Volume 1, Chapter 14 – The Excited Liu Ruyan

When Liu Ruyan opened her eyes again, the sight before her instantly stole her breath away.

It was as if, in a single step, she had crossed from the mortal world into an immortal realm.

The first thing that entered her eyes was a vast lake, clear as a mirror and wreathed in drifting mist.

Under the sunlight, the water shimmered with sparkling ripples, while delicate pavilions on the islet at the center of the lake appeared and disappeared through the haze.

As far as the eye could see, there stretched a majestic, continuous complex of palaces.

Their foundations were white jade, their roofs glazed tile, and warm spiritual light flowed through their carved beams and painted rafters.

The spiritual energy in the air was so dense that with every breath, she felt a cool current washing through her lungs and entrails.

It even stirred the peak Qi Refinement cultivation within her, as though it were on the verge of breaking through.

In the distance stood a nine-story tower, and faint phantasmal figures of dragons and phoenixes seemed to circle above its summit.

Nearby lay a broad plaza whose paving stones were actually made from whole slabs of warm spirit jade, polished so smooth they reflected like mirrors.

How could this possibly be a sect?

This was clearly an immortal paradise, a supreme blessed realm.

Having lived three lives, she had seen her share of so-called great sects.

But compared to everything before her now… those places were little better than shabby mud huts.

Her mind flashed back to the first lifetime, when she had once seen from afar a branch of a certain sacred land in the Southern Region. At the time, she had thought that already looked like the domain of immortals.

But now she was utterly certain that even the main headquarters of those sacred lands would probably fall far short of this place.

“Th-This… what on earth is this…”

Liu Ruyan muttered to herself, so shaken that she could barely speak.

Her steps unsteady, she followed the white figure ahead of her, her eyes greedily sweeping over every detail, afraid this was all nothing more than a dream.

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She crossed the Nine-Bend White Jade Bridge spanning Yaochi, passed through the spiritual herb garden shrouded in spirit mist, and walked by the Transmission Pavilion, from which a faint hum of the Great Dao could be heard…

With every step, her heart tightened further.

At last, they stopped before the most magnificent of all, the nine-story main hall.

Its doors rose more than ten zhang high, made of neither metal nor wood, their material warm and lustrous like ancient jade, with mysterious natural patterns flowing across the surface.

Above the lintel were four great golden characters, bold and soaring like dragons and phoenixes, as though they contained some profound principle of heaven and earth. One glance at them made her soul tremble.

Yaochi Immortal Palace.

Liu Ruyan’s feet abruptly rooted to the ground.

Her pupils contracted violently, and her breathing stopped at once.

It felt as though all the blood in her body froze in that instant, only to surge madly backward and rush to her head.

“Yao… chi… Immortal… Palace?”

Those four words exploded in her mind like heavenly thunder from the Nine Heavens.

Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

She could only stare fixedly at those four characters, her eyes wide to the extreme, forgetting even to blink.

“This is the Yaochi Immortal Palace?”

The Yaochi Immortal Palace she had searched for so desperately, yet which had always remained distant and unreal…

It was standing before her just like this, real and tangible?

Not a dream, not a legend…

But a complete, vast immortal sect filled with boundless grandeur?

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Through a bizarre twist of fate, she had nearly met disaster, only to be saved by this fairy, and then…

just like that, brought back to the Yaochi Immortal Palace?

An overwhelming sense of unreality and absurdity intertwined, making her dizzy and lightheaded, almost too unsteady to stand.

“This place is the Yaochi Immortal Palace.”

Gu Han’s cool, ethereal voice sounded at the right moment, pulling her back a little from the depths of her shock.

She turned to face Liu Ruyan.

Her skirt fluttered lightly in the breeze, and her silver hair streamed down like a river of stars.

Those calm eyes rested on Liu Ruyan as though they could see through every ripple in her heart.

“I am the master of this place.”

“The master?”

The final string in Liu Ruyan’s mind, the one called reason, snapped completely.

The one who had saved her was this peerlessly graceful silver-haired fairy.

The place she had been brought to was the Yaochi Immortal Palace.

And this fairy was the master here?

That senior master Lin Fan had in his first life, a Mahayana cultivator, was said to have been only an outer elder of the Yaochi Immortal Palace.

Then what kind of cultivation did the Palace Master before her possess?

Tribulation Transcendence? Or the legendary Immortal Ascension?

Every clue, every shock, every obsession, every search, every despair, every unwillingness…

At this moment, they erupted all at once like a powder keg set alight.

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“Wuh…”

A broken sob squeezed out from the depths of Liu Ruyan’s throat.

Then tears burst forth like a breached flood.

Not quiet sniffling, but near-collapse, heartbroken sobbing.

She crouched on the ground, her shoulders shaking violently as great drops of tears rolled down.

Aggrievement… confusion… relief… excitement…

All those tangled emotions crashed against her heart.

Gu Han looked at the person who had suddenly broken down crying in front of her and was a little stunned.

Wasn’t this reaction… a bit too much?

Even if she was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the sect, even if she was grateful for having her life saved, there was no need to cry this hard, right?

“Why… are you crying?”

Gu Han asked with a slight frown, a trace of confusion in her voice.

“Could it be that your injuries have not yet healed?”

Hearing her voice, Liu Ruyan cried even harder.

She shook her head as she sobbed, speaking in broken fragments, almost unable to form words.

“N-No… it’s not that… Master…”

She lifted her tear-blurred face, trying hard to make out Gu Han’s features, but the tears obscured everything.

“This disciple…”

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“I thought… I thought… I wouldn’t be able to find it… sob…”

“To be able to meet you… to come here… this disciple… this disciple could die without regrets…”

As Gu Han listened to her incoherent crying, the confusion in her heart gradually cleared.

Combined with the system’s earlier note that she was a suspected reincarnator, Gu Han formed a few guesses.

It seemed that her Yaochi Immortal Palace was rather famous in the future, or perhaps in some parallel timeline.

And Liu Ruyan seemed to have been searching for this sect all along.

Just as Gu Han was thinking about how to respond, a crisp, soft little voice suddenly came from the side.

“Master Mommy~”

Both of them turned their heads at the same time.

Beside the main hall, a tiny figure was peeking out curiously while hugging a glowing purple lotus platform.

It was little A-Yao.

She blinked her big eyes, looked at Gu Han, then at Liu Ruyan kneeling on the ground and crying a complete mess, her little face full of puzzlement.

“Why is this big sister crying?”

Liu Ruyan’s sobbing stopped abruptly.

She stared at the exquisitely adorable little girl clutching the lotus platform.

Hearing that “Master Mommy,” she forgot to cry altogether, leaving only blank bewilderment on her face.

Th-This… was this the Palace Master’s daughter?

A divine being like the Palace Master… who in the world could possibly be worthy of her?