“The Nasha Holy Body, ranked nineteenth among the Supreme Holy Bodies. I never expected you to come to me like this, hahahaha…”
The obsession of hundreds of years was right before her eyes.
The sickly glint in Cloud-Weave Star Venerable’s eyes reached a point where it could no longer be hidden.
Her originally gentle and loving cheeks even flushed with a layer of deep crimson.
There were only a few types of Holy Bodies that could be transplanted, and she had originally placed all her hopes on Nalan Yunyan.
She never expected the world to deliver a girl like Qian Yu to her.
‘Isn’t this Heaven’s Mandate?’
“Don’t worry, Xiao Yu. Your martial aunt wasn’t lying when she said she would take care of you. You are, after all, my closest martial niece.”
Of course, whether the girl could survive after her Holy Body was taken was another matter entirely.
Cloud-Weave Star Venerable lightly stroked Qian Yu’s forehead and settled her steadily onto the bed.
After tucking her in, she walked out with a faint smile.
When she reappeared, she was once again the loving and solemn Sect Master of the Luoxia Immortal Sect.
Several Venerables from the Demon Race had arrived; as the Sect Master, she couldn’t be absent for too long.
Sometime after she left, Qian Yu, who had been lying in a deep sleep, suddenly saw her eyelashes tremble for a moment before she snapped her eyes open.
She sat up and bit her tongue hard.
The intense stinging rushed straight to her brain.
A large mouthful of fresh blood sprayed from the wound on the tip of her tongue, but before it could stain the bedding, it was caught by spiritual power.
She didn’t dare leave a single trace on the bed.
After all, that was an old woman who, despite having countless wicked intentions, managed to succeed every time through calculated siding, laughing all the way to the end to become a respected senior…
Spitting out the blood made Qian Yu’s face much paler, but her eyes grew calm.
There was no longer any sign of the affection-starved young girl who had looked at Cloud-Weave Star Venerable with both timidity and uncontrollable attachment.
Ever since she received the Holy Body as a friendly gift from Tang Qiurou, a sense of unease had been lingering in her heart.
She had originally thought it was that blockhead Gu Qinghan becoming suspicious again.
It wasn’t until Cloud-Weave Star Venerable appeared that she understood the so-called unease actually came from this “positive character” who was said to be “highly calculating but possessing flawless virtue.”
Whether that kind of opportunistic morality actually counted as morality was something Qian Yu didn’t know, but the look in the woman’s eyes had truly chilled her to the bone.
No matter how suspicious Gu Qinghan was, she would still hesitate before acting.
This woman, however, possessed absolute ruthlessness and absolute strength.
Once she set her mind on something, her actions would be swift and clean, leaving no one even a chance to talk their way out.
Qian Yu knew, of course, that Tang Qiurou’s Holy Body was one of the types that could be seized through possession.
In the original path of things, Tang Qiurou had indeed fallen into the hands of Cloud-Weave Star Venerable.
But Qian Yu’s courage to absorb it now wasn’t because she was blinded by power.
According to her calculations, Cloud-Weave Star Venerable should still be in secluded meditation at this point, having no perception of the outside world.
Usually, the one handling major sect affairs or even meeting the Venerables of the Demon Race was a puppet that possessed combat power and aura but no real consciousness.
Qian Yu could have completely “whitewashed” the Holy Body into a state where it couldn’t be seized before the woman finished her seclusion.
Why did she come out at this time?
Didn’t this expose the methods she used specifically to paralyze the Nalan family?
This was the first time Qian Yu felt that the memories in her mind were not entirely accurate.
This brought her the greatest crisis she had encountered in this life—Cloud-Weave Star Venerable wanted to seize her Holy Body, but she had no means of resistance.
The only thing she could do was play the fool, doing her best to make the woman feel at ease.
Moreover, because the other party wasn’t a training-obsessed little NPC like Gu Qinghan, she couldn’t just play the fool in an ordinary way; she had to *be* a fool.
Only a fool who would give away all her trust because of a little warmth and a few kind words could briefly deceive a true Venerable who was a master of calculation.
This was a difficult task, but it was a bit of a coincidence.
Her unreliable, alcoholic Master had never taught her anything useful, but among the few things she *did* teach was one specific technique: ‘How to Turn Yourself Into a Real Fool.’
***
“Ahem. Xiao Yu, come here. Don’t you always say I never teach you anything useful? How about this: go to Elder Ling and help me borrow 600 Spirit Stones, and I’ll teach you a true ultimate technique.”
In front of Qian Yu’s small thatched hut, her Master, dressed in white, lay sideways on a rope connected to two large trees.
