Chapter 45: The Slave Purchased in Childhood

From the outside, the round tower appeared modest in size, but stepping inside revealed an entirely different world.

The tower consisted of seven levels, each more perilous than the last. The first level housed only low-rank demon beasts, easily dispatched without much effort. The second level, populated by Foundation Establishment beasts, posed more of a challenge but remained manageable with some time and skill.

The third level, however, was a different story entirely. Most demon beasts here were third-rank, their power equivalent to late Foundation Establishment or early Golden Core cultivators—matching the strength of the human cultivators. It took the group three full days to clear this level, and by the time they reached the fourth, they were utterly exhausted, barely hanging on.

Beasts on the fourth level ranged from mid to late Golden Core, with some approaching Nascent Soul stage. These weren’t merely difficult—they were downright dangerous. Several weaker cultivators sustained injuries.

Chu Sang’s group, with their nimble movements, avoided harm and even managed to slay a few late Golden Core beasts. But continuing this way was futile, wasting energy and risking ambush. Moreover, the beasts would only grow stronger on upper levels, with Nascent Soul or even higher-rank creatures potentially appearing.

While other sect disciples wracked their brains fighting these monsters, Chu Sang switched tactics. Instead of killing, she focused on escaping. She unleashed a barrage of talismans—explosive, illusory, itching, laughing—scattering them liberally as she made her way to the staircase leading to the fifth level.

Once on the stairs, the beasts ceased their attacks, turning their attention to other cultivators.

“It’s so heavy!” Tantai Ming barely had time to catch his breath before an immense pressure descended upon him. He plunged his greatsword into the stone to steady himself.

The pressure had been present since entering the tower, increasing with each level. Initially manageable, by the fifth level it had intensified tenfold, making it almost impossible to breathe. It felt as if a mountain pressed down on their spines. Every step was agonisingly slow, their legs feeling like molten lead.

Chu Sang quickly drew three resistance talismans, barely withstanding the pressure. They reached the fifth level to find it empty—devoid of beasts or obstacles. Across from them stood the staircase to the sixth level.

As Chu Sang approached the stairs, a soft sword attack flew at her. She countered with a golden armour talisman, dispelling the attack. Turning, she saw Qin Xixue and Mo Qingchen had also reached this level.

With no beasts present, whoever reached the seventh floor first would claim the lotus seed. The tower’s designer was cunning and malicious. While the first four levels tested the disciples’ unity, from the fourth onward, it was designed to pit them against each other.

“I’ll hold these two off. Hurry up!” Tantai Ming drew his sword, positioning himself before Chu Sang.

Their opponents were stronger; a prolonged fight would end in defeat. Splitting up was their only option—one group delaying the enemy while the other pressed on to find the lotus seed.

“Just you?” Mo Qingchen sneered, dashing to Tantai Ming’s side. He infused his sword with massive spiritual power to meet Tantai’s sword.

“Boom!”

Their swords collided, sending spiritual energy surging throughout the tower, shaking it to its core. The sharp sword light forced even Qin Xixue to retreat, unable to approach.

Mo Qingchen had recently broken through to mid Golden Core stage. With his rare mutated ice spirit root and extraordinary sword talent, his strength approached late Golden Core. Tantai Ming, only at early Golden Core, somehow held his own against Mo Qingchen’s full-force attack.

Mo Qingchen narrowed his eyes—he had underestimated his opponent.

“Let’s see who’s stronger!” Tantai Ming gathered all his spiritual power into his hands, launching a forceful strike that knocked Mo Qingchen back.

Before he could catch his breath, Mo Qingchen sneered and unleashed another attack, this time infused with bone-chilling cold, aiming straight for Tantai’s face.

Locked in combat for hundreds of exchanges, Tantai Ming suddenly heard a cracking sound within. The surrounding energy shifted—he had broken through to mid Golden Core stage!

His sword qi instantly multiplied, faintly evolving into sword intent.

“Sword intent?” Mo Qingchen’s expression darkened.

Interesting—at Golden Core stage, Tantai Ming had already comprehended sword intent, a power surpassing sword qi, matching Mo Qingchen’s own abilities.

Both, as true sword cultivators, shared a peculiar trait: they were stubborn sword fanatics who grew more excited the longer they fought. Mo Qingchen now desired nothing more than to defeat Tantai Ming in a duel.

Their original mission forgotten, they clashed fiercely, oblivious to all else. Qin Xixue, unable to intervene, watched Chu Sang and Cheng Ying disappear from sight. Growing anxious, she had no choice but to pursue them.

