The night gradually grew silent.
Lin Xinyi, who should have been unconscious, suddenly opened her eyes.
She sat up abruptly, gasping for fresh air.
‘No, don’t…!’
Lin Xinyi struggled to sit up, feeling as though she had just emerged from an incomprehensible nightmare.
However, when she turned her head and saw the naked Bai Qianqian lying beside her, her body went weak.
‘I… why am I lying here with this person?’
Although she felt she had just experienced a nightmare, she could not remember any of its contents.
Looking at Bai Qianqian, Lin Xinyi felt a surge of genuine fear.
‘I… I should be… no, I can’t remember…’
Even though she was awake now, her eyes were filled with confusion.
She could not recall anything she had done previously.
She tried to get off the bed, but her legs were so weak that she immediately slumped onto the floor.
‘My legs won’t work? Damn it!’
Lin Xinyi’s memory felt like a broken reel.
She pulled a thin dharma robe from her spatial storage to cover herself before stumbling toward the Grotto-heaven’s transport portal.
Looking out at the high moon, she felt a chill.
She clearly remembered seeing the morning sun when she was last conscious, yet when she opened her eyes again, it was already late at night.
‘It happened again. Why? Why do I have no memory of the time in between?’
Lin Xinyi gritted her teeth.
No matter how hard she tried to recall the events of the day, there was nothing.
A sense of helplessness washed over her, and she let out a self-deprecating laugh.
‘Don’t tell me this is Luo Qingyao’s doing…’
She felt a deep sense of despair.
She didn’t even know what kind of method was being used against her.
She felt frustrated; she should have been more guarded once she knew the other party was the remnant soul of an Immortal Venerable.
‘Is Luo Qingyao’s power gradually growing stronger?’
Fear began to take root in her heart.
She looked back at the bed where Bai Qianqian was still fast asleep.
The girl seemed completely defenseless, suggesting this situation had been ongoing for some time.
‘No, Bai Qianqian didn’t seem to have any guard against me to begin with…’
As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she became more certain that her lost time was Luo Qingyao’s doing.
She considered taking Bai Qianqian hostage to force the woman to remove whatever hex was on her.
‘No, what if Luo Qingyao only needs a single thought…’
No matter how she looked at it, Lin Xinyi could not find a way out.
She deeply regretted her earlier carelessness.
Everything had been proceeding according to her plan, but she had somehow allowed Luo Qingyao to find an opening.
‘What should I do? What should I do…?’
She was falling into a state of panic.
As a Nascent Soul cultivator, she should have been proud and capable of protecting herself even if she wasn’t invincible.
Now, she was being cornered by a remnant soul.
Lin Xinyi could no longer tell which of her memories were real or fake.
Her instincts told her that staying close to Bai Qianqian was the right thing to do, but another part of her memory insisted her goal was to destroy Bai Qianqian by using her as a cultivation vessel.
‘I can’t trust my own memory. Should I just…’
Just 1 second before she lost her mind, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Fragments of her past life—the experience of dying and being reborn—flickered through her head.
‘Enough. This is enough. Let this life end here. I’ll just…’
Thinking this, she slowly reached into her spatial storage and drew her sword.
She pressed the sharp blade against her neck.
Her eyes grew crazed, devoid of any hesitation.
She was ready to give herself a quick end.
[Suicide is forbidden…]
The sharp blade was only 1 centimeter from her throat when a command-like voice echoed from the bed.
Lin Xinyi turned her head to see Bai Qianqian lying there, quietly watching her.
In the dim room, the girl’s eyes were piercingly clear, as if everything Lin Xinyi had done had been under her observation from the start.
“Bai Qianqian…!”
Lin Xinyi could not believe it.
Bai Qianqian was giving her orders, and her body was actually obeying, becoming completely frozen.
“Master, what are you doing…?”
“Eh? You! Why can you command my body?!”
Bai Qianqian wrapped herself in a thin sheet and slowly stepped off the bed.
Her bare feet clicked against the floor.
Bathed in the moonlight, she looked hauntingly beautiful, but Lin Xinyi was in no mood to appreciate the view.
“I can’t move… Why can’t I move?!”
Lin Xinyi had intended to bet on her rebirth by ending this life, but Bai Qianqian’s command had instantly shattered her momentum.
The sword, though mere hairsbreadths away, could not move forward another inch.
“What exactly are you trying to do, Master?”
As Bai Qianqian’s voice reached her, Lin Xinyi finally realized something.
From the very beginning, she had completely overlooked the person she should have been most wary of.
“It’s you!”
No matter how much she didn’t want to believe it, her body was paralyzed by Bai Qianqian’s command.
The girl walked up to her, clad only in that thin sheet.
Her pale skin looked like a lotus flower emerging from water, but her eyes were terrifyingly cold.
“The person who can control my body has been you, Bai Qianqian, all along!”
A faint, bitter smile appeared on Lin Xinyi’s lips.
She never expected that the usually unassuming Bai Qianqian was hiding such depth.
Until a moment ago, she thought her memory loss was Luo Qingyao’s fault.
Bai Qianqian said nothing, simply stepping closer and staring intently at her.
“I asked you, what are you doing…”
Bai Qianqian clenched her fists.
Looking at the sword held against Lin Xinyi’s neck, the anger in her eyes could no longer be concealed.
