Chapter 316: Chapter 316

Li Xun pictured how someone who’d just been outdone by a rival ought to look, then gave a slightly unwilling nod. Ming Ji still wasn’t convinced. She stared at him for a good long moment before finally turning her face away.

Ling Zhe, Ling Ji, and the others crowded over. Curious and worried, they started talking to Li Xun, and nine out of every ten sentences somehow circled back to Hundred Ghosts.

While dealing with his eager martial brothers and sisters, Li Xun’s brows furrowed on their own. To everyone else, it looked like he was worried about the threat Hundred Ghosts posed. But only Li Xun knew the truth. What really troubled him was how to keep his lie going without slipping up.

His eyes flicked over to Yan Shuiyue again. The girl was vividly describing Hundred Ghosts’ so-called demonic techniques, stirring even more anxiety among the others. Judging from her expressions, though, everything looked perfectly natural. She clearly had not picked up on any holes in what Li Xun had said.

That made sense. She had been shut away in Tenghua Valley for a month, so she only had a hazy grasp of many things. On top of that, once an idea had taken root, it was normal not to question it. Some people, however, were a different story. Li Xun still remembered that day when Ming Ji had asked about who was responsible for breaking Azure Jade Sword. The names he had casually thrown out included Xu Kang from the Heavenly Demon Sword Sect, and another cultivator surnamed Luo who was already dead.

At the time, the lie had been airtight. But now, with the gathering of the various sects, if Xu Kang also showed up and happened to run into him, just a few exchanged words would be enough to blow the whole thing wide open!

He let out a quiet sigh. He did not regret telling that lie back then. It had been the best option available. As for the trouble it might cause later, it was exactly as Yin Wanderer had said. When the world makes it impossible to tell what is beneficial and what is not, you simply act according to your own judgment…

At worst, you pay the price by taking responsibility for what you have done. Nothing more than that.

With his mind made up, Li Xun quickly began putting together a new plan. Taking advantage of a brief lull in the conversation, he pulled Yan Shuiyue off to the side. “How far is our place from the ‘Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree’?” he asked quietly.

Yan Shuiyue froze for a second, then quickly caught on. When she looked back at Li Xun, a trace of sympathy flickered in her eyes. She wiped the smile off her face and answered seriously: “At least fifteen or sixteen hundred li…”

Li Xun did a bit of quick math. The Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree was the symbol landmark of the Langya Water Mirror Heaven. That meant that pretty much every sect’s lodging here was roughly the same distance from the Langya Water Mirror Heaven.

And since the Water Mirror Sect had deliberately spaced the residences far apart to minimize friction among the attending sects, once he projected those distances outward, Li Xun was able to form a rough picture of the overall size of the area.

Even though a few thousand li was nothing to cultivators, if used well, it left a great deal of room for maneuver.

With that reassurance in his heart, Li Xun went ahead and made the request Yan Shuiyue had anticipated. He wanted to go beneath the Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree to pay his respects to his deceased master, Lin Ge.

The moment the words left his mouth, everyone fell silent.

For the cultivators of the Mingxin Sword Sect, everything was fine inside the sect walls. But once you stepped outside, the name Lin Ge was basically taboo. In the past hundred years, countless cultivators had died. Yet a death as humiliating as Lin Ge’s? In the entire history of the Tongxuan Realm, you could count them on one hand.

Right there on the Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree in front of the main gate of Langya Water Mirror Heaven, under the eyes of cultivators from every sect, he had been hung naked from a jutting branch. The whole world was forced to see his shriveled penis, reduced to something like a short needle, and at the time, he was still alive.. if barely.

The Demon Phoenix stayed right there beside him the whole time. Again and again she knocked back the cultivators led by Luo Nanchuan who kept trying to rescue him, making damn sure as many people as possible got a good, long look at the once-famous Heart Heaven Sword’s “glory.” She kept it up until Lin Ge’s lamp finally burned out and the last spark of life left him.

That incident also dealt a brutal blow to the Mingxin Sword Sect’s reputation. Fortunately, Zhong Yin was still alive then. Although he made no move and took no public action, his mere presence silently deterred others on all sides, preventing the situation from spiraling into something truly irreparable.

Li Xun didn’t concern himself with the awkward position the Mingxin Sword Sect occupied because of that incident. He focused on one simple thing. Among the righteous sects, the word “filial piety” was often more useful than any scheme or calculation.

As early as his first time attending the Water Mirror Assembly, he had gone beneath the Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree dressed in plain mourning clothes to honor his fallen master, ignoring the whispers and pointed looks behind his back as if they did not exist.

From then on, whenever he came to the Water Mirror Sect, the space beneath the Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree became a place he always visited. After so many times, even Yan Shuiyue developed a reflexive expectation of it.

A sharp flash crossed Ming Ji’s eyes, like lightning. In the end, it faded into a long sigh. She nodded. “Go, then. And offer my respects to Senior Brother as well…”

Her voice cut off abruptly, but Li Xun understood what she had left unsaid.

Given the humiliating manner of Lin Ge’s death, if the entire Mingxin Sword Sect entourage marched over in force, it would only look worse. Far better for Li Xun to go alone as a disciple, with filial duty as his banner. Under those circumstances, no one could openly object. Even the Daoist Miaochang nearby, though his dark face showed disapproval, ultimately turned his head away and pretended not to hear a thing.

Li Xun didn’t waste another moment. He said a quick goodbye to the others and set off for the Langya Water Mirror Heaven.

