Tears slowly rolled down the corners of Qin Huaiyin’s eyes.
It was obvious that the feeling of suffocation she had just endured was far from pleasant.
Although Lin Xinyi could sense the mark she had left on her disciple, confirming it was indeed her, she still did not lower her guard.
“Why are you here…”
Lin Xinyi’s words were icy.
She was clearly displeased by the way her disciple had appeared silently behind her.
Although Qin Huaiyin was her eldest disciple, at the end of the day, she was nothing more than a cauldron she was raising for her own use.
Tears continued to track down the girl’s face.
The rough treatment had clearly caused no small amount of harm to her naturally delicate body.
Even so, Lin Xinyi did not soften her heart.
Instead, her other hand began to frisk the girl’s body.
‘No weapons…’
Lin Xinyi found no hidden magical artifacts within her clothes, nor did she see a single spatial storage treasure.
Qin Huaiyin forced herself to endure the physical discomfort.
Even though her life’s vital points were firmly controlled, she still showed no sign of resistance.
“Mas… Master said that you didn’t want to wait too long. However, when I searched for Master in the cave dwelling, I couldn’t find your figure. I only wanted to go out and look…”
Hearing this, Lin Xinyi suddenly remembered that she had indeed said those words.
‘Could it be that I really am overthinking things?’
Lin Xinyi hesitated.
However, when she turned her head and saw Qin Huaiyin’s painful struggle, she chose to believe her and released her grip.
This so-called belief, however, was not born out of trust for her eldest disciple, but rather confidence in her own strength.
Every item on the girl’s person had been given by her; how could the disciple ever be a match for her?
“If that is the case, and you wanted to leave the Grotto-heaven to find me, why did you stay here for so long…”
Freed from the other’s control, Qin Huaiyin’s legs went soft as if all her strength had vanished.
She slumped to the ground, supporting herself with her hands as she took large gulps of fresh air.
Her delicate appearance made it impossible to tell that she was actually a Golden Core cultivator.
“I… I wanted to go find Master, but as soon as my fingers touched the gate, I sensed someone entering the barrier, so…”
“So you thought it was someone from another mountain peak coming to visit, and you hid on purpose? If that’s the case, the fluctuation in the formation makes sense.”
Lin Xinyi considered that this disciple of hers usually only stayed within the cave dwelling and rarely went out.
For a moment, she didn’t sense anything wrong.
Qin Huaiyin braced herself against the wall and slowly stood up, clearly having recovered.
Looking at the fragile Qin Huaiyin, Lin Xinyi couldn’t help but let out a self-mocking chuckle.
The girl’s Golden Core cultivation was merely the result of being fed medicinal pills and herbs.
Setting aside the fact that the girl was an entire major realm lower than her, even the only cultivation technique she knew had been taught by Lin Xinyi herself.
She didn’t even have a method for body tempering, so what threat could she possibly pose?
“Forget it. I’ve been too high-strung lately. Go down and rest; I will come to find you in a while…”
Lin Xinyi showed no tenderness toward the exhaustion in Qin Huaiyin’s eyes.
After all, once tonight passed, the girl’s entire cultivation would belong to her.
At that point, other than using this body for a bit of nighttime amusement, it would have no other purpose.
“Take this bottle of pills to recover quickly. I don’t want my dear eldest disciple to die in bed later…”
Lin Xinyi was clearly no longer in the mood to continue the act of a deep master-disciple bond.
She threw a pill bottle over.
Looking at the bottle rolling on the ground—pills that were originally meant to recover her own spiritual energy—she decided that her disciple needed them more.
“Th… Thank you for the reward, Master…”
Qin Huaiyin’s voice was so weak it sounded as if she might collapse at any moment.
Lin Xinyi, irritated by the earlier incident, simply waved her hand and turned to leave.
“Why is that Black Jiao so quiet today…”
Lin Xinyi muttered under her breath.
As she passed by the pool, she glanced down, but the calm surface didn’t show even a single ripple.
Lin Xinyi didn’t think much of it, assuming the creature had simply grown tired of making a fuss and had quieted down.
She failed to see that the moment she turned her back, Qin Huaiyin stood perfectly straight.
It wasn’t until Lin Xinyi’s figure had slowly entered the cave dwelling and the ornate gates had groaned shut that Qin Huaiyin discarded her fragile act.
She gazed quietly at the pill bottle in her hand before casually tossing it into the nearby pool.
“Don’t worry, Master. I won’t make you wait too long…”
As Qin Huaiyin walked past the pool, the clear water was instantly stained red with blood.
Following that, the corpse of a Jiao dozens of meters long slowly floated to the surface.
Qin Huaiyin reached out and gently pulled down the silk blindfold covering her eyes.
The blood dyed everything a crimson hue, but the eyes beneath Qin Huaiyin’s blindfold were filled with a grayish-white color.
At this moment, even Qin Huaiyin didn’t know if she was still her original self.
“How unlucky. Someone tampered with the formation on the door earlier, and I almost thought that traitorous disciple had come back to life to ambush me…”
Lin Xinyi returned to her Frost Ice Bed in a foul mood.
She reached out and pulled the 3,000 Dao Seeds from her storage ring.
Feeling the Dao charm radiating from them, she realized that even if she didn’t plan to refine them yet, just sensing the surrounding charm could improve the techniques she cultivated.
“Wonderful. At this rate, it won’t be long before even my cultivation techniques reach the Great Perfection stage. I’m looking forward to the effects after refining them more and more…”
Just as Lin Xinyi retracted the Dao Seeds, the sound of something shattering suddenly echoed within her body.
Startled, she hurried to steady her mind.
As her spiritual energy circulated, her shock turned to joy—her bottleneck had loosened.
