Xiao Yan's back stiffened for a fleeting moment before he relaxed again. "I remember the important things, though they're limited to what happened before this fragment of my divine soul was split off." He turned back, his smile as brilliant as ever. "Like how to tease my disciples until they cry, for instance."
Li Nanzhu wasn't fooled. "One last question, Master... I wanted to ask about you and the Five Elements Dao Sect..."
Xiao Yan shook his head. "I have no connection to the Five Elements Dao Sect."
Li Nanzhu was stunned. This answer was truly beyond her expectations. She had thought his unusual reaction to the mention of the Five Elements Dao Sect implied some sort of link, but she hadn't expected such a categorical denial.
Moreover, given the current situation, there was no reason for Xiao Yan to lie to her. So what was...?
"Then why was your reaction like that earlier when I mentioned the records of the Five Elements Dao Sect?"
With a sharp snap, Xiao Yan closed his folding fan, then flicked it open, repeating the motion three times. Finally, he spoke. "The records in the Library Pavilion of the Five Elements Dao Sect are said to encompass everything. From ancient secrets to the wonders of the present age, everything is recorded there. Even the observations I made about iron-toothed rats were included..." His voice grew uncharacteristically low. "If even they have no record of the 'Qingming Pill Venerable'..."
Li Nanzhu noticed her master's fingers were trembling slightly, his knuckles white from the force of his grip.
"There are only two possibilities." Xiao Yan held up two fingers. "Either I remembered the honorific title wrong—" He shook his head. "But that's impossible. This title was..." He stopped mid-sentence, his brow furrowed.
"Was what?" Li Nanzhu pressed.
Xiao Yan's head drooped listlessly. "Strange. I clearly remember that the title was very important..." He paced around irritably. "The second possibility is that the records were deliberately erased by someone."
At this, he spun around abruptly, nearly colliding with a nearby stalk of bamboo. "But that doesn't make sense either. Even if the original body perished, the records shouldn't..."
Suisui suddenly hopped up with a series of clicks, its bone claws pointing toward its own head.
"The little bone is right." Xiao Yan forced a small smile. "It's also possible that something happened to my original body, causing..."
"Master." Li Nanzhu took a deep breath. "The Five Elements Dao Sect met with catastrophe a thousand years ago. Everyone in the sect perished overnight."
Boom—!
Azure flames suddenly erupted from the folding fan in Xiao Yan's hand, reducing it to ash in an instant. He seemed entirely unaware, his gaze fixed intensely on Li Nanzhu. "What did you say?"
Li Nanzhu was startled by Xiao Yan's expression—the eyes that were always filled with smiles were now surging with a tempest of disbelief.
She repeated herself, emphasizing every word. "In a single night, the mountain gates were stained with blood."
Although she hadn't witnessed the scene herself, Feng Yi had told her about the sect's history when she first joined. He had clearly paused at this part, and Li Nanzhu guessed the situation back then was likely as she described. Even if it wasn't, saying it this way might provoke a reaction from Xiao Yan and lead to more information.
Li Nanzhu silently apologized in her heart before looking back at Xiao Yan.
"Impossible!" Xiao Yan practically roared. "What about the Five Elements Array? That was a mountain-guarding array capable of withstanding a Void Refinement stage cultivator for a day and a night! What about the five Soul Transformation elders? Who did it! How is this possible!"
His voice echoed through the bamboo forest. Suisui was so frightened that it hid behind Li Nanzhu, its soul fire flickering violently.
Li Nanzhu's pupils contracted slightly. Void Refinement stage? In the current cultivation world, no one had broken through the shackles of Soul Transformation for nearly ten thousand years. Why was her master so certain about this legendary realm? And so sure the array could withstand it?
Suppressing her rising questions, she slowly shook her head. "No one knows what happened. After that night, the entire sect was terrifyingly silent. Even the mountain-guarding spirit beasts..." Her throat tightened. "Only the disciples who happened to be in seclusion outside the sect survived by chance."
Xiao Yan stumbled back two steps, his back hitting a green bamboo. Leaves rustled and fell, settling in a thin layer on his shoulders.
"Then now..." his voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.
"One senior survived." Li Nanzhu took the disciple token out of her storage bag and handed it to Xiao Yan. "A Soul Transformation cultivator, supporting the Five Elements Dao Sect all alone."
Xiao Yan hurriedly took the disciple token. Whatever he saw there, his hands began to tremble.
He murmured, "Soul Transformation? One person holding it up..."
Xiao Yan suddenly asked urgently, "What is that person's name?"
"Master Feng Yi."
Clack.
The disciple token slipped from Xiao Yan's hand and hit the ground. His movement to bend down and pick it up was so slow it was as if he were moving at a tenth of normal speed. When he straightened back up, his face had regained its calm as he returned the disciple token to Li Nanzhu.
"Does Master know my master?" Li Nanzhu asked tentatively.
"I don't," he said quickly.
Li Nanzhu narrowed her eyes. This reaction didn't look like he didn't know him at all.
She gently rubbed the patterns on the disciple token with her fingertips, speaking as if casually, "My master..."
She let the end of her sentence trail off, the sound echoing softly in the bamboo forest, while her eyes remained fixed on every subtle shift in Xiao Yan's expression.
Xiao Yan immediately looked up, a trace of indiscernible urgency flashing in his eyes.
"He is currently the one with the highest cultivation in the Five Elements Dao Sect," Li Nanzhu continued. "Including me, there are only ten people in the sect. We are all disciples he has taken in over the years. I am the eighth and the youngest."
