Xiao Menglan’s Inner Demon

When her golden finger had just arrived, the five initial simulation chances were already completely used up before Cao Xueyan went to the Hall of Affairs to meet the elder.

But now, where did this extra one on her panel come from?

Thinking carefully, had she done something special, or touched some particular object?

After much thought, Cao Xueyan felt there was only one possibility.

Don’t forget, her golden finger called itself an “Immortal Cultivation Love Simulator.”

Immortal cultivation was secondary—romance was the true goal.

In other words, the real purpose of this simulator was to make her get close and intimate with other women!

In the ten years since she entered the sect, Cao Xueyan had rarely interacted with others. Luckily, her fellow disciples were mostly busy cultivating, so no one thought her behavior strange.

In fact, in this survival-of-the-fittest cultivation world, there were many even more withdrawn than Cao Xueyan.

However, her one and only intimate contact with another was just now in the Dao arena, when Xiao Menglan did those inexplicable things to her.

To be honest, there was nothing unusual about two women doing such a thing.

But the problem was—she was a girl!

Even more importantly, Xiao Menglan was also a girl!

Didn’t that make the chemistry reaction inevitable?

So the truth was, because she had been physically close with another woman in reality, the simulator increased her simulation count.

From now on, whenever she wanted to activate her golden finger, it would always be tied to women.

Why did that explanation sound so strange?

It made her sound like some lustful demon.

Bah, bah, bah! It was all this “Immortal Cultivation Love Simulator’s” fault.

She, Cao Xueyan, had originally been such a pure and simple person!

Now that she had figured out how her golden finger worked, although it was somewhat embarrassing, at least it solved her biggest worry.

Taking The True Explanation of the Dao of Talismans out from her storage pouch, she thought—her cultivation could rely on the simulator.

As long as she earned a few cultivation points each day, it would be as if she had cultivated herself.

The most important thing now was to quickly get started with the Dao of Talismans and firmly secure her position at the thigh of a Golden Core cultivator.

Opening the first page, a series of profound rune patterns filled her vision, and staring at them too long even made her dizzy.

“Why does this feel like doing math problems in my previous life?” Cao Xueyan muttered, putting the book down and rubbing her aching temples.

To learn alchemy, one started by recognizing herbs.

To learn artifact forging, one started by getting familiar with metals.

And to learn talisman crafting, one started by copying rune patterns.

These runes weren’t created from nothing—most of them had been inherited from ancient cultivators.

But now, the runes used by modern talisman masters were vastly different from those ancient ones.

The reason was simple—ancient talismanic traditions had been broken and incomplete.

That made it extremely difficult for present-day talisman masters to understand ancient runes.

Over thousands of years, they had gradually simplified them, turning those obscure glyphs into the forms she now saw.

This was equivalent to turning university-level advanced mathematics into middle school math, lowering the difficulty significantly.

But the problem was—Cao Xueyan couldn’t even understand middle school math.

In other words, this book in her hands, The True Explanation of the Dao of Talismans, left her completely lost.

Fortunately, here and there she could see Xiao Menglan’s handwritten notes and annotations.

When flipping the pages, she could even faintly smell the special ink fragrance on the writing, identical to the scent that came from Xiao Menglan herself.

With this, she could barely manage to continue studying.

While Cao Xueyan was struggling with The True Explanation of the Dao of Talismans, on the other side, Xiao Menglan was also troubled.

After watching Cao Xueyan leave, Xiao Menglan, with nothing better to do, moved with a single thought—shrinking the ground to inches, and in one step crossed several miles to a peach grove.

Recently, she often liked to wander here to clear her heart.

She had thought that after meeting Cao Xueyan, who resembled her departed Dao partner, some of her grief would ease.

But instead, after sending Cao Xueyan away, her longing swelled even more, like floodwaters about to burst.

“Alas, Ruyu, Ruyu…” Xiao Menglan murmured, just as she had countless nights over the past hundred years, tossing and turning with the same whispered name.

“Is she really you? If not, why does she look so much like you? Fate is cruel—taking you away, only to let me meet her. What a torment…”

The lingering intimacy she just had with Cao Xueyan—was it uncontrollable passion, or deliberate?

Xiao Menglan did not know, and she could not tell.

“Supreme Forgetting of Love, Supreme Forgetting of Love”—her senior brothers and sisters had told her countless times.

If she wished to progress further along the path of immortality, she must forget that person.

But Xiao Menglan did not want to forget.

At that moment, as Xiao Menglan’s thoughts turned sorrowful, a gentle male voice spoke by her ear.

“Senior sister, why do you sigh here? Have you encountered some difficulty in cultivation?”

Following the sound, Xiao Menglan saw peach blossoms on the ground swirl up in the air, lifted by invisible spiritual power.

From them slowly appeared a figure—white-haired, youthful-faced, dressed in robes of pink and white, holding a feather fan, graceful as an immortal.

“Just moved by the scenery. But you, junior brother, why aren’t you stationed at the formation peak? What brings you here?” Xiao Menglan’s tone was calm, neither warm nor cold, but held a faint sense of distance.

The man who came stepping on petals only laughed lightly: “Senior sister’s words are too harsh. Can’t I come wander here when I have nothing to do?”

Xiao Menglan said slowly, “This grove was gifted to me a century ago by our sect master senior sister. Junior brother, to come here unannounced—is that not discourteous?”

“Why so distant, when we are fellow disciples?” the man replied with a pitiful expression.

A tall, grown man acting so affected was partly due to his cultivation method, but also somewhat because of Xiao Menglan.

They had been fellow disciples for centuries, and the man had secretly loved Xiao Menglan all those years.

Back when Xiao Menglan and Wen Ruyu were known as the Twin Prides of Qingyun, he was content to be the quiet leaf beneath their brilliance.

But after Wen Ruyu’s death, an idea long buried in his heart began to revive.

As years passed, it grew into a towering tree that consumed his heart.

The figure that had once stood by her side was gone, never to return.

So why couldn’t that person be him?

“Junior Brother Lu, I have long since turned to the Dao of Supreme Forgetting. I understand your feelings, but I am sorry, I cannot respond to them.”

The man, Lu Jiansheng, stepped forward in agitation: “But I just heard—you brought a female disciple back to your peak. That disciple’s features greatly resemble the late Senior Sister Wen. How do you explain that? Senior sister, you—”

Xiao Menglan’s expression instantly turned cold.

“Lu Jiansheng! You’ve crossed the line!”

“You can’t forget her, senior sister.” Lu Jiansheng, instead, grew calm.

“You never once forgot Senior Sister Wen. Your ‘Supreme Forgetting of Love’—that’s a lie to me, to the sect master, and even to yourself!”

“Enough!” Xiao Menglan’s teeth clenched.

“Say no more!”

“Senior sister!” Lu Jiansheng’s voice trembled.

“This is a heart demon! Nine-turn Golden Core—each turn is a tribulation. If your heart has flaws, how would the heavens ever spare you during your tribulation? Even if you feel nothing for me, at least think of Sect Master senior sister. Wen Ruyu’s death pained her as well.

We four were once disciples together, now only three remain.

If you are destroyed under the heavenly tribulation, then—”

“Enough. As for Sect Master senior sister, I will explain it myself. This matter—you must not interfere again.” Xiao Menglan lowered her eyes.

Seeing his words had no effect, Lu Jiansheng said nothing more.

He only gazed deeply at Xiao Menglan’s figure, then turned and vanished into a rain of blossoms.

In the peach grove, the Golden Core cultivator whom others saw as dazzling and peerless now wept like rain.