Chapter 31 Part 2

Just then, coughs came from across the spring. The soaking cultivator suddenly hacked up blood, nearly slipping under. Her senior sister swiftly pulled her back, channeling energy: “Zhusheng!”

“What’s wrong?” Lu Mingyi stepped closer but kept distance, brow furrowed.

Now at Foundation Establishment, her perception sharpened; she noted the soaking cultivator’s wounds healing and venom receding, but her spiritual power remained chaotic.

The other woman’s face filled with sorrow as she murmured, “…An old ailment.”

An “old ailment” for someone so young? Lu Mingyi wondered inwardly, but didn’t pry.

The female cultivator quickly composed herself. After feeding her junior sister a pill to stabilize her condition, she clasped her hands in salute toward Lu Mingyi. “The situation was dire earlier, so I was rude. Fellow Daoist, your life-saving grace—we’ll never forget it as long as we live. If there’s ever anything you need in the future, the Southwest Lin Family and Zhao Family will surely lend our full support.”

“Southwest Lin Family?” Lu Mingyi’s eyes narrowed slightly at the name.

The woman slapped her forehead and pulled a jade token from her pocket to prove her identity. “Yes! Look at me—I got so excited I forgot the proper etiquette… Fellow Daoist, I’m Lin Chang, third daughter in the main branch of the Southwest Lin Family. This is my junior sister, Zhao Zhusheng from the Southwest Zhao Family. We’re both disciples of the Tianyan Sect.”

Lu Mingyi’s eyebrow arched.

The southwest region was filled with prominent families, but the Xiao Family, Lin Family, and Zhao Family stood out the most. And after Xiao Yuxie’s long-term efforts, the Lin and Zhao Families had grown quite close and harmonious with the Xiao Family.

She remembered the Lin Family only because during that trial at Pure Clarity Hall, the young mistress of the Southwest Lin Family—Lin Chang’s eldest sister—had done plenty to stir up trouble.

Lu Mingyi gently rubbed the Storage Ring on her finger. Today’s trip into this Secret Realm has truly been quite rewarding, she thought.

Wrongs had their perpetrators, debts their owners. She wouldn’t hold the young mistress’s actions against Lin Chang. But given her background, perhaps Lu Mingyi could take the initiative to fish for some information.

Just then, Lin Chang spoke up proactively. “Fellow Daoist, w-what’s your name? I don’t mean anything by it, but… you just broke through, right? I saw you at the Qi Refining Stage before, and now you’re already at Foundation Establishment Third Layer? What amazing talent!”

“It’s nothing. I’d actually broken through long ago; I just held off until now, inside this Secret Realm.” Lu Mingyi’s strikingly charismatic and captivating face curved into a faint smile, leaving even Lin Chang dazed for a moment. “I’m Jing Yao. Actually, you should be the ones thanking me for letting me come to this Spiritual Spring.”

“Ah, Fellow Daoist Jing is too polite.” Lin Chang’s ear tips flushed red as she waved her hands hastily. But mentioning the Spiritual Spring brought a soft sigh from her lips.

It turned out this Secret Realm wasn’t appearing for the first time. She and Zhao Zhusheng’s elders from their clans had entered it before and discovered this Spiritual Spring.

“Though my junior sister and I signed up for the Nine Provinces Grand Competition, our real goal this time was the Spiritual Spring, not the tournament itself. We never expected to get ambushed by that Golden Core Stage python on the way. Junior sister’s cultivation wasn’t enough, and I got careless and poisoned. We thought we were done for. Truly, thank you for saving our lives, Fellow Daoist Jing.”

Lin Chang clasped her hands in salute again.

Lu Mingyi smiled in response, but a question stirred in her mind.

Lin Chang and Zhao Zhusheng were both Tianyan Sect disciples from great clans—they shouldn’t lack heavenly treasures. Why ignore the once-in-a-century Nine Provinces Grand Competition to obsess over a Spiritual Spring?

