Lang Jiuchuan exchanged only a few playful words with Yice before she had no strength left. Yice could see she was barely holding on, and sensibly said, “You meditate. I’ll stand guard outside for you.”
With that, he walked out of the cave and sat cross-legged on the ground, pulling a blade of grass to chew on as he replayed the image of the Rong young master in his mind. His expression was not a pleasant one.
That Rong young master — something was strange about her. Her aura had kept shifting, one moment upright, the next moment dark and cold.
Yice did not know what he was thinking, but a flash of hatred and revulsion crossed his eyes. The Xuan Clan — they were all birds of a feather.
He glanced back once, then settled into his own cross-legged meditation posture.
Inside the cave, Lang Jiuchuan released Jiangche to keep watch beside her. Yice carried a few secrets. And regardless of whether he was aware of them or not, she and he were not fully acquainted, and she would not place complete trust in him.
Even in cultivation and in walking the way of the Daoist, one had to leave oneself a thread of a path out — and that was also a thread of a lifeline for oneself.
Lang Jiuchuan relaxed her expression, placed the bone bell before her, and formed Daoist hand seals with both hands, imprinting them onto the bone bell. The bone bell began to spin wildly. Spiritual energy flowed around her in a circling current, and a thread of it drifted out through the cave entrance.
Yice was grazed by that wisp of spiritual energy, and turned his head back with mild surprise to peer into the cave interior. He quietly shifted his position — and placed himself squarely in the center of the cave entrance, just right.
Meanwhile, the forcibly spirited-away Rong Huanxuan had by this time been brought back to her clan and led before the Rong Family Head.
The Rong Family Head looked at those savage, bloodshot eyes of hers. He sent Liu Xiao out to wait in the corridor, and barely restraining his fury, he formed hand seals and struck several intricate incantations in succession at the spiritual court at her brow, then forced a medicinal pill into her mouth.
Rong Huanxuan gradually came to herself. Yet the cold, wrathful look on her face remained. She looked left, then right, then raised her head — and found herself meeting her grandfather’s cold, expressionless gaze. Her heart immediately contracted with trepidation.
“Have you come to your senses? Kneel!” The Rong Family Head stood with one hand behind his back, regarding her with icy severity as he reprimanded her. “I sent you a sound transmission to come back immediately — why did you not listen? Instead you come back looking this wretched and beaten. If Liu Xiao hadn’t forced you away, would you have simply let yourself be finished off there? Do you think you’re a nine-tailed fox or something — that you have several lives to squander?”
Rong Huanxuan knelt on the ground, both hands hanging at her sides, and said nothing.
“I know you have been proud since you were small, that you have never thought much of others, and that you have always liked to measure yourself against everyone else. And it led to this grave catastrophe. I believed that after that heavy lesson you received last year, you would have been awakened to yourself — that you would have grown more humble and understood that beyond this person there is always someone greater, that beyond the sky there is always another sky above it. But it seems I was wrong — you remain just as arrogant and foolish as before!” The Rong Family Head thundered. “The clan has poured its resources into you — not so that you could regard everything beneath your notice and place yourself constantly in danger. If you ruin yourself, how will you ever be worthy of all the years this family has invested in nurturing you?”
Rong Huanxuan’s face reddened under the rebuke, and a look of humiliation passed over it. “Grandfather, I only wanted to—”
The Rong Family Head looked down at her from above and cut her off. “You only wanted to refuse to accept it. To feel resentment. The blows, one after another, have left you feeling that your dignity has been trampled underfoot, ground down again and again — and now even a nameless wandering soul is someone before whom you must bide your time and retreat. So you are furious, Rong young master. You do not accept it. You feel humiliated.”
Rong Huanxuan pressed her lips together tightly, her fists clenched.
The Rong Family Head laughed coldly. “Your refusal to accept it is not wrong. But what you ought to do is transform that refusal into will and drive — to make yourself stronger, so that you may one day stand upon the clouds and lead our Rong Family to the pinnacle. Not to rage about in impotent fury like this. As for that wandering soul’s origins — you know nothing of her background. What gave you any confidence that if you faced her, you could come away unscathed? With the heart demons you carry now — or with a cultivation base that is already unstable?”
Rong Huanxuan’s face drained to a ghastly pale in an instant. The depths of her eyes were full of humiliation and resentment, and she bit down on her lip involuntarily.