Yan Shuiyue, seeing one of the sect’s reception disciples already hurrying over, quickly hopped out and called to him, “I’ll go with you. Things are a total mess over at the sect right now. With a greeter along, you’ll save yourself a lot of trouble.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. In just that short time, Li Xun and the others had already seen dozens of rogue cultivators, either rushing off to watch the fighting in the distance or heading toward the Water Mirror Sect.

After all, the Water Mirror Sect could host a little over thirty sects, but there was no way it could take in thousands of rogue cultivators. Who knew what the Water Mirror Grotto-Heaven looked like by now. Li Xun had spent decades walking the cultivation path and had made no small number of enemies along the way. There was no telling what kind of trouble might pop up.

Still, this rare bit of breathing room…

After a brief hesitation, Immortal Master Ming Huo spoke up. “That would be for the best.” His tone was as gentle as ever. “With Greeter Yan at your side, there should be far fewer interruptions. Spirit Bamboo, you must also be careful. This gathering is not like the ones before. No one knows how many restless characters will come out of hiding this time. Do you understand?”

With that, Li Xun swallowed every word of refusal he had been about to say.

What caught his attention, though, was something else. When Ming Huo mentioned that this time was “not like before,” Yan Shuiyue curled her lip, looking thoroughly unimpressed. It was a tiny gesture, but telling.

Well, fine. Might as well squeeze a little information out of the girl while he had the chance..

With that thought, Li Xun waved to Yan Shuiyue. He didn’t bother flying on his sword this time, instead using a cloud-riding technique and carrying her along as they took off together.

Maybe it was the sheer joy of riding the wind and clouds, but Yan Shuiyue was in especially high spirits today. She chattered nonstop as they flew. “Come to think of it, we haven’t seen each other in, what, five or six years? I don’t think you’ve shown up at the Water Mirror Gathering these past few times. Been busy hunting demons and slaying monsters?”

“Yeah. You could say that.”

Of course, Li Xun wasn’t about to tell her the real reason he stayed away from the Water Mirror Gatherings. More than anything, he simply didn’t want to stand in front of the Heaven-Piercing Giant Tree and go through those meaningless rituals. Every single time, it only made him acutely aware of his own hypocrisy. It was never a pleasant experience.

Not wanting to linger on the topic, Li Xun turned his head and changed the subject. “By the way, Hundred Ghosts killed someone from the Grand Thousand Radiance City. You don’t seem all that worried.”

Yan Shuiyue blinked, not following him. “Worried about what?”

“The Alliance of the Sects. Miaohua Sect is out of the question, and the Xingji Sword Sect has already confirmed they won’t be attending. If more trouble breaks out…”

“Senior Brother Spirit Bamboo, don’t be so naive, will you?” She cut him off, waving a hand impatiently. She sounded tired and a little exasperated. “Do you really think the Xingji Sword Sect is the only one pulling out of the alliance this time?”

“Huh?”

“Ten Mountains and Seven Seas, Nine Truths and Four Oddities, Three Grotto-Heavens. Thirty-three sects in this world to begin with. Umbral City has been wiped out, the Hundred Beasts Sect was destroyed, so those don’t count. The Miaohua Sect is basically a den of thieves, so that’s out. Xingji Sword Sect, out.

“Then there’s the Unspoken Sect. They just stuck up a sign saying they’re sealing the mountain for ten years. Said they’re not coming, and that’s that. Vermilion Hook Sect still hasn’t given a straight answer to this day. If you add it all up, there are only twenty-seven sects left for this gathering.

“And that’s not even the worst of it. When it comes to something like a sect alliance, you should never expect much from groups like the Wild Geese Formation Sect, the Thousand Treasures Pavilion, or Qianfan City. They act more like merchants than cultivators. As for the One-Dou Rice Cult, their foundation is in the mortal world, not this realm, so of course they’re not going to put their heart into it either.

“What’s really fatal is that the Western Union sects has reached a tacit understanding. They’re clearly planning something else entirely. Now tell me, after all that, how many sects do you think are actually going to take this alliance seriously?”

Li Xun thought it over for a moment, then shook his head with a wry smile. “You’re right. Not a single one.”

That remark was pushing it a bit too far. Li Xun knew that much, at least. The ten orthodox sects… setting the Water Mirror Sect aside, the remaining nine genuinely did want to uphold order in this realm. As for the Western Union, their thinking might be more selfish, but they had no real intention of overturning the existing order either.

The problem was that the two sides had long since solidified into opposing camps. Their ways of doing things were completely different, and on top of that were grudges that had piled up over millions of years. Without some overwhelming, do-or-die pressure, something on the scale of the Forty-Nine Great Calamity, what possible reason would either side have to join forces?

To someone like Gu Yin, a master strategist of the highest caliber, any opponent that wasn’t a single, unified bloc simply wasn’t worth worrying about.

If Li Xun were Gu Yin, he would use a slow-boil approach. With the resources in hand, he would steadily build up his own prestige and influence.

There would be no need for open expansion. Just methods like the one used on that unfortunate Bisu. Give it another three or five hundred years, and there might be nothing in this realm she couldn’t accomplish. Even now, though, Li Xun still had no idea what she was actually trying to do.

At that point, everything clicked. He understood why the Mingxin Sword Sect wasn’t taking this alliance seriously.

To be honest, Li Xun didn’t really give a damn about any of this. But when the conversation swung around to the Western Union, it handed him the opening to slip in a question. “By the way…

…

Lin Ge stays one of my favorite characters in this story, even with his limited page time. He was genuinely a good dude. RIP to him.