A Spiritual Spring was valuable, sure, but all sorts of opportunities could arise in a Secret Realm. Why fixate on just one?

Lin Chang was clearly hiding something, but since she wasn’t saying, Lu Mingyi wouldn’t pry into irrelevant matters.

Instead, she said, “Fellow Daoist Lin, our meeting in this Secret Realm must be fate. My family is strict with me; I’ve rarely ventured out before. Coming to Jiangxia this time, I’ve heard all sorts of strange tales. Could I ask you some questions?”

Hearing Lu Mingyi mention “family discipline,” Lin Chang felt even more certain that this poised and elegant woman came from some hidden great clan. Her trust deepened. “Please, go ahead.”

“My ancestral home is in Jiangxia, but I moved away with my mother at a young age and have lived in the family estate ever since.” Lu Mingyi casually wove a backstory, her fingertip rubbing her Storage Ring. “After returning to Jiangxia, I heard… that the Taiqing Sect offers preferential treatment to cultivators from Jiangxia. And that this stems from an incident a hundred years ago?”

Lin Chang frowned slightly at the topic. “Mm, I know roughly what incident you’re referring to, but it’s been nearly two hundred years now. My eldest sister was studying at the Taiqing Sect back then, and that cultivator who died suddenly… it’s quite a tragic tale.”

Lu Mingyi had no interest in hearing others lament her pre-death fate.

The person’s already dead—what’s the point of sighing over it now? Where were you back then?

She smoothly cut in. “A friend told me about it, saying the cultivator’s death was awfully mysterious. I’ve always been fascinated by ghostly and supernatural tales. Does Fellow Daoist Lin know if that sudden death was really as bizarre as the rumors say?”

This time, Lin Chang pondered for a long while before shaking her head. “I heard this person had just survived a chaotic battle with the Demon Sect, wounds still fresh, when they suffered the Long Rainbow Sword Venerable’s Soul Search Technique at the Great Ascension Stage. Naturally, their body couldn’t hold out. It wasn’t as eerie and ghostly as the folk tales make it sound.”

My body was weak back then, sure, Lu Mingyi thought, but nowhere near death’s door!

Could it really be that Jiang Liuzhao’s Sleep-Inducing Spell had issues? Was she still uneasy about me and decided to finish the job?

Just as a shadow crept over Lu Mingyi’s heart, Lin Chang spoke again. “However, after that cultivator from the Taiqing Sect died suddenly, strange things kept happening there for a while.”

“Oh? Tell me more.” Lu Mingyi arched her brow.

“The most famous was three days after the cultivator’s death, when the Demon Sect mounted a comeback and clashed head-on with the Taiqing Sect, burning down Sword Peak, Talisman Peak, and Pill Peak. But amid it all, a pavilion on Sword Peak—that cultivator’s former residence—remained utterly unscathed!”

Lu Mingyi: “…”

She hadn’t expected her Jin Ji Pavilion to still be standing.

But the Demon Sect launching such a reckless assault on the Taiqing Sect, setting fires and even torching Sword Peak?

With Jiang Liuzhao, a Great Ascension Stage powerhouse, around? How was that possible?

Did the Demon Sect spare her pavilion because they thought it held clues to the Five-Colored Stone?

Lin Chang went on. “After that, rumors spread that the cultivator who died harboring a grievance refused to enter reincarnation. Her three souls and seven poises lingered over the pavilion, their yin energy so thick that even the Demon Sect’s fires couldn’t touch it!”

Lu Mingyi: “…”

That is a problem.

She’d blinked and jumped a hundred and eighty years into the future; where her soul had wandered in those hundred and eighty years before that, she had no idea.

But she definitely hadn’t stayed at the Taiqing Sect!

“Later, because the pavilion’s yin energy was so overwhelming, it became a prime spot for soul summoning. Many spent fortunes hoping for the Taiqing Sect’s permission to perform a Soul Summoning Technique there. Unfortunately, that pavilion has been booked out for years by Sword Peak’s senior disciple.”

