Flawless Dao Body

The real world.

The forbidden grounds of the Hehuan Sect.

Ye Qingcheng knelt on the ground, letting out a heart-wrenching wail.

She had completely broken down.

"Why? Why were your choices different from mine?"

"Why did you fulfill their wishes instead?"

"You clearly had the power to take her by force! You could have dragged her down into the mire with you!"

"You were already at the Tribulation Realm! Why didn't you marry her?"

"Why, even until the very end, did you let her die completely pure and clean?"

"Then what does that make you? What was all the suffering you endured? What were your centuries of filth worth?!"

Ye Qingcheng was going mad.

This trap she had so meticulously designed was meant to make Ye Xuan experience her despair, so he would become just as depraved and devoid of bottom lines as she was.

She wanted to prove: "Look, under these circumstances, anyone would become filthy, so I am not wrong."

But Ye Xuan had delivered a resounding slap to her face.

With his actual actions, Ye Xuan told her:

That even if one is in hell, even if one is covered in festering wounds, as long as the heart is clean, one can still make noble choices.

He would rather rot in the mud himself than fail to lift his beloved above his head, sending her toward the light.

This contrast was too cruel.

It directly negated all the choices Ye Qingcheng had made over the years.

The "enduring humiliation for a greater purpose" she was so proud of instantly turned into nothing more than absolute "willing depravity."

"I don't believe it... I don't believe such a person exists in this world!"

"Ye Xuan! You're faking it! You were faking it in the illusion too!"

"You must hate her in your heart too! You must think you're an idiot too!"

Ye Qingcheng cried until her makeup was a ruined mess, looking like a child who couldn't find her way home.

"I'm begging you... don't do this to me..."

"You being like this... makes me look so dirty... makes me look so disgusting..."

Just as Ye Qingcheng was crying her heart out.

The formation light of the Taixu Illusion suddenly erupted to its absolute peak.

Above the collapsing ruins of the illusion.

Ye Xuan awoke.

He sat cross-legged in the center of the formation, his eyes tightly shut.

But his aura was undergoing an earth-shattering transformation.

In the illusion, he had experienced a thousand years of humiliation, slaughter, guardianship, and loneliness.

This thousand-year journey of the heart, although illusory, brought about real enlightenment.

"Phew..."

Ye Xuan slowly exhaled a breath of impure air.

With this exhalation, it was as if all the impurities, inner demons, and negative emotions within his body were completely purged.

He slowly opened his eyes.

In those eyes, there was none of the madness, resentment, or weariness that Ye Qingcheng had anticipated.

There was only absolute clarity.

Like a newborn infant, like the blue sky after a rain.

So clean that one dared not look directly at them.

"So that's how it is."

Ye Xuan murmured softly to himself, a faint smile playing on the corners of his lips.

"Even in the most polluted environment, I will not give up my adherence to my true heart."

"No matter how much I love someone, I will not defile her in the name of love."

"Body in the mire, heart toward the light."

"This... is my Dao."

Rumble!

Heaven and earth trembled.

A brilliant, ultimate white-gold light erupted from Ye Xuan's body, instantly illuminating the entire dim forbidden grounds.

Bathed in this light, Ye Xuan's cultivation, originally at the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, surged unstoppably.

Late-stage Golden Core, peak Golden Core...

But the changes to his body were even more astonishing.

His skin became crystal clear, flowing with a glaze-like luster.

All mortal grime and all impurities were thoroughly purified in this moment.

A holy, vast aura, immune to all spells, spread out from him.

Ye Qingcheng stared blankly at this scene, even forgetting to cry.

Her eyes widened as she looked at Ye Xuan in the light, as if witnessing a miracle.

"This... this is..."

Her voice trembled uncontrollably.

"The Immaculate... Dao Body?"

The Immaculate Dao Body!

One of the strongest Dao bodies in the legends of the cultivation world!

Immune to all spells, repelling all evil, untainted by dust, and immune to inner demons!

Only those possessing the ultimate pure heart of a child, who remain absolutely pure even in the most extreme filth, could possibly awaken this constitution.

Dressed entirely in white, Ye Xuan floated in mid-air.

White-gold immortal light swirled around him, his black hair flying and his robes fluttering.

He just stood there quietly, like a white lotus rising from the mud unsoiled, so holy and pure that it made people want to bow down in worship.

"Why..."

Ye Qingcheng slumped to the ground, looking up at the lofty Ye Xuan.

At this very moment.

Ye Xuan, dressed in white and radiating boundless light, was as clean as a banished immortal.

While she, Ye Qingcheng, dressed in black, her face covered in tear stains and deeply rooted in inner demons, looked like an evil ghost crawling out of hell.

This intense visual contrast utterly crushed her.

"Why are you so clean and dressed all in white..."

"Why, when I dragged you into such a hell, could you still manifest such a clean constitution..."

"On what grounds!"

