"What are you doing here? Are you okay? What happened?" After the initial joy, Lin Yue immediately bombarded Lin Wan with questions.
"I..." Lin Wan didn't know how to answer those questions. She hesitated for a long time before just shaking her head.
"I am fine." Biting her lips, she gently caressed Lin Yue's face with a painful expression. "Why... Why did you come here?"
Looking at their miserable state, she immediately wanted to rush back and fight the entire Duality sect to death, but she managed to hold back that thought. Unlike Lin Yue, who still seems to be taking the Duality sect lightly, she was well aware of the true terror of this place. Even if she wanted to fight and seek justice, she wasn't qualified to do so. Just the so-called saintess of the Duality sect was enough to completely wipe out their Yuyang City, much less the elders and leaders.
"We are here to rescue you." The moment Lin Yue replied, Xiao Ruolan added further.
"Or so we thought."
"...." Lin Yue gave her a quiet death glare before focusing back on Lin Wan in front of her. "But how are you here? What happened after you were kidnapped? Why were you kidnapped?"
Listening to her rapid questions, Lin Wan was having a headache. In the end, she just took a deep breath before giving her an explanation.
"Oh! About that... They mistook me for someone else."
"And when the misunderstanding was cleared, they gave me an offer to join the Duality sect as an apology."
"Uh!?" Both Lin Yue and Xiao Ruolan just frowned in response. They had a feeling that the truth wasn't so simple, but since the other party wasn't willing to reveal it to them, they had to accept it as the truth.
"Now what?" It was Xiao Ruolan who spoke this time.
Their biggest worry was the safety of Lin Wan. And now that the other party was completely safe and sound, they didn't know what to do next. Their entire plan was to rescue her. But now that she has joined the sect, what were they supposed to do? They couldn't possibly take her by force, could they?
"I will explain to the elders and leader that this is a misunderstanding." With a bitter smile, Lin Wan gently patted her on the head.
"...."
"...."
Neither Lin Yue nor Xiao Ruolan spoke a word. They just sat there in silence.
"I will be back soon." The more she looked at them in this state, the more her heart ached. Without waiting for them to reply, she stood up and left the room.
It wasn't until a few minutes had passed after her departure that Lin Yue broke the silence.
"Do you think she is being coerced?" It was clear from the way she talked and her half-baked story about joining the Daulity sect that she was lying. But whether it was to save them or for any other reason, she didn't know.
"Hmm." Surprisingly, Xiao Ruolan nodded in response. She, too, felt that the Lin Wan of today seemed out of place.
"Let's wait." There was nothing they could do at the moment other than to wait. As for the matter of escaping here on their own... they had given up on that foolish idea.
Lin Wan, after exiting the room, slowly made her way to the place where she was staying. With every step, the previous expression of worry and heartache disappeared, replaced by a terrifyingly calm, murderous aura. By the time she reached in front of the house, her face turned expressionless.
Without wasting another second, she stepped inside and looked at the woman sitting there with a leisurely pose.
"Why did you do it?" Even though her voice seemed calm, one could feel the monstrous rage behind it. She had just seen the state of her two best friends... people she considers her sisters. To treat them in such an inhumane way...
"You could have just captured them and put them in prison. Why go to such lengths to humiliate them?"
"No reason.' Cang Yue completely disregarded her rage before giving her a shrug. "I just wanted to see what would happen."
The moment she finished speaking, Lin Wan suddenly pounced towards her before raising her hand and chopping it down to her head with all her might.
Her action was so sudden and so out of place that anyone would have been taken aback. But not Cang Yue.
She just raised an eye before a smile ran across her face.
In her eyes, Lin Wan was full of openings. And with the gap between the two of them, she didn't even need to use her strength.
Just when Lin Wan's hand was half a foot above her head, Cang Yue raised her hand before pointing a finger up.
"...."
There was no earth-shattering noise or any devastating outcome. Just the scene of Cang Yue blocking Lin Wan's all-out attack with her finger.
Looking at her effortlessly blocking her attack, Lin Wan jumped back before clenching her fists tightly. Within a few moments, her entire fist began to glow red as if she were holding a ball of fire. She then jumped again, but this time didn't engage in close combat. Instead, the moment she was at a distance of one meter, she flung her fist and with it, a burst of internal energy bombarded Cang Yue.
