Wei Yuan ascended the steps, setting foot for the very first time within an immortal's ancestral mountain sanctuary.
Even if the Lu clan's power ranked at the very bottom among the Thirteen Prominent Clans, the mountain-ascending stairs still rose a thousand zhang into the sky. Deep in the layered ridges, orioles darted among the foliage. Flanking the path, towering pavilions and ornate terraces rose and fell in variegated splendors. A thousand stone steps coiled through the clouds, and ribbons of mist and rosy dawn wound about the palace halls. Within an immortal palace, the ethereal and the corporeal blended together; its flying eaves and bracket clusters were of no ordinary design. At the corners of the eaves hung antique bronze bells and chimes, chiming like shattered jade when the breeze swept past, carrying the distant, lingering resonance of primeval times.
Here and there across the mountain slopes, figures could be seen darting about. Some carried bundles of various sizes, clearly having realized that the clan's cause was lost and scrambling to loot what they could in the chaos to secure resources for the rest of their lives.
A bloody stench wafted from several of the palace chambers. Evidently, none intended to honor past ties of fellowship in their flight, leaving many of the weak to meet a grim, bloody end.
Wei Yuan did not ascend the mountain alone. Behind him followed dozens of Dharma Idols, more than two hundred Golden Pellet cultivators, and several thousand Dao Foundation disciples. Thoroughly accustomed to military life, they maintained orderly ranks, trailing silently behind Wei Yuan at a measured pace.
From beyond the heavens, multiple gazes swept down—all aloof and detached. Whatever thoughts stirred behind them, they were certainly not as placid as they appeared on the surface.
As those gazes fell upon the mortal world, they witnessed a pillar of green light soaring straight toward the heavens! Standing a thousand zhang tall, dense as solid matter, the pillar bore ancient patterns upon its surface like a colossal azure ceremonial column, accompanying Wei Yuan as he slowly climbed the mountain.
Only then did the immortals comprehend the true nature of martial qi generated by an army composed entirely of cultivators.
In a daze, they almost seemed to behold the ancient Human Sovereign reborn, leading his ironclad imperial guard to sweep away all defiance and crush stubborn foes.
With every stretch of ground Wei Yuan traversed, or every major palace complex he passed, a Dharma Idol behind him would detach from the ranks with several Golden Pellets and a hundred Dao Foundation cultivators, sweeping into the halls and forests to conduct a thorough search.
Those seeking to flee with looted treasures did not yet realize that escape was already impossible. Having waged war in Qingming for decades, every single one of these cultivators possessed immense combat experience—how could they let mere petty thieves slip through their fingers?
Wei Yuan climbed unhurriedly until he reached the mountain summit. The summit was broad and flat, with immortal palaces stretching for more than a dozen li in grand magnificence. At the center stood not a grand hall, but an isolated peak. Peach blossoms bloomed everywhere upon it amid curious, elegant crags. At its edge lay a clear green pond, beside which rested a white stone whose center was slightly sunken—likely the spot where Lu Changhe had once sat fishing.
Wei Yuan walked over to the white stone, glanced around, and shook his head. "Too narrow-minded."
Both engaged in angling, yet in years past, Immortal Monarch Tinghai had sat atop a sheer precipice to angle the sea of clouds—a display of magnificent grandeur. Lu Changhe's tiny pond, while refined enough, was simply too petty.
Wei Yuan stood for a few moments. Finding nothing of note, he turned toward the center of the peak. A small courtyard stood there, housing several rustic, blue-tiled cottages with a certain pastoral charm.
Yet to Wei Yuan's eyes, the courtyard reeked of crude simplicity and small-minded pretensions, as if building a few modest shacks to live in could truly grant detachment from fame and fortune.
Wei Yuan sneered inwardly. If Lu Changhe had not been so greedy, how could he have fallen into Wei Yuan's hands?
Stepping into the courtyard and entering the main hall, Wei Yuan's gaze naturally fell upon a landscape painting. It depicted the scenery of an immortal mountain, with drifting clouds and flowing water, as though it were alive.
This was the entrance to the secret realm.
With a wave of Wei Yuan's hand, Ji Liuli appeared, leading more than a dozen Golden Pellet cultivators to lay out an array. To Wei Yuan's speechlessness, what she laid down was actually a remote node of the Splendor of All Realms. Aided by the Splendor of All Realms, it took Ji Liuli merely half an incense stick of time to decipher the array, lightly tapping the painting with a finger.
