Junior sister, I really need to control you.

On Bamboo Forest Peak, in Li Yinsheng's bamboo house.

After his soul left his body, Li Yinsheng's senses became much sharper. He scanned the area again and quickly realized what was wrong with the mountain.

The spiritual veins were shattered, so tens of thousands of small spiritual eyes were scattered throughout the mountain peak, and each spiritual eye was planted with a white cloud bamboo.

Logically speaking, the location of the Spirit Eye should only contain the aura of Ling Yun and Su Yunzhu.

But at this moment, in his perception, a third kind of aura was mixed in the depths of each spiritual eye.

Compared to Lingyun and Suyunzhu, this aura was extremely weak, almost completely concealed by the two.

That is why, before his soul left his body, although he could sense that something was wrong on the mountain, he could not perceive the root cause.

Even if an ordinary cultivator stood directly in front of a spirit and probed the ground with their divine sense, they would probably find it difficult to detect this extremely hidden third aura.

Even Li Yinsheng asked himself honestly, if he were to sense one or two extremely faint auras by the roadside right now, he probably wouldn't care.

But now he couldn't possibly ignore it, because although these auras were faint, there were simply too many of them.

There are as many spiritual eyes as there are spiritual eyes on this bamboo forest peak, and there are as many of these auras hidden within them, in a one-to-one correspondence.

"These auras seem to be alive, but extremely inactive..."

With a thought, Li Yinsheng plunged into the ground and headed towards the nearest spiritual eye.

Although he did not know the art of earth-遁 (earth-遁 is a type of magic that allows one to escape through the earth), his soul was naturally not hindered by grass, trees, soil, or rocks.

He descended into the earth and dispersed his divine sense, only then realizing just how vast the root system of these Suyun bamboos truly was.

The roots of these mere tens of thousands of bamboo stalks have completely connected, forming a canopy that covers the entire surface of the bamboo forest peak.

Moreover, these roots are several feet deep, and the main root located at the spiritual eye is even more than ten feet deep, much longer than the original body of the Plain Cloud Bamboo on the ground.

If you were to turn the parts of this bamboo forest peak above and below ground over, all these roots together would form a dense primeval forest so thick that the sun never shines.

After ordinary bamboo flowers and bears fruit, it withers and dies in large patches.

Li Yinsheng was a little curious—he wondered if the Suyun bamboo would wither and die like ordinary bamboo after it had formed a seed, or if it could continue to grow.

He felt that it would most likely continue to grow; if it only flourished once every ten years, it probably wouldn't have developed such a magnificent root system.

Reaching the nearest Suyun bamboo, Li Yinsheng used his divine sense to search for the exact location of the faint aura he had sensed.

He burrowed several more feet underground and finally found the source of the strange aura in the latter half of the main root of the Suyun bamboo.

It was a round egg about the size of a goose egg, with a surface as dark brown as soil, and as smooth as if it had been coated with oil.

"What...is this?"

Li Yinsheng focused his divine sense, penetrated the round egg, and probed inside.

Then he realized that it was not an egg at all, but a cocoon.

Within the hard, smooth, dark brown cocoon, huddled a strange insect that resembled neither a cicada nor an ant.

At this moment, the strange insect is huddled in the protection of a hard cocoon, and its body surface is still soft. But if nothing unexpected happens, once it emerges from the cocoon, its body surface will harden rapidly, and it may even grow membranous wings.

The most peculiar thing about this insect is its mouthparts, which seem to combine the characteristics of both cicadas and ants, with both a slender tube and mandibles with sharp serrations.

"This thing couldn't possibly be something that Fellow Daoist Liang and his group raised themselves, could it?" Li Yinsheng shook his head and muttered to himself.

I've never heard of any Taoist temple that likes to play with insects, especially Huangzhu Temple, which has no such reputation.

In particular, although these insects are hiding in their eggshells, they are still absorbing spiritual energy and the vitality of the surrounding Suyun bamboo at an extremely slow rate, thereby strengthening themselves.

Huangzhu Temple would never cultivate something that would harm the Suyun bamboo.

