Having cultivated myself into an immortal, all I want to do is raise female disciples.

Suddenly.

Ye Yuchan grasped Zhang Ruoxue's forearm with her fair and slender hand. Looking at Zhang Ruoxue, she said with a complicated expression, "Don't think too much. I don't know what others are saying, but you absolutely must not overthink it."

Zhang Ruoxue turned around in surprise, staring blankly at Ye Yuchan.

Ye Yuchan then said seriously:

"Because if you overthink it, with your brain, not only will you not be able to come up with a solution, but your brain might also get burned out."

Zhang Ruoxue: "..."

The next second, only one thought remained in Ruoxue's mind.

Beat that damn Ye Yuchan!

"You called me stupid again!!"

This time, Zhang Ruoxue swung her wine gourd and aimed it at Ye Yuchan's head, but the latter chuckled and dodged Zhang Ruoxue's attack with a quick movement.

After all, it wasn't night yet, and there was no moonlight in this secret realm. Without the blessing of the Silent Moon Technique, Zhang Ruoxue's cultivation level was no match for Ye Yuchan's.

Watching the two chasing and playing around, Jiang Yuetian, the second senior brother—the beautiful Jiang—sighed helplessly: "I say...have you both forgotten why we came in here in the first place?"

"Purpose?"

Jiang Shaoguang was stunned when he heard this. "What was it again?"

Upon hearing this, Fan Luokui, who was standing behind Jiang Shaoguang, slapped the back of this pigeon-like senior brother's head with her scabbard, a hint of displeasure flashing across her icy face: "It's for Fourth Senior Brother."

"Oh~~"

Not only Jiang Shaoguang, but Duan Xingchen and others also expressed their sudden realization.

—So these guys got so caught up in their antics that they forgot all about the important business.

It's not entirely their fault, considering they've been causing a ruckus in this secret realm for so long, yet they haven't seen anything that resembles an ultimate aura, let alone met Gu Xingzhuo himself.

Aside from obtaining a story about Liu Xun Kong and Qu Wen Xue, their gains were basically zero—they didn't even manage to snag any treasures.

They were even trapped inside the Azure Sea and Sky Formation... What a misfortune in every sense of the word.

but--

"As for the fourth brother, he's already been settled."

Yunping's words made Ye Yuchan and Zhang Ruoxue, who were making a scene, stop in their tracks.

All the disciples turned their gazes to their teacher, an ordinary young man dressed in white, whose appearance could only be described as delicate and not handsome—at this moment, he was dragging a lifeless Demon Cauldron in his hand, with an unknown mysterious smile on his face.

They had seen that smile many times before, and every time the old rogue smiled like that, it meant that something big was about to happen.

goo-dong-

Almost everyone present swallowed hard.

"Um—" Stepping forward as the questioner was Xiaolin Yuan, who had tucked her Little Queen form back into her body: "Teacher, do you already know where Fourth Senior Brother is?"

"Of course, and... it's actually quite obvious."

Yunping tossed the Demon-Slaying Cauldron in front of him and then stepped on it with his foot.

He pointed to the empty space inside the cauldron and said, "The fourth brother is lying in this cauldron and sleeping soundly right now."

"What?!"

Everyone was startled and looked into the cauldron.

Although there were four black walls inside the Demon Cauldron, there was nothing noteworthy in its square space. Not to mention the fourth brother, Gu Xingzhuo, not even a hair could be seen.

Moreover, there isn't even a spatial array here, meaning there's no possibility of being teleported to another space after jumping in.

Jiang Yuetian rubbed his chin, entering a deep thought mode: "Could it be that some kind of ritual is needed again?"

When Jiang Meiren said those words, she didn't feel anything, but Jiang Shaoguang and Fan Luokui next to her both shuddered at the same time—they still remembered that ceremony that took place on their wedding bed last time.

Both of their faces flushed slightly. Jiang Shaoguang coughed twice and slightly increased the distance between himself and his junior sister.

On the other side, Yunping shook his head.

"Don't worry, there's no need for any complicated rituals—" The old rogue beckoned to Zhang Ruoxue: "Come here, Ruoxue, come here for a second."

"I?"

Zhang Ruoxue tilted her head, and being a carefree girl, she walked over without thinking much.

When Zhang Ruoxue stood in front of the Demon Cauldron, Yun Ping casually made a slash in the air, and another cut appeared on the tip of Zhang Ruoxue's slender finger, from which blood slowly dripped down.

"Again?!"

Zhang Ruoxue felt a sharp pain in her fingertip and instinctively tried to pull her hand back.

But the old rogue stopped him.

"Alright, just bear with it. This time we need a little more blood."

