Pointed at by a Thousand Fingers

In the old days, Luo Qingqiu had lavished on him nothing but unreserved nurturing—appreciation, expectation, and that subtle, profound pride she reserved for only her most favored disciple when imparting her teachings.

But now, that gaze had grown stranger and stranger, heavier and heavier with severity.

"Ye Xuan, you are the senior senior brother. It is only right that you yield to Yujing. He needs that ten-thousand-year spiritual ginseng far more than you do."

"Ye Xuan, Yujing is resting. Your sword practice is far too loud. Go to Reflection Cliff and meditate for a month."

"Ye Xuan, you have become increasingly incorrigible. Could it be that you refuse to accept Yujing as your junior brother?"

Every time, Ye Xuan tried to explain. Every time, the words reached his lips, only to realize that explanation itself was useless. His master's heart had already set up a fixed mirror, and what it reflected would always be the image others wanted her to see—not him, but a twisted version of him.

He swallowed his grievances, pressed his grief deep into his dantian, and continued doing everything he was supposed to do, believing that if he was only good enough, someone would eventually see the truth.

What Ye Xuan did not know was that his endurance, in Bai Yujing's eyes, was merely a stone not yet fully softened.

There is always a way to shatter it completely.

The turning point came during the sect trial.

The Blood Demon Cavern—one of the most treacherous secret realms under the Nine Heavens Sacred Ground. With dense demonic qi, beasts everywhere, it opened once every three years for disciples of the sacred ground to train within.

That time, a party of five from Yuzhao Peak entered, led by Ye Xuan.

Deep within the Blood Demon Cavern, Third Junior Sister Su Xingyao fell victim to the strange poison of a Miasma Demonic Toad. The poison struck without warning, spreading fast—within the span of one incense stick, Su Xingyao was already black in the face, convulsing, collapsed in Ye Xuan's arms, her breath as faint as a silk thread.

Ye Xuan did not hesitate.

He did not even speak. He directly circulated his cultivation technique, forcibly using his own meridians as a conduit to draw the spreading poison from Su Xingyao's body, thread by thread, into his own flesh and blood.

That sensation was like having a red-hot iron wire pierced through his meridians, one strand at a time—every breath a piercing, bone-eating agony.

Ye Xuan made not a single sound. Only the veins on his forehead bulged as he forced the poison gas deep into his dantian, sealing it with a death grip of spiritual power.

When he finished, he stood up, raised his eyes to the tides of poisonous beasts surging from every direction, looked at the air grown as red as fresh blood from demonic corruption, and then turned his gaze to Bai Yujing's pale face.

"Take Xingyao and go."

His voice was utterly calm—so calm it was chilling.

"I'll hold them off here."

Bai Yujing froze for a single breath, then nodded, helping Su Xingyao toward the exit. Before he left, he glanced back at Ye Xuan once.

That glance, Ye Xuan did not see.

Because he had already turned around, stepping into the surging sea of poisonous beasts.

The bloody battle lasted a full seven days and seven nights.

On the first day, his spiritual power was still abundant, his sword light like a dragon, carving out a wasteland of scorched earth.

On the third day, the strange poison within him began to spread, and the meridians of his left arm snapped piece by piece. He switched the sword to his right hand and kept killing.

On the fifth day, his legs were mired in corrosive venom, his bones eroded inch by inch, every step like treading on burning charcoal. He did not retreat. Even kneeling, he kept killing.

On the seventh day, his spiritual power was nearly spent, cracks appearing on his immortal bones with a fine, splitting sound. And yet—the exit appeared.

With the last wisp of his spiritual power, he tore apart the final blood demon blocking the path, and then he fell.

He propped himself with his hands, with his knees, with the last half-breath left in him, and crawled, inch by inch, toward the direction of Yuzhao Peak.

Every step left a bloody imprint on the ground.

When he crawled back to Yuzhao Peak, it was already dusk. The sunset painted the entire mountaintop the color of blood, which he felt was rather fitting.

Before the steps of the peak's lord, several figures were standing in conversation. When they saw him return, they all turned their heads at once.

