The aftermath of the tournament stirred fresh tides, yet the perils ahead only fortified their resolve.

The chill of the spirit jade marrow seeped into his fingertips, carried by the morning mist, as Shen Yi rubbed the raised, intricate patterns on the inner side of his champion’s medallion. Amidst the thunderous cheers of the crowd below, he suddenly heard a faint sound from within his sleeve—the star-veined orchid, its leaves rustling like silkworms gnawing on mulberry foliage. Its roots, which had wound themselves around the purple jade gourd on the judges' table, were frantically absorbing a dark violet vapor.

"Junior Brother Shen is truly full of surprises," Leng Xuan said, squeezing to his side while clutching his runner-up jade tablet. The tassels of his celadon jade crown brushed against the image-recording stone on the edge of the podium. "I heard someone caught a glimpse of the star-veined orchid mutating at the third quarter of the midnight hour?"

Shen Yi flicked away the tassel that drifted before his eyes, and the bronze compass at his waist suddenly emitted a low hum. As Leng Xuan’s protective aura brushed against the rim of the compass, two copper studs embedded with the Nine Nether sigils dislodged themselves, clattering to the ground and dissolving into two pools of foul-smelling black sludge.

Gasps rippled through the viewing gallery.

Watching Leng Xuan’s face turn ash-gray, Shen Yi deliberately raised his voice and laughed, "Senior Brother Leng’s jade tablet certainly makes for a striking contrast with this black sludge." As he turned away, the vines of the star-veined orchid silently swept up the sludge, condensing it into a partial, jagged lotus mark hidden within his sleeve, invisible to the onlookers.

The jade steps of the awards podium suddenly trembled.

The moment the twelve spirit-guiding lamps flickered out, the silver butterfly hairpin in Gao Yao’s hair fluttered as if to take flight, but it was pinned in place by a tracking talisman hidden in Shen Yi’s sleeve as he reached up to adjust his collar. Their gazes locked, and the scent of lotus blossoms, characteristic of the Medicine King Valley, mingled with the metallic tang of blood, exploding in his nostrils.

"I heard that mutated star-veined orchid is raised on the spiritual essence of living people!" Under the parasol tree outside the dining hall, several outer-sect disciples huddled around an image-recording stone, pointing and whispering. The stone wall played a loop of the previous night’s midnight scene: the spirit plant, which should have been dormant, suddenly grew three inches, its leaves displaying patterns resembling human faces.

As Shen Yi passed by the corridor, clutching a food box, the bronze compass at his wrist suddenly shot out a beam of green light. The image on the recording stone twisted into a grotesque vortex before shattering into fragments with a sharp clatter. As the onlookers scattered, he bent to pick up the shards, noting that each jagged edge was stained with dark red threads of blood.

"Senior Brother Shen, it would be best not to waste your efforts," Leng Xuan’s voice drifted from the shadows beneath the eaves. Seven blue-glowing silk threads coiled around his fingertips. "The blood silkworm gu inside the recording stone loves nothing more than to bite the tongues of liars."

Shen Yi suddenly tossed the food box into the air. As the lid flew open, the star-veined orchid leaf—which Gao Yao had bitten into while testing for poison three days prior—shot out like a bolt, precisely severing all the silk threads. As the leaf, stained with both their blood, embedded itself into a corridor pillar, blue-violet flames erupted from Leng Xuan’s sleeves.

"Does Senior Brother Leng know what the blood silkworm gu fears most?" Shen Yi brushed non-existent dust from his shoulder and chuckled at the sight of the other man frantically beating his sleeves. "When they catch the scent of the star-veined orchid mixed with a maiden’s blood, they will turn on their master."

As twilight stained the medicinal fields red, Shen Yi crouched by the spirit spring to wash his hoe. Ripples disturbed the water, reflecting the image of Gao Yao surrounded by three deacon elders. The silver butterfly hairpin in her hair trembled uncontrollably; whenever she attempted to speak in her defense, ice crystals bled from the tip of the pin to seal her lips.

