Chapter 59: Family Heritage

Inside the main hall of the grand estate, after Liu Zhiyuan dismissed everyone else, only he and Liu Shuyue were left sitting face to face.

"I know we are all strangers to you, because you were too young to remember when you left this place," he said, looking at Liu Shuyue with a face full of paternal warmth. "Now that you have finally made the trip back, I should have welcomed you with glowing lanterns and festive banners. It is a pity, however, that you had to witness the clan in such a wretched state. I heard that you had a falling out with the Prince of Qi in Qingzhou? Could you tell me the details?"

There was not the slightest hint of blame in his words, as if he never believed that the siege of the Liu clan by the officials was Liu Shuyue's fault.

Even Liu Shuyue could not help but feel a twinge of emotion.

For the five years since she descended from the mountains, she had constantly journeyed across thousands of miles, always traveling alone. The only place where she could find peace of mind to rest was that miraculous store.

She had never imagined that she would be so deeply cared about by a group of complete strangers.

Yet facts were facts, and they would not change simply because of someone's attitude. She had been in the Lotus Cloud Sect since birth, and all disciples of the Lotus Cloud Sect were the same.

"The matter with the Prince of Qi can wait. What I want to know is, where did your daughter and that young man learn their spells? As far as I know, in any nation, practicing sorcery and esoteric arts without authorization is strictly prohibited."

It was much like the civilian ban on privately forging weapons and armor.

Were there violators? Naturally. Occasionally, a rogue cultivator would pop up somewhere, and if they committed no evil, the authorities would simply turn a blind eye. If they did commit evil, they were deemed heretical cultivators, and the local officials would go to great lengths to find Liu Shuyue and ask her to purge the path of magic.

The number of heretical cultivators Liu Shuyue had killed was at least twenty or thirty.

In terms of the danger they posed, cultivators with crooked intentions belonged in the same tier as demons and monsters.

As for the rulers of various nations secretly cultivating practitioners to strengthen their royal power, that was an open secret. Since the Lotus Cloud Sect had no intention of prying, sect disciples naturally would not interfere.

"These are, of course, the secret teachings passed down directly within the Liu family," Liu Zhiyuan's answer caught her completely off guard. "I know that studying these things breaks the ban and could ruin the family if things go wrong, but no one can stop the Liu family from inheriting the ancestral teachings. To outsiders, it is a profound secret, but to you, it is not. We have dug many practice chambers underground, training talented successors according to the methods used for sect disciples. You should find all of this very familiar... because it ought to be nearly identical to the cultivation methods of the Lotus Cloud Sect."

How could that be!

Liu Shuyue immediately wanted to refute his claim. The Lotus Cloud Sect stood atop the peaks of the Kunlun Sea of Clouds, which allowed the interior to be filled with abundant spiritual energy. Cultivation methods had to match the level of spiritual activity; they could not simply be imitated at will. Otherwise, instead of the Liu family attempting such a feat, the monarchs of various nations would have long since cultivated practitioners in massive numbers.

In the area of the Liu family residence, she felt no signs of abundant spiritual energy; this place could not even compare to the Spicy Village in the Ten Thousand Mountains Wasteland.

Yet, in the end, she kept the words to herself.

Because she was the only one who had seen what the interior of the Lotus Cloud Sect looked like, neither truth nor falsehood could be distinguished by the other party.

That being the case, refutation was meaningless.

"Directly passed down by the Liu family? Who passed it down?"

"Naturally, a disciple who descended from the Lotus Cloud Sect," Liu Zhiyuan said respectfully. "Our founding ancestor was named Liu Zhidong. In terms of cultivation seniority, he should be your junior paternal uncle."

Liu Shuyue was so shocked that her whole body trembled.

No, of course she had never heard this name. There were no records of past disciples anywhere within the Lotus Cloud Sect; who they were, what they did after descending the mountain, and what their ultimate fates were remained entirely unknown.

After she descended the mountain, she had also searched for the whereabouts of these disciples, but after all, they belonged to the batch sent out a century ago—enough time for rulers in the mortal world to change two or three generations—so the reliable information she obtained was basically zero.

What shocked Liu Shuyue was that she never expected to hear news of a former sect disciple here in the Liu family of Yunzhou!

And what was even more incredible was that the person actually shared the surname Liu!

"Are you certain?"

"These matters are all recorded in the family genealogy; I have no reason to deceive you," Liu Zhiyuan smiled weakly. "Not only did he impart the cultivation techniques, but he also left behind descendants, and it was from then on that the Liu family flourished. The founding ancestor even prophesied your birth, saying that after a span of a hundred years, a son or daughter of the Liu family would become the new descending disciple. That person is you... Shuyue, you were just over a month old when you were sent away. Although I was very reluctant, I knew that was the path you were meant to walk."

Liu Shuyue could not help but shake her head. "No... this doesn't make sense. If I was sent away by the Liu family as an infant, how could you possibly know that person was me? Furthermore, in the forecourt, Liu Qing blamed me for not remembering her—难道那婴孩自打出生就能记事了? *[Translation note: rhetorical question structure]* Could that infant remember things right from birth? I spent most of my time cultivating in the sect and have never seen you people at all!"

A look of puzzlement crossed Liu Zhiyuan's eyes. "Shuyue, why are you so resistant to accepting that you are a member of the Liu family? You and Qing'er truly have never met in person, but you must have seen each other's portraits, right?"

"Portraits? What portraits?"

The words he had spoken when they first met echoed involuntarily in her mind...

