Tianhe and Tianxing were fellow disciples. Later, they became elders, each presiding over a mountain peak to cultivate in seclusion.
Tianxing had long known he would not be able to break through to the Mahayana stage, so he chose to come out of seclusion early to recruit disciples and impart his teachings. Tianhe, however, was determined to reach the Mahayana stage. He spent hundreds of years in seclusion and, despite failing multiple times, remained unwilling to give up.
When Jiang Yan first entered the Tianji Pavilion, the two were in their first period of seclusion. By the time Tianxing emerged, Yuan Qi was already one hundred years old.
Tianxing often visited Wushang Peak. He found Yuan Qi’s personality amusing and would often run away after provoking him into a rage. Yuan Qi had cursed him behind his back more than once.
That was all hundreds of years ago. Seeing Yuan Qi again truly felt like a lifetime had passed. Now, he was no longer called Yuan Qi; his name was Yu Zaixi.
“That terrible name of his, what was he thinking? It is not even as pleasant as his nickname,” Tianxing grumbled while walking up Jingshan.
Jiang Yan followed behind, his robes shimmering with a fluorescent glow. Walking through the dense forest and stone steps, he appeared like an otherworldly immortal, except this immortal was clearly unhappy.
“His nickname is Little Yu.”
“Is ‘Little Yu’ not better than ‘Yu Zaixi’?”
There was a picket gate at the entrance to Jingshan. Tianxing lifted his hand to open it and continued, “How can a fish be in a stream? If he stays in the stream, he will be a little fish for the rest of his life. He should have been named ‘In the Sea’ or perhaps ‘In the Sky’.”
Jiang Yan paused for a moment and could not help but turn his head to chuckle, stating bluntly, “Terrible.”
“It is just like this wretched Taoist name ‘Tianhe’; it trapped him for his entire life.”
Elder Tianhe’s Taoist name had nothing particularly special about it, but his obsession with breaking through to the Mahayana stage had reached a point of delusion. Tianxing insisted that the name had trapped him. Jiang Yan did not share this view. What trapped Tianhe was his own heart, not anything else.
Only Tianhe lived on Jingshan. The small, dilapidated hut had not been maintained for years. It was barely standing, and wild grass grew rampantly, giving it an air of desolation.
The hut was not locked, guarded only by a small formation. Since Tianxing was also at the Transformation God stage, he could solve the formation by finding the core, but he found it tedious. He turned to look at Jiang Yan. “Do it.”
Jiang Yan made a hand gesture and pushed; the door swung open.
Tianxing sighed on the side. “You cannot blame him for being unwilling to give up. The difference between stages is truly like heaven and earth.”
It was more than just cultivation level; Mahayana cultivators were nearly demigods. It was a height every cultivator desperately sought to reach, as it was the only way to have a chance at ascending.
Tianxing went inside and circled the room. It was so simple that it looked uninhabited. Tianhe had been in seclusion for so long that he had barely lived in this house. Looking around, Tianxing sighed again.
“Even if that bone whistle was indeed handed over by Tianhe, what can we find out by coming here? Who gave him the bone whistle?”
Jiang Yan entered and swept his gaze over the room. “We are not here to search this house. I need to find the method he used to seek the bone whistle.”
“Where is his body?” Tianxing suddenly asked.
The Sect Leader had only told him that his junior brother was dead. It was assumed he had failed his breakthrough, his meridians had been destroyed, and knowing his time was short, he had left the mountain privately. They did not know where he died or where his body was.
One could only perform a memory recall by finding the body. Without it, what were they going to find in this room?
Tianxing looked at Jiang Yan, feeling perplexed. “I thought you were coming to find something.”
“The Sect Leader once told me that Elder Tianhe had connections with the Wusheng Sect before he died. I am here to find out who it was.”
The Wusheng Sect was a very small sect. In the infighting among the hundred immortal sects, this name never even surfaced. If Jiang Yan had not brought it up today, Tianxing would not have even remembered such a sect existed.
Tianxing hissed and turned his gaze toward a cabinet. He walked over and opened it, but there were only a few pieces of clothing inside. He took them out and shook them open, discovering two sets of children’s clothes. They were longer than the ones Xiao Ci wore; they must have been for an eight or nine-year-old child.
Tianhe had never married, nor had he ever taken a disciple. Whose were these children’s clothes? They had been preserved so well.
