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Chapter 519: The Incident at Jade Dragon Pond

And it had indeed been the best available.

But why are there people who can stay in the imperial palace?!

Are you part of the imperial family??

Even members of the imperial family don\'t just get this kind of treatment whenever they want, right?

Compared to that palace halfway up the hill and above the other lodgings, the residence with the pavilion now seemed like the small buildings by the city gates that the old fellows on night watch stayed in. The joy that the Celestial King Sect\'s team had felt a moment before was gone now. Normally, cultivators wouldn\'t care about such things, but nothing was worse than having something better to compare to.

It wasn\'t just the Celestial King Sect disciples who didn\'t understand; even the Mount Shu Sect disciples were puzzled. They looked at Lao Fangrong in confusion.

"This isn\'t in compliance with the rules, is it?" Wang Xuanling frowned. "I\'ve attended the Assembly of Immortal Sects several times and never heard of anyone staying in the imperial palace..."

"It wasn\'t allowed before, but this time, His Majesty gave an imperial decree," Lao Fangrong explained. He turned to Chu Liang and bowed. "The Imperial Younger Brother is to be accommodated in the temporary imperial residence."

Well, then.

I almost forgot about that.

Chu Liang suddenly remembered that he did have such a title.

It was unsurprising he had forgotten. After all, he always spent his time among immortal sects, where no one cared about the things that the imperial family or court bestowed. The last time the emperor bestowed Chu Liang with something, it had just been a few shops. Chu Liang hadn\'t even thought much about them.

But now, after arriving in the capital of Yu, he realized that his title as Imperial Younger Brother had its uses.

"This is rather embarrassing," Chu Liang said with an embarrassed smile. He paused before adding, "My elder brother is quite thoughtful."

The group from the Mount Shu Sect made their way to the highest point of the lodgings area and entered the imperial palace.

The Celestial King Sect disciples had watched them enviously. Nevertheless, the teams from the other Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten sects would arrive and soon enough. The Celestial King Sect would regain some sense of superiority then.

The imperial palace on the Emperor\'s Mound was relatively plain and modest—well, that was compared to the grand palace halls of the imperial city. In comparison to the surrounding residences, the palace was richly ornamented, but it was not flamboyantly luxurious. The courtyard of the temporary imperial residence featured rockery and flowing streams in a very serene and elegant garden.

After escorting the group from the Mount Shu Sect to the palace, Lao Fangrong and the several palace attendants accompanying him left. The palace attendants usually served the emperor in the temporary imperial residence, but they left to avoid disturbing the Mount Shu Sect disciples\' cultivation.

The group from the Mount Shu Sect didn\'t object to that. In fact, they would have felt uncomfortable if the eunuchs and palace maids were constantly attending to them.

Soon after they settled in, a visitor dropped by the palace.

"My goodness, this... You\'re actually staying in this imperial palace? What a great honor for you!" the visitor exclaimed in surprise as he entered the palace.

Wang Xuanling and the four Mount Shu Sect disciples received the visitor in the main hall.

Wang Xuanling said, "Junior Brother Chen, it\'s been a long time."

The visitor was Chen Xuanlu. He was the sect leader of the Profound Mind Sect, which was located just outside the capital of Yu. Chen Xuanlu used to be a disciple of the Mount Shu Sect, two generations after Wang Xuanling. That was why Wang Xuanling called Chen Xuanlu "Junior Brother."

Chen Xuanlu replied, "Senior Brother Wang, another twelve years have passed in the blink of an eye."

He was wearing a Daoist robe with cloud patterns and had his hair tied and pinned high on his head. He had a pure and gentle appearance, giving him a rather ethereal and otherworldly presence.

There were three youths behind him—two male disciples and one female disciple. All three of them seemed quite young.

The two groups arranged their tables in the hall so they were across from the other group. Then they sat down on the floor, facing each other.[1]

"The youths of our dear old Mount Shu Sect\'s current generation of disciples are truly quite good," Chen Xuanlu praised, looking at the disciples with a smile. "I was quite worried for a while, wondering what the sect would do if the current generation of disciples failed to produce good results too. But later on, I kept hearing news about our dear old Mount Shu Sect\'s current generation. I gradually felt reassured."

Wang Xuanling glanced at the youths behind Chen and remarked insincerely, "The youths from your sect are great too."

"Hehe," Chen Xuanlu chuckled. "These mischievous disciples—I\'m letting them participate in the Assembly of Immortal Sects, but I\'m not hoping for them to achieve great results. I just wanted them to experience it."

...

Disciples of the large immortal sects ranked in the Divine Nine and Terrestrial Ten often left their sect to explore the martial world and eventually ended up establishing their own sects.

If someone were to tally them up, the sect with the highest number of branch sects would be the Mount Shu Sect. After all, it had reigned as the top immortal sect for thousands of years in the past, so it was natural that it would produce many offshoots.

However, these smaller sects often only lasted a few generations before dying out. Even if they could persist for hundreds or thousands of years, their ties to the main sect would weaken, and they would gradually become independent entities.

That was why the sect leaders of the branch sects typically had the closest ties with members of the main sect that were from a generation or two before them, like Chen Xuanlu and Wang Xuanling.

Before each Assembly of Immortal Sects, Chen Xuanlu would bring the disciples of his sect to greet the representative team from the Mount Shu Sect, allowing them to get to know each other. Generally, every small sect that branched off from a main sect would do this. It was so that if their teams encountered each other during the rounds of the assembly, they could look out for one another.

In other words, this was a routine courtesy visit.

The Profound Mind Sect and the many other small sects located just outside the capital of Yu were not sects with long-established cultivation legacies to pass down. Nevertheless, it did not matter, as these small sects mainly catered to the offspring of officials and wealthy families who did not have much potential for cultivation.

