"Otherwise, why do you think our Hehuan Sect is so often talked about behind our backs?" A cynical curve pulled at the corner of Rong Yuying's lips. "They talk about charming arts deceiving people, about cultivation through plucking and supplementing..." She suddenly turned her gaze to Li Nanzhu. "Do you know that seventy percent of the disciples in our sect have spiritual root aptitudes that are only mid-to-lower grade?"
Li Nanzhu was startled.
"That's right." A flicker of complexity crossed Rong Yuying's eyes. "Those female cultivators with exceptional talent are either snatched up by the great sects or meet an early end. Those who remain mostly have mediocre aptitude. If they didn't join my Hehuan Sect, they would likely struggle to even reach Foundation Establishment."
She untied the storage bag at her waist. With a gentle tap of her fingertip, the mouth of the bag opened slightly, revealing over a dozen corpses neatly arranged inside.
"This storage bag is specially made to keep bodies from rotting," Rong Yuying's voice was frighteningly calm. "Every disciple who goes out for experience carries one. Firstly, it's to collect the bodies of those female cultivators who died tragic deaths. Secondly..."
She paused, a look of grim determination flashing in her eyes. "If one day we ourselves meet with misfortune, at least our fellow disciples can bring us back for burial, rather than being left to rot in the wilderness or... becoming materials for evil cultivators."
Li Nanzhu felt a jolt in her heart.
She suddenly understood why Rong Yuying had been so decisive when dealing with those rogue cultivators—in their eyes, this was perhaps already the best possible ending.
"...Last month, we found the body of a female cultivator in the Blackwater Marsh," Jingyi suddenly spoke, her voice trembling slightly. "She had been stripped bare and hung from a tree, her dantian hollowed out..."
Yu'er also lost the lively demeanor she'd had when they first met. "In my hometown, there was a small sect that would buy young girls with spiritual roots every year. They'd test their roots at age ten. Those with good aptitude were sent to the great sects in exchange for resources, and those with poor aptitude..." She couldn't go on.
"Raised until Foundation Establishment, and then sold off as a cauldron," Qinghe finished coldly, her eyes shimmering with tears. "My sister was one of them. By the time I found her, she was already..."
Ling Suxin added, "Before coming here, we found two imprisoned female cultivators in a cave. When we rescued them, they were already incoherent, only remembering to repeat one sentence..."
"'Why am I a woman?'" Rong Yuying finished the sentence coldly.
Dead silence fell over the mine. Even the sound of breathing became clearly audible. Even Feng Weilan cast a rare, complex look toward them.
Li Nanzhu clenched her fists. She suddenly remembered a plot point that had been glossed over in the original novel—a certain small sect had been wiped out overnight, and all its female disciples had vanished without a trace.
At the time, readers had speculated it was the work of demon cultivators, but thinking about it now...
"So that's why you carry these with you?" She pointed at the storage bag.
Rong Yuying let out a short, light laugh upon hearing this. She grabbed Li Nanzhu's hand and pressed it against her waist. "Feel it. This fabric is woven from thousand-year cold silk. Do you know why?"
Li Nanzhu's fingertips touched a patch of bone-chilling cold.
Without waiting for an answer, Rong Yuying continued on her own.
"Because some female cultivators are carrying potent toxins when they die, some are cursed, and some..." Rong Yuying's voice became as light as a feather. "...cannot even be pieced back into a complete corpse."
Silence fell over the cave once more, punctuated only by the occasional sound of sobbing from the Hehuan Sect disciples.
Li Nanzhu felt a sudden sense of suffocation. The cultivation world, which had been described so lightly in the original novel, had now torn off its magnificent outer shell to reveal the rotting truth within.
"At least let them have a place to rest after death." Rong Yuying closed her eyes. "In the cultivation world, the strong prey on the weak, and for female cultivators, every step is a struggle. Though our Hehuan Sect is criticized, at least we provide a choice for those women who have nowhere else to go."
Li Nanzhu remained silent for a long time before suddenly asking, "Then what about you all? Aren't you afraid..."