“We must go to the Wusheng Sect.” Even Tianxing, who usually liked to spout nonsense, dared not make any rash conclusions at this moment.
Since it was a small, obscure sect, it was convenient for them to go; they simply notified them in advance and opened a teleportation array right at the sect’s gate.
Jiang Yan checked the room one more time, but apart from the two sets of clothes, there was nothing else unusual.
Before leaving, Tianxing folded the clothes and put them back. As they stepped out, he sealed the hut with a formation again, feeling deeply moved. He had not even had a chance to see his junior brother one last time. Their last meeting had been at the Great Immortal Sect Gathering—they were representing the Tianji Pavilion—and that was already two hundred years ago.
While Tianxing was busy sending the notice to the Wusheng Sect, Jiang Yan stared in the direction of Wushang Peak, his brow furrowed. By the time Tianxing called for him, Jiang Yan’s face was already overcast with dark clouds.
“Why do you not go back and check one more time?” Tianxing suggested.
Jiang Yan opened a portal and returned immediately. Upon landing, he saw that Yu Zaixi had found a lounge chair from somewhere and was chatting with Qin Nai while swaying back and forth.
When they saw him arrive, they did not stop. Yu Zaixi was listening intently, and Qin Nai was talking incessantly. Qin Nai gestured for Jiang Yan to come sit with them.
“In short, ever since that time, I discovered that spell cultivation is easier than sword cultivation. Besides, it is so dangerous for sword cultivators to go down the mountain for training, so I went to the Wufeng Tower instead.”
Yu Zaixi sighed with a smile. “It is a pity. If only I had something I was good at; then I would not be forced to be a sword cultivator.”
Jiang Yan walked over with a gloomy expression. He first glanced at Qin Nai, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Brother Qin was only forced into spell cultivation because the Master of Wufeng Tower accepted you as a disciple, right? I recall that your sword skills are quite good.”
Qin Nai’s expression stiffened, but he quickly recovered. “That is one of the reasons. I went to Wufeng Tower to change my path; I did not expect to be selected by the Master.”
“How were you selected?” Jiang Yan asked.
Qin Nai could not answer.
Yu Zaixi clicked his tongue and helped clear the air. “It does not matter how he was selected. That is a matter between teacher and disciple; what does it have to do with you? Are you not supposed to be investigating? Did you find anything? Hurry up and finish so you can let me go.”
Jiang Yan sneered. His gaze shifted downward to Yu Zaixi, madness surging in his eyes, which made Yu Zaixi wary. But before Jiang Yan could act, he said, “You are coming with me.”
Yu Zaixi subconsciously looked at Qin Nai, and Jiang Yan’s voice turned even colder. “They are not going; only you.”
As he spoke, he opened a portal and took him away.
Qin Nai smiled as he looked at the suddenly empty lounge chair. A moment later, he shook his head and returned to his room.
When Jiang Yan took Yu Zaixi to the Wusheng Sect, he did not notify their Sect Leader. They arrived directly at the open space in front of the main hall, startling the disciples who were practicing nearby.
It was nearly dusk. There were not many disciples in evening training, and they were lined up in an orderly fashion, practicing their swordplay against the backdrop of the magnificent evening sun. It was truly like something written in a storybook.
After landing, Yu Zaixi was too stunned to be angry. He watched them with envy, a self-deprecating smile curling his lips, his long eyelashes veiling the emotions in his eyes.
Jiang Yan, who had been wearing a cold expression, turned his head when he saw Yu Zaixi like this and walked ahead to find someone.
The evening training disciples all stopped and looked at them with hostility. Clearly, they did not recognize Jiang Yan, the world’s number one expert, nor did they recognize the “evil creature” who was supposed to be imprisoned.
Yu Zaixi took a look around the sect. Compared to the Tianji Pavilion, it was truly minuscule. Tianji Pavilion’s ten mountains and eight peaks were likely larger than the entire scale of this sect. Yes, the smallest peak was Wushang Peak, which had once housed only two disciples and now still housed only two. Yet, the training platform at the foot of that mountain was built larger than this entire sect.
Yu Zaixi felt a sense of inexplicable pride, and the envy he had felt earlier vanished. Although he had never practiced seriously in a sect, his physical body belonged to the Tianji Pavilion.
