Chapter 140: A Masterpiece with a Soul and Xiaoxiao’s Design Was Rejected??

The following month passed in a blur of intense, contrasting lives within the sect.

Down in the foul, suffocating depths of the southern valley, Lin Xiaoxiao’s world had shrunk to a relentless cycle of exhaustion and work.

Every morning, before the sun even cleared the horizon, she was knee deep in the toxic waste of the Black Rock Beast Pens. The iron skinned boars were aggressive and heavy, their bristly hides required hours of brutal scrubbing harshly with water that cracked the skin of her hands.

By the time her shift ended at midnight, her body ached in places she didn’t know existed, and her clothes reeked of beast watste and her sweat.

But she didn’t let herself sleep.

Returning to her tiny, damp cave house, she would light a cheap, flickering oil lamp. With trembling, blistered fingers, she would pick up her brush and work on the layout jade slip of the villa.

While other disciples designed grand, palaces covered in materials and arrays, Xiaoxiao designed with her heart.

She imagined what it would feel like to actually live there. She mapped out the flow of the spirit spring, channeling its warmth into indoor baths. She designed a cozy, private courtyard, specifically tailored for quieter evenings.

Every line was drawn with a desperate hope, her tears smudged the margins of her drafts.

High above her on the main peak, Yu Liang spent the month in deep, uninterrupted seclusion. Sitting cross legged in the cultivation room, he focused entirely on consolidating his Foundation Establishment realm.

With his resources at disposal, it provided a steady flow of pure medicinal energy, his spiritual sea expanded and stabilized.

The villa was no longer empty now. Lin Xuehan had moved into one of the side wings. Yu Liang had casually told her she might as well live there to ensure twenty four seven protection and she readily accepted the offer as no one would miss such experience.

For the first time in her life, the frosty sword goddess experienced what true luxury felt like. She didn’t have to worry about renting a high energy cave or fighting other disciples for a spot near a spiritual vein.

The spiritual energy in the Spirit Mist Villa was so dense it naturally nourished her meridians even while she slept. When she wasn’t meditating, she practiced her sword techniques in the courtyard, her purple robes fluttering like a lethal flower amidst the white spirit mist. Under this environment, her cold heart felt a strange, unfamiliar warmth.

When the one month deadline finally arrived, the outer sect mission hall was packed.

Lin Xiaoxiao stood in the long queue to submit her finished jade slip. She looked terrible. Her eyes were hollow and dark, her face was pale from sleep deprivation, and she wore a faded, oversized robe to hide the dirt stains from the mission.

"Step aside, peasant," a sharp voice sneered from behind.

Sun Ling and her gang pushed past, handing their beautifully polished jade slips to the disciple.

Sun Ling looked at Xiaoxiao’s haggard state and burst into a loud, mocking laugh. "Look at you! You look more like a corpse than a cultivator. Did you actually spend the whole month scribbling on that slip? What a waste of effort. Just looking at your face, I can tell your design is as trash as your background."

The bullies laughed loudly, throwing out insults as they walked away in high spirits, confident they had secured a spot in the top rankings.

Xiaoxiao said nothing.

She simply handed her worn slip to the registry disciple with dim eyes, and quietly walked back to her chores.

One day later, the mountain of submissions was delivered straight to the Villa. Over two hundred thousand jade slips were piled up in the grand hall, glowing like a field of fireflies.

"Young Master Yu, do you truly intend to look through all of these?" Lin Xuehan asked, staring at the mountain of work with a slight headache. "We could easily hire some outer sect elders to filter them for us."

"No, this is my house. I want to see them myself," Yu Liang grinned, sitting down on the floor. "But we need a fast system. We will project our divine sense through each slip. If it’s a generic gold and jade eyesore, we throw it out instantly. We must check every single one to make sure we don’t miss any hidden talent."

Normally, Yu Liang would have loved to bring in more people for this. The more people he could reward with money for helping him, the more system points he could potentially earn through his spending.

He could easily turn something like this into a large scale operation if he wanted to. But this time was different. These were people connected to his own house, and he wanted to personally see what kind of talents they possessed. He wasn’t interested in turning this into another money making opportunity.

For once, this was personal.

The process was incredibly tedious. For three days, Yu Liang and Lin Xuehan did nothing but scan slips. Over ninety percent of the designs were discarded within seconds. Most disciples had simply copied standard palace layouts or tried to squeeze as many expensive, mismatched materials into the space as possible, thinking it looked good.

By the fifth day, Lin Xuehan was rubbing her temples, her face looking slightly exhausted. "Young Master... my head feels like it’s about to split. I would rather fight three Core Formation spirit beasts than look at another marble pillar design."

Yu Liang laughed, picking up another slip. "Just a few more, Sister Lin. Don’t you know patience is a virtue."

He swept his divine sense into the worn, slightly smudged jade slip in his hand.

The moment his mind touched the design, Yu Liang’s smile froze. His eyes widened, and he sat up straight.

Unlike the thousands of superficial blueprints they had viewed, this design... It has a soul.

The creator hadn’t just placed everything randomly, they had understood the natural flow of the peak’s wind and water. The villa’s structure was balanced in every stroke. There was a private, beautifully made garden designed specifically for a partner to cultivate flowers, and the indoor hot spring was laid out to catch the morning sun perfectly.

It was cozy, elegant, incredibly practical, and carried an undeniable sense of home.

"Sister Lin, look at this," Yu Liang said, his voice filled with genuine astonishment as he passed the slip to her.

Lin Xuehan swept her sense through it. Her tired eyes instantly cleared, and a rare look of admiration appeared on her face. "This... coordination is flawless. They didn’t just throw bunch of materials together; they used the peak’s natural geography to enhance the view while keeping it comfortable. Whoever drew this actually understands what they are doing."

"We have a winner," Yu Liang declared on the spot with shining eyes. "This is the undisputed number one winner."

With the grand prize decided, the remaining week was spent quickly sorting the rest of the ranks.

On the eighth morning, the final results were officially posted on the mission boards of the outer sect inner sect and handyman area mission halls.

A massive crowd of disciples gathered, eagerly scanning the list.

"The top ninety winners are announced!"

Shouts of pure joy echoed through the halls as names were read. Disciples who made it to the top ninety rushed to the counters, their hands shaking with excitement as they received their bag of 10,000 Mid Grade Spiritual Stones. For many, this was a life changing sum that would make their cultivation easy for years.

Lin Xiaoxiao stood at the very back of the crowd, her heart hammering against her ribs. She slowly squeezed through the cheering people and looked up at the board.

She scanned the list of the top ninety names. She read it once, twice, three times.

Her name wasn’t there.

A crushing wave of disappointment washed over her, and the lingering hope in her chest instantly died out. Her eyes dimmed totally, turning dull and lifeless once more.

The thought of her being in the prestigious top ten never even crossed her mind, to her, those spots belonged to the genius designers of the inner sect.

She assumed her smudged blueprint had been thrown into the trash of pile alongside the other thousands of failures.

Clutching her blistered hands, Xiaoxiao dejectedly turned around and walked away from the celebrating crowd, heading back to her cave to prepare for another long day in the spirit beast area.