What does my ancestor's pregnancy have to do with me, a mere servant?

Black Crow Mountain. The night was as dark as ink.

The cold wind howled on the bare mountain ridge.

Shen Guiyan hovered thirty feet above the Black Crow Mountain formation. Her luxurious dark purple dress billowed in the night wind, and at the slit in the hem, her long, slender, white legs gleamed with a cold, jade-like luster under the interplay of moonlight and spiritual light.

She lowered her head.

He coldly looked down at the gray, misty fog below.

The Six Yin Soul-Locking Array.

The arrangement was quite methodical. The array patterns subtly aligned with the natural order of heaven and earth, and the flow of spiritual energy between the nodes was seamless. For cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage or even the early Golden Core stage, it was an insurmountable barrier.

But in front of the Nascent Soul Ancestor.

This thing is no different in essence from a piece of window paper.

Shen Guiyan raised her right hand.

She casually tapped the light screen below with her slender, graceful index finger. The movement was effortless, even somewhat nonchalant.

There was no earth-shattering roar.

There was no dazzling light either.

The surface of the hazy array light curtain was as if an invisible steel needle had precisely pierced the most vulnerable core of the array.

A soft "pop" sound.

The entire light curtain resembled a water curtain punctured by a fingertip; ripples spread rapidly outwards from the center of the array. The spiritual light flickered twice, then silently collapsed to both sides, revealing a wide passage.

From beginning to end, it took no more than a breath.

Shen Guiyan took a step forward, and she silently entered the cave.

The vast and boundless divine consciousness of the Nascent Soul stage is like a flood bursting its banks, spreading wildly in all directions.

Just a breath.

All the restrictions within the cave, the layout of the stone chambers, the direction of the passageways, the path of the spiritual energy flow, and even the thick layer of dust accumulated in the corners, were all clearly reflected in her divine sea.

Flawless.

Her divine sense locked onto the spirit beast chamber.

In a corner, huddled in an iron cage, lay a gray sparrow. Its feathers were dull and lifeless, its aura listless, and its spiritual light was more than 30% dimmer than it had been three months ago. But its life imprint was intact; it was just that some kind of restriction had sealed off its ability to move.

It was the tracking sparrow she had released three months ago to follow Wen Yuci, which then mysteriously disappeared.

Shen Guiyan's gaze lingered on the iron cage for a moment.

A faint hint of coldness flashed in his eyes.

However, her gaze was immediately drawn to something in the very center of the stone chamber.

A large, black stone platform. The surface of the platform is carved with dense array patterns. Although the patterns are somewhat rough, the design of the array is quite ingenious—it is a small incubation and nurturing array.

On the stone platform, there was a semi-transparent glass vessel.

Inside the vessel lay a pile of pitch-black insect eggs. On the surface of each egg, there were faint, extremely subtle patterns of spiritual light.

Soul-devouring demonic insect.

Shen Guiyan raised an eyebrow.

She had seen this before.

Adult insects can devour the spiritual energy within a cultivator's body, and when there are enough of them, they can even gnaw through the protective aura of a Golden Core cultivator.

"The bird that was searching for me was indeed here."

Shen Guiyan's lips curled into a playful smile.

"He even raised Soul-Devouring Demonic Insects... He does have some knowledge and courage. A Foundation Establishment cultivator dares to touch such things. However, keeping them half-dead clearly shows he hasn't figured out the trick."

Her tone was a mixture of disdain and a subtle hint of admiration.

She ignored the pitiful hawk curled up in its cage.

Now that the person has been found, the bird is no longer important.

Her figure flickered in place, instantly transforming into a dark purple afterimage.

at the same time.

Inside the main stone chamber.

Lin Yuan sat cross-legged in the center of the bluestone bed.

His physical body, having just broken through to the Transcendent Realm, possessed truly astonishing resilience. Even after enduring two consecutive high-intensity face-to-face training sessions, his vital energy remained abundant.

Edge of the stone bed.

Lin Feilu stood with her back to him, facing a fairy-like woman in white, her once aloof and icy face now flushed crimson. She lowered her head, straightening her disheveled clothes.

The atmosphere inside the stone chamber was quiet and subtle.

The faint fragrance of photinia flowers still lingers in the air.

Then—a tremendous pressure suddenly descended.

Lin Feilu's movements suddenly froze.

The sash, half-tied, slipped from her fingertips.

Her face drained of all color in an instant. This oppressive aura...

Only cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage possess this.

A dark purple figure appeared out of thin air in the center of the stone chamber.

Shen Guiyan's cold, condescending eyes swept over the two people in the room without any emotion.

Their gaze first fell on Lin Yuan on the stone bed, and then turned to Lin Feilu beside him.

But that silence that says "I saw everything" is more lethal than any words.

Lin Feilu didn't care that her clothes were still half open; she just wanted to quickly lower her head and bury it in the crack in the ground.

"Your disciple greets Uncle Shen."

This was the most mortifying moment of her life.

Lin Feilu wished she could disappear into a crack in the ground.

Lin Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

His brain was working at a rapid pace.

His cave dwelling was located in a remote area, far from the core area of ​​the Xuan Yin Sect. He usually kept an extremely low profile. Logically speaking, it was impossible for him to attract such a person.

Why did Shen Guiyan find this place?

The first possibility is a scout bird.

But he quickly dismissed this theory. He had locked the bird in the iron cage three months earlier.

If Shen Guiyan located the location using the tracking sparrow, it's impossible that she waited for a full three months.

Given the temperament and methods of the Nascent Soul Ancestor, Black Crow Mountain should have been razed to the ground the day the bird went missing.

The second possibility is that the changes in the three women, Wen Yuci, Lin Feilu, and Jiang Huaiyue, were noticed by the other party.

This is the highest probability.

The quality of the three individuals' Golden Cores improved dramatically in a short period, and their spiritual roots transformed into Earth Spiritual Roots. Such an anomaly would raise many suspicions in the eyes of anyone with a discerning eye.

Lin Yuan connected the entire logical chain in the blink of an eye.

These stupid women.

He rolled his eyes inwardly.

After the transformation of their spiritual roots, they didn't know how to restrain themselves.

He had long ago instructed them to keep a low profile and not to reveal the changes in their spiritual roots.

But they clearly didn't take that seriously.

Or rather, they took it seriously, but executed it terribly.

After all, the affinity of an earth elemental root for the spiritual energy of heaven and earth cannot be completely concealed by simple suppression techniques.

Before the discerning eyes of a Nascent Soul Ancestor, any pretense is nothing but self-deception.

However, he may have his complaints, but he may have also cursed.

Lin Yuan was actually quite calm inside.

the reason is simple.

Since Shen Guiyan arrived silently, instead of bringing a group of disciples to demand an explanation, and since she didn't immediately arrest anyone after breaking the formation...

This shows that she wasn't there to cause trouble.

She's here to discuss business.

To be more precise—she came to seize the opportunity.

An old ancestor, stuck in the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm and desperately seeking a way to break through, suddenly discovers that there is a living treasure in his sect who can change the quality of spiritual roots.

What will she do?

The answer speaks for itself.

If the other party's goal is to improve their spiritual root, you have half the initiative in your hands.

Lin Yuan completed the entire deduction from "threat assessment" to "lockdown strategy" in his mind in less than three breaths.