Chapter 228: Forced Awakening.

After refining the Cleansing Pill, a Tier Three pill whose recipe he had received from Mu Qingya, Lin Xuan finally made his way toward the Yew Woods.

A large crowd had gathered at the entrance, but the combined forces of every clan present in Azure Willow City had formed a line to prevent anyone else from entering.

Every now and then, Lin Xuan heard cries of grief coming from the crowd.

“My husband went inside and still hasn’t returned!”

“Please, someone, go find my father!”

“He was only supposed to be gone for a few hours!”

Lin Xuan ignored the cries as he calmly walked past the gathered cultivators and stepped directly into the Yew Woods.

The moment he crossed the boundary, he felt something change.

His spiritual qi was slowly slipping away from his body.

The loss was so gradual that it was almost impossible to notice, and someone who entered without paying close attention could easily mistake the strange sensation for ordinary exhaustion.

“So this is the effect of the mist, huh?” Lin Xuan murmured as he stared at the swirling mist in awe. “If I could make this mist my own and make it recognize friend from foe, it could become a powerful defensive asset.”

The thought immediately caught his interest, but Lin Xuan quickly shook his head.

Dreams were dreams, and reality was different.

Without wasting any more time, he reached into his storage ring, took out a Cleansing Pill, and swallowed it without hesitation.

The effect was immediate as a refreshing sensation spread throughout his body, and Lin Xuan felt as though a thin protective layer had formed around his entire body.

At the same time, something even more surprising happened.

The mist surrounding him began slowly transforming into spiritual qi before being absorbed into his body.

The process was extremely slow, but there was no denying the result.

Lin Xuan’s eyes lit up with surprise.

“No wonder she was so reluctant to share something this good,” he muttered as he examined the strange transformation taking place around him.

If his hypothesis was correct, then this pill might be far more valuable than he had initially imagined.

Perhaps with this pill, even entering an area filled with deadly poison would become a relatively simple matter.

The thought immediately excited him, but Lin Xuan quickly calmed himself down and began thinking more rationally.

“If I were the one who possessed this recipe, I definitely wouldn’t share it with anyone,” he muttered as he continued deeper into the forest.

The more he thought about it, the more he understood.

A recipe capable of allowing cultivators to resist an environment like this was undoubtedly an extremely valuable treasure.

Yet Mu Qingya had simply handed the recipe to him.

Lin Xuan’s expression became thoughtful as he looked at the endless mist surrounding the forest.

“Is this the difference in wealth between an empire and a small clan?”

A recipe that would be priceless to the Lin Family could perhaps be something an empire’s most powerful figures could afford to share without much concern.

The realization left Lin Xuan feeling both impressed and slightly helpless.

“There’s still a long way to go,” he murmured before continuing deeper into the Yew Woods.

In the meantime, Mu Qingya stared toward the Yew Woods with a worried expression.

“Pretty Sister, is Uncle Xuan going to be fine?” Zhaoxi asked, looking toward the distant forest.

“Yes, there is nothing inside that can really threaten him,” Mu Qingya replied calmly. “He is already in the Nascent Soul Realm, after all. Unless there are Beast Kings involved, he should be perfectly fine.”

Zhaoxi tilted her head and looked at Mu Qingya with a confused expression before asking, “Big Sister, do you hate Uncle Xuan?”

“Huh? Why would you say that?” Mu Qingya asked, raising an eyebrow. “I even gave him a precious item so that he could survive inside the forest with the mist.”

“But you only gave him a piece of paper, and then he had to spend a lot of money and time refining those pills,” Zhaoxi said as she looked up at Mu Qingya.

“That piece of paper is more valuable than the entire Lin Family, you know,” Mu Qingya replied with a faint smile. “If you were not part of the Lin Family, I would never have given it to him.”

“Oh, so you do hate Uncle Xuan,” Zhaoxi said with a serious expression.

“Huh? How did you reach that conclusion?” Mu Qingya asked, completely baffled.

“So you don’t hate Uncle Xuan?” Zhaoxi asked curiously. “Does that mean you love him?”

“No, and you don’t have to love someone just because you don’t hate them, you know,” Mu Qingya explained.

“How does that work?” Zhaoxi asked innocently. “I love you, Pretty Sister, so I don’t hate you. Isn’t that how it works?”

Mu Qingya looked at her and hesitated, wondering whether she should even bother explaining it. After thinking for a moment, however, she decided that it was better to explain things properly rather than let the little girl misunderstand.

“Do you see that tree outside?”

“The tree?” Zhaoxi turned around and noticed a short tree standing in the garden. It looked rather lonely among the colorful flowers surrounding it.

“I see the tree now,” she said with a nod.

“Good. What do you think about it?” Mu Qingya asked. “Do you love that tree?”

Zhaoxi looked at the tree for a moment before shaking her head. “No.”

“Oh, so you hate the tree, then?”

“You can hate trees?” Zhaoxi asked in surprise.

“Yes, you can,” Mu Qingya replied patiently. “But think about it. Before I asked you about that tree, you didn’t have any feelings toward it at all, did you?”

Zhaoxi blinked as she thought about it before her eyes suddenly lit up with understanding.

“Oh, so you see Uncle Xuan as a tree?”

Mu Qingya stared at her innocent eyes for several seconds before finally giving up.

“Yes,” she said helplessly.