Chapter 300 - 286: Returning to Qingxu Temple
The Su Mansion.
Mr. and Mrs. Su stood under a nearby veranda, watching the noisy group of young people in the pavilion, their faces alight with gratified smiles.
"My dear, look. Ling’er has made so many friends," Mrs. Su said softly.
Mr. Su nodded, his gaze falling upon his daughter’s group of friends. The young man named Wang Xiedi was grabbing Lin Qingfeng’s sleeve and complaining about something, while Lin Qingfeng just looked completely unfazed.
He couldn’t quite make out their words, and much of what he could hear, he didn’t understand. But when his gaze landed on his own son, Su Wenxuan, his brow furrowed unconsciously.
’This boy is thinking about becoming some "ninth-rate sect" martial hero again... Sigh. The martial world... It’s not so easy to make a name for yourself there. First he reads some stories and wants to pursue Cultivation, and now he wants to be a great hero. He’s just a child, why is he always dreaming about such things?’
Mr. Su sighed inwardly. ’As a mortal, he should be studying more to earn an official title in the future. At the very least, he could inherit the family’s shops. Wouldn’t any of that be better than his constant daydreaming?’
He couldn’t imagine what a real life of Cultivation was like. Could it really be as the stories described—a life of freedom, roaming the world without a care?
But he was just a mortal. Thinking about it any more would only bring him needless worry. It’s just... Su Ling’er...
He had thought this child of his, due to her aptitude, would face setbacks on the path of Cultivation. He’d imagined that after a few years of hardship on the mountain, she would recognize reality and return home. Yet she had somehow joined that... that Guixi Sect. It seemed she had encountered an even greater opportunity and discovered a much wider world.
But he always had a feeling... that the paths of immortals and mortals were separate. Ling’er’s future was drifting further and further away from them, from mortals...
He didn’t know whether to be happy or sad... Realistically, it should be more of a happy occasion, right? What parent doesn’t hope for their child to have a boundless future? But in his heart, he still wished his daughter could come home more often, to be close with them.
But then another thought struck him, and he was afraid... afraid that his own mortal desires would hinder his daughter’s training, that he would become a burden on her path to the immortal Dao.
"Sigh..." Mr. Su let out a long sigh and subconsciously looked up at the sky. "It’s getting... late. The food in the kitchen must be ready by now. But Ling’er... why isn’t she back yet?"
...
「Meanwhile, at Qingxu Temple on Qingxu Mountain.」
The place was completely deserted. Su Ling’er stood before the mountain gate, motionless for a long time.
Fragmented images lingered in her mind.
She remembered the first time she stood here. The stone steps beneath her feet had been slick with morning dew, so clean they reflected the light of the sky.
There were always a few Outer Sect Disciples like her, holding brooms and sweeping away the leaves that had fallen the night before with one slow stroke after another. Their movements weren’t fast, but they kept the place looking neat and orderly.
There should have been a scent in the air—the crisp smell of morning dew mixed with fresh grass.
But now... a thick layer of unswept dead leaves covered the ground. Stepping on them produced a crunching sound of fragmentation. There was no smell of grass in the air, only a stale, rotten odor that drilled into her nostrils and made her feel suffocated.
Those familiar scenes felt like they had happened only yesterday, but when she reached out her hand, they had already vanished like smoke.
Now, she was the only one left, standing before this empty mountain gate, feeling somewhat out of place.
And so, she reached out and gently pushed open the half-closed mountain gate.
"CREAAAK—" The door hinges groaned as if under a heavy burden. Behind the gate was a familiar courtyard, yet it was filled with an unfamiliar... decay.
Her gaze fell upon the well in the corner of the courtyard. She remembered her past self—scrawny and without a trace of Spiritual Qi—gritting her teeth as she pulled the heavy bucket up from the bottom of the well, time and time again.
But now, the well rope had long since rotted and snapped. It hung limply over the well’s edge, and a spiderweb was even stretched across the opening, shimmering faintly in the light.
’When did they leave... How long have they been gone?’
She crossed the courtyard and walked toward the area where the Outer Sect Disciples had lived. The woodshed she had once shared with several other female disciples stood with its door half-open, completely empty inside.
By the moonlight, she could see a thick layer of dust covering the floor. The corners of the room were filled with cobwebs, and the air was thick with the musty smell of long-sealed decay.
A gust of night wind blew past. "CREAK—" A dilapidated window swung back and forth, and a dark shadow flashed by.
Su Ling’er subconsciously glanced back.
If this had been the past, she would have almost thought some mischievous junior sister was playing a prank. Her junior brothers and sisters, who struggled through hardship just as she had, were no strangers to such silly tricks.
However, when she looked back, there was only an empty window frame and the swaying shadows of the trees outside. The dark shadow that had flashed by was just a piece of tattered cloth blown by the wind.
’There’s... really no one left here.’
Su Ling’er’s heart sank bit by bit. She continued forward, passing through the Outer Sect Disciples’ living area and arriving at the Inner Sect Disciple residences she had once yearned for.
Once upon a time, this place had been unreachable for her. Only when summoned by a senior brother or sister from the Inner Sect to perform some task—like serving tea, fetching water, or even giving a massage—could she step into this area, her heart filled with awe and envy.
But never before had she been able to walk here so freely, without needing anyone’s summons or permission.
She walked and watched, finally stopping before the Sect Leader’s former residence.
She had imagined countless times how magnificent the residence of the temple’s master must be. But when she pushed open the similarly half-closed door, the sight before her left her completely stunned.
Even though it had been emptied out, judging from the traces left behind, the room was... utterly destitute. It couldn’t even compare to the residences of those Inner Sect Disciples who hadn’t fully detached from the mortal world, who might plant flowers and herbs around their homes or carve patterns onto their door lintels.
Here, there were only the simplest of furnishings.
In the center of the floor was a meditation cushion with frayed edges, suggesting its owner had spent long years sitting there in ascetic practice.
In the corner was an empty pill rack. A few faint wisps of medicinal fragrance seemed to linger in the air. Su Ling’er drew closer to identify it. It wasn’t the scent of any high-grade pills. It was more like the lingering after-smell of the lowest-grade pills, like Blood Coagulation Pills. There also seemed to be some mid-grade pills she couldn’t recognize.
On another wall, a small Spirit Gathering Array was carved. But the Array’s patterns had long gone dim, and the Spirit Stones in the grooves that formed the Array’s core had been dug out, leaving behind only a little Spirit Stone dust.
With Su Ling’er’s current level of insight, she could easily tell that the dust all came from some extremely poor-quality, low-grade Spirit Stones.
A Cultivator at the Great Perfection of Core Formation, the leader of a sect... How could he have lived such a frugal life?
Qingxu Temple... seemed far, far weaker than she had ever imagined...