A magical journey of a sharp-tongued woman and a goofy man

The thirty Heavenly Secret Tablets were still trembling, and the molecular chain wrapped around Ye Shuli's left hand suddenly decomposed into fluorescence.

She staggered back half a step, her boot heel crushing half a piece of blood-stained osmanthus cake—it had fallen when Jiang Ye rushed over.

The veteran powerhouse knelt before the seventh monument, his right arm, which had once been occupied by the vengeful black python, now reduced to bare white bones.

He attempted to form a hand seal with his left hand, but dark red blood seeped from his corroded veins. "You dare to use the Spirit Crystal to devour resentment..."

"This is called extranuclear electron recombination." Ye Shuli shook her numb left hand, the spiritual technique modified with modern chemical knowledge was boiling in her blood vessels.

The lightning bolt mark on her chest suddenly burst into blue light, evaporating the last trace of vengeful spirit trying to burrow into the ground into blue smoke.

The phantom of the guardian spirit stepped out from the shattered inscription, its voice echoing from beneath the black iron mask: "The torrential rain of causal liquid was supposed to last three days, but you forcibly compressed it into half an incense stick's time..."

"Saving water is a virtue." Ye Shuli interrupted the other person's lecture, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Jiang Ye poking at the pool of black blood with a shard of a gong.

The skin on the back of his neck, burned by resentment, was still emitting white smoke, yet he muttered about bottling up the poisonous blood and selling it to the weapon refiner.

The leader of the cultivators suddenly knelt on one knee, his sword slamming against the bluestone slab, sparks flying everywhere: "We have been misled by villains and have actually believed that Venerable Ye is colluding with vengeful spirits..." Hundreds of cultivators behind him bowed down as well. The gray-robed old man who had previously clamored to punish Ye Shuli was now trembling as he tore off the jade slip containing the rumors.

"Get up, all of you." Ye Shuli flicked a blue light from her fingertip, precisely burning the hem of the robe of the rumor-spreader who was trying to slip away three zhang away.

The man stumbled and bumped into the eighth monument, dropping seventeen disguise tools and five jade tablets used to spread rumors from his arms.

Jiang Ye used a shard of gong to pick up a piece of osmanthus cake crumb: "No wonder everyone says Shu Li is secretly learning forbidden techniques. Turns out it's you, you groundhog, digging holes everywhere." He suddenly turned around and stuffed the osmanthus cake into Ye Shu Li's mouth, "To replenish your blood sugar, your pupils are turning golden again."

Ye Shuli chewed on the blood-tinged sweets, and spiritual chains wrapped with chemical equations appeared in her palm: "Strip you of 70% of your spiritual power, but retain your basic mobility." The chains made a crackling sound like popping beans when they pierced the rumor spreader's dantian. "I'll leave your tongue for you to repent."

The guardian spirit suddenly pressed down on the violently trembling black iron mask.

A purplish-black mist seeped from the cracks in the ground, vaguely forming the outline of the vengeful spirit that Ye Shuli had defeated.

The veteran powerhouse seized the opportunity to crush the teleportation talisman, but before he could disappear, Jiang Ye used a shard of a bronze gong to cut off half of his white hair.

"He runs faster than a food delivery rider." Jiang Ye blew the white hair off the fragments and turned around to find Ye Shuli staring at the lightning bolt mark on her chest.

The cracks inside the spirit crystal are slowly healing, but the dark gold patterns have spread from the pupils to the collarbone.

The cultivator leader led everyone to re-set up the protective array, and the corrosion marks on the Heavenly Mystery Stele were filled in with inscriptions by the Spirit God Guardian.

As the seventh monument lit up with the blue light of a teleportation array, Jiang Ye suddenly ripped open his collar: "Do you want to check the back of my neck? It feels like I've been doused with spicy hot pot broth..."

Ye Shuli reached out and pressed her hand on his burns. Blue light, shaped like DNA, traveled along his meridians: "The resentment has entered three-tenths of his body, so he won't die." The sweet fragrance of osmanthus cake lingered on her fingertips. She deliberately increased the pressure while repairing the wounds, and a smile curled up as she heard the sound of someone gasping for breath.

The guardian of the spirit god shrunk the repaired Heavenly Secret Tablet into a jade pendant: "The void rift has shown abnormal fluctuations, the spirit god ruins are probably..." Before he could finish speaking, Ye Shuli suddenly pulled Jiang Ye and jumped into the teleportation array, and the thirty Heavenly Secret Tablets closed behind them with a bang.

As the blue light dissipated, Jiang Ye discovered that the two of them were standing on the edge of a cliff covered with ice flowers.

In the distance, the outline of a golden palace could be vaguely seen amidst the churning sea of ​​clouds. He poked the lightning bolt mark on Ye Shuli's chest with his frosted finger: "Is this thing absorbing my spiritual power?"

Ye Shuli slapped his hand away, and the dark gold patterns deep in her pupils receded like a receding tide.

She gazed at the star map emerging from the sea of ​​clouds, where modern chemical symbols were merging with ancient inscriptions.

Jiang Ye suddenly took out a freshly made osmanthus cake from his storage bag. The warm, sweet aroma, mixed with the cold wind from the cliff, swept past the hem of her blood-stained clothes.

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Ice flowers fluttered down between the corners of their clothes as they touched.

Jiang Ye's burn scar on the back of his neck brushed against the lightning bolt mark on Ye Shuli's collarbone, and the dark gold pattern suddenly lit up with a faint light.

