The spring willows in the capital were already turning green, yet the entirety of the North remained deep in its winter slumber.
The climate was harsh, and as business had been flourishing in recent years, my Eldest Senior Brother had generously purchased a luxury flying carriage from the capital’s finest coachworks. It was even grander than the one the Wen family had used to fetch me to the capital years ago. He had also ordered two more of equal comfort to be held at the coachworks—one for our Fourth Brother and Fifth Sister when they passed through, and another for our Seventh Brother and the two younger sisters when they traveled north.
We were in no hurry. We allowed the two Luan-horses to pull the carriage slowly through the sky, taking the opportunity to observe the local customs of Qing Province and procure medicinal herbs and spiritual artifacts. Traveling in this stop-and-go fashion for over half a month, we reached the southernmost edge of Mount Tutai in Qing Province by early April. We were now within the sphere of influence of the Wujing Sect. This place was called Yangtian Town, a settlement for the sect’s secular disciples and the families of its members. For instance, if Honglu were to accompany Wei Qingming during her studies at the Wujing Sect, she would have to reside here long-term, only ascending the mountain when necessary. True to its reputation as the world’s preeminent sect, the town that thrived under its shadow was no less prosperous or civilized than Ningshuo, the provincial capital of Qing Province.
The town hosted every kind of business imaginable. Lu Kaifeng parked the flying carriage and the horses at a local coachworks. For a mere six months of fodder fees, the carriage could even be sublet, potentially turning a tidy profit. However, we were far from poor now; naturally, we hired the best grooms to maintain the horses and carriage in peak condition for our return journey. Our appointed day to enter the sect was tomorrow, leaving us with half a day of leisure. Lu Kaifeng smiled and asked Lu Lingfeng and me if there was anything we wanted to see or do.
Lu Lingfeng remained silent for a moment before suddenly opening her hand to reveal a crumpled ball of red paper. Her brother patiently smoothed it out, revealing it to be a small window paper-cut. Likely posted during the Spring Festival, it had faded slightly under the pale northern sun. It bore the distinct style of Qing Province—rustic and bold, quite different from the southern styles. Her brother understood immediately and escorted her to the district of woodcarvers and engravers, letting her explore on her own. As for me...
I smiled and said, "We’re about to be their guests; it wouldn't do to know nothing about the Wujing Sect. What one hears is always fresher than what one reads in books. Let’s find a teahouse."
Lu Kaifeng readily agreed. He stopped a passing local to ask for the best teahouse in town, and soon the two of us were strolling into a fine establishment, settling into a private booth. A storyteller was currently recounting the final battle between Ni Tian, the founder of the Wujing Sect, and Fairy Ming Yu, the artifact spirit of the Myriad Demon Bone—one of the Four Great Divine Artifacts. It was a cliché tale known even to seven-year-olds. I listened with a string of yawns, but Lu Kaifeng, ever patient, listened until the end. Suddenly, he asked me, "Ah Zhi, do you also believe that Ni Tian, while only in the Star-Plucking Realm, could truly shatter the spiritual form of Ming Yu, who was in the Sun-Blocking Realm, so thoroughly that she could never be reborn?"
Recalling Wei Qingming’s ambiguous stance on whether the Four Great Divine Artifacts had truly been annihilated, I replied, "Even though he relied on the Shoushan Sword for assistance, it must have been a desperate struggle. It does seem highly improbable."
Speaking of which, I thought of the "Thousand Illusions Scroll Fragment" I had acquired, and a wave of frustration washed over me. When I first returned to our mountain from the capital, I had been despondent and listless, spending my days merely fiddling with the various trinkets Wei Qingming had given me. One day, while sorting through them, I stumbled upon the fragment. A cold sweat broke out as I remembered its significance. Ignoring the fact that Master was taking her afternoon nap, I rushed to shake her awake and knelt to show her the Thousand Illusions fragment. I explained the circumstances as best as I could. Master lazily pinched the broken tube, looked it over, and said disdainfully, "You’re overthinking it. This is just an antique imbued with some illusion magic. Do you really think you have the heaven-defying luck to just pick up something like that?"
She made to toss the tube aside carelessly. Terrified, I lunged forward to catch it. "Regardless, Master, you must keep it," I urged. "I wouldn't dare hold onto it!"
Master dove back under her covers and grumbled crossly, "Fine, fine. Put it wherever you want. I’m sleeping!"
I paced the room three times before finally selecting a quiet, beautiful corner by the window. There was incense nearby, making it look somewhat like an altar. It was also a place Master rarely frequented, which would prevent her from seeing it, deeming it an eyesore, and throwing it off the mountain in a fit of pique. I carefully placed the small tube on a soft cushion before leaving. Indeed, ever since leaving the tomb, it had been nothing but a useless, bare rod. Thinking back, the miraculous, all-seeing, and infallible Lady Wei hadn't initially claimed this was my ancestor's relic; I had simply projected that narrative myself...