"…Disciples of the Yaoguang Peak must prioritize their reputation." The head of the Discipline Elders struck his dragon-headed staff against the ground, the force sending the reeds by the spring collapsing. "You and that wandering cultivator of unknown origin..."

Shen Yi smashed his hoe into the spring with a violent thud. The splashing droplets condensed into thirty-six ice needles in mid-air, raining down toward the shadows of the three elders. When Gao Yao turned back in alarm, all she saw was the star-veined orchid, stained with their blood, blooming into twin blossoms within an overturned bamboo basket by the spring.

The evening drum signaled the hour, frightening the roosting birds as Shen Yi leaned against the glass window on the top floor of the library. The lotus mark burning in his palm pulsed violently. The moment he flipped open the *Record of Exotic Spirit Plants*, half a tattered array diagram drifted from the pages—the focal point of the Nine Nether Rebirth Array perfectly overlapped with the layout of the spirit plant competition podium.

Cluttered footsteps rose from below; seven or eight patrol disciples carrying torches were closing in. As Shen Yi folded the diagram, the star-veined orchid’s vines automatically wove themselves into a rope ladder hanging outside the window. The moment he leapt out, the champion’s medallion in his chest emitted a dragon-like hum, and the Nine Nether sigil inside the jade began to consume the tracking talisman in his sleeve.

As moonlight washed over the eaves, Shen Yi saw nine lotus lanterns suspended in the night sky toward the Medicine King Valley. He stroked the tooth marks Gao Yao had left on the orchid leaf and pressed the blood-stained jade pendant onto the tracking talisman even as it was being devoured. When both the pendant and the talisman dissolved into fine dust, a clear whistle echoed from the southeast—the sound of the silver butterfly hairpin piercing the air.

As moonlight spilled across the lattice windows, Shen Yi wrapped the torn array diagram into a scroll using the orchid leaf. The bronze bell at the corner of the eaves chimed without wind; he flicked three pebbles soaked in spirit spring water, perfectly shattering the three ice-soul needles flying at him from the southeast.

"Senior Brother Shen has quite the agile hand," Leng Xuan stepped out from the shadows of the corridor, his newly replaced black jade tablet gleaming against the silver-threaded cloud patterns of his robes. "I only wonder if the crime of sneaking into the library is worth the value of half an array diagram?"

Shen Yi’s fingertips brushed the star-veined orchid vines hanging by the window, and the tooth marks left by Gao Yao began to glow with a pink light. As the seventh leaf spontaneously ignited without fire, the protective barrier of the entire library let out a sharp sound like a snapped string. Before Leng Xuan could crush his communication talisman, he saw Shen Yi leap into the falling ashes—the scorched remains miraculously transformed into thousands of silver butterflies, fluttering down to settle upon the celadon jade crown in his hair.

"Senior Brother Leng should worry about the butterfly gu on his own crown first." As Shen Yi’s laughter drifted on the night breeze, Leng Xuan discovered in horror that his jade crown was devouring his own hair. He stumbled back, knocking over a candle stand, failing to notice that the half-leaf of the star-veined orchid Shen Yi had intentionally left on the windowsill was projecting the entire farce in real-time onto the copper mirror in the dining hall.

The following morning at dawn, Shen Yi shouldered his vine-covered hoe and kicked open the doors to the Spirit Plant Pavilion. The moonlight grass inside the twelve glass domes swayed in unison, casting dappled light onto the coarse hemp tunic he had deliberately donned. As the gem appraisers from seven different sects were "accidentally" led to this spot, they witnessed him channeling his energy with one hand to summon the Samadhi True Fire, the tongues of flame licking the millennium-old cold marrow churning inside a bronze tripod.

