Hearing this, both Elder Ling Heng and Xu Wanzhong nearly choked on their own saliva.
“What kind of thing is that to say?” Elder Ling Heng scolded.
How had he become a turtle in a wishing pond? Who talked about themselves like that?
“Then what else am I supposed to think?” Nangong Yu still looked utterly baffled. She poked herself in the nose with one finger. “He hasn’t made a breakthrough in decades, which clearly means it’s incredibly difficult. Eldest Senior Sister can’t do it, Second Senior Brother can’t do it, you can’t do it, and he can’t do it himself—so you come to me for help?”
Wasn’t that treating her like a turtle in a wishing pond? What else could it be?
Elder Ling Heng was momentarily speechless.
He knew that relying on her was hardly dependable.
She had helped him break through, helped the sect leader break through, and helped Xie Jinyue and Meng Yanqing break through. Could she possibly…
Could she possibly refuse to help her own senior brother break through?!
“Master, is that why you asked me to stay?” Xu Wanzhong transmitted privately.
Elder Ling Heng replied coolly, “Sit.”
He glanced at Xu Wanzhong, then turned to Nangong Yu. His expression softened as he coaxed, “Just give it a try. If it doesn’t work, neither your master nor your senior brother will blame you. Right?”
“Cultivation is one’s own business. How can you rely on someone else?” he said, looking exceptionally reasonable. “It’s only a try. Little Yu, you won’t refuse, will you?”
As he spoke, he put on a somewhat disappointed look. “When you made your breakthrough, your senior brother stayed by your side to protect you without taking a single step away.”
At those words, Nangong Yu understood. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Xu Wanzhong had always treated her kindly, and now it was time for her to repay the favor.
“Then I’ll… give it a try.” She wrinkled her face and looked at Xu Wanzhong. “Senior Brother, I’m grateful for how you’ve looked after me. No one on Hengxu Peak wants you to break through more than I do. But if you fail, don’t blame me.”
Xu Wanzhong was helpless. “Why would I blame you?”
He only felt that his master was making trouble for no reason.
“Then, then let me ask you one question first.” Nangong Yu quickly sat up straight and adopted a serious attitude. “Senior Brother, why has your cultivation stagnated?”
Xu Wanzhong shook his head. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be stuck.”
His junior sister’s question was truly amusing.
She made it sound as though he knew why he had hit a bottleneck but simply couldn’t be bothered to break through it.
“Oh!” Nangong Yu suddenly understood. “Your Dao heart has become confused. Your path is no longer clear, and you don’t know how to cultivate anymore!”
“…”
Xu Wanzhong.
That wasn’t quite what he meant.
Whose Dao heart was confused? Who didn’t know how to cultivate anymore? He couldn’t say her words were entirely wrong—only that they had absolutely nothing to do with the matter.
He glanced at Elder Ling Heng. Since his master had not said anything, he still couldn’t leave, so he began explaining to his junior sister. “My Dao heart is not confused. The path I cultivate is the ‘Way of Public Law’…”
It was the same path as Elder Ling Heng’s.
Xu Wanzhong had been doted on by Elder Ling Heng ever since he became his disciple. He had been spoiled to the point that, whenever he asked for something, Elder Ling Heng almost never refused him.
When he had first joined the sect, during those years of his youth, he had been brimming with confidence, his radiance unmatched by anyone.
Xu Wanzhong dared say that there might not be a happier person in the entire Canglan Realm.
Thus, he respected Elder Ling Heng, worshiped Elder Ling Heng, and supported Elder Ling Heng.
He had watched Elder Ling Heng wield the laws as golden words and use chains as weapons. Gradually, a path had appeared before his eyes.
Foundation Establishment. Golden Core. Nascent Soul.
He had walked forward step by step. His speed had been fast, but the farther he went, the slower he became.
That was how cultivation was for everyone, though. Who could possibly advance to ascension like a bolt of lightning without ever encountering a bottleneck?
“You cultivate the same path as Master?” Nangong Yu exclaimed. “What a coincidence!”
What a coincidence?
