Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Bai Guiyi found me in the cellar of Medicine Peak.

She had moved her entire apothecary there. As she worked on reconnecting my meridians, she cursed, “Have you lost your mind? Even the Ninefold Heavenly Tribulation couldn’t strike you dead, yet you chose to come back here and deliver yourself to death.”

Leaning against the couch, I watched her eyes redden and suddenly felt like laughing. “Senior Sister, if you don’t want to save me, it’s not too late to throw me out now.”

Bai Guiyi’s hand paused before she pressed down hard on the edge of my wound.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Good, it should,” she gritted out. “Pain means you’re still alive. Years ago, when my senior sister returned from the Cold Abyss, she also claimed she’d only suffered a minor injury. The very next day, she was carried into a cauldron and refined into ash.”

The room fell silent.

After a moment, she took a Memory Stone from a hidden compartment and handed it to me. The image showed a Black Gate in the deepest part of the Cold Abyss. Dense lightning patterns were carved onto the gate, with nine chains leading toward the nine main peaks. Many children stood before the gate-some as young as seven or eight, the oldest barely in their teens. Each one had an identical green cord tied around their wrist.

The perspective shifted, and I saw a younger version of myself.

And Xiao Zhixiao, standing at the outermost edge.

He was younger then, blocking the gate with his sword, looking as if he had just emerged from a bloodbath. The footage ended with him shattering an array disk with a single strike, picking up a girl who had fainted, and leaving.

That girl was me.

“This recording has been deleted many times; I only managed to salvage this much,” Bai Guiyi said softly. “Xiao Zhixiao wasn’t an outsider. He was in the Cold Abyss array back then, though somehow he became the one who broke it. Since then, the Sect Leader has never trusted him.”

I stared blankly at the Memory Stone.

So, it wasn’t that he had simply picked me up.

He had fought to snatch me from that gate.

“There’s one more thing.” Bai Guiyi hesitated. “At the Ascension Celebration Banquet, the Sect Leader will announce the new Young Sect Master. Yi Xuanjin has been doing his dirty work for years; there’s a high chance he’ll be the one to take the position. When that happens, both Zhixiao Peak and Medicine Peak will be purged.”

I tucked the Memory Stone away and looked up. “Then let’s not wait for them to purge us.”

Bai Guiyi looked at me, appearing to have finally made up her mind.

“Fine.” She placed a bottle of azure pills into my palm. “These are Reverse Breath Pills. They can temporarily hide the marks of the heavenly tribulation on your body. On the day of the banquet, I’ll take you into the Main Hall.”

I smiled faintly. “Senior Sister, you’re harboring a dead person.”

“No,” she said, tightening my bandages. “I’m delivering a coffin to the Sect.”