The Past of Su Wanqing

"You must have been stuck at the peak of the Golden Core realm for quite some time now."

Gu Changyuan looked at the young girl standing with her head bowed before him. His tone was no longer as aloof and distant as before; instead, it carried a touch of gentle concern suited for a junior.

"Have you encountered some sort of restriction, or perhaps developed an inner demon? After all, with your talent, entering the Heaven and Earth Holy Land shouldn't have been difficult."

His fingertips tapped lightly against the ebony tabletop, his voice calm yet carrying an unquestionable certainty:

"I can help you resolve it."

Hearing these words, Su Wanqing's body trembled violently. She jerked her head up, her almond eyes wide and filled with unbelievable shock.

The matter of her inner demon was the deepest scar hidden in her heart, something even her closest relatives in the Su family rarely dared to mention in front of her.

Over the years, to help her clear her doubts, her father had invited mighty cultivators from all over the Eastern Region of the Southern Continent. He had even pleaded with Supreme Elder Su Shuangyu of the Heaven and Earth Holy Land. Even the Supreme Elder's master had intervened, yet they all remained helpless.

How could this senior she had never met before see right through to the root of her problem at a single glance?

The inner demon was deeply rooted, almost entirely fused with her soul. It was incredibly difficult to remove with external forces; she could only rely on herself to see through it.

But how... how could she see through it herself?

That bloody scene, the complex look of pain, reluctance, and resolve in her mother's eyes as she looked at her for the last time, and the warm sensation of the dagger piercing her chest...

It had long become a lingering nightmare that haunted her every night, the most hideous crack in her Dao heart.

She had thought that her life's cultivation might just end here.

But at this moment, this mysterious senior before her spoke the words "I can help you resolve it" in such a calm tone.

Reason told her that it was almost impossible. Even the Supreme Elder of the Holy Land had been helpless...

But for some reason, a voice deep within her heart was screaming madly: Believe him! Believe him!

Perhaps it was the absolute sense of security brought by his unfathomable strength, perhaps it was his previous demeanor of balancing grace and might, or perhaps...

It was merely the instinct of a drowning person clutching at the last piece of driftwood.

Su Wanqing's lips trembled. She opened her mouth again and again, but could not make a sound.

She gripped her sleeves tightly with both hands, her knuckles turning white from the force. Struggle, fear, yearning... all sorts of emotions churned and intertwined in her eyes.

Finally, the pain that had been buried deep in her heart for over a decade, which she had never fully confided to anyone, broke through all her defenses like a bursting dam.

Her voice was dry and slow as she began her tale.

In the cultivation world, it was not uncommon for a cultivator to have multiple Dao companions.

Her father, Su Yunhao, the current head of the Su family, had three formally wedded wives.

Her mother was the second wife, and the three ladies got along quite harmoniously.

She was her father's seventh child, with three older brothers and three older sisters, thus she was known as the "Fourth Miss."

"When I was twelve..."

Her voice suddenly dropped, carrying an uncontrollable agony.

"My mother took me out to visit friends, accompanied by eight family guards, all of whom were experts in the Body Integration Realm. On our way back... we were ambushed at the Falling Moon Gorge."

The attackers were evil cultivators from the Blood Soul Cult. Their leader was at the late stage of the Body Integration Realm. They came prepared, and their methods were bizarre and ruthless.

The guards fought to the death, suffering heavy casualties, while Su Wanqing's mother protected her, fighting as they retreated.

In the end, she was struck by the evil cultivator leader and critically injured. On the verge of death, as a fellow Body Integration Realm cultivator, she launched a desperate strike, using a secret technique to ignite her natal true fire to perish together with the evil cultivator.

But before Su Wanqing could rush to her mother, she saw a twisted, hideous gray shadow screeching as it drilled into her mother's flesh, attempting to forcefully possess her.

Clinging to her last bit of clarity, her mother fought the evil cultivator's soul in her sea of consciousness for control of her body.

