Hua Wushuang finished teaching the three of them the Sun Moon United Heart Art and watched them leave the Skill Transmission Hall with satisfaction.
It had been hard to find people to test the techniques lately. Getting three yesterday had been a stroke of luck.
He got up as well and headed for Autumn Fragrance Garden, where Sect Leader Leng resided.
As soon as he arrived at Autumn Fragrance Garden, he saw a rather imposing middle-aged man walk out, frowning.
When the man saw him, he said with a false smile, "Senior Brother Hua!"
"Junior Brother Liu!" Hua Wushuang held his head high and replied coolly without looking him in the eye. "Why aren't you going to see Vice Sect Leader Leng? You've come to Sect Leader Leng instead. Did you take a wrong turn?"
The man was none other than Liu Cheng, the Law Enforcement Elder of the Sun Moon Radiance Sect.
Looking at Hua Wushuang's manner, Liu Cheng maintained his false smile. "We're all serving the sect. What difference does it make where we go? But tell me, Senior Brother Hua, what business do you have with Sect Leader Leng?"
"I'm naturally here to serve the sect," Hua Wushuang said coolly.
The two exchanged a glance, snorted, and walked past each other.
Hua Wushuang entered Autumn Fragrance Garden and followed a winding path through the garden, passing flowerbeds where a hundred blossoms vied to bloom, until he reached the main hall. He cupped his hands and said, "Hua Wushuang requests an audience with the Sect Leader!"
"Ah, Junior Brother Hua! Come in!" an aged voice called from within.
Only then did Hua Wushuang push open the door. He had long since grown accustomed to the room's rare treasures—coral, giant clamshells, and all.
He bowed and said, "Sect Leader, I taught three people today."
Leng Qingqiu looked quite old, with white hair as white as snow. Yet his frame was large, and even seated, he exuded an air of dignity. His face was slightly dark, and he wore a brocade robe embroidered with gold thread. A hairpin of white jade, smooth as mutton fat, was set in his hair.
On one end of the tiny hairpin, two people were carved playing chess. The craftsmanship was exquisite, so lifelike it seemed almost miraculous.
His expression was rather poor just then. Seeing this, Hua Wushuang said, "Sect Leader, are you displeased because there have been fewer people to test the techniques lately? It really is..."
"It's not your fault," Leng Qingqiu cut him off. "We've known each other for over ten years. I trust you to handle things. As for the people testing the techniques, we must remain discreet. We're prominent figures in Qiu Yang City, after all. If we mishandle things and someone within the sect colludes with outsiders, sowing discord throughout the sect, that would be most unfortunate!"
Most sects in the martial world treated their new disciples as expendable resources or tools.
Some sects preached a "survival of the fittest" wolf culture, believing that only those who fought their way through bloodshed could become the sect's elite. But once these elites grew strong, they turned around and destroyed the very sect that had raised them. The sect's legacy ended, and so did its wolf culture.
So nowadays, sects with even a little sense preached that "the sect is one big family, and everyone who joins is a brother." No matter how sordid things really were, outwardly they had to maintain the appearance of brothers living in harmony and disciples respecting their elders. That way, the sect's legacy would endure far longer, and the cost of managing it would be much lower.
The Sun Moon Radiance Sect was no different. It had been passed down for two hundred years, and Leng Qingqiu's generation was the third.
Their sect mostly relied on the city lord and the powerful families of Qiu Yang City. Others ate the meat while they drank the broth, but they lived quite comfortably.
But it was precisely because they relied on others that Leng Qingqiu knew their foundations were unstable. They needed to unite the sect even more. Even if just a little trickled through the fingers of the few of them, it would be enough to keep the sect members well-fed and fiercely loyal!
Using people to test techniques wasn't exactly the proper Dao Path. It was rather immoral, so everyone did it in secret. If they made a big public display of it and attracted others' envy, several great righteous sects might band together to act in Heaven's name and uphold the righteous path.