The painting dissolved like bursting bubbles, revealing an expanse of palaces. Taking a step forward, Wei Yuan plunged into the painting, entering the secret realm.
The realm possessed both mountains and waters, beneath a bright red sun hanging high in a radiant sky. Yet a sweep of Wei Yuan's divine sense instantly revealed that the distant peaks and the red sun above were all illusions; the realm spanned a mere hundred li in truth.
Wei Yuan walked leisurely through the palace gates. Inside the central hall stood several statues, presumably the ancestors of the Lu clan. However, the central statue—standing a full ten zhang tall—struck Wei Yuan as odd. It bore no resemblance to Lu Changhe at all, yet Wei Yuan could not shake the feeling that it was indeed Lu Changhe.
After a moment of contemplation, Wei Yuan swept his sleeve. Gold dust showered down from the statue's surface, revealing another statue concealed within. Sure enough, it was Lu Changhe!
Lu Changhe had hidden himself inside the statue of his ancestor so that his own descendants would worship him. It was impossible to know what secret art he had been practicing, but the arrangement reeked of something bizarre and sinister.
At the feet of the statues lay large jade walls. Similar to those in the Palace of Grand Beginning, these jade walls stored the Lu clan's Dao path cultivation arts as well as the true intent legacies left behind by several immortal ancestors.
Wei Yuan attempted to perceive them and discovered the true intents of several Great Dao authorities within the jade walls. The Lu clan's Dao authorities leaned toward the yin-cold branch, highly specific and niche, embodying the concepts of frost, ice, wind, and snow. No wonder the Lu clan had taken root in Ganzhou and settled in this bitter, frigid land; it served to aid their cultivation.
In former years, the Lu ancestor had attained the Dao and ascended to immortality right here, subsequently taking upon himself the duty of resisting Northern Liao. Relying on the merit of repelling foreign tribes, he had established the Lu clan and secured its place among the Thirteen Prominent Clans.
These Great Dao authorities were quite practical, but they did not align with Wei Yuan's own Dao path. At present, Wei Yuan's mental world was already exceedingly complex. He possessed six spirit abodes alone, among which the Lunar Abode and the Central Spirit Abode possessed similar yet distinctly superior grades. Even now, Wei Yuan remained uncertain what manner of true spirit resided within the Central Spirit Abode, but the revealed Yin-Yang Twin Dragons alone possessed a frighteningly exalted status.
Although Wei Yuan had no use for these authorities, any path toward immortality was precious beyond measure. Frost and snow had a relatively low threshold; perhaps someone in Qingming could use them to achieve immortality in the future, so Wei Yuan had no intention of leaving them behind.
He studied the jade walls, planning to bring people in later to dismantle and transport them all back to Qingming. In the future, this would serve as part of Qingming's foundational inheritance, perhaps even paving the way for a Hall of Frost or something similar.
After a cursory examination of the Lu clan's cultivation arts, an eerie thought suddenly crossed Wei Yuan's mind: Had Lu Changhe hidden his statue inside his ancestor's because he intended to trace back along the river of time and covertly supplant his own ancestor? Just as he had secretly replaced the bloodlines of Prince Fu, the former Prince of Wei, and the Crown Prince.
The moment this thought surfaced, even Wei Yuan startled himself. With his current knowledge, he could not fathom what Lu Changhe had truly been attempting. Did he wish to replace his ancestor, the King of Jin, and his own descendants with himself, achieving an unorthodox form of Unity?
Wei Yuan could only speculate that he had cultivated some obscure, esoteric art.
Putting the matter aside, Wei Yuan continued his search elsewhere. Behind the main hall lay a cluster of chambers, likely Lu Changhe's daily living quarters. It was partitioned into separate courtyards of varying sizes, each featuring distinct landscaping that showed great craftsmanship.
Yet when Wei Yuan swept his divine sense through them, his brow furrowed slightly. In every courtyard were several or over a dozen figures—strikingly handsome young men and beautiful maidens dressed in lavish finery, alongside handmaidens and servants. Clearly, this was the harem Lu Changhe had maintained for himself. It was surprising that even after achieving immortality, he still indulged in such worldly pleasures.
At this moment, however, everyone in the courtyards lay strewn across the ground, completely devoid of breath. Not only the people, but many of the flowering trees in the courtyards had also withered.
