“Li Qingshan, you bastard!”
The nine-coloured deer was enraged. She stomped the ground and bounded forwards, turning into a streak of nine-coloured light. Her coral-like horns shone with dazzling colours too like a rainbow, immediately smashing through the dark demon qi around Li Qingshan.
The moment Li Qingshan saw the light, he lost his sense of sight. His eyes were completely blinded. He was aware she had already used her innate ability.
The antlers slammed heavily into his chest. His clone here was only at the third heavenly tribulation. He definitely could not defend against the full-powered attack of a Daemon Sovereign.
Li Qingshan shut his eyes, holding the queen of the night in his left hand and forming a seal with his right hand. The queen of the night flowed as his fingers moved about, extending his hand and gently making contact with the antlers like he knew how everything would unfold. He stated slowly, “On the day of the summer solstice, the deers shed their horns.”
One of the queen of the night’s seventy-two petals flashed. Only then did the countless profound inscriptions on the petals become visible. It truly hid an entire world of wonders in a single flower, clearly not a regular queen of the night.
The nine-coloured deer shuddered and halted mid-air. The light on her antlers shed layer by layer, and even the nine-coloured glow she gave off rapidly dimmed. She staggered as her front legs dropped to the ground, but she continued to wave her antlers around and use her innate ability, wanting to fight Li Qingshan to the death.
She said furiously, “I should have killed you the first time I saw you!”
Li Qingshan shut his eyes and sighed gently. “Perhaps.” Another petal on the queen of the night in his left hand flashed. “On the day of the commencement of winter, water begins to freeze.”
The nine-coloured deer’s full-powered attack had been blocked, so her struggles now were merely one last futile attempt. He pressed down conveniently and grabbed her antlers. Frost rapidly spread from the centre of his palm, covering the antlers entirely. In the blink of an eye, even her beautiful fur became covered in a layer of a light-blue frost, no longer able to move anymore.
At this very moment, it was the might of the Seventy-two Pentads formation at work without any doubt. It definitely was not just for tending to the flowers and herbs. It was capable of a myriad of functions, adjusting the climate and abiding to the seasons, deeply conforming to the path of nature, containing the might of the world.
As a natural spirit, the nine-coloured deer was far stronger than regular Daemon Sovereigns, yet even she had been overwhelmed so easily. Even Human Immortals or Heretic Gods would be in danger of perishing if they broke into the formation rashly.
If Ruan Yaozhu were fully alert, taking the Hundred Herbs garden would be anything but easy even if Li Qingshan sent his most powerful clone. As long as they kept him busy for a while, he would be surrounded by the Desireless Heavenly Palace and slain, which would be a waste of power.
The nine-coloured deer had been overwhelmed, but she continued to glare at Li Qingshan. White air exhaled from her nostrils violently. She had never hated someone so much, even when she had been betrayed by the hunter and brought into the imperial palace, starving herself to death.
“Li Qingshan, has Ruan Yaozhu ever wronged you in any way? When you destroyed the White Deer country, she never blamed you. When you were accused, she argued for you in the Direct Disciple hall. No one believed in you. Only she did, going as far as to break off from the sect. Why are you doing this to her? Why!?” When she reached there, tears had already welled up in her eyes uncontrollably. “Yaozhu is just too pitiful!”
Li Qingshan sighed inside. The nine-coloured deer’s current words were even more painful than her innate ability earlier. He could not block it, nor could he avoid it.
Ruan Yaozhu stood there numbly with her head down. She did not attack Li Qingshan with the nine-coloured deer. As the master of the Hundred Herbs garden, she understood the power of the Seventy-two Pentads formation better than anyone else. She was also aware of what Li Qingshan was capable of. The queen of the night was already lost, so all attempts were futile. However, she could not help but murmur, “So I really have only been focusing on my personal feelings of love and ignoring the greater good of the sect…”
Li Qingshan stood seriously and asked calmly, “Yaozhu, you practise the Heavenly Tome of Nature, right?”
The tears on Ruan Yaozhu’s faces had yet to dry. She looked over blankly, but when she saw Li Qingshan’s face, she was unable to hide her sorrow.
