Chapter 740: Li Haowen’s Wish
The turmoil caused by the Outer Court Cataclysm at the Kongshan Sect took five years to finally die down, and even then, only barely.
The Supreme Imperial Law Court did not disclose everything it had uncovered on Qingchan Peak. But the final outcome had already made the truth quite clear.
Chu Chen, Sword Master Elder of Qingchan Peak, announced that he was going into seclusion, despite being nowhere near a breakthrough to the upper three realms.
Fu Qian, Qingchan Peak’s Martial Elder, meanwhile, shut himself away in Cangwu Residence and stopped involving himself in any Peak Master affairs.
Chu Xiyao, Qingchan Peak’s Chief Disciple, also resigned from her position. She too kept to herself, rarely appearing in public even on Qingchan Peak.
Chu Chen’s seclusion and Fu Qian’s withdrawal from worldly affairs left the vast majority of Qingchan Peak’s power entirely in the hands of Bai Qiming, its True Dharma Elder.
The successor to the position of Qingchan Peak’s Chief Disciple was Elder Bai’s personal disciple, Qin Yue.
It could even be said that Qingchan Peak was now entirely Bai Qiming’s domain, with no one else’s word counting for anything.
When Li Haowen, Lin Xinyang, and Chen Yan were together, they had occasionally brought up Qingchan Peak’s current predicament.
But they always stopped at that, and none of them dared to discuss it in depth.
The waters on Qingchan Peak seemed very deep indeed.
As the Chief Disciple of Kongyuan Mountain, Chen Yan had long known that the Kongshan Sect was no united front, and that every peak was riddled with factions.
After the Heavenly Summit Mountain Dao Inquiry ended, he had also vaguely realized why Chu Xiyao and Qin Yue had such a poor relationship.
But he had never imagined the sect’s infighting could be so utterly “life or death.”
Just as expected, Chen Yan broke through to the Qi Sea Realm at the age of twenty-one.
The total amount of true qi he could use in his Martial Spring had reached dozens of times what he could wield back in the Martial Spring Realm.
It was also that year that Yun Yichen, the current Sect Leader of the Kongshan Sect, appointed Chen Yan as the Dao Sect Wanderer of the Kongshan Sect.
For at least the next five years, he would travel throughout the Five Regions and Eight Wilds of Chenping Continent, and might have little time to return to the Kongshan Sect.
Before leaving the Kongshan Sect, Chen Yan first went to see his Master, Lu Li.
Lu Li was now at the Peak Qi Sea Realm. A breakthrough to the Spirit Connection Realm should no longer be too far off.
According to the plans of Murong Wen, Martial Elder of Kongyuan Mountain, once Lu Li broke through to the Spirit Connection Realm, he would transfer Elder Wang, who currently served as Kongyuan Mountain’s Scripture Hall Elder, to work by his side. He would then have Lu Li take over as Scripture Hall Elder and continue to gain experience.
Originally, Murong Wen’s greatest concern had been that, given Lu Li’s talent for cultivation, forming innate true energy and advancing to the Myriad Transformations Realm would be a rather troublesome challenge.
But in recent years, he had realized that he might have worried a little too much.
Lu Li’s path of cultivation was quite steady.
Perhaps it would be difficult for him to go much further, but if he kept up his current pace and approach, then as long as nothing went seriously wrong, forming innate true energy in the future was all but certain.
Lu Li did not offer Chen Yan much advice.
He only told Chen Yan that as the Kongshan Sect’s Dao Sect Wanderer, the moment he presented his token, every word and deed of his outside the sect would represent the will of the entire Kongshan Sect.
So whenever he made an important decision, he had to be as cautious as possible.
Chen Yan thought for a moment, then asked Lu Li a particularly stupid question:
“What would happen if I took the Kongshan Walking token and declared war on the other four great sects?”
Lu Li fell silent for a moment, then gave his answer:
“Within the time it takes one stick of incense to burn, one of the sect’s Grand Elders would find you, slap you to death, and erase you from the Kongshan Sect’s rolls of disciples.”
A perfectly reasonable outcome.
That was what Chen Yan thought.
After bidding Lu Li farewell, Chen Yan made his way to Yuanhua Mountain.
Li Haowen and Lin Xinyang had already prepared a banquet for him on Yuanhua Mountain.
Beneath the vast night sky, the three of them sat before the Jieyou Abyss, drinking spirit wine as they listened to the sound of the water.
“The path to immortality is long.”
Looking up at the moon, half-hidden behind the clouds, Li Haowen sighed.
“Without realizing it, nearly twenty years have passed since the day I entered Yuanhua Mountain… From the day I joined the Kongshan Sect, I devoted myself wholeheartedly to the Dao. But gradually, I began to feel lost too… What, exactly, is cultivation for?”
“I bet, Senior Brother Li,”
Chen Yan said, hugging his wine jar as he leaned backward and half-lay on the ground,
“that ninety-nine percent of the cultivators in this world have asked themselves that question.”
“Is that so?”
Li Haowen smiled and looked toward Chen Yan.
“Then what’s your answer, Junior Brother Chen?”
Chen Yan gazed at the night sky, raised the wine jar to his lips, and took two long gulps.
“My answer… is to fight Qin Qingyu again someday, and beat her.”
Li Haowen and Lin Xinyang were both slightly taken aback, but neither of them laughed.
“Junior Brother Chen really is competitive,”
Li Haowen said.
“Of course. When Junior Brother Chen was fifteen, he was willing to risk crippling his left hand just to keep trading blows with you, Senior Brother Li.”
Lin Xinyang teased him.
“How’s your left arm now?”
Chen Yan grinned at Li Haowen, then set down his wine jar and rolled up the sleeve of his left daoist robe, revealing his arm.
It was perfectly fine, without a single scar.
“What about you, Junior Brother Lin?”
Li Haowen turned to ask Lin Xinyang,
“Why do you want to cultivate?”
“My mother sent me here back then,”
Lin Xinyang replied calmly.
“At the time, there was some fortune-teller. I don’t know if he was a cultivator or not, but anyway, he told my mother I had an immortal destiny… Then she went through every hardship to bring me to the sect for its recruitment ceremony. As for me, I was always pretty much in the dark.”
As he spoke, Lin Xinyang paused briefly.
“So, really, I didn’t have any particular reason for setting out on the path to immortality… But if I had to say what I hoped for in the future, I suppose I’d want to do what I believe is right.”
“I feel like Senior Brother Lin’s goal is even more distant than mine,”
Chen Yan said with a smile.
“I still think yours is more distant, Junior Brother Chen.”
Lin Xinyang smiled back, then turned his gaze to Li Haowen.
“Senior Brother Li, have you really never thought of an answer?”
Li Haowen was silent for a moment, then gently shook his head.
“I didn’t have one before, but now I think I do.”
“What is it?”
Chen Yan pressed.
“I hope that ten years from now, a hundred years from now, or even a thousand years from now…”
Li Haowen paused.
“The three of us can still drink together.”
The dark clouds drifted away from the night sky, and the moonlight shone clear and bright.