Open Conspiracy

How could she not know that this was a deadly trap?

Zhao Wuji had confiscated her Nine Revolutions Ice Heart Pill and chosen this exact moment, when her Nine Yin Cold Poison was on the verge of fully erupting, to force her to go to the sect's most Yin-heavy location to suppress the formation core.

If she didn't go?

Crushed by the weight of righteousness, all the disciples of Cold Moon Peak would be thrown into the Penalty Hall tomorrow under the charge of "betraying the sect."

If she went?

Under the extreme Yin resonance, the cold poison would seep into her bones. She wouldn't even have the chance to self-destruct her Golden Core, and would inevitably become that old thief's cultivation cauldron.

In her meridians, the Nine Yin Cold Poison felt like thousands upon thousands of ice needles, frantically chiseling away at her Dao foundation.

That despair, chilling to the very depths of her soul, made the knees of this proud Golden Core elder suddenly go soft.

"Ugh..."

She fell to one knee on the freezing ground, panting violently.

Her rapid breaths turned into plumes of white mist in the air.

On her pale white forehead, a fine layer of fragrant sweat beaded up like ice crystals.

In her extreme pain and despair, her usually cold and clear eyes began to lose focus.

Countless scenes flashed through her mind like a spinning lantern.

Finally, they bizarrely fixed upon a pair of deep, cold black eyes.

"Gu Yang..."

Shen Qingyue's trembling eyelashes were covered in frost. Her red lips parted slightly, letting out a murmur like someone talking in their sleep.

"Where are you..."

Shen Qingyue clutched the lapels at her chest tightly, feeling the cold tide inside her body that seemed to want to completely freeze her blood.

If only he were here... if only his Extreme Yang True Fire could scorch her one more time...

A trace of extremely hidden, shameful desire that even she was unwilling to admit grew like wild weeds in this freezing death trap.

...

Falling Cloud Sect, Heavenly Punishment Main Peak.

On the massive white jade training ground, thousands of eternal lamps lit up the night as bright as day.

The curling smoke of soothing sandalwood incense took the shape of auspicious beasts in the night breeze, hovering above the sea of clouds.

Great Elder Zhao Wuji sat upright on a ten-foot-tall purple-gold lotus platform, looking solemn and dignified.

He wore a purple immortal robe embroidered with cloud cranes, his graying beard fluttering slightly in the wind, as he imparted the Great Dao of Core Formation, every word a pearl of wisdom.

Below him, a full three thousand inner and outer sect disciples, along with dozens of deacons, sat formally, listening to his teachings with fanatical eyes.

No one noticed that this highly respected Great Elder's left hand, hidden under his wide sleeve, was forming an extremely bizarre and incomplete hand seal.

Zhao Wuji smiled and stroked his beard, his gaze sweeping over the dense crowd of heads below with compassion.

Three thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on him; three thousand disciples were his witnesses.

Tonight at midnight, he, Zhao Wuji, had been presiding over the main peak, never taking a single step away.

No matter what "accident" happened at the Mirror Moon Cold Lake, it would not have half a spirit stone's worth of connection to him, the benevolent Great Elder.

As for that Blood Transformation Clone that had cost him a hundred years of painstaking effort to refine, it had probably already snuck into the bottom of the lake by now.

The smile on Zhao Wuji's lips grew even more benevolent. The Dao sounds he spat out were like a massive bell, causing all the disciples present to kowtow in unison.

...

A hundred miles north of the Falling Cloud Sect, the Mirror Moon Cold Lake.

The lake, spanning ten miles, had not a single ripple, like a giant piece of black glazed glass set among the mountains.

The lake water was formed from the gathering of extreme Pure Yin spirit water.

Even if a goose feather fell on it, it would instantly be frozen into ice shards and plummet straight to the bottom of the lake.

In the very center of the lake stood a solitary thousand-year Crystal Jade Tree, several dozen feet tall.

It had not a single leaf; its branches were entirely formed from transparent, extremely cold ice crystals.

Beautiful, yet exuding an absolute deathly stillness and fatal danger.