Unlike demonic sects, righteous sects always needed an excuse to devour people!
"A pity about the manor outside the city from a few years ago," Hua Wushuang said regretfully.
A few years earlier, they had established a manor in a remote spot outside the city. It let them gather and train vagrants with no foundation at all, greatly accelerating their progress in deciphering the techniques! But in the end, everyone at the manor went mad. Some even escaped and caused a huge commotion. They had no choice but to abandon the place.
"The secret arts from Kongtong Mountain Cave are always so difficult to decipher," Leng Qingqiu said. "The hidden library of Great Cai Dynasty from all those years ago truly makes one yearn to see it!"
"I heard those few sects are preparing to bypass the mechanisms in Kongtong Mountain Cave and enter the caves," Hua Wushuang said.
"Heh... And what then? Just one No Thought Divine Separation Art has taken us years to decipher. What use are any number of secret manuals if we can't understand them?" Leng Qingqiu sneered.
One useful secret manual could turn a person's fate upside down. A hundred useless ones were nothing but clutter.
"You're right, Sect Leader," Hua Wushuang said, bowing.
He knew there had never been any Sun Moon United Heart Art. They had only obtained a copy of the No Thought Divine Separation Art by chance, from Kongtong Mountain Market.
Kongtong Mountain Cave had once been Great Cai Dynasty's hidden armory and library. The climate there was unusual—dry, with good ventilation—making it suitable for storing books. So Great Cai had hollowed out the mountain to house its collection.
The cave complex was vast, divided into Eight Mountains Twelve Caves. After Great Cai fell, people had spent hundreds of years digging through Kongtong Mountain Cave, both properly and improperly, excavating most of it. But none of the places they had uncovered were the main caves.
Kongtong Mountain Market was a small town not far from Kongtong Mountain Cave. Naturally, its specialty was the martial arts manuals dug out of the caves.
The town had a particular way of selling martial arts manuals, with two options: an exclusive purchase or a handwritten copy.
The exclusive purchase was simple: you bought the original, and the seller guaranteed that no copies had been made.
With the handwritten-copy option, you copied the seller's martial arts manual yourself. Whatever you ended up with was your own problem!
The two options had wildly different prices. But money was the one thing the Sun Moon Radiance Sect didn't lack! Several years earlier, Leng Qingqiu and Hua Wushuang had gone to Kongtong Mountain Market together. If something seemed useful, they bought it outright. Exclusive purchase, handwritten copy—it didn't matter. If money could solve a problem, it wasn't a problem!
After much study and experimentation, they had found that only the No Thought Divine Separation Art might resolve Leng Qingqiu's hidden affliction!
The No Thought Divine Separation Art was an extraordinarily unusual manual. It could neither strengthen one's blood and qi nor bring one's spirit to completion. Instead, it was an auxiliary cultivation art, devoted solely to strengthening the spirit!
If a person's spirit were like a cup, then a visualization art would gradually fill that cup with water until the spirit was complete. The No Thought Divine Separation Art, on the other hand, slowly enlarged the cup, while the amount of water stayed the same!
Though Leng Qingqiu had reached the Circulatory Heaven Realm, he had been too eager to break through in his youth and injured the deity he visualized. As a result, although he had become a Circulatory Heaven Expert, he was the weakest fighter among them. Ordinary people didn't know this, but his younger brother, Leng Qianye, knew it all too well.
Leng Qianye had been watching him like a tiger waiting to pounce, just waiting for him to decline. Then he would use his Qi Sea cultivation to defeat a Circulatory Heaven Expert, build his confidence, and break through to the Circulatory Heaven Realm himself!
The No Thought Divine Separation Art happened to let one divide one's attention, strengthen the spirit, and make up for the shortcomings Leng Qingqiu had accumulated in his early cultivation.
The only problem was that the manual was simply too difficult to decipher!
The dishes on the menu had arrived!