She reached out, snatched the sword away, and threw it to the side.
“Master, were you actually trying to kill yourself…?”
Bai Qianqian’s voice was flat, but it was clear she was suppressing an immense surge of emotion.
Lin Xinyi only gave a nonchalant, careless laugh.
“What if I was…?”
Upon hearing the response, Bai Qianqian uncontrollably grabbed Lin Xinyi’s slender wrists.
Her forceful attitude felt alien to Lin Xinyi.
She had never seen her disciple like this and was startled by the girl’s agitation.
“If I want to die, what does it have to do with you? More importantly, when did you do this to me? I’m like a puppet…”
“So you decided to die…?”
“I just want to escape this control. Why are you so worked up…?”
Bai Qianqian appeared calm on the surface, but for some reason, Lin Xinyi didn’t dare look her disciple in the eye.
Seeing Lin Xinyi’s dismissive attitude, Bai Qianqian felt a spark of true anger for the first time.
“Master, do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“I know exactly what I’m doing. It’s just that you stopped me…”
Bai Qianqian thought about how, if she hadn’t woken up when the warmth beside her vanished, she might have opened her eyes to a scene of absolute despair.
“Can’t you cherish yourself a little more…?”
Bai Qianqian felt a deep sense of reluctance, but the sight of Lin Xinyi trying to end her own life had filled her with terror.
She was terrified that the woman would quietly leave her without her even knowing.
‘Is the only way really to turn Master into a mindless puppet? Can I only taste Master’s beautiful body and never the feeling of being loved…?’
“You… what are you saying? Such outrageous words!”
When Lin Xinyi saw tears slowly beginning to well up in the corners of Bai Qianqian’s eyes, she had a terrible premonition.
Bai Qianqian tightly hugged the paralyzed Lin Xinyi, her face filled with regret.
“I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t want to do this. I’m sorry. But… I really don’t want to lose you. I’m sorry…”
“You! What are you trying to say?!”
“I’m going to completely erase Master’s consciousness. I’ll leave this empty vessel behind so that Master can go on living…”
Bai Qianqian spoke painfully, wiping the tears from her eyes.
She wanted to savor Lin Xinyi’s conscious self one last time, gently cupping the cheeks of the woman whose eyes were now filled with terror.
“Why is Master making that face? I love you so much. To protect Master from ever having thoughts of suicide again, I have to erase your consciousness entirely…”
As Bai Qianqian spoke, the nonchalance on Lin Xinyi’s face turned into sheer horror.
If her consciousness were truly erased, she wouldn’t even be able to commit suicide.
She would be like a living corpse—able to eat, sleep, breathe, and maintain body heat, but nothing more.
Lin Xinyi realized once again just how twisted Bai Qianqian’s heart truly was.
“You call this love? You’re a lunatic!”
“I have no choice. You’re just so disobedient, Master…”
Bai Qianqian acted as if she were doing something perfectly normal.
She raised her hand, and a pale purple Intent Covenant condensed in her palm.
Seeing it, Lin Xinyi finally understood that all the abnormalities in her body stemmed from that thing.
[LUST COVENANT]
[LOSE YOURSELF]
After issuing the command, Bai Qianqian slowly pressed her hand toward Lin Xinyi’s forehead.
Lin Xinyi was in despair; if her consciousness were truly gone, it would be a fate worse than death.
“You! Stay away from me!!!”
“Don’t worry. It will only take 1 moment, and then Master won’t feel a thing…”
The instant a sliver of the Intent Covenant entered her, Lin Xinyi’s vision blurred.
Her body grew weak as she struggled desperately.
However, as her consciousness began to fade, the constraints of the previous covenants also weakened slightly.
Lin Xinyi did not hesitate to activate her spiritual energy and burn her Essence Blood.
“Get away from me!”
Without a second thought, she shoved Bai Qianqian.
Faced with Lin Xinyi’s sudden recovery of movement, Bai Qianqian failed to react in time and was pushed aside, falling to the floor.
By the time she looked up, Lin Xinyi was gone.
“Master…”
Lin Xinyi didn’t care about anything else.
After flying out of the Grotto-heaven, she fled toward her own Cave Abode without looking back, even as the feeling of blurred consciousness grew more severe.
‘No, I have to leave this place…’
VOID TRANSFER
In the blink of an eye, Lin Xinyi tore a rift in space before her.
Without hesitation, she dove inside.
She didn’t even care about the damage caused by the surrounding spatial turbulence; her only goal was the entrance to her Cave Abode.
Luo Qingyao was currently walking back with her fishing rod.
Since she was a remnant soul, she didn’t need sleep, so she often found things to do at night to pass the time.
This time, however, she looked up and saw Lin Xinyi’s white-robed figure fleeing.
“Lin Xinyi?”
Luo Qingyao’s brow furrowed.
She recognized the spatial tearing technique.
Generally, a Nascent Soul cultivator wouldn’t use such a move unless their life was in danger, as it often led to a near-certain death scenario.
‘Where is Lin Xinyi going in such a hurry? Wait! No!’
Seeing the woman flee so frantically, Luo Qingyao realized something must have gone wrong with Bai Qianqian’s control.
She dropped her fishing rod and flew at top speed toward her ring.
“Did something happen to Qianqian?!”