The highest point of Heavenly Sword Peak.
The Heavenly Sword Venerable still sat suspended in the chair at the summit. Her figure was illusory, hazy, and formless, as though she were sinking endlessly through the boundless void, making it impossible to see her true countenance.
Below the main hall.
A figure stood there quietly, her aura likewise peerless.
Who was Ye Qingxian, after all?
She was a figure who made anyone feel fear and instinctively bow in worship.
Yet she could still question her without the slightest courtesy.
Ye Qingxian wore a cold expression. "Master, this disciple dares to ask—where exactly did the cultivation resources allocated by the sect to all Direct Disciples, specifically the share belonging to Ye Xiaoyao, go?"
"Why has she needed to keep farming to support herself?"
The Heavenly Sword Venerable had run into Ye Qingxian the moment she emerged from seclusion again.
Unlike the cold reception she had given her the last time she came out of seclusion, the Heavenly Sword Venerable had to show some consideration when facing the Female Protagonist who stood supreme in this world.
She had already prepared her explanation. "When I took Ye Xiaoyao as my disciple, the condition I agreed on with the Sect Master from the very beginning was that she would receive no cultivation resources. Otherwise, how could I have accepted a Five Elements mixed spiritual root so easily?"
That statement was only half true and half false.
Back then, the Heavenly Sword Venerable had indeed exerted herself—and she had done so by overriding all objections.
As for whether there had been any rules governing the exchange, outsiders truly had no way of knowing.
Ye Qingxian's bellyful of fury crumbled beneath the Heavenly Sword Venerable's leisurely expression.
She could indeed question her.
But you can't simply neglect your own Direct Disciple.
Yet hadn't the Heavenly Sword Venerable always acted this way?
A shadow appeared in the depths of Ye Qingxian's eyes.
Could it be that I guessed wrong last time?
Master isn't Junior Sister's elder at all, but has another kind of relationship—one I've never considered?
This profound and complicated relationship could explain why Master repeatedly tolerated Junior Sister's outrageous behavior, while showing not the slightest trace of favoritism in any other respect. It was as though she were merely an ordinary passerby, harsh enough not to provide even a single resource.
These two utterly extreme ways of handling matters somehow formed one bizarrely unified whole.
Ye Qingxian was exceptionally intelligent. With merely a momentary shift in thought, she decided to probe a little further. "May I ask whether Master can answer this question? As a Direct Disciple, why does Ye Xiaoyao have to keep farming just to barely support herself, leaving her no extra time to cultivate?"
She was not questioning the cultivation resources.
She was asking whether the Heavenly Sword Venerable knew.
The Heavenly Sword Venerable replied with utter composure, "I've already given her a stable living environment, so she doesn't have to wander and suffer outside. Isn't that already the greatest favor? As for whether she needs to farm to support herself, I've known about it from the beginning. This concerns a person's abilities. No one else can interfere."
Truly no one can interfere?
To let a three-year-old girl struggle to survive all the way until she was nineteen—is that really just a matter of ability?
The logic looked flawless and harmonious, yet it had one fatal flaw.
There were so many pitiable people in this world. Had the Heavenly Sword Venerable ever shown mercy to even one of them?
Combined with the little girl she had unexpectedly encountered during a mission, with countless coincidences meeting by chance, only one conclusion remained.
Ye Xiaoyao had never been an insignificant person.
On the contrary, the Heavenly Sword Venerable had known who she was all along.
She had even carefully arranged this seemingly coincidental encounter, merely wanting to bring her to Heavenly Sword Peak.
Attention did not equal favoritism. It could also be invisible control.
That explained why the Heavenly Sword Venerable had almost instinctively shouted her opposition when faced with the proposal from the two Elders Feng and Yun.
The Heavenly Sword Venerable was not more anxious about her little disciple's safety than Ye Qingxian was. Rather, she simply did not want Ye Xiaoyao to leave Heavenly Sword Peak.
Her repeated indulgence seemed like favoritism, yet behind it there had never been any actual tilt in resources. The truth had already reached the tip of the tongue, ready to burst forth.
