Chapter 11

The newcomer wore sapphire-blue robes, elegant and dapper, nothing like your typical cultivator, more like a learned young scholar from the mundane world.
His features looked youthful, yet there was a depth there, weathered over the years. Still, he could pass for a much younger man, there was a free-spirited air about him.
As soon as he appeared in the doorway, everyone inside went quiet, pausing their conversations to greet him respectfully.
“Senior Brother Su.”
“What brings you here, Senior Brother?”
“Greetings, Uncle!”
“Greetings, Peak Lord!”
Even the silver-haired sect leader, Sect Leader Danyang, called out, “Junior brother, you’ve avoided taking disciples for years, always dragging your feet. I can’t believe you finally decided to show up this time.”
The newcomer was none other than Master of Xiaoyao Peak, Su Xingtin.
He laughed heartily. “Just had a whim, wanted to tag along and take a look. Don’t mind me, carry on, don’t let me keep you.”
The female cultivator who’d just summoned the Guiyuan Mirror gave a slight bow and said, “Senior Su, have a look, flowers blooming in snow. What do you think?”
This woman was Ding Huirou, head of Biyou Peak.
Biyou Peak was the most unique of Guiyuan Sect’s main peaks; it only accepted female disciples, never a single male.
Peak Lord Ding Huirou was famously aloof and didn’t blend easily with others.
Su Xingtin wandered around the water mirror, glanced at it, and nodded slightly. “That’s a rare state of mind. But unfortunately, the glow isn’t all that bright, nothing special about her talent, honestly a pity.”
The crowd considered this and had to admit it was true. Her temperament seemed decent, but if her talent was so ordinary, she wasn’t exactly an extraordinary catch. The hopeful energy faded as the cultivators quietly let go of their eager intentions.
Only Su Xingtin, after a sideways glance, stealthily peeked at the tiny line of names on the Liuli Bell and memorized the characters “Zhang Er Ya.”
Sect Leader Danyang stroked his beard. “Junior Su is right; let’s move on and see the rest of the children.”
With that, he slowly flipped through the roster, eyes narrowed, clearly noting that name as well.
Ding Huirou nodded in approval. “Senior Su’s not wrong. Kids with a snowscape in their hearts are almost always cold and impossible to train.”
And just like that, the moment passed and everyone’s attention drifted to the dazzling new illusions materializing before them, each secretly wondering which child might best suit them as a future protege.
After leaving Qingjing Peak,
Ding Huirou conjured a massive white feather, riding it gracefully on the wind toward her own Biyou Peak.
The junior sister with her asked, “Senior sister, did you fancy that ‘Snowbloom in winter’ girl?”
Ding Huirou chuckled. “Ah, little sister, you’re too young to understand how rare that kind of mindset really is.”
“But, didn’t the Xiaoyao Peak master just say her aptitude’s totally average? Like, nothing special?”
“And you actually believe him?” Ding Huirou snorted. “You really just met Senior Su today, huh? The more he values something, the less he lets on about it.”
“So Senior Su’s got his eye on that kid too?”
“The Xiaoyao Peak master might look lazy and laid-back, but there’s nobody sharper under the surface. Just look at his disciples, even though there are only a few, every single one is a prodigy. We can’t let him cherry-pick all the best for himself!”
The junior laughed. “Why worry, senior sister? Lan’er’s a new disciple this year too, just have her let those talented girls know that Biyou Peak’s the place to be.”
By now, the crowd had dispersed.
Master Danyang stood before the palace gates, hands behind his back, gazing at the moon. A disciple approached him. “Master, what does ‘Snowbloom in Winter’ really mean? Would you teach me?”
Danyang stroked his snowy, waist-length beard. “The human heart… It’s the hardest thing in the world to fathom. If only we could test it once and guarantee it’d never change, why would our Guiyuan Sect end up with so many useless disciples over the years?”
The disciple was lost. “But why is that?”
“If a blank sheet of paper is stained with ink, it’ll never be pure again. If burning coals are doused with water, they won’t catch fire anymore.” The elderly sect leader sighed. “Spring is glorious, but storm and frost strip it bare. Jade can be spotless, but after rolling in mortal dust, even that is soiled. Children are pure when they arrive at our doors, but the road of cultivation is steep and fraught with temptation. Once you’ve tasted inner demons and worldly desire, weathered countless tribulations… how many people can keep their hearts untouched?”
“So, Master, is that girl truly outstanding?”
