No Need for This

The bluestone path leading to the Heavenly Serpent Palace's forbidden grounds was filled with suffocatingly heavy air.

Supreme Elder Bai Su walked with her back bent, the ancient snake-head cane in her hand tapping weakly against the stone slabs. In the thin morning mist, her figure appeared incomparably old and desolate, as though all her vitality had been drained away in an instant.

A sect with a thousand-year legacy had, in her generation, ultimately become a dependent vassal.

This humiliation and unwillingness weighed on her like a mountain, pressing her so hard she could barely straighten her back.

Han Feng followed behind her, taking in the deathly expression on the old woman's face.

"Old Palace Master, there is no need for this."

Han Feng's voice rang through the silent passageway.

Bai Su paused, but did not turn around. She merely replied in a hoarse voice, "Young Pavilion Master... please speak freely."

Seeing her look as though she were heading to a funeral, Han Feng could not help but laugh.

"Old Palace Master, judging by that expression, one might think I was forcing the Heavenly Serpent Palace to do something suicidal."

He slowly stepped forward and walked beside Bai Su, his tone sincere.

"You may rest assured. First, I will not interfere in your sect's internal affairs. Second, I will not make your disciples serve as cannon fodder. To put it plainly, the Falling Star Pavilion and Sacred City are both vast powers. We are not so short on manpower that we need the Heavenly Serpent Palace's few people."

At last, a flicker of emotion appeared in Bai Su's clouded eyes. She turned her head and looked at Han Feng in confusion.

Han Feng looked toward the distant mountains shrouded in clouds and mist, his expression turning serious.

"Old Palace Master, you have lived for several centuries. You should understand the current situation on this continent better than I do."

"The Soul Hall harbors monstrous ambitions. It stirs up trouble in the shadows and captures the souls of powerful experts everywhere. Its schemes are immense. When the nest is overturned, how can any egg remain intact? If the Heavenly Serpent Palace wishes to remain untouched amid the overwhelming storm to come, that is nothing more than a fool's dream."

These words struck Bai Su's heart like a heavy hammer.

Han Feng looked at her, the smile on his face sincere and composed.

"I protect the Heavenly Serpent Palace from outside threats, while the Heavenly Serpent Palace provides me with the necessary intelligence and resources. We each take what we need. Rather than a main sect and its subordinate, it would be more accurate to call this an alliance between unequal powers."

"In the end," Han Feng said, his gaze falling on Qing Lin, who was listening nearby with equal curiosity, his eyes softening, "the only one I truly care about is Qing Lin."

"Making her the Holy Maiden and bringing the Heavenly Serpent Palace under the Falling Star Pavilion's sphere of influence is merely to give this girl a rightful identity and a stable backing. It is also to let everyone in the Heavenly Serpent Palace know that Qing Lin is under my protection. Anyone who wants to touch her must first consider whether they have the standing."

"I do not want to act like a villain, but some things must be made clear beforehand. I need to ensure that the Heavenly Serpent Palace will sincerely nurture her, rather than entertain any improper thoughts."

Bai Su fell silent.

The expression on her wrinkled face shifted uncertainly as though she were weighing the truth of Han Feng's words.

When she raised her head and saw Han Feng's clear, open eyes, without the slightest trace of hypocrisy, the enormous weight in her heart finally began to ease.

Indeed, with his strength, destroying the Heavenly Serpent Palace would be no more than a flick of his hand. Why would he need to waste so many words on her?

From beginning to end, all he wanted was that little girl with the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes.

The Heavenly Serpent Palace was merely incidental.

Having understood this, Bai Su's previously bent back miraculously straightened a little.

The desolation and unwillingness on her face vanished like morning mist scattered by the rising sun, replaced by the relief of a burden lifted and a new anticipation for the future.

For the Heavenly Serpent Palace, attaching itself to a first-rate power of the Central Plains and becoming one of its affiliated forces was not necessarily a bad thing!

"Thank you, Young Pavilion Master Han, for speaking so candidly."

Bai Su solemnly bowed to Han Feng. This time, her respect came from the bottom of her heart.

"This old woman... had been thinking wrongly."

"Since that is the case, then I should also tell Young Pavilion Master Han and... this future Holy Maiden everything about some of the secrets surrounding the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes."

Her gaze shifted to Qing Lin, becoming incomparably gentle and loving.

"Come. Let us go to the Inheritance Hall. I will explain as we walk."