Like the beating of a hummingbird’s wings, the sound traveled across countless mountains and rivers. It was clearly inaudible, yet Xu Wanzhong somehow caught the faint ripple in the air.
That tiny flutter crossed mountains and seas in an instant. By the time it reached his ears, it had become a hurricane and a raging tide.
It roared into Xu Wanzhong’s ears and crashed against the lake of his heart, causing his emotions to surge.
“Senior Brother? Senior Brother…”
Someone seemed to be speaking beside him, but the voice grew farther and farther away. Before long, Xu Wanzhong could no longer hear it.
A tiny Nascent Soul sat upon an ocean, listening to the sound of the waves. Each note asked—
“What a coincidence?”
“Is this truly your path?”
“Are you following your master, or do you sincerely uphold the justice of the law?”
A faint current of air swirled around Xu Wanzhong, lifting the ends of his hair and stirring the hem of his robe.
Sitting beside him, Nangong Yu sensed it most clearly.
She looked across at Elder Ling Heng, her face filled with astonishment. “Master, Senior Brother—”
Elder Ling Heng was no less shocked than she was. He looked at Xu Wanzhong, then at his junior disciple, his eyes wide with disbelief.
“You… you…”
For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.
He wanted to ask, “How did you do that?”
He wanted to ask her, “You achieved this with just a few simple sentences?”
Yet he did not voice the questions. As he looked at Nangong Yu, a feeling of reverence arose within his heart.
She was by no means an ordinary disciple.
Every word she had spoken was perfectly ordinary. Cultivators often discussed such things among themselves—after all, they loved nothing more than debating the Dao.
But why did no one else’s words ever inspire anything, while hers produced such an effect the moment she said them?
Once or twice could be coincidence. But three or four times—could that still be coincidence?
Because of this reverence, he did not ask his questions. Instead, he said gently, “Your senior brother is about to break through. You’ve worked hard. Go back.”
A gentle breeze carried Nangong Yu out of the sword hut.
Standing outside, she looked at the two people who were close enough to touch yet seemed as distant as the ends of the earth. She pursed her lips, turned around, and left.
“Don’t tell anyone else.” Though he was already far away, Elder Ling Heng’s voice still reached her ears.
Nangong Yu replied, “Got it.”
So they wanted to keep her strength hidden. Understood.
She flew back to her cave dwelling and prepared to play around with her acupoints.
Meanwhile, Elder Ling Heng stared blankly at Xu Wanzhong, who was breaking through in front of him.
“She may truly be the person we’ve been waiting for,” he transmitted to the main peak.
Before long, another phantom appeared inside the cave dwelling. It was an incarnation of Sect Leader Cangjing.
When he saw Xu Wanzhong in the midst of his breakthrough, he was equally shocked. “So soon?!”
Elder Ling Heng sighed. “Yes.”
Sect Leader Cangjing did not know what to say either. He sat in the place where Nangong Yu had been sitting moments earlier, looking at Xu Wanzhong, then at Elder Ling Heng.
The two of them remained silent for a long time.
Neither of them had ever considered Nangong Yu to be the Ziwei Star from the prophecy—not even after she helped Sect Leader Cangjing break through, and then helped Elder Ling Heng break through.
At most, they had thought that the child had somehow come into possession of a strange opportunity.
Later, she had attained sudden enlightenment twice.
Yet precisely because of those two instances of sudden enlightenment, they became even more convinced that she was not the Ziwei Star.
The girl’s talent was simply too poor.
Unless she could attain sudden enlightenment every few days and rapidly raise her cultivation, even if she cultivated diligently, a hundred years of her effort would not equal one or two years of someone else’s. How could she possibly be the Ziwei Star destined to save the Ziyang Sect and rescue the Canglan Realm from its crisis?
“We’ll keep watching,” the sect leader said.
“Mm.” Elder Ling Heng nodded.
Earlier, they had said that unless her mission was to help every peak master and elder of the Ziyang Sect attain sudden enlightenment, she could not possibly be the Ziwei Star.
But this time, with only a few words, she had caused Xu Wanzhong—a promising Nascent Soul cultivator—to break through.
They felt their faces grow hot.
It was the thrill of seeing hope.