…

…

As they climbed the staircase, the pressure intensified exponentially. Even someone as resilient as Cheng Ying couldn’t suppress a muffled grunt. His hand pressed deep into the stone wall, leaving palm imprints, and each step left shallow and deep indentations on the stairs.

His hair was soaked with cold sweat, his face ashen.

“Can you keep going?” Chu Sang paused, glancing back at him.

The pressure correlated directly with their cultivation levels. Chu Sang, still in late Foundation Establishment and not yet at Golden Core, experienced relatively weaker pressure, allowing her to barely resist. Cheng Ying, however, was pushing his physical limits.

In the original story, he had endured these same trials to obtain the lotus seed. By the end, he was half-crippled, his cultivation lost, reduced to near helplessness. When Chu Sang had read about it, she couldn’t help but criticise his stubborn foolishness.

“…Don’t worry, Immortal Lady. I can manage.” He stubbornly shook his head, swallowing back blood. Looking ahead intently, he murmured, “We’re almost there.”

He forced his battered body forward another step. Either numb to pain or simply accustomed to it, he pressed on.

Chu Sang tossed him a bottle of healing pills and continued upward.

They reached the sixth floor, but without even pausing to rest, she immediately headed for the seventh.

Cheng Ying had reached his limit. He spat out a mouthful of blood, soaking the dark cloth covering his face. Breathing heavily, he removed the mask, revealing his features.

Chu Sang had always imagined Cheng Ying as handsome, with sharp features—his eyes were strikingly beautiful, after all, and it made sense why Fourth Senior Sister was fond of him. But reality shattered her expectations. His lower face was marred with scars so severe they resembled crawling centipedes on his pale skin, a fearsome sight to behold.

“Please… don’t tell the young lady… She would be frightened,” Cheng Ying’s usually expressionless face showed a rare trace of panic.

Chu Sang snapped out of her thoughts. “Fourth Senior Sister wouldn’t dismiss you over something like this.”

“It’s different,” he muttered, shaking his head, hesitating to elaborate. “I… don’t want her to see me like this…”

Cheng Ying had been a slave, purchased by Si Kouqiu from a trafficker when he was young. Before that, he had endured unimaginable torture. The scars on his face were just a fraction of the wounds that covered his back, chest, and abdomen beneath the layers of dark cloth.

His body was a map of countless scars, which he desperately tried to hide from others. But no matter what, he couldn’t escape his own—

Ugliness.

He didn’t want anyone, especially the young lady, to know about it.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell Fourth Senior Sister.”

Cheng Ying gave her a grateful look. “Thank you, Immortal Lady.”

The two continued their ascent.

Halfway up, Qin Xixue caught up with them. Strangely, the tower’s pressure seemed to have no effect on her. She moved freely, quickly gaining ground.

Cheng Ying, already at his limit, knew that pressing on would only lead to irreparable damage. He turned, drew his sword, and blocked Qin Xixue’s path, preventing her from advancing.

Chu Sang wasted no time and continued upward. Seeing her disappear through the doorway, Qin Xixue grew frantic. She glared at the lowly guard obstructing her, her hand summoning a spiritual weapon behind her back.

In an instant, her figure vanished, along with all traces of her presence.

Cheng Ying quickly turned to see her materialise on the staircase ahead. Alarmed, he rushed to stop her, but she summoned a Vajra Pestle. Its force, equivalent to a Nascent Soul cultivator’s full-strength attack, pierced Cheng Ying’s shoulder and pinned him to the wall, immobilising him.

Cheng Ying’s heart raced with shock. As he looked toward Qin Xixue on the stairs, he couldn’t shake a profound sense of strangeness. This person was utterly unaffected by the tower’s pressure—a truly bizarre phenomenon!

…

…

Entering the seventh floor, the scene transformed dramatically. Before them stretched a vast expanse of water, boundless and limitless. Nothing existed here but the endless pool.

As they ventured forward, the water deepened.

The liquid rose gradually from their ankles to their calves, then thighs, and finally to their waists. Beyond the bone-deep pain it inflicted, they could feel an enormous amount of vibrant spiritual energy from the pool surging into their meridians. Chu Sang vaguely sensed the bottleneck to her Golden Core stage beginning to loosen.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded from behind. Not only had Qin Xixue caught up, but another unexpected figure had appeared.

Zhao Xun.

“How did you get in here? We didn’t see you earlier,” Qin Xixue asked, surprised by the appearance of another troublesome person.

