Chapter 59

Lin Du sat opposite Yan Ye, her legs crossed casually as she leaned her head closer to her master. “Today, during the breakthrough to the Great Perfection stage, a masked person was found lurking in our reserved private room.”

Yan Ye’s expression grew more serious. “Was it one of those spirits from the Lan Ju Realm?”

“Probably. The person had a pair of curved knives. There was a cultivator on the list given to me by the lord of Lance City who specializes in using curved knives.”

Yan Ye did not doubt Lin Du’s judgment; though the child was often troublesome, she had always been smart.

“And where is that person now?”

“Oh, Wei Zhi caught him.” Lin Du took the opportunity to share some gossip. “Master, do you know Wei Zhi and Master Lin Tuan’s secular heir name?”

Yan Ye was momentarily distracted, resting his arm on his head. “I don’t.”

“They share the heir name Lou.”

Yan Ye responded with an “oh,” and then his elbow slipped off his knee. Fortunately, he caught himself before hitting the icy surface, quickly realizing something. “Lou? But Wei Zhi is…”

He furrowed his brows in surprise. “How is that possible…”

Lin Du clearly saw a trace of disbelief and confusion on his usually stern and cold face, with a hint of unmasked surprise in his icy gray eyes.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

“What’s going on?”

Yan Ye pondered for a moment, unsure whether to tell Lin Du. The child didn’t look like someone who would easily dismiss things.

He considered his words and spoke, “I know you’ve read a lot of books, but there’s something not recorded in the major historical annals.”

“You know that Yun Mo Luo was once a kingdom, but it was destroyed and turned into a Buddhist holy land, with only Buddhist practitioners and passersby, right?”

Lin Du nodded. She had read about this period, which was not too distant, only about eight hundred years ago.

“In fact,” Yan Ye paused, “the kingdom of Posuo Kingdom had destroyed Buddhism three times before but could never prevent its resurgence.”

“Finally… According to what your ancestor said, internal conflicts in Posuo Kingdom led to infighting, chaos, and the suffering of the people. The Buddhists emerged as saviors, and Posuo Kingdom was transformed into Yun Mo Luo, becoming a holy land for Buddhist practitioners worldwide. The Eight Great Buddhist Sects established themselves, and everyone entered the Buddhist path.”

“The last royal heir of the Spirit Realm bore the surname Lou,” Yan Ye continued. “But after the fall of Pusa, there were no more people with the Lou surname in Yun Mo Luo. It’s rumored that the Lou clan was exterminated.”

Lin Du rubbed her fingers together, frowning as she grasped the hidden implications in her master’s words. “So what really happened?”

Yan Ye laughed. “I don’t know.”

Lin Du forced a smile. “You seem quite pleased with yourself.”

Yan Ye’s smile faded as he knocked on her forehead. “Show some respect.”

Lin Du didn’t dodge, instead grabbing Yan Ye’s wrist. “I’m worried that the person from Lan Ju Realm might have done something to my spiritual sense while I wasn’t paying attention. Master, could you check my mind?”

Yan Ye obliged, placing his hand on her head, but quickly frowned. He pressed her head more firmly. “You’re too guarded. Let my spiritual sense in.”

Lin Du thought to herself that anyone would be guarded if someone else tried to pry into their mind.

Then, a powerful and deep spiritual sense, much stronger than hers, enveloped her divine consciousness, spreading from the top down and encompassing everything.

It was as if she had fallen into a deep, silent ocean. While this might terrify others, being a cold, dark, and vast place with no light, for Lin Du, it was quite comforting.

Because Yan Ye was blind, he had to maintain his spiritual sense for much longer than ordinary people from the day he began cultivating.

Spiritual sense, in addition to increasing with one’s cultivation level and age, could also be enhanced through specialized training.

Maintaining one’s spiritual sense outward was like holding up an arm continuously; eventually, it would become sore, tired, and impossible to sustain.

So even though Yan Ye could “see” with his spiritual sense, he was much more exhausted than ordinary people.

Excessive use of spiritual sense caused a stabbing pain in the divine consciousness, combined with an overwhelming fatigue that took a long time to recover from.

Due to his blindness and constant forced overexertion, Yan Ye’s spiritual sense was much more powerful and refined than that of others at the same age and cultivation level. Therefore, when probing someone’s soul, he was much more precise.

“Everything’s fine, no tampering or problems, but…” Yan Ye hesitated. “Is this level of spiritual sense normal for someone your age?”

It was too strong.

Could this be why this rebellious disciple could calculate formations so quickly?

