Daily life of a cultivation judge
Chapter 1218 - 1218: Wish fulfilled

"So that's what happened," Yang Qing said with a sigh. As cold as Xia Cangfu's words had been, he could understand them.

The dangers the Xia clan now faced were of their own making. The incident involving the celestial light hawthorn could still be understood. In the fight for treasures, there is usually no right or wrong.

Many cultivators would have acted the same as that elder and ignored the rogue cultivator's plea and left with the celestial light hawthorn. After all, it was a rare and precious resource, one that could shift the fate of a cultivator's journey, or even elevate an entire organization, as it had with the Xia clan by ushering in their golden era.

Yang Qing couldn't fault them for taking it. They didn't know the rogue cultivator, and they owed him nothing. But how they treated the retainer clans... now that was on them.

These were people they knew. People they had a history with. Yet they turned on them without hesitation, out of greed and selfish ambition.

Not for a second did Yang Qing believe it had anything to do with self-preservation or wariness toward the retainer clans. That was greed, plain and simple.

There was no reason to fear the four retainer clans. Not with the Silver Crane Sect behind them. Which was likely why their ancestor's parting words to Xia Cangfu and the others had been so specific—to walk away from the clan if it turned against his disciples or their families. His instructions did not cover the reverse because there was zero chance of it happening.

No matter how strong the retainer clans became, Yang Qing had no doubt in his heart that they would have never acted against the Xia clan first, not with the Silver Crane Sect backing them. There was no way they'd take that risk, and judging by their actions, it was clear they were meticulous people.

This meant the only ones who could have acted freely were the Xia clan. In the end, their greed and short-sightedness doomed them.

Had they not confiscated the core artifacts of those retainer clans and triggered their ancestor's will, the incident with the celestial light hawthorn wouldn't have played out the way it did. The Silver Crane Sect wouldn't have hung them out to dry and left them to deal with the fallout alone.

Given the sect's strength and the Xia Clan's founder's status within the sect, the Silver Crane Sect would have likely intervened. And if they had, then that rogue cultivator's son would have most likely left empty-handed. Even if he brought in the Cyan Crescent Kingdom, that outcome probably wouldn't have changed.

Just the might of the Silver Breath Peak alone would have been enough to deter the entire kingdom, much less the whole sect, mused Yang Qing, his thoughts drifting slightly as he wondered what the odds were that the peak master of Silver Breath Peak was a soul formation expert. After all, Silver Breath Peak was the one peak said to stand shoulder to shoulder with Silver Head Peak.

Yang Qing was already operating on the strong assumption that the sect did have a soul formation expert, though in this case, it wasn't even an assumption. Between the ancestral dragon vein he had discovered within the sect and the indirect confirmation Senior Hou Dehui had given when asked, it was as good as confirmed.

And if the sect had a soul formation expert, then chances were more than high that said expert belonged to Silver Head Peak. But what if the sect didn't just have one?

That was the possibility Yang Qing was considering. If there was more than one soul formation expert, then it wasn't far-fetched to think the second most powerful peak in the sect—Silver Breath Peak—had produced one as well, especially given the nature of the peak.

And if that were the case, then they would be more than capable of handling the entire Cyan Crescent Kingdom on their own.

I wonder if the kingdom knows? Even if the Silver Crane Sect keeps its strength tightly hidden, a kingdom that's been around as long as the Cyan Crescent Kingdom should have its suspicions...

And yet... Yang Qing's eyes pulsed faintly as a thought began to take shape.

"Could I ask you something, Senior Xia Cangfu?" he said.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Did the Cyan Crescent Kingdom meet with the sect before they acted?" he asked cautiously.

"They did," Xia Cangfu succinctly answered. "They came to test the sect's attitude toward the Xia clan, so they got sent here, and I told them exactly what I just told you.

The clan's fate was theirs to bear, and neither I nor the sect would interfere, even if they decided to wipe out the entire clan. The only thing we asked was that the retainer clans not be touched, and that our founder's courtyard remain undisturbed in the chaos.

As for the rest, they were free to handle it however they wished," Xia Cangfu added.

The casualness with which he spoke of the matter, one would have thought he was discussing the potential destruction of some distant clan he had no ties with.

And perhaps, that wasn't far from the truth. From what he'd shown so far, his sentiments seemed to align more with the sect than the clan. In his heart of hearts, he was a disciple of the Silver Breath Peak first, before anything else.

Who knew how many parts of him even still identified as a Xia clan member? Likely not many, and the ones that did were probably tied more to their shared ancestor, or to other Xia clan members who had joined the sect, than to the current version of the Xia clan that Xia Fang grew up in.

Yang Qing had the sense that the other Xia clan members in the sect likely shared the same mindset as Xia Cangfu.

"Do you think I'm cold?" Xia Cangfu suddenly asked, his tone calm and his expression unbothered.

"Not really," Yang Qing answered. "Like you said, this is the ebb and flow of life. We all know the dangers of the world we live in. Besides, while you may not have stepped in, your presence still saved their lives from annihilation by that member of the Cyan Crescent Kingdom.

I have no doubt that if he truly wished to, he could have wiped all of them out. But I'm guessing he held back on account of you and the sect, and only restricted his target to those in the palace realm," he added.

