Chapter 63: Love and Hate

Jiang Fengnian had nothing to say.

He remained silent as his wife yanked at him, tearing open his wounds. The searing pain left him painfully clear-headed. He had thought this secret would die with him, never to see the light of day.

It was a secret that, originally, only he knew.

Jiang Fengnian came from humble origins. He and his younger sister had only each other since childhood. Life was hard. Children without parents were like rootless duckweed, liable to die at any moment.

When the demonic cultivators captured him, Jiang Fengnian knew he wouldn’t survive. But at least he had hidden his sister well. Even if he died, he could face his parents in the afterlife with a clear conscience.

But luckily, he didn’t die. In fact, it was a blessing in disguise: he stumbled onto the path of cultivation. His talent was poor, but he was immensely grateful to the heavens. He remembered how he felt back then—deeply thankful, even fond of his spiritual root. So what if his talent was low? As long as he could cultivate, he could make something of himself on Hengze Continent.

So in the beginning, his cultivation journey was fairly smooth.

But people are selfish, never satisfied, and easily ruled by desire. By the time he realized it, it was too late. His cultivation stagnated completely; his spiritual root was like a pool of stagnant water. His path had hit a dead end almost as soon as it began.

Jiang Fengnian couldn’t accept it. But what good did not accepting it do?

After struggling for forty years, he gave up. He decided to find a place to enjoy the benefits of being a cultivator. He wandered the continent for a long time and eventually came to Langyuan City, at the foot of Yonglu Mountain. It was safe and prosperous. Here, he married, had a daughter, and would have lived out the rest of his days—if nothing unexpected happened.

But the unexpected happened.

Jiang Fengnian never expected that, after a hundred years, he would find a blood relative from his own clan in a lowly brothel in Langyuan City. When he investigated further, his heart nearly broke beyond words.

He had risked his life to hide his sister, and yet she had ended up in such a place!

After he escaped, he had gone back to find her, but he searched everywhere and never found a trace. Hengze Continent was too vast. A low-level cultivator, even with a bloodline tracking talisman, could only search within a limited range. He spent every last spirit stone and still failed. Eventually… he gave up.

He could only console himself that maybe she had long since escaped and was living a good life.

He never imagined he would find her now. Or rather, find her descendant.

Ordinary people don’t live long. Unless his sister had become a cultivator too, she would have long since been buried. Jiang Fengnian knew this well—it was the main reason he eventually stopped searching. But could he just turn a blind eye to her bloodline? He could not. By his calculations, this child was probably his sister’s great-great-great-granddaughter.

People transfer their emotions. Jiang Fengnian poured all his guilt over his sister into this descendant.

He couldn’t help but buy her freedom and settle her in a small courtyard in the city. But he never expected she was already pregnant, and she didn’t even know who the father was.

Jiang Fengnian was furious, but he couldn’t track down the man. And he couldn’t bring himself to force her to abort, for her body was too weak—even as a cultivator, he couldn’t restore her health.

He could only let her give birth first, then decide what to do.

However, some gossipy fool with nothing better to do told his wife that he was keeping a mistress outside, that she was seven months pregnant, and that the mistress had once been a lowly prostitute.

“Lowly prostitutes”—those women were even lower than regular courtesans. Even in the world of cultivation, class distinctions couldn’t be avoided.

His wife, a proper young lady from a wealthy family, immediately stormed over to catch the adulterer. In the end, the great-great-great-granddaughter died in premature labor. As she died, she clutched his hand tightly and begged him to give her child a bright future. She said she was covered in filth, but she hoped her own child could have a path full of light.

So the words he had planned to confess never left his lips.

Because if his wife knew the child came from such a humble background and shared only a thin wisp of blood relation with him, she would never agree to let him bring the child home. Only if it was his own child could she stay by his side.

A child of a lowly prostitute and a client—if he told the truth, the child would have almost no future, unless… she had a spiritual root.

But how could that be possible? He thought it was impossible at the time.

Yet even after he tacitly accepted the child’s identity, his wife wouldn’t let it go. She wanted not only to grind the deceased descendant’s bones to dust and scatter them, but also to dispose of the child.

She could be spared, but she must be sent away. Absolutely not allowed into the Jiang family home. She would never agree to let a lowly prostitute’s daughter call her “Mother.” She found it filthy.

The two quarreled like never before. His wife even cursed that he was so desperate he’d eat anything—a proper cultivator, yet he went to such filthy places to find a woman, and even sired this cursed spawn!

