Chapter 18 Investigation

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Upon hearing the subsequent punishments for the Blood Pill Method, his heart skipped violently again. The refinement process of the Return to Origin Pill was exceptionally troublesome and difficult, didn't it contain things like live spider eggs? And then swallowing it with fresh blood...

He was now one hundred percent sure that what he had been using was the so-called Blood Pill Method!

Indeed... he had long felt that the recipe for the Return to Origin Pill was somewhat sinister from the inside out, clearly not the way of the alchemy of the Righteous Path. Now it seemed, it was indeed the case!

Lin Xin's heart thumped uncontrollably, and suddenly he felt a gaze settle on him. When he looked up, it was none other than Su Wan, who gave him a smirk before casually looking away.

"Could she have noticed!?"

Lin Xin's thoughts raced to An Ying, who also knew about his Return to Origin Pill. He glanced surreptitiously towards An Ying, and sure enough, the girl with the simple mind showed a hint of worry between her brows, glancing his way from time to time.

"Alright, are you willing to join my Plum Blossom Sect?" Nuyue, the Fairy, clearly sensed that the others were rather slow to react, assuming they were just excited and nervous about the opportunity to enter the Immortal Sect, and thought nothing of it. She turned her gaze to An Ying and asked.

"But I'm not from the Lin Family.... This was traded for by the old master of the Lin Family with a treasure..." An Ying honestly responded, though there was a yearning in her eyes, she did not conceal the truth.

"Not from the Lin Family, then you must be someone close to the Lin Family, no matter." Nuyue's eyes softened a great deal, beginning to take a liking to the girl. Faced with such an opportunity, yet still standing by her principles, that counted for much more than her talent.

An Ying sneaked a look at Lin Xin, and after receiving his affirmative gaze, her face immediately lit up with smiles.

"Then, I am willing!" She quickly knelt and gave a big kowtow.

There was no need to kowtow right now...

Nuyue wanted to speak, but before she could, the other party had already knelt and knocked her head on the ground nine times, prompting Nuyue to reveal a rare smile on her face.

"You child."

She shook her head helplessly and then looked towards Lin Xin.

"Are you willing to join my Plum Blossom Sect?"

Lin Xin's heart leapt with joy, knowing this was a critical moment for entry. With the chance at hand, he might as well join first and then worry later! As for the Blood Pill, maybe it wasn't that at all? And with his unique ability, even if his talent was lacking, there might still be a way to remedy it!

He knelt like An Ying had done.

"Disciple is willing..."

"Hold on!" Suddenly, Su Wan's voice came over again, interrupting Lin Xin's pledge.

Lin Xin felt a sinking sensation in his heart, his greatest concern being that Su Wan might have seen something amiss. But there was no way out now; he could only brace himself and wait for the two to speak.

"Does Sister Su Wan have any commands?" Nuyue asked with a slight frown.

Over there, Su Wan, who somehow now had a white dove in her hand, casually played with the bird while holding a small paper scroll—an obviously just-received carrier pigeon message—in her other hand.

"Nothing much, just that this young man seems a bit off to me..."

Su Wan said with a smile.

"Off?" The Immortal Master Nuyue frowned more deeply, her gaze shifting back to Lin Xin. She began to scrutinize him carefully.

Lin Xin's heart rose to his throat, and he dared not move, for fear of being found out.

As time slowly passed, the atmosphere solidified.

"Eh?" Suddenly, Nuyue gave a slight exclamation. She reached out and grabbed towards Lin Xin. "What's this?"

Lin Xin's heart plummeted, but he dared not make a move.

And couldn't move either. Unbeknownst to him, a faint invisible aura had already pinned him firmly to the ground, rendering him completely immobile.

"It's Blood Poison Qi!" Nuyue's voice suddenly rose.

Lin Xin's scalp tingled, and he was just about to speak up and confess.

"Just Blood Poison Qi?" Su Wan's voice came again from the other side.

"Indeed. It's not a Blood Pill..." Nuyue shook her head. With a flick of her finger, she extracted a thread-like red worm from Lin Xin's forehead. The worm writhed slightly in the air before dissolving into a red mist and disappearing without a trace.

"There, it should be fine now. It was a miasma poison left behind from a deep forest poisoning."

She looked at Lin Xin.

"Are you willing to join my Plum Blossom Sect?"

Lin Xin released a huge sigh of relief, feeling the invisible bindings dissipate, and hurriedly began to knock his head on the ground.

"I am willing..."

"Wait!!"

Su Wan's voice interrupted him again.

"This woman!!" Lin Xin became a bit anxious inwardly.

"Sister Su Wan, is there anything else?" Nuyue was somewhat dissatisfied now, looking up at Su Wan. Even though the other was a well-known genius of the Wind-Riding Sect with great strength, such interruptions in important matters of sect entry seemed out of place.

"I just feel that this young man's physique still seems a bit off..." Su Wan said, looking at Lin Xin with a half-smile.

"Still something off?" Nuyue frowned, examining Lin Xin even more closely. "Are you still concerned that his Inner Qi was fostered using the Blood Pill Method? Very well, I shall use a Decree to test it so that Sister can rest assured."

Su Wan smiled, and said nothing.