“We can’t let anyone else know.” The Sect Leader grew solemn. “We must keep her hidden.”
What if she really was the Ziwei Star?
Would others set their sights on her as well? Could it be that the Purple Sun Sect wasn’t the only one capable of divining the future of the cultivation world?
What would the other forces that had likewise foreseen the apocalypse do?
There were too many variables, and Nangong Yu was still weak. They had to protect her at all costs…
As the two were speaking, the Sect Leader suddenly raised his brows, his expression turning complicated.
“What is it?” Elder Ling Heng asked.
The Sect Leader glanced at him and said in a conflicted tone, “Someone has broken through.”
“Who?” Elder Ling Heng asked.
The Sect Leader’s illusory avatar dispersed like smoke and rippling waves within the Sword Lodge. “Mo Jiuyou, Zhao Ziyun, Xiao Junlin, and a disciple named Zhou Wan.”
What?!
Someone had broken through? This was clearly several people breaking through!
Elder Ling Heng found the news so unbelievable that he suspected he wasn’t fully awake. He therefore took a sip of Sitian Tea.
The bitterness twisted his features, and it also confirmed that he was wide awake.
His true body remained in the Sword Lodge, watching over his disciple. He sent out a strand of his avatar, which flew out from Hengxu Peak to survey the surroundings.
Mo Jiuyou, Zhao Ziyun, and Xiao Junlin were each on a different mountain peak.
On the day the new disciples entered the sect, the three had performed the best. They were also the top three in terms of talent. If the Ziwei Star was among this year’s disciples, it had to be one of them.
At first, Elder Ling Heng, like the Sect Leader and the other elders, had thought the same.
But after what had happened with Nangong Yu, both he and the Sect Leader had begun to waver.
Now, however, seeing the heavenly phenomena triggered by the three of them breaking through, Elder Ling Heng began to waver once more.
At the place where Mo Jiuyou was, purple lightning flashed.
At the place where Xiao Junlin was, a crimson dragon roamed through the clouds.
Above the mountain where Zhao Ziyun was, a phoenix formed from blue spiritual energy cried out, drawing countless birds and beasts to gather into a phenomenon resembling the morning glow.
Every one of them displayed signs of the Ziwei Star!
“How could this be?” Elder Ling Heng was momentarily stunned.
If this had happened in the past, he would have been overjoyed to see so many talented disciples accepted into the Purple Sun Sect.
But now, his heart felt heavy.
Throughout history, heroes had emerged in troubled times. Could it be that every sect besides the Purple Sun Sect had likewise received so many prodigies?
With so many heavenly talents, what kind of future awaited them?
“Zhou Wan is impressive too.” An illusory avatar coalesced beside Elder Ling Heng’s own. It was none other than Sect Leader Cangjing.
The two of them looked toward a fourth direction.
Zhou Wan was one of the less remarkable disciples of this year’s cohort. However, on the day the disciples were assigned on the main peak, she had happened to be standing in the very first row—first of all.
She had also been the first disciple of this year’s cohort to be called upon by the Sect Leader and introduce herself.
She had been taken in by an elder who was moderate and uninterested in competing for fame or fortune. On the Disciples’ Peak, she was not particularly conspicuous, but neither was she lacking. She had been among the first group of disciples placed in Class A.
It was only that her radiance had been eclipsed by Mo Jiuyou and the others, leaving her utterly unnoticed.
Until today, when she broke through at the same time as Mo Jiuyou and the others. Though she had not triggered any spectacular phenomenon, the timing she had chosen and the dense, pure spiritual energy she had gathered were enough to prove that she was a prodigy!
“Could it be her?” The same thought arose in both their minds.
Unlike Mo Jiuyou and the others, Zhou Wan possessed dual metal-and-fire spiritual roots.
She was outstanding, yet not so conspicuous.
A disciple who was cautious, low-key, and capable—one who clearly understood how to weather storms and emerge unscathed.
“Alas.” The Sect Leader sighed. “Elder Shen has come to me again, asking me to release Shen Yuheng.”
Elder Ling Heng had not heard that name in several years. He froze for a moment before saying, “He knows very well that’s impossible.”
