Xu Chengfeng watched Bai Lingxue clench her small fists, speaking with a solemn expression about guarding the mountain gate, and he couldn’t help but smile inwardly.
Guarding the mountain gate?
What was there left here to guard?
In the entire sect, anything even slightly valuable had already been sold off. Everywhere he looked was desolation.
If a thief came, they’d probably leave in tears and maybe even drop off a few coins out of pity.
“Didn’t I tell you all to stay obediently on the mountain?”
After hearing Bai Lingxue’s words, Feng Mingfei couldn’t help but stand up.
“The burden of the sect shouldn’t rest on you alone, Senior Sister. We should do our part too.”
Bai Lingxue’s voice was youthful, but her tone was remarkably resolute.
Xu Chengfeng felt a touch of comfort in his heart.
For the disciples to understand the sect’s hardships…this was truly rare and precious.
“Call back the disciples who went out,” Xu Chengfeng said, looking at Feng Mingfei. “Now that I, your Grandmaster, am here, how could I let you juniors struggle outside on your own?”
Feng Mingfei gave an awkward cough. “A spirit paper kite for sending messages costs thirty spirit stones each. Our sect…”
“Our sect can’t even come up with thirty spirit stones now?”
Xu Chengfeng knew the sect had fallen on hard times, but he hadn’t expected it to be this dire.
Thirty….and just spirit stones at that.
Spirit stones were the lowest-tier currency commonly used among cultivators.
Above spirit stones were spirit jades.
One hundred spirit stones could be exchanged for a single spirit jade.
Above spirit jades were immortal stones. One hundred spirit jades for one immortal stone.
And above immortal stones were immortal jades. One hundred immortal stones for one immortal jade.
Xu Chengfeng recalled that back when he had been in the mortal realm, even at his most destitute, he still had several thousand immortal jades on him. And now…
His own sect had fallen so low that it couldn’t even produce thirty spirit stones.
“Well… the sect originally still had some savings.” Seeing Xu Chengfeng fall silent, Bai Lingxue thought the Grandmaster might be angry and quickly tried to explain on Feng Mingfei’s behalf. “If that bad woman Shi Qingxuan hadn’t taken the sect’s only immortal stone, how would things have ended up like this…”
“Lingxue, how can you speak of Senior Sister Qingxuan like that?” Feng Mingfei interrupted before Bai Lingxue could finish.
Bai Lingxue puffed out her cheeks angrily. “You treat that bad woman as your senior sister, but she doesn’t treat you as her junior sister.”
“Shi Qingxuan? Who is she?” Xu Chengfeng asked, looking at Bai Lingxue in confusion.
“That bad woman Shi Qingxuan was originally the Eldest Senior Sister…bah, bah, bah! She doesn’t deserve that title at all.” Bai Lingxue stuck out her pink tongue and spat twice before continuing.
“Even though that bad woman Shi Qingxuan has a terrible heart, her talent was extremely good. Her cultivation was the highest among all the disciples. Back then, Master passed the position of Sect Leader to her…”
“Lingxue, stop talking.” Feng Mingfei hurriedly cut her off again.
“You never let us talk about it normally, saying family shame shouldn’t be made public.” With a light leap, Bai Lingxue hopped behind Xu Chengfeng and poked her head out from behind him. “But now that Grandmaster is here, are we still going to keep it from him?”
It seemed Feng Mingfei had not been Sect Leader in vain. She did carry some authority.
Although Bai Lingxue was playful, once Feng Mingfei told her to stop, she truly fell silent.
“Go on. Don’t mind her,” Xu Chengfeng said in a low voice.
“Well, Grandmaster told me to say it.” Bai Lingxue’s fox ears gave two light, cheerful twitches.
“Even though that bad woman Shi Qingxuan became Sect Leader, she never valued the position at all. Not long after Master passed away, she gathered up what little spiritual artifacts and spirit stones the sect had left and defected to another sect.
