Chapter 19: Psychological Shadow

Chapter 19 A Shadow Over the Heart

"...Please convey to Protector Liu that we will not disappoint his efforts, and will surely attend to Elder Su with the utmost care."

Chief Steward Zhao of the Fallen Immortal Palace said with a beaming smile.

In his establishment, Su Xin's seniority had been bumped up another generation, now addressed as "Elder."

However, Master Zhao did not mind this in the least. If he could properly appease this pampered cultivator heir and coax him into granting more exploration quotas for the secret realm, he'd even be willing to call the kid "Great-Grandpa."

Master Zhao ended the transmission and scrambled to get the reception ready:

"The distinguished guest will be arriving soon. Is everything I asked you to prepare ready?"

A servant nodded in response: "Of course, it's already—"

"No, spare me! Spare me!" At that moment, a woman's bloodcurdling screams echoed from the rear hall.

A female cultivator came stumbling and staggering out. She was strikingly beautiful, with a late Foundation Establishment cultivation level—enough to make her the apple of everyone's eye in an ordinary sect—yet now she was being chased by several servants, looking like a total mess.

Seeing Master Zhao, she seemed to spot her salvation and quickly knelt before him: "Milord, spare me! I'll do anything you ask from now on, I promise to obey—please—" Her words were cut off as Master Zhao sealed her mouth with a voice-sealing talisman, then delivered a heavy kick to her lower abdomen. The kick was laced with spiritual power, and the pain was so bad she couldn't get up.

Master Zhao, however, didn't so much as look at the woman, scolding the servants: "Can't you even handle one woman?"

"I got careless for a second..." a servant muttered.

They grabbed the woman lying on the ground and dragged her toward the courtyard out back.

There, a giant clam stood.

It was as tall as a two-story building, a sickly plaster-gray, with its shell slightly agape, reeking of briny seawater. It looked flat-out wrong just from the outside.

The servants didn't dare get too close to the giant clam.

They did not venture into the backyard, instead shoving her hard toward the clam, pushing her to its front.

The woman let out a wail of despair. Ignoring the pain in her abdomen, she fought to crawl back toward the hall.

But she had barely crawled a few steps when the clam spat out a string of water droplets that landed on her body.

The woman's eyes went wide at first, then her gaze went hazy. Soon she was shaking as she collapsed onto the ground, pure spiritual energy oozing from every pore, drifting toward the giant clam.

Upon closer inspection, there were several other female cultivators beside the clam.

They sat or lay about, wearing dazed smiles as if lost in a dream they could never wake from, mindlessly draining their own spiritual power to converge into a river of spiritual energy feeding this monstrous clam.

Master Zhao stood under the corridor, watching the scene with cold detachment, his expression far from satisfied.

"Bring three... no, four more vessels! I want better quality this time," Master Zhao ordered.

Immediately, the servants brought over four pretty female cultivators, sniffling and crying as they came.

Master Zhao looked at them with regret as well:

Such a waste! If he'd kept them, they'd have sold for a nice pile of spirit stones! If only that top-grade pair were still around...

Come to think of it, this is all Zhou Hui's fault!

Five years ago, the Fallen Immortal Palace had merely "accidentally" grabbed two little girls on Celestial Spirit Sect turf—girls of the worst aptitude, not even good enough to be used as medicine scraps—yet it gave Zhou Hui an excuse to make trouble! As a grandmaster at the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, he'd personally stepped in, flattening the entire Fallen Immortal Palace, not leaving a single brick standing, and even blasting the supervisor and servants into ash—which was actually a lucky break for Master Zhao, as he'd been at the Northern Domain headquarters and dodged the bullet—and he'd also swiped their hard-won "goods," including that top-grade pair of vessels!

Even now, Master Zhao's heart bled just thinking about it.

He fished a qi-nourishing pill from his robes and downed it in one go, but still felt it wasn't enough, so he waved at a servant: "Go get me that thing!"

"Milord, this medicine nourishes qi, but taking too much is not good—"

"Who said anything about medicine? Bring me that product catalog I've been flipping through lately!" Master Zhao snapped.

The servant hastily brought over the catalog.

Most of the items listed were flying sword-type magical artifacts and treasures, along with some rare swordsmanship manuals. Though they would be considered invaluable to outsiders, they were nothing special to the Fallen Immortal Palace. What caught Master Zhao's eye was that all these items had been found in this area, leading to speculation that an ancient secret realm lay hidden here—and quite possibly a sword tomb of grade three or higher!

This was also why the Fallen Immortal Palace, despite suffering so greatly at Zhou Hui's hands, still clung to the vicinity of the Celestial Spirit Sect's encampment.

Fortunately, karma turned in their favor—the secret realm the Fallen Immortal Palace had desperately sought was blown wide open by Zhou Hui's Heavenly Tribulation, which made Master Zhao laugh even in his dreams.

