Chapter 141: The Dao Path

“Why didn’t you two look for me when you got here?” Luckily, he had sharp eyes and spotted Wen Xu’s face right away. “Wait, why are you two dressed like this?”

“Just because we dressed like this didn’t stop you from finding us, did it?”

Chen Zui nodded in agreement. “Fair point.”

Xia Ying and Lin Congcong, who hadn’t recognized them at all: …

The latter in particular was thoroughly annoyed. “What were you thinking, coming to a wedding dressed in such a ridiculous outfit? Or did you guess someone was going to crash the wedding? And how did you even get in?”

“I’m no fortune-teller, why would I guess that?” Bian Chunzhou brandished the invitation in his hand, showing he had naturally entered through the main gate. “What about you? Why are you here?”

Lin Congcong gave a soft scoff, though half his attention remained on the duel in the arena. Truth be told, no one expected the usually gentle and refined Seventeenth Young Master to engage in a fight at the slightest provocation, and the two were actually evenly matched. One had to keep in mind that the Seventeenth Young Master’s cultivation was close to the mid Golden Core Stage, and paired with the precious sharp weapon in his hand, he had once defeated a late Golden Core Stage Spirit beast. “I have more right to be here than you do. My surname is Lin.”

Lin? No way…

But Bian Chunzhou refused to lose face. He put his hands on his hips. “What’s so great about being named Lin? Don’t tell me you’re…”

“You’re overthinking it. I don’t have much of a connection to the City Lord.”

How strange. Someone with the surname Lin had never once bragged about his background back at Yonglu Mountain. Bian Chunzhou reached out and patted his shoulder. “So, is your City Lord really… well, you know?”

Lin Congcong dodged away as if avoiding a plague. “Don’t touch me! How should I know? I was only born a few years ago!”

“Aren’t you two years older than me? How old is this Seventeenth Young City Lord of yours, anyway?”

Lin Congcong thought for a moment. “Around a hundred years old, give or take. Why do you ask?”

“A hundred?” Bian Chunzhou’s eyes widened in surprise. That was a pretty big age gap.

“He probably hasn’t reached a hundred yet, though I don’t know the exact details. I heard my father mention that back in the day, he and the Seventeenth Young City Lord went to take the Yonglu Mountain entrance exam together. My father failed on the second trial, but the Seventeenth Young City Lord passed all three trials without staying to become a disciple.”

Because of this, his father had developed a mental hurdle. After returning home, his cultivation hadn’t advanced an inch for a long time. Later, he married and had him. The name Congcong carried the meaning of endless, flowing water. Lin Congcong had known from a young age that his father placed all his hopes on him. Fortunately, he possessed great talent, successfully entered Yonglu Mountain, and became an inner disciple.

“Why didn’t he stay?” Bian Chunzhou asked, somewhat curious.

“How would I know?” Lin Congcong took a step to the side. “Don’t stand so close. I wonder if this wedding can even go through today. The City Lord… is actually a good man. I don’t think he’s the type to abandon his wife and son.”

“Why?”

“Why do you have so many questions? The City Lord’s late wife came from a humble background, and after she passed away, she was buried in the city. Every year in June, the City Lord goes to pay his respects. Even though the City Lord’s Mansion has many… concubines, the City Lord never remarried.”

To Lin Congcong, and indeed to the people of Xishan City present, the City Lord had no reason to abandon a wife and son. There were even rumors in the streets that it was precisely because of his wife’s death that the City Lord had become so promiscuous.

“So what? If your City Lord really did nothing wrong, how did that guy named Yan Wuchuan show up? Don’t tell me he came all this way just to cause trouble?”

Lin Congcong shook his head. “Either way, I believe in the City Lord.”

“Then you’d better not hold out too much hope. As far as I know, my uncle and your City Lord were sworn friends back in the day. After your City Lord’s wife passed away, my uncle went to Xishan City carrying the Moon-Gazing Sword to confront your City Lord. From then on, their relationship fell apart.” Xia Ying clearly knew more. “My uncle once said that City Lord Lin and his wife were deeply in love. When the two stood together, there was no room for a third person. That he is so promiscuous now means he betrayed that love long ago.”

Xia Ying felt that if a cultivator couldn’t even keep his own promises, how could he talk about cultivation and ascending to immortality!

Wen Xu listened to their conversation, but his mind wasn’t on it at all.

‘What is Ah Xu thinking about? Are you still thinking about what that friend of yours said earlier?’

Wen Xu shook his head in his mind. No.

‘Then what is it? Is the show not interesting?’

‘Does Master want to hear the truth?’

‘Of course.’

Wen Xu said, ‘It isn’t very interesting. In fact, I find it a bit… boring. The schemes between noble families seem no different from those of the royalty and nobility in the Mortal Realm.’

Venerable Chengwei thought to himself that although his disciple had defective sight and couldn’t distinguish the faces of the people of the world, he could discern at a glance whether the entity hidden beneath human skin was human or demon. Sometimes, being too perceptive was actually an obstacle on the path of cultivation.

‘Oh? Tell me about it.’

‘Your disciple does not understand love, but I can roughly see that the Seventeenth Young Master does not like Miss Xia as much as the rumors claim, nor does Patriarch Xia dote on his daughter as much as he seems. This grand wedding truly lives up to its name as a political marriage between two cities. As for Young Master Yan who came to crash the wedding, he does not truly wish to marry her either; he only came to humiliate Xishan City.’

‘Do you feel sympathy for the bride, Ah Xu?’ Still, put that way, the show really wasn’t much to look at.

‘Not quite, it’s just…’ A slight sense of empathy from having once been weak himself. Wen Xu had experienced moments where he tried with all his strength yet still could not achieve his wish, while the very thing he prayed for was easily within reach for others, only to be tossed aside soon after. He saw those same emotions in Miss Xia Rui.

