From a loser to an immortal sage

Chapter 478 The Guardian's Test

The moment the cold glint of Mo Feng's short blade stung my pupils, the crystal statue suddenly burst forth with dazzling golden light.

The light enveloped me like a living thing, and I could even hear the soft cracking of gold leaf—the patterns on the surface of the statue were peeling away, revealing the core within, flowing with starlight.

Mo Feng was sent flying by the wave of light, his back slamming against the bronze door before sliding down, black blood seeping from the corner of his mouth, and his short blade clattering to the ground at his feet.

I staggered two steps and grabbed Wen Chen's arm. The plum blossom print on his palm was incredibly hot, as if it was trying to burrow into my veins.

Wen Chen's hand covered mine, his fingertips brushing against the back of my burning hand: "Yao Yao?" His voice was trembling and tense. I looked up at him and saw that his eyes also reflected golden light. His sword was still lying in front of him, the tip of the sword trembling slightly.

"Only by passing the final test can one truly obtain this divine artifact."

The solemn voice struck my eardrums like a morning bell.

Wen Chen and I turned our heads at the same time and saw that the ground in the center of the secret room had cracked open, and the bluestone slabs surged up to form a white jade platform.

Standing on the platform was an old man dressed in a moon-white wide-sleeved robe, with a silver beard that reached his waist. The tassel of the long sword in his hand was shaped like a six-petaled plum blossom—exactly the same as the imprint on my palm.

“The guardian of the immortals.” Wen Chen called out softly. I recalled the few words Elder Yun had mentioned: each generation of succession has a guardian of the tomb, who looks after the relics of the fallen immortals and selects the successor.

The old man's gaze swept over Wen Chen and me, finally settling on my brow: "You bear the mark of her remnant soul, and he..." He turned to Wen Chen, "...possesses a Dao heart that resonates with hers."

“Three trials.” The old man raised his hand, and three bronze lamps floated up on the stone platform: “Mind, Wisdom, and Thought.”

Only after passing through can one be considered true God.

The first lamp ignited with a "whoosh," its dark red flames swirling with black mist.

Before I could react, the scene before me changed—the secret room disappeared, and I was standing on a mountain path full of gravel.

The wind whipped sand and gravel against my face, and in the distance came shrill laughter: "A piece of trash like you dares to test your spiritual roots?"

That was the day I first traveled here.

I gazed at the testing platform at the foot of the mountain. A cultivator in a Taoist robe, holding a spirit-testing jade, sneered at me: "No spiritual root, get lost." The junior disciples watching covered their mouths and laughed. A girl with pigtails pushed me, making me stumble: "Even outer sect servants don't want you, you might as well go home and farm!"

My heart felt like it was being squeezed.

I instinctively reached for my waist—where my mother's jade pendant should have been hanging, but now there was only an empty cloth belt.

In my memory, I squatted at the foot of the mountain and cried all night. The next day, I gritted my teeth and went to the herb garden to sweep up fallen leaves. When the manager kicked over my bamboo basket, the grass juice in the soil splashed onto the back of my hand, and it tasted fishy and bitter.

"You could have given up," the old man's voice came from the black mist. "Admitting you're a good-for-nothing and marrying into an ordinary village is better than being trampled into the mud."

I stared at my trembling hands.

I do remember thinking that way: huddled in the woodshed on a cold night, listening to the other disciples laughing and talking in the warm pavilion; when someone splashed dirty water on me and I still had to smile apologetically, I looked at the moon in the well and wondered if jumping down would stop the pain.

But what happened next?

I recalled the woman's face in the inheritance. She knelt in the lightning tribulation, while outside the barrier, a crowd cursed her for "overestimating herself." She held the dying young cultivator, who cried and said, "I have no spiritual roots either." She stroked his head and said, "I'll teach you how to grow spiritual herbs, and you can live just the same." When she broke the jade pendant, drops of blood fell on the shards, and she said, "For that girl who, like me, is unwilling to accept defeat."

"I refuse to accept this." I heard my own voice, a little hoarse, but more steady than I remembered.

