Mu Jinyu's expression changed unpredictably, but she finally decided to seek their opinions.
Leaving the bamboo house and stepping out of the Secluded Valley, Mu Jinyu saw that the women had already packed up and were just about to return to the Secluded Valley.
Mu Jinyu stopped in her tracks, looked towards Jian Ruyan and Wen Rou, and said, "Eh, there's something you need to decide for yourselves, the effects of the Soul Shaping Pill are like this..."
After explaining the effects of the Soul Shaping Pill to the two women, Mu Jinyu asked, "Do you still want to take it?"
"Taking the Soul Shaping Pill will make our souls fit better with our current bodies? But there may be no way to change back later..." After listening to Mu Jinyu, Wen Rou frowned slightly, feeling some resistance in her heart.
After all, she still wanted to switch back to her own body; continuing this way was not a solution, she didn't want to live like a widow.
As for cultivation progress, she actually didn't care much about it.
Wen Rou's cultivation progress was the highest among the women, not because she was the most diligent, and compared to Gu Xiyan and Mei Yinxue in terms of effort, she still fell short.
It was purely because she had a good talent for cultivation, and she had been cultivating continuously only because Mu Jinyu required her to do so.
Her true wish was to quietly accompany Mu Jinyu, just like when they were flatmates, living their simple and uneventful lives together.
So, whether she could cultivate or not was something she didn't mind, but she didn't want to disappoint Mu Jinyu, and she didn't want to be a burden, which was why she still held some thoughts about cultivating.
However, Jian Ruyan also furrowed her brows, thinking that she couldn't possibly give up cultivation, she was very eager for strength!!
It wasn't just because she had had to part with Xiang Mantang due to lack of strength, but also because she wanted to break free from "their" control, and to seek revenge!
The reason she left the Kunlun Ruins to return to Huaxia and joined the Dragon King Hall was that she perceived no hope of escaping "their" control and thought of spending more time with her brother outside.
But now, by following Mu Jinyu, she felt as if she saw a hope to escape from "their" control and the possibility of taking revenge, which renewed her endless expectations for cultivation. She was not willing to go on like this, she still wanted to accompany her brother, she wanted to break free from "those people's" control and then live on with her family!
Without hesitation, Jian Ruyan said, "I want to cultivate. Even if it means giving up on returning to my own body, it doesn't matter to me anymore!"
Hearing Jian Ruyan's firm words, Mu Jinyu looked at her, saw an inexplicable flame in her eyes, felt moved, and hazarded a guess to something, but still couldn't agree with her outright, and then looked towards Wen Rou again.
In Wen Rou's heart, she was caught in a tug of war between not becoming a burden to Mu Jinyu and the inability to stay by his side.
Raising her head and seeing Mu Jinyu looking toward her, she thought she saw something in his eyes and pursed her lips, murmuring low, "I… I want to cultivate too..."
After she spoke, the various grievances she felt that day surged to her heart, tears welled up in her eyes, and she couldn't hold back her emotions. She flung herself into Mu Jinyu's arms, hugging him tightly and burying her head in his chest, sobbing.
Seeing this, Mu Jinyu stiffly held out his arms, carefully wrapped one hand around her waist to prevent her from falling, while the other hand gently patted her back. At the same time, his expression was a mix of embarrassment and helplessness as he looked towards Jian Ruyan beside him.
Fearing that she would take offense!
Jian Ruyan watched wide-eyed as Wen Rou threw herself into Mu Jinyu's arms with her own body, her heart filled with an indescribable taste, part resistance, part reluctance. After her lips quivered a few times, she ultimately remained silent.
After all, she knew that it was her own choice that had led Wen Rou to make such a decision. The inadvertent body swap had actually hurt Wen Rou the most; she was the one who was truly wronged.
And having made that decision just now, what right did she have to stop Wen Rou from getting close to Mu Jinyu with her own body?
Feeling extremely frustrated and hopeless, Jian Ruyan finally stepped forward without a word, passing by the embracing pair of Mu Jinyu and Wen Rou, and headed to her room in the Secluded Valley.
Mu Jinyu, while holding Wen Rou and gently patting her back to comfort her, turned his neck to watch Jian Ruyan pass by him towards the Secluded Valley, a bitter smile on his face.
He thought to himself that it would be less difficult if Jian Ruyan and Mu Hongchen had swapped bodies instead, given that both of them were single.
'Sigh, I still need to find a solution quickly to swap their bodies back,' Mu Jinyu mused silently.
It wasn't just because he didn't want Wen Rou to feel aggrieved and uncomfortable; he was also worried about explaining the situation to Xiang Mantang upon her return.
After comforting Wen Rou for a while, she finally came to her senses. She quickly got up from Mu Jinyu's embrace and stepped back a few paces, then looked around anxiously. Not seeing Jian Ruyan anywhere, she let out a slight sigh of relief, though she still looked somewhat apprehensive.
Mu Jinyu gave a bitter smile and consoled her, "It's okay, Little Yanzi doesn't seem to resist our closeness too much anymore, don't worry."
Upon hearing this, Wen Rou thought to herself that it didn't matter if she didn't resist this slight contact with him—there were many other things they still couldn't do.
However, Wen Rou was a woman who understood the bigger picture and didn't want to make things difficult for Mu Jinyu, so she forced a weak smile and said, "Okay, I understand. Go ahead with your alchemy."
Mu Jinyu looked at Wen Rou with a complex expression, then took a deep breath, walked over to kiss her forehead, smiled at her, and then returned to his room to practice alchemy.
Having had experience making the Soul Shaping Pill once before, it only took Mu Jinyu half a day this time to produce four or five batches of elixirs.
With a total of thirty pills, he gave fifteen each to Jian Ruyan and Wen Rou for them to start taking.
After returning to her bamboo hut, Jian Ruyan began to try cultivating to see if soul seizing really made cultivation difficult. Was it really so hard to make any progress at all?
Indeed, it was as she feared. Her cultivation speed, which was second only to Wen Rou among the women, had now slowed down significantly after seizing Wen Rou's body. When she practiced her cultivation technique, she felt the spiritual energy was sluggish and difficult to move through her meridians.
If her previous cultivation was like a floodgate bursting open, uncontrollable and powerful, now it was like a trickle of a stream, painfully slow, something she found hard to accept.
Of course, if she knew Nameless's speed of cultivation, she probably wouldn't think of this as being slow.
Because before Nameless got the Soul Shaping Pill, she was unable to refine any spiritual energy at all—it was as if her stream had completely dried up, and she could only hope for the occasional rainfall to prevent herself from declining.
When Jian Ruyan received the Soul Shaping Pills Mu Jinyu had distributed to her, she didn't hesitate much and immediately swallowed one. Then she resumed her cultivation, only to discover...