A brilliant strategy shatters the conspiracy, and Shen Yi’s renown commands the Celestial Court.

As dusk seeped into the bluestone steps of Yaoguang Peak, Shen Yi squatted by the herb garden, a foxtail grass blade clenched between his teeth. His fingers brushed over three newly sprouted Seven-Star Lotus plants, whose leaves suddenly curled into needle-like points—clear signs of poisoning by the Sword-Eating Grass toxin.

"That's the seventh spot," he murmured, crushing a leaf between his fingers. The purple-black sap oozed through his skin, releasing a faint azure smoke.

Soft footsteps approached from behind. Gao Yao stood outside the fence, holding a basket of herbs, her skirt hem frosted with dew crystals.

"The Enforcement Hall claims the abnormality in the herb field is due to improper spiritual fertilizer composition," she said softly, setting the basket on the bluestone slab. Beneath it lay a blood-stained bandage. "Two more night patrol disciples were attacked on the back mountain this morning. The cracks on their swords..."

Suddenly, Shen Yi reached out, pulling loose the emerald silk that bound her hair. Strands drifted onto the Seven-Star Lotus leaves, instantly shredded to powder. "Don't move." His fingertips shimmered with pale golden spiritual light as he plucked half a honeysuckle petal mottled with purple spots from her hair. "Even the North Cliff you frequent is laced with poisonous miasma."

Gao Yao gazed at his blood blistered palm—the mark left three days ago when he extracted poison to aid an injured disciple.

At that moment, the bronze bell of the Enforcement Hall tolled twelve times, startling the gray sparrows eavesdropping outside the herb garden. The Seven-Star Lotus trembled with each chime.

"Another trial of the Immortal Assembly?" Shen Yi chuckled, casually stuffing the poisonous petal into the jade gourd at his waist. "Last time they accused me of stealing spiritual fertilizer; this time, they'll probably slander me for colluding with demonic cultivators."

Before he finished, hurried footsteps echoed from the mountain path.

Haoyu burst in, carrying a mud-stained hoe, his trouser legs tangled with dark red vines. "Quick, get rid of your Demonic Vine!"

"The Enforcement Hall just found traces of demonic energy by the Jade Pool, and the whole sect is saying your demonic plants are causing trouble!"

An eerie silence fell over the herb garden.

Shen Yi watched Gao Yao’s face pale instantly. His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he only tossed the jade gourd to Haoyu. "Hide this in the incense of the Frost Pavilion. Remember to light it with the Azure Phoenix flame."

"You’re going to confront them directly?"

"I want the Sword-Eating Grass she raised with her own hands to turn against its master."

---

Three days later, as a light rain drifted over the Sword Forum Platform, Shen Yi stood surrounded by twenty-three Enforcement disciples within the Evil-Slaying Formation.

Elder Xuanfeng gripped a half-circle demon-patterned compass, his expression grave. The Frost Silk from the Frost Pavilion hovered above him, ready to strangle any "demonic conspirators."

"This was found hidden in your chamber. How do you explain?" Elder Xuanfeng snapped his fingers to activate the compass, revealing purple markings identical in origin to the Sword-Eating Grass toxin on its bronze surface.

Shen Yi suddenly grasped the Frost Silk, blood dripping from silver threads onto the formation’s core. "Elder, perhaps you should examine the carvings on the back of the compass." As he flipped it, a shadow stone concealed in a secret compartment projected an image—Frost’s maid dousing the roots of the Demonic Vine with poison.

The crowd murmured in shock, and Gao Yao rushed into the formation clutching an herb manual. "The mutation in the Sword-Eating Grass requires nurturing with demonic blood. This is the record of spiritual beast blood Sister Frost collected last month!" The scroll she unfurled showed vermilion figures marking an amount three barrels short of what was actually used.

Frost’s Frost Silk suddenly shifted direction, aiming at Gao Yao. Shen Yi caught the blade barehanded as a Demonic Vine seed hidden in his sleeve sprouted violently.

As the demonic plant grew wildly, it drew in the demonic energy surrounding the compass, corroding cracks into Frost’s protective aura.

"Enough!" Elder Xuanfeng waved his sleeve, dispelling the demonic energy. He stared silently at the demon mark on Frost’s wrist. "Confine her to the Frost Splendor Hall, pending the arrival of the Immortal Alliance envoy..."

---

As Shen Yi wiped blood from his mouth and turned, he glimpsed the faint blue glow of a communication jade talisman crushed in Frost’s hand.

Gao Yao’s hand trembled as she bandaged his wound—the same eerie blue as the strange fireflies at Yaoguang Peak that night.

"Does it hurt?" She chewed a blood-congealing herb and pressed it onto his palm, unaware her tears mixed with the salve soaking into the cut.

Shen Yi looked toward the gathering dark clouds and, with bloodied fingertips, drew a talisman on her palm.

"What’s that?"

"A spell to make the Sword-Eating Grass bloom." His smile was sly as a fox stealing meat. As he turned, his robe brushed away a listening talisman on the steps. "When the flowers cover the Frost Splendor Hall, Sister Frost will have to move out."

---

At nightfall, Haoyu was rinsing his hoe by the Jade Pool when he noticed a bronze plate engraved with demonic patterns lying at the bottom.

Just as he reached for it, Shen Yi’s lazy voice came from behind: "Leave it for fishing. Maybe we’ll catch something bigger."

The starry sky reflected on the water suddenly warped as countless eerie blue fireflies drifted from Frost’s pavilion toward the forbidden area.