Moreover, although he couldn't identify the species of this strange insect, even just judging from its aura, it was damp and murky, and by any measure, it couldn't be anything good.

He spent a few more moments searching through hundreds of Bamboo stalks. Beside the main root of each stalk, there was a strange insect huddled in a cocoon, without exception.

Could it be that these bamboo plants have been infested with insects?

The idea popped into Li Yinsheng's mind, but he quickly dismissed it.

It's not unusual for spiritual plants to attract pests, but the question is, whose pests are so neatly arranged?

There was only one insect under a single stalk of white bamboo, neither more nor less.

Even if these insects are all very well-behaved, love each other, and would never fight over the Spirit Eye and the Plain Cloud Bamboo, how could their numbers be so coincidental?

More likely, it was caused by human intervention.

But who would do that? Who could do that? Where did these bugs come from?

Li Yinsheng once again unleashed his divine sense, carefully examining the entire bamboo forest peak, trying to find any new clues.

After a thorough investigation, he finally made a new discovery.

Deep within the mountain peak, in a place where even the roots of the Suyun bamboo had not spread, there was a faint fluctuation of energy.

This was a highly sophisticated concealment technique in his view, far superior to the Shadow Concealment Formation.

If he hadn't determined that these insects' arrival was unusual and hadn't investigated carefully, he might not have been able to find them.

He became vigilant, his divine light and magical power flowing through his soul, concealing his own soul before heading towards the strange place, directly entering a hollow space about ten feet in diameter.

The cavity is only the size of a cellar, and appears to be naturally formed, with irregular walls on all sides.

But in the center of this small hole, there was a three-foot-tall, jet-black triangular command flag.

The command flag was entirely black, without a single blemish, and unfurled even without wind.

Beneath the command flag lay a worm the size of a palm.

This insect looks completely different from the ones in the cocoon. It's plump and white all over, and it does look somewhat like an oversized silkworm. However, the steel needle-like mouthpart at the very front is a bit scary.

In Li Yinsheng's perception, this insect was not only alive, but its aura was also frighteningly pure.

He could sense extremely pure primordial energy emanating from this insect, far surpassing the crane egg that Master Huanghe had previously given him.

In addition to the vital energy, there is also an extremely pure and solid energy. If one were to refine it, it would probably be equivalent to twenty or thirty years of arduous cultivation.

In terms of quantity alone, it surpasses the peach my junior sister ate before by a considerable margin.

However, although this power is pure, it is also very solid, and it will probably be much more difficult to refine than that peach.

If it were only this insect, Li Yinsheng would have noticed this pure aura long ago.

However, the dark command flag concealed and isolated all surrounding scents, so Li Yinsheng only noticed it when he got close.

The existence of this command flag also confirmed his guess was correct; all of this must have been done by someone.

"I have heard of and seen magical artifacts that can conceal one's aura," Li Yinsheng said, not getting too close to the command flag. "However, to be able to hide my current divine sense is probably something that magical artifacts cannot do."

"Could it be... a magical artifact used to conceal one's aura?" His eyes lit up.

Including the White Rainbow Sword, this was the second magical artifact he had ever seen in his life.

If we only consider complete magical artifacts, then this is the first one.

"The ability to use magical artifacts must be the work of a true immortal."

Li Yinsheng looked at the plump, white worm and suddenly realized: "This worm was obviously raised to be used as a spiritual medicine to increase cultivation and magical power, so it has almost no intelligence. After all, it is just a living spiritual medicine."

"No wonder the aura within is so pure and condensed, yet difficult for ordinary cultivators to refine. It is probably a set of arrangements left behind by a true master for personal use."

"For a true cultivator, this insect can naturally be easily refined."

But what are those strange insects inside the cocoons for?

He could sense that this large, fat worm was essentially very similar in aura to the alien insects in the eggshells outside.

To be precise, the strange insects inside those eggshells were probably all born from this big fat worm.

It's like the relationship between a queen bee and her colony, or a queen ant and her colony.

The queen ant gives birth to the ant colony, and the ant colony provides for the queen ant.

But Li Yinsheng didn't see any of the alien insects outside crawling out to feed the mother insect.