The young maid was eventually taken away by An Xiaoyao.
Before leaving, tears filled her eyes as she vowed that once she had completed her training, she would return to repay her young master’s kindness.
Lin Que said nothing. He only watched their departing figures.
It felt as though he was the only one left in the courtyard.
As an observer, Qin Wanyuan stood beside Lin Que, gazing at him, her nose slightly tingling with emotion.
The autumn wind swept down yellowed leaves from the treetops. The young man leaned on his crutch, allowing the withered leaves to fall onto his hair. A fierce scar now marked the once-handsome face, yet his expression remained utterly blank.
At that moment, Qin Wanyuan truly understood how lonely Lin Que must have felt back then.
In order to protect those around him, he had let the young maid leave—even though he couldn’t bring himself to speak harsh words that would drive her away completely.
So… his self-sacrificing nature started all the way back then…
Qin Wanyuan felt a surge of emotion but also a touch of confusion.
The young maid had promised to return once her training was complete, yet in her past life, Qin had never seen her again. Not even once.
Could she be that friend of Lin Lang who later took Qian’er and me in? No, that’s not right. Even though the maid hadn’t yet grown into her features back then, there’s no way the difference would be that drastic.
Could it be… she disguised herself? Or maybe something happened to her later, which prevented her from returning…?
Qin Wanyuan pondered seriously, but in the end, she couldn’t come to any clear conclusion.
The days passed by, and Lin Que’s body gradually recovered. However, his dominant right hand was completely crippled.
He didn’t seem particularly affected by it. As soon as he could stand again, he began training with the sword once more.
Even with his cultivation lost and his right hand disabled, he never gave up.
If the right hand no longer worked, he would wield the sword with his left. Even if his cultivation had been destroyed, he would rebuild it from scratch.
From time to time, Jiang Moqing would also join him in the courtyard, practicing swordsmanship alongside him. She never treated him as someone broken. Life seemed almost the same as before.
She didn’t understand why Lin Que would sacrifice such a promising future to save the lives of the city’s people. But she never belittled him, nor did she think him a fool.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he trained, the fact that most of his Eight Extraordinary Meridians had been destroyed meant that Lin Que’s path of cultivation was effectively severed. It was, for all intents and purposes, a death sentence for his life as a cultivator.
The title of Chief Disciple was quickly stripped from him.
Those disciples who once tried to curry favor with Lin Que or cling to his status abruptly disappeared. His residence became cold and desolate, devoid of visitors.
Lin Que didn’t care. If anything, he welcomed the solitude.
But…
Peaceful days could not last forever. The scions of noble families who had abandoned their comrades during the calamity returned…this time bearing malice.
They formed factions, suppressing Lin Que and twisting the truth of that disaster, blaming the entire incident on him.
Lin Que tried to explain himself, but it was useless. Some disciples could see he had been wronged, that those noble heirs had deliberately set him up.
But what did that matter? If Lin Que hadn’t been crippled, he could have cleared his name. But now, stripped of cultivation and with his meridians destroyed, he was just a ruined man.
Unlike those noble heirs, he had no powerful background to protect or support him. Anyone with eyes could see he had no path to redemption.
Most disciples watched coldly from the sidelines. Others, seeking to curry favor with the nobles, became their lackeys and joined in the slander and mockery of Lin Que.
Some even went so far as to tarnish their own reputations just to further isolate him.
For a time, Lin Que’s status and reputation within the Sword Seeking Sect plummeted to rock bottom. If not for the fact that he shared a cave residence with Jiang Moqing, someone might have already scrawled vulgar slurs outside his door.
Watching all of this unfold, Qin Wanyuan clenched her fists tightly.
“These people… they’re disgusting!”
Having witnessed Lin Que’s journey firsthand, she naturally remembered some of those onlookers.
Back when Lin Que had won the title of top disciple, all of them had tried to curry favor with him, eagerly seeking guidance. Though Lin Que had always been cold by nature, he never withheld his teachings.
Yet now, in the name of personal gain, they had all forgotten his past kindness and even gone so far as to trample on him while he was down.
Amidst her anger, Qin Wanyuan couldn’t help but start to ponder.
Lin Que had once been An Xiaoyao’s personally appointed disciple, but now he held only the title of a regular inner sect member. Could that also be connected to the time when his cultivation was destroyed?
Qin Wanyuan found it hard to believe that An Xiaoyao would abandon Lin Que simply because he had lost his cultivation. During the period when Lin Que was injured, Qin Wanyuan had witnessed An Xiaoyao’s every effort firsthand:
She ran all over in search of medicine for Lin Que, argued vehemently in the council hall with the other elders on his behalf, and even risked offending them all just to try to preserve Lin Que’s title as Chief Disciple.
An Xiaoyao had truly treated Lin Que like her own kin. It was impossible that she would forsake him just because he couldn’t recover.
Then… what was the real reason?
Carrying this question in her heart, Qin Wanyuan continued to watch the events unfold.
As time went on, the voices targeting Lin Que not only failed to subside but instead grew louder under the instigation of the influential noble disciples.
Those harboring malicious intent had already branded Lin Que a traitor, seeking to use this fabricated charge to drive him out of the Sword-Seeking Sect or perhaps… to kill him outright.
They didn’t want the truth behind the demonic cultivator purge to come to light. The ones who fled had already colluded with each other, and among those who stayed behind, only Lin Que survived. As long as he was silenced, the truth would become even less of a concern.
After all, no one speaks out for the dead.
And the elders? Some turned a blind eye, while others quietly fanned the flames behind the scenes to help smooth the way for their descendants’ plans.
Originally, the noble disciples had intended to expel Lin Que from the sect, then quietly eliminate him once he was gone. But thanks to An Xiaoyao’s protection, even after being framed so severely, the sect leader still refused to drive him out.
So, they changed their plan: they would take action directly and stage his death as a suicide out of guilt.
This is the fate of an ordinary man with no powerful background after falling out of favor in a cultivation sect and offending the heirs of noble families.
So what if Elder An is protecting you, Lin Que? Compared to our backing, your single supporter is nothing!
Lin Que’s situation had unfolded just as he had once predicted. It had reached a critical, life-threatening point.
To ensure nothing could go wrong, the noble disciples deliberately chose the day An Xiaoyao left the sect to search for medicine. They even asked an elder to assign Jiang Moqing a mission to send her away as well.
Everything went smoothly.
It was a dark and windy night.
Lin Que stood alone in the courtyard, leaning on a long sword with his left hand. Then, he looked up.
Leaves rustled in the wind as several assassins in nightcloaks appeared atop the eaves, gazing down at him from above.
A powerless mortal, facing a group of hostile cultivators prepared to kill. No matter how one looked at it, this was a death sentence.
Watching from the shadows, Qin Wanyuan clenched the corner of her robe. Even though she knew Lin Que would surely turn the tide in the end, she couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat for him.
“Lin Que, in your next life, don’t make enemies of people you can’t afford to offend,” one of the noble disciples among the assassins growled, his voice low and threatening.
Lin Que’s expression was blank, the scar on his face making him appear even more menacing.
He drew his sword…clearly, a deadly battle was about to begin.
But then—
A white-robed female swordswoman suddenly appeared before the noble disciples. Her face was cold, like an eternal iceberg that would never melt.
A look of shock spread across the face of the noble disciple leading the group.
“You… How are you back so soon—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the sword in the woman’s hand flashed soundlessly from its sheath and a glint of cold light cut through the dark.
Her sword returned smoothly to its scabbard.
A row of heads hit the ground.
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