Longevity Begins From Raising Disciples

Hua Jingxin’s reaction was so strange.

”Huff... huff...”

Her empty eyes suddenly misted over with a hazy, blurred sheen of moisture,

”Plop.”

Her legs went weak; she couldn’t even stand steadily anymore, and directly collapsed onto the muddy ground.

The luxurious Crimson Fox Cloak draped over her body slipped slightly as she lost strength, revealing a fragrant shoulder; on that pure face, there was both pain and succumbing.

In this state, where was there even half a trace of a noble sect prodigy’s Fairy demeanor?

”This is...”

Chen Ye narrowed his eyes, quietly tightening his grip on the jade bottle, his mind whirling.

He understood.

This Spirit Fragrance Jade Dew was definitely not as simple as a mere token!

Perhaps, it was a method Budu River used to control its underlings, something akin to the Emotion Crossing Seed.

If the Emotion Crossing Seed was a means of physical control, then this Spirit Fragrance Jade Dew seemed to be a means of spiritual control...

”Give... give it to me...”

While Chen Ye pondered,

the lofty Hua Jingxin, who had just been calling him ”old dog” and ”vile cultivator” with every breath, now crawled toward him on all fours like a real begging dog.

The bone-chilling wind at the bottom of the Celestial Abyss whipped against her half-bared skin, yet she remained unmoved, her mind filled only with that rich, heady scent.

”I beg you... give it to me...”

One hand clutched desperately at the hem of Chen Ye’s tattered, filthy gray robe as she lifted her head.

Streaks of humiliated tears hung on her pure face, yet her eyes were so hazy it was as if water would drip from them.

She bit her red lips; her voice trembled, cloying and sweet, as she pleaded:

”This is... Spirit Fragrance Jade Dew... it’s a holy relic...”

”I’m so hot... I feel so awful... Grandpa, can you give it to me, please?”

A cold sneer stirred in Chen Ye’s heart.

Budu River’s methods truly were vile to the extreme.

Still, this was an unexpected delight.

”Oh my, Miss Hua, what are you doing?”

Chen Ye slightly raised the jade bottle in his hand, avoiding Hua Jingxin’s greedy grasping jade fingers.

He hunched his back and sighed:

”This is nothing but some worthless medicine water this old man picked up. How could it possibly catch Miss Hua’s esteemed eye? If it dirtied your priceless body and Young Master Hua Wuyin sees it, this old man’s head would be forfeit.”

”It’s not dirty! Not dirty at all!”

With the scent moved away, Hua Jingxin instantly felt an emptiness in her chest, as if thousands of ants were gnawing at her very bones.

Her eyes flushed red with panic; she shook her head frantically, her delicate body unconsciously slithering like a water snake to press against Chen Ye’s shriveled calf.

”I take back what I said... you’re not a vile cultivator, you’re a good man...”

Her reason collapsed under the onslaught of craving; guided only by instinct, she rubbed her face against Chen Ye’s mud-stained robe, pleading bitterly:

”As long as you let me take one breath... just one! I’ll agree to whatever you want me to do... I have lots of Spirit Stones, I can even steal all my brother’s Cultivation Techniques for you... please, give it to me, quickly...”

Had it been anyone else,

they likely would have lost control already.

And Chen Ye... was also just an ordinary man.

He stroked the pure face of the young girl, slowly crouched down, and held the jade bottle suspended a mere inch before Hua Jingxin’s eyes, rasping:

”Miss Hua overpraises me. Since Miss Hua thinks this thing can ward off the cold...”

”This old man’s medicine water is precious; it can’t just be wasted for nothing. Why don’t you answer a few of this old man’s questions first, as an exchange, how about it?”

”Okay... ask, hurry and ask...”

Hua Jingxin tilted back her snow-white neck, her gaze locked firmly on the jade bottle like a fish thirsting for water, nodding again and again.

Seeing this, Chen Ye flicked his fingers, slightly prying open the stopper of the jade bottle, and brought it to the tip of her nose.

”Mm...”

The rich, heady fragrance at such close range rushed into the girl’s nose; she greedily drew in a deep breath.

With just that faint trace of Spirit Fragrance Jade Dew’s aroma entering her body, Hua Jingxin’s delicate form shuddered; she collapsed limply to the ground with a long, satisfied sigh.

But in the very next instant,

”Pop.”

Chen Ye, smiling with narrowed eyes, pressed the stopper firmly back into place, cutting off that seductive scent.

The fragrance ceased abruptly.

”No... don’t stop...” Hua Jingxin opened her eyes, the emptiness of being yanked out of ecstasy and back into reality making her so anxious she nearly burst into tears. She wrapped arms and legs around Chen Ye’s leg again, ”Give me a little more... I’m begging you...”

