349: Chapter 349: Imprisonment Play

This was the only mutual destruction strategy she could think of.

Forcing the death of the Heart Demon with the help of powerful spiritual power.

At that time, she would use the spiritual power at the cliff to reshape her Spiritual Root.

If all went well, the death trap could be resolved.

The ice-blue spiritual light of the Mystic Yin Returning Essence Body suddenly lit up from within her body, like a lit lamp.

The light penetrated her skin from the inside out, making her entire body look as translucent as an ice carving.

The spiritual power in her Meridians was forcibly reversed, flowing from her Dantian to her limbs and bones, and then back from her limbs and bones to her Dantian.

It collided, rubbed, and gathered strength at every intersection, waiting for the moment it accumulated to the critical point.

Su Qinghan's Spiritual Root would explode from within, turning the Heart Demon seed in her Sea of Consciousness to dust along with it.

She could die.

But she could not live with this thing inside her.

Right at that moment...

"What are you doing?"

A voice came from behind her.

The voice was like a burst of spiritual power smashing into Su Qinghan's aura of accumulated spiritual power, causing the surrounding Spiritual Pressure to shake violently.

Su Qinghan trembled all over, but she did not open her eyes.

She recognized that voice.

"Don't come over."

Su Qinghan's voice was so raspy it barely sounded like her own.

"My spiritual power is out of control. If you come over, you'll be caught in it."

"I can see that your spiritual power is out of control."

"But as for catching me in it? You think a bit too highly of yourself."

Xiao Ran's footsteps did not stop.

From far to near, unhurriedly, every step fell perfectly in the intervals of her heartbeat.

"A Half-Step Mahayana Divine Sense captured your spiritual power fluctuations from five hundred miles away. Do you really think you can kill me?"

"If that were the case, those old fogies of the Righteous Path wouldn't hate me so much."

Xiao Ran stopped about three Zhang behind her.

The Half-Step Mahayana Divine Sense poured out from between his brows, gently covering her surrounding Spiritual Pressure like an invisible blanket.

That power was so pure that the spiritual power clashing inside Su Qinghan's body felt as if it were being held up from below by a giant hand.

The tension that was about to detonate was forcibly held down for a beat.

But Su Qinghan knew this was only temporary.

Xiao Ran could suppress the Spiritual Pressure, but he could not suppress the self-destruction of the Spiritual Root itself.

"Go away."

"This is my own business."

Su Qinghan gritted her teeth, squeezing out each word from between them.

"You knew this day would come when you brought the Heart Demon seed into the Ling Sha Secret Realm." Xiao Ran paid no mind to Su Qinghan trying to drive him away.

"It should have been forced out that time I helped you stabilize, but you didn't have a strong enough Dao Heart to wear it down, so you chose the stupidest path."

"Then what do you suggest I do?" Su Qinghan suddenly opened her eyes and turned to face him.

At that moment, her face was as pale as paper under the reflection of the ice-blue spiritual light, her eyes filled with tears.

She hadn't even realized when they had started welling up.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, blown cold by the night wind.

"I've tried everything! If I freeze it, it shatters and grows even larger; if I try to purify it, it backfires even more fiercely!"

Su Qinghan's chest heaved violently.

"I know it's fake! I know better than anyone that those scenes are fake!"

"But it plays them before my eyes over and over, clearer than my own memories! When I close my eyes, all I see are the faces of those deceased Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters!"

"Tell me, what should I do? What else can I do besides self-detonating my Spiritual Root?!"

Su Qinghan was completely out of options.

She had only resorted to this final measure out of desperation.

Xiao Ran stood three Zhang away from her. After her outburst, he dithered for a moment.

Then, his gaze locked directly onto Su Qinghan, without flinching or avoiding.

"If you want to self-detonate your Spiritual Root, I can help stabilize the surrounding Spiritual Qi so you can blow yourself up cleanly, without even a remnant soul left behind."

Su Qinghan was stunned.

"But let me ask you one thing."

Xiao Ran suddenly took a step forward.

"Are you truly willing to accept this?"

Hearing this, Su Qinghan opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"You've known who I am for a long time."

"When did you recognize me?"

Xiao Ran looked at her, his eyelashes casting a long, thin shadow under the moonlight.

"The very first day you stepped into the Sect gates."

"Su Qinghan, we are, after all, old acquaintances who have bared ourselves to each other."

"I could never forget your aura for the rest of my life. How could I possibly forget it?"

Su Qinghan trembled all over, as if all her strength had been drained by those words.

So the clown was me all along?

Su Qinghan could no longer stand.

Her knees gave way, and she fell downward.

Suddenly, an arm reached around her waist and caught her.

Xiao Ran had walked up to her at some point. His left hand held her waist, and his right hand rose, his fingertip carrying a wisp of purple-gold light as he tapped the space between her brows.

