Bidding farewell to Chuyao and the others, Sang Nian walked with a light step straight toward Sang Qiyan’s courtyard.
Things were progressing with extraordinary smoothness. Once she cleared this hurdle with Sang Qiyan, she and Xie Chenzhou could officially set out on the grand path toward the Xiaoyao Sect.
However, there was still one more matter…
Sang Nian glanced around at the surrounding scenery and quietly clenched her fists.
Just as she reached the courtyard gate, Wen Buyu and Sang Qiyan happened to be walking out together, chatting and laughing. Seeing her, both of them stopped in their tracks.
Sang Qiyan cast a sideways glance at her. “Sobered up?”
Sang Nian offered an awkward, sheepish smile. “Completely sober.”
Though he couldn’t bear to scold her, Sang Qiyan deliberately put on a stern face to frighten her. “If there’s a next time, I won’t let you off so easily.”
Sang Nian nodded repeatedly in promise.
“Speaking of which, this whole affair was still my junior sister’s fault,” Wen Buyu said gently. “She has always been mischievous and often implicates others. I truly apologize.”
Sang Nian smiled. “We share the same tastes and interests, so how could you call it being implicated?”
“Thank you for your understanding, Lady Sang. I shall take my leave first.”
With that, Wen Buyu smiled, gave her a slight nod, and strode away.
Sang Qiyan watched his retreating figure, letting out a casual, somewhat meaningful sigh.
“You originally deserved to match with a dragon among men like him. What a pity…”
Pretending not to understand, Sang Nian hurriedly grabbed his sleeve and dragged him into the study.
Confused, Sang Qiyan asked, “What on earth is the matter that has you in such a rush?”
“Bang!” Sang Nian slammed the door shut. “Brother, I’ve come to see you about two things.”
“Which two things?”
“First,” Sang Nian said, “did someone present you with a spiritual artifact recently? One related to our family’s mine.”
Sang Qiyan raised an eyebrow. “You’re quite well-informed. It was only transported here yesterday, and you already know about it.”
With a solemn expression, Sang Nian said, “That thing cannot be used.”
Puzzled, Sang Qiyan asked, “Why?”
For a moment, Sang Nian didn’t know how to explain.
In the original novel, not long after Sang Yunling and Xie Chenzhou entered the Xiaoyao Sect, a disaster struck the Sang family.
Traced back to its root, it was all because of a spiritual artifact.
It was a spiritual artifact capable of detecting and excavating spiritual stone veins. The amount of spiritual stones it could mine in a single day exceeded the total sum of a thousand miners working over three days.
Without a doubt, this artifact was quickly put into operation.
Yet no one knew that it was only a semi-finished product.
That day, the artifact triggered an underground explosion within the veins. The entire Qingzhou was buried deep beneath the earth, killing countless people, and not a single soul in the City Lord’s Manor was spared.
And all of this could have been prevented.
Gritting her teeth, Sang Nian scrambled for a plausible excuse.
“I had a dream… I dreamed there was a problem with that thing, and that all of you died because of it. I was so scared. Could you please find a few artifact refiners to come and inspect it?”
Softening his tone, Sang Qiyan coaxed, “Niannian, this concerns the spiritual mine. It’s not something for you to mess around with…”
“I am not messing around,” Sang Nian said, gripping his arm tightly. “Precisely because it concerns the spiritual mine, we need to be even more cautious, don’t we?”
With a helpless expression that showed he could do nothing with her, Sang Qiyan relented. “Fine. Tomorrow, I will invite the elders of the Artifact Refining Hall from the Tianheng Sect over.”
Insisting, Sang Nian said, “Today. Right now.”
Left with no choice, Sang Qiyan compromised. “Alright, right now.”
With that, he opened the door and gave a few brief instructions to the guards on duty, who accepted the order and hurried away.
He paced back into the room. “Can you rest easy now?”
Until the results came out, Sang Nian’s heart remained suspended in her chest. She twisted her fingers together, remaining entirely silent.
Instead, Sang Qiyan suddenly remembered something else, his expression turning somewhat cold.
“That little demon who kidnapped you still hasn’t been caught. However, I have already reported the matter to the Myriad Immortals Alliance to issue a bounty order. Within three months, I will definitely capture him back, and then you can deal with him however you see fit.”
Absent-mindedly, Sang Nian replied, “Just do as you see fit.”
Before long, several elders from the Tianheng Sect’s Artifact Refining Hall arrived in a rush.
Sang Qiyan said to Sang Nian, “It’s dark and cold underground. Be a good girl and wait for me here; I’ll be right back.”
With that, he led the men away, his figure disappearing down the far end of the path.
Every single second of the wait felt exceptionally long.
Sang Nian sat on pins and needles, unable to find any peace.
Sang Qiyan did not return right away as he had promised.
