Descending the Mountain

On a courtyard halfway up the mountain, Lu Yuan and Baili Qiuyue lived here.

After returning from the hall at the mountain peak, Lu Yuan said nothing. He simply sat blankly in his chair, and an hour had already passed.

Seeing Lu Yuan still lost in thought, Baili Qiuyue stepped forward and patiently persuaded him, "You must be worried about your Second Brother and the others, aren't you?"

At that, Lu Yuan nodded.

"In the short term, they'll definitely be fine. But over time, who knows? Perhaps they'll end up like us, driven off Green Bamboo Peak!"

"Then is there really nothing we can do?" Lu Yuan asked unwillingly.

"A way? If you're strong enough, then you'll have a way. If you're not, don't think about anything. You'll only make matters worse—perhaps even turn a good thing into a bad one!"

"The key now is what we plan to do next. Since Father has already made his decision, then so be it. There's no need to think about anything else."

"We still have hands and feet. We can definitely survive. Back then, I valued you for who you were—that was why I married into this place despite my family's opposition."

After a brief pause, Baili Qiuyue looked at Lu Yuan and continued, "Now that it's happened, why keep brooding over it? The most important thing is to make yourself stronger. Everything else is nothing!"

"A true man should carve out a world-shaking legacy. Why linger in a land of tenderness? Husband, why not take this chance to make something of yourself?"

Hearing that somewhat familiar term, Lu Yuan immediately snapped back to his senses.

"My wife's lesson is right. I was too fixated."

Lu Yuan looked at Baili Qiuyue with a sincere expression.

"It's good that you know. That's the man I have in my heart!" Baili Qiuyue said shyly.

After a moment's pause, she said, "I'm going to pack our things. We're leaving at daybreak tomorrow, so go ahead and get busy."

With that, Baili Qiuyue immediately headed into the inner room.

Thinking of how they were about to leave this place, he felt utterly reluctant. After all, he had lived here for so many years, yet now he could never return.

Tomorrow, he would leave this place and become a Rogue Cultivator.

But Baili Qiuyue's words had struck him like a blow to the head, waking him as if from a dream.

So what if he was a Rogue Cultivator? He could still live well. With his current Spiritual Plant Skill—this was the very skill that had won Baili Qiuyue over back then, the skill she had admired, a first-rank Spiritual Plant Skill.

Among the Hundred Arts of Cultivation, Spirit Planters were one of the most basic professions. Besides cultivation, many cultivators practiced one skill or another as a side profession.

The Hundred Arts of Cultivation was actually just a collective term, mainly referring to professions such as Spiritual Plant Masters, Artifact Refining, Alchemy, Talisman Making, Beast Taming, Formation Crafting, Puppet Crafting, and so on.

He could now cast the Spirit Rain Art as well. It could bring rain to Spirit Fields, helping the crops within them grow well and increasing their yield.

If his skill improved further, establishing a small family would be no problem. By then, he could be surrounded by children and grandchildren—wouldn't that be wonderful?

Why should he suffer other people's crap here?

Among those great clans and mighty families, which of their earlier generations had not risen from Rogue Cultivators?

With that thought, Lu Yuan's mind grew ever more active. Heroic spirit surged within him, and his ambitions soared to the heavens!

He wanted to become an ancestor. He wanted to establish a Cultivation Family that would endure for eternity—an extraordinary Cultivation Family, one that could stand united as one.

And to establish such a great family, there had to be rules and goals!

First, he needed to establish a generation sequence so that seniority and juniority could be properly ordered. This was the first step in founding a family.

After thinking for a while, he settled on the twenty generation characters: "Eternity flows on; sun, moon, stars; the vast primeval universe; enduring through the ages; pursuing the Dao and cultivating immortality."

After all, he wanted to establish a Cultivation Family that would last for ten thousand generations, a family that would live as long as heaven and earth. Naturally, it needed the grandeur of the primordial cosmos and the vast universe.

From this moment onward, he was Lu Wanyuan. He was the founding ancestor of the Lu Family!

Thinking of this, Lu Wanyuan was overwhelmed with excitement!

The moment he silently accepted it, he unexpectedly felt an order of the Heavenly Dao tugging at his soul!

The next instant, a mysterious divine aura descended from the heavens, shrouding his body before sinking directly into him and vanishing without a trace.

Feeling this, Lu Wanyuan was instantly ecstatic. He had actually drawn the attention of the Heavenly Dao—didn't that mean he might be one chosen by heaven?

He had never expected that an unintentional act of his could give him the possibility of becoming a chosen son of heaven.

At the same time, he sensed the two leaves within his Purple Mansion tremble slightly. Only then did he recall this matter: he still did not know exactly how to use this Golden Finger, nor had he tested its effects!

With that thought, Lu Wanyuan immediately moved his consciousness and lightly tapped the leaf bearing the white "Strand of Spiritual Qi" Entry within his Purple Mansion, indicating that he wished to use it.

