Ning Ruan decided the Eldest Senior Brother had probably still underestimated how bad the rumors were.
She had barely left Invincible Peak.
When several disciples who happened to be passing recognized her on sight.
Constrained by her direct-disciple status,
they addressed her as "Senior Sister" to her face.
But the moment she'd gone a little distance —
the finger-pointing began.
"She didn't deny it just now. So it must be her, right?"
"It's definitely her. Xueyang Peak has exactly one female disciple. Who else would it be?"
"You really can't tell by looking. She doesn't seem the vicious type at all — yet she'd raise her hand against her own father."
"Patricide's the least of it. She also killed Senior Sister Li's birth mother."
"Though — come to think of it, I heard that on her entrance-test day, she played some footage from an image-recording stone on the testing plaza.
The story goes that Senior Sister Li's father and mother persecuted her and HER mother first, and she was only taking revenge."
"Oh, please. I'm from Shengjing myself — capital of the Dayan Imperial Dynasty. Senior Sister Li's parents are wonderful people. They could never do something like that.
Yes, the Li Clan's Second Master had a wife before. But that woman was sinister, vicious, and loose.
Second Master Li treated her like gold, and she didn't cherish it — ran off with some demonic cultivator in the end.
Only afterward did he and Madam Qingwu become dao companions and have Senior Sister Li.
And now that woman's daughter shows up out of nowhere and does THIS. Poor Senior Sister Li — such a lovely person, and these days she does nothing but weep."
"So that's the real story! I knew it. Image-recording stones? Where would a feral stray get an image-recording stone?"
Ning Ruan finally understood where her half-sister found the nerve for all this.
The calculation was simple: Ning Ruan owned exactly one image-recording mirror.
And however she argued or explained, words alone would never outrun a rumor.
Except...
did she really own only ONE image-recording mirror?
Ning Ruan's lips curled. She stopped walking.
Then swung the Scarlet Feather Kite around and flew straight back.
And backhanded a Thunderclap Bomb down onto the gossiping cluster's heads.
Mid-discussion, the group never imagined the departed subject of their gossip would double back — much less open fire without a word of warning.
Several outer-sect disciples, with no time even to dodge,
were blasted bodily into the air on the spot.
No one was hurt.
Their dignity did not survive.
Ning Ruan stood on the Scarlet Feather Kite, tightening the casket straps at her back.
Her eyes narrowed slightly:
"One of you knows Li Yu, I assume?
Pass along a message for me.
I'm off to take her Li Clan apart. She may want to brace herself."
The self-proclaimed Shengjing native looked up, shaking head to toe, eyes stretched wide in disbelief:
"The Li Clan... is one of the Dayan Dynasty's four great clans. You're only a light-element spirit master..."
"And what's wrong with light-element? Got a problem with healers?" Ning Ruan laughed softly.
None of them understood what "healer" meant, exactly — but the gist was not hard to guess.
Sparing not another glance for the disheveled, quivering group below, Ning Ruan pointed the Scarlet Feather Kite at Feiyan Peak and flew.
Thanks to the challenge stages,
Feiyan Peak had always been one of the sect's great gathering places.
Ning Ruan didn't bother landing.
She simply hung in midair and tossed out THE image-recording mirror — the one that had played the footage that first day.
Then, without a wince, she scattered ten mid-grade spirit stones in a ring around it.
Amply guaranteeing the mirror could loop its footage indefinitely.
One fluid sequence of motions later —
before the disciples below could react,
Ning Ruan had already relocated.
And thrown out a second mirror bearing identical footage. Plus ten more mid-grade spirit stones.
By the time ten full mirrors had been deployed —
the Crimson Heaven Sect boiled over!
"Heavens above, what am I LOOKING at?!
If this footage is real, doesn't that make Madam Qingwu and Second Master Li no better than demonic cultivators?"
"Even demonic cultivators might balk at refining their own flesh and blood into a death-substitute puppet."