Danyang glanced at the high, bright moon and gave a subtle nod. “That child has already endured harsh winters, yet there’s no hint of self-pity, she’s withstood the cold, but the fire in her heart still burns clear and steady. Flowers that bloom in snow… are rare indeed. And I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Your uncles saw it too, they just kept quiet on purpose.”
Up on Xiaoyao Peak, Su Xingtin absentmindedly palmed his wine cup. “Everything else aside, how did someone so young end up with such a mind?”
Beside him, Ye Hangzhou was flipping through admission logs. He glanced up, saying, “I checked the new disciples’ records. She comes from a struggling family in the countryside, has three older brothers at home.”
The two men exchanged a look and shared a wordless, “Aha!” understanding.
In this world, sons are valued above daughters, and it’s tradition for families to discriminate against girl children.
So these two grown men instantly conjured up a tragic backstory for this farm girl called Zhang Er Ya, imagining her squeezed and bullied by her family, yet never giving up, which left them both rather moved.
“So that means you’re planning to take another junior sister?” Ye Hangzhou perked up.
“Don’t talk nonsense. When did I ever say I’d take on a disciple?” Su Xingtin straightened his robe. “Go tell your senior brother, the new disciples’ first lesson in Huayu Hall, I’ll be dropping by to ‘join the fun.’”
Meanwhile, Mu Xue had no idea she’d become the hot topic among the sect’s top brass. Right now, she was busy lining up for breakfast with her bunkmate, Xia Tong, bowls in hand.
The dorms in Huayu Hall were spartan, but the meals were surprisingly generous.
Mu Xue hadn’t had a decent bite in six years and couldn’t help swallowing hard at the fragrant smells wafting from the line.
“Xiao Xue, have you heard?” Xia Tong nudged Mu Xue with her elbow. “That Ding Lanlan, the one with the jade hairpin, she was practically picked for the sect before she started.”
Where Xia Tong dug up this morning’s stream of gossip, no one knew. She pressed close to Mu Xue, chattering non-stop.
Mu Xue: “Oh, really? This marinated egg smells so good. Ma’am, could I have one, please?”
“I heard her aunt’s an inner sect immortal, and she’s been cultivating since she was three. Today’s just for show.”
“Mm, is that so. Ooh, they have roast quail. I’ll take one, do you want one too?”
“Roast quail? Yes! I want one too!” Xia Tong hurriedly shoved her plate forward. “With her connections, she probably knows all the secret sect gossip. I’m so jealous!”
“Yeah, totally. Super jealous. Want a cruller? Auntie, can I get another cruller, please?”
With their trays in hand, the two of them headed toward the dining table, only to be intercepted by a group of little girls.
“Senior Sister Lanlan wants you to come over,” they said.
Mu Xue looked up and saw, not far away, a girl dressed in a pink chiffon skirt, tapping her fingers impatiently on the table, waiting for them.
This was exactly who Xia Tong had just mentioned, the one with connections at the top, the “insider.”
Everywhere in the world, the strong press down the weak. What surprised Mu Xue would be if that ‘didn’t’ happen.
Ding Lanlan was a good bit taller than Mu Xue, already around ten years old, with bright eyes, pearly teeth, and a glimmer of restrained light in her gaze. There was a subtle shimmering of spiritual energy flowing around her, clearly someone whose cultivation was already taking shape.
Mu Xue walked up with her breakfast, cautious. “Senior Sister, you called me?”
Ding Lanlan gave Mu Xue an up-and-down look, lifted her chin, and pointed to the seat in front of her,
“Sit there.”
She might only be a kid, but Mu Xue never underestimated the malice that children could inflict. Childhood taught her this: little kids could honestly be the most ruthless, because they had no bottom line.
Guard up, Mu Xue slowly sat down in front of Ding Lanlan.
Seeing how obedient Mu Xue was, Ding Lanlan straightened her tiny back with smug satisfaction.
She remembered what her aunt Ding Huirou had specially told her to do this morning. She said to Mu Xue, “From now on, you hang out with our group.”
Mu Xue: ???
Wasn’t this supposed to be one of those “spoiled rich girl bullies poor girl” scenes?
Why did she just get roped into the clique completely out of nowhere?
“Eat up! The inner sect instructors are coming for class in a minute,” Ding Lanlan whispered, leaking some very reliable intel. “Word is, Peak Leader Su from Xiaoyao Peak is personally teaching the first entry lesson this year.”
“Who’s the Xiaoyao Peak Leader?”
“Are they, like, super powerful?”
“C’mon, you all know this, right? Guiyuan Sect has nine main peaks. Each peak has its own peak lord. Each master is an expert at something special. Xuandan Peak is great at alchemy, Biyou Peak is all about transformations. But Xiaoyao Peak is the real wild card.”