If it were an ordinary person or even someone in the realm of Foundation forging, they would have exploded like a watermelon.
Cang Yue, on the other hand, just clenched her fingers in the shape of a claw before grabbing the translucent ball of internal energy and twisting it, making it disappear completely.
"Do you have any other move that you haven't tried?" There was no change in her expression as Cang Yue spoke. It was as if whatever had just happened was extremely insignificant.
"..." Lin Wan just clenched her fists and was about to pour her entire internal energy into the next attack. But before she could do it, she felt a wave of dizziness.
"Ugh!" Gritting her teeth, she looked at Cang Yue with struggle only to see her waving her fingers in the air, as if she was playing an instrument, and with that, her consciousness plunged into darkness.
"Just sleep. I can take care of my own business." Picking up Lin Wan from the floor, Cang Yue put her on the bed before gently caressing her face.
---------
On the other side, Yang Ze finally ended his practice that lasted an entire night. Feeling a few extra strands of internal energy in his body and his internal organs being nourished, he just shook his head.
"Still too slow." Were it any other time, he would have been ecstatic with the progress. But the current him didn't have the luxury to do so. He was surrounded by people who either wanted to take advantage of him or wanted him dead. Either way, his future didn't look bright. He needed to get as strong as fast as possible.
"And this doghsit system."
His system was the so-called 'sign-in' with two functions. The first one was that he could sign in to other people's talents. And the second was that he could do a normal sign-in at special places.
But no matter which place he chose, the second sign-in option never appeared in front of him. Be it Yuyang City, be it Stonegate City or be it the current Duality Sect... The option to sign in never appeared after it gave him the so-called 'Supreme Dao Body'. He couldn't help but wonder if it was just a one-time thing to push him into a pit.
"Forget it." Shaking his head, he just looked around. The 'Enlightenment' had a twenty-four-hour cooldown. And there was no other person coming here to talk to him.
He didn't even know why he was staying in this place. In a sense, it was like a house arrest, but why would they put someone like him under a house arrest? His identity was that of a mere slave. And if that wasn't enough, he was a man.... an extremely ordinary looking man. Why would they waste so much effort on him? Wasn't it better to just put him in some kind of prison or just throw him out of the sect?
He just sat there in silence... With no one visiting him and nowhere to go, he could only grit his teeth and go into another session of practice.
....
Four days passed like that, and other than a woman who came to hand him the fasting pills, there wasn't another person he saw. Even the woman who came didn't have any decent talents. The only thing he got was the Pulse Opening Pill that he used the moment she left.
After two days of hard work and with the double blessings of both his talent 'Enlightenment' and 'Persistence', the strands inside his dantian had already reached more than fifty. He was sure that in the next three or four days, he could condense a full one hundred strands and finally step into the Late-stage of Pulse opening.
But, alas! His dream was shattered on the third day when the woman who handed him the fasting pills came again, but this time with a message.
"Saintess wants to see you."
Listening to her, Yang Ze felt a thump in his heart. From the little interaction he had with Cang Yue, he already had a rough guess about her personality. She was a willful and extremely unpredictable woman. No one knows what she might do next.
He didn't want to interact with such a person. But the current him had no choice.
Gritting his teeth, he gave her a nod before quietly following her.
It didn't take long for the two of them to arrive in front of the familiar hall.
"You can head inside." After bowing towards the house, the woman quietly left the scene.
Yang Ze, on the other hand, took a deep breath and stepped inside. He didn't know what she wanted with him, but he had a feeling that it wasn't something good.
"Oh! You are here?" The moment he entered the room, Yang Ze heard Cang Yue's soft voice as his eyes went wide with disbelief.
It wasn't the woman who shocked him. Instead, it was the intertwined figures of Lin Yue and Xiao Ruolan who were stuck together with chains hooking their nipples to each other's. The two of them were almost sticking to each other with flushed faces while desperately trying to endure the pain.
"Now then..." With a smile, Cang Yue threw the familiar wooden board to him.
"I have a task for you...."