The power of the law seed surged along his fingertip into Su Qinghan's Sea of Consciousness.

That power was warm, majestic, and layered like a tide sweeping over a dry riverbed. Wherever it passed, the black Heart Demon seed melted away like ice and snow meeting the sun.

It did not collide head-on with the Heart Demon, but instead used the Law power of the Mahayana Stage to directly reshape the order within Su Qinghan's Sea of Consciousness.

The remnant thoughts of resentful spirits were stripped away, the distorted illusions were straightened out, and her shattered Dao Heart developed new patterns under the nourishment of the Law.

Su Qinghan felt as if her Sea of Consciousness was an ocean overturned by a storm.

Now, the storm had ceased, and a layer of golden light floated on the surface of the sea, pressing all the waves down into gentle ripples.

She leaned against Xiao Ran's shoulder, trembling from utter exhaustion.

"Why didn't you say so earlier?"

She buried her face in Xiao Ran's robes, her voice muffled and nasal.

"If you had said earlier that you recognized me, I would have..."

"You would have what?" Xiao Ran's voice came from above her head. The hand that had tapped her brow moved to the back of her head, gently pressing it.

"Would you have not come? Or would you have hidden yourself even more carefully?"

Su Qinghan did not answer.

She gripped the fabric at his chest, her knuckles turning white.

"There is one thing I want to confess to you."

"I wanted to see what choice you would make in the end."

His voice lowered, as if speaking of something from a long time ago.

"How far you would go between the Sect and me. When you couldn't go on any longer, I would come to pick you up."

Su Qinghan closed her eyes, her tears wetting the fabric of Xiao Ran's chest.

The purple-gold light of the law seed extended from between her brows to her entire body's Meridians, reconnecting those shattered bits of spiritual power.

Guided by the Law, the Mystic Yin Qi did not resist. Instead, as if encountering living water from the same source, it actively wrapped around it, forming a circulation path inside her body that had never existed before.

The ice-blue spiritual light blended with the purple-gold, rising from the depths of her Dantian, breaking through the crown of her head to shoot straight into the night sky.

At the same moment, the Guixu Vortex inside Xiao Ran's body suddenly accelerated its rotation uncontrollably.

The law seed, which had been dormant for many years, throbbed between his brows. As if awakened by something of its own kind, it extended an invisible thread of guidance toward Su Qinghan.

At that moment, their Spiritual Roots resonated with each other.

Mystic Yin Returning Essence Body and Guixu Vortex, two completely different powers of Origin, intertwined, clashed, and validated each other at this moment.

A purple-gray vortex of spiritual light suddenly lit up in the night sky above the cliff. Thunder roared and lightning flashed at the center of the vortex, drawing in all the Ling Sha mist within a hundred miles, only to explode into a sky full of glowing particles at high altitude.

The churning dark red mist beneath the Ling Sha Cliff was pressed down by the light vortex, receding into the depths of the earth like an ebbing tide.

Su Qinghan felt her Spiritual Root undergo a transformation in that resonance.

The previously blocked nodes in her Meridians were cleared one by one by the power of Guixu.

The Mystic Yin Qi became even more pure, with a faint purple-gold halo showing through the ice-blue, like a warm jade wrapped beneath a layer of ice.

Her cultivation broke through two thresholds in a row in just those few brief breaths, crossing directly from the Soul Transformation Late Stage into the Void Refining Early Stage.

Moreover, the so-called Heart Demon had completely vanished at this moment.

Not even a shred of residue was left.

When Su Qinghan raised her head from Xiao Ran's shoulder, the tear tracks on her face were not yet dry.

The moonlight fell upon her face, reflecting a pair of red and swollen but clear eyes beneath that half-mask.

"My Spiritual Root..."

She looked down at her palm. A thread of purple-gold patterns showed through the ice-blue spiritual light, like a newborn river.

"It has transformed."

Xiao Ran chimed in, a very faint trace of exhaustion in his voice.

Clearly, releasing the Law power just now had consumed a great deal of his Divine Sense.

"Your Mystic Yin Returning Essence Body originally only had the Mystic Yin lineage. Now, it has been triggered by my law seed to resonate with Guixu, completing its other side."

"In the future, if you encounter Heart Demon-type attacks again, nothing will be able to take root."

Su Qinghan raised her head to look at Xiao Ran.

"Xiao Ran, I beg of you one thing."

"Can you... imprison me? I want to stay by your side."

Su Qinghan made a decision that went against her ancestors.

Between the Sect and Xiao Ran, she chose another path.

As long as Xiao Ran imprisoned her, she would have no choice of her own.

This way, her conscience would be clear.

Hearing this, the corners of Xiao Ran's mouth curled up wildly.

Good, good, good.

Confinement play?

"Then I punish you to stay in my bedchamber for the rest of your life."

"Su Qinghan, you're going to suffer quite a lot."