Moreover, they had studied this area for a long time. Though they couldn't break the seal, they had rough guesses about the secret realm's interior! This gave them an advantage over others!

"Once we retrieve the treasures of the secret realm, why worry about rebuilding the Fallen Immortal Palace!" And it would be even grander and more magnificent than the one Zhou Hui destroyed!

Master Zhao mused aloud—though of course, he dared not speak Zhou Hui's name directly.

The surrounding servants chimed in agreement: "We don't even need the true Fallen Immortal Palace—even our current one is enough to make that naive young master from the Northern Domain hand over all his secret realm quotas obediently!"

"Of course!" Master Zhao said smugly.

He looked contentedly toward the giant clam.

With several more female cultivators added to supply spiritual energy, the clam seemed to bask in warm seawater, comfortably opening and closing its shell, while colorful mists drifted out from within, coalescing into tangible scenery in the air.

It was none other than a magnificent palace!

"As expected of the Fallen Immortal Palace—it actually conjured up such a palace!"

*

Liu Chang exclaimed dramatically.

This time, his admiration was genuine.

Though Liu Chang had previously praised the Fallen Immortal Palace to the heavens, the conditions in the Central Domain simply couldn't compare to the Northern Domain, and the Fallen Immortal Palace couldn't match the true Carefree Palace. Liu Chang had been paid to sing its praises with his eyes closed, and had even prepared himself for the young master to be dissatisfied with the Fallen Immortal Palace's exterior—though he wasn't worried about dissatisfaction once inside. The Fallen Immortal Palace had plenty of tricks up its sleeve; it could entertain even the sect master of the Union of Passion, let alone this sheltered young lord.

However, the "sheltered young lord" was clearly not entirely ignorant.

Liu Chang heard Su Xin explain in a stiff tone: "That's a palace of the sea clans, likely formed from an illusory mirage."

"So that's it! No wonder it's so luxurious!" Liu Chang marveled.

The Fallen Immortal Palace was too stingy—they had such a fine thing but never brought it out before.

Liu Chang thought to himself, having grown up in the Central Domain without ever seeing a sea clan palace, he now wished he could lean out of the cloud chariot entirely. Naturally, he failed to notice Su Xin's complicated expression.

Su Xin stared at the palace he had seen not long ago, asking in a trembling voice: "The excitement you mentioned—it wouldn't happen to be that the Fallen Immortal Palace is also participating in the sect competition, would it?"

"You've heard about it?" Liu Chang replied carelessly, his attention fixed on the distant palace.

He assumed someone had leaked the "entertainment plans" to curry favor with Su Xin.

But leaking it was no concern—when he'd first heard Master Zhao of the Fallen Immortal Palace mention it, Liu Chang had thought it a brilliant idea, because the name was very "safe." Even if Su Xin's parents found out, they wouldn't think he had led the boy astray.

And the "sect competition" of the Fallen Immortal Palace...

"Precisely because we need to explore the secret realm, the Fallen Immortal Palace is holding a sect competition," Liu Chang felt this was the right moment to pave the way for requesting slots. "But since the Fallen Immortal Palace is all Female Immortals, the so-called sect competition is nothing more than young girls messing around. I heard that when you were in the Northern Territory, Master Su, you enjoyed inter-sect competitions the most. Why not give them some pointers... Master Su?"

Liu Chang turned around and finally saw Su Xin's face, pale as paper.

*

"Our honored guests are here?!"

On the other side, Master Zhao asked in surprise.

He gave his robes one last check, then flew out of the palace he had just conjured up, and sure enough, he saw a procession of cloud chariots pulled by white cranes and white deer, accompanied by celestial music, gleaming as they came into view at the horizon.

Used to guests showing off their wealth, Master Zhao couldn't help but admire Su Xin's cloud chariot procession:

"As expected of the most spoiled young elder of the Heavenly Dao Alliance."

Naturally, such a show deserved an equally grand welcome.

Master Zhao had long prepared two rows of dainty female cultivators waiting at the palace gates, scattering flower petals to form a carpet in midair.

But just as the cloud chariot was about to reach the flower carpet, it stopped just a few steps before it.

Yes, it stopped.

The celestial music stopped, the white cranes stopped, the white deer stopped, and naturally, the cloud chariot stopped as well.

The luxurious procession suddenly halted in place, as if struck by an immobilizing charm.

"What's going on?" Master Zhao motioned for a servant to go check things out.

But before the servant could even get close, the white cranes flapped their wings and the white deer stamped their hooves, and the cloud chariot suddenly did a complete one-eighty, flying back the way it came.

Master Zhao was stunned.

He didn't bother waiting for the servant to inquire, and cast a spell himself to ask: "Elder Su, why are you leaving? I've already prepared a banquet—"

Master Zhao would've been better off keeping quiet, because the moment he spoke, the chariot took off even faster.

The cloud chariot turned into a bolt of white lightning, vanishing over the horizon in an instant.