"Chu Kuangren is dead?!"
Inside the Seven Emotions Sect.
News of Chu Kuangren's death had reached them.
Sovereign Yin, who had just heard of the news, was shocked. In front of her, Leng Ningyu, who was still asking her for pointers earlier, felt her heart shudder, and her face immediately turned pale.
"Sovereign Yin, w-what has happened?!"
Leng Ningyu asked, looking rather distraught.
Surprised, Sovereign Yin stared at the outlawed sky-pride in front of her who cultivated the Unruffled Emotions Dao. However, she did not give it any further thought as she told Leng Ningyu the full story of how Chu Kuangren perished at the land of black soil.
After hearing that, Leng Ningyu's gaze turned blank.
She stumbled out of the great hall. Her frail and slender body suddenly pervaded with an immense feeling of hopelessness.
Lady Leng Yue and Chi Yue walked up to Leng Ningyu. Once they saw the condition she was in, their hearts could not help but wrench.
"Senior Sister, are you okay?" Chi Yue asked.
"He's dead. They say that he's dead…"
Leng Ningyu muttered under her breath, in a daze. Her eyes were seemingly drained of their usual intensity as she walked forward senselessly. The sun basked on her body, but she could not feel any of its warmth. Right now, all she could feel was coldness.
It seemed like something was stuck in her chest.
Then, something flowed out from the edge of her eyes uncontrollably.
"Argh!"
In the end, Leng Ningyu cried out in agony as an overwhelming feeling of sorrow took over her.
An Unruffled Emotion cultivator was most affected when their emotions were triggered.
Behind her, Lady Leng Yue felt a dull ache in her heart as she watched this scene unfold. She began to question if she had made the right decision for her back then.
Things had gone south way too quickly that she was caught off guard.
She did not expect Leng Ningyu to be so deeply moved by this.
What she least expected was that Chu Kuangren would be killed without any warning. The brightest star on Emperor Road had been taken away from them just like that.
"Senior Sister, don't cry…"
Chi Yue approached Leng Ningyu and embraced her from behind, consoling her. Nonetheless, as she went on, she began to tear up as well.
Lady Leng Yue walked toward them from the side, her expression visibly perturbed.
Leng Ningyu stared at her with tear-filled eyes, pointing to her own chest, and said, "Honorable Teacher, I've fallen in love with him, but it feels so painful here…"
"Don't cry, kid. Very soon, the pain will stop."
Lady Leng Yue held her in a tight embrace while looking toward a deeper part of Seven Emotions Sect. "Ningyu, it's time you enter the Unruffled Heavens."
The Unruffled Heavens was a secret realm in Seven Emotions Sect.
Only those who cultivated the Unruffled Emotions Dao would be able to step into the realm, and only there would the Unruffled Emotions Dao attain the perfected state.
Previously, Lady Leng Yue insisted on not letting Leng Ningyu in because she had never experienced love, so her Unruffled Emotions Dao had not been truly perfected.
If she had never experienced deep emotions, how would she know how to be unruffled?
Yet now, it was finally time for her to go in.
…
Forbidden Barren Wastelands, beneath the land of black soil.
Inside the Slumbering Emperor Coffin.
Having been sucked inside the coffin, Chu Kuangren arrived at an incredibly dark space that had boundless Chaotic qi looming all around him.
These Chaotic qis were extremely strong. One strand of it would be enough to topple a whole mountain. Yet right now, there were not just hundreds but thousands of them surrounding Chu Kuangren, and the tremendous force crashed onto his body frenziedly.
Still, there was a composed look on his face. He merely glanced around him with curiosity instead of rushing to absorb these Chaotic qis hastily.
"I never thought there would be such a vast space hidden inside the Slumbering Emperor Coffin. How fascinating. No one had been able to break into this space within the Slumbering Emperor Coffin for countless centuries. Am I the first visitor in this space?!"
Chu Kuangren smiled to himself.
He mobilized his spiritual thoughts to investigate his surroundings. However, his spiritual thought was only capable of reaching ten meters wide. As for the remainder of the place, it was controlled and sealed out of sight by those Chaotic qis.