It was only after a full two hours that he finally reappeared at the study entrance, his face heavy with dread.
Sang Nian snapped to her feet. “How is it?”
“There is indeed a problem,” he said in a deep voice. “You were right.”
Sang Nian let out a breath of relief. “As long as it was discovered in time, that’s what matters.”
“I’ve already sent people to thoroughly investigate that artifact refiner,” Sang Qiyan said. “I’m afraid this matter isn’t so simple.”
Qingzhou possessed numerous spiritual mines. A tall tree catches the wind, and there were no lack of people eyeing them with covetous eyes in the shadows.
This was content that had never been written in the book, and since Sang Nian had no idea who the mastermind behind the scenes was, she could only leave the investigation to him.
“Thanks to you for spotting that something was wrong in time, otherwise Qingzhou would have definitely faced a major catastrophe.” Sang Qiyan’s gaze flashed with a hint of probing. “Still, did you really dream about it?”
Sang Nian answered with absolute certainty. “That’s right.”
Faced with this, Sang Qiyan actually stopped probing further, changing the subject instead.
“You said there were two matters. What is the second one?”
Sang Nian gathered her thoughts. “I want to take Xie Chenzhou and follow Chuyao and the others to the Xiaoyao Sect.”
“Want to go play?” Sang Qiyan said. “You’ve never left home since you were a child. Brother doesn’t feel at ease letting you go alone. How about we go together?”
“I’m not going to play,” Sang Nian replied. “I want to participate in the Xiaoyao Sect’s newcomer selection and become a disciple just like Chuyao.”
The relaxed expression on Sang Qiyan’s face vanished instantly.
“He can go, but you—I won’t allow it.”
There was not a shred of room for negotiation in those words.
Sang Nian explained:
“Brother, I really don’t want to be trapped in this small courtyard for the rest of my life. I want to see the world outside, too.”
Sang Qiyan pinched the bridge of his nose. “If the courtyard is too small, we’ll expand it. I’ll mark off another twenty miles of land to the east.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Sang Nian urged anxiously.
“Niannian, your health is poor; you can’t withstand all that tossing about like Chuyao and the others,” Sang Qiyan persuaded. “Listen to your brother, stay at home, and don’t go anywhere. Only home is safe.”
“…Brother, I know I don’t have long to live. Every single day could potentially be my last.”
Sang Nian looked at him earnestly.
“Precisely because of that, I don’t want to reach the end of my life still feeling regret—wondering why I didn’t go out and take a look around the outside world when I had the chance. I don’t want to cower inside a shell anymore, Brother.”
Sang Qiyan shook his head.
“You’re too naive. The world of cultivation isn’t as wonderful as you think. On the contrary, danger lurks everywhere out there. If you’re outside, I won’t be able to protect you the way I do here in Qingzhou.”
“I will protect myself well,” Sang Nian refused to back down.
“Protect yourself?”
Driven to exasperation and failing to think it through carefully before the words slipped out, Sang Qiyan blurted out:
“Your mother was also a cultivator, and she still died in an unclear and unfathomable way. Just how do you plan to protect…”
By the end, his voice trailed off, growing softer and softer.
Sang Nian seized upon the sensitive keyword. “My mother?”
A flash of annoyance crossed Sang Qiyan’s eyes. “Head back. You don’t need to think about this matter anymore; I will not agree to it.”
Sang Nian pressed on relentlessly.
“What did you mean by that sentence just now? My mother was a cultivator? What do you mean by ‘your mother’? Isn’t she your mother as well?”
Sang Qiyan turned around. “Don’t ask anymore. It doesn’t matter.”
The original owner’s background was probably not all that simple.
Since this was tied to whether she could leave smoothly, Sang Nian grabbed his hand, determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Of course it matters! Brother, I want to know who my mother actually was. What on earth have you been hiding from me all these years? If you refuse to tell me, I’ll go out and ask around myself. Can you guarantee that not a single word about what happened back then will leak out?”
“…”
After a long, drawn-out silence, Sang Qiyan took a deep breath, lowered his gaze to look at her, and said:
“My parents were stone-cutters in the underground mineral veins. They died in an accident, and the previous City Lord of Qingzhou brought me back and told me to call him Father.”
“When I was ten, Father carried you—who had just been born not long before—back home and told me that from then on, you would be my younger sister.”
Sang Nian was momentarily stunned. “You mean…”
“We are indeed not biological siblings.”
Her guess had turned out to be true, yet she hadn’t expected it to head in this direction.
For a moment, Sang Nian didn’t know what to say, and could only signal him to continue.
Sang Qiyan went on:
“I don’t know much about your mother. I only know that she was a sword cultivator who was later ambushed and suffered severe injuries. You were born prematurely, and she didn’t survive either.”
“Father loved her dearly. Not long after she passed away, he died of a broken heart.”