Jiang Fengnian considered himself a cultivator. Even if his cultivation was stagnant, there was a world of difference between him and his wife’s family. Their marriage was, simply put, mutually beneficial: he enjoyed a comfortable life, and her family could rise in status thanks to his identity as a cultivator. He had thought, for a mere infant, no matter how unwilling his wife was, she would still bring her home and raise her. He didn’t even expect her to treat her as well as Baozhu.

But she was utterly unreasonable. Whenever he insisted on bringing the child home, she would throw a fit, threatening to hang herself at the gate of the Jiang Residence if he did.

Jiang Fengnian felt that this woman was beyond all reason. He forcibly retrieved the descendant’s body, chose an auspicious burial site for her, and when he returned, he discovered that the infant he had named “Ying” had been thrown out by his wife.

He went mad with rage. He had named this child “Ying”—the character for “welcome”—hoping she would be greeted and accepted, not forced to follow his sister’s tragic path! In that moment, the demon in Jiang Fengnian’s heart broke free of its chains.

How could a pampered young lady understand the struggles of rootless people like them? What right did she have to dictate their lives? She didn’t welcome the child? He had plenty of ways to make her cherish this child like a precious pearl.

At that time, Baozhu was already over two years old. She was as lovely as jade and snow, and could call him Daddy. Jiang Fengnian had hesitated for a fleeting moment, but his wife’s hysteria hardened his resolve.

Anyway, both of them were his daughters now, and he would never allow his wife to send Jiang Ying away again.

As for this ‘Soul Swapping’ technique, he had learned it back when he was captured by a demonic cultivator. That demonic cultivator had actually taken a fancy to his spiritual root and wanted to swap souls with him, but the attempt failed. Later, he learned that for this technique to succeed, both parties must share a blood relation.

The closer the blood relation and the smaller the age gap, the higher the success rate. Moreover, after just ten years, the swapped souls would fully integrate with the bodies, such that even a high-level cultivator could not tell by sight alone; only the Soul Search Technique would reveal it.

And the reason Jiang Fengnian knew this evil technique so well was that… he had once wanted to try it. Unfortunately, he was afraid of death, and even more afraid that one wrong step would lead to endless mistakes.

He could no longer clearly remember how he had coaxed little Baozhu onto the soul-swapping formation or used candy to trick her into verbally agreeing to the soul-swapping contract. In fact, A-Ying had been so young at the time that he wasn’t even certain the swap had been successful.

But later, it proved successful.

That wasn’t surprising, though. As their father, he knew both children’s exact birth dates and eight characters^[1], and he could take their heart’s blood without any suspicion, so the completion rate of the Soul-Swapping Technique was extremely high.

After the soul swap succeeded, Jiang Fengnian’s sanity returned. He began repairing his relationship with his wife. Though it was never as good as before, they were no longer in a state of constant conflict.

He watched as ‘Baozhu’ was tenderly raised by his wife day by day, and naturally felt a sense of satisfaction. But at the same time, a deep guilt toward ‘A-Ying’ grew in his heart.

He worked hard to persuade his wife to bring ‘A-Ying’ back home, saying she only needed a status. At the time, his wife’s family needed his strength, so she had no choice but to agree.

But Jiang Fengnian knew that the two daughters had vastly different statuses in the household. Especially after ‘Baozhu’ was tested and found to have a triple spiritual root talent, ‘A-Ying’ became little more than an outcast in the family.

But this child was covered in thorns; her gaze when looking at him was dark and terrifying, nothing like his own child. Jiang Fengnian was cold-hearted by nature, and as long as his conscience was clear enough, he stopped paying her any mind.

Who would have thought that this child also had a spiritual root? Even if it was the worst kind, a five-element root, she…

Regret surged in Jiang Fengnian’s heart. If only he had known… If he had known this child had a spiritual root, why would he have lied from the very start? In the cultivation world, origin never matters. As long as someone has a spiritual root, who cares about their parents?

Everything he had done these past years seemed to have been a complete waste of effort.

What made him even more jealous was that the ‘Baozhu’ he had painstakingly raised could only join a small, nameless sect like Yunxia Sect, while ‘A-Ying’ could use a mountain-entry quota to become an outer disciple of a great sect.

Bone-deep jealousy overwhelmed him. Once a cultivator strayed from the righteous path, they could never walk it again.

