After the Villainess Awakens

This was the first time Leng Mu Shi had come looking for Xiao Mian while he was sweeping the stone steps.

At this time, the disciples had all gone to their evening classes. There were very few people walking on the stone steps of Tai Chu Mountain. Xiao Mian was quickly cleaning with spiritual energy circulating in his feet. He was also eager to finish sweeping so that he could go find Leng Mu Shi.

"Xiao Mian!" Leng Mu Shi shouted to him from afar. Xiao Mian stopped moving and turned his head to look up. He saw Leng Mu Shi running towards him as if being chased by a dog. She was running very fast, but her steps on the stone steps were very steady. Her speed was so fast that she almost left an afterimage.

Subconsciously, he threw away the broom and opened his arms, but Leng Mu Shi stopped steadily less than an arm's length away from his embrace. Xiao Mian drooped his arms in slight disappointment. Leng Mu Shi grabbed his drooping arm and asked breathlessly, "Have you eaten dinner?"

Xiao Mian stood at the bottom of the stone steps and looked up at Leng Mu Shi, the smile on his lips slowly widening. He shook his head and said, "Not yet. I was thinking of finishing this and going to eat with you."

In the end, the two of them quickly finished cleaning and went to the Five Grains Hall for dinner.

They went to the cliff where they always made appointments to test medicine together.

After a period of not coming here, the weeds here had grown wildly again without anyone pulling them out.

Leng Mu Shi had something on her mind. As soon as she sat down, she kept eating the pills she had just refined today as if they were beans.

This pill was inspired by Xiao Mian's numb mushroom wontons. It used a very small amount of those mushrooms, supplemented by herbs that could soothe the divine consciousness. After people ate it, it was very beneficial for calming down overly excited emotions.

It was a good medicine for practicing wandering, which could control emotions stimulated by the special abilities of monsters and beasts, and suppress inner demons. After taking it, one would feel like ascending to the ultimate realm, becoming indifferent to life and losing passion.

One would be able to face disembowelment without changing expression, and feel like being in bed even in hell.

Leng Mu Shi named this pill - Bliss Pill.

Of course, eating too much would make one silly and stiff, but Leng Mu Shi needed to calm down now to accept the fact that her master and senior brother were not one person pretending to be two, but two people pretending to be one.

Xiao Mian felt that something was wrong with Leng Mu Shi when they were eating. She didn't have a good appetite today and ate two bowls less than usual.

After sitting down, Xiao Mian watched her taking the pills without asking what they were. He reached out and took one, put it in his mouth, and then sat beside Leng Mu Shi and asked, "What kind of pill is this today?"

Leng Mu Shi finished eating a handful, and her mood had calmed down. She turned to Xiao Mian and said, "Bliss Pill. I added the mushrooms you made for me two days ago. Try it. I kept the original taste of the mushrooms to the maximum extent."

Xiao Mian chewed carefully, then nodded and said, "There is indeed a mushroom flavor, but… it doesn't seem necessary."

"Don't you like mushrooms?" Leng Mu Shi looked at him in confusion.

Xiao Mian didn't like to eat them. He made those wontons for Leng Mu Shi, but thinking that Leng Mu Shi kept the taste of the mushrooms because she thought he liked them, Xiao Mian immediately liked them.

He stuffed all the pills into his mouth, chewed with his cheeks bulging, nodded with a smile on his face, and said vaguely, "Delicious…"

Leng Mu Shi smiled and took out another handful from the storage bag. "Don't rush even if it's delicious. I still have a lot. I've refined a whole furnace, and they're all top-grade pills."

Xiao Mian's narrow eyes narrowed into a happy slit. He took the pills from Leng Mu Shi's hand and ate them facing her.

The joy in his heart was accompanied by a burst of needle-like pain in his heart, which made him feel both pain and happiness, and his mouth was numb.

But soon, after the effect of the medicine came up, both of them felt as if their emotions had been stripped away and suppressed.

They talked face to face, but there was no fluctuation in their expressions, only their mouths were moving, like two puppets who had no feelings but had to get together to chat.