"Afraid?" Rong Yuying suddenly laughed. The smile was so bright it was dazzling, yet it brought an unexplainable sense of heartache. "Of course we're afraid. That's why we must become strong—strong enough that no one dares to touch us lightly."
Her gaze pierced through the dark stone walls of the mine, as if looking toward a far-off time and space.
"But if this were a thousand years ago..." Rong Yuying's voice held a hint of nostalgic trance. "Why would the female cultivators of our Hehuan Sect have needed to fear such things?"
Li Nanzhu keenly noticed that when Rong Yuying said this, the several Hehuan Sect disciples nearby all unconsciously straightened their backs, a long-lost radiance flashing in their eyes.
"Back then, on the first day of every month, the female cultivators seeking entry at the mountain gate would stretch from the peak to the foot of the mountain." Rong Yuying's fingernails lightly scraped the dark patterns on her storage bag. "It wasn't for some dual cultivation method; it was solely to pursue the Great Dao of Longevity—" She suddenly scoffed. "Those fools now always think we rely on plucking and supplementing for our cultivation, yet they don't know that a thousand years ago, the Hehuan Sect practiced the most orthodox Taiyin Longevity Sutra."
Jingyi suddenly interjected, her voice carrying a resonance that didn't match her delicate appearance. "The third Sect Master, True Lord Yaoguang, once decapitated three Soul Transformation evil cultivators with a single sword strike—using that very manual!"
"Unfortunately, now..." Qinghe stroked the icy cold silk of the storage bag and said softly, "Not even a complete version can be found in the sect's Library Pavilion."
"Yes... if things were as they were back then, how could female cultivators have fallen to this state..." Rong Yuying paused. "You should know that a thousand years ago, or even longer, the status of female cultivators was even a bit higher than that of male cultivators."
"That? Really?" Feng Qingping spoke up instinctively, her eyes full of disbelief.
Rong Yuying glanced at her, the corners of her lips turning upward slightly. "Of course it's true." With a flick of her finger, she pulled a memory stone from her storage bag. In the image, countless female cultivators stood suspended in the air over an immortal mountain shrouded in mist, their sleeves fluttering. At the foot of the mountain, countless male cultivators looked up at the sky, their eyes filled with awe and longing.
"These have been passed down from a thousand years ago. Each of us has a memory stone with the same content copied onto it," Yu'er explained softly.
As she spoke, she also took out a memory stone and struck it with a hand seal. A female cultivator in crimson robes appeared, standing in the void above countless other cultivators.
"This was the day True Lord Yaoguang gave a lecture," Yu'er's eyes were filled with envy. "There were twelve Nascent Soul practitioners just to carry her sword for her."
"A thousand years ago, if a male cultivator wasn't strong enough, he wouldn't even be able to find a female cultivator he liked," Rong Yuying said with a hint of teasing. "Back then, a joke circulated in the cultivation world—they said countless male cultivators practiced the Heartless Dao solely because they heard that if they did, they might end up as dao companions with a female cultivator from the Hehuan Sect."
Li Nanzhu was stunned. "Why?"
"Because practitioners of the Heartless Dao are the hardest to move emotionally," Rong Yuying chuckled. "And the Hehuan Sect had a core technique focused on 'breaking the calamity of love to prove the Great Dao.' If a disciple wanted to break through a bottleneck, they would often seek out a Heartless Dao practitioner and find a way to make them feel emotion, using that to temper their own Dao heart."
A hint of mischief flashed in her eyes. "So there was a saying in the cultivation world back then—practicing the Heartless Dao is the fastest way to find a partner."
The mine went quiet for a moment. Even the heavily injured Feng Weilan couldn't help but cough, seemingly choked by this absurd causality.
"The Hehuan Sect of those days..." Rong Yuying's voice gradually grew lower. "It was a true holy land for the world's female cultivators. There were seven Soul Transformation ancestors guarding the sect, five of whom were women. Whether it was the distribution of resources in the cultivation world, the inheritance of techniques, or even sect rankings, the Hehuan Sect held absolute authority."
Her fingertips unconsciously rubbed the patterns on the storage bag, and her tone suddenly became heavy. "But later... everything changed..."
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