He turned and went to the main hall to find Jiang Yan. As soon as he entered, he felt the atmosphere inside was somewhat oppressive.
He looked at Jiang Yan, who was standing calmly in the center of the hall. The Sect Leader was sitting on the throne, but he appeared to have come in a rush, as if he were not prepared. Standing nearby were several elders. Yu Zaixi used his spiritual power to probe them. The highest cultivation level among these elders was only at the middle stage of Yuan Infant.
What kind of sect was this?
He turned back and looked outside again. There were so many disciples; it did not look like a fraud.
Yu Zaixi hissed. Finding the stuffy atmosphere unbearable, he took the lead and asked, “Can we sit and talk?”
Everyone in the hall was stunned. Jiang Yan seemed to find him annoying and shifted his gaze away. It was a small gesture, but when Yu Zaixi saw it, he clicked his tongue and looked at the Sect Leader.
The Sect Leader hurriedly raised his hand. “Please, both of you, sit. Let us all sit.”
So everyone in the hall sat down.
Once Jiang Yan was seated, Yu Zaixi turned to the side, leaning lazily against his chair. Only then did the Sect Leader speak. “Elder Tianxing already informed me earlier. I did not expect both of you to arrive so quickly.”
In terms of seniority, Jiang Yan was a generation lower, but he came from the Tianji Pavilion and was the only known Mahayana cultivator in the world. Who would dare to neglect him?
Yu Zaixi felt that Jiang Yan was just here to show off, so he leaned back, prepared to watch the show and gain some experience on how to act even cooler in the future.
To his surprise, Jiang Yan spoke politely. “We came uninvited. I hope the Sect Leader and the elders will not take offense. I have come to find someone. The matter is urgent, so please forgive the intrusion.”
Breaking into someone’s sect despite their defensive formations and then saying “please forgive the intrusion” was quite disgusting.
Yu Zaixi curled his lip and looked at the expressions of the others; they were all angry but did not dare to speak up.
The Sect Leader had no choice but to ask, “Who is the person that Young Friend Jiang is looking for?”
“Someone who was acquainted with our Elder Tianhe.”
After he spoke, the hall fell silent for a moment. It was not that they were thinking about how to hide someone, but they were all trying to recall who Elder Tianhe was.
The Great Immortal Sect Gathering had nothing to do with small sects like theirs. They had never been, and people from all the large sects only knew each other through rumors; whoever was powerful, they knew. Tianhe had been in seclusion for hundreds of years; it was perfectly normal that no one knew him.
The Sect Leader was the first to react. He gave a bitter smile and asked, “Does Young Friend Jiang know the name of this person?”
“I do not.”
The hall fell into absolute silence.
Yu Zaixi turned his head, also confused. He whispered, “If you do not know, why did you come?”
Jiang Yan did not even look at him. He glanced at the Sect Leader again. “Sorry for the disturbance. Elder Tianxing will be here momentarily.”
Only then did the Sect Leader breathe a sigh of relief. It was fine, it was fine; this one was hard enough to deal with, and there was another one coming behind him. Surely that elder would know the name.
But when Tianxing arrived and the Sect Leader asked, Tianxing also chuckled dryly. “I do not know. I must trouble the Sect Leader to help us look.”
The Sect Leader broke out into a cold sweat. One after another, they were both here to stir up trouble today. As a small sect that did not even have the right to participate in the Great Immortal Sect Gathering, what kind of major trouble had they provoked?
He agreed to help with the search. Tianxing wanted to take them back, but Jiang Yan refused on the grounds that Yu Zaixi was tired.
“My junior brother has been traveling for a long time. Could the Sect Leader arrange a few rooms for us to rest?”
The Sect Leader hurriedly ordered someone to find rooms. Yu Zaixi followed Jiang Yan to the guest room, completely bewildered.
The two were staying in adjacent rooms. Yu Zaixi walked to the door, felt uneasy, and returned to Jiang Yan’s side, asking in a low voice, “Is this an illusion?”
“No,” Jiang Yan answered.
“Is this sect powerful?”
“It is not.”
“Is the food here any good?”
“It is not.”
“Then what is wrong with this place?”
“Nothing.”
Yu Zaixi looked at him strangely, and Jiang Yan turned to enter his room. He left only one sentence behind: “I am afraid you will not rest well if you return to Wushang Peak.”