Lu Mingyi: “…Huh?”

Xiao Yuxie was holding soul-summoning rituals in her Jin Ji Pavilion?!

Summoning the soul of her deceased dao companion?

Talk about disrespecting the dead!

As fellow great clans from the southwest, Lin Chang sighed at the mention of Xiao Yuxie. “Sigh, it’s truly poignant. Who could it be to make the Xiao Family head expend so much effort and wealth on Soul Summoning Techniques?”

“Wait.” Lu Mingyi’s expression sharpened as she probed. “Fellow Daoist Lin, you just said… you don’t know who this Xiao Family head is summoning?”

“Exactly.” Lin Chang explained, “At first, there were rumors across the Nine Provinces that the Xiao Family head had secretly taken a dao companion from humble origins, hidden away. Then the companion died unexpectedly, so she’s summoning their soul. But all these years, no one’s glimpsed any info on this ‘dao companion’—only the Xiao Family head, night and day, stationed at that Taiqing Sect pavilion for the rituals.”

Lin Chang’s account matched Lu Mingyi’s own guesses.

She didn’t care when Xiao Yuxie had found a wife, but hearing her pre-death pavilion turned into a soul-summoning haunt—day in, day out—stirred some resentment deep inside.

Her Jin Ji Pavilion faced south from the north, perched on Sword Peak’s gentlest slope, surrounded by mountains and waters—a prime spot!

Where was the heavy yin energy for soul-summoning?

Just like how Shen Mingzheng insisted on suppressing her spiritual power to wield Gu Li, these two clearly knew what they’d done to her. What mentality drove them to touch her posthumous remnants?

Lu Mingyi’s face darkened gradually, but Lin Chang proactively asked, “By the way, Fellow Daoist Jing… have you joined a sect?”

“Ah? No.” At the question, Lu Mingyi thought, Don’t tell me she’s recruiting for the Tianyan Sect.

Lin Chang took a deep breath, straightened up to look more formal. “Then, Fellow Daoist Jing, would you consider joining our Tianyan Sect?”

Lu Mingyi: “…”

Is the Cultivation World that desperate for people these days?

Guan Du had eagerly recruited her for the Taiqing Sect earlier; now Lin Chang, still bleeding and with her junior sister unconscious, was pitching the Tianyan Sect? Was it that bad?!

Lu Mingyi coughed twice, suppressing her expression. “N-no thanks, Fellow Daoist Lin. I have no plans to join a sect for now.”

“Oh…” Lin Chang’s expectant gaze dimmed with disappointment, but she soon smiled again. “No worries, Fellow Daoist Jing. With your talent, whether you join a top sect like the Taiqing Sect or stay free in your family, you’ll surely achieve great things.”

Hearing the Taiqing Sect mentioned again soured Lu Mingyi’s mood. “I’d never go to the Taiqing Sect! Who’d join a place that unfairly recruits because of some screw-up a hundred years ago?”

“Ah…” Lin Chang’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “So Fellow Daoist Jing thinks that way too?”

Lu Mingyi was puzzled. Zhou Xun had told her about the Taiqing Sect’s recruitment; as a Jiangxia native, her info should be solid. “Isn’t it true?”

Lin Chang licked her lips, silent for a moment before saying, “It’s not entirely wrong—everyone thought so at first. But recently, I learned the Taiqing Sect’s special recruitment policy for Jiangxia is expanding to the southwest and southern regions.

Once that news dropped, sects in those areas were furious. Who’d go to local mid-tier sects when they could join the Taiqing Sect? It’d only worsen the disciple quality for the smaller ones.

Our Tianyan Sect is the same… Rumor has it, after the Nine Provinces Grand Competition ends, the Taiqing Sect’s Sect Leader will head to the southwest to meet with the various sects.”