain."

Xie Weixing stepped forward: "How could this happen?"

Why am I experiencing chest pain for no reason? What does that mean? The original book doesn't seem to mention it.

After all, according to the original storyline, the Feng Hua Sect was on the verge of extinction at this point, so there was no need to elaborate further.

"Not only did I see it, but my senior uncle also saw it. He was worried that my senior sister might have made a mistake in her cultivation and gone into a demonic state, or that the injuries she suffered at Ten Thousand Swords Mountain had not yet healed. But after examining my senior sister's spiritual veins and sea of ​​consciousness, my senior uncle said that there was nothing wrong with her body, and that she had never neglected her cultivation in the past two years," Shen Chunri said, genuinely puzzled. "What exactly happened...?"

Nie Zhao's breathing was rapid, her delicate eyebrows were furrowed, her jawline was taut, and her beautiful, cold phoenix eyes held a hint of pain and confusion.

How could this be?

It wasn't the sharp pain from being injured by swords, nor the dull ache from internal injuries causing spiritual energy to collapse, but rather a deep, aching swelling, like ants gnawing at the bone, buried deep within the red lines of the blood vessels.

She frowned, pinched her fingers lightly, and kept herself awake.

"No," she said, gripping the stone table, her long, strong fingers pointing towards the table. "I need to go back to Nanchuan."

"So sudden?" Yu Xintang frowned. "Did something happen?"

"I don't know," Nie Zhao said coldly, "but I feel uneasy and I have to go back."

"Then what about us?" Xie Weixing asked eagerly.

"Go do what you're supposed to do," Nie Zhao said coldly. "You don't need to interfere in the affairs of Nanchuan."

She got up and walked out, but her legs hadn't even stepped out of the disciples' courtyard.

A disciple dressed in outer sect attire hurried over, bowing with both hands: "Senior Sister."

Nie Zhao stopped in his tracks: "What's wrong?"

"There is a woman outside the sect who specifically asked for you," the disciple reported. "She claims to have come from Nanchuan and says she has something important to tell you."

Nie Zhao's eyes narrowed, and he quickly walked out.

Feng Hua Zongshan Gate.

"Young Miss," the woman, who looked like a maid, came forward as soon as she saw Nie Zhao, knelt down with a thud, biting her lip, "Young Miss, you should go back to Nanchuan quickly, Chidi is really in chaos..."

"What's going on?" Nie Zhao suddenly squatted down, placing his forearms on his knees, his phoenix eyes flashing with cold light. "Explain yourself clearly."

She recognized the maid; she seemed to have served Nie Shiyun closely since she was a child.

The maid raised her head tremblingly, her lips quivering: "Four years ago, after the Second Miss returned to the Tianxuan Sect from Wanjian Mountain, she stopped replying to my husband. He sent people to deliver messages many times, but there was still no response."

"Until two years ago, the spiritual energy of Qifeng Hall, where the patriarch was in seclusion, fluctuated, seemingly... due to the backlash of bloodline power."

"How is that possible?" Nie Zhao frowned. "My mother was already at the Taixu Realm when she went into seclusion. How could she be backfired by the power of her bloodline? This kind of situation is rare even among the descendants of the Nie family who are at the Golden Core Realm."

The maid shook her head repeatedly, her eyes full of confusion: "I don't know. My master sent the letter to the Tianxuan Sect. This time, the second young lady finally returned to the manor, but for some reason, she had a big fight with my master in the ancestral hall, and they even started to fight."

Nie Zhao frowned deeply: "And then?"

She must have been shocked to realize, after hearing what she herself had said at Wanjian Mountain four years ago, that she had been living in the lies of her father and the elders for the past few years. That's why she made the angry decision to stop corresponding with her father.

The argument that broke out in the ancestral hall was probably due to this reason.

"My lord has locked up the Second Miss, but you, Eldest Miss, know her temper best," the maid said, her eyes reddening as she tightly gripped Nie Zhao's sleeve. "Two years ago, the Second Miss turned the manor upside down, even injuring my lord. In her fury, the elder threw her in...throw her in..."

A faint blush rose to the corners of Nie Zhao's eyes, a sign that the Phoenix Maiden's anger affected her bloodline. His voice trailed off with a barely audible chill: "Where did you throw it?"

"Ten Thousand Poisons," the maid replied hastily, "The Cave of Ten Thousand Poisons."

Nie Zhao's pupils froze instantly, his fingertips trembled slightly involuntarily, and his voice was extremely low, a slight tremor rising in his throat: "...What?"

The Ten Thousand Poison Cave was carved a thousand feet underground from the Nie family mansion. Above ground was a grand and orderly residence with bright pavilions and towers. No one would have imagined that beneath their feet lay a living hell.

The deepest part of the Ten Thousand Poisons Cave is the Netherworld Abyss, used to imprison the most dangerous death row inmates and the Nie family members who had defected.

Nie Shiyun was pampered since childhood, and even when she went out for a picnic, she needed a group of people to protect and follow her. How could she go to the Ten Thousand Poisons Cave?

"My master once thought of bringing the second young lady out," the maid said in a trembling voice, "but the second young lady is too stubborn and would rather die than admit her mistakes, so she can only... can only continue to suffer in the poison cave."

Nie Zhao's eyes were red, and he even felt that the air was thin and he could hardly breathe. After a long while, he lowered his eyes in shock and looked at his wrist.

It turns out that the unbearable heartache she sometimes felt for no reason in the past two years was not due to a qi deviation or unhealed old wounds, but because she was connected to her younger sister by blood, and the red thread was emitting mournful cries in the dark.