"Where are you? Where are you?"
Qin Qingwan muttered to herself while holding the Eight Trigrams Map, trying to deduce Xu Ming's location as she glanced around anxiously.
But no matter how much she calculated, she couldn't pinpoint where Xu Ming was.
Perhaps it was because she had been searching for too long, but she started to worry about Xiao Bai wandering too far from her. So, she used a talisman to track Xiao Bai's location, planning to reunite with her companion first before continuing the search.
To her surprise, Xiao Bai's position hadn't changed at all.
"Something's not right," Qin Qingwan muttered, unease creeping into her heart.
Logically speaking, Xiao Bai should be moving around while looking for Xu Ming. Could something have happened to her? Could she have run into an enemy? Otherwise, why hadn't she moved even a little?
Panic welled up inside Qin Qingwan as she flew toward Xiao Bai's location, praying desperately that nothing had happened to her.
But when she arrived at the spot indicated by the talisman, she froze in place.
The talisman was stuck to a tree.
There were no traces of a struggle nearby.
Recalling how Xiao Bai had insisted they split up earlier, and now seeing the talisman left behind on the tree, Qin Qingwan felt as if she understood everything.
If she guessed correctly, Xiao Bai probably knew where Xu Ming was but didn't want her to get involved in any danger. So, she had intentionally shaken her off and gone ahead alone.
"Xiao Bai! Even you've learned to lie to me now!" Qin Qingwan pouted, feeling both hurt and upset.
When they were younger, the two of them—and the goose—always stuck together when causing trouble, never hiding anything from each other.
And now? They were both leaving her behind!
"Don't think you can ditch me!"
Qin Qingwan pulled out the Eight Trigrams Map, intending to calculate Xiao Bai's location. Since they hadn't been apart for long, and the talisman still carried Xiao Bai's aura, it should be easier to track her compared to Xu Ming.
"Qingwan."
Just as Qin Qingwan was concentrating on divining Xiao Bai's whereabouts, a cold voice rang out.
She looked up and was instantly overjoyed. "Master!"
With her master here, everything would be fine. Xu Ming could be saved!
Wangxuan descended from the sky, landing gracefully beside her disciple. Her delicate brows furrowed. "What's happened? Why is your Dao Lotus missing from your body?"
"Eh?" Qin Qingwan froze. "Master, how did you know?"
Wangxuan replied, "The Dao Lotus in your body was planted there by me. How could I not know? When it disappeared, I feared you were in danger, so I broke through space to come to you."
Qin Qingwan: "..."
"Master, it's a long story. But there's something more urgent right now. Could you help me locate someone? My friend might be in mortal danger!" Qin Qingwan grasped her master's hands, pleading earnestly, "Please, Master."
Seeing the urgency in her disciple's eyes, Wangxuan suppressed her own questions for the moment. She threw a formation diagram onto the ground. "Place something related to the person on this."
Qin Qingwan quickly retrieved a painting scroll of Baiwa and placed it on the formation.
As she glanced at the scroll, Wangxuan immediately recognized it as a miniature world.
She activated the formation, her slender, fair fingers deftly forming intricate hand seals.
As an Immortal, Wangxuan could not only deduce the owner's location with ease but could also use the scroll to glimpse the threads of cause and effect surrounding it.
Through the formation, she saw a man standing on a Heavenly Staircase, gazing at a thunder dragon above. She saw her own disciple standing beside the man, feeding her Dao Lotus into his mouth. She saw the man enduring the tribulation, taking the scroll, and giving it to her disciple.
And that man's name was—Xu Ming.
"How is this possible? Someone with severed spiritual roots… how could he cultivate?"
A moment later, after understanding the cause and effect, Wangxuan opened her eyes and spoke calmly, "There's no need to look for him anymore. I just deduced that he survived the ordeal. He's injured, but his life is not in danger. What's important now is for you to return to Tianxuan Sect with me immediately.
"Your cultivation thus far has been focused on nurturing the Dao Lotus. That Dao Lotus was essentially your foundation. But now that you've given it to Xu Ming, your foundation has been damaged. You need to return to Tianxuan Sect to remedy this as soon as possible, or you'll never reach the Jade Purity Realm in this lifetime!"
"Eh?" Qin Qingwan's cheeks flushed. "Master, how do you know all this?"
Wangxuan sighed helplessly. "How could I not know your little schemes? There's nothing I can't deduce."
Qin Qingwan's tone grew anxious as she pleaded coquettishly, "Master, please have mercy. Let me just go see Xu Ming for a moment. I'll feel at ease once I know he's okay. Then I'll come back with you, I promise!"
"Qingwan, stop this nonsense." This time, Wangxuan didn't give in to her disciple's wishes. "Do you have any idea what state your body is in right now? Every moment we delay only makes it worse!"
Hearing her master's stern tone, Qin Qingwan lowered her head. She knew he was genuinely angry. Her master rarely got angry.
Seeing his disciple's dejected expression, Wangxuan let out a heavy sigh. "You… That Dao Lotus of yours could have become your life-bound artifact. When you reached the Dragon Gate Realm, it could have elevated you even higher.
"When you entered the Golden Core Realm, it would have transformed into a Lotus Golden Core, ensuring an unobstructed path in your cultivation until the Jade Purity Realm.
"Your cultivation base would have naturally surpassed most people in quality. And even after reaching the Jade Purity Realm, that Dao Lotus would have become a bridge for you to connect with the laws of heaven and earth.
"But now, all of that is gone. Tell me, was it worth it?"
From his deduction through the Baiwa Scroll, Wangxuan had only seen that Xu Ming was undergoing a tribulation to become the master of the Baiwa Secret Realm and that he was on the verge of failure before Qin Qingwan intervened to help him.
She didn't know that if Xu Ming failed, everyone would be trapped inside the scroll, nor that the Black God Sect was using the scroll's light pillar to capture cultivators, potentially dooming them all.
But even if she knew, Wangxuan wouldn't have cared.
Her disciple, born with a natural Dao body, could adapt to the laws of any secret realm or miniature world and would never be expelled. The light pillar of the Baiwa Secret Realm would never fall on her.
Even if Xu Ming failed and everyone else became trapped in the scroll, her disciple could connect with the Dao laws upon entering the Dragon Gate Realm and leave the scroll on her own.
"Xu Ming is fine," Wangxuan said with a trace of regret in her voice.
"Hm?"
Qin Qingwan looked up at her master with sparkling eyes and said softly, "As long as Xu Ming is okay, it was all worth it."