He did not rush it either as he simply picked one direction at random and headed that way.
Approximately an hour later.
He arrived at a wall. That wall was crimson in color, with countless strange patterns carved on it.
"These patterns seem to contain some sort of bizarre Daoist Rhyme. These aren't just any patterns. They're… Dao patterns!!"
Chu Kuangren's eyes lit up, and he looked toward that wall. Infinite Dao patterns interweaved and formed an incredibly illustrious Dao pattern wall!
"Things are really getting more exciting now."
Chu Kuangren walked along that wall to the very end of it.
Vaguely, he could hear incessant whispers in his ears. The syllables of these whispers were irregular in rhythm, sometimes low-pitched, and sometimes high-pitched. There was no fixed rhythm to it, but it felt like it was about to puncture his eardrum and pierce into his brain.
These syllables were just way too odd.
They made Chu Kuangren feel a tad bit light-headed.
"No way. This sound can affect one's mind."
Chu Kuangren focused his sights and began mobilizing his mind power.
He had the Conjurer's Talent in mind power, so he was capable of barricading most types of assaults on his mind.
After adding to himself several layers of mind power blockade, he continued his journey along the wall. At the same time, that mysterious whispering sound became increasingly frequent, and its effects were more pronounced than ever.
No matter how powerful Chu Kuangren's mind power barricade was, he still could not withstand those interferences.
Not only that, but the further he proceeded, the more severe the effects of those whispers were on his mind. Gradually, even his soul was starting to get affected.
"It seems like I can't go any further than this for now."
His soul did have higher endurance than normal people. When he was breaking through to the Sage Realm back then, he had countless purple haze entering his body, altering and enhancing his soul.
However, when it came to anything regarding the soul, he dared not tread lightly. After all, if he were to have some slight misstep in a strange place like this, heaven knew what sort of danger would befall unto him next.
"Huh? What's that?"
Chu Kuangren suddenly realized a faint golden illumination coming from a stone's throw away. When he walked closer to inspect it, he found that it was a golden corpse.
This corpse was dressed in a golden-red Kasaya. From the condition of the corpse, he deduced that it was a human and possibly a monk.
"Oh, it seems like I'm not the first visitor here."
Chu Kuangren was slightly surprised.
He scrutinized the corpse, only to notice that there was a row of words on the ground beside it.
"Ethereal Whispers infiltrate and infect souls. Those below the Bodhi Lotus Sutra's tenth level shall not venture deeper…"
Reading the tiny line of words, Chu Kuangren searched around the corpse and found a Yin and Yang Ring on its finger.
He took off the ring and used his spiritual thought to inspect it. Inside it, he discovered an ancient scripture, which had countless mysterious word symbols written on it.
"Is this… a Soul Dao Technique?!"
Chu Kuangren's eyes abruptly lit up.
Techniques related to Soul Dao were just too rare. Not even Chu Kuangren had it on him.
"I can't believe I'd find a technique related to the Soul Dao inside the Slumbering Emperor Coffin and under such circumstances."
Chu Kuangren felt a little emotional.
The whispers that he had heard earlier must have originated from these Ethereal Whispers mentioned by the corpse in front of him. He was just feeling distressed over how he could deal with these Ethereal Whispers when this Soul Dao Technique automatically presented itself in front of him.
The heavens really were giving him whatever he lacked at the moment.
Chu Kuangren flipped open this technique and began gaining insight from it.
This was an Emperor Scripture that recorded a sutra called the Bodhi Lotus Sutra, a soul technique that leaned slightly toward the Buddhist Dao.
This sutra was divided into twelve levels. From this warning left behind by the corpse, Chu Kuangren must at least cultivate until the tenth level before he ventures deeper.
Chu Kuangren's soul had been altered by purple haze before. Couple with his Meditational Clarity Trait, his cognizance was incredible beyond imagination. Hence, gaining insight from an Emperor Scripture was just an effortless task for him.
Very soon, he had apprehended all twelve levels of the Bodhi Lotus Sutra.
The only thing left to do was to perfect it.