Zhao Xun looked at them disdainfully. “I’m not like you fools, climbing seven floors of stairs. Bet you didn’t know, an ancestor of my Zhao family once accidentally discovered a passage that leads directly to the seventh floor of the tower. He almost got the Chaotic Green Lotus Seed, but something went wrong halfway through.”

Perhaps to flaunt his superiority, he freely divulged the inside information. “After that ancestor came out, he drew a map of the secret realm and told us about the location of the hidden passage.”

The Chaotic Green Lotus Seed was something his Zhao family was determined to obtain!

“If it weren’t for some bastard carving misleading words at the entrance fork, confusing people, and my naturally suspicious nature making me think it was a deliberate trap, I would never have taken the middle path,” he continued.

“I sent two people down the other two paths, and they never returned. After going back and forth, probing and hesitating countless times, I finally discovered the exit—it really was the middle path!”

“This back-and-forth wasted a lot of time. Otherwise, I would have taken the shortcut and retrieved the lotus seed already, not giving others the chance to get ahead!”

It could be said that even Qin Xixue wasn’t as adept at cheating as this person.

Chu Sang wasn’t particularly surprised. According to the plot, Qin Xixue didn’t know how to summon the Chaotic Green Lotus Seed either. At this point, a cannon fodder character was supposed to appear to advance the story. This Zhao Xun was clearly a plot device to deliver the treasure.

Without further ado, Zhao Xun produced a gourd-shaped spiritual tool. The previously calm pool water suddenly churned violently, most of it being drawn out by a powerful force, nearly drying up the pool.

In the deepest central part of the lotus pool, a stone platform nearly a hundred zhang high was revealed!

On the stone platform stood a withered lotus flower, and in its center rested a seed emitting a faint green light.

Seeing that the two were about to clash, Chu Sang swiftly cast a binding talisman on herself, locking herself within. She adopted a terrified expression and desperately pounded on the transparent barrier. “The Chaotic Green Lotus Seed is mine! Neither of you can take it away!”

“You’re trapped by a formation and still yelling? This Chaotic Green Lotus Seed belongs to this young master, and I’m determined to get it!” Chu Sang had removed her mask, so Zhao Xun naturally didn’t recognize her. He assumed she was just some female cultivator from a minor sect and laughed coldly.

Qin Xixue was slightly confused. She hadn’t expected a formation to be hidden under the lotus pool. The old man hadn’t mentioned this beforehand… But then she reasoned that the old man wasn’t omniscient after all, so she didn’t dwell on it. She summoned her flying sword and prepared to ascend to the stone platform.

The moment the Chaotic Green Lotus Seed appeared, the two went into a frenzy, rushing towards the stone platform.

Chu Sang sat cross-legged on the ground, produced a spirit fruit, and began munching on it while leisurely observing the unfolding drama.

Noticing Zhao Xun was about to overtake Qin Xixue, she casually flicked a hidden weapon, striking Zhao Xun in the thigh. He nearly lost his footing.

“You bitch, how dare you sneak attack me!” Zhao Xun was livid.

Qin Xixue widened her eyes, feigning innocence. “It wasn’t me!”

Zhao Xun wasn’t fooled. He felt the woman before him was truly despicable. Gritting his teeth, he pointed at Chu Sang, who was trapped in the formation not far away, and spat venomously, “If it wasn’t you, was it her?? She’s trapped in a formation and can barely save herself, how could she possibly attack me?!”

Chu Sang pointed at Qin Xixue. “It was her, I saw it with my own eyes.”

Qin Xixue fumed. “You’re lying!”

“I’m just a helpless girl trapped in a formation, how could I possibly lie?” Chu Sang raised her hand, her tone dripping with innocence.

Zhao Xun, trusting his own judgement, glared at Qin Xixue. “You deceitful woman, not only did you try to harm me, but you dare to lie to my face!”

He prided himself on his cleverness and vowed he would not be fooled again by such a cunning creature as a woman!

“Get lost!” Zhao Xun attempted to kick Qin Xixue down.

Qin Xixue retaliated by lashing out with her whip, entangling his leg and trying to pull him down instead.

For the next half hour, their struggle continued. As soon as Qin Xixue managed to climb up, Zhao Xun would pull her down. When Zhao Xun gained ground, Qin Xixue would yank him back down.

The two went back and forth repeatedly. After half a day of this, not only had neither obtained the lotus seed, but they had actually descended lower than where they started.

Chu Sang relished watching this dog-eat-dog spectacle.

After finishing the last bite of her fruit, Chu Sang stood up and brushed off her hands. The time was ripe.

“Binding formation, activate!” she commanded.

…