My Husband’s Ascension C28 (Part 2)
Chapter 28.2 What the Heart Desires
Nightfall at Divine Farmer Sect, Southern Region (南洲).
A guarding disciple stationed outside the mountain gate yawned widely. The long night was dull and monotonous, lulling him toward sleep as he leaned against the gate to rest. Suddenly, he heard the stirring of the wind.
“——Who goes there!?”
A heavy thud echoed as something hit the ground.
The guarding disciples exchanged wary glances and immediately prepared to activate the outermost protective formation, stepping cautiously toward the dark figure on the ground.
Still some distance away, the figure stirred, rising weakly as if carried by a wisp of breath.
His robe was of fine make, but beneath the silver hair, his face was smeared with dust and blood. He looked less like an immortal lord and more like a destitute beggar.
One disciple stepped forward and asked, “What brings you to Divine Farmer Sect in the dead of night?”
The man’s breathing was calm, his gaze cold and unyielding. He did not answer, merely dropping a brocade pouch at their feet.
The disciple picked it up and saw it was filled with top-grade spirit stones.
“So it’s for medical treatment,” he murmured, relaxing slightly.
It was no wonder they were on guard, the man, though covered in blood and wounds, carried an aura that did not suggest injury; it was more the presence of someone intent on killing.
“Please, Fellow Daoist, follow me inside.” A disciple summoned a simple stretcher, gesturing for him to lie down.“The hour is late. Kindly wait a moment, a Divine Farmer healer will attend to your injuries.”
The man glanced at the stretcher but wavered only slightly before stepping forward on his own.
“Have your Sect Master come see me.”
The disciple was caught off guard. “Goodness, why are you making this so difficult? It’s the middle of the night, and I’m doing you a favor, and yet you pick a fight? Do you really think Divine Farmer Sect lacks those spirit—”
A hand tugged at his sleeve urgently from behind.
“It’s the Single Intent Sword! That sword at his waist… it’s the Single Intent Sword!”
In the cultivation world, the name ‘Single Intent Sword’ struck more fear than the Dao Lords themselves. The disciple’s face went pale, and he bolted up the mountain toward the Sect Master's main peak without another word.
An incense stick later, the trembling disciples of Divine Farmer Sect escorted the silver-haired Dao Lord to the main peak.
“Hoho… as expected of the Single Intent Sword. Even with its master’s state, the sword’s presence alone can intimidate, scaring my timid disciples half to death.”
Sect Master Xie Li raised his gaze to the silver-haired Dao Lord before him. After a long moment, he asked, “How did you manage to regress an entire great realm in your cultivation?”
The bloodied youth walked steadily toward Xie Li. Though his meridians felt as if shattered, pain coursing through him like splintered glass, his expression remained calm, composed. Slowly, he reached the Sect Master and seated himself.
“Is there a way to mend this?”
Xie Li furrowed his brow, not answering directly. He raised a hand, letting strands of spiritual power entwine the Dao Lord’s wrist to probe his pulse, while the other hand pressed against his brow, tracing into the meridians of his body.
This probe, however, brought him an unexpected surprise.
“Your meridians are intact, your inner core stable… this isn’t an injury from battle?”
The pale lips moved slightly. “Correct.”
Xie Li wanted to ask further, but seeing that this Dao Lord, though calm in expression, carried a hint of warning and intimidation in his gaze, he abandoned the line of questioning.
Retracting the suspended strands, he summoned a disciple to fetch the Glacial Acupuncture Needles (寒冰银针).
The Glacial Acupuncture Needles of Divine Farmer Sect was an extraordinarily complex and demanding artifact, historically wielded almost exclusively by the Sect Master.
The needles glimmered like ice crystals. Xie Li sat cross-legged, eyes closed, manipulating the needles to pierce into the Dao Lord’s skull.
Spiritual energy coursed along the needles, converging and scattering within the Dao Lord’s spiritual sea, in the very vessel of his soul, as if on a search.
Sweat began to bead on Xie Li’s forehead.
After a long while, he finally opened his eyes. This time, his expression was far graver than when the Dao Lord had first arrived.
How problematic.
This was worse than a battle injury.
“How is it?”
The cold, glassy eyes met his with calm steadiness.
Xie Li’s lips curved into a cold, wry smile. “How is it? Your spiritual consciousness has split into two, each side evenly matched, locked in a stalemate. The Single Intent Sword has become ‘Divided Intent Sword’. It’s only natural you regressed in cultivation?”
For a cultivator, the spiritual consciousness is paramount.
Ordinarily, one might extend a fragment of it to probe the external world, but even a trace intercepted by another risks severe backlash.
Yet here he had cleaved his own in two.
Had he merely extracted a portion from the main consciousness, it might have caused no harm. But his division was so perfectly balanced that the two halves became equally powerful—a deadlock.
This could not have been achieved overnight.
