The entire sect is obsessed with love, but I'm the only one who's truly insane.

"This world is full of injustices and crooked ways. It's not something a fourteen-year-old like you can handle alone. You can trust more of the other people in the sect."

Yan Ye paused for a moment. He wasn't very good at educating children. "I know you've been single for the past ten years or so and are used to relying on yourself. You're probably used to doing things yourself when it comes to important matters. The reason I told you to be careful in everything you do is so that you won't say anything carelessly and offend people."

This person, who is adept at everything, encountered a problem for the first time, and it was an educational problem.

Lin Du was quick to grasp cultivation techniques, but he was incredibly stubborn.

Seeing that she remained silent, Yan Ye couldn't help but sigh with worry. "Did you hear that? Some things you can't do have nothing to do with you. You're a..."

"Besides your master, there are geniuses who come along only once in a millennium. Even your master, at your age, would have had many things that were difficult to achieve on his own."

Lin Du: How come you started bragging while you were educating me?

She was well aware of her own flaws and knew her shortcomings better than anyone else.

It's always hard to entrust important matters to others. To put it nicely, it's individual heroism; to put it bluntly, it's being the one who sticks out and the pig that goes against the grain.

I tell myself that everyone has their own destiny, but I have a lot of empathy. My own life is a mess, but I can't bear to see the suffering in the world.

Lin Du knew perfectly well that he had never let go of some things, but he had become accustomed to pretending to be carefree.

If she had told them all the arrangements in advance, the outcome would have been different. But she was used to keeping the most important things to herself, and they probably wouldn't have agreed if she had told them the plan beforehand.

Mo Lin's infection with the Gu poison was not her fault, but she would unconsciously keep calculating the outcome of various arrangements in her mind.

But the past is gone, leaving only regrets.

Lin Du knows everything and understands all the principles, yet he remains trapped in it and cannot get out.

Yan Ye had never thought that taking care of children was such a troublesome thing. After thinking for a while, he suggested, "Why don't you go and have a chat with the sect leader?"

His first half of life was dominated by the Dao of Arrays and the Dao of Swords, and his second half was dominated by the most complex Dao of Fate. Yan Ye never thought of taking on a disciple, but fate destined him to have a master-disciple relationship.

He originally thought it was a blessing to have such a smart and independent little apprentice, but now he suddenly felt overwhelmed. His apprentice knew too much, so he was really hard to fool and coax.

Lin Du looked at him. "Which sect leader? The current one or the old one?"

"Whatever." Yan Ye propped his head up, not minding his attempt to shift the blame at all. "Your soul is tainted by a thousand years of resentment. Don't practice the spiritual cultivation technique I gave you before. Go find your senior brother Cang Li to purify it."

Lin Du raised an eyebrow. "Purify?"

"Hey, hurry up and go. Their sound cultivation is pretty effective at treating minor soul problems. If word gets out that a fourteen-year-old has developed a demonic aura due to resentment, I'll be laughed at until I ascend to immortality."

Yan Ye straightened up and urged her.

"More than that, after you ascend to immortality, people will laugh at you, saying that this Immortal Venerable Yanye is good at everything, except he doesn't know how to raise disciples."

Lin Du nimbly climbed up from the ice and ran away before Yan Ye could react, leaving his master on the ice feeling half helpless and half amused.

The sun had risen and set over the frost-covered land of Luoze, casting a glare of reflected light onto the people on the ice.

Yan Ye blinked gently, a hint of surprise appearing on his wild and flamboyant face. Then he raised his hand and gently touched his eyelashes.

He seems to have seen some light. Why?

He quickly realized that it was a divine thought he had left in Lin Du's consciousness, originally intended as a safeguard in case something happened to her. Just now, he subconsciously tried to use that divine thought to check the direction Lin Du had run, thus connecting with Lin Du's senses and "seeing" a glare.

It felt strange; when one's divine sense spread out, one could perceive many details of matter, but there was no such dazzling light.

Yan Ye sat quietly on the ice, clearly feeling his long-stagnated understanding of destiny, and the barrier trembled slightly.

The Supreme Sect has nine peaks, and Cangli is located in one of them, in the northwest, named Tianxin Peak.