These youths often lacked the talent to enter the major immortal sects and could not use connections to gain entry into sects like the Ascending Dragon Academy or the Nation Guard Monastery Tower because they had strong ties to the imperial court. So, if their elders wanted them to cultivate, they had no choice but to find a small sect near the capital of Yu. If they learned basic cultivation arts and divine skills, that would be enough for them to be considered as having become a cultivator.

They weren\'t aiming for high achievements; they just wanted to strengthen their bodies and prolong their lives. Therefore, neither the disciples nor their teachers took their cultivation journeys seriously.

Naturally, the typical cultivator wouldn\'t want to waste time teaching disciples with little talent, but anything could be negotiated as long as they paid enough.

Nevertheless, if Chen Xuanlu encountered a particularly talented youth, he would not teach them. He would recommend them to join the Mount Shu Sect instead.

There were many cultivators like Chen Xuanlu that had hit a bottleneck in their cultivation at the pinnacle of the sixth realm. It was too difficult for them to break through to the Heavenly Gate. Even if they continued to cultivate arduously into their final years, there was no guarantee they would make a breakthrough to the next realm. They figured it was better to take in some disciples and earn some money, enjoying the remainder of their lives. They had come to terms with their situation.

Being a cultivator was a very costly expense for aristocratic disciples; it was what they spent most of their money on. They needed to pay a substantial sum just to join one of the small sects. Then they still had to buy cultivation arts manuals and cultivation resources, but the ones the sects sold were more expensive than those being sold outside. In fact, the four disciples that each of these small sects had selected to participate in the Assembly of Immortal Sects might not necessarily be the best of their generation; their families might have simply given their teachers the most money.

Of course, there were sects that were willing to foster disciples without payment, but if the youths did not have enough talent for cultivation, they would not get accepted. Consequently, youths like that could only join these small profit-focused sects.

Wang Xuanling advised Chen Xuanlu, "You can\'t be too harsh on your disciples. With the Assembly of Immortal Sects soon to begin, it\'s important to give them some confidence."

"Oh, I don\'t always criticize them. My disciples are reasonably talented. They\'re just not very disciplined and instead quite playful," Chen Xuanlu replied with a laugh. "You see, I told them early on that we would be visiting you today, but when I went to gather them earlier, one of them was missing. Who knows where that one has gone off to play this time."

The female disciple from the Profound Mind Sect quietly defended the disciple in question. "Maybe Little Liu left because something happened at home..."

Chen Xuanlu shot her a glare, and she quickly lowered her head.

Wang Xuanling nodded in understanding. "This year\'s Assembly of Immortal Sects is different from the previous ones. It may get chaotic in the capital of Yu, so it\'s important to warn your disciples to be cautious."

The Mount Shu Sect had already informed the Imperial Supervisory Bureau about the information Chu Liang had acquired—the diabolical sects of the West Sea might take this opportunity to stir up trouble. However, it was decided that they would keep this information a secret for now to avoid alerting the enemy that they were aware. It was unclear what exactly the Diabolical Forces intended to do, so Wang Xuanling could only give a warning to Chen Xuanlu.

"That\'s true." Chen Xuanlu nodded in agreement. "The Assembly of Immortal Sects hasn\'t even begun, but strange occurrences have been happening frequently in the capital of Yu these past few days."

"Oh? What sort of strange occurrences?"

Chen Xuanlu glanced around and then lowered his voice. "Let me tell you about something I personally encountered—something quite bizarre."

...

Chen Xuanlu slowly began telling them what had happened.

"At the foot of the mountain where my sect is located, there\'s a small lake called Jade Dragon Pond."

Jade Dragon Pond had gotten its name because of its crystal-clear, blue-green[2] waters and its winding banks that made the pond resemble a coiled dragon. The name sounded grand, but the pond was actually quite small, much like how the Emperor\'s Mound was not even close to being the biggest of hills. Compared to truly great lakes, Jade Dragon Pond was just a small puddle.

"One day, the nearby villagers came to me and said that blood had been gushing to the surface of the Jade Dragon Pond for several days. They asked for my help to investigate."

Since Chen Xuanlu had founded a sect in the populous area outside the capital of Yu, he often had to interact with the local villagers.

The Jade Dragon Pond was a common resource for the neighboring villagers, so when blood kept surfacing in the pond, it had frightened many of the villagers. Seeing as there were cultivators living nearby, they didn\'t bother going into the city to ask for help from the Imperial Supervisory Bureau. Instead, they went straight to the Profound Mind Sect.

Chen Xuanlu didn\'t refuse their request for help and promptly agreed to investigate the pond.

"I activated a seal and entered the water, quickly descending to the depths. I found that there was indeed a lot of blood in the water. I followed the trail of blood and discovered it was pouring out from an underwater cave. And when I went inside the cave, I found a coffin! Unending streams of blood were gushing out from the cracks in the coffin. It was so strange.

"I thought it was the work of some ghosts, so I brought the coffin to the surface. Once it was exposed to sunlight, the blood stopped flowing out.

"With the gathered villagers serving as witnesses, I opened the coffin. Inside it was the corpse of a woman, lifelike and intact as if she were still alive. I couldn\'t tell when or how she had come to rest there, but she had a very serene expression as though she was merely asleep."

At this point, his expression grew tense. He seemed to be recalling something that still troubled him.

"That alone was strange enough. But one of my disciples had once attended a banquet in the imperial palace with his family, and as soon as he saw the corpse, he recognized her...

"She looked exactly like Empress Wu!"

1. The tables in palace halls are usually low tables, so that\'s why they\'re sitting on the floor. And the tables are usually individual tables, so that\'s probably why they have to arrange the tables. ☜

2. Jade is often blue-green. ☜