Chapter 34

Chapter 34: The Secret Inheritance Ground
Ye Chu Xue pushed herself to her feet, forcing the anger down until it sat like a stone in her gut. Her expression grew uglier by the second.

Relying on men really didn’t work.

She would return, study the Medicine King Sect’s inheritance, and use her own strength to slap Song Wan Ning in the face.

From now on, she would never need Song Wan Ning’s “charity” pills again.

Song Wan Ning, meanwhile, slipped back to the sect without drawing anyone’s attention.

In her seclusion room, she washed away blood and dust, then rested through the night. Only when dawn broke did she sit and prepare to comprehend the inheritance in her mind.

The Emotionless Dao was not what she wanted—but an Immortal Lord’s inheritance was priceless reference material.

It might be the chance she needed to sharpen her strength.

Song Wan Ning lowered her eyes, exhaled a breath of stale qi, and closed them.

In her sea of consciousness, the nameless tome opened like the mouth of a black hole and swallowed her soul whole.

In the next instant, she stood in a strange place.

Farmland spread around her in pitch darkness, the shapes of rice plants barely visible as they swayed in a faint breeze. Beyond the fields, rows of houses crouched in the distance. Dim lanterns glowed, casting a bean-yellow light that barely pushed back the night.

She had expected to see that astonishing sword strike again.

Instead, she found… this.

Song Wan Ning frowned and walked forward, footsteps soundless on the packed earth.

At the village entrance, a small child spotted her and brightened at once.

“Pretty sister,” the little girl called, a foxtail grass clenched between her teeth. “Who are you looking for?”

Her hair was a mess, like a dog had chewed through it. Her patched clothes had two fresh tears, as if she’d snagged herself on something sharp and kept running anyway.

“I’m just passing through,” Song Wan Ning said, keeping her voice mild as her gaze swept the village.

She tried to see through the scene, to find the hidden meaning.

“Sister, are you looking for a place to stay?” the little girl asked eagerly. “Come on, come on—follow me! I’ll tell Village Chief Grandpa!”

She grabbed Song Wan Ning’s hand and dragged her forward with innocent strength.

Song Wan Ning didn’t understand, but she let herself be pulled into the village.

Most households had already gone to sleep. Only a few still had cooking smoke curling from their roofs, warm and thick with the quiet rhythm of everyday life.

Song Wan Ning had grown up among cultivators. This kind of mortal warmth was unfamiliar—and, strangely, not unpleasant.

Under the Village Chief’s arrangement, she was given a room in one household.

The woman who lived there was a widow. She had a sick mother in her fifties above her and two half-grown children below. Their life was bleak and poor.

Yet their clothes, though ragged, were clean. Their faces were calm, with no bitterness carved into them, as if hardship had long since become ordinary.

They welcomed Song Wan Ning with sincere warmth.

“Little girl,” the widow said, wringing her hands with a nervous smile, “I’m sorry. Our home is simple, so please make do.”

“This is the best room we have.”

Song Wan Ning took it in at a glance. The walls were mud smeared over straw, uneven and ugly, barely able to keep out the wind. Luckily, the weather was hot—if it had been cold, the drafts would have poured straight through.

The room was painfully bare. Aside from a bed, there was only an old dressing table with a cracked mirror. No table. No stool.

So poor, they didn’t even have a place to set down a bowl.

“Are you hungry?” the widow asked quickly. “Should I cook you some noodles?”

“Noodles, Mom,” the youngest said immediately, sniffing, eyes bright with longing. “I want noodles too.”

The widow’s smile tightened. She patted the child’s head gently. “Gou Er, be good. When the wheat is harvested in a few days, Mom will cook noodles for you.”

“Yay!” Gou Er bounced as if that promise were a Peach of Immortality. “In a few days we can eat noodles—”

Song Wan Ning watched, frowning faintly.

What did this have to do with an Immortal Lord’s inheritance?

She couldn’t see the deeper meaning.

