“Jian Yanyou?” Zu An exclaimed, rubbing his eyes. Then, he confirmed the words of the backend message. It really was Jian Yanyou! But how is that possible? Isn’t he dead?
Yu Yanluo was also shocked. She muttered to herself, “Yanyou?” She clearly recognized his voice too, but she didn’t dare to believe it.
“Let’s head out and take a look,” Zu An said, completely baffled as well. He wanted to take a look to see what was going on.
Yu Yanluo was also curious, so she naturally didn’t refuse. Even though most of the poison was already gone, she couldn’t move as effortlessly as Zu An with his Blue Mallard skill. As such, Zu An carried her to the surface.
The two quickly rushed out of the water surface and climbed ashore. When they saw the scene outside, they were both stunned. The huge ice chunk was gone, with only fragments remaining all over the ground. There was a man standing in the center, staring rigidly at the pool.
After having used Face of a Thousand Identities, Zu An couldn’t be more familiar with the man. Who else could it be but Jian Yanyou?!
Meanwhile, Jian Taiding was sitting stupidly to the side. When he saw his older brother, his jaw had almost dropped to the ground. He never would have expected such a thing either. His ‘funeral wailing’ had actually brought his older brother back from the dead?
Who am I? Where am I right now? Jian Taiding thought. Too many outrageous things had happened throughout the day. At that moment, he felt as if he were dreaming.
“Yanyou, you are still alive?” Yu Yanluo exclaimed, shocked and happy when she saw him. Jian Yanyou was her husband in name, but he was actually her friend of many years. How could she not be happy after seeing her good friend come back to life?
She was about to greet him when Zu An pulled her back. He warned her through ki, “Be careful. His current state doesn’t seem right somehow.”
Yu Yanluo was stunned. Only then did she notice that black smoke lingered around Jian Yanyou. There were some black patterns around his face as well. He looked completely different from his usual graceful and gentle self, instead looking more sinister and malevolent.
“Heh, of course you were wishing that I had died. That way, you two adulterers would be free to elope,” Jian Yanyou sneered.
Yu Yanluo’s pretty brows furrowed. She felt extremely uncomfortable under his look of contempt, replying, “You have misunderstood. The two of us are completely clean; nothing happened between us.”
“Hah, clean? The two of you?!” Jian Yanyou roared toward the sky, his laughter making the entire mountain rustle. Even the ice that had originally been firmly attached to the stone walls began to fall.
Zu An’s expression changed. His cultivation is extremely high; he seems to be just a hair away from grandmaster rank.
After his outburst of laughter, Jian Yanyou’s gaze returned to Yu Yanluo. He said through gritted teeth. “Do you take me for a fool? You were afflicted by an aphrodisiac, then stayed down there for so long with another man. You are telling me that nothing happened?”
Jian Taiding also snapped out of his daze. Only now did he realize that his goddess had already been trampled all over by that beast. His lips trembled. He almost didn’t even dare to look at Yu Yanluo anymore, or else he would see her as a fallen woman.
But he still couldn’t hold himself back in the end. He looked at her, and then he felt as if he were struck by lightning. Even her clothes are different!
Yu Yanluo was covered in male clothes at that moment. Who else could those clothes belong to? Just then, he felt like a man who had gotten out of bed and seen a woman dressed in a man’s shirt. That kind of intensely clashing sight was simply incomparable to anything else.
Yu Yanluo really was beautiful. Her current outfit magnified her gentle femininity and enticement severalfold. But Jian Taiding wasn’t in the mood to admire her at all. He felt even more distress.
What else needed to be said? He could completely imagine what had happened. The two of them had definitely gone so crazy down there that their clothes had ended up getting wet. That was why his sister-in-law had changed into men’s clothes. She hadn’t even had enough time to put on her clothes properly and rushed out.
Her clothes were too spacious, so he could vaguely make out her fair and exquisite collarbone and faint pink undergarments.
Jian Taiding had only ever dreamed of seeing such a personal side of Yu Yanluo. Never had he expected it to be in such a situation. Even though he had been completely infatuated with Yu Yanluo over the years, he had never taken any wives in order to pursue her. But as someone of high authority, he’d naturally had many girls in private. He immediately knew what the youthful expression and the blush on her cheeks meant.
Her satisfied expression was enough for him to recreate the scene of his most beloved being ravaged by that brute. That was especially true when he saw Yu Yanluo’s body half-leaning against Zu An. That meant she didn’t reject him at all.
Sister-in-law has obviously already been dominated by that man! When he thought of that, he felt as if the entire world were falling down around him.