“What’s wild about it? Is it especially carefree?”
“Pff, carefree my foot. Their thing is fighting. Ahem, dueling, technically. From Senior Sister Miao Hong’er down to the youngest junior brother Ye Hangzhou, they dominate every single tournament. They’re a small crew, but no one ever dares mess with them.”
Xiaoyao Peak, right, Mu Xue remembered now. The senior brother named Ye who’d brought her up the mountain was from that peak. Now she wondered, what was his master like…?
She didn’t have to wonder for long. Soon enough, she saw the very real Peak Lord of Xiaoyao Peak for herself.
Su Xingtin wore plain blue robes, with his signature Xiao Yao headscarf tied up. He faced the crowded hall of young disciples, smiling as he sat down at the dais, looking for all the world like a charming teacher at a worldly private school.
“This is your very first lesson as disciples, on the dual path of life and spirit. But before we start, I want to ask: Why did you leave your homes to begin cultivation up here in the mountains?”
One tiny disciple raised their hand and piped up, “I heard that after you start cultivating, you never go hungry again, even if you don’t eat!”
The entire room burst out laughing.
Then someone else stood up. “I want to fly in the sky and play, like the senior sisters and brothers!”
“My mom says, if you become an immortal, you live forever.”
“And you can turn rocks into gold!”
“And you can conjure pork knuckles, eat as much as you want, anytime!”
“Hahaha!”
Burst after burst of childish voices crashed through the classroom. Mu Xue was a little distracted, lost in memories of training with her master in her previous life.
“What is life? And what is spirit? Mu Xue, get up and answer!” Back then, her master was all strictness, his lessons cryptic and obscure.
Whenever their master taught, she and the others had to be on red alert. Miss a single word, fail an exam, and you’d get a beating for sure.
Up on the dais, Su Xingtin’s tone was gentle: “All your answers are correct. That’s why there are thousands of paths to the Dao. Every school, every technique, chases the same thing: the way of longevity and enduring life.
After all, the longer you live, the more time you have for cultivation. All these wishes, turning stones into gold, unlimited pork knuckle, sooner or later, you’ll figure them out. Isn’t that right?”
A disciple instantly asked, “Does that mean there are a ton of ways to cultivate in this world?”
Su Xingtin replied, “Of course. The Confucians pursue sage-hood; the Daoists seek mystery; the Buddhists settle into meditation; demonic cultivators follow their desires. Those are just different doors to the very same path.”
“Wait, demonic cultivators count too?” The kids were starting to get excited.
“I heard demonic cultivators get stronger by eating little kids!”
“I heard they’re all wild parties and chaos, no shame at all!”
“No way, I heard demonic cultivators can’t stand sunlight and all live underground.”
Su Xingtin rapped gently on the table, calling everyone to order,
“All that is just rumor and nonsense. People always fear what they don’t know. Demonic cultivators are simply cultivators living in the Demon Spirit Realm. That world has much denser spirit energy than ours, and so more spiritual beings and strange monsters are born there.
Life is much harder for cultivators in that world. Just to survive, they chase only the fastest and most effective ways to cultivate. For them, fate is their true nature, and following their nature is their Dao. They walk straight toward the heart of cultivation, following exactly what feels right, no more, no less.”
These words struck Mu Xue like a stone in a pond, rippling through her heart.
She couldn’t help herself and called out among the crowd of disciples: “But…isn’t that a good thing? The faster you can cultivate, the better, right?”
The peak lord on the dais let his gaze linger on her, intentionally or not, Mu Xue couldn’t tell. “That’s a very good point. Which is precisely why our sect’s very first lesson is on the dual cultivation of life and spirit.
You kids are still young, so I’ll keep it simple. Our bodies and primordial spirits are two sides of the same coin, inseparable, dependent on each other. If someone blindly chases after technique and mystical arts, that’s called cultivating the mind but abandoning fate. They’ll find themselves teetering on the edge, either becoming wild and reckless or consumed by emptiness. That’s why most demonic cultivators, though they advance at lightning speed, rarely last the distance.”
“On the flip side, if you focus only on fortifying the body and neglect to temper your heart, you’ll end up stagnant, incapable of handling the tribulations on the road of cultivation. That’s why our Guiyuan Sect practices balance, the dual cultivation of mind and fate. It’s a slower path, sure, but it’s aligned with the Dao of Heaven and Earth. That’s the way to truly attain the Golden Core.”
