The Hehuan Sect's True Heiress - Chapter 2

In our sect, making Joyous Union Powder that awful would get you thrown off the mountain.

My case was different.

I’d exiled myself.

The reason was simple: I’d made a terrible mess.

I’d slept with Immortal Lord Qingyi, the cultivation world’s most remote and unattainable beauty.

To be precise, I’d used him as my cultivation vessel for seven whole days.

I did have my reasons.

A few days earlier, I’d accidentally entered a secret realm and found Immortal Lord Qingyi inside.

He was attempting to break through to the Spirit Transformation stage, but his spiritual energy had spiraled out of control. He was on the verge of cultivation deviation.

To save his life, I’d had no choice but to use a secret art of the Hehuan Sect.

Immortal Lord Qingyi became my cultivation vessel, and I circulated his energy through the proper channels for him.

The force of his immense spiritual power left me in agony.

Worse, it was my first time using the art.

I exhausted my cultivation, and it still took seven full days to settle everything.

Before he woke, I fled for my life.

Immortal Lord Qingyi was only twenty, yet he’d already perfected his Golden Core and reached full mastery of his Nascent Soul.

For someone like him to be used as my cultivation vessel was a monstrous humiliation.

How could he let me live?

He might even take his anger out on the entire Hehuan Sect.

As junior sect leader, I absolutely couldn’t bring disaster home.

So I’d decided to exile myself, hide my identity, and take shelter in the murky mortal world.

What I hadn’t expected was to be taken away the moment I entered the county town at the foot of the mountain.

The reason? At one glance, the county magistrate decided I was the spitting image of Chief Minister Zhu, the current head of the imperial government.

And Chief Minister Zhu really had lost a daughter.

I was sent straight to the capital under heavy guard. That very day, a peach-blossom birthmark on my chest confirmed my identity, and I was welcomed back into the family.

Although Chief Minister Zhu and his wife also had a son, they’d adopted another daughter to soothe the pain of losing me.

That was Zhu Mei, the impostor heiress.

Over time, they’d given all their love to her.

So much so that when I, their real daughter, came back, they barely cared.

Zhu Mei felt threatened and hated me to the bone. The chief minister and his wife disliked me along with her.

But I was perfectly satisfied with my situation.

Immortals and the imperial court stayed out of one another’s affairs, after all.

As the only member of the Hehuan Sect hiding in the capital, I couldn’t possibly be safer.

I’d celebrated too soon.

I was by no means the only Hehuan Sect member in the capital.

The person who’d sold Zhu Mei her Joyous Union Powder was my hopeless junior sister.

Her name was Li Diandi—Little Drop—and she had certainly dropped to the very bottom of our class.

To avoid being expelled, Li Diandi had volunteered to leave the mountain, declaring she’d redeem herself before returning.

Apparently, her method of redemption was becoming a drug peddler in the capital.

Zhu Mei went to demand a refund. I listened from the roof.

The moment Zhu Mei mentioned getting her money back, Li Diandi started swearing.

“My Joyous Union Powder doesn’t work? Bullshit! Dare you swallow a whole packet right here?”

Zhu Mei retorted indignantly, “I watched my sister drink an entire pot of the drugged tea. Nothing happened!”

“Because it happened to someone else!” Li Diandi sneered. “Didn’t your little lapdogs get a dose?”

“The whole city knows the sons of the Left and Right Vice Ministers—Young Masters Niu and Ma—crossed swords at your house for six whole hours!”

“Heaven and earth trembled! No one dared break them up! If their fathers hadn’t arrived, they could have gone another six!”

“And you dare say my medicine doesn’t work?”

Through a gap in the roof tiles, I watched Zhu Mei turn the color of pig’s liver. Spoiled pig’s liver.

Trembling, she pointed at Li Diandi. “You… You…”

Li Diandi gave a supremely confident grin. “I’m your daddy, however you spin it! You bitch, you used my medicine to hurt someone, and now you want a refund?”

“I sell things for pleasure, not weapons for hurting people!”

She snatched up another packet of Joyous Union Powder and made as if to force it down Zhu Mei’s throat.

Zhu Mei fled.

Li Diandi rolled her eyes, turned around, and walked straight into me.

Her expression froze.

“Junior Sect Leader? He—”

I seized her by the scruff of the neck. “C’mon. Inside.”

I told Li Diandi that Young Masters Niu and Ma had achieved their great union thanks to my medicine, not hers.

Her Joyous Union Powder had improved, but it still only worked on mortals.

We couldn’t settle for merely bringing down mortals.

She had to aim higher. Work toward bringing down an immortal, or a Demon Lord, perhaps.

I made a point of telling her the Demon Lord was very handsome. Li Diandi accepted my lesson with due humility.

Before she saw me out, I warned her:

“We’re the only two Hehuan Sect members in the capital now. Be careful. We mustn’t expose ourselves.”

Li Diandi ducked her head and murmured her agreement, not daring to say more.

Looking at her, I felt a little dazed.

Who would have guessed this girl was secretly the capital’s reigning champion of verbal abuse?

She’d been so lacking in confidence back at the sect.

The little brat had two faces after all.