Is It an Illusion?

Pei Qingying pulled Chen Jue into the kitchen and, under the cover of the range hood's noise, laid bare to him every secret concerning the Little Five-Element Art.

Chen Jue's expression turned grave.

He had long suspected that the Zong family's widespread distribution of their clan's top-tier inner cultivation art must have some ulterior motive.

From the fact that the Zong family only provided the first three realms of the Little Five-Element Art—True Qi, Spirit Planting, and Feathered Ascension—one could already glimpse the truth.

Chen Jue had originally thought the Zong family was using the Little Five-Element Art as bait to fish for the strongest batch of "Five-Element constitutions" in the world.

Using the later portions of the technique as leverage, whether they took them in as dogs or used it to extort them, they could reap enormous profits.

After all, word on the street was that the Zong family was recruiting sons-in-law. Wasn't that proof of "taking them in as dogs"...

Yet after hearing Pei Qingying's account, Chen Jue's conjectures were ripped to shreds.

He suddenly realized that compared to the bloody truth, his previous guesses had been far too naïve.

The Zong family was a first-rank aristocratic clan. Vast in influence, with hands and eyes reaching everywhere, they had no lack of exceptionally talented sons-in-law.

If they wished, the finest descendants of aristocratic families ranked third grade and below would be theirs for the picking.

There was no need for them to lower themselves and recruit husbands from among the mud-legged commoners.

Yet the stars shifted and the river of heaven moved; the sun and moon turned in their cycle. Such was the law of nature.

Even an imperial house as mighty as that of the Great Ming Divine Dynasty would have times when its fortunes waned and its ranks thinned, much less aristocratic clans.

The Zong family had encountered precisely such a situation. Counting from top to bottom across five generations, they had not produced a top-tier Five-Element constitution in five hundred years.

This had caused the fresh blood of "Martial King" rank within the Zong family to wither away.

If they allowed this trend to continue into a vicious cycle, then within a thousand years, the Zong family's talents would suffer a gap in succession, and they would no longer be able to hold their seat as a first-rank aristocratic clan.

Thus, to reverse the family's declining fortunes and cultivate sufficient numbers of top-tier Five-Element constitutions, the Zong family brought out a secret art that had long been shelved away—Five-Viscera Spirit-Seizing Assimilation Art.

It seized and devoured the spirit roots planted within the five viscera by martial artists cultivating the Little Five-Element Art at the Spirit Planting realm, continuously strengthening the imperfect spirit roots in one's own five viscera.

In the end, quantitative change would yield qualitative transformation, allowing the spirit roots to undergo metamorphosis and break free of constitutional limitations, greatly increasing the odds of Zong family martial artists advancing to "Martial King."

"They're raising every commoner martial artist who cultivates the Little Five-Element Art like pigs..."

Chen Jue felt a chill in his heart.

Those who cultivated the Little Five-Element Art were like people whose names had been entered into the King of Hell's register of life and death. Once they successfully planted their spirits in the second realm, they would invite a fatal calamity.

What made Chen Jue feel even more chilled to the bone was—

That Zong family, rotten enough to ooze pus from the soles of their feet, had even buried another contingency within the Little Five-Element Art.

Female cultivators in the clan who practiced the Yin Five-Element Method could use "Yin Five-Element True Qi" to contaminate the "Five-Element True Qi" of the Little Five-Element Art.

Within the same major realm, martial artists cultivating the Little Five-Element Art would almost certainly be unable to defeat female cultivators practicing the Yin Five-Element Method, regardless of age or gender.

"The Zong family really is shameless..."

Chen Jue muttered to himself as he considered countermeasures, even beginning to contemplate the possibility of dispersing his cultivation and starting over.

Seeing Chen Jue's expression shifting as unpredictably as a slideshow, Pei Qingying felt a pang of pity and said, "It's not as though there's no solution..."

Her voice was tiny, like the faint fluttering of a mosquito's wings.

"What solution?" Hope rekindled in Chen Jue's eyes.

"Repair the plank road in the open, while secretly crossing Chencang," Pei Qingying said.

"What do you mean?" Chen Jue pressed.