"What do you think of the effect of this medicine?" Leng Mu Shi asked Xiao Mian with a longer face than a donkey.

Xiao Mian ate the most. He hesitated for a moment and said slowly in a flat voice, "I think it's very powerful, but I can't express it…"

Xiao Mian looked at Leng Mu Shi and said, "You are really a genius. I think it doesn't matter if I die here now, you know."

Leng Mu Shi said, "I seem to understand a little bit. I always want to jump off the cliff. I think I'm invincible and won't fall to death. Is there something wrong with me?"

"Let's go back," Xiao Mian said with the last bit of reason he had left. "I'm afraid we'll commit suicide later."

Even at this time, Leng Mu Shi still stubbornly took out her notebook and recorded the amount of medicine they took, and the time from when they felt happy and peaceful to when they felt indifferent to life.

Finally, after they were done, the two of them held hands and walked towards Cang Sheng Courtyard like two wandering souls floating on Tai Chu Mountain.

"You should go to Cang Sheng Courtyard too. With my senior brother watching, we won't get into trouble tonight at least." Leng Mu Shi's sense of direction was a little dull, and she immediately took out her notebook to record the disappearance of her sense of direction.

Xiao Mian said, "Yes, but I'm afraid that if your senior brother sees me doing something stupid, he won't stop me, but will clap his hands and laugh."

Leng Mu Shi turned her head and said with an expressionless face, "Why."

Xiao Mian had the same expressionless face as her. "He hates me."

Leng Mu Shi paused for a long time before continuing to pull Xiao Mian up the stone steps. "In this situation, we should not discuss too complicated issues. My brain can't react."

Xiao Mian let out an "oh" and followed closely behind Leng Mu Shi. Seeing their clasped hands, he said in confusion, "I think I should be happy, but why can't I be happy?"

Xiao Mian said, "It's not accurate to call your pill Bliss Pill…"

Leng Mu Shi stopped talking. The two of them walked for a while and arrived at the entrance of the barrier of Cang Sheng Courtyard. At this time, if any acquaintance saw their slow and sluggish movements, they would definitely be scared. They were like two marionettes.

Leng Mu Shi took out the jade pendant and opened the barrier, pulling Xiao Mian in.

She walked slowly to the door of the house. All the monsters and beasts in the yard curiously stuck their necks out to look. They were very sensitive to changes in people, but their minds were very limited, so they couldn't understand what was going on and didn't dare to attack rashly.

After walking safely to the door of the hut, Leng Mu Shi raised her hand to push the door, but Xuan Zhu had already opened it.

Seeing their mournful faces standing at the door, Xuan Zhu was stunned for a moment.

The next moment, he saw their hands clasped together and frowned, but he raised his hand and pinched Leng Mu Shi's wrist, probing with spiritual energy for a moment, and couldn't help but curl his lips.

"What's wrong with you two? Eating so many Bliss Pills in the middle of the night and running around," Xuan Zhu snorted. "It's a miracle that you are still alive…"

He looked at Xiao Mian, who said in a strangely flat tone, "Let go."

Xuan Zhu raised his eyebrows slightly, let go of Leng Mu Shi's wrist, and then walked up to him curiously, raised his hand, and knocked on Xiao Mian's head.

"Yo, you're all stupid from the medicine, and you're still so protective of your food," Xuan Zhu said as he knocked again and again as if he was testing if a watermelon was ripe. Xiao Mian raised his hand to grab Xuan Zhu, but in his current state, how could he possibly catch him?

Leng Mu Shi blinked at them, wanting to say something, but not knowing what to say.

Finally, Xuan Zhu stopped playing and let the two of them into the house. However, when he went to the cellar to get the antidote, he found that the two people in the house were gone.

He searched around in confusion and finally found the two people lying on the ground in the plot behind the yard where the mushrooms grew.

They lay side by side on the ground very peacefully, with a thin layer of soil on their bodies. It seemed that they had mistakenly thought of themselves as two mushrooms.

