Seeing that Xu Ziqing still had sufficient spirit, Yun Lie sat down cross-legged.
Xu Ziqing understood that his senior brother intended to explain everything at length. His expression grew solemn, and he listened attentively.
At the time, the Immortal Fruit Gathering had turned into a slaughterground. Demons filled the skies, and the Blood God Sect had deployed almost half its forces. Apart from a handful of old monsters who had not come, many of its less powerful cultivators hoped to take a share of the spoils.
The gathering had drawn the greatest talents from many sects across the Eastern Domain. Devouring them would provide the demons with an enormous quantity of blood essence and greatly advance their cultivation.
By catching the immortal-path cultivators unprepared, the evil-path forces had indeed caused many talented disciples to perish.
Yet Xu Ziqing had overheard Mu Wuxin and Lang Tianqi earlier and become uneasy. Because he had told Yun Lie of his suspicions, the Sect Master of Wuling Immortal Sect had learned that something was amiss.
The Sect Master had lived for countless years and ruled a vast sect. His judgment and calculations far surpassed those of ordinary people. Sensing danger, he had dispatched several Nascent Soul elders, thereby saving the sect’s core strength without a single casualty.
The Golden Core disciples present had all possessed means of sending urgent messages. Even in mortal danger, if they managed to inform their sects, great experts could arrive almost instantly, and their own life-preserving treasures might allow them to survive. But the evil-path cultivators had planned this attack for years and stationed exceedingly powerful demons along the way to intercept those messages. Unable to send word, the disciples had been trapped inside the estate and left to die.
Fortunately, Wuling Immortal Sect’s Nascent Soul elders had protected its core disciples, allowing them to activate the Spirit-Communicating Treasure Mirror and report the situation directly to their Sect Master. He immediately issued an Emergency Sect Summons, ensuring that the masters of numerous large and small Eastern Domain sects learned what had happened in time to dispatch powerful reinforcements.
The disaster enraged the various sect masters beyond measure. Setting aside other concerns, they summoned exceptional experts from their sects, who traveled upon clouds under the leadership of a Mahayana expert from Wuling Immortal Sect.
When the reinforcements saw their disciples’ mutilated remains, their fury became even greater. They slaughtered the demons without restraint, nearly exterminating those inside the estate within a few breaths.
Precisely because they did not restrain the pressure spilling from their power, many of the lower-level disciples lost consciousness.
Yu Nongqing was naturally no match for so many great experts and attempted to flee.
But the experts hated her bitterly. How could they let her escape? They joined forces to intercept her. Suddenly, however, two enormous bloody palm imprints struck from above, one over the other. Part of their power touched the disciples below, turning some into pools of blood.
So many disciples had already died that the sects could not bear further losses. The experts hurried to save those in danger, giving Yu Nongqing an opening. One of the bloody palm imprints seized her and carried her away.
Before departing, she also exposed everything concerning Mu Wuxin and Lang Tianqi, further ruining Ruyi Immortal Estate’s reputation.
At this point in the account, Xu Ziqing could not help sighing. “What about Perfected One Mu Ronghua…?”
He did not ask about Mu Wuxin or Lang Tianqi, because they had indeed committed wrongs. Mu Ronghua, however, was innocent. Having seen her exceptional bearing and character, he could not help being concerned for her.
Yun Lie replied, “Yu Nongqing did not know Mu Ronghua was their daughter. She genuinely believed Mu Ronghua had been born to Mu Wuxin and someone else afterward.”
Still, Yu Nongqing had not forgotten to wound Lang Tianqi further, mocking him for having been cuckolded and risking his life for an old lover and another man’s bastard.
Xu Ziqing frowned. “Yu Nongqing and Estate Mistress Mu were martial sisters for so many years. Why was she so… so vicious?”
The matter later became a subject of widespread discussion. Although Yun Lie had not deliberately investigated it, he had learned a few things.
Yu Nongqing had been at odds with Mu Wuxin from the beginning. Blessed with extraordinary talent, she had reached the Mahayana stage even sooner than Mu Wuxin appeared to, and naturally became a pillar supporting the estate.
Mu Wuxin did not wholly trust her, but she believed the conflict to be ordinary factional rivalry. Before her great birthday celebration, she had confined Yu Nongqing merely to prevent her from causing trouble during the festivities. She intended to release her afterward and had never wished to kill her.
But Yu Nongqing’s ambitions were vast, and she felt no attachment to the estate. Although Mu Wuxin at least considered her a member of Ruyi Immortal Estate, Yu Nongqing had never truly regarded Mu Wuxin as belonging to the same sect.
Xu Ziqing could understand part of this. The Jade and Pure Maiden factions cultivated and behaved so differently that it would have been stranger if they had always agreed. But he did not understand why the founders had created such sharply divided lineages in the first place. Without that division, perhaps these disputes would never have arisen.
Yun Lie’s expression remained unchanged as he continued the account.
Ruyi Immortal Estate had endured without a break through the generations because its two founders had carefully considered the future and established ancestral rules.
The estate had originally been founded by two sisters. Both were extraordinarily talented and beautiful cultivators, yet their lives had been full of hardship and misfortune. Had they not possessed tremendous perseverance and encountered rare opportunities, they might long ago have died at the hands of evil demons, let alone established so great a legacy.
From then on, the estate was governed by two ancestral rules.
First, each Estate Mistress must be the strongest member of the Jade Maiden faction. Second, Ruyi Immortal Estate must remain on the orthodox path forever and never fall into evil; otherwise the traitors must be purged.
The sisters had taken enormous pains over their arrangements. Because of what they had suffered, the younger sister cultivated an exceptionally pure and upright immortal-path technique, while the elder sister could cultivate only the Heart Sutra of the Enchantress.