This was the Falling Cloud Sect's most Yin-heavy place, a forbidden zone for living creatures that not even birds dared approach.

"Rustle..."

Faint footsteps crushed the icicles at the edge of the lake.

Shen Qingyue stood all alone, stopping at the edge of this lake of death.

She still wore her signature white palace dress with gold patterns, a wide ink-black silk ribbon tightly cinching her breathtakingly full waist.

On her cold, absolutely beautiful, pale white face, there was not a single trace of emotion.

Only her bright autumn-water eyes, usually as placid as an ancient well, flashed with a trace of extremely suppressed sorrow as she looked at the Crystal Jade Tree in the center of the lake.

Of course, she knew Zhao Wuji's sinister intentions.

The formation core of the Mirror Moon Cold Lake didn't loosen earlier or later, but just had to malfunction on the night of the full moon when her Nine Yin Cold Poison was about to erupt on a massive scale.

But she could not retreat, nor could she run away.

On Cold Moon Peak, there were still over a hundred outer sect disciples who were completely devoted to her.

Once she defied the order, with that old thief Zhao Wuji's ruthless methods, Cold Moon Peak would be completely washed in blood by the butcher knives of the Penalty Hall tomorrow morning.

If she fled, the old thief would definitely search souls and extract memories to find out exactly who possessed the Extreme Yang Physique that had cured her poison that night.

Gu Yang had only just reached Foundation Establishment. No matter how deep his thoughts were, how could he possibly contend against Zhao Wuji, who was at the peak of the Golden Core stage?

Rather than letting him have his tendons pulled and bones extracted by the old thief, she might as well sever this karma with her own hands, and bury all the schemes and deadly traps at the bottom of this unknown icy lake.

Shen Qingyue closed her eyes, and the previous scenes uncontrollably surfaced in her mind once again...

Afterward, she suddenly opened her eyes, the last trace of vulnerability in their depths completely frozen over.

Her bare, cold white jade feet tapped lightly, and Shen Qingyue, like a moth darting into the fire, flew without hesitation toward the deadly Crystal Jade Tree in the center of the lake.

At the center of the lake, above the formation core.

Shen Qingyue landed steadily on the top branch of the Crystal Jade Tree, her hands rapidly forming seals.

The majestic spiritual energy of the Golden Core stage transformed into streaks of pure white, extremely cold silk-like energy, striking precisely into the lake surface below.

"Buzz——!"

The originally dead-silent black lake surface instantly lit up with complex formation patterns.

However, the moment the formation patterns lit up, Shen Qingyue's pupils shrank abruptly!

The deep blue light that was originally supposed to be used to suppress and sort out the spiritual energy unexpectedly twisted into an extremely eerie purple-black in an instant!

The Extreme Yin spirit water in the formation core wasn't suppressed. Instead, like an enraged mad dragon, it followed the streaks of spiritual energy she had struck down and surged upward with extreme ferocity!

The Yin-Yang Reversal Formation!

Zhao Wuji hadn't just tampered with the formation; he had completely changed it into a deadly resonator specifically targeting her Nine Yin Physique!

"Boom!"

The terrifying Extreme Yin resonance was like an invisible heavy hammer, smashing fiercely against Shen Qingyue's dantian.

"Pfft——!"

She threw her head back and spat out a large mouthful of blood mixed with ice crystals. A tragically beautiful red plum blossom instantly bloomed on her white and gold palace dress.

But this was only the beginning.

The forceful backflow of the external Extreme Yin spirit water instantly detonated the Nine Yin Cold Poison deep in her bone marrow, which had been suppressed to the absolute limit!

That was a curse originating from her bloodline, completely impossible to resist with ordinary spiritual energy.

A layer of terrifying, ghostly blue frost instantly condensed on Shen Qingyue's pale white skin.

But this elder of the Falling Cloud Sect did not panic.

Her eyes were terrifyingly cold. Even though her meridians were snapping inch by inch, her hands remained as steady as a boulder.

"Shatter Illusion!"