Su Xingtin’s words couldn’t have been simpler or clearer. Still, these new disciples, some as young as six or seven, the eldest barely twelve, mostly listened in a daze, understanding little.
But for Mu Xue, those words landed like thunder, sending shockwaves surging through her mind.
She realized, in a flash, the very reason why after years of bitter cultivation, her body and Dao had ended in destruction.
The bitter disappointment of a failed tribulation, the split-second of terror before death, as if her heart had seized, came flooding back to her. The knot in her heart that had confounded her for six years now loosened, just a little, thanks to these few sentences. Some faint, hazy enlightenment began to awaken in her.
Su Xingtin finished his lecture, packed up his belongings, and prepared to leave.
Beneath the lectern, a hundred kids chattered and joked, except for one little girl, six or seven years old, sitting with her mouth parted in astonishment, eyes fixed ahead as if she’d just glimpsed some secret truth.
“You think she actually understood any of that? At her age?” Su Xingtin chuckled. “Interesting kid. Xiaoyao Peak is always quiet and lonely, maybe having her around would spice things up.”
It wasn’t until the second teacher, Ding Huirou, was already standing at the front that Mu Xue finally snapped out of her stupor.
Ding Huirou carried a flat box made of inky black jade in both hands.
Her hands were long-fingered and strong, knuckles clearly defined, with rough calluses on her palms and fingertips, not the soft, delicate hands of your average young lady.
Mu Xue recognized those hands in an instant, they belonged to someone who spent long nights in the forge, immersed in artifact refinement.
She instantly perked up, her energy returning.
Ding Huirou’s name sounded gentle, but she was a lot sterner than Su Xingtin, her back ramrod-straight and face all business. She cleared her throat, and the buzzing classroom went silent.
“I am the Leader of Biyou Peak, skilled in artifact transformation. For our first lesson, I’ll give you an introduction to the major schools, origins, and leading figures of artifact refinement.”
Chin lifted, she swept her gaze across the classroom, pausing briefly on her own niece, Ding Lanlan.
“This lesson requires your full attention. Next time I come, there will be a test. Anyone who fails forfeits their lunch, no exceptions.”
No lunch if you fail, huh? So punishments around here are pretty chill.
Just stash a couple of boiled eggs from breakfast in your pocket, and problem solved, Mu Xue thought, at ease.
Ding Huirou finished speaking, then nimbly manipulated the black jade box in her hands. The flat case opened in four directions, raising a complex prism of crystal at its center.
The diamond-shaped crystal radiated a soft blue glow, within which classic artifact models flickered into being one after another.
They were just spectral projections, but every detail was clear and exquisite, the models hovered in midair, rotating gracefully from every angle as if they were real.
Mu Xue nearly jumped straight out of her seat.
The “Brightlight Sea Mirage Platform”!
The black jade box in Ding Huirou’s hands, she’d designed that artifact herself! Out of everything she’d ever made, besides the Qianji and Shadowfloat, this was her proudest creation. Someone had clearly tweaked the design, but Mu Xue could never mistake it.
She’d never dreamed she would see her own creation here, all these years later.
Ding Huirou introduced the spectral projections hovering in the air one by one, and finally came to the teaching artifact in her own hands.
“This item is called the Brightlight Sea Mirage Platform, modeled after an artifact brought from the Demon Spirit Realm more than a hundred years ago. It can project illusions before your very eyes, almost indistinguishable from reality itself. Its original creator was a master artisan from the Demon Spirit Realm, a woman named Mu Xue.” Ding Huirou stood behind the lectern, her words slow and deliberate.
Hearing her own name mentioned in lecture, Mu Xue’s emotions defied description.
So she really had been dead for more than a hundred years? Back then, she’d made a small name for herself as an artifact master, but she’d never dreamed that after death, people would call her a legendary figure, and her creations would even end up in the Immortal Spirit Realm.
“There’s very little recorded about Master Mu’s life. She may have been a demonic cultivator, but that doesn’t diminish her achievements. Most of what we know about her, in fact, comes from another renowned figure…”
Ding Huirou manipulated the Brightlight Sea Mirage, and the projections of artifacts faded, replaced by the image of a young man. He sat on a snow-covered rooftop, tension in his long legs and a cloak draped loosely over his shoulders. As the crystal rotated, his face came into view, pale, arresting, oddly familiar.
“A…a demonic cultivator?” It was the first time these kids had seen the real deal, they were utterly transfixed.
“Wow, demonic cultivators can be this pretty?” Some of the older girls gasped, blushing furiously.
Who is that? Looks familiar, Mu Xue thought, her mind racing.