Ye Xuan looked up, wanting to smile, only to find he barely had the strength even for that. He simply opened his mouth and tried to say, "I'm back."

A slap, heavier than a thousand jun, carried on a surge of overwhelming spiritual power, sent him flying through the air and crashing hard against the sharp edge of the jade steps. His back was smashed open, leaving a gash of blood, and black blood spurted from his mouth, soaking a wide patch of the stone stairs.

The entire world spun around him in that moment.

Ye Xuan lay face-down in the pool of blood, his mind buzzing. After a long while, he pieced together what he was seeing from the chaos:

Luo Qingqiu stood on the steps, looking down at him, her eyes filled with an expression he had never seen on her face before—rage and disgust.

"Beast."

Her voice became strange to him too—like a stranger's. "How could I have raised a disciple like you—a coward who fears death, flees in battle, and abandons his fellow disciples!?"

Ye Xuan thought he must have misheard.

He struggled to turn his head, looking at Su Xingyao.

The third junior sister stood beside Bai Yujing, tears not yet dry on her face, looking at him with an expression that made his hands and feet go cold.

It was not anger. It was total, unreserved disappointment and contempt—like looking at a piece of garbage with no connection to you at all.

"Senior brother," Su Xingyao's voice came out with a suppressed sob, "you have disappointed me beyond words. If not for Junior Brother Yujing burning his own origin blood essence at all costs to forcibly suppress the poison and fight our way out, I would have died in the Blood Demon Cavern today. And you, the so-called senior brother…"

She took a deep breath. "Actually fled the battlefield and escaped alone."

"...What?"

Ye Xuan's voice cracked.

"No…" He shook his head desperately, as if something was caught in his throat. "That poison—I was the one who absorbed it… the beasts—I was the one who held them off… I did not run…"

"Enough!"

Second Senior Sister Mu Qingxue drew her Frost-Han Sword, the blade trembling as she pointed it straight at Ye Xuan's throat, her eyes red-rimmed: "You shameless scoundrel! Junior Brother Yujing collapsed in cultivation for the sake of saving Xingyao, and you still have the face to argue for credit here?!"

Her voice cracked with tears and blazing fury, yet every word was piercingly clear. "The wounds on your body—just from falling into a venomous swamp while running away, weren't they? Truly… nauseating!"

Ye Xuan froze on the spot.

He looked at Bai Yujing.

That young man was at that moment coughing violently, wrapped in a paper-pale frailty that made one sigh.

He raised a hand weakly and spoke in a thin voice: "Master, Second Senior Sister, please don't blame senior brother too much… Perhaps he really was afraid that day. I do not resent him… As long as Third Senior Sister is safe, that's enough…"

In that instant, Ye Xuan heard the sound of something shattering.

Those words were so merciful, so magnanimous, so moving.

And it was precisely this "magnanimity" that nailed him, with the most precise and cruel efficiency, to the pillar of shame reserved for cowards and villains.

Three pairs of eyes around him turned to Bai Yujing, swimming in heartache.

When they turned back to him, there was nothing but cold.

Ye Xuan steadied himself, pointing to his ruptured meridians and then to the leg that had been corroded by poison until the flesh was nearly stripped from the bone. His voice was already unsteady, but he still made one last desperate attempt: "Master... feel my pulse... the poison... it's in my meridians... just check and you'll know!"

Luo Qingqiu let out a cold snort.

"Bai Yujing has already said that you deliberately swallowed a low-grade poison herb to fake the symptoms of poisoning, all in order to frame him and escape punishment."

Her gaze at Ye Xuan was now the gaze one would give a dead thing—cold, indifferent, utterly devoid of warmth.

"I have taught you for many years—only to find that I have raised a character so cunning and vile."

"Go to the lightning punishment pillar and suffer for seven days. You are stripped of your position as head disciple."

For a moment, Ye Xuan let out a bitter laugh, having nothing more to say.

Yet, deep in his heart, he still clung to one last lifeline.

Bai Ningbing.

She was still here.

Just let her step forward, just let her say one word...