Wei Yuan walked into one of the courtyards and inspected the corpses. He discovered that a strand of Lu Changhe's divine sense had originally been left inside each person. Upon his demise, this divine sense had obliterated everyone's sea of consciousness, snuffing them out. Furthermore, with Lu Changhe dead, the realm no longer shifted between sunrise and sunset; the scorching red sun hung perpetually overhead, baking most of the flowering trees dry.
This secret realm could only be opened by Lu Changhe himself. Following his death, the Lu clan received word of his demise but were powerless against the realm's seals. Among the immortals of the other great families, Cui Zhengxing had been the first to offer protection to the Lu clan, but he had always valued propriety and felt too embarrassed to loot Lu Changhe's secret hoard, leaving it all for Wei Yuan to claim.
At the center of the living quarters was Lu Changhe's bedchamber. Upon inspection, however, Wei Yuan found nothing of genuine worth beyond gaudy, ornamental trinkets—not a single immortal treasure to be seen.
By now, Wei Yuan had developed a rough understanding of Lu Changhe, knowing that the man was twisted to the core and thoroughly perverse. It was only natural that he would not keep his finest treasures near his person.
Extending his divine sense to envelop the entire palace complex, Wei Yuan soon detected something amiss in a side courtyard.
This side courtyard had towering walls, thick gates, and was protected by arrays, resembling a prison. Wei Yuan pointed a finger to dismantle the protective array and pushed the door open.
The courtyard was divided into individual cells, each holding the corpse of a young woman or man. Within the grounds stood an assortment of torture implements—virtually every device conceivable in the mortal world could be found here. Many bore layer upon layer of dried blood, bearing witness to untold periods of use and the torment of countless victims.
Several adjacent courtyards were equally bizarre. One was built like a mortal imperial examination hall, while others reflected the customs of the Wuliao, the Mountain Folk, and the Sea Li.
Evidently, these served as Lu Changhe's grounds for perverse amusement.
The courtyards contained not only the attire of foreign tribes, but actual members of those tribes as well. By now, however, they too had been dead for quite some time.
Beyond the perimeter of the palaces lay a sizeable medicine garden. Its defensive array served primarily to gather spiritual qi rather than provide protection. With a flicker of movement, Wei Yuan bypassed the array and stepped inside.
The moment he entered, an intensely rich medicinal fragrance rushed over him. The garden was divided into nine distinct plots, each possessing different terrestrial qi to nurture different medicinal herbs. Many were a size larger than those in the Qingming Medicine Garden, all of them spirit herbs over a millennium old.
In the central plot, across an immense expanse of soil, grew only three purplish-red immortal herbs—one large and two small. The large one bore several crimson, gem-like seeds.
Wei Yuan was thoroughly astonished. This was Spirit-Attracting Golden Dew! Even the Palace of Grand Beginning possessed only a single stalk, and it was nowhere near as large as these three!
Spirit-Attracting Golden Dew, also known as Crimson Immortal Grass, subtly drew various spiritual items toward itself once planted. Thus, possessing even a single stalk would gradually bring prosperity to an entire family.
Moreover, only a stalk that had grown for over ten thousand years would bear seeds, the fruit of which served as the primary ingredient for refining Heaven-Altering Pellets. A Heaven-Altering Pellet could improve the innate skeletal aptitude of a Scenery Command cultivator and increase the chance of ascending to immortality, making it a treasure that cultivators dreamed of their entire lives.
That ten-thousand-year-old Spirit-Attracting Golden Dew bore five fruits in total, two of which were already ripe. Wei Yuan estimated that in True Monarch Danming's hands, they could yield at least four or five Heaven-Altering Pellets. If a price had to be set, Wei Yuan reckoned each one would easily fetch a hundred million Qingyuan.
A smile finally spread across Wei Yuan's face. With these three precious herbs, everything had been worthwhile. He had no need for them himself, but they would offer a glimmer of hope to Cui Yu, Xu Yi, and perhaps even Xu Wenwu.
Still, the requirements for cultivating Spirit-Attracting Golden Dew were exceptionally demanding, and the spiritual qi within Lu Changhe's secret realm was hardly abundant. How had three stalks managed to thrive here?
Just as he was pondering this, Wei Yuan saw a translucent figure walk over. Coming to a stop beside the three stalks of Spirit-Attracting Golden Dew, it sprinkled a drop of dew upon each one.
Chapter 1157