*"You look exactly like the person in the portrait..."*

"The founding ancestor left behind a magical artifact that allows us to continue seeing you after you were sent into the sect, except it appears in the form of a portrait. Liu Qing and the rest of the younger generation also grew up looking at your portraits along the way," Liu Zhiyuan explained. "After you descended the mountain, we also made portraits based on the appearances of our family members and sent them to you. Did you never receive them?"

Letters? Liu Shuyue frowned. Over the past five years, she rarely stayed in any one place for long. Only officials could find her whereabouts, and many people in the mortal world had written letters to her as well, but she simply had no time to read them.

Thus, she could only shake her head.

"Is that so? So in your eyes, the Liu family is nothing more than a group of impostors deceiving the world? Then why didn't you come to Yunzhou to confront us all these years?" Liu Zhiyuan felt perplexed.

Liu Shuyue did not know how to respond for a moment. Putting aside the fact that she rarely paid attention to such mortal rumors, even if she had known, as long as the Liu family had not committed anything that provoked the wrath of heaven and earth, she basically would not have interfered.

So she changed the subject. "That magical artifact... may I see it?"

"Of course, it is placed in the ancestral hall in the back courtyard."

Guiding Liu Shuyue to the ancestral hall, Liu Zhiyuan pointed to a half-meter-tall square pagoda made of peach wood, covered in bells, sitting on a table. "This is it."

Liu Shuyue recognized at a glance that this was a Smoke Soul Pillar. It was classified as a ritual implement, still falling short of a true magical artifact, but there was no denying that it was far more reliable than the gadgets boasted about by wandering rogue cultivators. The method of using it to transmit messages was also very simple: one simply had to write the desired words on paper and then burn it. The smoke would stir the bells, and the other end would be able to hear it.

The reverse was true as well: if the bells emitted smoke, it meant a message had arrived. Placing specially treated yellow paper moistened on top of the pagoda would allow the smoke to stain it into words or drawings.

Ordinary rogue cultivators were unlikely to be able to craft such a device.

The account regarding the former sect disciple suddenly gained an extra layer of credibility.

Liu Shuyue produced a talisman paper, ignited it in front of the Smoke Soul Pillar, and then quickly formed a divination hand seal with both hands, sensing the direction in which the blue smoke drifted.

A moment later, she opened her eyes. "Liu Zhidong... that founding ancestor, are his deeds recorded in the family genealogy?"

Liu Zhiyuan nodded. "Yes."

For someone to be written into the genealogy meant that he had already passed away.

"When did he leave?"

"According to records, it was sixty-five years ago. He passed away from illness and injury."

Liu Shuyue thought to herself: that meant he fulfilled his mission for at most thirty-five years, and as for his age, it should have been between forty and fifty—a typical case of an untimely demise.

The reason she wanted to ask this was because the direction toward which the smoke drifted was definitely not the ultimate realm of Kunlun, but rather somewhere in the northeast. Divination could not yield a precise result; it could only roughly determine that it was deep within a mountain forest, requiring two or three days of travel back and forth from here.

If the Liu family truly had received messages via the Smoke Soul Pillar, the source of those messages should have originated from there.

Was it possible that the sect disciple of whom Liu Zhiyuan spoke was still alive today?

"In ancient times, the legendary sage tamed the floods and passed by his own home three times without entering, so even though you have never returned home, everyone in the Liu family still thought you were proud. After all, you are an immortal master of Great Qi, and we all understand how heavy your responsibilities are," Liu Zhiyuan said earnestly once more. "If you still harbor doubts, I am also willing to use the method of blood-dropping to verify it."

The method of blood-dropping referred to drawing fresh blood into a bowl, supplementing it with clear water, and seeing if they could merge, which would indicate that the blood came from the same ancestral root. However, Liu Shuyue knew that this method was merely a folk legend with low reliability.

Moreover, whether she believed it or not did not matter; what mattered was that the Liu family believed in it devoutly.

Since that was the case, they were not greedy scoundrels seeking benefits by falsely claiming ties to an immortal master, and being targeted and suppressed by the officials could no longer be considered well-deserved retribution.

"There is no need," Liu Shuyue said. "When did outsiders begin taking action against you?"

"Three days ago," Liu Zhiyuan said with a heavy tone. "Prefect Yan claimed that you had provoked the Emperor's great wrath and that the entire Liu family was to be charged and punished. He wanted to throw all of us into prison to await the Emperor's disposal. Before receiving news of you, the Liu family would never have agreed, so we organized a guard of retainers to prevent the yamen from using force. We just didn't expect them to send practitioners today. Fortunately, Qing'er and You'er managed to hold them off."

"Is that person called You'er also your child?"

"No, he was originally born to a servant. The ancestral laws require us to cultivate talent without拘泥于出身 *[Translation note: breaking rigid constraints]* regardless of origin, so whether it's the main branch, a collateral branch, or even the child of a servant, as long as they show talent in cultivation, I treat them all equally."

Liu Shuyue nodded. "A wise approach."

Unable to hold back any longer, Liu Zhiyuan asked, "Shuyue, what kind of upheaval happened in Qingzhou? Tell me, does the Liu family really deserve this calamity?"

"No. Neither the Liu family nor the common folk of Nine Peaks City deserve to face this disaster," Liu Shuyue replied resolutely.

Hearing her answer, Liu Zhiyuan immediately set his mind at ease, and his words seemed to regain a sense of strength. "What should we do next? Everyone in the Liu family is willing to listen to you."

She looked at him. "Arrange a bedroom for me. Until I come out, no one is allowed to approach."