Chapter 65: Severance

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Madame Jiang wept, tears and snot streaming down her face. “You’re my daughter! You’re my daughter!”

How could something like this happen?!

Before today, Madame Jiang had never felt there was anything wrong with her treatment of her husband’s illegitimate daughter. Jiang Ying’s birth had been like a resounding slap to her face, shattering her illusions of a happy marriage.

She had never expected the perfect love stories found in novels, and she did not even mind her husband taking concubines, as their social standings were unequal to begin with. But for her husband to favor a common prostitute and even let her bear his child was a direct insult, trampling her dignity and self-respect into the dirt.

Even though that wench was dead, her bastard offspring still lived. As long as she drew breath, she was like a fishbone stuck in Madame Jiang’s throat. As the mistress of the household, mistreating the daughter of a kept woman seemed entirely justified to her.

And for Jiang Ying to sacrifice herself for Madame Jiang’s daughter was simply her destiny.

Madame Jiang was a selfish egoist. She saw nothing wrong with this. Even if she had a vague inkling that the Soul-Swapping Technique was not an orthodox spell, she felt it was perfectly fine as long as it benefited her daughter. In fact, when Jiang Fengnian first proposed this method, she had, for once, thought he was a decent father.

The relief she had felt back then was matched only by the depth of her regret now!

Jiang Fengnian had no heart at all; he did not deserve to be a father! Had she known he was this kind of man, she would have rather married a commoner than covet the status of a cultivator’s wife.

“My poor daughter, I didn’t know it was you! I really didn’t know! If I had known, I would have definitely…”

Madame Jiang wept in heartbreak, but Jiang Ying no longer needed any of this. “You would have definitely what?”

“I…” Meeting her gaze, Madame Jiang was suddenly struck dumb.

“You wouldn’t have done anything. Or you would have turned a blind eye, at most stopping people from plotting against me. Am I right?” Jiang Ying spoke very calmly. “Your family wouldn’t be willing to lose the backing of a cultivator. As long as Jiang Baozhu is your daughter, no one cares who is actually inside her body. Am I correct?”

Madame Jiang’s maternal family and Jiang Fengnian had long been inextricably bound by mutual interests. Because Jiang Baozhu possessed three spiritual roots, they had poured massive resources into her, all so they would have another cultivator to rely on once Jiang Fengnian’s lifespan ran out and he passed away.

Jiang Baozhu was the heir jointly nurtured by both families. And she? She was just an exiled outcast, mistreated and humiliated. Even if they knew about the Soul Swapping, they would never have actually turned on Jiang Fengnian for the sake of their shared interests. At most, they would have put on a show to demand more benefits.

Jiang Ying had long since seen through the selfishness of this couple. In the end, it was just her bad luck to have been born into the Jiang Family.

“No! No! You’re wrong!”

Madame Jiang shrieked like a cat gripped by terror. Her composure crumbled further, as if her mind would shatter at any second.

Yet even so, she received no sympathy from anyone. Ultimately, if she had not mistreated the child and poured her malice onto Jiang Ying back then, Jiang Ying would never have had such a miserable past.

In a way, Jiang Fengnian was indeed the person in this world who understood his wife best. He knew exactly how to inflict the greatest possible vengeance upon her within the realm of feasibility.

“What do you think will happen to your family once Jiang Fengnian and Jiang Baozhu fall?”

What would happen? Madame Jiang did not dare to think about it. She had not expected the consequences of this exposure to be so severe. She had only… only wanted to save her daughter.

Looking at the dejected, tear-stained Madame Jiang, Jiang Ying felt an unexpectedly calm state of mind. Perhaps because she had known her true origins since she was very young, she could not recall ever calling this woman “Mother.” She had already been old enough to remember things when she was brought into the Jiang Family. Back then, Jiang Fengnian had treated her reasonably well, at least ensuring she did not lack food or clothing.

It was only after she returned to the Jiang Family that her life truly hit rock bottom.

Madame Jiang was very good at keeping up appearances, but even Jiang Fengnian was likely unaware of the methods she used in the inner courtyard. On the surface, Jiang Ying wanted for nothing. In secret, however, her winter coats were stuffed plump with useless reed catkins^[1] instead of warm cotton. One winter, she had nearly frozen to death in a cold, empty room.

Her hands and feet had been covered in festering chilblains, and she had been forced to kneel in the freezing snow as punishment for absurd reasons. Whenever Jiang Ying looked back at her past, she only saw her weak, powerless self.

Therefore, she never looked back.

Whether she was Jiang Ying or Jiang Baozhu no longer held any meaning for her.

“I owe you nothing, so I will not acknowledge you.”

Leaving behind these final words, Jiang Ying did not spare Madame Jiang another glance. Madame Jiang, however, was heartbroken by her words. She wept uncontrollably, yet she no longer had the courage to step forward and stop her.

For she truly did not seem fit to be this child’s mother.

Madame Jiang fell into utter self-loathing and despair, looking like a living corpse without a soul.

Jiang Fengnian’s cultivation had been sealed, but his emotional state was noticeably much more stable. Perhaps to a Foundation Establishment cultivator whose cultivation had stagnated and whose lifespan was nearing its end, death was not something to be feared.

Or rather, because of his stagnant cultivation, Jiang Fengnian had long since become a lucid madman.

Seeing his only daughter finally standing before him, Jiang Fengnian could still apologize calmly: “I’m sorry. I harmed you. If you wish, you can kill me with a single strike of your sword.”