"While you're not completely wrong, you're not completely right either," Xia Cangfu said with a slight shake of his head.

"Yes, Mao Jiang may have acted out of consideration for us, but even without that, I doubt he would have massacred the entire clan. From what I sensed of him during our interaction, and from what I later uncovered about his conduct and nature, his actions matched the kind of person I found him to be: someone with a clear heart when it comes to debts and grudges.

He's fair to a fault. So even without me or the sect, he wouldn't have gone overboard in his vengeance. He would have only targeted those he believed truly deserved it," Xia Cangfu explained.

"And also, he didn't kill all the palace realm experts. He only targeted those who had used the celestial light hawthorn. Those who hadn't were spared. About four of them survived," he added.

"Four?" Yang Qing asked, confusion flashing across his face. "Xia Fang said no one at the palace realm was spared," he added.

Xia Cangfu sighed. "I don't think many in the clan know. And even if some did, they likely kept it to themselves, given the actions of those four."

"In the chaos of it all, they fled here. When we gave them our stance and the ancestor's words, they returned to the clan, pilfered what they could, and disappeared to parts unknown, leaving the clan to its fate.

Had they stayed behind, or even left the treasures they stole, the clan might have been able to force a longer stalemate than it did.

It might still be around. But then again, it's precisely because it produced individuals like those four that things turned out the way they did," he added, his tone laced with sardonic bite.

Yang Qing's eyes widened slightly at the revelation, before settling back to normal. He sighed in defeat, a bitter smile slowly creeping onto his face.

How was he going to tell all this to Xia Fang, whose mind was already hanging by a thread? The Lai clan's betrayal alone would be shocking enough, without adding the bombshell Xia Cangfu had just dropped.

After a few seconds of battling what to do, he sighed once more, having made up his mind. He would just tell her everything. She asked for the truth; he would give her exactly that. And if in the end it proved too much for her to bear, then the Yang Qing of that time would deal with it. Present Yang Qing had more important matters to deal with, like drinking the bamboo juice before him and enjoying the atmosphere of Silver Breath Peak.

"By the way, what will happen about your ancestor's wish regarding the completion of his art?" Yang Qing suddenly asked.

Given the importance it held for them, even though the Xia clan outside had ignored the founder's wishes, people like Cangfu hadn't. Surely, as a descendant showing piety, but also as a member of Silver Breath Peak, he would have likely taken a shot at completing it.

The cultivation technique lover in him couldn't help but feel curious.

"It was completed fourteen years ago," Xia Cangfu said leisurely.

"Huh?" Yang Qing almost spilled his bamboo juice at the reply. "Completed?" he asked again, thinking he'd misheard.

"Mmh, yes, completed," Xia Cangfu replied casually, taking a sip of his bamboo juice.

"We handled the scripture our founder handed to the clan, while his disciple handled the other. It took about three thousand years, but we did it," he added.

"Disciple? They are alive?" Yang Qing asked, looking even more confused. He had assumed they were all dead, given the oppression the retainer clans faced.

"The clans..." he murmured, before a look of realization colored his face. "The last disciple who left..." he absentmindedly muttered, then brought his attention back to Xia Cangfu.

"Is that the one?" he asked.

Their founder had five disciples. Four remained behind after the Xia clan founder died, and even had families who later grew into the four retainer clans. However, the fifth disciple left immediately after the founder's death.

Yang Qing had assumed that disciple had left because they might have foreseen the Xia clan's changing attitude and wanted to avoid getting entangled, or perhaps they had been secretly killed. He couldn't help his morbid imagination, courtesy of the Instructor's radical training.

"Yes, she's the one," Xia Cangfu answered, a little reverence in his tone.

"They're alive?" Yang Qing murmured in disbelief. "If she's alive, then she must have reached the domain realm, right?"

Xia Cangfu nodded, affirming Yang Qing's assumption. "She is," he said.

"She was the most gifted of the founder's disciples and could be considered the true inheritor of his legacy and spirit. Even the peak master admires her talent, so much so that he tried to recruit her for the peak a couple of times," Xia Cangfu said.

He smiled wryly, recalling the peak master charging him to use any means to get the founder's disciple to stay, even becoming dao partners with her.

Despite being the peak master, that was an order Xia Cangfu dared not follow through on, especially given that, at the time he received it, he had only been in the late stages of the Foundation Establishment realm, while she was already in the Palace realm.

Aside from the fact that she was his ancestor's disciple, the gap in their abilities made it even more of a non-starter for him.

However, life had a way of playing jokes on people. As opposed to the idea as he was, somehow, through the passage of time, their interactions over the years in fulfilling his ancestor's wish, and eventually, him catching up to her cultivation-wise, they ended up becoming dao partners.

It wasn't intentional. It just happened. The peak master's wish got fulfilled… well, in a sense. She joined the peak, but was hardly ever around, given how much of a wanderer she was, which was also why she'd rejected the peak master the first time he asked.

His ancestor's disciple was a drifter at heart. She enjoyed exploring the continent, and even after they became dao partners, that part of her never changed. In the past twenty years, he'd seen her no more than five times.

"Maybe that's why I don't have a descendant yet." Xia Cangfu smiled bitterly at the thought.

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