After this incident, regardless of whether this marriage succeeded or not, the Xia Family and Xishan City would not suffer any major losses, but this Miss Xia’s life might become quite difficult.

‘Master would rather Ah Xu be as carefree as your friend and simply watch the show.’

Wen Xu retorted, ‘Master, Chunzhou isn’t careless. He’s actually very soft-hearted.’

Just then, Chen Zui, who had been standing silently off to the side pretending to be a tree, suddenly spoke up. “This Yan Wuchuan didn’t just appear out of thin air. I’ve met him before.”

The four of them turned to look at him simultaneously. “You’ve met him? Where did you see him?”

“It was last time in the city, on my way to Tianxin Pavilion to meet up with you all. I rescued someone, and it was him. I definitely wouldn’t mistake his face.”

“Huh?” Bian Chunzhou was bewildered. He pointed at the man in the arena who was already slowly gaining the upper hand over the Seventeenth Young Master. “He’s this strong, and he needed you to save him?”

“How should I know? He was being chased and beaten by ordinary street thugs back then. He wasn’t nearly as formidable as he is now.”

“Chased around by ordinary people, yet now he’s beating up cultivators?” Bian Chunzhou was still incredulous. “You usually don’t care about anything outside of practicing your blade. How come you remember this so clearly?”

Chen Zui scratched his head. “Probably because… he said…”

“What did he say?”

“He said we would meet again.” Chen Zui felt the man had been far too certain, and since not much time had passed, he naturally recognized him at a glance.

Weirdos. Why is everyone so bizarre? Bian Chunzhou scratched his head, growing more and more bewildered by this spectacle. A City Lord whose character seemed decent on the surface yet was promiscuous and suspected of abandoning his wife and child; a Long Aotian^[1] type who bizarrely showed up with a jade pendant, seemingly to slap his fiancée in the face; and this Seventeenth Young Master: shouldn’t your fiancée be your main priority on your big wedding day? Your fiancée is about to faint, so why are you still focusing solely on fighting?!

Bian Chunzhou felt that using a marriage engagement as a bargaining chip in a fight was pretty tasteless. This Seventeenth Young Master didn’t look like a good match anyway. Better to just break it off now to cut her losses while she could.

“Why do I feel like City Lord Lin’s face is looking worse and worse?”

Was it because he finally recognized Yan Wuchuan’s origins? But that didn’t make sense either. Even if that were true, why was City Lord Xia’s face darkening as well? Both were Soul Transformation Sovereigns; there was no reason for them to be affected by a fight between Golden Core Stage cultivators.

A group of Foundation Establishment cultivators like Bian Chunzhou naturally couldn’t see through it, but even though Venerable Chengwei only had a strand of divine sense present at the moment, he had long recognized the truth at a glance.

Why would a cultivator’s attitude change so drastically?

The most likely explanation was that something had gone wrong with his Dao. It appeared the City Lord of Xishan City had lost his chance to advance to the late Soul Transformation Stage. Venerable Chengwei had long seen far too many cultivators succumb to demonic heart-demons and fall into evil paths because of their Dao, so he was not surprised in the least.

Lin Xingheng was merely obsessed with romantic and carnal desires, which was considered a relatively mild case among such afflictions.

Still, judging by his experience, the path Lin Xingheng walked was likely related to romantic love. Some indeed believed that a Dao of Emotion was easier to tread than the Dao of Heartlessness, but in truth, as long as one touched upon the word “emotion,” it was almost always impossible to reach the end.

Foundation Establishment was building the root foundation of cultivation, while forming the core was finding the Dao a cultivator intended to walk. The Nascent Soul represented a cultivator’s comprehension of that Dao, endowing themselves with a unique charm upon that path. In an individual cultivator, this manifested as the Golden Core within the dantian gradually taking on the cultivator’s own appearance, transforming from a Golden Core into a Nascent Soul, which became the second avatar of one’s cultivation.

The step from Nascent Soul to Soul Transformation was also easy to understand: the tiny Nascent Soul figure inside the dantian birthed a divine sense, one that was unique, capable of separating from the physical body, and free to travel between heaven and earth.

Thus, the visible path of a cultivator’s Dao was completed.

Advancing from the Soul Transformation Stage to the Body Integration Stage was, simply put, the cultivator merging into one with the Nascent Soul that had birthed a divine sense inside them, hence Body Integration. It sounded extremely simple, but in truth…

Venerable Chengwei sighed in lamentation. If the people of the world were as open-minded as A-Xu’s friend, perhaps far fewer cultivators would stray from the right path because of their Dao.

Unfortunately, people changed. Even if a cultivator possessed a pure, innocent heart at the beginning, various reasons would cause them to lose their original intention and walk down a path of no return.

‘Master, is it because something went wrong with City Lord Lin’s Dao?’

Venerable Chengwei was taken aback, somewhat astonished by his disciple’s sharpness. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t know, I just feel… the wind inside the City Lord’s Mansion today is a bit too anxious and restless.’ Coincidentally, his master had been bringing up the Dao of Heartlessness frequently of late, so he couldn’t help making a few random associations and guesses.

‘You certainly are sharp.’

Just as Venerable Chengwei’s voice faded from Wen Xu’s mind, City Lord Lin, whose face was pale and grim over there, could no longer suppress it. He actually spat out a mouthful of blood from his heart^[2]. Had Xia Huainan not caught him in time, he likely wouldn’t even have been able to stand.

“The jade pendants… those jade pendants…” Lin Xingheng stared weakly at the layer of stone powder on the ground that he had crushed himself. He finally understood: this young man named Yan Wuchuan had come with murderous intent.

He wasn’t here to crash the wedding or snatch the bride; he was here to kill him.