Xuan Zhu rolled his eyes and found Leng Mu Shi's Law in the house. Seeing that she had been using it as a recording stone, he thought it was really a recording stone.

Law:…

Xuan Zhu poked it with his hand. "How do you activate this? By pouring spiritual energy into it?"

The Law silently started recording, recording the two "human-shaped mushrooms" buried in the mushroom pile.

The next morning, Leng Mu Shi woke up in a warm and soft bed, while Xiao Mian woke up in a damp and cold mushroom pile.

In the second half of the night, Xuan Zhu was afraid that something might really happen to them, so he fed them the antidote. Xiao Mian's body was stiff when he got up. After all, no one would feel well after lying on the damp ground for a whole night.

He circulated spiritual energy in place for a while before he got up.

As expected, Leng Mu Shi was still sleeping in bed.

It was dawn outside, and he met Xuan Zhu at the door.

Xuan Zhu turned sideways and looked at him with raised eyebrows, his provocative intention obvious. Xiao Mian didn't bother to pay attention to him, who was crazy. He didn't even bother to maintain peace on the surface when Leng Mu Shi was not around. He brushed past him and walked out of Cang Sheng Courtyard.

After Leng Mu Shi woke up, she casually asked when Xiao Mian had left. After Xuan Zhu told her, she plunged back into the cellar to make pills.

This Bliss Pill had too many side effects. She needed to improve it.

Xuan Zhu had been helping her all along, reading books and preparing to refine the high-level wood spiritual root needed to refine the Spring Return Pill.

The Spring Return Pill was very effective. It required a lot of wood spiritual energy and was extremely difficult to refine. This kind of pill was priceless in the world of cultivation because with just one pill, even if you were seriously injured and dying, you could instantly recover half of your life force.

While Leng Mu Shi was refining pills, she was also helping Xuan Zhu. After all, she also had a wood spiritual root.

And she also developed a low-level Spring Return Pill recipe based on Xuan Zhu's pill recipe. Naturally, it was not as effective as the Spring Return Pill, but the herbs used were common. It was more practical for low-level cultivators to carry it with them and eat it while fighting, without having to consume spiritual energy to heal their minor injuries.

Xuan Zhu looked at her pill recipe and couldn't help but laugh and shake his head.

"If you had entered the sect before me, I'm afraid Master would never have accepted me as his disciple…"

Xuan Zhu sighed. "You can use your five spiritual roots so freely. In time, when your cultivation reaches great success, no one in the world will be your opponent."

Leng Mu Shi had no expectations for such a prospect. She only wanted to do a good job in front of her. She said indifferently, "Then I'll borrow your good words, Senior Brother."

Xuan Zhu smiled. "Are you able to accept the state of me and Master now?"

In fact, Leng Mu Shi still couldn't accept it, nor did she understand it. She asked Xuan Zhu how he did it, but Xuan Zhu didn't tell her clearly.

He only said, "It's better that you don't know. This is not a good thing. You have five spiritual roots. You only need to practice how to use and suppress them freely, and you don't need such extreme methods at all."

Leng Mu Shi guessed that the reason why they did this was because Hua Yanyue couldn't refine pills that required extremely pure wood spiritual energy like the Spring Return Pill, but pure wood spiritual energy alone couldn't make pills. Wood spiritual energy was more suitable for practicing swords.

But if wood spiritual energy was supplemented with fire spiritual energy, it would be able to make pills that could bring the dead back to life and save a cultivator's life in times of crisis.

Her sect might be the most unorthodox sect in the world, but it was also the sect that spared no effort in saving lives.

Although Leng Mu Shi didn't know exactly how Senior Brother Xuan Zhu and Hua Yanyue managed to achieve one body with two souls, she was certain of the reason why they did it.

Because Leng Mu Shi was born with five spiritual roots, the Law would naturally help her suppress other unnecessary spiritual roots when she needed them, so refining pills was twice the result with half the effort.