The moment he was struck down by a Qi Refining disciple of Yonglu Mountain, Jiang Fengnian suddenly understood: from the day he first conceived the idea of Soul Swapping, he had doomed himself to eternal damnation.

A secret remains a secret because only one person knows it.

And when a second person knows that secret, it’s only a matter of time before it’s exposed.

‘Baozhu’s’ spiritual root was damaged. Only a Soul Transformation Venerable could repair it, but the highest cultivation in Yunxia Sect was only mid-Nascent Soul. How would they know any Soul Transformation Venerable?

If her spiritual root couldn’t be repaired, then ‘Baozhu’ could only live as an ordinary mortal from then on.

Regarding this, not only ‘Baozhu’ couldn’t accept it; even Jiang Fengnian couldn’t. So he and his wife sought out ‘A-Ying’, wanting her to go beg that Soul Transformation Venerable who had given her the mountain-entry quota. ‘Didn’t you save his father?’ they said. ‘Isn’t that Venerable willing to take you as a concubine? If you agree, then ‘Baozhu’ can be saved.’

Jiang Fengnian had to admit his wife’s words were utterly outrageous, but he didn’t stop her. Unfortunately, ‘A-Ying’ was stubborn and utterly unwilling to compromise.

She even outright refused to acknowledge ‘Baozhu’ as her older sister.

Hearing this, his wife completely broke down: “You little wretch! Of course you don’t deserve to be my Baozhu’s sister, but you have to go! You owe us! We raised you, so you must repay us! If you save Baozhu, Baozhu will remember your kindness. She has a triple spiritual root; she’ll certainly look after you in the future! Don’t you understand gratitude at all?!”

Still, ‘A-Ying’ refused. Jiang Fengnian looked at her. She doesn’t even look like his wife, so why is she just as stubborn and deaf to reason?

‘Baozhu’s’ path of cultivation should not stop here. Looking at ‘A-Ying’s’ face, Jiang Fengnian thought, It’s time to put everything back in its proper place. But this time, he didn’t plan to act alone.

By now, both ‘Baozhu’ and ‘A-Ying’ had grown up. After the swap, they couldn’t brush it off like when they were children too young to remember. If they were to swap back, ‘Baozhu’ had to be informed, and his wife had to cooperate with him.

Jiang Fengnian originally thought persuading the two of them would take some effort. He didn’t expect… that they were even more impatient than he was.

So everything proceeded very smoothly. Aside from Jiang Baozhu nearly escaping after the soul swap, it all went entirely according to Jiang Fengnian’s plan. After all, she was his daughter; he didn’t intend to take her life. Besides, with her spiritual root damaged now, becoming an ordinary mortal was only a matter of time.

When the time came, he would marry her off somewhere far away. The mountains high and the rivers long^[2], even if she knew the truth, she’d have no chance to speak of it.

The chasm between a cultivator and an ordinary person is no empty saying.

He originally thought he had done it all flawlessly, without a single seam^[3]. He never expected… it was full of holes.

Jiang Fengnian had thought that because he had succeeded once by luck, he could succeed a second time. But… fate did not favor him this time. He pulled a Spirit Key from his robes: “This is the Spirit Key to the secret chamber where Baozhu is confined. She’s not at the Jiang Residence; she’s in a mountain villa twenty kilometers from here.”

He knew well the daughter he had raised. She was not a magnanimous person. Having succeeded in the soul swap, she was busy adapting to her new identity as an outer disciple at Yonglu Mountain, which was why she hadn’t immediately finished them off.

But once she got her footing, she would definitely eliminate the original Jiang Baozhu. She would never tolerate her living in this world.

Wen Xu snatched the Spirit Key before Madame Jiang could. “Jiang Fengnian, do you know why your cultivation hasn’t advanced a single inch all these years?”

Jiang Fengnian murmured, “Why?”

Because you are selfish and self-serving, your eyes see nothing but yourself. An empty shell driven by greed. How could you possibly achieve any true cultivation? You don’t even have the most basic love a father should have. Now you pretend to be wracked with regret, but that’s only because you’ve been exposed and you want to garner a little sympathy.

In this whole affair, Jiang Fengnian is the root of all evil.

So Wen Xu said, “On second thought, I’ve decided not to tell you. Perhaps you’ll know the answer after you’re dead.”

Chen Zui: …How did he faint? I didn’t even hit him hard. That’s the level of a Foundation Establishment cultivator? That’s an insult to Foundation Establishment.