Before she left, that bad woman even threw the Sect Leader’s ring into Moon Lake in the back mountain. She said that from then on, there would no longer be a Lingyue Sect. If Senior Sister Mingfei hadn’t painstakingly searched for the ring and taken up the position of Sect Leader, we would have starved to death long ago…”
Xu Chengfeng thought to himself that if not for Feng Mingfei, the sect he had founded would have been erased from this world.
“You did very well.”
Hearing her Grandmaster’s praise, Feng Mingfei felt a surge of emotions.
Being praised felt truly wonderful.
She had not done all this for recognition, yet now, hearing the Grandmaster’s approval, she felt that all the hardship and exhaustion she had endured had been worth it.
“It’s getting late. You should both get some rest.”
Xu Chengfeng drifted out of the side hall.
He had always been clear in reward and punishment.
For Feng Mingfei to have voluntarily taken on the position of Sect Leader and saved the sect from collapse….this was unquestionably a great merit.
She absolutely deserved a proper reward.
But what could he reward her with?
Given the current situation, immortal jades or immortal stones would be the best reward.
But he was only a wisp of divine soul, carrying not even a single spirit stone or immortal jade with him.
“Right!”
Xu Chengfeng suddenly recalled that he had once buried some small items beneath the floor tiles of the Spirit Treasure Pavilion.
Although those small items were not of high grade, exchanging them for a few hundred immortal stones would be effortless.
“The Spirit Treasure Pavilion… the Spirit Treasure Pavilion should be around here…”
As he tried to remember, Xu Chengfeng groped his way forward.
Too much time had passed, and his memories were no longer so clear. On top of that, the surroundings were already a barren wasteland, with no paths to follow, making it no easy task to find the Spirit Treasure Pavilion.
Fortunately, those landmark structures were still there, which saved Xu Chengfeng quite a bit of effort.
“The Pantiān Pillar… I didn’t expect only this small section to remain.”
“Up ahead should be the Ninefold Spirit Gathering Array… heh, the array core is still there, just without any spiritual energy.”
“This square is the martial practice grounds.”
Xu Chengfeng still remembered the scene of thousands of carefully selected inner disciples cultivating here.
At that time, there were tens of thousands of inner disciples alone, and only after being carefully chosen from among them could one cultivate in this place.
To be able to cultivate here even once was an immense honor for the inner disciples of the Lingyue Sect.
But now, the place was covered in nothing but weeds.
Continuing forward, after passing a collapsed pavilion, he arrived at the site of the Spirit Treasure Pavilion.
“This was the first gate.”
Xu Chengfeng looked down at a deep indentation on the ground.
“This was the second.”
He continued forward.
“And this was the third…”
When Xu Chengfeng was in charge of the Lingyue Sect, only disciples who had rendered outstanding service to the sect were allowed to enter the Spirit Treasure Pavilion.
Only then could they step inside and select a spiritual weapon or artifact.
There were seven gates here, with nine Immortal-ranked Hall Masters taking turns standing guard. Yet now, before Xu Chengfeng’s eyes, there was nothing but desolation and a collapsed pavilion.
A few scattered bricks remained of the main building, while the six smaller buildings had long since vanished without a trace.
Following his memory, Xu Chengfeng made his way to the spot where he had once buried the spiritual artifact beneath a brick…
Only to find that the place had already been pried open, and the inside was completely empty.
Xu Chengfeng was not surprised by this outcome.
The sect’s decline had not happened overnight. Successive sect leaders, unwilling to bear the title of “the one under whom the sect perished” would certainly have tried every possible means to keep it alive.
Selling off ancestral assets must have been done more than once.
When Xu Chengfeng first built the Spirit Treasure Pavilion, the materials he used were all of the highest grade, and the floor tiles were no exception.
It was hardly strange that some disciple, while prying up the tiles to sell them, had discovered the spiritual artifact he had hidden there.
For the disciple who pried up that tile and found a spiritual treasure concealed beneath it, it would undoubtedly have been a fortuitous encounter blessed with great luck.
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