However, she had recently begun to think about a question. She couldn't rely on the Law all the time. She had to find a way to learn how to suppress and use other spiritual roots by herself.

What if the Law disappeared one day?

And there was the matter of forging a natal pill furnace for herself.

Cultivators all talked about natal swords, but in fact, pill cultivators also talked about natal pill furnaces.

However, there were very few pill cultivators in the cultivation world today, and most of them were low-level pill cultivators. Very few people had their own natal pill furnaces.

When a powerful pill cultivator reached the end of their cultivation, they didn't form pills like ordinary cultivators, but formed a furnace with their inner core in their inner mansion and warmed the pill furnace with their breath and meridians. According to ancient books, in the end, the heaven and earth were the medicine and the body was the furnace. Everything in the world could be refined.

Leng Mu Shi knew that Hua Yanyue was only at the initial stage of forming a furnace with her inner core. She could only see the shape of the furnace and couldn't refine anything. She was already at the middle stage of the Sun Realm, and the inner core of the furnace was kept in her inner mansion.

Of course, this kind of bullshit ancient book had long been regarded as an exaggerated myth by the world. No one had ever heard of anyone who could truly cultivate to such a realm, let alone believe such a statement.

But Leng Mu Shi believed it.

Ever since she learned about the compatibility and incompatibility of medicinal properties, entered the door of the Dao of Pills, and was able to perceive the weak connection between medicines before, she believed that the spiritual energy of cultivators, the demonic energy of demons, and the spiritual energy of monsters and beasts in this world were all the same, containing energy, and were not dead things.

Demons cultivated with demonic energy as their foundation; devils cultivated with devilish energy as their foundation; cultivators cultivated with spiritual energy as their foundation; and the spiritual plants and immortal herbs in this world grew with vitality as their foundation. All of this was tangible, something that could even be extracted and utilized.

And no matter what it was, spiritual energy, demonic energy, or devilish energy, it was ultimately nurtured by vitality. Just like the five elements in this world that mutually generated and restrained each other, the purer the spiritual root of a cultivator, the more vigorous the manifestation of vitality.

Everything in this world was shaped by vitality.

Pill refining was the extraction of the vitality in those spiritual plants, the extraction of the vitality in the blood of those monsters and beasts.

What pill cultivators did was to seal the vitality in the form of pills and use it on people who needed vitality.

That was why Leng Mu Shi had the delusional idea of using the flesh and blood of the Demon Spider as medicine, and she had actually refined a pill that could control the Demon Spider.

But in fact, it was not control, but the Demon Spider sensed the demonic energy and vitality that belonged to it that were sealed in the pill. Its intelligence was not enough to allow it to distinguish that the pill was already separated from its body. It still regarded it as a part of its body.

And the part where Leng Mu Shi used the medicine happened to be the Demon Spider's legs, so they were driven.

However, there were very harsh conditions for the formation of this control pill. It must be refined by someone who could deceive the creature, someone who was full of vitality and surpassed the creature being controlled.

Therefore, Leng Mu Shi could only test it on the Demon Spider at this stage and didn't think about other monsters and beasts. She was still too weak.

But it didn't hurt to think about it. When Leng Mu Shi let her mind wander, she would often be shocked by herself.

If a pill cultivator was truly powerful enough to use the heaven and earth as medicine and humans as furnaces, then what in this world couldn't be extracted, refined, or controlled?

Therefore, the Dao of Pills was the ultimate Dao of all the Daos in this world.

The reason why the Dao of Pills was so difficult to cultivate was that even if one had seen through everything, and one's heart could coexist with the heaven and earth and compete with the sun and moon, in reality, one still had to guard the pill furnace day and night to prevent being blown up by the spiritual energy riot when the furnace was opened.

Even if one could see the vastness of the sky when looking up, there was still a bottomless abyss beneath one's feet. One careless step would cause one to fall into it, leaving no bones behind.

Pill cultivators were travelers carrying heavy loads, walking in mud, on rugged roads, and on cliffs. They could see that the end was within reach, but they still had to take one step at a time.

