Chapter 25

“Path of No Emotion?” Yan Ye’s eyelashes trembled. “What gave you that impression?”

Lin Du couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason, but she had always felt that Yan Ye was akin to Luo Ze—born from ice and snow, destined to return to it.

But is ice and snow truly emotionless?

She didn’t dwell on it too much; the thought had simply popped into her mind.

“Just a random question.”

Yan Ye lowered his gaze and withdrew his spiritual sense that had been focused on his young disciple. “No, I do not follow the Path of No Emotion.”

In the vast world of cultivation, there are countless paths to follow, each aligned with one’s specialties—be it swordsmanship, physical cultivation, artifact refining, or formation mastery. These paths are chosen early in one’s cultivation journey.

However, the ultimate determinant of whether one can reach the stage of ascension is the Dao they choose to follow, often after experiencing significant trials—perhaps at the third, fifth, or even seventh stage of their journey.

For example, there are paths like the Supreme Path of Forgetting Emotions or the Path of No Emotion, or even those based on punishment, joy, and other principles derived from the Dao of Heaven.

These aren’t choices made by the cultivator alone; sometimes, it is the Dao of Heaven that chooses them.

Yan Ye didn’t know why his young disciple had suddenly asked this, but he answered her seriously, “The path I follow is one of Fate.”

Lin Du was momentarily stunned. “Fate?”

Yan Ye nodded. “Fate.”

Yan Ye had spent his life mastering calculations, and he had foreseen that his only destined disciple would appear on a cold spring day, by the river, as forest crosses the water.

And thus, Lin Du came into his life.

Lin Du tilted her head in thought. As someone who metaphorically held the script in her hands, she wondered if she too might eventually walk the path of Fate.

“Master, did you not foresee that your disciple might not live long?”

Yan Ye reached out and flicked her forehead with precision. “If you keep talking like that, go wash your brain in Luo Ze’s waters.”

“I don’t know about others, but as long as Jiang Liang and I want you to live, you will live.”

Lin Du, who usually tied her hair back in a net to avoid distractions while working, now had a visible red mark on her forehead from the flick, even through the tightly woven black mesh.

The next morning, when Lin Du emerged from her meditation, she noticed the bruise on her forehead.

“That old man really didn’t hold back,” she thought.

She followed her daily routine: studying scriptures, eating breakfast, spending time calculating the remaining formation fragments in the library, returning to Luo Ze to have her formations evaluated by Yan Ye, then voluntarily breaking through the thick ice to wash her brain in Luo Ze’s waters. After dinner, she returned to her cave to meditate and cultivate. This was Lin Du’s day—a simple, repetitive life akin to preparing for high school exams or graduate studies. Once accustomed to it, it didn’t seem all that exhausting.

Lin Du felt that what the cultivation world lacked was iced coffee and cigarettes, but she soon found a substitute for the iced coffee.

Around Luo Ze, there were ice mountains—actual ice mountains, not snow-covered ones.

Beneath the ice surface, there were tea trees. Yan Ye had overheard her complaining about the lack of iced tea and had personally harvested the leaves, processed them using ancient methods, and prepared tea leaves for her. The tea, brewed from the spiritual waters of the suspended waterfall above Luo Ze, was left to steep overnight. The resulting tea was a pale green color, slightly bitter to the taste, with a refreshing and invigorating aroma.

The tea leaves themselves came from a 3,000-year-old mother tree, nourished by the rich spiritual energy of a blessed location, producing only a small amount of tea leaves every few hundred years. These leaves were a natural remedy for heart demons, providing clarity and peace of mind. If sold on the market, even a hundred spirit crystals might not be enough to buy three taels.

Lin Du noticed that drinking the tea made her calculations faster. She thought to herself that caffeine, in its iced form, was indeed necessary to boost learning efficiency.

One day, she finished calculating the last formation fragment in just half a day. Without rushing to find Yan Ye, she took out her fan and began to examine it.

Suddenly, the voice that only spoke during mealtimes spoke again. “That fan is missing something, but it’s not entirely useless.”

Lin Du was startled. “Senior?”

She still didn’t know who guarded the library; even Yan Ye seemed unsure.

“Do you know how to imprint your spiritual sense?”

Of course, Lin Du did. She had learned these basic spells from books on her own.

She released her spiritual sense, enveloping the fan completely, and waited for the treasure to soften and accept it.

“That is a Heavenly-grade spiritual treasure, but in its current state, it’s only half of one,” the voice spoke again.

The spiritual sense that had been floating on the surface suddenly plunged into what felt like a bottomless black hole.

Lin Du formed a seal with her hands, imprinting her spiritual sense onto the treasure.

The once-dull silver-gray surface of the fan began to soften, revealing a metallic sheen, as if it were melting under high heat.

At that moment, Lin Du learned the name of the treasure.

“Floating Life.”

And it was indeed an incomplete treasure, as it had a symbiotic companion called the “Dream Brush.”

The Dream Brush could paint the Floating Life.

Lin Du grasped the fan’s handle and flicked it open with a swish.

The fan’s interior remained reflective, but its material was not ordinary bamboo or wood—it was a composite of molten gold. The fan’s ribs had sharp, angular protrusions, and there were no other carvings to be seen.

Both the fan ribs and the fan surface were made of sharp, cold, and hard materials, and when opened, it emitted a radiant glow, like mother-of-pearl, vaguely reflecting Lin Du’s own fragmented face.

As she watched, the fan’s background turned a deep blue, and frost began to form, with intricate snowflakes gradually taking shape, clear and transparent.

Lin Du was initially stunned but soon realized why the fan was named “Floating Life.”

She closed the fan, thinking it was more for show than anything else, but then the voice from the library spoke again, “It’s also a deadly weapon.”

“A folding fan, a weapon?” she asked.

“If you understand a person’s life, you can kill them.”

Lin Du was taken aback. “An illusion array?”

But this time, there was no answer.

Lin Du didn’t mind and held the fan as she stood up and walked out of the library.

Then, she channeled her spiritual power into the fan’s handle and made a sweeping motion forward.

Nothing happened.

Lin Du chuckled and shook her head. What kind of fantasy was she dreaming of in this cultivation world?

It seems that even with a powerful spiritual treasure, a novice remains a novice.

Just as she was about to turn around and return to the library, she suddenly heard the sound of ice forming.

The sound was subtle and delicate, but to a cultivator with heightened senses, it was crystal clear.

Lin Du quickly turned around and saw that the azure pine trees flanking the library’s stone steps were gradually being covered in frost, inch by inch, while the stone steps themselves slowly turned icy white.

A bird perched on one of the branches hadn’t even realized what was happening. Its tiny claws were already frozen to the branch, and the frost was still creeping upward.

Lin Du tried to stop it, but she couldn’t figure out how. She frantically activated her spiritual sense within the treasure to find a solution, but by the time she managed to connect, the bird had been frozen up to its neck, flapping its wings desperately but unable to fly.

“Wait, I didn’t mean to take a life today! Hold on, birdie, I’m coming to save you,” she muttered anxiously.

She attempted to close the fan and channeled her spiritual power into it again, directing it towards the branch.

A thin blade of ice formed from the spiritual power, slicing through the branch and causing it to fall to the ground with a thud, bird and all. From a distance, it looked like a skewered, sugar-coated roasted sparrow.

Lin Du: …

“Forget it, I guess there’s an extra dish for the kitchen today.”