The Deposed Empress Takes Up Cultivation - Chapter 4

After sending the spectators away yesterday, I’d put the sect’s daily affairs in order with the help of a few disciples.

Right now, they were all engrossed in cultivation.

That left me free to observe what was happening in the palace a little longer.

If Yao Jin really came from another world, I needed to know what sort of world it was.

The myriad worlds differed enormously.

Whether she was friend or foe remained to be seen.

Through my spiritual sense, I watched Yao Jin return to the main hall. Zhao Ye was already there.

Seeing his attendants stationed outside, she told her own maid to stay behind too and went in alone.

“Where have you been?” Zhao Ye asked the moment she entered.

Without offering a formal greeting, Yao Jin sat down below him. “Reading in the side hall for a bit.”

His brows drew together in displeasure.

She didn’t notice at all. With a faint smile and lowered eyes, she examined the pattern on her sleeve.

He stared at her for a while. The darkness between his brows remained, but his voice softened somewhat.

“In the world you come from, can mortals cultivate to become immortals?”

Yao Jin looked up at once, her eyes lighting up.

“Cultivate? What kind of cultivation? Do you mean… that strange spectacle in the sky yesterday—was someone undergoing a tribulation and becoming an immortal? Isn’t this just an ordinary ancient world?”

“You know about tribulations?” Zhao Ye narrowed his eyes, his tone unfriendly.

Yao Jin seemed unconcerned.

“I’ve read about them in stories. For mortals, cultivating toward immortality goes against heaven. Nine out of ten die trying. They have to survive a lightning tribulation before they can become immortal.”

He studied her. “Why have you never mentioned this before?”

She looked perfectly innocent. “Because none of it’s real. They’re stories in books. I told you, people where I’m from are born in the immortal realm. We don’t need to cultivate.”

Born in the immortal realm? Yao Jin actually came from the immortal realm!

But she didn’t look it, with no cultivation whatsoever.

Then again, the way she treated Zhao Ye—neither servile nor overawed—certainly didn’t suggest an ordinary background.

When he questioned her, she even dared question him back.

“You’ve never told me people here could cultivate either.”

“Whether this cultivation business is real has yet to be determined.” His expression eased a little as he offered that explanation.

Yao Jin wanted to ask more. “Then yesterday’s—”

He interrupted. “Tell me about mortals cultivating in those stories of yours.”

“Sure.”

After a moment’s thought, she began.

An Immortal Venerable took a substitute for his unattainable beloved. When his beloved returned, he subjected the substitute to every kind of humiliation. In the end, the substitute killed her husband to prove her Dao and became an immortal.

Well now. That was quite an interesting story.

I listened attentively all the way to the end.

Zhao Ye, however, looked awful.

“To become immortal, one must first kill one’s cultivation partner?”

Yao Jin shook her head. “Not always. Some jump off the Immortal-Slaying Terrace to kill themselves, and then their cultivation suddenly shoots up and they become immortal.”

She went on to tell him several more stories.

Their plots were all over the place, but their settings were much like the cultivation world I came from.

It seemed her world must have some connection to it.

By the time he’d heard them all, Zhao Ye looked worse still.

I could guess he was trying to learn about cultivation through these stories so he could deal with the crisis my Qingyun Sect posed.

But listening to tales that were half plausible and half nonsense probably wouldn’t help him much.

In the end, all he could do was ask again, “Are there truly no cultivators in your world?”

Without hesitation, Yao Jin said, “I’ve certainly never seen one.”

He asked no more questions. He stood and left.

She made no attempt to keep him and saw him out with considerable “cheer.”

I was rather curious about Yao Jin’s “immortal realm.”

Unfortunately, Zhao Ye hadn’t asked much about it.

I supposed he’d had a year to learn all about her background.

With a feeling that Yao Jin and I would meet sooner or later, I withdrew my spiritual sense.

The disciples were still cultivating. I had important work of my own.

Since I’d founded a sect, I ought to fulfill my duties as its leader.

The path of cultivation did go against heaven, just as Yao Jin had said. It took tremendous determination to succeed.

It also required a great many resources.

Rich in spiritual energy, the Qingyun Mountains were ideal cultivation grounds.

And since ours was currently the only sect in this world, timing, location, and human circumstances were all in our favor.

But if I wanted the sect to grow, I couldn’t afford to be content with modest prosperity.

Time to get our first hundred-year plan underway.

As a former Tribulation Transcendence Ancestor, I did have a few assets.

Once I reached the Golden Core realm, I could open the spatial abode I’d previously refined with my soul power.

It held my thousand-year collection of treasures.

Apart from a few things with special meaning to me, I picked out every pill, spiritual artifact, talisman, and jade slip of immortal arts suitable for the Golden Core realm and below.

My disciples could use them to cultivate.

Fortunately, I’d always been something of a collector and hated throwing things away.

Otherwise, finding supplies for Golden Core cultivators—or even lower-level ones—in the collection of a mighty Tribulation Transcendence expert might not have been easy.

In a moment, I emerged from my abode and returned to the sect’s main hall.

Only then did I realize how small our sect grounds really were, built as they were on the old Qingyun Temple.

Just twenty-some disciples had filled the place.

I couldn’t even find room for a sect treasury.

We would naturally have more disciples in the future.

There would need to be inner and outer sects, and halls for all sorts of purposes. One peak would never be enough.

Hmm…

Time to show them what real skill looked like!