Seeing the hint of doubt and distaste on Yan Ye’s face, Lin Du was confused.

“I haven’t trained much, but that’s because you didn’t instruct me, Master. If you give me a spiritual cultivation technique, I’ll memorize it in a day and master it in seven.”

The path of cultivation was full of unknowns. Practicing anything without a master’s guidance could lead to mistakes.

Lin Du had entered the Dao innately without guidance due to her extraordinary talent and the help of medicinal pills. But once she had a master, everything from breathing exercises to meditation was guided by Yan Ye.

Yan Ye nodded. “You’re right; that won’t do. How about this: you and I share the same spiritual roots, so what works for me should work for you. But the technique I use is quite strenuous, and its effects are just as intense. If you don’t mind the hardship, you can practice it.”

He then handed her a spiritual cultivation technique passed down from his lineage, a heavenly-grade technique called the “Tianchi Spirit Refining Technique”.

“I’ll return it to you once I’ve memorized it, Master.”

“No need. I have it memorized.”

He had found it tucked away in a hidden corner; it had been stored so long that it was fortunate it didn’t gather dust in the storage ring.

Lin Du nodded. “I’ll have it memorized within three days, though it’s not much use.”

“Then you can donate it to the library before you ascend.”

“I’ve annotated it with my insights. Starting tomorrow, you’ll practice in front of me. Spiritual cultivation is prone to mistakes.”

Yan Ye shifted back to the earlier topic. “Did Wei Zhi come to Nine Cities today? But why did you link Lin Tuan and Wei Zhi together?”

These two seemed completely unrelated.

“Because,” Lin Du smiled, “Lin Tuan came with Wei Zhi.”

“They called each other Lou Wei Zhi and Lou Lintuan Ruo.”

Yan Ye narrowed his eyes. “I remember Wei Zhi is younger than me, but Lin Tuan is much older, though I can’t recall exactly how much.”

Wei Zhi appeared on the Qingyun ranking after Yan Ye.

The master and disciple quickly constructed a timeline in their minds, pondering the oddities.

Yan Ye was over 800 years old; Wei Zhi couldn’t be older than that. Eight hundred years ago… that was around the time when the Posuo Kingdom fell into chaos and was destroyed.

If Lou Wei Zhi was truly a royal heir, and if he had joined the Buddhist sect, as Yan Ye’s unspoken implication suggested, wouldn’t that be akin to betraying his own?

Lin Du was startled and then remembered Lin Tuan’s earlier remark.

She had said, “Does one have to become universally despised to truly discredit the Buddhist sect?”

A Buddhist practitioner, seeking to discredit Buddhism?

And Wei Zhi hadn’t argued back.

“Actually, back then, Wei Zhi was exceptionally gifted on the Qingyun ranking, a natural-born Buddhist. It wasn’t surprising that he joined the sect.”

“And at that time, Wei Zhi was considered a treasure of the Buddhist community, revered as a young master in Yun Mo Luo. At seven, he represented the Esoteric Sect in debates and showed extraordinary wisdom. He even bested seven of the eight great masters. But…”

“Later, for reasons unknown, he began to deviate from the path and took a narrow road instead of the broad one.”

Yan Ye could tell that his disciple had also realized what had shocked him earlier.

It seemed they had uncovered a significant secret about the Buddhist sect.

Before her transmigration, at the age of 24, Lin Du had found the world dull and had considered becoming a monk. In the end, she chose the Dao over Buddhism, often volunteering at Daoist temples.

From the start, her heart leaned towards Daoism.

Now, following her instincts, she sensed that the Buddhist sect harbored some hidden corruption.

If Lou Lintuan Ruo was also of royal blood, then by that time, he would have been old enough. Why hadn’t he returned to save the world?

Lin Du tapped her knee with her fingers as a thought suddenly struck her. Hou Cang had been picked up by Lin Tuan while passing through the demon realm, and Yun Mo Luo was right next to the demon clan’s gathering place, Yue Li.

Thinking it over, the timeline seemed to match up.

However, she furrowed her brows again. Smart people often overthink things, leading to mistakes from their own cleverness.

“Maybe he just happens to share the Lou surname, and isn’t actually a royal family,” Lin Du glanced at her master.

“That’s true. What does it have to do with us anyway? Overthinking won’t do us any good,” Yan Ye nodded.

Even if their suspicions were correct, it would only make their Daoist sect look down on the Buddhist sect even more.

The Daoist sect’s principle is to avoid getting entangled in others’ karma and refrain from judging others’ actions.