Throughout the ages, how many pill cultivators had glimpsed the Great Dao?

But very few could stick to their original aspirations, resist the temptation to refine pills beyond their level, and wholeheartedly improve themselves.

One might die of exhaustion from running towards a distant mountain, and once one glimpsed the unparalleled ability of the Dao of Pills to control vitality, there would be an endless stream of people who couldn't help but go astray. The origin of all the voodoo sects and even the puppet race of Qi Bi were all pill cultivators.

And the natal pill furnace that Leng Mu Shi wanted to refine now was naturally not an inner mansion pill furnace. After all, that level of cultivation was too far away for her. She was only at the middle stage of the Star Realm now.

If she wanted to become a great power, she had to go through the Star Realm, the Moon Realm, the Sun Realm, and the Heaven Realm, four realms of cultivation. Each realm was further divided into four levels: lower, middle, upper, and peak.

For cultivators above the Moon Realm, every realm was extremely difficult. The vast amount of spiritual energy they needed to accumulate was wider than the vast sea.

Every level up included virtue, luck, and opportunity, and the most important thing was to stick to one's original aspiration.

The heavens had five elements, and humans had seven emotions. How difficult it was to achieve all of this.

Leng Mu Shi didn't want any quick way to advance at all. She just wanted to get an external natal pill furnace that she could carry with her so that she could refine the endless pills she had deduced within her control.

But this was also very difficult. Her gold spiritual root was as weak as a newborn baby, and the materials for refining this natal pill furnace were not easy to find.

So in the end, she was still just wishful thinking. Leng Mu Shi sighed. She didn't tell Xuan Zhu about this crazy idea. Instead, she went to look for the Law, who she hadn't spoken to for many days, during the break between opening the furnace. "Teach me how to suppress and use the other spiritual veins in my body."

Leng Mu Shi said with a straight face, "I'll help you find that bastard woman, Fen Lian, break her up with her new husband, and set you two up. What do you think?!"

Law:… Have you gone mad from refining pills?

Leng Mu Shi said, "You two were so good together before, always bickering and quarreling. I always thought you two were a couple! She flirted with you all day long, but then she turned around and found a new husband and never went home. Aren't you angry?!"

Sensing that Xuan Zhu had gone down the cliff at the back of the mountain and was not around, the Law couldn't help but be angered by Leng Mu Shi's words. "What is wrong with you? Do you really think there's something going on between me and that dead human skin? I'm a good stone. Why would I want to stick to dead human skin?"

The Law's voice became sharp with anger. "I'm so happy these days! If you dare to bring her back, I won't suppress your spiritual roots!"

Leng Mu Shi immediately changed her tune, faster than turning a corner. "No, we can't do that. You and I are good brothers. If you don't like her, how can I go look for her?"

"Then will you teach me how to suppress other spiritual roots?" Leng Mu Shi held the Law and gently rubbed it on her face, almost kissing it. Her gentle gesture was as if she was holding not a stone, but a fragile newborn baby.

The Law, a stone, couldn't get goosebumps, but its stone body trembled visibly. After a while, it said earnestly, "Your current cultivation is not enough to suppress them. You need to advance to the early stage of the Moon Realm first."

Leng Mu Shi: "…"

"Then how can I advance?" Leng Mu Shi said, "I can't steal those rare pills from my master. After all, you've seen her refining pills. She's already one body with two souls. It's not easy. She's neither male nor female all day long."

The Law said, "You'll level up if you follow the plot. It's been more than four months since you started, and you were a candidate disciple in Fei He Courtyard for a month before that, so you've been in Tai Chu Mountain for more than five months. In another seven months, when you've been here for a whole year, there will be high-level disciples taking you out for training. By then… Do you still remember the plot point where you jump off the cliff in the secret realm? You'll level up after you jump."

Leng Mu Shi said, "To be honest," she walked to the table and slammed the Law on the table. "Is it possible that there's no such thing as a storybook and you're lying to me? Who are you, who sealed you in this stone, and why are you staying by my side, driving me to approach Xiao Mian for what purpose?"