Zhang Ruoxue pursed her lips and couldn't help but mutter, "...The owner of this secret realm has such a twisted sense of humor..."

—That's definitely a rather perverse sense of humor.

After all, he is Liu Xunkong, the half-immortal of the demonic path.

As Zhang Ruoxue's fingertip blood fell into the empty Demon Cauldron, a thin, dark blood-red film floated on its dark walls, just like the one on Qu Wenxue's painting earlier.

When the crimson color on the four walls completely covered the original darkness, a circular, semi-transparent, suspended array suddenly appeared at the bottom of the Demon Cauldron, and thirty-six profound spells rapidly condensed on it.

Zhang Ruoxue's vision suddenly became somewhat blurry—this was not because she was weak from excessive blood loss, but because not only her, everyone present felt a wave of dizziness, as if they had been given a large vat of Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor), and the world in front of them began to spin.

All they could see was the crimson, mysterious magic array spinning at an incredibly terrifying speed, like a vortex that sucked everything in the surrounding world into it.

When the rotation speed reached its limit, the scarlet array suddenly stopped, and the images it had absorbed were torn apart and burst out in all directions again.

In the blink of an eye, the world was reshaped.

"This is……"

Ye Yuchan shook her head and found that the dizziness was slowly disappearing from her mind.

Everything before my eyes became clear again, but what I saw and heard was completely different from before!

The scene that unfolded before my eyes was a desert.

She recognized this desert.

In Qu Wenxue's painting, Qu Wenxue, clad in black armor and wielding a long spear, stands majestically and imposingly on this desert.

There was nothing around, no living beings, no vegetation, and even the air was filled with a desolate and deserted atmosphere.

Duan Xingchen looked down at the sand at his feet, which was tinged with black, and asked in confusion, "Where is this?"

"The space where the fourth brother is located is also a secret realm within a secret realm."

"A secret realm within a secret realm?" Duan Xingchen frowned, not understanding what he meant.

In response, Yunping explained, "Any secret realm needs a support to be formed. For example, this Half-Immortal Tomb was naturally formed from Liu Xunkong's damaged physical body and soul. And the support of the secret realm we are in now is the Half-Immortal Tomb."

Using the secret realm as a foundation... to create another secret realm?

Everyone present was not stupid (except for Zhang Ruoxue), and they immediately understood Yunping's meaning.

But problems soon followed—

Ye Yuchan looked like she had finally found a clue and asked curiously, "Then who created this secret realm? It couldn't have been Liu Xunkong too, could it?"

"It is Liu Xun Kong, but to be precise—"

Before he could finish speaking...

Suddenly, a wave of extremely black light swept in from afar, the boundless darkness obscuring the sky and rapidly blackening the sand beneath everyone's feet.

This vast, brownish-brown desert abruptly transformed into a scorched wasteland.

And emanating from that black sand and dust was an extremely dense demonic energy.

Everyone stared intently in the direction from which the dark wave was sweeping in—

There seemed to be a whirlpool there.

A black vortex.

At the center of the vortex rolled an extremely terrifying demonic aura! Black lightning descended from the sky, frantically striking the center of the vortex, and with each strike, the demonic aura contained within expanded further!

Gazing at the dark vortex, Yunping continued his earlier words.

"The one who created this secret realm was none other than—"

He pointed to the center of the vortex, where dark lightning rolled in.

"It's our fourth son, Gu Xingzhuo."

Jiang Yuetian's expression changed, and the image of that boy flashed through his mind.

"But...why did Xingzhuo..."

Knowing what his disciple was going to ask, Yunping answered before Jiang Yuetian finished speaking.

A strange answer.

"In order to overcome the tribulation."

"What calamity?"

"A tribulation from a past life."

47. Zhang Ruoxue? Qu Wenxue?

Gu Xingzhuo's past life was undoubtedly Liu Xunkong.

The body of him harbors one of the twenty-one ultimates, the Impermanence of Life and Death, whose previous owner was none other than the demonic half-immortal, Liu Xun Kong, who ultimately perished in the Abyss of the Demon Clan.

All he could see were swirling shadows, obscuring the sky and the sun. A fierce, swirling wind swept in, and Jiang Yuetian stared into the unfathomable center of the darkness, where a familiar figure could be seen, appearing and disappearing in the shadows.

"A past life tribulation...?"

"Every generation of the Impermanent Ones must undergo a tribulation of their past life. Due to the special nature of the Impermanent Ones, the memories of their past life will be preserved and remain in their minds until the tribulation is completed."

Yunping's eyes revealed a look of understanding, and he already knew why his fourth brother was here.