"Don't be so sure. From the look of it, Second Master Li meant to refine Senior Sister Ning of Xueyang Peak into a death-substitute puppet for Senior Sister Li of Suiyun Peak.
Given how he dotes on Senior Sister Li, is it really that hard to imagine?"
"That is beyond revolting. Poor Senior Sister Ning. They're BOTH his blood daughters.
Senior Sister Li grew up sheltered under her parents' wings, treasured by the whole Li Clan like a pearl.
They say her treatment at home outstripped an imperial princess's.
And Senior Sister Ning met a father lower than a beast before she was even born. Who knows what she suffered to make it to today. There's no justice in it."
"Looking at it now, Senior Sister Li's parents simply deserved to die, and Senior Sister Ning's revenge was righteous.
Pity the mother died so easily. She should have gotten what Second Master Li got — cultivation destroyed, alive and wishing otherwise.
Come to think of it... when Senior Sister Ning played the mirror that first day, Senior Sister Li was standing right there, wasn't she?
She KNEW the truth. Why did she never once step up and set the record straight? Unless — the rumors were hers to begin with, smearing Senior Sister Ning on purpose?"
In no time at all, the Crimson Heaven Sect's disciples had escalated from cursing Madam Qingwu and Second Master Li to cursing Li Yu directly.
Naturally, even so,
Li Yu had her defenders:
"Senior Sister Li's parents used demonic arts and deserved death, granted — but you can't curse Senior Sister Li over it.
She hadn't even been BORN yet. What do her parents' deeds have to do with her?
Senior Sister Li has always been kindhearted. If she'd known, she would certainly never have condoned it."
But the defense rang feeble.
And was swiftly drowned in the flood of abuse.
The death-substitute puppet was demonic craft of the kind that touched every orthodox cultivator's absolute taboo.
Tolerance: effectively zero.
"If your Senior Sister Li is so kind, where was she when Senior Sister Ning was being cursed up and down the sect?"
"She hates Senior Sister Ning to the bone — explain? Not likely. And frankly, I've never bought the 'kindhearted' act.
Last year's trial? It was her 'kindness' — insisting on rescuing one bird — that got eighteen inner-sect seniors and one direct disciple killed.
SO kind, our Senior Sister Li. Cares so much about one bird's life that a pile of dead sect-mates was an acceptable price."
"..."
Of course.
Beyond the cursing, a few observers had... alternative priorities:
"Excuse me — is nobody going to mention the MIRRORS?
Those are forged from image-recording stones!
Ten whole image-recording mirrors, just hanging in the sky. Is no one going to steal one? Really? No one?"
...
Ning Ruan paid no attention to the aftermath her ten mirrors were generating inside the sect.
Still less did she know she had become the resident tragic darling in countless disciples' hearts —
complete with fully imagined renditions of her wretched, hopeless early life.
At this very moment.
She was munching an eight-hundred-year Origin-Nourishing Fruit while making for Shengjing.
Qingyun Province held seven great imperial dynasties.
Beyond the dynasties sprawled countless minor kingdoms.
And behind every dynasty stood one great sect.
Behind the Dayan Imperial Dynasty: the Crimson Heaven Sect, one of the seven.
Sect disciples traveling to Shengjing was entirely routine.
Ning Ruan had changed, for the first time, into the direct disciple's exclusive whites, red sash knotted at her waist.
Add the Crimson Heaven Sect's famous Scarlet Feather Kite —
and she became the center of attention practically the moment she entered the city.
"Good thing Fifth Dad crammed all those image-recording mirrors into my luggage. Any problem money can solve isn't a real problem."
Standing atop the Kite, Ning Ruan replicated her sect-side spending spree.
Wherever the crowds thickened —
down went a mirror.
Ten mid-grade spirit stones attached.
By the time she reached the Li Clan estate, she'd thrown out another dozen or so mirrors.
Even the airspace directly above the Li Clan itself had not been spared.