Later, I became busy with my studies under the Nie family. It was half a year before I returned to the Pavilion of Falling Dreams. Remembering my "senior," I made a special trip to that corner to check on it, only to find that Master had already cleared it away... I didn't even bother asking her. If I did, she would surely say, "Who remembers that?"
Downstairs, the audience was also growing tired of the storyteller’s old tales. Someone shouted, "Hey, Wang the Mouth! The Wujing Sect’s triennial Canon Exchange is coming up, and it coincides with the once-in-fifty-years Tianshan Meet. Young talents from all over are arriving. Why don't you tell us who’s likely to take the top spot at the Tianshan Meet this year?"
Wang the Mouth took a slow, deliberate sip of tea and, following the crowd's lead, began to count them off on his fingers.
The Tianshan Meet was essentially a grand martial competition hosted by the Wujing Sect. However, the version held every fifty years was open to cultivators from across the world, specifically those in the Cloud-Swallowing and Sunset-Glow Realms. Furthermore, the Cloud-Swallowing competition was restricted to cultivators under fifty years of age. Consequently, the cultivation world often regarded fifty years as a generation, and the top three rankings were primarily based on the results of the Tianshan Meet. As for the Qi-Refining and Rising-Smoke Realms, their competitions were held only within the Wujing Sect itself, known as the "Little Tianshan," occurring every three years. Wei Qingming had earned the Ancestor’s favor through this very event—though a genius like her hadn't even bothered with the Qi-Refining division, jumping straight into the Rising-Smoke Realm... A year later, she mastered the Bright Spirit Mantra, and within the next three years, she leaped through two more major realms. Her cultivation truly grew as fast as a child's height...
Since everyone knew about the Tianshan Meet, Wang the Mouth didn't waste words on the basics. He began listing the luminaries of various sects, starting with the host:
"When it comes to combat, the disciples under Perfected Cangjiang, the Head of the Hall of Divine Firmament, are undoubtedly the strongest. Representing them this time is the eldest disciple of this generation, Qiu Zhengshan. Barely thirty-five, he is already in the late stage of the Cloud-Swallowing Realm. He specializes in metal-attribute formations and possesses a sharp, piercing aura—he is the top contender. Then there is Feng Baili, only twenty-four, who broke through to the late Cloud-Swallowing Realm just a month ago. You all remember the day the sky turned crimson with blade-aura clouds? That was caused by his advancement..."
I listened with my chin in my hand. I heard about the masters and current statuses of several acquaintances—Dantai Ye, Bai Yuyu, and Liu Qingwu—but I heard nothing of Wei Qingming’s name. A sudden wave of nervous irritation washed over me. In a competition teeming with elites, winning across realms was nearly impossible. Those with the strength to vie for the top spot were certainly in the late Cloud-Swallowing stage, including a genius named Yan Mingqiu, who had reached the peak of Cloud-Swallowing at twenty-five. Yet, there wasn't a single word about Wei Qingming. Had she... not advanced in six or seven years? With her talent, constitution, and diligence, how was that possible?
I grew restless, my mind drifting to the long-abandoned Wei family estate. My eyes reddened with anxiety. Had something happened to her? Was she severely injured? Or... worse...
Wang the Mouth began listing the other "Number One in the World," the Tianjun Sect—skipping over the Mo-Yu Sect, which could only ever be third—and went through the Seven Daoist Houses, the Four Buddhist Monasteries, and the Three Demon Sects, finally ending with smaller sects and rogue cultivators. My Mount Gomeng was tucked away in the southern corner, little known to the world and rarely compared to others. Hearing the state of the world today, I felt it was nothing special: our Eldest Brother was not yet forty and was already nearing the mid-stage of the Sunset-Glow Realm, having opened his Illusion Domain. From Lu Lingfeng down to me, even the weakest was in the mid-Cloud-Swallowing Realm, and we were only twenty-one or twenty-two. My Third and Fourth Brothers, both in the late Cloud-Swallowing stage, were not much older than Feng Baili and were well on their way to the peak. The disciples of other sects were, for the most part, inferior to us. Master certainly knew how to pick them!
But once my heart began to worry for that person, it drifted away, trembling. I didn't pay much attention to the latter half of the talk, barely remembering a few names. Lu Kaifeng eventually noted it was nearly dinner time. The two of us found Lu Lingfeng and returned to the inn to eat and rest.