“No need,” she said at last. “I’m not hungry. Go on with your work. I’ll rest.”

She would stay still and respond to change with calm.

If she couldn’t understand the meaning, then she had no right to claim the inheritance.

The widow left with the child, their footsteps fading down the narrow hall.

Song Wan Ning drew a meditation cushion from her storage ring and placed it in the middle of the room. She sat, straight-backed, letting the silence settle around her.

Outside the window, the village lay quiet.

Her thoughts drifted, slow and deep.

*

“Junior Sister Ye, you don’t need to escort us over,” Lu Nan Feng said with a smile, walking beside Ye Chu Xue.

Their group had just returned from the Medicine King Sect Ruins. Ye Chu Xue carried a pack of pastries, cradled neatly in her arms.

Hearing him, she smiled softly. “Ever since Junior Sister Li joined Cloudsky Peak, I, as her senior sister, haven’t gone to see her. That’s my fault.”

“And now Martial Uncle Song is in seclusion again,” she added gently, “so of course I should care for her more.”

She looked as delicate as ever, strands of hair lifting in the wind with a faint, sweet fragrance.

Lu Nan Feng’s gaze lingered a moment too long, and his heart tightened. No matter how many times he saw her, it never felt like enough.

“A trash girl with three spiritual roots,” An Ze scoffed. “What’s there to see?”

He didn’t bother lowering his voice. “Master only took her in to spite us senior brothers. You don’t need to bother with her!”

Among the true disciples, most had single spiritual roots. At worst, they had double roots.

Li Ruo was a three-root waste. Of course he looked down on her.

The moment the words left his mouth, Ye Chu Xue’s expression shifted.

She forced a smile. “Junior Brother An, I started out as five spiritual roots too.”

An Ze froze, suddenly remembering. Junior Sister Ye had originally been a five-root menial servant disciple.

“Senior Sister Ye,” he rushed to recover, flustered, “how could you be the same as her? You’re different!”

Ye Chu Xue’s smile remained gentle, but her tone turned solemn. “Junior Brother An, under heaven, everyone is equal. You must not look down on anyone because of spiritual roots.”

She spoke with such lofty conviction that An Ze and Lu Nan Feng listened as if they were being granted wisdom. Their admiration only deepened, convinced again that Ye Chu Xue was pure, elegant, and unlike anyone else.

At the side, Gu Qing Yuan and Bai Yang walked in silence, both unusually distracted.

Ye Chu Xue wasn’t here for Li Ruo at all.

She was here to confirm whether Song Wan Ning was truly still in seclusion.

In the past, they might not have thought much of it. Now, they couldn’t help feeling that Ye Chu Xue had grown more suspicious than before.

Soon, they reached the entrance of the main hall.

Li Ruo had just returned from the back mountain. Dried blood stained her sleeves when she saw them standing there like wooden stakes.

“Eldest Senior Brother,” she said quickly, hurrying forward, face lighting up, “you’re back?”

“Mm.” Bai Yang nodded, cool and distant. “Where’s Master?”

“Master has been in seclusion the whole time,” Li Ruo answered seriously.

Her eyes grew brighter as she spoke, as if the very fact steadied her.

Ye Chu Xue couldn’t wait. She blurted the question that had been eating at her since the ruins, pastries still untouched in her hands.

“Junior Sister Li—has Martial Uncle Song truly been in seclusion the whole time, without leaving at all?”

“No,” Li Ruo said, shaking her head.

Ye Chu Xue’s breath caught.

Li Ruo continued, earnest and matter-of-fact. “Master said this seclusion will last at least half a year.”

“Half a year?” Bai Yang’s brows tightened, worry flickering across his face.

Ever since Master stopped giving him any attention, he had been turning it over in his mind, day after day.

Half a year.

He pressed his lips together, gaze lowering as he fell into thought.

Seclusion was fine.

He could use the time to figure out how to ease the relationship between the two of them.