After passing through several layers of restrictions, the three arrived before an ancient stone hall on the back mountain of the Heavenly Serpent Palace.

On the stone hall's doors was carved a gigantic, eerie totem of snake eyes bearing three flower-like markings.

"Young Pavilion Master Han, little Qing Lin," Bai Su said as she stood before the Inheritance Hall, which carried a thousand years of the Heavenly Serpent Palace's rise and fall. Her aged voice was filled with endless emotion and remembrance. "Do you know the true origin of the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes?"

Without waiting for either of them to answer, she began recounting that thousand-year-old secret history of the sect.

"The Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes are not acquired through cultivation techniques. They are an ancestral bloodline phenomenon that appears once in hundreds of millions."

"Only descendants born from the union of humans and the serpent people of the Tagor Great Desert have a one-in-hundreds-of-millions chance of awakening these eyes. Pure humans or pure-blooded serpent people can never possess such a talent."

"The origin of this bloodline can be traced back to ancient times, to that supreme existence who truly commanded all serpents and shook the continent—the Ancient Heavenly Serpent!"

Bai Su's words carried a fervent worship.

"The Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes are a weakened yet incomparably unique mutated form produced after the supreme bloodline of the sovereign of all serpents was passed down through countless generations."

"That is why, from the day the Heavenly Serpent Palace was founded, we established our highest ancestral commandment: to search across the continent for, take in, and devote the entire sect's strength to nurturing mixed-blood descendants who awaken these eyes. They are honored as the sect's Holy Maidens and regarded as the sole vessels of our highest inheritance."

She turned to Qing Lin, her eyes as loving as though she were looking at her own granddaughter.

"Child, you are not an outcast. You are the most precious treasure Heaven has bestowed upon our Heavenly Serpent Palace."

Hearing these secrets for the first time, Qing Lin felt her head buzzing.

Han Feng listened from the side, comparing the information he had heard with what he knew of the original story, lost in thought.

Without pausing, Bai Su continued, "To better nurture and develop such divine eyes, the generations of predecessors in the Heavenly Serpent Palace exhausted a thousand years of effort before finally perfecting a complete set of exclusive secret scriptures—the Jade-Eyed Serpent-Commanding Heart Scripture. This scripture can maximize the potential of the eye technique and guide its power to nourish its wielder in return."

"The origins of the Heavenly Serpent Palace are also closely tied to a true ancient mighty expert."

"Legend has it that in the distant ancient era, the Ancient Heavenly Serpent Emperor fought another and ultimately perished. A trace of his remnant soul was sealed in the deepest reaches of the Heavenly Serpent Mountains beneath our feet, transforming into endless serpent spiritual veins. That was how the present spectacle of countless serpents gathering here came to be."

"Several thousand years ago, the founding Palace Master of the Heavenly Serpent Palace was a great human cultivator proficient in secret soul arts, particularly the art of commanding serpents. Passing through this place by chance, he not only discovered some serpent-related secret scriptures left behind by the Heavenly Serpent Emperor in the depths of the mountains, along with countless medicinal herbs for nurturing the eyes, but also encountered the first mixed-blood girl in the world to awaken the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes."

"The founding Palace Master was astonished beyond measure. Knowing that these eyes would surely shake heaven and earth if allowed to mature, he established a sect here and named it the Heavenly Serpent Palace. He made protecting and nurturing those with the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes the sect's highest mission, passing it down generation after generation."

At this point, a proud expression appeared on Bai Su's face.

"Not only that, in order to resolve the fatal flaw caused by the conflict between the human and serpent bloodlines within mixed-blood individuals, as well as the damage to the soul caused by forcibly using the eye power, the founding Palace Master exhausted his life's efforts to create an independent secret realm."

"He named that secret realm the Serpent-Calming Pool. Within it, he personally planted Millennial Serpent-Heart Grass, which had long vanished from the outside world, cultivated Jade-Spirit Serpent Saliva capable of nourishing the soul, and set up a Serpent-Calming Formation that could harmonize bloodlines and calm the mind."

"Only within the Serpent-Calming Pool can the bearer of the Three-Flower Jade Serpent Eyes receive the most complete inheritance without any worries and bring the power of the eye technique to its fullest extent."

Bai Su revealed every secret. Turning to face Han Feng and Qing Lin, she bowed deeply once more.

"Young Pavilion Master Han, Holy Maiden Qing Lin, please follow me."

"The place of inheritance has arrived."