The Entry leaf immediately vanished!

Not long after, a mysterious radiant glow descended from the heavens and covered his body in an instant. Then, a dense mass of Spiritual Qi suddenly appeared within his body, coursing through his Meridians.

Sensing this, Lu Wanyuan immediately sat cross-legged, calmed his breath and focused his mind, assumed the five-centers-upward posture, and circulated the Azure Wood Art Cultivation Technique, beginning to refine the Spiritual Qi within his body.

An hour later, he had completely refined that mass of Spiritual Qi. He had not expected this single Strand of Spiritual Qi to be equivalent to a full year of his cultivation results.

He had never imagined that such a tiny Entry could have such an enormous effect.

If he could continue obtaining Entries like this, then with several more of them, his Cultivation Realm would surely rise rapidly. He might even advance within a few months. After all, the Spiritual Qi was already inside his body, waiting only to be refined; he would not need to do anything else.

Through this result, he discovered that the effect of this Entry was far better than his normal cultivation. Normally, he had to absorb Spiritual Qi particles from the air around him into his body, and it took a long time for even a single thread of Spiritual Qi to form.

For someone like him with Mixed Spiritual Roots, this absorption process was exceedingly slow. The main reason was that his spiritual roots had too little affinity with Spiritual Qi. None of his roots had an affinity above five, while full affinity for each spiritual root was one hundred.

This showed just how poor his talent was. With one hundred as the perfect score for each spiritual root, he had only managed to score five.

This was why, even at the age of twenty, he had only reached the entry-level realm—Qi Refining Layer One—and had not improved at all in all these years.

No wonder his father, Lu Hu, had given up on him!

But now that he had entries in hand, his future was surely boundless. He would definitely become a dashing man!

It was just that he did not yet know where he could obtain more entries!

Without entries, even a Golden Finger would be useless.

Yet at noon, the entries had appeared on the crops planted in these Spirit Fields, which meant that entries came from the Spirit Field crops.

But among these dozen or so mu of Spirit Fields, he had only obtained two entries. That meant not every crop could yield one.

The entries were probably random as well!

Still, now that this Golden Finger had been activated, he would surely be able to obtain new entries in the future. He would just need time to slowly test and verify that.

The key issue now was that they were about to leave Green Bamboo Peak, and he had even set such an ambitious goal. Yet at present, there were only him and Baili Qiuyue. If they truly wanted to establish an immortal clan that would last for all ages, the task ahead was likely enormous!

Thinking of this, Lu Wanyuan was filled with countless emotions. Given the current situation, all he could do was take one step at a time.

For now, though, they needed to leave Green Bamboo Peak first. If they remained here, other unexpected incidents might arise.

They needed to reach Bayberry Market as soon as possible, settle down, and then make further plans. With these thoughts circling endlessly in his mind, he gradually fell asleep!

The next day!

Lu Wanyuan and Baili Qiuyue had originally planned to head down the mountain early, without saying farewell to anyone. Otherwise, it would only deepen their sorrow.

Who would have thought that Lu Shan had already brought Lu He and Lu Ting to wait for them at the only exit down the mountain, and they even wanted to follow them to Bayberry Market.

Lu Wanyuan had originally wanted to bring them along, but then he considered that the two of them might not even be able to gain a foothold in Bayberry Market yet.

Dragging the others along so rashly would be far too risky. Thus, he persuaded Lu Shan and the others, "Second Brother, take Third Brother and Fourth back to Green Bamboo Peak and stay there peacefully!"

"You must take good care of them. In the short term, you should be fine. Your sister-in-law and I will go over there and get settled first. At most, in two or three years, I'll return here and invite you all to join us. That would be much more reliable!"

Hearing this, Lu Shan thought it over and found that Eldest Brother was indeed right. He nodded, then said worriedly, "Eldest Brother is right. But once you're settled, you have to come get us. You know you've already been driven down the mountain. I'm afraid things won't end well for us afterward either!"

"I understand. Go back without worry. I'll come for you as soon as I can. Then we'll love and support one another and build a united clan together—nothing like things are now."

Lu Wanyuan looked at them, his eyes resolute as he spoke.

"Yes, that's our good Eldest Brother! We'll wait here for your good news!"

Lu He shouted loudly at Lu Wanyuan's departing figure.

Reluctantly, Lu Wanyuan turned back, then quickly headed down the mountain. He did not dare stop, afraid that if he did, he would never be able to leave again.

He had long since made up his mind to work hard. Once he was settled, he would bring them out as soon as possible.

Baili Qiuyue followed close behind him and did not speak a word the entire time. After all, everything that needed to be said had been said. There was no need to say what had not been said, and saying it would serve no purpose but to deepen their sorrow.

Before long, the two figures vanished down the overgrown path.

Yet every move they made had long been watched by Ouyang Tingting on the mountain. As she watched Lu Wanyuan and Baili Qiuyue leave, a vicious glint flashed through her eyes, and a smug smile curled across her lips.