The Bai family had been desperate to escape their dire situation. So when a traveling Daoist offered help, they let him take away the ten-year-old Bai Jinghan. From that moment on, Bai Jinghan never returned to the Bai household.
The Taoist did indeed teach her cultivation techniques, but as her training deepened, Bai Jinghan gradually realized that what she was practicing wasn't orthodox Daoist arts at all. It was something sinister—vicious, bloodthirsty, a method built on murder and soul stealing.
By the time she tried to escape from the so-called enlightened master, it was already too late. The man's true face was cruel and monstrous. He first ripped her soul from her body, then refined her flesh into a white corpse, a Bai Jiang. He sealed her soul into the corpse using forbidden techniques and threw her into a corpse-rearing ground.
All Bai Jinghan could do was watch helplessly as her body was turned into something monstrous. Her soul was branded and enslaved, obeying only that man's commands.
But she was unwilling to submit. She didn't want to become a puppet or a killing machine. She didn't want to take lives or be a walking corpse at someone else's command. So when someone broke the seal on her coffin, she sent a warning to Yun Xi. All she wanted was death—a clean, dignified death.
The man who was later sealed in the coffin beside hers seemed to be a deceased cultivator. Because his physical body was even stronger than hers, he became a Bai Jiang in just five years and gained considerable power. That made him highly valued by that same man.
That was why she had urged Yun Xi to destroy him as well. She herself couldn't take revenge on the true culprit, but it was enough that someone else could.
Yun Xi's awareness returned. Her eyes slowly opened. All the scattered pieces now connected. The Bai family had indeed been dragged down by Bai Jinghan, but only because she had been born on a day, month, and year aligned with yin energy—making her the perfect candidate for corpse refinement.
At the very moment she opened her eyes, the spiritual liquid within her dantian compressed into a single Golden Core. The core shimmered faintly with purple light, streaked with flashes of lightning. Nine distinct lines were etched across its surface, and it spun gently within her core sea.
What Yun Xi had formed was a ninth-grade Golden Core—born from a trial that nearly killed her. If she didn't fall along the way, she would surely step into the Nascent Soul stage in the future.
"Fei Xia, take me away from this corpse-rearing ground," Yun Xi instructed through divine sense.
The Flying Mist Butterfly had already left her hairpin and hidden beyond the range of the thunder tribulation when Yun Xi first summoned the Nine Heavens Mystic Thunder. It had assumed this time it wouldn't survive. Its master had clearly lost her mind—attempting to ascend in the mortal realm, not even fearing being turned to ash by heavenly thunder.
But as it turned out, luck favored fools. Its master had survived the tribulation. Though badly injured, she was still breathing. The moment it received her message, it flapped its wings and grew in size, scooping up its nearly-charred master and soaring away.
By now, the thunderclouds above Yun Xi had scattered. A rainbow shimmered across the sky. Heavenly rain, a gift from the Dao, began to fall.
Yun Xi didn't want to waste the spiritual rain, nor did she wish to linger in that cursed place. She had the Flying Mist Butterfly carry her away while she absorbed the rain to heal her body.
Unfortunately, this was still the mortal realm. The spiritual energy was far too thin. Even when she pulled in all the surrounding qi for hundreds of miles, it wasn't enough to fill her meridians.
Worried that City Lord Li might arrive, Yun Xi communicated with the Xianling Grass. Then, without revealing it to the outside world, she quietly removed it from her spatial storage and kept it hidden in her robes, letting it channel pure spiritual energy into her.
As the blackened shell on her body fell away, her cultivation stabilized at the early Golden Core stage.
Yun Xi no longer suppressed her divine sense. It surged from her sea of consciousness and spread outward, taking in the entirety of the mortal realm. In that instant, she sensed City Lord Li rapidly approaching.
The moment their divine senses brushed against each other, City Lord Li's expression changed. Without hesitation, he crushed a jade talisman and vanished from where he stood.
Yun Xi blinked in surprise but didn't stop her divine sense from continuing to spread. Somehow, this subconscious action had frightened him into retreat.
At that very moment, the three companions nearby also sensed the eruption of divine sense. Their eyes widened in shock and awe—Yun Xi had been hiding her strength all along.
Her divine sense even reached the boundary array separating the mortal realm from the cultivation world. Yun Xi immediately retracted it, then opened her eyes, golden light flickering in their depths.
In the next breath, she retrieved the Xianling Grass and changed out of her tattered robe into the formal disciple robe of Haoran Sect.
The Flying Mist Butterfly returned to its small size and settled back into her hairpin. Dian Dian emerged from the spatial storage, radiating joy and sending cheerful messages to congratulate her on reaching the Golden Core stage. The entire mouse sparkled with bubbly happiness.
Yun Xi flashed forward, appearing in front of Yu Qingcheng, Xia Yao, and Liu Haotian.
Liu Haotian had already cultivated to the late Foundation Establishment stage. He was just a breath away from breaking into the Golden Core realm, but upon seeing Yun Xi's successful advancement, he held back for now.
"Yun Xi, that was too reckless!" Yu Qingcheng said with a frown.
"Exactly! We were all terrified earlier. After we found out you were trapped, we started attacking the weak point of the formation under Liu Daoyou's guidance. Then you brought down the thunder tribulation, and we had to back off," Xia Yao added.
Yun Xi sighed. "You think I wanted to take that risk? I was forced into it. Can you guess who I saw in the corpse-rearing ground?"
"Who?" Xia Yao asked, curiosity piqued. "There was someone else in there? Why didn't we sense them?"
"Not someone alive. It was Li Cangyuan, the deceased young master of Shuangshan City. He's become a White Corpse."
Liu Haotian sucked in a cold breath. "He turned himself into a corpse?"
"Yes and no. He has indeed become a White Corpse, but I doubt it was voluntary. After his death, his father must've sent him here to this corpse-rearing ground."
"When I spread my divine sense after the breakthrough, I detected City Lord Li approaching."
Yu Qingcheng and Xia Yao's faces both changed. A Nascent Soul cultivator—none of them were a match for that. Yu Qingcheng pulled out a teleportation talisman, ready to flee.
Liu Haotian stopped her and chuckled. "Wei Daoyou, the pressure you released just now was terrifying—likely beyond the Nascent Soul stage. You probably scared City Lord Li off."
Yu Qingcheng paused. She recalled that overwhelming wave of divine sense. Thankfully, it hadn't been directed at them, or she would've been flattened.
Yun Xi smiled. "He did run. We got lucky. My cultivation technique strengthens divine sense more than the physical body. I also used a treasure gifted by my master to fake some presence. Just managed to bluff my way through."
Her explanation was part truth, part fiction. She had to keep a few cards hidden.
Only now did Yu Qingcheng notice that Yun Xi was wearing Haoran Sect's personal disciple robe. She immediately cupped her hands and said, "Congratulations to Wei Zhēnrén for advancing to Golden Core and becoming a personal disciple. We all survived today thanks to you."
Xia Yao and Liu Haotian also offered their congratulations. Yun Xi waved it off sheepishly. "It was like being thrown into a fire. I had no choice but to break through or die. Thankfully, my master had prepared enough spirit stones for me. Otherwise, who knows how it would've ended."
After a brief exchange, they learned the full truth: the corpse-rearing ground didn't only contain Li Cangyuan, but also Bai Jinghan. The Bai family were the original inhabitants of that auspicious land. Not only had evil cultivators dug up their ancestral graves, they had turned the granddaughter of the family into a corpse.
It was heinous. Even being struck down by heavenly lightning was too kind a death for Li Cangyuan.