Those practicing the former naturally followed the orthodox path. Those cultivating the latter, however, had to guard against unstable minds that could be beguiled by the technique and stray into evil ways.
Yet the sisters had founded the estate to shelter vulnerable women in the cultivation world. Women with unblemished pasts could cultivate orthodox techniques without difficulty, but those who had suffered terrible experiences often could not practice many methods. Only the Heart Sutra of the Enchantress placed no such restrictions, and its considerable power also allowed them to defend themselves.
Thus the two factions passed their methods down through the generations. To prevent future disciples from losing their way, the founders established the ancestral rules.
With a Jade Maiden as Estate Mistress, the estate’s allegiance would remain firm. If members of the Pure Maiden faction drifted toward evil, the Jade Maidens could guide them back. Otherwise, even when the Pure Maidens sometimes overstepped propriety, the Jade Maidens generally did not interfere. Their ways differed, but because all regarded the estate as home, occasional disputes could be set aside.
In this way, the two factions had coexisted peacefully enough.
To secure the Estate Mistress’s position, an immortal artifact was passed down from one holder to the next. It possessed boundless power and bore the founders’ imprint, allowing each Estate Mistress to wield it freely and suppress threats from every direction. But this came at a price.
Each generation’s Estate Mistress actually assumed the position at the Out-of-Body stage. She then fused with the immortal artifact, forcibly raising the power she could wield to something comparable to Mahayana, although her true cultivation realm remained unchanged.
While she possessed the artifact, her lifespan could extend another thousand years beyond ten thousand. Her cultivation accumulated year after year, but her realm did not advance. Only after selecting a successor and passing down the artifact would she enter seclusion to break through and face her tribulation. Thus outsiders never discovered the secret.
However, merging with the artifact required that the cultivator not be tainted by even the slightest demonic qi. Mu Wuxin had been carrying the child of an evil-path cultivator when she fused with the artifact, leaving a flaw in the union.
Yu Nongqing resented being beneath another. When she discovered Mu Wuxin’s secret at some unknown time, she was naturally overjoyed.
But she kept the discovery to herself. Over the ensuing thousands of years, she secretly cultivated followers and established connections with the Blood God Sect. She even became dual-cultivation Dao companions with the Blood God Demon Venerable.
Then Mu Wuxin’s great birthday arrived, coinciding with the Immortal Fruit Gathering held once every ten thousand years. Yu Nongqing knew that countless young geniuses would gather. She had long wanted to lead the Pure Maiden faction into the demonic path and escape the estate’s restrictions, so she conspired with the Blood God Demon Venerable to launch an attack from within and without, turn the estate into a living hell, and exterminate the Jade Maiden faction.
Afterward, Yu Nongqing intended to take the Posuo Divine Tree away. With such a great contribution to the demonic path, her Pure Maiden faction would be able to establish itself securely and enjoy its freedom.
Xu Ziqing was startled. “Then the Posuo Divine Tree…?”
If that tree truly fell into the hands of the demonic path, countless troubles would surely follow.
Yun Lie said, “The Blood God Demon Venerable tried to seize the divine tree. The Sect Master intervened and kept it there.”
Though the statement was brief, it was enough to suggest how perilous the struggle must have been. The Blood God Demon Venerable was a giant of the evil demonic path, more powerful than an ordinary Mahayana cultivator. For their Sect Master to snatch the tree from his grasp, how strong must he be?
A brilliant light flashed through Xu Ziqing’s eyes.
Wuling Immortal Sect truly deserved its place among the supreme sects of the Qingyun Great World. As one of its insignificant disciples, Xu Ziqing felt immense pride in it.
But Yu Nongqing’s escape did not end the matter.
Ruyi Immortal Estate had convened the Immortal Fruit Gathering, yet failed to discover the traitors within its own ranks, allowing so many exceptionally talented disciples of other sects to die at the demons’ hands. Whatever else was said, Mu Wuxin could not escape responsibility for failing to supervise her estate.
Furthermore, her ill-fated entanglement with the evil-path cultivator Lang Tianqi left her with no honor or standing in the orthodox cultivation world.
Mu Wuxin therefore accepted responsibility and apologized to the many sects, great and small.
She then transferred her lifelong cultivation and even her Nascent Soul to her only daughter, Mu Ronghua, through an initiation by power transmission. This forcibly elevated Mu Ronghua to the Out-of-Body stage. Using the last of her own lifespan, she helped her daughter merge with the immortal artifact and gain Mahayana-level strength, allowing her to assume the position of Estate Mistress.
No one within the estate truly objected. Mu Ronghua had been forced into a realm she had not attained through cultivation, leaving countless hidden dangers within her body and exhausting her potential. She would probably never be able to ascend to immortality!
Having completed all of this, Mu Wuxin took her own life in atonement. Lang Tianqi died together with her.
Seeing an Estate Mistress brought to such an end, the experts of the various sects could only sigh. They ceased pressing the issue and departed with their surviving disciples or the bodies of their fallen.
The Posuo Divine Tree remained within Ruyi Immortal Estate. But after the chaos, almost the entire Pure Maiden faction had died, and Yu Nongqing had fled. More than half the Golden Core cultivators of the Jade Maiden faction had been killed or wounded, all the remaining lower-level Pure Maidens had been expelled, and only twenty or thirty percent of the estate’s elders at Nascent Soul or above remained. The estate’s strength had fallen so far that it scarcely compared with a fourth-grade sect.
Yu Nongqing, a genuine Mahayana cultivator, had escaped. With only the inexperienced Mu Ronghua, artificially raised in power, remaining to guard it, the divine tree would likely prove difficult to keep in the future…