"You're the Lotus Cloud Sect?" Chen Xuan asked in disbelief.
"I'm part of the Lotus Cloud Sect. The other part is the sect estate, which is also right before you," the figure replied.
Chen Xuan glanced around the pure white world. "I'm inside the estate?"
"That's right."
"All right. Assuming this is the real Lotus Cloud Sect, what's the deal with the fake one? How much do you know about the Auxiliary State Immortal Master and the Myriad Mountain Great Wilderness?"
"There never was a fake Lotus Cloud Sect." She shook her head and said wistfully, "Everything you saw inside the Cave Heaven was part of the Lotus Cloud Sect. More precisely, it was part of what lies beneath the sect estate."
"What do you mean?" Chen Xuan couldn't make sense of it at first.
The figure clapped her hands. Color immediately filled the White Space, and walls, a roof, and furniture appeared along with it.
He recognized this place.
It was Liu Shuyue's home in Mala Village.
Even the figure herself had taken on Liu Shuyue's appearance!
"You—" Chen Xuan was stunned.
She walked over to the window and pushed open the wooden lattice shutters. The village scenery outside was there in full detail, too. "It's not actually that hard to understand. The Lotus Cloud Sect is the Six Nations, the Abyssal Sea, the ordinary people, and the cultivating disciples alike. This is the ultimate refuge Ji Lian built for the world. Every person you see is a member of the Lotus Cloud Sect."
"Every person—is a member of the Lotus Cloud Sect?" he repeated instinctively. "Fu Jiaolu and Xue Xiaojin, too?"
She nodded.
"The King of Qi, too? And those refugees?"
She nodded again.
Chen Xuan's expression darkened. "Don't tell me the entire Six Nations are an illusion?"