Patricide. Ha. The man was simply betting that she would not kill him in front of the Yonglu Mountain disciples. Jiang Ying picked up the sword on the ground. She recognized this sword; it had belonged to the former Jiang Baozhu. The gemstone carvings on it all displayed its immense value. At this moment, its true owner was tied up to the side, staring at her with eyes full of hatred.

“I won’t kill you. Killing you would be letting you off too easy!” Jiang Ying said. As she spoke, she thrust her sword into the dantian of the “Jiang Ying” beside her. She twisted it with all her might, completely shattering not just the spiritual root, but the dantian itself.

No one expected her to strike at a time like this.

“Jiang Ying” widened her eyes, terror finally flooding her face. She desperately tried to cover her dantian, but… the dissipation of her spiritual energy was faster than she could have imagined.

“No! No!”

Agonized wails echoed through the Jiang Residence. Once again, “Jiang Ying” had become an ordinary mortal.

“Why aren’t you arresting her?! She ruined me! She destroyed my dantian! My spiritual root!”

The other Yonglu Mountain disciples either looked up at the sky or down at the ground. Wen Xu, however, had no need for that. He even spoke up, “Apologies, but I am a blind man who cannot see.”

Bian Chunzhou: …Pfft.

Jiang Fengnian, however, was shocked by his daughter’s ruthlessness. For the first time, a look of sheer astonishment appeared on his face. “Don’t you… want to swap back?”

Jiang Ying scoffed. “Do you think I’m like you? Do you think everyone in the world values their status as a cultivator more than life itself, just like you do? Jiang Fengnian, you are nothing but an evil cultivator.”

“No! I am not an evil cultivator! Shut up!”

Jiang Ying knew the man before her too well, so she naturally knew exactly how to provoke him. “Only an evil cultivator would toy with the fates of others. When you swapped my soul with hers back then, was it really just to get revenge on your wife?”

“I highly doubt it. If you were truly an orthodox cultivator, how could you still possess that evil Soul-Swapping Technique? Rather than saying you wanted to take revenge on her, it’s more accurate to say that revenge was just a convenient byproduct. In truth, you mainly wanted to test whether this evil technique actually worked, didn’t you?”

This was the main reason Jiang Ying had come to see Jiang Fengnian. “Actually, I’ve known all along.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that you don’t truly love your Baozhu. The way you look at her is sometimes no different from how you look at me. You put on a mask in front of others, but because I was weak, incompetent, and lowly, you didn’t even bother to pretend in front of me. That is why I used to envy Jiang Baozhu for having a mother who loved her, but I was never jealous of her having a good father.”

Because such a thing as a good father never existed in the first place.

Wow. As expected, this old bastard Jiang is a shady one. Junior Sister Jiang is absolutely badass!

“This is impossible! This is impossible!”

Jiang Ying’s words were the first to shatter the other “Jiang Ying’s” composure. Clearly, this Baozhu had never realized that she wasn’t actually the apple of Jiang Fengnian’s eye.

Jiang Fengnian, on the other hand, remained silent.

“Now, I think I’ve guessed what you wanted to do.” Jiang Ying finally bared her fangs. “Jiang Fengnian, did you really only use your Soul-Swapping Technique on the two of us?”

In an instant, Jiang Fengnian’s heart skipped a beat.

Although he said and did nothing, now that Jiang Ying had spoken these words, the past hundred and fifty-plus years of his life would inevitably be thoroughly investigated by Yonglu Mountain. What they might dig up then was anyone’s guess.

Jiang Ying had achieved her goal. She would not kill him with her own hands, but she wanted him to suffer a fate worse than death, trapped in darkness forever. Perhaps, if not for Yonglu Mountain, she really would have lost the strength to move forward. Given her personality, she would have most likely chosen to drag this family down with her.

But someone had heard her final, desperate cry for help. It was as if the world was doing its utmost to hold onto her, telling her not to destroy herself along with them.

Killing them would indeed be satisfying, but someone who killed their own parents would bring shame upon Yonglu Mountain.

Even if Yonglu Mountain did not care about the criticisms of the world, and would not change in the slightest for an outer disciple like her, Jiang Ying thought, I must keep control of my Dao heart.

Even if, by now, her path of cultivation was already severed.

As long as she remained Junior Sister Jiang for even a single day, she would not waver, nor would she become a completely unrecognizable version of herself.

In an instant, a rich, pure aura swirled around Jiang Ying. If her spiritual root were intact right now, she would have surely entered a state of sudden enlightenment, and her cultivation would have progressed by leaps and bounds. But at this moment, her physical body and spiritual root were ruined, and her soul was unstable. This pure aura was helping to stabilize her soul and repair her spiritual root.

This was a gift to her from heaven and earth.

“I am severing all family ties with you.”

Jiang Ying heard her own voice, firm and resonant. “Neither Jiang Ying nor Jiang Baozhu is me. I will cast aside this surname and this name. From this day forth, I am only myself, neither Jiang Ying nor Jiang Baozhu.”

A sharp rip, like the sound of tearing silk, echoed from the void and reached the ears of everyone present. Cultivators possessed a unique perception of heavenly fate. At this moment, whether it was Wen Xu, Bian Chunzhou, or even the straightforward Chen Zui, they all understood the meaning behind that tearing sound.

The blood ties that bound Junior Sister Jiang were completely severed.