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

She clenched her teeth, her cheeks tense, and forced back the blood rising in her throat.

After a long while, he slowly raised his heavy eyelids.

"obedient?"

A low laugh escaped his throat with difficulty, carrying endless mockery and sorrow, hoarse and grating, slowly echoing in the deathly silent prison.

"What should I listen to? Your framing of the other elders of the Nie family? Your cruelty towards our clansmen? Your disregard for morality and your indiscriminate torture? Or your eagerness to emerge from seclusion to commit evil deeds, attempting to seize control of the Nie family and usurp the Phoenix Maiden's bloodline, simply because you saw something amiss with Mother's seclusion?"

The elder's expression darkened, a chill creeping into his eyes: "You ungrateful wretch! If you insist on resisting, you'll only needlessly harm yourself, ending up dead and your soul scattered. Haven't you lived like this for the past twenty-odd years? Why are you putting on this act of unyielding defiance now?"

"In the past?"

These words completely ignited Nie Shiyun's pent-up rage.

She stared intently at the sanctimonious elder before her, her chest heaving violently. The black iron chain was ripped open with a loud clang, the chain cutting into her flesh and tearing open her festering wound. Fresh blood dripped slowly down her skin, spreading dark red stains on the cold stone ground.

Excruciating pain swept through her entire body, her vision blurred, and her temples throbbed with pain, yet she still refused to bow her head, clinging to her last breath.

"You've lied to me for twenty years. You said Mother didn't want me, my sister didn't want me, only you were willing to raise me, to cherish me like a precious jewel. I believed you," her broken, hoarse voice was filled with blood, tears, and hatred, each word dripping with anguish. "Then let me ask you, where is my sister's letter? From childhood you told me that my sister went to Yanzhou because she looked down on Father, looked down on the Nie family, and by extension, looked down on me. Is that really true? Mother didn't want me, she looked down on Father, and didn't care about me, but my sister didn't! She didn't return to the Nie family because you forced her, and she liked the Feng Hua Sect not because she hated me. She didn't abandon me!"

Nie Shiyun's eyes reddened, grief and indignation burning her eyes, tears welling up, but she forced them back, refusing to let a single tear fall into this filthy inferno.

"You keep telling me to be obedient and submit, but you just want me to be subservient and become your puppet head of the Nie family in Nanchuan, to cover up your crimes, and to make me a pawn for you to control the land and wreak havoc."

Her limbs were stiffened by the iron chains, and her entire body was covered in wounds. Every word she spoke aggravated her injuries, causing her fingertips to curl and her bones to tremble. Yet, her tone carried a resolute determination to fight to the death: "Fine, kill me then. Let's see who my elder sister will spare when she returns. Even if my elder sister doesn't return, and my mother dies from the backlash of her internal energy, all of this is part of your plan. But have you ever considered that if I die, without the bloodline of the phoenix, no one can rightfully succeed to the Nie family of Nanchuan! Even if I, Nie Shiyun, perish here, I will never bow down to you hypocrites."

"You have harmed your own kind, illegally raised corpses, and harmed countless people of this land. You have trampled on the laws of heaven, and you will be struck down by lightning sooner or later. When Sister returns, let's see who will be the first to die!"

The elder's face darkened completely, and the last trace of feigned advice in his eyes vanished, leaving only a cold ruthlessness: "It seems that two years in the Ten Thousand Poisons Cave haven't taught you a lesson. You're determined to die."

"What? You dare kill me?"

Nie Shiyun looked up, her disheveled hair unable to conceal the wounds all over her body. She gritted her teeth, wishing she could tear the person in front of her to pieces and drink their blood and eat their flesh.

"I've been arrogant since I was a child. I may not have much else, but I've managed to preserve this bit of backbone. I will not dishonor the bloodline of the Southern Phoenix. I'd rather die than let you traitors have your way."

"You want me to submit to you and become your puppet, to help you control the Nie family and the Nanchuan region?"

She coldly curled her lips into a cruel and ruthless smile, her eyes burning with hatred, each word as sharp as ice and a blade: "Dream on."

*

"Senior sister, do we really have to enter Chidi like this?" Xie Weixing's face was covered by a mask, completely obscuring her features.

“Since they have already taken control of the Nie family and the letters they send to the Feng Hua Sect every month are fake, they must have set up sentries at the entrance to Chi Di,” Nie Zhao put on a dark cloak, covering his long red hair completely. “Don’t alert them, I’m afraid they will hide A Yun.”

"What a surprise," Yu Xintang said, putting on her cloak. "I thought your sister would help the father who raised her and the right-wing elders without hesitation."

Shen Chunri raised an eyebrow: "I second that."

"She's just spoiled and has been corrupted, so she's become a bit vicious," Nie Zhao said calmly, covering her face with a mask. "She hates me, she hates my mother, but she doesn't hate the Nie family. She has reverence for the Phoenix lineage, so naturally she won't let Nanchuan down."

Shen Chunri pouted, finding it hard to believe that this vicious madman could have a good side.

Xie Weixing, not understanding the bamboo hat, clicked his tongue and said, "What the hell is this?"

"When she was young, she believed slander and thought that her senior sister had abandoned her, so she harbored resentment for more than 100 years," Tan Suiting said calmly as he turned to adjust Xie Weixing's hat. "Now that she has discovered that she has been deceived so much by someone she trusted, she will definitely not let the person who deceived her get away with it. She will remember this grudge for the rest of her life."

Xie Weixing chuckled and said, "Clever Dragon."

Tan Suiting withdrew his hand, his expression unchanged: "She's been spoiled rotten. She's arrogant, domineering, and willful. It's not hard to guess what she's thinking."

"Let's go," Nie Zhao said, putting on his mask. "I know the roads around the Nie residence very well. There are four gates in the east, west, south, and north. You will seal all four entrances and not let a single person out. Use the Emergency Cloud Order as your signal. Do not make any rash moves before I give the signal."

"No need for that," Yu Xintang raised an eyebrow. "Have you heard of the Absolute Realm Array?"

All four shook their heads.

Nie Zhao slept through the pill-making class, let alone the talisman array class.

Yu Xintang:......

Xie Weixing lazily raised his hand: "I'll go first, I don't know."

"Expecting you to know how? My three brothers and two sisters are all dead by now," Yu Xintang said irritably. "You don't need to know how. You just need to know that with my current cultivation level, setting up this formation is more than enough to trap the Nie family."

"As long as I live, the formation will not break. Unless someone at the Heavenly Ascension Realm breaks it, even a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator would have to kill me to leave."

Xie Weixing and Shen Chunri leaned against each other, exclaiming in unison, "That's awesome?"

"There's no point in talking to a bunch of illiterate people like you," Yu Xintang raised an eyebrow. "Let's go."

---

How come there are still people betting with their friends on who will confess first in the "Dragon Trapped" game? Hahaha, are they all just like Xie Weixing, the filial daughter and gambling addict? They'll be confirming their relationship in the next few days, so stay tuned for the early romance chronicle of these two elementary school students in the cultivation world! (Electric orz)