Chapter 49

Chapter 49: A Way Out

They argued and plotted the entire way, flying through the skies with meticulous, ruthless logic.

By the time Hu Qing saw Yu Liu Ya, she asked with complete seriousness, “Senior Brother, want to play a game of slaughtering immortals?”

Yu Liu Ya nearly choked. Even though she was using voice transmission, he still instinctively scanned the area, as if someone might overhear through sheer bad luck.

A heartbeat later, he threw up a barrier around the Sect Master Hall and layered several more on top.

Hu Qing kept pressing. “Any immortal who can get in is from Little Li Realm anyway. Repaying their hometown is only right!”

“Repay with their lives?” Yu Liu Ya hissed. “You ascended too. Are you going to kill yourself?”

He’d called her back for real business, not nonsense.

Hu Qing pouted. “I didn’t say kill them all. On the way here, we ran into a thieving immortal who tried to rob me.”

She told him what happened.

Yu Liu Ya’s first reaction was, “Is he poor out of his mind? Robbing a cultivator’s stuff?”

See? A Sect Master with real perspective. He didn’t beautify it just because the other side was an immortal.

Hu Qing glanced at Shui Xin as if to say, Only you would still be naive enough to romanticize them.

Shui Xin rubbed his nose, looking mildly embarrassed. Who could’ve guessed? Little Li Realm’s lightning-defying geniuses could ascend and still end up like that.

Yu Liu Ya’s expression turned complicated. “I’ve heard from seniors… ascension doesn’t mean you immediately join a great immortal sect. Even if you do, it doesn’t mean they’ll value you.

Some get tricked, some get bullied, some die. The immortal realm is… muddy.”

Then he looked at Hu Qing with a kind of desperate hope. “So which big tree can Zhaohua Sect cling to?”

Hu Qing: “…”

So it was about grabbing a leg. Legs were nice. She loved clinging to the heavens’ leg. But—

What did she know?

“You think someone like me goes to the immortal realm, strolls into a great immortal sect, and figures out their inner politics?” Hu Qing pointed at herself with a face that didn’t even respect itself.

Yu Liu Ya sighed. “Being your Senior Brother is hard.”

Hu Qing gave a dry laugh.

Shui Xin looked like he was considering leaving the room.

Yu Liu Ya continued, “Zhaohua Sect has some reputation in Little Li Realm—no, in Qi Ye Heaven. But in the immortal realm, we’re not even a dish on the table.

I won’t hide it. The seniors who came back—ours, other sects, the Demon Clan, the Devil Clan—there are only a few roads they’ve offered.”

“One: stay obediently in Little Li Realm. With Heavenly Dao’s protection, you can live quietly. No ambition, but safe.”

“Two: select top talents and send them to the immortal realm to apprentice under immortal sects. Once they succeed and rise high, they’ll return and support Little Li Realm. Like cultivation families do.”

“Three: submit to a great immortal sect and become their lower realm branch. But then our own name disappears.”

Yu Liu Ya exhaled hard. “And the last road: wait until Little Li Realm can’t keep people out anymore, and then live or die, rich or poor, depends on fate.”

Hu Qing let out a small laugh. “Not fate. Waiting to be carved up.”

Yu Liu Ya’s face tightened. He couldn’t accept it, even if it was reality.

Hu Qing leaned forward. “Is there no decent force that can guide Little Li Realm toward healthy growth?”

Yu Liu Ya’s eyes lit up as if she’d tossed him a rope. “That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you!”

Hu Qing choked. This wasn’t some small matter; it was the future of Little Li Realm. And it was her homeland. Her entire family was here. She couldn’t not help.

She gritted her teeth. “Then… I could go again. Look more, ask more.”

“I’ll go with you,” Shui Xin said at once.

Yu Liu Ya stared at them, then let out a weary breath. “Forget it. You never really know a person’s heart. You’re new to the immortal realm. What can you possibly find out?”

Hu Qing frowned. That sounded pointed. “Who is that aimed at? The returning immortals made you this distrustful? What happened?”

Yu Liu Ya’s anger rose slowly, like heat creeping up from coals.

Hu Qing said, “Senior Brother, don’t hide things from me. My dad told me to help you. We can talk it through.

And anything about Hu Nuan, especially, you can’t hide from me.”

Yu Liu Ya’s jaw tightened. Then he said, “Zhaohua Sect has an ancestor who ascended a hundred thousand years ago. He wants to take our inner disciples to his immortal sect.”

Hu Qing’s brain ran a little slow on the word “wants.”

It didn’t sound like a suggestion. It sounded like an order.

“How many does he want?” she asked.

Yu Liu Ya twisted his mouth into something like a smile, but it looked ugly. “All of the young inner disciples. All of them.”

All?

“I’ll fucking kill him!” Hu Qing exploded, hands on hips. “Who is that shameless piece of shit? Tell me his name and I’ll go kill him right now!”

Forget whether “bringing inner disciples to an immortal sect” sounded like a good opportunity. If Zhaohua Sect lost this generation, the entire sect was finished.

Were inner disciples easy to recruit? The inner sect looked crowded, sure, but that crowd was gathered from countless places over countless years.

If Zhaohua Sect couldn’t protect disciples while the entire Little Li Realm was being watched, could anyone else? Everyone would lose successors. Everyone would expand recruitment. Then immortals would come take them again.

Those bastards weren’t plucking flowers. They were ripping out Little Li Realm by the roots.

Hu Qing’s laughter turned cold. “He came with a recruitment quota, didn’t he? He wants a kickback. What did the other ancestors say?”

At least that part comforted Yu Liu Ya a little. “The other ancestors agree with you.”

He was putting it nicely.

In reality, that ancestor had spoken to Yu Liu Ya in private and promised him benefits—an inner disciple position in the ancestor’s immortal sect.

Yu Liu Ya had too many eyes in his head to trust that. He’d nodded and smiled to the man’s face, then quietly let the news leak.

After that, the returning seniors went to confront him. “Confront” was a polite word. It was really shouting, and then outright cursing.

People who ascended from Little Li Realm usually appeared in the same Ascension Pool. From that pool, they took similar paths.

Many immortal sects even kept permanent recruitment stations near the Ascension Pool.

The relationships between those immortal sects were like the Ten Great Sects of Qi Ye Heaven: when facing outsiders, everyone was “family,” but when it came to fighting over recruits, they were mortal enemies.

That ancestor who tried to scoop the whole pot got cursed so hard… and to this day he still hadn’t given Yu Liu Ya a kind word.

Worse, Yu Liu Ya had picked up something from the shouting. The others’ attitude toward that ancestor’s immortal sect was full of contempt. It didn’t sound decent.

Yu Liu Ya cursed him in his heart. Even if you set aside shared origins, how could you lead a batch of such good kids into a fire pit?

You never really know a person’s heart.

After that, Yu Liu Ya didn’t dare trust anyone’s words.

He was burning with anxiety.