Senior Brother Zhu stirred from his meditation, rose slowly, and three pale cloud-patterns drifted quietly into view around his form.

He looked down at Shen Yi, and in a very soft voice began to intone an abstruse sequence of syllables.

"..."

The turbulent violence in Shen Yi's chest was flushed away by an inexplicable coolness, and the savagery that had begun to twist his expression settled somewhat.

Senior Brother Zhu drew Deep Abyss from Shen Yi's waist and placed the hilt in his palm, still wearing that same vacant, unhurried expression. "You... were too... hasty."

"My thanks, Senior Brother Skeleton."

Shen Yi let out a long breath. The red mist in his eyes receded quickly.

"Not... not at all." Senior Brother Zhu shook his head with a stutter.

At that, Shen Yi paused in thought for a moment. "Golden Body method."

It was as though those three words were some kind of switch — a measure of clarity returned to Senior Brother Zhu's expression, and his speech became more fluid. "I know a Mind-Clearing Incantation. If something feels wrong, just call out to me — but it's a minor technique, and relying on it too much will leave you dependent."

"You should still be working toward understanding the Suppression Word within the Golden Body method yourself."

"Understood."

Shen Yi nodded. He hadn't fully appreciated just how dangerous those wandering wills could be.

An ordinary person's mental impression meant little to a cultivator.

But when that number swelled into the tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people all at once... even he found it difficult to withstand.

With that experience behind him, Shen Yi continued feeding lifespan into the Golden Body method, carefully and deliberately.

Every few hundred years of lifespan poured in, he'd pause for a moment.

【Year 6,300 — You feel your soul packed full of wandering wills, one drop more and your mind would shatter entirely. You must suppress it all — but where to suppress it... and your gaze falls on Lady Qinghua beside you】

Reading the panel's prompt.

Pale-faced, Shen Yi suddenly had…