After descending this earthen slope, Xu Yuan followed the main road. After crossing another two mountains, he finally saw a grand residence built amid the clouds and mist ahead.
The Cloud Ridge Qin Family was said to have once been a flourishing clan with Foundation Establishment cultivators among its ancestors. Unfortunately, each generation of descendants had been worse than the last. After the founding ancestor, no one had entered Foundation Establishment again. Without a powerful cultivator to hold the fort, the Qin Family had been driven from its original dwelling place and could only hide away in Cloud Ridge. The family's fortunes had crumbled step by step.
Even now, only the previous generation's clan head had barely entered mid-Qi Refining. Yet he was already old and frail, unfit for heavy responsibility. Otherwise, they would not have needed to trouble the Hidden Moon Sect over even a single demon.
Upon arriving before the grand residence, Xu Yuan was still wearing that fox-fur scarf. He had casually refined it a little along the way, and it looked far better now. Though it did not quite match his gray Daoist robe, his appearance was good enough that it lent him a certain air.
The gatekeeper, whether a family disciple or servant, saw such a graceful Daoist visitor and heard that he had come from the Hidden Moon Sect. He immediately went back to report it. Before long, a whole group of people came flooding out.
There were around seventeen or eighteen of them, men and women, old and young alike. Most wore embroidered robes and jade-like garments, so they were presumably all members of the family.
Yet Xu Yuan only gave them a cursory glance before realizing that more than half no longer even possessed spiritual roots. Of the remaining half who did,