A sense of sympathy welled up inside Li Qingshan, but he remained unfazed on the surface. He continued.
“You’re endowed with talent and great fortune. The path you walk is not inflexible like Chao Tianjiao and Li Liehuo’s. Presiding over this blessed land, the Hundred Herbs garden, you should have undergone the sixth heavenly tribulation and become a Human Immortal a long time ago, but unfortunately, you never managed to comprehend the path of nature, or more accurately, you only comprehended half of it.”
Ruan Yaozhu turned away, completely refusing to talk to Li Qingshan, much less see him again.
“The heavens take pleasure in the welfare of the living creatures. That’s definitely true, but natural selection, predators hunting prey, all of it is part of the path of nature too. Even these unfeeling plants and trees compete over sunlight, rain, and dew, growing thorns to fend off attacks. This is the wickedness in the heart of the living creatures-”
“Is that the reason why you became a demon?” Ruan Yaozhu could not help but interrupt him. “You have wicked thoughts, so you must act on them? Others act wickedly, so you must act wickedly too?” She was completely disappointed in him.
“Goodness and wickedness has never been relevant to the path of nature. You possess great benevolence and kindness within you, which is both your talent, as well as your obstacle.” Li Qingshan shook his head. “What I am trying to say is that with life, there is death. I will demonstrate the other half of the path of nature to you right now.”
Reaching there, Li Qingshan suddenly exhaled deeply as if he wanted to release all the pent-up emotions inside him.
The surrounding plants all rustled, and Ruan Yaozhu widened her eyes in fright. The ten-thousand-year Orchid of Light and Dark beside Li Qingshan suddenly went into full bloom, glowing with a dim blue light. Originally, it still required several years of her care before it bloomed like that.
All of the plants around Li Qingshan, these spiritual plants that often only grew an inch over centuries or millennia, began to grow rapidly at a visible rate. Their branches reached for the skies freely, budding with flowers.
At that moment, thousands of flowers went into full bloom, contending against one another in the moonlight. The flowers that were originally already blossoming bloomed to an unbelievable degree as if they wanted to demonstrate all of their beauty at that very moment, without holding back on anything.
Li Qingshan was swallowed by the blooming flowers, but Ruan Yaozhu clearly heard his breathing suddenly halt. Her heartbeat halted with it. She did not fear death, but at that moment, she experienced imminent doom. She cried out, “Don’t!”
Her voice was like the bleeding cries of a cuckoo, filled with a sense of pleading. Who knew how much of her heart she had poured into the Hundred Herbs garden. The plants here were even more important than her life.
At that instant, the moment when she first met Li Qingshan suddenly crossed her head, that autumn night, that tree of peach blossoms.
She was filled with grief, but for some reason, she also realised very calmly that this man would not stop for her, just like how he would lament over the peach tree’s death but still choose to make it bloom.
Li Qingshan then began to inhale. His breath was slow and lengthy, like he wanted to suck in all the air present in the Hundred Herbs garden.
Immediately, the plants withered and the flowers wilted, like they had suddenly entered late autumn. All the plants within several dozen metres of him yellowed and drooped, shedding to the ground.
These plants that had flourished to the extreme seemed to lose all of their vitality, but they also exhaled all of their spiritual qi, which gushed into Li Qingshan’s body. The clone’s cultivation immediately erupted, rushing towards the fourth heavenly tribulation. Even his body became much larger!
These wondrous plants and flowers were all of different elements. If they were used for alchemy, their elements had to be balanced, and it would require a lot of time to regulate the opposites, repeated again and again. After the pills were complete, their attributes had to be taken into account when ingesting to prevent their effects from clashing.
However, Li Qingshan had removed this entire process, sending these plants from life to death and making them exhale their most primitive and most pure life force, which he converted into his clone’s cultivation.
His methods were the abilities of the Qilin Transformation.
He had already obtained the laws central to Sukhāvatī and the Demon domain. Together, they formed the Qilin Paradise that the primordial qilin had turned into. His Qilin Transformation had reached completion a long time ago.
At that moment, he was the embodiment of the primordial qilin.
The world had no compassion. Life and death cycled between one another. That was the path of nature that Ruan Yaozhu had never been able to comprehend.
