Read Novel Full Chapter 579: Young Master, I Am Willing
Chapter 579: Young Master, I Am Willing
Inside the cave dwelling, Liu Shui sat cross-legged on the jade bed.
This jade bed was a treasure Xiao Mo had given her. It could firmly steady her mind and spirit, making it less likely for her to be disturbed by stray thoughts.
In front of Liu Shui, many pills had also been laid out.
The first step in attempting to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm was condensing spiritual power.
Therefore, at fixed intervals, Liu Shui would take a Spirit-Replenishing Pill from the glass bottle and swallow it.
Liu Shui’s foundation had always been extremely solid. With the support of these high-grade pills, she soon finished condensing the spiritual power within her body and smoothly entered the second trial.
The second trial required her spiritual power to surge through every spiritual vein and every spiritual aperture in her body, opening all the key points throughout her body.
At this step, the danger had already begun to show.
Because at this moment, both the amount and concentration of spiritual power inside Liu Shui’s body far exceeded the ordinary. The slightest carelessness could easily cause the spiritual veins and spiritual apertures inside her body to be destroyed by the impact.
Fortunately, Liu Shui remained cautious from beginning to end. She did not seek speed, nor did she try to force her way through.
Through careful, measured attempts, she ultimately crossed the second trial smoothly.
However, Liu Shui did not dare relax in the slightest.
Because nearly seventy percent of cultivators fell at the third trial—destroying the core.
The Golden Core inside a cultivator’s body was the most fundamental cornerstone for condensing a Nascent Soul.
A cultivator attempting to break through into the Nascent Soul Realm had to “destroy” the Golden Core inside their body.
Then, using the essence formed from that Golden Core, they had to condense it little by little into the golden body of the Nascent Soul.
Liu Shui took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and began to break down the Golden Core within her body bit by bit.
Every time a tiny flake of Golden Core powder peeled away from the core, it was as if she were holding a knife herself and stripping away her own flesh little by little, then smashing her bones one by one.
Heart-piercing pain surged over her in wave after wave, like a tide.
Fine beads of cold sweat appeared on Liu Shui’s forehead and slowly slid down her pale cheeks.
Her breathing grew more and more rapid, and her chest rose and fell violently.
That agony, worse than death, no longer remained only on the level of the body. It pierced deep into the soul.
Several times, Liu Shui almost gave up.
But every time, Xiao Mo’s figure would appear in her mind of its own accord.
“I cannot give up...”
Liu Shui clenched her teeth and repeated it to herself again and again in her heart.
“I want to stay by Young Master’s side... I do not want to watch Young Master walk farther and farther away while I can only stand where I am and silently look at his back...”
Liu Shui bit hard on her thin lip, her pearly teeth almost sinking into the flesh, and used all her strength to endure the surging, tide-like agony in both her body and her soul.
This pain, like being sliced apart by a thousand cuts, continued for a full ten years.
Ten years later, when the final trace of the Golden Core inside her body turned to dust and completely scattered, the agony of her body and soul being carved apart at the same time finally vanished.
Liu Shui hurriedly steadied her mind and began to condense the Nascent Soul within her body.
This was the fourth trial—forming the Nascent Soul.
The golden powder bathed in spiritual power and continued to gather together.
Liu Shui carefully polished and shaped it, bit by bit.
As time passed, the Nascent Soul’s appearance grew clearer and clearer, more and more like Liu Shui herself.
Another ten years passed.
The instant the Nascent Soul completely took shape, a mysterious, indescribable feeling filled Liu Shui’s limbs.
She could clearly feel that the laws flowing around her seemed completely different from before.
No...
In truth, the laws had never changed.
It was only that now, with one foot already in the Nascent Soul Realm, the level she could see and the heaven and earth she could perceive were as different from the self she had been in the Golden Core Realm as heaven was from earth.
“What are you doing?”
Suddenly, a childish voice entered Liu Shui’s ears.
Liu Shui, who had been fully immersed in comprehending the laws around her, abruptly opened her eyes.
She saw a little boy standing in front of her.
“Young Master...”
Liu Shui’s eyes trembled slightly as she stared blankly at the little boy before her.
And opposite Xiao Mo stood the study attendants of those demon-race nobles.
Liu Shui would never forget this day.
This was the first day she and Young Master had met.
If not for Young Master, she feared she would not even have survived that day.
But very quickly, Liu Shui realized—
This should be her inner demon illusion.
The inner demon illusion was the fifth trial of forming a Nascent Soul, and also the final step.
If she crossed it, she would successfully form a Nascent Soul and become a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator from then on, with the ability to establish a sect of her own.
If she could not cross it... her body would be destroyed, her dao would perish, and her path of cultivation in this life would end here, with no chance to begin again.
“But why... why would my inner demon... be this scene of all things?”