Yu Yanluo obviously didn’t know Jian Taiding was thinking such filthy thoughts. Instead, she said to Jian Yanyou, “It is not what you think. Just now, he used a special way to help me get rid of the poison. We are completely cl… We have not done any of those illicit things.”
Even though he wasn’t her real husband, he had helped her stop many pursuers over the years, which had helped her a lot. She felt there was a need to explain those things to him.
She wanted to say her relationship with Zu An was clean, but when she recalled what had just happened, how even her clothes had been stripped and his hands had touched every inch of her body, it did seem a bit unreasonable to say that their relationship was completely clean.
That was why she changed her mind and said that they hadn’t done anything illicit. That was something she could say without any guilt.
Jian Yanyou harrumphed. “Do you take me for a three-year-old child? Do you think I would believe that?”
Yu Yanluo frowned and said, “I have already explained what I should explain. There’s nothing I can do if you want to indulge in your flights of fancy.”
She wouldn’t even bother explaining it if it were anyone else. Jian Yanyou was someone who had been her good friend for so many years. However, someone like that suspected her even after she explained. How could she not feel upset?
Jian Yanyou’s expression darkened. He shot back, “What are you getting all flustered for? Perhaps it is because of your guilty conscience?” The dark patterns on his face became even more apparent.
“The innocent know that they are,” Yu Yanluo replied indifferently. However, she suddenly frowned and asked, “What happened to your face? Why did you come back after dying?”
Jian Taiding’s attention had been drawn over too. He had clearly schemed against his older brother, so why had Jian Yanyou suddenly come back to life?
“You never expected me to revive and ruin your great plans, hm?” Jian Yanyou sneered, but he still explained, “It is because the technique I cultivate is special. It is called the Golden Silkworm Art. It is rumored that once you reach the highest level, you must die once. If you can break through and be reborn, you can enter the grandmaster rank. There is even a chance of reaching the earth immortal level.”
“The Golden Silkworm Art?” Yu Yanluo’s expression changed. She was well versed in many subjects, and she seemed to have heard rumors about such a technique. It seemed that once the technique was cultivated to its greatest level, one experienced a life and death trial. At that moment, one’s entire body would turn into a cocoon. If the one inside could successfully transform into a butterfly, they would undergo a tremendous transformation.
But the chances of success were extremely low. She had never heard of anyone succeeding in the technique since ancient times. And yet, it turned out to have been the technique Jian Yanyou cultivated! Then, the ice sculpture from before had probably been his frozen cocoon lying inside the pool.
“Indeed. Those who have practiced this art have never completed the transformation. That is why even though I was already at the final juncture, I was never able to set my resolve to attempt this obstacle,” Jian Yanyou said. He then turned around to look at Jian Taiding, continuing, “In the end, I must thank my good younger brother. If it were not for his rapacious designs to poison me, and even setting up a scheme to surround and kill me, I would not have been able to make the decision to challenge this bottleneck.”
Jian Taiding’s expression changed. He exclaimed, “I clearly checked your body back then. You had no trace of life force left! Why could I not sense that you were still alive back then?”
He was a master rank cultivator himself. If he couldn’t even tell if someone had really died or if they were faking it, what did he have his cultivation for?
Jian Yanyou said with a sneer, “That is because the Golden Silkworm Art needs one to really die. Whether or not one can revive depends on their fate. That is why no one has been able to revive in all of history. Even with all of your scheming and plotting, you never expected this, so of course you did not notice anything.”
“You ran here with everything you had back then so the cold pool could preserve your remains and hide the cocoon around you, right?” Jian Taiding asked, forcing himself to calm down. He was an outstanding cultivator himself. Even though he was defeated, he still wanted to know how he had failed.
“That is only one of the reasons,” Jian Yanyou said, raising his head to look at the incomparably massive icicle. “The Golden Silkworm Art’s final trial is too difficult. Untold numbers of outstanding heroes have failed at this point. Even though my aptitude is not bad, I never believed I could surpass all of my predecessors.
“In order to make it through this trial, I had to somehow increase my odds of success. Do you remember in the past, when his majesty and the Fiend Emperor fought bitterly? It was through relying on our clan’s Milk of Purple Frost that he was able to recover!”
Zu An had just been watching the drama from off to the side at first. He was startled when he heard the words ‘Milk of Purple Frost’.
His greatest objective in coming to Cloudcenter Commandery this time had been precisely to find the Milk of Purple Frost to treat Mi Li. When he had learned that its last appearance was related to Cloudcenter Duke Manor, he had immediately started secretly investigating it in the manor. Unfortunately, Cloudcenter Duke had already perished, and no one knew those private details.
He had been ready to give up, and yet now, there was suddenly a glimmer of hope.
