Ji Ruyue soared through the sky.

One of her hand was tucked elegantly behind her back, the other was tightly gripping the neck of the massive, unconscious Iron-Feathered Crane.

Her face was a perfect, unreadable mask of ice, but her mind was deeply unsettled.

She passed seamlessly through the grand formation array of Silent Orchid Peak, a breathtaking mountain exclusive to the female disciples of the Radiant Sky Sect. It was a sprawling paradise of weeping willows, crystalline lakes, and pavilions, vast enough to rival a mortal city. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Out of sheer respect, Ji Ruyue descended at the edge of the array and walked the rest of the way to the central palace. She dragged the giant bird behind her, leaving a long trail in the pristine white gravel.

Inside the grand hall sat the Peak Master of Silent Orchid Peak, Shen Youran.

Shen Youran was one of the few mighty Nascent Soul realm experts in the entire sect. She was a woman of peerless, devastating beauty, draped in silver silk. But if Ji Ruyue was a block of ice, Shen Youran was an eternal glacier.

Her eyes held the stillness of a dead world.

"Master," Ji Ruyue greeted. She bowed deeply and clasped her hands, though she notably did not drop the crane.

Shen Youran acknowledged her with a microscopic nod. Her gaze drifted from her disciple to the giant bird, and then back again.

"Did you notice something about him?" Shen Youran asked. Her voice carried the chill of a winter breeze.

"Reporting to Master," Ji Ruyue began. In her flat, monotone voice, she recounted exactly what she had witnessed at Clear Cloud Peak. The sudden attack, Su Bai swallowing a pill, his bizarre face-plant into the dirt, and finally... the explosive surge of energy.

Shen Youran listened with a frozen expression. But when Ji Ruyue reached the part about Su Bai breaking through his crippled state and returning to the Qi Refining Realm, the impossible happened.

Shen Youran slowly raised an eyebrow.

Silence stretched across the grand hall.

"I knew there was something wrong with that child," Shen Youran finally murmured. "He is not simple. What his body needed was not opportunity, but extreme danger."

Ji Ruyue raised her head. There was a flicker of genuine confusion in her cold eyes. "Master. May I ask why you are so fixated on Junior Brother Su? I believe his innate talent is, at best, average."

At that question, Shen Youran let out a long, melodious sigh.

Ji Ruyue’s eyes widened a fraction of an inch. ’Master sighed?’ As practitioners of the Heartless Sutra, severing mortal emotions was their foundation. Making a Nascent Soul master of the Sutra sigh was an earth-shattering feat.

"Ruyue, have you noticed how the new disciples of the Inner Sect have been breaking through bottlenecks one after another recently?" Shen Youran asked softly. "Some elders claim we have recruited a generation of geniuses. But no. They are just average children."

Shen Youran paused. Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"It is because of that Junior Brother of yours. He understands people. He is smart enough to dissect profound, ancient cultivation manuals and translate them so that even the most foolish disciple can comprehend the Dao. He may not be talented in cultivation himself, but he can manufacture talent in others. In a sect, a supreme teacher is far more valuable than a hundred supreme geniuses."

Ji Ruyue processed this. Enlightenment dawned on her perfectly blank face.

"Master, is that the reason why the Sect did not kick him out when his cultivation fell to the Body Forging realm?"

Shen Youran stared at Ji Ruyue flatly. Completely without emotion.

Two absolute ice queens stared at each other without batting an eye.

Finally, Shen Youran answered with a tone carrying a sudden, crushing weight.

"No," Shen Youran said coldly. "It is because we are a Righteous Sect. We do not abandon our own simply because they become crippled. His Master was once a mighty Nascent Soul expert. Because he sacrificed his foundation to save the world from a hidden disaster years ago, he fell to the Golden Core realm. The Sect rewarded him with Clear Cloud Peak in gratitude. Never mention the word ’abandonment’ again. We are righteous. Remember that."

Her words echoed in the hall. It sounded as though Shen Youran was reminding herself just as much as she was scolding her disciple.

Ji Ruyue pursed her pale lips and nodded. "I understand, Master. Then... what should we do with this crane?"

Shen Youran glanced at the bird. "Since Beast Taming Peak is so careless with their pets, go cook it in a cauldron. A Qi Refining beast might be slightly beneficial for you."

"Yes, Master," Ji Ruyue obeyed. She turned and dragged the bird out of the hall.

Left alone, Shen Youran looked out the grand window. Her gaze pierced through the clouds toward Clear Cloud Peak.

"Senior Brother Su," she whispered to the empty room. "What exactly did you bring to this world? Is it a profound blessing, or a terrifying disaster?"

***

Meanwhile, at Clear Cloud Peak...

"Too much of a good thing is a bad thing."

Back on Earth, it was a common idiom. In the cultivation world, Su Bai was currently experiencing it firsthand.

He was lying on his wooden bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

For the first time in six years, he had eaten something that didn’t feel like swallowing battery acid. In fact, the Heavenly Demon Blood-Burning Pill had felt incredible. It was a luxurious, deep-tissue massage that nourished his withered Spirit Root.

So... he got greedy.

He had ten pills. He figured, if one pill pushed him to Qi Refining, eating the other nine would surely push him to Foundation Establishment!

He was wrong. So, so wrong.

Usually, cultivators suffered from Erysipelas, or Pill Toxin, when they consumed too many alchemical drugs. But with his Reversal Body, pill toxicity took on a completely different form.

He was suffering from System Overload.

His ’Dead Wood’ root, which hadn’t eaten a proper meal in six years, simply couldn’t chew and digest ten forbidden demonic pills at once. The extreme, condensed energy wasn’t hurting him (thanks to the reversal) but it had nowhere to go.

It was currently pooling inside his stomach, violently swirling around while waiting in a queue to be digested.

As a result, Su Bai looked nine months pregnant.

His stomach was massively swollen, glowing with a faint, terrifying demonic blue light that pulsed through his white robes.

He had bolted the door to his hut, terrified that other disciples might come to ask another question. He absolutely could not let anyone see him looking like he was about to give birth to a glowing blue boulder.

"Oohhh..." Su Bai groaned. He slumped against the wooden wall.

He was in the mother of all food comas. He lethargically rubbed his glowing, swollen belly. Every few seconds, a hiccup would force its way up his throat, and he would burp a little puff of freezing, minty ghost mist into the air.

He just had to wait it out. He had to sit here, looking pregnant and burping demonic frost, until his Dead Wood root finally finished digesting the massive backlog of EXP and leveled him up.

Burp. A small cloud of ice crystals floated toward the ceiling.

Su Bai stared at it. His face was the picture of absolute misery.

"A massive blunder," he whispered to his glowing stomach. "I really shouldn’t be greedy next time. Still, it was delicious."