Nuyue spoke lightly.

"This technique is a Blood Pill testing method freshly devised by my uncle, and it has been tried on hundreds of cases without a single failure, though it does require some materials to use."

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Lin Xin's heart sank completely. If he still couldn't figure out whether he had cultivated the Blood Pill Method by now, then he was truly an idiot.

But at this moment, he still harbored a glimmer of hope, wishing that his supernatural ability could somehow influence this testing method.

In front of the two Immortal Masters, he couldn't move. All he could do was kneel upright on the ground.

Nuyue the Fairy pinched a decree with her left hand, her fingers flickering quickly and changing like a blooming lotus, while her other hand took out a golden needle from her waist pouch.

With a light pinch, the long needle broke into pieces by itself, turning into a cloud of golden powder that slowly fell down. Strangely, this golden powder began to spin around the decree in her left hand as if an invisible force was drawing it into a dance.

Soon, a fine golden circle appeared in front of Nuyue.

The decrees in her hand changed faster and faster.

The golden circle kept shrinking, from the size of a person's head, rapidly to the size of a palm, then to the size of a dumpling, and finally fused into a small golden sphere.

"Go!"

Nuyue abruptly stopped her decree, pointing her finger like a sword at Lin Xin's forehead.

Shh!

The golden sphere suddenly shot out a golden thread, piercing into Lin Xin's forehead.

The distance of a meter between the two seemed connected by this golden thread, from Nuyue's fingers to Lin Xin's forehead.

It was as if the golden thread was continuously transporting large amounts of golden powder into Lin Xin's forehead.

An Ying's fists tightened unconsciously, and the worry between her brows became more apparent.

The rest of the Lin Family still didn't understand what was happening, only marveling at such a miraculous display of Immortal Law; they couldn't even blink, trying hard to remember everything, as this was a rare spectacle in a lifetime for ordinary people.

Only Lin Zhiwen seemed to sense something, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter.

Lin Xin felt a slight sting in his forehead and couldn't help lifting his head to see the golden thread burrowing into his brow, like a warm current extending down his cheeks.

The Internal Energy Core in his chest also began to boil slowly as if activated by something, starting to move up towards his head, towards the golden thread.

Lin Xin himself could vaguely make out that numerous tiny blood spots were beginning to surface on his skin. This was one of the strange occurrences that happened to him after taking the Return to Origin Pill.

A thick scent of blood gradually emanated from his body.

And he also saw the increasingly cold expressions on Nuyue and Su Wan's faces, and his heart finally sank to rock bottom.

"It's over..." With an inward sigh of despair, Lin Xin completely gave up hope, knowing that there was no way he was going to join the Immortal Sect this time, and he might even be accused of deceiving the Immortal Masters.

The atmosphere grew increasingly tense.

Shh!!

The golden thread completed its journey, fully penetrating Lin Xin's forehead. He involuntarily experienced a sharp pain in his eyes and had to close them.

"Dare to deceive us!!" Suddenly, there was a fierce shout.

Then, he felt a pain all over his body. Lin Xin almost lost control of himself as his Qi-Blood convulsed violently, the golden thread's current and his Inner Qi crashed together.

With a whoosh, he opened his eyes only to see Nuyue the Fairy's face cold as frost, her palm striking towards him.

The rotating pale white stream in the palm was as distinct as real water. Just a few strands of qi the size of hairs already made him feel a tremendous threat of panic.

Lin Xin's eyes widened as his body instinctively tried to break free, but he was firmly bound to the ground by the invisible current.

Thump!!

Lin Xin was violently thrown backward.

Strangely, he felt no pain at all.

And the current that bound him also disappeared completely; he looked up in astonishment, only to see a mass of dark red foul blood splashed on the ground beside him.

What was terrifying was that the pool of foul blood was writhing on the ground as if it were alive, and within it, one could faintly see countless tiny white maggots.

Not only did the colors change on both Immortal Masters' faces, but even the people of the Lin Family cried out in shock.

At that moment, Su Wan leapt to his side, producing a small bottle from nowhere, tipping it upside down as clear water poured out onto the foul blood, causing a sizzling reaction as if sulfuric acid met water.

Soon the foul blood dried up quickly, turning into a pile of black ash.

Su Wan put away the small bottle with a serious expression.

"This is what I came here to investigate."

Nuyue walked over to him, her eyes equally grave.

"These creatures have already invaded this far?"

"Yes." Su Wan was no longer her previously relaxed self and glanced at Lin Xin. "Have you ever encountered some strange incidents in a certain place?"

Lin Xin got up from the ground, noticing a wound on his right shoulder from where the foul blood had flown. He was terrified and afraid. Just thinking about those maggots squirming inside his body made him shudder.

Upon hearing Su Wan's question, he immediately remembered. The mysterious woman he encountered in the woods, wasn't she the strange event Su Wan was asking about?

"Thank you to the two Immortal Masters for the rescue!" He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. "As for strange incidents, I once encountered a mysterious woman in a white dress in the dense forest."

"A woman in white?" Su Wan frowned. "What did she look like?"

"I couldn't see her face, but I saw her crying constantly. And no matter how I changed my angle, I could only see her back to me." Lin Xin quickly told them everything he knew.