Xiao Yan's Adam's apple bobbed. "Is he... is he well?"
This question was too deliberate. Li Nanzhu felt a spark of realization and decided to start improvising. Although she didn't know if Feng Yi was actually investigating these matters, she might be able to get new clues from Xiao Yan.
"Master has been investigating what happened back then, but there are too few clues..."
"Of course he can't find anything!" Xiao Yan suddenly grew agitated, then immediately realized his loss of composure. He coughed twice. "I mean... something that major would surely..."
Li Nanzhu noticed her master's wording—he said "Of course he can't find anything" instead of "He probably can't find anything." That tone of certainty suggested he knew some inside information.
Suisui suddenly blew a string of green bubbles from its mouth. The bubbles floated in front of Xiao Yan, making his face appear flickering and uncertain.
"Master," Li Nanzhu decided to be direct. "What exactly is the relationship between you and my master?"
"A wandering soul like me..." Xiao Yan quickly manifested another folding fan, flicking it open to hide half his face. "How could I know a grand Master?"
Seeing he was unwilling to speak, she decided to change direction. "Your original body... why did it leave? And why leave a fragment of your divine soul here?"
Xiao Yan clearly looked relieved and resumed his habit of pacing in circles. "That..." His voice suddenly became ethereal. "A thousand years ago, it seems we were going to do something big. My original body was likely afraid of some accident, so it separated me and the inheritance and left us here."
Li Nanzhu again noticed his choice of words. "We," not "I." Her heart skipped a beat. "What thing?"
"I can't remember clearly." Xiao Yan scratched his hair in frustration. "That part of my memory is very blurred. I only remember that this matter was very, very big... and very serious..." He suddenly stopped, as if he had thought of something. "Wait!"
Li Nanzhu held her breath.
"The timing..." Xiao Yan's eyes were startlingly bright. "The time my divine soul was separated, and the time the Five Elements Dao Sect was destroyed..."
Li Nanzhu sucked in a breath. "Are you saying..."
"There's no connection." Xiao Yan blinked.
Li Nanzhu: "..."
"This is not the time to be joking!"
Seeing Li Nanzhu's bristling state, Xiao Yan hurriedly tried to soothe her. "Aiya, isn't your master just trying to comfort you because you looked too tense?"
Li Nanzhu: "..."
Thanks, but no thanks.
"However," Xiao Yan's tone shifted. "If it was a thousand years ago... this fragment of my soul also woke up a thousand years ago."
"Is there a connection?" Li Nanzhu was somewhat confused. After all, the books she had read contained very few records regarding divine souls.
"Of course there is," Xiao Yan said with a slight nod. "Only when the original body dies will this fragment of my divine soul awaken. Before that, I had probably been asleep for over five hundred years."
Over five hundred years.
Li Nanzhu felt that the more she knew, the more confused she became.
Every word and every reaction from Xiao Yan echoed repeatedly in her mind.
That deliberately evasive yet unavoidably familiar tone, the way his fingers stiffened the moment she mentioned 'Feng Yi,' and the complex emotions flashing in his eyes when the Five Elements Dao Sect was mentioned—everything silently spoke of a single fact: there was bound to be some profound connection between her master here and her master back at the sect that she did not yet know.
Even more startling was the contradiction in the timeline. Xiao Yan claimed to have been waiting here for one thousand five hundred years. As someone from the same era as Xiao Yan, Feng Yi's actual age must have already exceeded one thousand five hundred years.
Furthermore, given Xiao Yan's reaction when she mentioned the Soul Transformation stage earlier, it was highly likely that Feng Yi had already broken through to the Soul Transformation stage while Xiao Yan was still alive.
'Soul Transformation stage...' she repeated the realm in her mind, her fingertips tightening unconsciously.
According to the common knowledge of the cultivation world, even the most brilliant genius would take at least three hundred years to go from Foundation Establishment to Soul Transformation. And based on the age of current Soul Transformation powerhouses in the cultivation world, they generally stepped into that stage after the age of five hundred.
Similarly, the two-thousand-year lifespan limit for Soul Transformation cultivators was an iron law set by the Heavenly Dao.
Most importantly, and most fatally, the closer a cultivator was to their lifespan limit, the more they would age. Even if their appearance was fixed to how they looked when they reached the Golden Core stage, once their lifespan was nearly exhausted, their appearance would inevitably decline.
But Master Feng Yi's face appeared in her mind—it was clearly that of someone in their prime, without a single trace of decay.
If her deductions were correct... then it was impossible for Feng Yi to only be at the Soul Transformation stage. It was more likely that he had broken through to the Void Refinement stage or even a higher realm.
But the current cultivation world had no records of any cultivators above the Void Refinement stage. Just what... was the situation with Feng Yi?
Li Nanzhu's fingertips unconsciously traced the edge of the disciple token as her mind raced through various possibilities.
Suisui seemed to sense her unease as its bone claws gently tugged at her sleeve.
"Master." she suddenly spoke, her voice somewhat tight. She still wanted to confirm one more thing. "In the cultivation world of your era... what was the highest level of cultivation?"
Xiao Yan was squatting on the ground studying the bubbles Suisui had blown. He didn't even look up at her words. "Soul Transformation, of course. Isn't that common knowledge?"
"Then..." Li Nanzhu took a deep breath. "What about Void Refinement stage cultivators?"
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