Before Liu Shui could fully recover herself, Wang Zhong and the other study attendants had already rushed forward.
Xiao Mo grappled with them.
But very soon, Xiao Mo knocked them all to the ground.
Before long, the elders of each family hurried over after hearing the news.
Young Lady Jingci also rushed to Xiao Mo’s side in a panic, protecting him fiercely and refusing to let anyone bully him.
The years that followed unfolded exactly as they had once happened.
Liu Shui came to know Xiao Mo and Tushan Jingci, and under the care of the two of them, she stepped onto the path of cultivation little by little.
She would also often go to Tushan Jingci’s courtyard, bringing pastries she had made with her own hands, doing whatever chores she was capable of, doing everything she could to repay the two of them.
At first, Liu Shui still repeatedly warned herself in her heart, “This is nothing but an inner demon illusion. I must be careful in all things and must not sink into it.”
But as the days passed one after another, Liu Shui’s awareness blurred little by little.
The reminders she repeatedly told herself gradually lost their strength.
Finally...
One day, when Liu Shui woke, she had completely forgotten that she was inside an inner demon illusion.
Ten years later...
“Young Master Xiao... I... like you...”
On the first day Liu Shui returned to the academy after visiting relatives with her mother, she happened to encounter Xiao Mo emerging from seclusion.
She could no longer suppress the feelings that had accumulated in her heart for so long. At last, she gathered her courage and spoke the words hidden deep in her heart to Xiao Mo.
After the words fell, Liu Shui looked at Xiao Mo nervously. Her heart beat so fast and so hard that it seemed as if it would leap out of her chest.
“Sister Liu Shui... actually... I like you too.” Xiao Mo’s cheeks were also somewhat red, carrying the innocent sincerity unique to a young man. “Can you... become my dao companion?”
Liu Shui froze.
She had long since prepared herself to be rejected.
She had even already thought about how, after being gently refused, she would force out a smile as though nothing had happened, and how she would treat those words as if she had never said them.
But he had given her the best possible answer.
So good it did not seem real.
“I... I am willing.”
Liu Shui’s voice trembled, and her eyes reddened all at once.
“I am willing to stay by Young Master’s side forever and serve Young Master.”
...
The next year, the sound of firecrackers rang endlessly from every direction of Liu Family Village. Red paper scraps flew through the sky, scattering lively brightness all over the ground.
Liu Shui put on a festive red bridal gown and applied her bridal makeup.
With her mother supporting her, Liu Shui boarded the bridal sedan chair. The sedan chair swayed along the small paths between the fields and passed through the familiar village entrance.
Liu Shui married smoothly.
She married the person she liked most.
“First bow to heaven and earth...”
“Second bow to the elders...”
“Husband and wife bow to each other...”
Amid one joyous ceremonial call after another, Liu Shui and Xiao Mo stood side by side, bent, raised their heads, then bent again, and raised their heads again.
The daylight outside the hall spilled in through the red silk, drawing their shadows together, then making them overlap.
...
At night, Liu Shui sat in the bridal chamber while the red candles burned quietly.
Her small hands clutched her sleeves tightly. Her heart was both nervous and full of expectation.
Creak...
Finally, the door was gently pushed open by the bridegroom, making a soft sound.
Liu Shui’s delicate body trembled slightly, and her thighs instinctively pressed together even tighter.
Her heartbeat suddenly sped up, and even her breathing lost its rhythm.
Xiao Mo picked up the ceremonial scale rod wrapped in red silk and slowly approached. The rod gently lifted the red bridal veil.
The red bridal veil slipped down like rosy clouds, revealing Liu Shui’s blushing face.
She raised her eyes to look at him. The light in her eyes flickered in and out in the candlelight, as though an entire spring were hidden inside them.
After they drank the spouses’ wine, Liu Shui’s cheeks flushed beneath the candlelight.
The window was gently closed, and the bed curtains slowly fell. Xiao Mo reached out and untied the sash at her waist.
The bridal gown slid soundlessly along the woman’s fair, tender skin, like a flower calmly spreading all its petals.
In the days that followed, Liu Shui and Xiao Mo lived in perfect harmony, accompanying each other morning and night.
The two cultivated together and supported one another on the path of the Way.
Later, Liu Shui gave birth to a son and a daughter.
When the children cried, she coaxed them. When the children laughed, she laughed with them.
The days slipped quietly by between morning bells and evening drums.
She almost forgot where all of this had begun, and forgot to wonder whether all of this might one day end.
Until that evening.
As usual, the family sat together around the table, eating dinner.
The lamplight stretched everyone’s shadows long and short.
And just as Liu Shui had sunk helplessly into this happy life—
In reality, the bracelet on Liu Shui’s wrist bloomed with green light, gradually seeping into Liu Shui’s divine sense.