Unwilling to let her daughter be harmed but unable to control her own body to commit suicide, she ultimately made Su Wanqing end her life with her own hands.

However, before the evil cultivator's soul completely dissipated, he used his final resentment and evil arts to plant a curse on Su Wanqing.

He engraved into the young Su Wanqing's soul that she had murdered her own mother, that she would never deserve peace, and that she was unworthy of the Great Dao.

That curse, along with that unforgettable scene, turned into the deepest inner demon, branded into the depths of my soul.

Ever since then, whenever my cultivation reached a critical point, whenever I attempted to break through, that scene would appear before my eyes, and that voice would echo in my ears.

Hearing this, Gu Changyuan frowned imperceptibly.

An inner demon curse planted by the dying resentment and evil arts of a Body Integration Realm evil cultivator, targeting the defenseless divine soul of a twelve-year-old child, was indeed incomparably sinister and practically unsolvable.

It did not attack directly; instead, it constantly twisted and amplified that instinctive guilt and pain, causing her to torture and deny herself, thereby strangling all hope for her Dao path.

When the Su family's forces arrived, they only saw a ground littered with corpses and Su Wanqing weeping bitterly while holding her mother's body.

Upon seeing this, the Su family head, Su Yunhao, flew into a towering rage on the spot.

To avenge his wife and daughter, he immediately mobilized all the Mahayana and Body Integration Realm experts of the Su family, setting off a storm that swept away evil cultivators across the Eastern Region of the Southern Continent.

In just three short months, more than half of the evil cultivator strongholds in the Eastern Region of the Southern Continent were destroyed. The evil cultivators were slaughtered, and even the factions associated with them were severely beaten down by the Su family.

But no amount of revenge could erase the trauma in Su Wanqing's soul.

The inner demon left by that Body Integration Realm evil cultivator, guided by his remnant soul and curse, had long since merged with her soul.

The Su family sought out mighty figures of all paths. Even Supreme Elder Su Shuangyu personally stepped forward to ask her master for help, but they still could not root it out.

Perhaps in the entire human realm, only the Eighth Ancestor of the Heaven and Earth Holy Land, Yue Lingxi, could resolve it.

However, in recent years, she had been traveling abroad. Furthermore, since she was an ancestor of the Holy Land, the Su family could not possibly invite her.

As for the Heaven and Earth Holy Land, their disciple selection was extremely strict, consisting of three trials.

The first trial tested spirit, examining one's innate talent and cultivation foundation. The second asked of the Dao, assessing character, comprehension, and the purity of the Dao heart. The third trial was questioning the heart.

The trial of questioning the heart would trigger the deepest obsessions, fears, and desires within a cultivator's heart, creating illusions to test whether their Dao heart was firm and flawless.

"Every time I step into the illusion of the heart-questioning trial, the scene of me killing my mother with my own hands appears before my eyes."

Su Wanqing hung her head, her voice as low as a mosquito's buzz.

"Once the inner demon is triggered, my Dao heart completely falls, and I return in defeat every single time. Even with the Supreme Elder's connections, the Holy Land's rules are strict. If I cannot pass the heart-questioning trial, I will ultimately never be able to enter its gates."

Having said all this, Su Wanqing seemed to have unloaded a thousand-pound burden. She stood there as if drained of all strength, her tears silently wetting the hem of her skirt.

This past event that had weighed on her heart for over a decade was finally poured out today.

Gu Changyuan slowly raised his hand, and a gentle stream of spiritual energy drifted toward Su Wanqing, softly wiping the tears from her face.

His voice remained gentle, but it carried a bit more firmness:

"You cannot be blamed for this matter. Your mother's choice was to protect you. Your actions at that time were following the wishes of your closest kin, and even more so, an act of sheer helplessness. The evil cultivator's curse and inner demon are nothing but despicable tricks.

"It is nothing more than a mere inner demon brand. To me, dealing with it is completely effortless."