No one knew how High Person Qianshan had negotiated with the Medicine Venerable of Spring Returning and Alchemy Spirit Child. The next day, the two personally gathered every disciple of the Spring Returning Church and publicly announced that they would temporarily join the Heavenly Dao Sect as an affiliated sect. A relatively low peak beside Heavenly Capital Peak had also been allotted to them as their headquarters. The disciples were astonished, but no one objected. After all, the Spring Returning Church had been a fine place once, when it still possessed Spring Renewal Valley. Now even the valley on which its survival depended was gone. To put it bluntly, its disciples were penniless and destitute, worse off than rogue cultivators. This was a problem of the church's own making: most of its disciples cultivated spirit herbs. When the Fire Dragon Palace launched its sudden attack, they barely had time to flee for their lives, let alone gather their herbs. Most of those who could not bear to abandon their herbs and treasures had died under the bombardment of the Fire Dragon Palace's Four Symbols Spirit Cannons.
These disciples belonged to the Heavenly Dao Sect in name only. The elders and peak lords who oversaw them were all members of the Spring Returning Church, while the Medicine Venerable of Spring Returning really did become the Heavenly Dao Sect's Second Elder.
Although disciples of both sects were intensely curious about how High Person Qianshan had persuaded the Medicine Venerable of Spring Returning, who dared ask? Even Alchemy Spirit Child, who knew the truth, never breathed a word. It became an enduring mystery.
Many of the Spring Returning Church's disciples were wounded, and the Medicine Venerable of Spring Returning himself had suffered serious injuries. They could only enter seclusion or work on renovating