Suddenly, Liu Shui inside the inner demon illusion froze.
The chopsticks in her hand hung in midair, and her entire body seemed to be fixed in place.
The steam in the bowl was still rising in thin wisps, but she suddenly seemed to awaken from a great dream.
“Wife, what is it?” Seeing that something was wrong with his wife, Xiao Mo hurriedly put down his bowl and chopsticks and asked in concern.
“Mother, are you all right? Are you sick?” Her son and daughter also gathered around Liu Shui, their small hands gently tugging at the hem of their mother’s clothes. They raised their faces, their eyes full of worry. “Should we go see a doctor?”
Liu Shui stared at them blankly for a while, then smiled gently, as though nothing had happened.
She reached out and rubbed the children’s little heads, then lifted her gaze toward the husband she loved most.
Her eyes were as gentle as moonlight.
“I am all right. Do not worry. It is only that all of this is too beautiful...” Liu Shui’s voice was very soft, as though she were afraid of startling something. “So beautiful that it makes me feel... as if it is a little unreal.”
Hearing his wife’s words, Xiao Mo suddenly paused, and a complicated emotion flashed through his eyes.
His expression remained calm. He smiled slightly and said softly, “Is whether it is real or not so important? As long as you are happy, is that not enough?”
“But all of this... is false...” Liu Shui said those words in a low voice. There was no anger in her voice, only sudden clarity.
As her words fell, everything around her gradually scattered.
“Xiao Mo” also slowly blurred, finally transforming into a miniature figure that looked exactly like her.
This was Liu Shui’s Nascent Soul.
Liu Shui slowly opened her eyes.
What entered her sight was the familiar cave dwelling.
The stone walls, the jade bed, the pill furnace that had not yet burned out...
It seemed as though nothing had changed.
“Have I... passed the Nascent Soul tribulation?”
Liu Shui lowered her head and looked at her own palm, her eyes filled with disbelief.
“Sister Liu Shui...”
At that moment, Xiao Mo’s voice came from the entrance of the cave dwelling.
Liu Shui turned her head and saw Xiao Mo walking toward her.
His expression was gentle, just as it had always been.
“Young Master...”
Liu Shui hurriedly climbed down from the jade bed and ran toward him. Her small, fair feet, flushed faintly pink, stepped on the cool stone floor with a series of soft, delicate sounds.
She stopped in front of Xiao Mo, raised her head, and looked into his eyes, unable to hide the joy filling her gaze.
“Young Master, I have already entered the Nascent Soul Realm...”
“Mm.”
Xiao Mo nodded, his gentle gaze falling on Liu Shui.
“I can feel it... The resonance of the Way Sister Liu Shui is giving off right now is no different from that of the Nascent Soul Realm. Congratulations, Sister Liu Shui. From now on, you are a Nascent Soul Realm cultivator.”
“Thank you, Young Master...”
Liu Shui dipped in a bow, her heart filled with joy.
But very soon, she seemed to think of something. Her eyes trembled slightly, and a faint shyness quietly rose over her cheeks. Her voice also unconsciously softened, carrying a few traces of nervous expectation.
“Young Master... before, I once said to Young Master that if I came out of seclusion smoothly... about becoming your concubine... I...”
“I have actually wanted to tell Sister Liu Shui for a long time.”
Xiao Mo reached out and gently held Liu Shui’s soft, fair little hand. Their palms touched, and his tone was gentle.
“As long as Sister Liu Shui does not mind, I want to marry Sister Liu Shui as my secondary wife. From now on, the three of us will live together, accompanying one another morning and night. Sister Liu Shui, are you willing?”
“I...”
...
In reality.
Liu Shui sat cross-legged on the jade bed, and tears slid silently from the corners of her eyes, one drop at a time, slowly flowing down her pale cheeks.
Buzz...
Buzz...
The green jade bracelet on Liu Shui’s wrist kept trembling, trying again and again to awaken its master. It shook more and more violently, more and more urgently.
But Liu Shui, sitting cross-legged on the jade bed, could no longer sense it.
She had forgotten...
She had forgotten that unless she broke through and emerged by herself, or failed [N O V E L I G H T] in her breakthrough, no one could enter the spell formation in this cave dwelling.
Not even Xiao Mo.
She had forgotten...
Forgotten that Young Master had once told her he was also about to enter seclusion to break through into the Immortal Realm, and that he would need at least a hundred years.
So how could he possibly appear before her at this time...
“Young Master... I... I am willing...”
In the end, the corners of Liu Shui’s lips curved slightly, and with tears in her eyes, she slowly spoke those three words.
In the inner demon illusion, Xiao Mo reached out and gently drew her into his arms.
But in reality, her body turned into specks of light bit by bit, drifting away in silence, like fireflies scattered by the wind, gradually vanishing until nothing remained...