The rustling sound of osmanthus cake wrappers rubbing together came from his storage bag, mixed with the howling wind at the edge of the cliff, sounding like the harmony of some ancient musical instrument.

"Your heartbeat is faster than the Heavenly Mystery Stele's tremors." Ye Shuli's sharp tongue was scattered by the mountain wind, and her fingertips were still covered with the blue spiritual energy left over from repairing her wounds.

Jiang Ye buried his face in her shoulder and chuckled, making the jade pendants on their waists jingle. The half of his white hair that had been cut off during the battle happened to get tangled in the hidden clasp of her sleeve.

The phantom of the guardian spirit suddenly solidified three zhang away, and a crack appeared in the black iron mask.

An elderly man with white hair emerged from the sea of ​​clouds, leaning on a staff with star patterns. With each step, ice crystals bloomed at the tip of the staff—he was a wise man who knew the secrets of the ruins.

The bronze abacus hanging from his waist suddenly started moving automatically, and seven jade beads floated at Ye Shuli's heart.

"The transformation of spirits and gods is nothing more than a key." The wise man's voice was like snowmelt striking bronze. "True power dances in the cracks of the void." His withered fingers traced the still-healing burn marks on Jiang Ye's nape, and suddenly, quantum entanglement patterns appeared on the dark red scar.

The dark gold patterns that had just faded from the depths of Ye Shuli's pupils surged again.

Jiang Ye suddenly pulled out a whole piece of osmanthus cake, its warm, sweet aroma dispelling the oppressive force of the void: "Why is the old man's speech even harder to understand than a quantum mechanics textbook?"

Hundreds of cultivators emerged from the teleportation array one after another, and the residual spiritual light of the protective array wove a star map beneath their feet.

The rumor-monger, who had been punished earlier, dragged along a chain of spiritual energy and suddenly threw a jade slip with red eyes: "Three hundred miles northwest, there is a Drunken Immortal Peach Forest, where the jam made from the peaches is served with osmanthus cake..." Before he could finish speaking, he was glared at by the leader of the cultivators and shrank back into the crowd.

The guardian spirit transformed the repaired Heavenly Secret Stele into a stream of light, and thirty star rays entered Ye Shuli's lightning mark.

Jiang Ye suddenly pointed at the abacus at the wise man's waist and shouted, "The arrangement of these seven jade beads is clearly the Big Dipper in reverse!"

Ye Shuli pressed down on his flailing arm with her other hand.

The sage's star-patterned staff suddenly pierced the ice, and the golden palace in the sea of ​​clouds projected a vast star map.

Modern chemical symbols and ancient inscriptions overlapped on Ye Shuli's retina. She saw that the quantum patterns entwined in Jiang Ye's spiritual power were resonating with her own dark gold patterns.

"Remember, the void loves to devour the lonely." The wise man slapped the bronze abacus into Jiang Ye's palm, and the seven jade beads suddenly turned into popping candy and exploded between his fingers.

Before vanishing, the old man gazed deeply at their clasped hands, and a final warning echoed through the wind and snow: "When the starry sky begins to bleed..."

Jiang Ye stuffed the charred abacus frame into his storage bag, and as he turned around, he bumped into Ye Shuli studying the quantum patterns on the back of his neck.

Suddenly, the cultivators formed hand seals in unison, and hundreds of protective array lights converged into the shape of a ferry, carrying fallen petals from the Drunken Immortal Peach Forest and quicksand from the Northwest Desert, forming a rainbow bridge at the edge of the cliff.

"Come back alive to drink my and Shuli's wedding wine!" Jiang Ye's joke was blown away by the wind.

Ye Shuli kicked at him, the sole of her boot still covered in crumbs of osmanthus cake, but the moment it touched the power of the void, it transformed into a chain of DNA-like spiritual light.

The light path laid out beneath their feet by the residual energy of the protective array suddenly twisted, as if it had been licked by something greedy.

As the last ray of starlight disappeared into the sea of ​​clouds, pale golden blood beads suddenly seeped from the inscriptions on the Spirit God Ruins.

The gong fragments in Jiang Ye's storage bag automatically assembled into a compass, the pointer swinging wildly between "Meituan rider's escape direction" and "void rift".

The lightning mark on Ye Shuli's collarbone began to absorb starlight, and those dark gold patterns formed the topological structure of a Klein bottle on the surface of her skin.

The cold wind on the cliff suddenly stopped.

The quantum patterns on Jiang Ye's palm pierced through the void barrier, faintly revealing an ancient song composed of binary code.

Ye Shuli grabbed his wrist with her other hand, and sparks of blue and gold burst forth from where their spiritual energy merged, burning the last few ice flowers into a misty vapor with the fragrance of osmanthus.

(Setting the stage for the ending)

At the end of the surging sea of ​​clouds, a sudden fault appeared, as if two invisible giant hands had torn open the curtain of the world.

Stardust began to seep from the burn marks on the back of Jiang Ye's neck, and an alarm sound came from the storage bag, where the jade beads of the bronze abacus were colliding with each other.

The dark gold patterns in Ye Shuli's pupils solidified into a Fibonacci spiral, and her fingertips resting on Jiang Ye's wrist trembled slightly—this was the first time since her transmigration that she had felt a tremor originating from the genetic level.

The void rift opened its eerie purple pupils beneath their feet.