And yet, as the foremost figure in the cultivation world, he knowingly undertook such a perilous act, forcibly splitting his spiritual consciousness. Perhaps there was something within his consciousness that disgusted him so deeply, he was willing to risk shattering himself.
Dao Lord Tianshu feigned deafness to his remark, speaking with an even tone as he continued to ask, “Tell me, how can this be resolved?”
Xie Li remained silent, allowing the tension to linger.
Seeing the deadlock, one of his disciples couldn’t help but step in and mediate, “Dao Lord needn’t worry. After all, this isn’t a flesh-and-bone injury. It’s a split spiritual consciousness. To unify the sword-heart and restore cultivation, the key lies within the Dao Lord himself…”
Xie Li lowered his gaze toward the disciple, and in his flickering, shadowed eyes, a certain obscure emotion glimmered.
“Am I to destroy that portion of my spiritual consciousness?”
Xie Li nearly fell over at the question.
Why not just suggest chopping off half his head?!
“No, no, no,” the disciple hurriedly interjected. “The spiritual consciousness is of utmost importance. It cannot be lightly destroyed. Dao Lord, you mustn’t jest.”
“Then how is it to be done?”
The disciple lifted his gaze to meet Xie Li’s. “If I may ask, Dao Lord, why did you separate that portion of your spiritual consciousness in the first place?”
A faint smile touched Dao Lord Tianshu’s lips. “Is that question truly important?”
“Of course it is. Your cultivation has diminished greatly because your mind pursues conflicting desires, incompatible as fire and water. If you refuse to confront your true intent and instead resort to forcibly excising a portion of your spiritual consciousness, it will inevitably trigger consequences beyond prediction—”
Conflicting desires, incompatible as fire and water.
He silently chewed over those words for a long moment before replying, “What I removed from my spiritual consciousness was the sentiment I held for a certain woman. It never truly belonged to me. If I excise it from my own being, what harm is there?”
Xie Li had heard of the Dao Lord’s three-year disappearance and the tale of a mortal woman he had once married.
With meaningful eyes, he remarked, “Perhaps that sentiment never belonged to you, but if it continues to emerge from your consciousness, flowing forth of its own accord, to whom then does this feeling truly belong?”
In Tianshu’s mind, images of the young woman surfaced unbidden: her steady steps up the endless stairway of Separation’s Regret Heaven, her fierce stance facing the Wu-Shaman of Mount Ling, and her form as she fought within the Blessed Land of Langhuan as a cultivator of the Divine Farmer Dao.
Her fervent, inexplicable affection—unyielding, wild, and stubbornly alive even under the harshest trials—stirred within the empty vessel of his consciousness. It brimmed with force eager to manifest.
“Admit it, Dao Lord,” Xie Li said, watching the young man lift his eyelids slowly. His normally cold, detached lashes trembled ever so slightly, betraying a flicker of emotion. “The Dao Heart remains unbreakable only when intent and heart are united. You harbor distractions, and refuse to acknowledge them. Don’t speak of restoring your cultivation; if you persist, you’ll eventually regress to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.”
Pausing for a moment, the silver-haired Dao Lord chuckled lightly, “Charlatan.”
Xie Li: ?
…
Under the dim night, the battered Dao Lord Tianshu walked out of Divine Farmer Sect.
It mattered not if Divine Farmer Sect could not resolve his issue. His cultivation remained at the twelfth stage of the Mystical Foundation Dao, still one of the strongest in the realm.
The moon hung high above, and he gazed southward.
Immortal Realm of Kunwu was situated to the north; heading that way ensures return by morning. There, he would ingest the pill that erased purities previously contracted in the secular world, erasing all traces of Xie Lanshu, and restore his mind to perfect unity, intent aligned without interference.
From that moment forth, he would only be Kunwu’s Dao Lord Tianshu—ruler of the cultivation realm, devoted solely to ascension, his mind free of all distractions.
That was the future he had sought with all his heart.
At his waist, the Single Intent Sword quivered faintly.
A fierce wind swept through the mountains; the sea of bamboo roared in waves, and for a brief instant, his gaze lost focus.
Was this truly…the future he desired?
Within his spiritual sea, countless fragments of memory flickered chaotically.
He had merely taken one step toward Kunwu, yet the surge of recollections came crashing in like a vast tide, like clouds rolling over the horizon, layer upon layer, drowning out every thought he tried to summon.
He turned his head and looked toward the southern sea.
It was neither Kunwu.
Nor ascension.
When the true answer finally surfaced in his mind, his Single Intent Sword had already cleaved through the night, landing at his feet.
Lowering his gaze, he looked at the sword.
The Single Intent Sword would never deceive its master.
He did not wish to return to Kunwu.
The place he longed for was the Jimo Sea, where she waited.
.
.
.
Author’s Note: Don’t misunderstand, it’s still the same person!
