"Speak up for injustice? Heh." Bai Lan chuckled softly. "What is your name?"
The blue-robed cultivator frowned slightly, yet still spoke coldly. "I do not change my name standing or sitting. I am Le Qing, disciple under True Person Qing Xuan."
Qing Xuan? Wasn't that Bai Ling's so-called fated master?
It seemed he was one of who-knew-how-many members of Bai Ling's harem in her memories—Bai Ling's future senior brother.
For the time being, she could not afford to provoke someone backed by a Core Formation stage cultivator, but she had remembered this name.
Bai Lan withdrew her gaze and looked at Bai Ling. "I heard you wish to sever all ties with the Bai Household?"
Bai Ling looked arrogant. "You all looked down on me in every possible way before, treating me with contempt and cheapening me. Now that I have tested positive for spiritual roots, once I enter an immortal sect, I will be an inner disciple. From now on, I will no longer be the Bai Ling I once was. And you can forget about having anything to do with me again."
What a headache.
Bai Lan sighed inwardly. She only wanted to cultivate properly. She did not want to deal with these troublesome matters.
But...
"Fine." Bai Lan nodded faintly, stepped forward, and pulled Madam Bai behind her. She glanced at Minister Bai, who was sprawled on the ground. "Come to think of it, wasn't Father the one who caused the trouble Bai Ling resents?"
Minister Bai had thought Bai Lan would protect him. Seeing her take a step back instead, his face filled with shock. "Lan'er, you?"
"You enjoyed sleeping with beauties and scattering affection everywhere. You fathered an illegitimate daughter, then ignored her completely and dumped everything onto my mother. Now that trouble has erupted, you cannot blame others, much less drag my mother into it." Bai Lan's tone was calm.
She looked entirely businesslike.
As she spoke, she looked at Bai Ling again. "If you have grievances, settle them. If you have hatred, repay it. Don't act like a madwoman and deal area-of-effect damage to everyone."
Bai Ling froze.
"Settle accounts with whoever you want. Speak up for whoever you want. Do not implicate the innocent, do not cause deaths, and do not come looking for trouble with my mother again. That is all. Goodbye."
With that, Bai Lan took Madam Bai's hand, turned, and left the main courtyard, departing cleanly and decisively.
"Wait!" Bai Ling tried to stop her.
Bai Lan said coldly, "If you want to pick a fight, I do not mind seeing it through to the end. Of course, I would rather resolve problems in a faster way. For example..."
As Bai Lan spoke, she turned to glance at Bai Ling, smiling with her eyes. "For example, the secret of that jade bracelet on your wrist. If word of that place gets out, your fate..."
Bai Ling's Portable Spirit Field Space was inside that bracelet.
Once news of such a wondrous item, capable of opening up a world of its own, spread, even Nascent Soul stage experts would become very "interested" in Bai Ling and use direct methods to send her on her way.
That was Bai Ling's greatest secret. She had never expected Bai Lan to know it.
Her heart shook violently. Even Bai Ling's hands trembled as she instinctively tried to hide the jade bracelet beneath her sleeve.
System: "..."
He knew it. He knew it!
The host would not waste much time entangling herself with the Destined Female Lead. Her heart was full of cultivation.
Madam Bai had not expected Bai Lan to act this way. Pulled out the door by her daughter, she still looked stunned.
Watching the young girl stride ahead of her, Madam Bai felt both unfamiliarity and heartache at those words from before.
"Mother, are you still worried about Father?" Bai Lan's voice came from ahead.
If Madam Bai answered yes, if she still held that scumbag man in her heart, Bai Lan swore she would turn and leave at once, never again indulging in wishful affection.
Madam Bai shook her head. "No. Lan'er is right. Your father deserved this in the first place. What do the matters between that father and daughter have to do with me?"
Her final sentence carried a few traces of suppressed grievance.
For all these years, Madam Bai had worked to maintain the Bai Residence and its household. She cared for her parents-in-law above, showed consideration for her husband below, and had to look after the flock of warblers and swallows Minister Bai had brought into the household. Married for many years, she had toiled away half her life, yet now, aside from her daughter, not a single person understood her.
"Then, Mother, have you considered leaving the Bai Residence?" Bai Lan sighed.
Madam Bai was startled.
"Mother guessed correctly that day. Long Aotian and Bai Ling have both already regarded me as an enemy. Long Aotian in particular has even begun entertaining thoughts of exterminating the entire Bai Residence."
Madam Bai was alarmed. "How could this be!?"
"Once I leave for the cultivation world, I will no longer be able to look after everyone in the Bai Residence. If someone then uses your lives and safety to threaten me..." Bai Lan shook her head as she spoke.
As long as the Bai Residence existed, someone could use it to seize upon her weakness, threatening her with her parents.
Though they might not necessarily be her weakness... after all, they were not Bai Lan's biological parents.
Still, she did not want innocent people to be implicated because of her and used as tools to threaten her.
Madam Bai now realized the severity of the matter as well. Her voice trembled. "Th-then what should we do?"
"Listen to me. Since Mother now manages the household and controls the estate treasury, follow my advice. Dismiss everyone in the residence. Divorce Father, sell the family property, and leave the Southern Kingdom as quickly as possible," Bai Lan said slowly.
Madam Bai: "???"
System: "???"
She was dismissing the entire household just because they disagreed?
"Y-you, you... what are you trying to do?" The System was dumbfounded, unable to understand what Bai Lan intended.
Bai Lan chuckled. "Since the problem is complicated, change the angle and solve it at its root."
The root cause of the Bai Residence being exterminated was the Bai Residence itself.
Then dismiss everyone from the Bai Residence, send Madam Bai thousands of miles away to live under a false name, and would the problem not be solved?
System: "??? You truly are a genius!"
"Although the cultivation world is a high-martial world, there are no cameras everywhere, no massive database facial recognition, and certainly no internet. If she hides deeply, conceals her identity, travels tens of thousands of miles away to settle in another country, who would still know she is Bai Lan's mother?" Bai Lan chuckled.
Solve the problem at its root. No need for all those gaudy tricks.
The middle-aged woman before her was related to this body by blood. Thinking of that, Bai Lan wished to find a way out for this pitiful person.
The Bai Residence's fate was annihilation of the entire household, and among them, the most innocent person was Madam Bai.
But Bai Lan did not want to bring her to the cultivation world. Doing so would entangle her in too much karma with mortals, which was too troublesome and offered no benefit to future cultivation.
On careful thought, the best course was to send her somewhere safe.
After entering the cultivation world, she did not want this kind mother before her to become her Achilles' heel.
After letting Madam Bai return to her room alone to digest the sheer amount of information, Bai Lan once again buried herself in cultivation.
In the blink of an eye, three days passed. In the end, Madam Bai listened to Bai Lan and secretly began making preparations to dismiss everyone in the residence.
Minister Bai's leg had been broken by Bai Ling that day, and he was now unable to leave his bed. Because he had offended Bai Ling, the matter had also reached the Southern Kingdom's emperor, who directly stripped Minister Bai of his position. A powerless middle-aged man, he had by now lost all right to speak in the residence.
Only Madam Bai was kind-hearted enough to still spare him a thought even now.
Before you continue