Help Solve

Gu Changyuan was not boasting.

In the entire Nine Heavens Realm, soul-based cultivation methods were extremely rare, their power eerie and unpredictable, let alone a secret technique that could precisely erase the brand of a heart demon without harming the origin of the divine soul.

Faced with such a predicament, most cultivators would either be helpless or forced to adopt gentle but lengthy methods like heart-to-heart sealing or karmic merit dissolution to slowly chip away at it, and even then, it might not be completely eradicated.

But for Gu Changyuan, this was not a difficult task.

During his thousand years in the Ruins of Disorder, he had groped along the edge of life and death, witnessing countless ancient remains. The cultivation methods and arrays he had learned were as vast as the ocean.

Among them were secret arts specifically targeting the soul level, and erasing a heart demon's brand was merely one of the most basic.

More importantly, he knew that simply erasing the brand was far from enough.

That heart demon had entrenched itself in Su Wanqing's soul for over several decades. The related memory fragments were already deeply planted within the depths of her soul. If this knot in her heart wasn't completely untied, even if the brand disappeared, her future cultivation would still be restricted by it.

A sickness of the heart requires medicine of the heart.

Sit down, I will help you resolve this.

Gu Changyuan stood up and gestured for Su Wanqing to sit cross-legged on the futon.

Su Wanqing did as she was told and closed her eyes, her long eyelashes trembling slightly from nervousness.

She tried her best to relax her mind, entrusting him with her complete faith.

Gu Changyuan walked up to her and once again tapped his right index finger against her glabella.

This time, there was no dazzling light, only a strange power, as warm and gentle as water, quietly seeping into her sea of consciousness.

The hideous, twisted black mark entrenched beside the origin of her divine soul rapidly faded and disintegrated before this power, ultimately turning into wisps of green smoke and completely dissipating.

The entire process was silent. Su Wanqing only felt an unprecedented sense of relief in the depths of her soul, as if a heavy burden of a thousand pounds had been lifted.

Immediately after, a flash of light appeared beneath Gu Changyuan's feet. Golden runes emerged from the ground, constantly weaving and engraving themselves according to his will, quickly forming an array.

As the array lines flowed, they emitted faint soul fluctuations that enveloped Su Wanqing entirely.

The moment the array activated, Su Wanqing felt her body suddenly lighten, as if she had broken free from all restraints. She floated up, as light as if she were falling into the clouds.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in a valley shrouded in mist and clouds.

Inside the valley, the vegetation was lush and green, and a stream babbled. The air was filled with the fresh scent of plants. Warm sunlight spilled through the clouds, feeling pleasantly warm on her body.

Looking at the scene before her, an inexplicable sense of familiarity welled up in her heart, as if she had been here a long time ago.

But before she could think about it in detail, the surrounding scenery suddenly underwent a drastic change.

The warm sunlight disappeared, replaced by a sky full of blood mist. The lush vegetation was dyed crimson, the stream turned into a babbling river of blood, and the ground was covered with traces of slaughter, with broken weapons and shattered armor scattered about.

This was... Falling Moon Gorge!

Su Wanqing's body stiffened. The fear deep within her soul was instantly evoked. The scene of her mother's death back then surged forward like a tide, making her tremble uncontrollably, her face deathly pale.

Right at this moment, the surrounding blood mist suddenly dispersed, and the scenery switched back to the warm, bright valley from before.

By the stream not far away, a familiar figure was slowly walking towards her.

The person wore a light cyan dress, her brows and eyes gentle, a faint smile on the corners of her lips. It was exactly the mother she had missed for over twenty years!

Little Qingqing, it's been a long time.

The gentle voice sounded, nourishing Su Wanqing's heart like spring rain.

Mo... Mother?

Su Wanqing's voice trembled, and tears instantly blurred her eyes. She couldn't believe her eyes. She stumbled forward, yet feared this was merely an illusory dream.

Are... are you still here?

The woman gently shook her head. Walking up to her, she raised her hand to gently wipe away the tears on her face, her smile still warm:

I am, and I am not.

This is merely a remnant soul seal that mother specially left for you before dissipating back then.

She said softly, her eyes full of doting affection.

Mother knows that making you end my life with your own hands would become your lifelong obsession. I was afraid that our Little Qingqing would be trapped in place because of this, unable to cultivate properly, unable to live properly.

Outside the dream, in the room of the Listening Waves Pavilion.

Gu Changyuan had already completed the final arrangement of the array and sat back down by the ebony table.

He lightly rubbed his fingertips together, looking at Su Wanqing wrapped in golden light within the array, his expression calm.

He naturally knew that Su Wanqing's mother's soul had long dissipated between heaven and earth. The woman in the dream was nothing more than a simulation constructed by his array based on the memory fragments deep within Su Wanqing's soul.

Falsely claiming it was a remnant soul seal was just to make this solace feel more real, to better touch Su Wanqing's heart, and to help her thoroughly untie this knot in her heart.

Looking at the gradually stabilizing aura around Su Wanqing and the slowly relaxing brows on her face, Gu Changyuan nodded slightly.

The brand of the heart demon had been completely erased. Next, he only needed to let her complete her reconciliation with her mother in the dream, and this matter would be considered thoroughly resolved.

In his leisure time, his thoughts gradually drifted away.

The three trials for disciple selection at the Heavenly Human Holy Land that Su Wanqing had mentioned—Testing Spirit, Seeking the Dao, and Questioning the Heart—were exactly what he had personally established back when he founded the Heavenly Human Sect.

And the reason these three trials could accurately identify a disciple's bone structure, Dao heart, and strength relied entirely on the three testing magical artifacts provided by the system back then.

After all, he couldn't stay in the sect forever to test talents through the system. For recruiting disciples later on, they would need to seek them out themselves, which was why he set up these three trials.

Now that a thousand years had passed, the Heavenly Human Sect had become the Heavenly Human Holy Land. Presumably, these three magical artifacts were still in use.

However, Gu Changyuan also knew that although the tests of those three magical artifacts covered multiple aspects such as bone structure, talent, comprehension, and physique, they were ultimately external tests, far less precise than the system's judgment.

The system could directly provide a talent level and even attach a detailed aptitude analysis. This was something no magical artifact could compare to.

Besides this, he suddenly remembered that the system had also gifted the Heavenly Human Sect a testing magical artifact called the Stairway to Immortality back then.

It was just that he had left in a hurry back then and hadn't seen the specific effects of this artifact with his own eyes. He wondered if it was now used as an auxiliary test outside the three trials, or if it formed the selection system together with the three magical artifacts.