When Lin Du landed on the summit, the two mischievous children had not yet returned. The palace on the summit was clear and orderly. Under a bare tree, someone had set up a stove to brew tea and roast oranges. Next to it was a black lacquered paulownia wood and red lacquered ancient zither.

"Senior brother."

"It's here already? My tea isn't ready yet, shall we wait a moment?" Cang Li looked at the steaming stove and casually pointed to the cushion opposite the table.

Lin Du sat down. She didn't have much interaction with this senior brother. He was elegant and refined. Unlike He Gui's gentleness, he had a refined and scholarly air about him, like a tree that had lost all its leaves but was still tall and strong, proud and austere.

Cang Li looked up at Lin Du, the junior sister whom her uncle, with whom she had never had much interaction, had sent a special message to give her instructions.

Having only been in the sect for a year, she already looked much better than before. That disheveled, blond-haired girl was now sitting properly opposite her, her hair neatly styled, and the jade clasp on her forehead...

He couldn't help but reach out and, under Lin Du's questioning gaze, straightened the net for her, making the jade buttons on both sides completely symmetrical.

"alright."

comfortable.

Lin Du: ...So this second senior brother has obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"Uncle-Master Yan Ye has already told me that you were tainted by the resentment of a thousand-year-old ghost when you were exploring souls." Cang Li said, and began to seriously brew tea. "Soul exploration is something that righteous people rarely do. First, it is not honorable, and second, it is easy to be influenced by the souls of others. If there is a resentment in one's heart, it will be extremely harmful to one's cultivation."

"I suppose Uncle Yan Ye doesn't care about these trivial matters and hasn't mentioned them to you."

Lin Du nodded. "My master doesn't talk about these things much."

"Actually, I didn't tell my two disciples either. Mainly, ordinary junior disciples of the righteous path wouldn't think of searching souls."

Lin Du: ...She's read too many novels and miscellaneous books about demons and monsters, hasn't she?

"After all, that thing consumes a great deal of spiritual energy, going through people's memories down to the smallest detail," Cang Li paused, "Even for a cultivator of my level, searching once would be extremely exhausting, and it would take a long time to recover."

The longer the person being searched lives, the more spiritual power is consumed during the soul search. It's almost like reading an extremely boring chronicle full of worldly chaos, and having to extract the important information needed from the monotony. It's also a form of torture for the caster.

But Lin Du didn't seem to have any bad intentions at all, and Yan Ye didn't say this in the transmission. Judging from his tense state just now, it means that Lin Du's soul was only tainted by resentment, and he did not over-consume his spiritual power.

That would be amazing.

Cang Li looked at the child in front of him. Was this the kind of spiritual power a child of this age should have?

The tea was brewed, and Cang Li smoothly poured it out. "Let's drink this cup of tea and begin."

Lin Du's hand holding the teacup trembled. This sounded like he had drunk Meng Po soup to prepare for his journey.

Cang Li's slender hand reached out, swept over the guqin, then landed on the sandalwood suona beside him, and then brought it to his front.

As soon as Lin Du looked up, he saw that his second senior brother had already picked up the suona and placed it on his chest, starting to practice his movements.

"Wait a minute, senior brother, why are you taking the suona?"

Cang Li's initial enthusiasm deflated, and the suona let out a whistling sound. Then he explained, "Isn't your soul tainted with resentment? The suona is best for driving away yin and sending away souls, and for stimulating yang and righteous energy. The suona was also used as a bugle in the battlefields of the mortal world."

Lin Du felt a pang of unease and muttered to himself, "I'm afraid they'll send me away too."

The sound of the suona brings a fortune; if it's not ascension to heaven... then she has no choice but to ascend to heaven.

Cang Li freed one hand to straighten the pattern on the teacup she had put down, then picked up the suona again. "This is the fastest way, Junior Sister. Your soul might be a little shaken, so please bear with it."

Lin Du looked up and saw that his usually upright and refined senior brother's facial muscles had tightened, and his mouth had been drawn into a three-dimensional line, like a delicate version of a pufferfish.

She suddenly realized that she had a misunderstanding about sound editing, a very big misunderstanding.