"Is this not the decoction for the Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Pill..." Before the white-bearded elder of the Medicine King Valley could finish his sentence, Shen Yi dumped the entire basket of star-veined orchids into the tripod. Amidst the explosive roar of ice meeting fire, the thirty-six spirit plants coalesced into a Taiji pattern at the mouth of the vessel, with every leaf displaying the comical sight of Leng Xuan’s head sprouting butterflies from the previous night.

As the crowd erupted in gasps of awe, Shen Yi wiped the sweat from his forehead. A system prompt quietly appeared at the bottom of the bronze tripod: [Tit-for-Tat mission completed, reward: Grade 9 Twin Lotus Seed x1].

He hid his smile behind the pretense of adding firewood, only to hear the crisp sound of bead curtains colliding behind him.

"Brother Shen!" Gao Yao lifted her skirt and stepped over the threshold, her apricot-colored shawl brushing against the bellflowers hanging from the beams. When she saw the twin lotuses blooming in the tripod, her eyes shimmered with watery light. "I knew those rumors..."

Shen Yi deliberately used his soil-stained hand to receive the handkerchief she offered; as their fingertips touched, the star-veined orchid suddenly wound itself into a red cord between their wrists. Gao Yao’s ears turned crimson, but she did not pull away; instead, she stuffed a box of Yaoguang Peak’s secret jade marrow ointment into his arms. "The Discipline Elder had a relapse of an old ailment this morning; I fear he won't be able to hold a brush to write reprimands for at least three months."

Behind them, the sound of a jade slip hitting the floor rang out. The witnesses from the five sects were busy documenting the miraculous manifestation of the spirit plants, and no one noticed that the spy sent by Leng Xuan was having his ankles bound by the roots of the star-veined orchid. When Shen Yi pretended to accidentally knock over a bottle of cold marrow, the spilled liquid extinguished the image-recording talisman hidden in that man’s sleeve.

As dusk gathered, Shen Yi crouched by the spirit field, munching on the peach blossom pastries Gao Yao had brought him. The lotus seed newly acquired in the system space was absorbing the energy of the backlash from the rumors, when suddenly, cool, soft hands covered his blood-scabbed knuckles.

"Actually, I..." Gao Yao knelt beside him, the antennae of the silver butterfly hairpin in her hair gently sweeping against his neck. "That day, the elders said the star-veined orchid requires the blood of lovers to bloom as twins..."

Shen Yi suddenly stuffed half a pastry into her mouth. Sensing their simultaneously quickening heartbeats, the orchid vines instantly bloomed into a path of twin flowers across the field. When the pursuing disciples of Yaoguang Peak saw this omen, Gao Yao was already blushing furiously as she slammed a package of poison scriptures into Shen Yi’s chest. "You rogue! If you don’t cultivate a spirit plant that can suppress the blood silkworm gu by tomorrow, I’ll plant you in the medicine field as fertilizer!"

At the stroke of midnight, Shen Yi rubbed the lotus seed rewarded by the system. A paper crane landed on the windowsill; upon unfolding it, he found it was a wedding invitation soaked in datura juice. As he channeled his spiritual energy to decipher the writing, the invitation suddenly displayed an image of Gao Yao trapped on the awards podium, and where the names of the bride and groom should have been, the pattern of the twin lotus he had refined that morning appeared in stark detail.

"Does Fellow Daoist Shen like this wedding gift?" A voice that sounded neither male nor female echoed from the void. Just as the star-veined orchid in Shen Yi’s sleeve prepared to strike, the entire invitation spontaneously combusted into green smoke. The smoke coalesced into half a woman’s face among the rafters, the blood mole between her brows identical to the pattern on Leng Xuan’s jade tablet.

As the watchman struck the third drum of the night, Shen Yi buried the lotus seed into a clay pot containing the feathers from Leng Xuan’s crown. The moment the moonlight pierced the window paper, he saw his own shadow on the wall suddenly grow nine fox tails—and the system interface flashed a crimson warning: [Detected abnormal fluctuation in the thread of fate, please redeem the Heart-Protecting Lotus immediately...]