"Brother Chen, weren't you granted a month of recuperative leave for severe injuries by the garrison because you took a low-grade Blood-Burning Potion?"

"You might as well pretend your foundation has been damaged and disperse your cultivation to start over... As for changing cultivation arts, leave that to me."

Pei Qingying patted her chest.

"But even if I do that, I don't have the part of the Little Five-Element Art after the third realm..." Chen Jue hesitated.

If a road was destined never to reach the other shore, what was the point of walking it?

"Don't worry! I can steal the latter half of the technique from my sister. She also has plenty of powerful fellow cultivators..." Pei Qingying said.

"..."

"How does your sister have the Zong family's top-tier inner cultivation art?"

"Because my sister's surname is Zong!"

"Hm? Your surname is Pei, while your sister's is Zong. What kind of logic is that?"

"Don't worry about that. Just wait for my good news."

"Miss Pei, there's something I don't understand..."

Chen Jue tipped back the thermal container and drained the medicinal meal in one gulp. As though summoning his courage, he asked, "Why are you so good to me?"

That straight shot struck Pei Qingying head-on. Her neck, cheeks, and earlobes instantly flushed into one vivid crimson.

"Y-you, you, what are you talking about?! You're Tangtang's biological brother, so naturally you're my biological brother too. Isn't it only right for me to be good to you?"

"D-don't get any strange ideas!"

The young girl did not even know what she was so afraid of. Her words came out as if her face had rolled across a keyboard, utter nonsense through and through.

Hearing that, Chen Jue let out a breath of relief.

Little Miss Pei had been so good to him that he had inadvertently developed a hint of romantic delusion himself.

He had originally thought that if the girl truly liked him, he would make the promise of a scumbag—"I will never let you down."

Now, it seemed there was no need.

The girl was beautiful and kind-hearted. She merely regarded him as an older brother.

He, on the other hand, was a beast in human clothing, to have harbored such filthy thoughts toward a seventeen-year-old girl in the bloom of youth.

I really deserve to die!

Chen Jue washed the thermal container clean and returned it to Pei Qingying, then gave her a brilliantly sunny smile.

"Little Miss Pei, from now on, we're siblings born of different fathers and different mothers!"

"Don't worry! No matter how far I make it in the end, so long as I, Chen Jue, still draw breath, I will never let anyone bully you!"

He made a different kind of promise that he would "never let her down."

But Pei Qingying's heart turned ice-cold.

Heavens, what exactly did I just say...

"Ahhh!~~"

Pei Qingying rubbed her hair in frustration, then launched a sneak attack, ramming her head into Chen Jue's chest.

"..." Chen Jue was utterly baffled by the girl's bewildering move and stared at her in surprise.

Little Miss Pei stomped her foot in anger, grabbed the thermal container, swiftly changed her shoes, and fled, giving Chen Jue no chance to ask anything.

"...Was it an illusion?"

Chen Jue shook his head and flung all those tangled, threadless emotions from his mind.

Strength was the foundation of everything.

Anything unsupported by strength, no matter how beautiful, was merely a castle piled from sand.

At the first gust of wind, it risked collapsing into dust and rubble.

Chen Jue returned to the living room, calmed his mind, and circulated the qi and blood produced by the medicinal meal.

Although Pei Qingying had changed things up and made him first-rank medicinal meals using different ingredients, the drastic weakening of their effects was still difficult to avoid.

This time, the medicinal meal had only increased Chen Jue's qi and blood value by 3%. After the midnight double settlement and another round of reduction, it could rise by at most another 5%.

Qi and Blood Value: 178%.

The four cycles of the River Chariot were still somewhat of a strain, but increasing his cultivation speed just a little should not be a problem.

Dusk deepened by the day.

Seeing that the time had come, Chen Jue went to the kitchen, removed the dragon-patterned bamboo steamer, and evenly spread the steamed "Spirit-Grain Sprouts" across a prepared cold jade board.

Once they had cooled to room temperature, Chen Jue packed them into ceramic jars, sprinkled in earth-vein fungal culture, and stored them in a cool place to cellar-age.