Unless the answer was that she was cultivating Ye Xiaoyao through a deliberately harsh upbringing, intending to shape the mind of an illegitimate daughter.
But was that possible?
No matter how one cultivated her mind, constantly restricting a person's cultivation time through one method after another made no logical sense.
No matter how monstrous your intelligence was, you were still an ant yourself. What kind of promising talent could you possibly be?
Ye Qingxian immediately thought of the only correct answer.
Connecting all the causes and consequences, it pointed directly to an unbelievable suspicion in her heart.
The Heavenly Sword Venerable had not merely always known who Ye Xiaoyao was.
She had also been monitoring and controlling Ye Xiaoyao in her own way all along.
She forbade anyone else from letting Ye Xiaoyao leave Heavenly Sword Peak, while allowing Ye Xiaoyao to commit any outrageous acts that would have earned anyone else punishment.
As for whether there had been changes regarding cultivation resources, none of it could be ignored. It still required a question mark.
Taken together, the results of these deductions made the Heavenly Sword Venerable's true purpose even more shrouded in mystery.
This conversation was doomed to end on bad terms.
The Heavenly Sword Venerable's figure continued sinking through the void.
She did not take the Female Protagonist's sudden visit to heart at all.
The Female Protagonist, huh? Being a little kindhearted and occasionally acting like a saintly mother is only natural.
She has her own Male Lead. Once the Male Lead appears, a mere Ye Xiaoyao will naturally be left behind. This unpleasant little interlude will then become insignificant.
Ye Qingxian left the palace with a heavy heart.
She kept pondering Ye Xiaoyao's special nature—special enough to attract so much of the Heavenly Sword Venerable's attention.
Could Ye Xiaoyao be the daughter of the Heavenly Sword Venerable's enemy?
Is that why she's restricting her growth?
Ye Qingxian immediately came up with the idea of conducting another experiment. The answer would be easy to test. For instance, she could assign Ye Xiaoyao to a position that came with cultivation resources and see whether the Heavenly Sword Venerable would appear and forcibly interfere.
Based on the deductions above, the answer should certainly be interference.
Yet Ye Qingxian believed she would not.
The reason came from the Heavenly Sword Venerable's actions the last time, when she ordered everyone to keep it secret.
She seemed very afraid that her interference would be exposed and Ye Xiaoyao would eventually find out.
Could that affect something?
There were only a few aspects of a person that could be affected by this.
Ye Xiaoyao's emotions...
Or the changes in her everyday conduct brought about by having an illusory backer and receiving an invisible increase in preferential treatment.
Or perhaps there were still other reasons.
How could someone capable of being the Female Protagonist be an ordinary person?
All of Ye Qingxian's template statistics placed her among the strongest figures throughout the ages. She had barely spent any effort before drawing closer and closer to the final truth from the existing scraps and details.
Whatever the answer was, she knew only one thing: Ye Xiaoyao would not be in mortal danger for the time being. In fact, she would be extremely safe. That was enough.
Ye Qingxian suddenly raised her head and stared at the white clouds in the sky.
Her tone was difficult to read.
"Master, whatever your true purpose is, now that I, Ye Qingxian, have caught a clue, I definitely won't let you succeed."
"Your true purpose—"
"I'll find out in the end."
On her way back to her residence, Ye Qingxian suddenly encountered someone unexpected.
A female cultivator dressed in a maid's uniform bowed respectfully. "Young Mistress, the Family Head has already set up a suitable formation. Even the entire lower realm can be thoroughly surveyed, and the deduction results can determine whether your parents, who have troubled you for so long, are still alive. Once you return to the family, you'll have the answer immediately."
"Congratulations, Young Mistress, on finally getting your wish and resolving the knot in your heart that has lasted for years."
The Ye Family.
A Cultivation Family.
A Hidden Family.
Ye Qingxian had been born into the Ye Family before joining the Wuya Sect.
A trace of joy appeared between Ye Qingxian's brows. "Go back and tell the Family Head that I'll return to the family soon. I'll personally preside over the operation of the Cross-border Formation for the Kinship Deduction."
After so many years.
She could finally learn about her birth parents.
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