“Someone who has bested a Foundation Establishment expert in battle — do you think that is an ordinary person? To say nothing of the fact that you have not even half-entered Foundation Establishment yourself — it has only been half a year since your last qi deviation, and your vitality has not yet been replenished. Were it not for the rumors growing so rampant and loud, and your continued absence becoming damaging to the Rong Family’s prestige and standing, I would not have allowed you to venture out at all.” The Rong Family Head’s voice carried a note of disappointment. “But I did not expect you would be so foolish — that knowing your cultivation base was fragile, you would still attempt what you knew could not be done, fantasizing about cracking a stone with an egg. Truly beyond all understanding.”
“Grandfather, I thought — she had just been in a great battle against Elder Lingxu, and might not be able to withdraw completely unscathed, and with Elder Liu Xiao there as well, I only—”
“There is no room for wishful thinking. What if she truly has that kind of ability? You might as well feel the wound on your face.”
Rong Huanxuan instinctively touched the scar on her cheek. The sharp, stinging pain from it sent a cold wave creeping up the back of her neck. What if that stone had struck her throat instead — the arteries and vessels there? Or what if that tree branch had driven straight through her forehead?
A cold dread began to take root in her heart.
“Xuan’er, you are the young master of our Rong Family — you are the vessel of its inheritance. Do not treat your own life as something of no consequence. You are still growing. What you need is time, not to throw your life away in battle with others.” The Rong Family Head’s voice became grave and earnest. “In this world, there is no shortage of brilliance — there are many whose talent surpasses yours and who are younger besides. But bear this in mind: you may treat them as goals, yet never rashly measure yourself against them. The price of being too eager for success — you have already paid that once.”
Though Rong Huanxuan still felt the rebellion stirring inside her, she lowered her head. “Understood.”
“Go to the Hall of Discipline and receive twenty strokes of the Law Whip, then go before the Dao Wall and reflect upon your errors in silence — until you have comprehended one of the founding ancestor’s Dao rhythms. Only then may you descend the mountain.”
Rong Huanxuan startled and looked up, meeting those eyes that brooked no opposition. She lowered her head again and gave her assent.
She turned to leave, and from behind her she heard his voice again — cold and without mercy: “Your mother is currently in confinement. There is no need to see her over trivial matters. If she is allowed to keep disrupting your heart and mind and obstructing your cultivation, I will have her sent away to the Western Sea. Since she cannot raise you properly, there is no need for her to remain your mother.”
At those words, Rong Huanxuan’s entire body went rigid — yet she did not dare utter a single word of protest. She left in haste.
The Rong Family Head watched her retreating back, a flicker of vexation crossing his eyes. Had he known it would come to this, he would have brought that child back. Now it was too late to say anything.
He quickly turned his flow-prayer beads in his hand and transmitted a sound outward. Moments later, Liu Xiao entered.
“The person who crossed hands with you today — was that Lang Jiuchuan? Could you make out what kind of spirit dwells within her?”
Liu Xiao’s expression grew somewhat grave. He shook his head. “Family Head, I did not actually see the person. Given your transmission, and with Elder Lingxu having already fallen — I feared things might take a turn for the worse, and I did not dare allow the young master and myself to meet force directly with force. I used an instant-movement concealment talisman to leave.”
“Did not see the person?”
“That is correct. The other party also appeared to have used a concealment talisman. And we only exchanged two moves — or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a probe? Liu Xiao thought back on it, and felt that the other party had not seemed to use her full strength either. Or perhaps — had been unable to?
If they had truly fought to the end, perhaps they really could have captured her.
A miscalculation.
His expression shifted through several changes, but with the memory of Lingxu’s death before him, he said nothing of it. He only said, “That person’s movements were strange and difficult to predict. I cannot say with certainty whether it was the one from the Lang Family. And when I saw the young master’s face had been injured, I grew anxious and—oh, yes — the other party seemed to know Buddhist incantations. The young master appears to have been mentally ensnared by those incantations…”
“Enough!” The Rong Family Head cut him off with a cold word, waved a hand dismissively. “You may go.”
Liu Xiao clasped his hands in a bow and withdrew. The Rong Family Head turned his prayer beads in hand. Buddhist incantations — could this be someone from the Buddhist path?