Her snowy, delicate skin was half-exposed without any sense of decorum.
Holding a wine flagon in one hand and patting Qian Yu’s shoulder with the other, she spoke with great seriousness.
And when Qian Yu had actually thickened her skin and used her small hand—which couldn’t even hold a pen well at the time—to crookedly sign her name on the guarantor line of the IOU, the woman taught her this very thing.
She called it a mercy, claiming that clever people often die quickly while fools do not.
She told Qian Yu that once she practiced it to the limit, she would understand her Master’s well-intentioned efforts.
At the time, Qian Yu had wanted to jump up and hit that liar’s head with a stick.
To her surprise, as time passed and the woman was no longer around, this little technique used to fool her was actually being put to use.
Qian Yu had been very worried that something even she could easily learn would be as unreliable as her Master.
As it turned out, this might truly be her Master’s ultimate technique.
When she followed behind Cloud-Weave Star Venerable and cautiously used the method her Master had taught to seal off part of her Sea of Consciousness, forcing herself to become a fool, the Sect Master—famed as the first person beneath the Saints—didn’t notice anything unusual at all.
Thinking she had successfully “conquered” Qian Yu, she confidently chose to go and receive the Demon Race Venerables.
This bought Qian Yu the time she needed for a roundabout struggle.
With her large ears drooping slightly, Qian Yu let out a soft sigh, her heart filled with complex emotions.
If she didn’t know for certain that her Master was a fool so unreliable she would die the moment she was killed, she would have wondered if all of this was part of the woman’s calculations.
Unfortunately…
‘That stupid woman was only at the early stage of the Venerable realm when she died. How could she possibly calculate things this far ahead?’
Casting those thoughts aside, Qian Yu concentrated all her mental energy on how to deal with the upcoming situation.
Cloud-Weave Star Venerable was determined to get her Holy Body, and as someone with only First Realm cultivation, Qian Yu had no power to resist.
The solution was actually quite simple, and Qian Yu already knew it by heart: modify her Holy Body into a constitution that couldn’t be seized.
Then, no matter how unwilling Cloud-Weave Star Venerable was, she would be forced to be a “good person.”
Holy Bodies could be converted or even upgraded.
This was a truth Nalan Yunyan had realized after painful reflection following her repeated defeats at the hands of Gu Qinghan.
At that time, although she was burdened by deep sins, her disposition and talent had not dissipated.
She not only remodeled and sublimated her own Holy Body but even used the same method to convert her subordinate, Tang Qiurou, into a Holy Body better suited for combat.
The Nasha Holy Body, which can endure the slowing of time and thus accept possession and transplantation due to its affinity with the Time Dao Principles, would no longer be able to withstand the turbulence of time after conversion.
The method was tedious, but it wasn’t impossible to achieve—if Cloud-Weave Star Venerable had finished her seclusion years later as per the normal timeline.
With such a short time now, even if Qian Yu remembered every step of the method, she lacked the resources and time. She could only wait for death.
“This was supposed to be the start of my soaring rise, but I didn’t expect it to become a death sentence.”
Qian Yu sighed softly, finally understanding a bit of why her Master always said clever people didn’t live long.
If she hadn’t known so much, if she hadn’t been so confident in the memories in her mind, she wouldn’t have accepted the Holy Body from Tang Qiurou, and she wouldn’t be in this mess.
“But Master, you always said clever people don’t live long, but the truth is, the weak don’t live long either…”
Perhaps because she had suddenly used the fool technique her Master had taught her years ago, the image of that woman who loved wearing white, drinking, and asking her to borrow money kept surfacing in her mind today.
The woman had told her many truths, but she had never taught her how to possess the strength to protect herself in this cruel world.
This made Qian Yu wish she were a Venerable or a Saint herself.
“Oh, Xiao Yu, why do you always pester Master to teach you cultivation? Think about it, becoming strong isn’t necessarily that good, and staying weak isn’t necessarily that bad.”
Just as she was sighing, the white-clothed alcoholic in her memory suddenly let out a sigh as well.
Her tone, which was rarely serious, dragged Qian Yu back into a memory from more than ten years ago.
“How about this: go and borrow 800 Spirit Stones, and Master will teach you another ultimate technique that I’ll only give to Xiao Yu and no one else.”
Qian Yu remembered what this move was called… ‘Self-Mutilation Slash.’
She had originally thought it was a completely perfunctory piece of nonsense, and she had even gone on a hunger strike for several days because of it. But looking at it now…
‘Master, you actually have some substance?’