”Miss Hua still hasn’t answered this old man’s question.”

Chen Ye looked down at her from above, a sharp light flickering in his eyes,

”You few Heaven’s-prides from Huayue Mansion, leaving the broad sunny avenue untaken just to run all the way to this birdless backwater on the outskirts of the Celestial Abyss—what exactly for?”

At this moment Hua Jingxin’s reason was completely gone; for the sake of tasting the sacred object again, how could she still care about any sect secrets:

”It... it was to investigate the explosion in the Celestial Abyss a few days ago...”

”Oh? Just to investigate an explosion?”

Chen Ye’s eyes shifted as he continued to lead her on.

”No... not just that...”

Hua Jingxin bit her red lips, her body writhing restlessly, voice coming in broken fragments,

”Huayue Mansion is worried... worried the Duqing Divine Son might use this chance to break free! The cultivators in the mansion suspect this unprecedented great explosion has something to do with the Divine Son... they fear she’s shattered the seal near the Celestial Abyss, so... they especially sent Senior Sister Gu and us to investigate the traces...”

Hearing this,

Chen Ye frowned slightly.

He hadn’t expected Huayue Mansion to have already discovered the true aim of the Duqing Divine Son.

”Then this old man is all the more curious.”

Chen Ye leaned down slightly, fixing his gaze on Hua Jingxin’s hazy eyes, lowering his voice as he asked,

”If, while in this Celestial Abyss, you really discovered that the Divine Son has already broken the seal, what does Huayue Mansion plan to do?”

Hearing this question, Hua Jingxin licked her cherry lips, her gaze still locked onto the Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew, her voice trembling as she said:

”If there truly is a turn for the worse... then at all costs, kill!”

Oh?

It seemed Huayue Mansion had made up its mind.

After all, after a thousand cycles of reincarnation, in the eyes of certain people within the mansion, the power of the Lord Luoxiao was almost spent.

Besides,

If the Lord Luoxiao truly broke free and would come for revenge anyway, then it was better to strike first than be struck.

In addition.

Chen Ye asked Hua Jingxin many other questions.

About the Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew, about the Budu River, and so on.

But alas, Hua Jingxin was not a direct-line disciple of Huayue; she was just a cultivator of the Budu River, here merely to meet her elder brother, so it was difficult for Chen Ye to dig too much information out of her.

”Still, given this woman’s status and her relationship with Hua Wuyin and the others, she can serve as a planted spy...”

Chen Ye thought to himself.

Through Hua Jingxin’s mouth, he also learned how precious the Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew was... No wonder Daoist Miaofang, that Half-step Golden Core with such a noble and special identity, had repeatedly emphasized how unusual this item was.

The Budu River stands upon the river itself.

This river is perilous, but it abundantly produces a Spirit Flower called the Forget-heart Flower.

The fundamental Cultivation Technique of the Budu River is to draw the essence of this flower from childhood and cultivate with it.

Cultivating this method not only brings shockingly swift progress, but also nourishes the disciples’ skin, bones, flesh, and figures into something irresistibly alluring.

But the price is that once they enter this Cultivation Technique, the cultivators become slaves controlled by the drug’s nature.

Their bloodlines and Divine Souls are fundamentally incapable of refusing the Jade Dew refined from this wondrous flower.

They must consume it regularly, or else endure the torment of ten thousand ants gnawing at their hearts, and Spiritual Power raging backward.

In the Ruins Country, ordinary Jade Dew is used by the Budu River to keep a grip on its disciples;

while high-tier Jade Dew is used as a social bargaining chip.

They gift it to those high-tier cultivators outside who wish to curry favor, helping those cultivators effortlessly control the Furnaces within their sects.

The Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew, however, is the highest grade of Jade Dew!

Refined from the Nine-leaf Heavenly Fragrance Flower that had already gone extinct a thousand years ago, even a Golden Core powerhouse within the sect would fall for it.

According to Hua Jingxin,

with this Dew in hand, Chen Ye could even demand dual cultivation with the sect’s Golden Core True Men... Of course, Golden Core True Men, having achieved success in cultivation, can restrain themselves to a degree and not be fully controlled by the drug.

The previous bottle of Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew had been an offering from the Budu River, presented to the current Emperor Xu.

And of all the Heavenly Fragrance Jade Dew left in the world, there were now only two bottles remaining.

Yet many years ago, one bottle vanished into thin air—precisely the one now in Chen Ye’s hand!

”So that’s how it is...”

Chen Ye caressed the jade vial in his hand, its surface flowing with a warm, lustrous sheen.

Put bluntly, this Jade Dew was a means to control Furnaces!