The laughter on the mountain path suddenly subsided, and the light from the spirit-testing jade stung my eyes, but I didn't flinch.

I bent down to pick up the pebbles at my feet and smashed them against the testing platform—just like that year when I smashed them and ran away, only to be chased for three miles by the steward, and finally fell into the herb field, but I smiled and stuffed the mud-covered herbs into my pocket.

The black fog suddenly dissipated.

I returned to Baiyutai, my forehead beaded with cold sweat, only to hear the old man chuckle softly: "Well said, 'unconvinced'."

Looking at Wen Chen again, he was standing in another cloud of black mist.

His sword lay at his feet, he trembled, his fingertips digging desperately into his heart—his clothes there were soaked in blood, and what he was holding in his arms... was me.

"Yaoyao?" His voice was choked with sobs, a stark contrast to his usual composed demeanor. "Don't sleep! You promised to see the aurora borealis in the snow country together, to go fishing for golden carp in the East China Sea... Open your eyes and look at me!"

I wanted to rush over, but my body felt frozen in place.

The "I" in the black mist had my eyes closed, my face was as white as paper, and there was blood at the corner of my mouth.

Wen Chen's tears fell on "my" face. He trembled as he reached out to feel my pulse, but stopped halfway through. His Adam's apple bobbed as if he were swallowing something extremely bitter.

“I promised to protect you.” He suddenly released his grip. “But if I can’t protect you… I’ll walk the rest of the way for you.” He picked up the sword from the ground, its blade reflecting his reddened eyes. “You said that the Immortal Venerable isn’t someone who stands at the top, but someone who’s willing to bend down and lend a hand.”

I...I will remember.

The black mist dissipated with a "boom".

Wen Chen staggered two steps, and when I caught him, I felt that his clothes on the back were completely wet.

He looked down at me, the panic in his eyes still lingering, but he forced a smile: "Just now... I thought it was really..."

"It's approved." The old man's voice made us all look up.

The flame of the first lamp in his hand had turned a warm gold. "The Trial of the Heart, complete."

Only then did I notice that Mo Feng had somehow climbed to the corner of the wall, curled up and trembling, with black blood still dripping onto the ground.

Ling'er peeked out from behind the statue, her little face full of worry. When she saw me looking over, she quickly gestured that everything was alright.

The old man raised his hand, and the second lamp began to glow with a bluish light.

As I gazed at the faintly visible hexagram within the light, I suddenly recalled Elder Yun's words: "True inheritance is never about providing you with a ready-made path."

Wen Chen gripped my hand tightly, the warmth of his palm seeping through my cufflinks.

Looking at the lingering fear in his eyes, I recalled the man in the illusion who, with red eyes, said, "I'll walk the rest of the way for you"—it turns out we had already given our answers in each other's trials.

The second lamp crackled and sparked. The old man's gaze swept over the light before returning to us: "The second one..."

A muffled rumble, as if the earth itself was shaking again, suddenly came from outside the bronze door.

Wen Chen and I exchanged a glance, and his thumb gently rubbed the back of my hand—that was our agreed-upon code for "Don't be afraid."

The old man's words were interrupted by a tremor. He looked towards the doorway, his silver beard fluttering even without wind: "It seems the aftershocks of the earth's veins... have become the perfect catalyst."

As I gazed at the bluish light swirling in the second lamp, I suddenly recalled the last words the woman in the legacy spoke: "Tests are never meant to stump anyone, but to help you see just how far you are truly capable of going."

Wen Chen's hand tightened in my palm.

We looked at the lamp that glowed with a bluish light, and listened to the rumbling of the earth shaking outside the door, and suddenly we all laughed.

After all, having come this far, what we fear least is... challenges.

When the blue light of the second lamp enveloped the white jade platform, I smelled the rusty odor—the black blood that Mo Feng had just spat out had seeped into the cracks of the bluestone slabs.

The old man's voice mingled with the humming of the earth's ley lines outside the bronze door: "Trial of Wisdom, break through three barriers, and see the true heart." Before he finished speaking, three relief carvings appeared on the stone platform: the first was a female cultivator slaying a demon on a moon eclipse night, the second was a child feeding a withered tree with spiritual spring water, and the third was the most blurry, with only half a jade pendant hanging among the countless stars in the sky visible.

