Chapter 89: Deceiving Yourself

She woke up!

Bai Qiulan had woken up!

With a soft moan, Bai Qiulan’s eyes fluttered open, and in that very instant, her aura surged violently—she broke through two minor realms in one go.

The Taiyin Saint Scripture truly lived up to its ferocity. Even while she was unconscious, it had continued to operate automatically, slowly dissolving the chaotic yin poison.

Dissolve, absorb into her Nascent Soul, condense.

Then dissolve again, get absorbed again, and condense again.

Of course, the speed at which her Nascent Soul could absorb the poison wasn’t nearly fast enough to match how fast it was being generated.

After resting for a while, Bai Qiulan’s body temperature finally began to normalize.

"You’re awake!"

Yue Hongling and Sun Ruowei both cried out in joy.

Bai Qiulan suddenly furrowed her brows. Her expression shifted sharply.

"Who touched my clothes?"

"Master, it was me—it was me," Yue Hongling said quickly.

Only then did Bai Qiulan breathe a sigh of relief.

"How are you feeling now? Just what is this constitution of yours? You’ve already reached Unity Dao Realm and you’re still having these disasters?" Sun Ruowei asked anxiously.

"It’s nothing. I can handle it myself. The unconsciousness was just a form of self-preservation. My collapse didn’t alarm too many people, did it?" Bai Qiulan asked, frowning.

Yue Hongling and Sun Ruowei exchanged glances.

"Ahem... no, not really!"

Bai Qiulan looked helpless.

"Go ahead. Tell me—who did you alarm?"

She would’ve preferred they didn’t bring it up. But now that they had, Sun Ruowei was already seething with frustration.

"Qiulan, what the hell is wrong with the men around you? That Lu Ye—no matter what I said, no matter how much I pleaded, even when I told him to just do whatever he needed to do and I wouldn’t blame him—he still refused to save you!"

Bai Qiulan had already guessed it, but hearing for certain that Lu Ye had ignored her suffering... still sent a chill through her heart.

Fine. Maybe she ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) really was pathetic.

She had told him not to save her—and now that he didn’t, she still felt disappointed.

"It was me who told him not to. This can’t be blamed on him." Bai Qiulan didn’t show any change in expression.

"Forget Lu Ye. You told him not to help, fine. But what about Liu Changfeng?" Sun Ruowei pressed.

Bai Qiulan’s face instantly changed.

"You tried to get Liu Changfeng to save me?"

Though she couldn’t accept any relationship with Lu Ye, her traditional beliefs made it even harder to accept any other man besides Lu Ye.

Her ultimate path should be one of solitude, walking the great Dao alone.

"No, no! Of course not. We’d never let Liu Changfeng save you," Yue Hongling quickly explained, understanding Bai Qiulan’s reaction.

Bai Qiulan exhaled deeply in relief.

"It’s not that we asked him to save you. I just wanted him to issue a command ordering Lu Ye to do it. But he refused! And even scolded me for calling him by name instead of calling him Sect Leader—it was ridiculous," Sun Ruowei complained.

Bai Qiulan understood what Liu Changfeng meant.

A faint sigh stirred in her chest. In this world... perhaps aside from Lu Ye in that previous life, no one had ever treated her with such undivided sincerity.

Yue Hongling hesitated.

Bai Qiulan turned to her. "Is there something you want to say?"

"It’s just... Master, do you really not know how much pain Senior Brother has to endure to help you?" Yue Hongling asked.

Bai Qiulan was stunned.

"Why are you asking that?"

"I went to him, begged him to help you. I said you didn’t know how much pain he had to go through to save you. But Senior Brother said... you do know."

Bai Qiulan fell silent.

She didn’t respond.

"I’m tired. I need to cultivate and stabilize my condition. The two of you, go take care of your own matters for now."

No answer—that was the loudest answer of all.

Yue Hongling couldn’t believe it.

Master... Master really did know?

Hadn’t she said over and over again that she didn’t know?

Why?

Why pretend she didn’t know when she clearly did?

Why lie?

Yue Hongling wanted to ask again—but was pulled away by Sun Ruowei.

Inside the room, Bai Qiulan stared at the closed door, then slowly shut her eyes. In the end, she couldn’t hold back—a single tear slid silently down the corner of her eye.

Of course she knew how much Lu Ye had suffered.

But she had deliberately chosen to forget.

Especially after obtaining the Taiyin Saint Scripture—Lu Ye no longer needed to suffer for her. And as time passed, she had gradually forgotten the pain he once endured.

What she didn’t forget was Lu Ye’s identity.

She was the master.

He was the disciple.

She was lying to herself.

Lying so well... even she had come to believe it.

How pathetic.

......

"There wasn’t anything worth watching in that!" Lu Ye muttered, dissatisfied.

"Ding! Nothing worth watching? And yet you watched it so intently?" The system immediately voiced its displeasure.

"I was that into it?"

"Ding! You were!"

"You must’ve seen it wrong. Oh, right—you don’t even have eyes. No wonder."

"Ding! I have eyes. I have as many eyes as I want!"

"All of them blind."

"Ding! Your eyes are the ones that are blind!!!"

Lu Ye bickered with the system for a while, then went back to organizing the storage rings. His mood was fairly decent.

"Come to think of it, I’ve been back at the sect for a while now. Why haven’t any of those factions made a move? If this drags on, I’m heading out to find the Withered Human Wood myself."

The Withered Human Wood—one of the key materials he needed to condense his third life.

And he knew exactly where to get it.

He’d been staying in the Grand Dao Sect specifically to wait for the allied sects to come attack, so he could draw all their firepower and slip away under their noses.

But since the sect had sealed itself off after returning, Lu Ye had no idea what was happening outside.

What he didn’t know... was that the death of forty-six Tribulation Realm experts had already spread across the Great Wilderness at terrifying speed.

So fast it shook everyone.

"Forty-six Tribulation Realm? And fifty-seven Inquiry Realm? All wiped out?!"

"My god—is Tianji News playing some kind of joke on us? How many Tribulation Realm cultivators are there in the whole Great Wilderness, even including all the factions?"

Take the Grand Dao Sect, for example—they’d sent out everything they had to rescue Lu Ye. Nineteen Tribulation Realm experts.

The Five Great Sects, Three Grand Dynasties, plus the Immortal Everlasting Church.

All together, the number barely reached two hundred Tribulation Realm cultivators.

And the Grand Dao Sect’s numbers were already considered above average.

Once you included the first-rate powers outside the top tier, and the hidden factions like Nether Ghost Sect and Heaven Pavilion, it meant that one-seventh of the entire first heaven’s Tribulation cultivators had just been wiped out.

A full seventh.

The Yin-Yang Law Sect and the Supreme Empire had lost almost all their top fighters.

The Jie Sect and the Mountain River Pagoda Sect were beyond regret—their intestines were practically twisted with it.

They’d actually had decent relations with the Grand Dao Sect. Meetings were cordial, people got along.

Just look at how Xu Mozhi had gifted Bai Qiulan a treasure—that said it all.

But now? They’d turned into enemies—and lost so many of their elite. The younger generation was devastated too—no future talent, no frontline strength.

No strong cultivators left. No future potential either.

These factions... were completely numb.