Shen Yi stroked the new poisonous seeds forming inside the gourd, hearing Gao Yao’s grinding in the herb hut suddenly halt—she must have found another herb tainted with demonic energy.

Before dawn had cleared, Shen Yi was already crouched beneath the crooked willow by the Jade Pool.

He traced with his fingers the demon pattern he had rubbings of from the bronze plate. Moisture spread on the stone like an ancient rune.

"I’ve seen this pattern in the black market," Haoyu said, leaning over with his hoe dripping dew, his wine gourd jingling at his waist. "A demon-sealing monument unearthed in the southern border three years ago. The fierceness pattern matches this one by seventy percent."

Suddenly Shen Yi pressed the rubbing paper against the willow’s bark. As morning light filtered through, the demon pattern flowed across the bark in a blood-red network.

A muffled sound of dragging chains came from deep within the tree, startling the koi fish to scatter.

"Interesting," he flicked away a root curling around his wrist. "At midnight tonight, bring your broken formation hoe."

---

When the crescent moon climbed the Frost Splendor Hall eaves, two shadows pressed against the forbidden area’s barrier.

Haoyu’s hoe snagged on a crack in the barrier. Suddenly, the Demonic Vine burst from Shen Yi’s sleeve, dark purple tendrils entwining the bronze plate fragments, thrusting into the fissure. The collision of demonic energy and the barrier sparked eerie blue flames.

"Is the shadow stone ready?" Shen Yi grasped Haoyu’s shoulder. The carnivorous flower at the vine’s tip swallowed the flying magic fire in one bite.

A cold, mocking laugh echoed from within the barrier—Frost’s demon mark on her wrist absorbed the eighteen floating soul lamps inside the hall.

Haoyu’s hoe trembled violently, its blade reflecting the slowly emerging demonic shadow behind Frost.

Shen Yi’s pupils contracted sharply—the mark on the shadow’s forehead matched the demon pattern on the bronze plate rubbing exactly.

"Retreat!" He dragged Haoyu down the steps as a scorched crater exploded where they’d been standing.

Frost’s Frost Silk pierced the barrier in pursuit but was blasted back by the demonic energy surrounding the Demonic Vine, web-like cracks spreading rapidly across the fabric.

---

Three days later, the Sword Forum Platform buzzed with voices. Elder Xuanfeng stared at the evidence laid out on the desk, his frosted eyebrows knitted tightly.

Frost’s Frost Silk was wrapped around twelve shadow stones, each showing scenes of her conversing with the demonic shadow.

"The fabrication of these shadow stones is rather crude," Frost said, conjuring an ice blade at her fingertips. But Shen Yi suddenly scattered golden powder over the stones.

The mark on the demon’s forehead appeared clearly under the powder, identical down to the last detail with the ancient sealing totem on the Enforcement Hall’s altar.

Gao Yao hurried forward, clutching the herb manual. "The 'Compendium of Ten Thousand Poisons' records that when the Heart-Eating Demon parasitizes a host, the demon mark must be fed daily with spiritual beast blood." Her ledger circled in vermilion the thirty barrels of Icefield Wolf blood Frost had withdrawn that month.

The crowd stirred suddenly as several previously poisoned disciples revealed demon marks on their wrists.

Shen Yi flicked a seed from his fingertips. The Sword-Eating Grass bloomed a blood-red flower the instant it touched the ground, absorbing all the dissipating demonic energy.

The poisoned disciples vomited black blood, within which writhed the ice silkworm gu parasites bred by Frost.

"Anything else to say?" Elder Xuanfeng’s whisk swept a jade hairpin from Frost’s hair, dropping a demon crystal onto the stone steps.

The usually silent Spirit Physician stepped forward, piercing the demon crystal’s facade with a silver needle to reveal a pulsating demon heart inside.

Gao Yao suddenly grasped Shen Yi’s bleeding hand. A fresh ice blade wound had appeared on his webbed hand.

The young woman lowered her head, chewing the blood-congealing herb in her mouth. Her warm lips gently pressed against the wound, and Shen Yi’s ears flushed redder than the dawn.

"Speak if it hurts." Mist still clung to her lashes as her fingertips caressed his newly formed scab.

The murmurs below turned to gasps. The disciples who had spread rumors bowed their heads in shame—the wound was clear proof Shen Yi had caught the Frost Silk barehanded to protect his comrades.

When Elder Xuanfeng’s verdict echoed with the morning bell throughout the sect, Shen Yi leaned against the bamboo couch in the herb hut, gnawing on a spiritual fruit.

Haoyu fiddled with the resealed bronze plate, noticing a strange glow at its fractured edge. "This thing’s vibrating."

Outside, faint whispers stirred as new disciples crowded around the announcement board, exclaiming.

Shen Yi arranged fruit pits on the table into a broken formation. At its center was the demon pattern from the bronze plate. "I heard the final trial requires forming teams to explore the ancient secret realm?"

Gao Yao paused in her grinding, the crisp clack of pestle and mortar startling a bluebird beneath the eaves.

Turning, she collided with Shen Yi’s smiling gaze. His fingers, still fragrant with herbs, brushed a honeysuckle flower from her hair. "Bring plenty of antidote pills this time, hmm?"

As twilight deepened, Elder Xuanfeng stood before the forbidden ruins, the compass needle spinning wildly toward the Trial Valley.

A scroll slipped from his sleeve. The four blood-red characters "Nine Nether Trials" consumed the sealing ink, its last stroke coinciding perfectly with the crack in the bronze plate fragment.