Wen Chen tapped his fingers lightly twice on my palm, a code signal to "follow me".

As we circled the relief carvings, I noticed that each painting had a hidden compartment at the bottom, in which a palm-sized jade plaque was embedded, its surface covered with fine incantations.

As soon as I took off the first jade pendant, the entire white jade platform suddenly shook violently. The position of the third star map cracked open with a "crack," and a foot-long poisonous centipede crawled out. When its red tongue swept across the back of my foot, all the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“It’s a mirror trap.” Wen Chen drew his sword and deflected the poisonous centipede, the tip of which touched the first lunar eclipse image. “The demon-slaying female cultivator’s hand gestures are reversed from the ones I saw in the Nine Luminaries Sword Manual.” He gathered pale blue spiritual energy at his fingertips and drew sword marks in the air in the opposite direction. The poisonous centipede suddenly froze and dissipated into a cloud of black mist.

I stared at the second painting of a child feeding the spiritual spring, and suddenly remembered what the woman in the inheritance had said: "When the spiritual veins are depleted, the most precious thing is not the spiritual spring, but the willingness to share half a cup with the withered tree." I placed the second jade pendant on the palm of the child in the painting, and the jade pendant instantly emitted a soft light, and the originally dried-up spiritual spring painting actually "flowed" with silver threads.

The first two challenges went more smoothly than expected, but as soon as the third jade pendant was obtained, the temperature in the entire secret room plummeted.

The relief carving suddenly flipped over, and the third star map transformed into a scene I had seen in the inheritance—a woman kneeling under a lightning tribulation, with drops of blood from the shattered jade pendant falling into the earth's veins.

The runes on the jade pendant began to distort, and I heard Wen Chen gasp: "Yao Yao, look at the back of the jade pendant."

The back is engraved with a line of small characters: "Only by using blood as a catalyst, severing all emotions and desires, can the inheritance be achieved."

The moment my fingertips touched the edge of the jade pendant, the plum blossom mark on my palm suddenly burned, as if it were about to burn my entire hand through.

Wen Chen's hand covered mine; his palms, calloused from years of wielding swords, were now shockingly hot. "Don't believe it, this is a trap." I looked up at him; his eyes reflected the cold light of the jade tablet, yet shone brighter than ever before. "That woman became a Celestial Venerable not because she severed her emotions, but because she understood the weight of emotions better than anyone else."

Before the words were finished, the jade pendant shattered into pieces with a "bang".

I stepped back two paces, protecting Wen Chen's hand, only to see the fragments recombine in mid-air, piecing together another scene—it was Wen Chen and I planting spiritual herbs in the herb garden, him squatting beside me, teaching me how to distinguish the spiritual root veins; it was us watching the aurora borealis atop the snowy mountain, him tucking my hands into his sleeve to warm them, saying, "That way they won't turn red from the cold"; it was him using his own barrier to shield me from the final blow when I was struck by the lightning tribulation, his blood splattering on my face, yet he was still smiling: "Yao Yao, don't be afraid, I'm here."

"True wisdom is being able to distinguish between obsession and faith," the old man said with approval.

That's when I noticed a six-petaled plum blossom-shaped key that had appeared in the hidden compartment of the third star map.

Wen Chen smoothed my hair, which had been ruffled by the gust of wind: "Your palms were sweaty just now." I looked down at our clasped hands, and indeed, his palms were damp with a thin layer of sweat from me, but neither of us let go.

"The Trial of Wisdom is complete." The old man flicked his sleeve, and the blue light of the second lamp transformed into countless stardust fragments, falling on Wen Chen and my shoulders.

Ling'er ran out from behind the statue at some point, tugged at my clothes, her little face full of excitement. She pointed to the plum blossom print on my palm and made a "yes" sign—it turned out that when the jade pendant shattered, she had secretly stuffed a piece of inherited memory into my spiritual sea.

When the third lamp lit up, even the tremors of the earth weakened a bit.