"Just tell me the truth. I've already guessed most of it. What is your goal… to come out of the stone? If you had told me earlier, I might have been able to find a way to let you out. It must be uncomfortable to be stuck inside." Leng Mu Shi had an expression of being in control.

Law:…

"In the storybook you showed me, Xiao Mian and Leng Tian Yin are a couple," Leng Mu Shi said, "but the truth is that Xiao Mian doesn't pay any attention to her at all. She's been following Yi Tu around lately. I think even if something were to happen, it would be between her and Yi Tu. It has nothing to do with Xiao Mian at all. This is all fake, isn't it!"

The Law said: "…The female lead is going to get together with Yi Tu. Why aren't you doing anything about it?"

"Why should I do anything about it?" Leng Mu Shi slammed the table and stood up. "I almost got together with the male lead. Why didn't you do anything about it?!"

The Law went silent.

Leng Mu Shi almost chipped it to pieces before it spoke again. "You don't know anything!"

Then there was no sound at all. No matter what method Leng Mu Shi used, it was like a real dead stone.

Leng Mu Shi didn't dare to go too far. After all, she still needed to rely on the Law to suppress her other spiritual roots in order to refine pills, so she suppressed her anger.

She went back to refining pills.

She had originally planned to never provoke Xiao Mian and not follow the plot, but now the situation was different. Now she and Xiao Mian were good brothers.

Leng Mu Shi thought that this part of the plot could be played out in another way. As long as she didn't flirt with Xiao Mian, she had countless ways to leave the Law speechless.

But that was seven months away. The most urgent task at hand was to refine pills steadily.

She had always heard people say that one day in the immortal mountain was ten years in the human world.

This naturally meant that for cultivators, time flew by amazingly fast.

However, Leng Mu Shi really didn't expect that seven months would pass so quickly. There were no changes in the four seasons in Tai Chu Mountain. The leaves of the spiritual herbs and plants hadn't fallen yet, and the new greenery had already covered the entire immortal mountain.

Leng Mu Shi spent all day buried in refining and testing pills. She squeezed in time to eat and go to the toilet. Every day, she felt that there wasn't enough time. Apart from her senior brother and master, who were sometimes male and sometimes female, the only person she had contact with was Xiao Mian.

Every time she refined a new pill, she would look for him. If there was anything she couldn't figure out, she would also look for him. All her food came from his hands. From the beginning, he helped her to get food from the Five Grains Hall in a food box, to now he simply brought the ingredients to Cang Sheng Courtyard to cook for her.

During these seven months, Xiao Mian received a request for help from the common people and went to the mortal world to exorcise evil spirits. He was only gone for ten days, but Leng Mu Shi missed him terribly.

Xiao Mian didn't disappoint her when he came back. He brought back many snacks from the mortal world and even smuggled back the subdued evil spirit for Leng Mu Shi to study and use as medicine.

At this moment, there were still eight days until Leng Mu Shi could follow the new disciples down the mountain for training. She was preparing the things she needed to bring, while Xiao Mian was squatting in the backyard, stewing chicken for her in a small stove.

The aroma wafted in through the window. Leng Mu Shi was a little distracted and looked outside.

Xiao Mian had grown taller again. He had grown as fast as bamboo in the past six months. Now, he was squatting on the ground with his long legs bent. Although Leng Mu Shi had also grown taller, she was still much shorter than him. She often said sourly that she couldn't reach the top of Xiao Mian's head.

He was dressed in a plain white disciple's uniform, which set off his slender waist, straight back, and long, slightly bent legs. He leaned forward slightly, and his long hair, tied up on top of his head, fell down, stained by the heat from the stewing chicken, pulling his immortal aura down to the mortal world.

Seemingly aware of Leng Mu Shi's gaze, Xiao Mian turned his head to look over with a slight smile. Leng Mu Shi immediately felt that it was incredible - even the smell of fireworks couldn't cover the immortal's jade-like bones and immortal demeanor.

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