Mu Ran seemed to have heard the sound of the wind. She turned her head to look but saw nothing. Then she looked at the old woman standing at the door with a puzzled expression. "Madam, did you tell me to stop?"
The old woman opened her mouth, and it took a long while before she found her voice. "I wanted to remind you to watch your step. Don't trip or bump into anything. If you fall and get hurt, your husband will surely be heartbroken."
Mu Ran let out an "oh" and said, "Thank you for the reminder, Madam."
The old woman closed her eyes in defeat, giving up on finding a way to break the restriction.
Thinking back to when she had tried to attack Mu Ran, she had merely been sent flying and injured. Compared to the two disciples whose bones were crushed to ashes today, she had been treated far too well.
Presumably, if that fiend hadn't considered leaving his wife a "good neighbor" to pass the time with, she probably would have also become a handful of ashes, dissipating without a trace.
Mu Ran hesitated for a moment before asking, "Madam, you've lived here for so long. Have you ever heard of the name Changqing Sect?"
The old woman really wanted to say no, but she was afraid that Mu Ran would go spout nonsense to Cangshu Bai, so she could only brace herself and say, "I've heard of it, but not much."
Mu Ran said, "While I was wandering outside these past few days, I heard a lot of gossip. They said that many people who enter the Changqing Sect come out with drastically changed temperaments, as if they are completely different people."
The old woman felt guilty. "Is that so?"
Mu Ran continued, "Although I'm not a top-tier cultivator, I know a little bit about cultivation. Aside from suffering qi deviation and falling into demonic cultivation, I don't know what other cultivation methods could possibly cause such a drastic change in personality."
She added, "The Changqing Sect couldn't be practicing demonic cultivation, could they?"
The old woman's expression turned strange.
In a sense, Mu Ran's guess wasn't wrong.
The Changqing Sect didn't follow an orthodox cultivation path, so they could naturally be considered demonic cultivators.
Mu Ran became increasingly anxious. "Jinzhi told me he was going to handle some clan matters, but he went to the Changqing Sect instead. He must have been deceived."
The old woman cried out, "What? He actually went to the Changqing Sect?!"
"Madam, you also think there's something wrong with the Changqing Sect, don't you?!"
The old woman felt like she had a fishbone stuck in her throat.
"Jinzhi is just an ordinary person. He only has a half-baked understanding of cultivation. If the people from the Changqing Sect tricked him into practicing demonic cultivation, he definitely wouldn't know what was going on. What if he really fell for it?"
Mu Ran looked anxious. The more she spoke, the more terrifying the thought became, and she paced around in a panic.
The old woman had a complex expression. "I think you really don't need to be so worried."
"No, I have to go find him and bring him back!"
Mu Ran turned and ran off.
The old woman couldn't stop her in time, nor could she chase after her.
She squatted on the ground, holding her head in agony, pulling out a few more white hairs.
—It's over. That fiend really seems to be going to wipe out their entire sect. If Mu Ran stumbles upon his massacre, he won't take it out on a pitiful old woman like her, will he?
Mu Ran still remembered what the two Changqing Sect disciples who came looking for Duan Minggui that night had said: the Changqing Sect was located in Changqing Alley.
She was able to find it just by asking around a bit on the way. However, inexplicably, she encountered many Biyun Mountain disciples wearing jade-green clothes along the road.
These disciples seemed to be looking for someone. Not wanting to cause any unnecessary trouble, Mu Ran could only avoid them.
Before reaching the main gate of the Changqing Sect, she touched her face, squatted down to grab a handful of black soot from a wall, and smeared it all over her face, making it much darker. Her originally delicate and beautiful features were also somewhat obscured.
Only then did she muster the courage to approach the gate.
The two disciples guarding the gate were startled when they saw a pitch-black woman.
Mu Ran smiled, revealing a row of white teeth. "Is this the Changqing Sect? I want to join the Changqing Sect. I wonder if you could let me in to acknowledge a master and learn your arts?"
One disciple waved his hand dismissively. "Get lost, get lost! Do you think just anyone can enter our Changqing Sect?"
The other disciple, however, was a bit more quick-witted. He pulled the first one aside and whispered, "Recently, the demand for goods inside the sect has exceeded the supply. Let her in."
"Senior Brother, we're taking one this ugly?"
"She's a bit ugly, but as long as she's young and healthy, we can sell her at a cheaper price. It's better than nothing."
"Alright, I'll listen to you."
The second disciple didn't want to take another look at Mu Ran's dark face either. He coughed and said, "Miss, to join our Changqing Sect, you must first register with the Teaching Elder. Just follow my junior brother inside."
"Senior Brother, why are you making me take this ugly woman inside?!"
"Am I the senior brother, or are you? Just go when I tell you to. Why so much nonsense?!"
The junior brother swallowed his anger and gave Mu Ran an annoyed look. "Follow me."
Mu Ran thanked them repeatedly and followed the man into the Changqing Sect, but her bright eyes secretly observed her surroundings.
"Excuse me, Immortal Master, where do newly admitted disciples go to learn their arts?"
The man said impatiently, "If newly admitted disciples have decent aptitude, they will first go pay their respects to the Sect Master. If the Sect Master thinks highly of them, they will stay in the Thousand Years Hall. As for those with poor aptitude, they will all be sent to the Hundred Years Hall to learn. If they are diligent and manage to catch up in their cultivation, they might still have a chance to enter the Thousand Years Hall."
Mu Ran thought to herself, Jinzhi definitely went to the Hundred Years Hall.
As they walked to a secluded area, the man was still muttering in dissatisfaction, "I see you don't have much aptitude either. It's not even certain if the elder will accept you into the sect, yet you're already thinking about where new disciples go. You really are dreaming—"
"Thunder Summoning Spell!"
A talisman was slapped onto the man's back. A bolt of lightning suddenly appeared on his body, striking down like a sudden clap of thunder. His hair stood on end, and he collapsed to the ground, smoking all over.
Mu Ran put her hands together in prayer. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to."
Her words sounded a bit fake.
She struggled to drag the man behind a nearby rockery to hide him. Then, she stripped off his black outer robe and draped it over herself. Although the man was short, the robe was still a bit too big for Mu Ran and looked somewhat comical on her. However, she had no time to worry about her image right now.
She made her way toward the Hundred Years Hall. Along the way, she saw one old man and old woman after another. They were all dressed in fine, brocade clothes and had snow-white hair, looking as if they didn't have many years left to live. Yet, walking through the Changqing Sect, they seemed to have found hope; their faces were glowing and they looked radiant.
A senile old lady saw Mu Ran and muttered, "This one is good, this one is good. Her slender figure looks just like mine when I was young."
However, as soon as Mu Ran got closer and the old lady saw her pitch-black face, she was startled again and almost passed away on the spot.
"Oh my, has a lump of charcoal turned into a demon? Hurry up and leave, hurry up and leave! I'll pay extra, I definitely don't want this one!"
Baffled, Mu Ran quickly slipped away.