The next morning, the three of us set out at a moderate hour, following the scenic path along the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains. The Wujing Sect truly lived up to its status as a sect that had enjoyed imperial patronage for over a thousand years. Countless spiritual artifacts, spirit veins, and formations had transformed this place into a lush "Jiangnan of the Frontier." The biting winds at the foot of the mountain softened into a gentle willow-breeze that didn't chill the face. The further we walked, the warmer it became, until our cloaks felt burdensome. The path was lined with peach trees, all ancient specimens over five hundred years old, though they had not yet begun to bud. One could imagine the magnificent, ethereal sight these ten miles of peach blossoms would become when the spring breeze truly arrived.
Halfway up the jade-green path, we saw over a hundred cultivators gathered outside the mountain gate. The sound of their laughter and chatter drifted down the mountainside. They were all dressed in lavish attire, carrying themselves with an arrogant air. They looked less like Daoist disciples and more like the scions of wealthy merchant families in the capital out on a grand excursion. Lu Kaifeng and I exchanged a look and smiled: weren't they just pampered playboys? These were the "elites" of the Tianjun Sect.
The Tianjun Sect was a Daoist sect that had risen rapidly over the last five hundred years. Three hundred years ago, it had already become powerful enough to rival the Wujing Sect, and it also claimed the title of the world's preeminent sect. While the Wujing Sect sent specialists across the world to select disciples, they primarily focused on those from noble and prestigious clans. The Tianjun Sect, however, originated from the wealthy merchants of the Wu and Yue provinces in the south, who were dissatisfied that their talented descendants struggled to enter the Wujing Sect. Driven by a wandering rogue cultivator, the wealthiest man in the south at the time, He Kaiji, pushed for its creation. Thirty-six wealthy families spontaneously gathered and funded the sect's founding, establishing its headquarters in the commercial hub of the Southern Capital, Anjing. Although several centuries had passed and the title of "wealthiest man" had shifted to other families, and the name of that rogue cultivator had been forgotten, people simply remembered the Tianjun Sect as having been founded by the He family.
The operational mechanism of the Tianjun Sect was the polar opposite of the Wujing Sect’s reliance on government support and family pedigree. For them, money talked. Not only did one have to pay an exorbitant fee to enter the sect, but all cultivation techniques were purchased from the outside world. Disciples then had to pay to learn them or find other ways to acquire them. Sect contributions were rewarded directly with cash. It was called a sect, but its roots were essentially those of a merchant guild. There was a mocking folk song that went: "Wujing Sect is all flowers, ten generations of vermilion and purple. Tianjun Sect is all grass, a string of yellow and white is best." The "grass" referred to the orchid mark found on the silver and copper coins used by the common folk of Great Jing, which, through stylization, had become the emblem of the Tianjun Sect. In reality, high-value transactions relied solely on spirit stones; only commoners with no path to cultivation used gold, silver, and copper. This symbol of the Tianjun Sect meant that even if you were an upstart who used orchid copper coins and came from a line of commoners, as long as you had enough money, you could enter the sect and become a superior man.
Lu Kaifeng pointed to a small pavilion by the road. "Why don't we rest a bit before heading up?" I had the same thought. It wasn't that we feared them or were too sensitive to endure their sneers and cold shoulders, but the Tianjun Sect was notoriously overbearing. Dealing with them often meant encountering some thick-headed nouveau riche, which would only lower our own status. Moreover, there were only three deacons currently receiving guests at the mountain gate, and they were clearly overwhelmed. Going up now would only add to their trouble. The three of us sat in the pavilion. Lu Lingfeng was uncharacteristically excited; I could tell by the slight, rhythmic movement of her hands. She was likely using her Heavenly Eye to observe the precious glow of the high-grade spiritual artifacts on those people...
Aside from the scattered disciples of various sects, the most frequent travelers were commoners and merchants who supplied the mountain's needs. The Wujing Sect was truly accessible to the people; even they passed through the main gate. They might only be delivering a few medicinal herbs or carrying spring water from a distant snow-capped peak, yet the gatekeeping Daoists showed no disdain or displeasure, often chatting with them with a smile. In contrast, the Tianjun Sect members were obnoxious, either feigning ignorance or covering their noses as if disgusted by the Wujing Sect’s lack of "order."
I watched with interest until a sharp, sudden whistle pierced the air from the horizon. I turned to see a runaway flying carriage, pulled by a rampaging giant beast, hurtling out of control toward the mountain’s protective array. The Wujing Sect members saw it but remained unruffled. They sent out a communication talisman, presumably summoning guards to handle it. Even if they didn't make it in time, the carriage would simply crash into the array—it was of no great consequence, and there was no need to worry about whatever unlucky soul was inside. I couldn't help but marvel: this was the arrogance of those on the imperial payroll, something the nouveau riche could never match...
***