The lamp wick was a cluster of eerie blue flames, and the old man's silver beard moved without wind: "The Trial of Thought, the Battle Against Inner Demons." As soon as he finished speaking, the ground cracked open into an abyss, and a giant wolf leaped out from it—its body was shrouded in black mist, and its eyes were the same ones I had seen in the inheritance, the eyes of those cultivators who had called the woman "overestimating herself" during her final battle.

Wen Chen's sword hummed as it was drawn from its sheath, blocking my way: "This is a battle beast conjured by a demon in my heart, specifically targeting what people fear most." The giant wolf opened its blood-red maw and pounced, but I drew the short blade from my waist—it was forged for me by Wen Chen using fragments of his natal sword. He said, "This way, even if I'm not around, you can protect yourself."

The moment the short blade touched the wolf's claws, I heard Wen Chen shout, "Yao Yao, to the left!" I spun around to avoid the wolf's sweeping tail, and at the same time stabbed the short blade into the wolf's belly—where half a plum blossom mark appeared, exactly the same as the one on my palm.

"It fears your inherited mark!" Wen Chen's sword drew a semicircle, forcing the giant wolf into a corner.

I suddenly remembered the sword tassel of the woman in the legacy, which was also shaped like a six-petaled plum blossom. She once said, "This is not decoration, but the mark of the Dao heart. Those who see this flower are all on the same path." I bit my fingertip and smeared a bloodstain on the short blade. The plum blossom mark instantly became as bright as day.

The giant wolf let out a piercing scream, and the black mist crumbled away, revealing a snow-white wolf body underneath—it had a crescent-shaped scar on its forehead, the very mark of the spirit beast "Snow Soul" that I had seen in an ancient book a hundred years ago, the one that fought alongside the woman.

"So you were waiting for us to recognize you." I reached out and touched Xuepo's forehead. It gently rubbed against my palm, and the fierce light in its wolf eyes completely disappeared.

The old man stroked his beard and smiled: "The trial of thought is complete." Snow Soul transformed into a stream of light and entered the third lamp, the flame changing from a deep blue to a dazzling golden red.

"Congratulations to you both for passing all the trials." The old man raised his hand, and a cloud of light rose from the center of the white jade platform, within which floated the longsword with its six-petaled plum blossom tassel.

I gazed at it, the plum blossom print on my palm burning hot, almost piercing my skin—this was mine, and also the legacy of all those who defy fate.

Just as I was about to touch the light mist, I heard the sound of porcelain shattering behind me.

It's ink-style.

He had somehow climbed to the foot of the statue, clutching half a crystal shard he had smashed in his arms. Black blood dripped from his chin onto the broken crystal, reflecting eerie purple spots.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he twirled the short blade in his palm. "Xiao Yao... Wen Chen... you think you've won?" His voice was hoarse, like a broken bellows. "The ley lines in this secret chamber... I've already poisoned them with a bone-corroding powder. Once you get the sword... the entire mountain will collapse!"

Wen Chen instantly shielded me behind him, and I could feel the muscles in his back taut like a bowstring.

Mo Feng suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, the black light on his short blade even brighter than before: "Even if I die... I'll drag you down with me!" He staggered forward, knocking over a bronze lamp in the corner, spilling lamp oil on the ground, the rising flames casting flickering light on his face.

The sound of falling stone chips came from the dome of the secret chamber, as if some enormous thing was crashing into it from the outside.

I gripped Wen Chen's hand tightly and could clearly feel the rapid pulse on his wrist—it wasn't fear, but the alertness of being ready to fight at any moment.

The howl of Xuepo came from the light mist. Ling'er grabbed my clothes and tried desperately to back away, but my gaze remained fixed on Mofeng's distorted face.

This time, we will not give him another chance.

The tremors of the earth veins suddenly intensified, and the entire secret chamber shook so badly that people could hardly stand.

Mo Feng's short blade grazed Wen Chen's sleeve, leaving a charred mark on the wall.

I heard a "crack" sound above my head—the stone pillar supporting the dome had split open.

The suspended longsword was emitting a clear, melodious sword cry, as if it were waiting for something.