Ye Qingcheng beat the ground madly, roaring in despair:

"I'm already this dirty! I'm completely rotten!"

"Why didn't you rot with me? Why did you have to become so good?"

"The cleaner you are... the dirtier it makes me look!"

"Ye Xuan! Just kill me!"

"I beg you... don't look at me with those clean eyes... I can't take it!!"

Ye Xuan lowered his head, looking at the hysterical woman beneath his feet.

His gaze remained calm, devoid of mockery or pity, holding only a near-divine indifference.

He gently flicked off nonexistent dust from his sleeve.

The movement was elegant and aloof.

"Junior Sister."

Ye Xuan's voice was clear and melodious, echoing through the empty forbidden grounds:

"Thank you for your 'Taixu Illusion'."

"If not for the 'filth' of those thousand years, I could not have cultivated this body of 'purity'."

Ye Qingcheng was like a puddle of mud, slumped in a dark corner.

She looked at Ye Xuan, the tears in her eyes long dried up, leaving only desperate, bloodshot veins.

She opened her mouth, her voice hoarse and broken, carrying a final trace of reluctance and sophistry:

"You... you don't understand..."

"Ye Xuan, that was an illusion... it was ultimately just an illusion..."

"If it were in reality... if you were truly as isolated and helpless as I was back then... if you were truly pushed to the absolute brink... you would become like me too! You definitely would!"

She desperately clung to this final lifeline.

She had to prove that Ye Xuan's nobility was just due to good luck, just because he hadn't suffered true hardship. Otherwise, her centuries of depravity would truly be nothing more than sheer baseness.

Hearing this, Ye Xuan's movement of adjusting his sleeve paused slightly.

He slowly turned around, looking straight at Ye Qingcheng for the first time.

Those eyes were as clear as a glacial lake at the peak of a high mountain.

In their reflection, Ye Qingcheng saw her own disheveled, twisted, and hideously ugly self.

"An illusion?"

Ye Xuan took a step, walking closer to her.

With just one step, the vast and pure pressure made Ye Qingcheng feel suffocated, as if her soul was being scorched by raging fire.

"Junior Sister, the Taixu Illusion was built with your memories as the foundation and my soul as the sacrifice. Every lash of pain, every ounce of humiliation, and every moment of despair in there was no different from reality."

Ye Xuan stopped three steps away from her, looking down at her from above.

His tone held no anger, no mockery, but rather a trace of strange pity.

This kind of pity was even more agonizing to Ye Qingcheng than if he had simply killed her.

"All these years, every time you committed an evil deed, every time you betrayed someone, you told yourself—'I had no choice,' 'I was forced,' 'It is not me who is wrong, but the world.'"

Ye Qingcheng trembled all over, her teeth chattering. "Stop talking... stop talking..."

Ye Xuan did not stop.

His voice was very light, yet every word was like a red-hot nail driven into Ye Qingcheng's heart.

"You used this as an excuse to fall into depravity with peace of mind. You blamed all your sins on your suffering."

Ye Xuan slowly squatted down, bringing his gaze level with hers.

He reached out the hand that had been covered in blood in the illusion, now as pure and white as jade, and gently pointed at Ye Qingcheng's chest.

"But, Junior Sister."

Ye Xuan stared into her eyes and spoke slowly, enunciating every single word:

"You always say, 'Do not urge others to be kind if you have not experienced their suffering.'"

Ye Qingcheng's pupils shrank violently, anticipating the words that were about to utterly destroy her.

The corners of Ye Xuan's mouth curled into an extremely faint arc. Within that smile lay a complete and utter repudiation of her:

"Yet I have experienced your suffering, and I am still kinder than you!"

Boom!

These words, like a divine thunderbolt from the highest heavens, exploded directly in the depths of Ye Qingcheng's sea of consciousness!

All her excuses, all her grievances, and all her self-consolation instantly crumbled to dust before this single sentence!

She wanted to retort, wanted to scream, wanted to say, "It's not like that."

But the truth was right there in front of her.

The same humiliation, the same desperate straits.

Ye Xuan had chosen to protect, chosen to forgive, chosen to love with a pure heart.

While she had chosen betrayal, chosen slaughter, chosen to wallow in the mud and drag others down with her.

It was not forced by her circumstances.

It was not forced by the Heavenly Dao.

It was herself... Even if she were given a thousand chances, she would still choose to be a wretched person.

Her fundamental baseness had nowhere to hide in this moment.

"Pfft!"

Ye Qingcheng suddenly opened her mouth wide and wildly spewed out a mouthful of dark red heart-blood!

This was not just physical injury; it was the shattering of her Dao Heart.

"No... no... ahhhhh!"

Ye Qingcheng clutched her head with both hands and let out an incredibly shrill and miserable shriek.

Accompanied by her screams, the originally tyrannical aura within her body began to plummet madly like a burst dam!

In just the blink of an eye, her cultivation realm could no longer even stabilize at the Body Integration stage.