“To reach this level just through normal breathing and absorption… what other treasure in the world can compare to the Supreme Bone?”
As soon as she spoke, white steam began to rise from her body.
Immediately afterward, the spiritual energy within a 100-mile radius of her Grotto-heaven was instantly drained.
Lin Xinyi was shocked.
She had personally arranged high-grade spirit stones and spirit-gathering arrays throughout the entire Grotto-heaven, yet she had absorbed it all in an instant.
“Amazing, simply amazing! With such a massive amount of spiritual energy, my realm after this breakthrough will be even more stable than usual!”
Lin Xinyi took a slow, deep breath.
When she opened her eyes again, patterns began to emerge on the Nascent Soul within her body.
As the spiritual energy stabilized, she reached the Peak Nascent Soul realm in an instant.
“I feel like I’m only one line away from the Soul Transformation realm. This is incredible…”
Lin Xinyi stood up, feeling a bit intoxicated.
For some reason, the scene before her eyes seemed to be swaying.
She took two steps before stumbling back onto the bed.
“Wh… What is happening…”
Lin Xinyi held her head, sensing that something was wrong.
But feeling the swaying environment and her disobedient limbs, she quickly understood, despite her initial worry.
“Did I become spirit-drunk because I absorbed a massive amount of spiritual energy to break through?”
Clearly, the speed at which the Supreme Bone absorbed energy was too fast, and her body hadn’t fully adapted yet.
Lin Xinyi hadn’t expected such a situation to occur.
She leaned against the edge of the bed with her hand on her forehead.
After closing her eyes slightly, she realized she hadn’t felt this sort of drunken sensation in decades.
To think she would become intoxicated by spiritual energy because of a breakthrough today.
“This feeling isn’t bad. At least my thoughts aren’t so cluttered anymore…”
Lin Xinyi swayed as she stood up and walked to the table.
She downed the tea that had already been poured, but it wasn’t enough.
She even wanted to find some spiritual wine.
After all, it was a waste not to drink fine wine that couldn’t get her drunk; she might as well use this feeling to get even more wasted.
“Strange, I clearly put it here…”
Lin Xinyi stumbled as she opened a nearby cabinet, sweeping everything inside onto the floor in one go.
She searched for a long time but couldn’t find anything.
In the end, she could only pour herself another cup of tea, pretending it was wine to satisfy her craving.
Lying on the bed, she intended to just drift off to sleep.
In her previous two lives, every night had been like a nightmare.
Even now, though her memories were blurred, her heart could not completely forget.
“Hahaha! That guy is dead. Just thinking about it makes me happy!”
Leaning against the bed in her drunken state, Lin Xinyi looked incredibly fragile, stripped of her usual ruthlessness.
However, at that moment, a knock sounded at the door.
“Who is it?!”
“Master, I’ve come…”
The moment she heard the knock, Lin Xinyi became guarded again.
Her hand even instinctively reached for her sword.
But when Qin Huaiyin’s voice drifted in from outside, she froze for a moment before reacting.
“This drunken feeling… it’s intoxicating, but it truly interferes with things…”
Lin Xinyi casually threw her longsword back into her storage space and staggered toward the door.
This spirit-drunk state made her thinking a bit sluggish, but she couldn’t forget the task at hand.
“Once I absorb my dear disciple’s cultivation, I’ll likely be close to the Golden Immortal realm—”
Lin Xinyi braced herself against the wall, a faint blush on her cheeks.
Clearly, the spiritual energy from several miles around had been so vast that she still hadn’t fully cleared her head.
She pushed the door open with her fingertips and was instantly dazed by the beauty before her.
She had always known Qin Huaiyin was pretty, but the girl usually had her eyes covered by a blindfold and wore very conservative clothing.
“Mas… Master, your disciple was delayed for a while. I only went to dress up. I hope Master will not take offense…”
“What are you saying? When has Master ever blamed you…”
As she spoke, Lin Xinyi reached out and gently tilted Qin Huaiyin’s chin, admiring the piece of art she had raised.
The more she looked, the more satisfied she became.
Qin Huaiyin had already removed the silk covering her eyes, leaving her exquisite face completely unmasked.
Although her eyes remained closed, it added a touch of charm to her already delicate temperament.
The thin gauze she wore looked as if it could be torn with a single touch.
Clutching a pipa, Qin Huaiyin walked cautiously into the room and sat directly on the bed.
As if she already knew her fate, she gently plucked the strings.
“You are truly beautiful. Don’t worry, Master will definitely not let you feel any pain…”
Lin Xinyi turned around, looking at the water-like fragility of Qin Huaiyin.
She felt her interest piqued.
Originally, she had intended to discard the girl after absorbing her cultivation, but how could she let go of such a peerless beauty?
“Do you feel any resentment for submitting to Master like this?”
“Huaiyin has no resentment…”
Lin Xinyi walked slowly to the bedside, looking down at Qin Huaiyin, who sat there with closed eyes, not even daring to look at her.
At this moment, a gentle push would be enough to knock her back onto the bed.
Lin Xinyi reached out, intending to tear the girl’s clothes, but she hadn’t expected Qin Huaiyin’s other hand to rest on the back of her own.
When the girl opened her eyes, those lifeless orbs made Lin Xinyi’s fingers pause.
“Master is in such a hurry. Since we have plenty of time ahead of us, why don’t I play one more song for Master? Consider it setting the mood…”
“Oh? When did you become so sensible? However, as for playing music to set the mood, you’ll have plenty of time to do that for me in the future—”
Lin Xinyi grabbed the jade pipa and tossed it aside.
The sound of precious jade shattering echoed through the room.
Qin Huaiyin was pushed directly onto the bed, and her hands were immediately locked to the headboard with chains.
“Master prefers to be proactive. You won’t mind, will you, Disciple?”