Shi Zanxue thought for a moment. "Zhao Lingjun belongs to the previous generation. I don't know much about him. But my impression is that he was free-spirited and dissolute, utterly unlike Wang Jiuqiao. He came from Zhengyi and held first place on the Crane List for only one term."
"Why did Zhao Lingjun betray his sect?"
Shi Zanxue shook her head. "Daoist circles seldom mention it, and it happened a long time ago. According to the scant information Heavenly Mountain obtained, Zhao Lingjun saw no hope of ascending to immortality and strayed down the wrong path. Perhaps he believed the Joy-in-Death Tower had a method that could help him become an immortal."
Pei Ye was surprised. "Become an immortal? Was that why he cultivated?"
Shi Zanxue smiled. "Daoists have cultivated to become immortals since ancient times. What's strange about that?"
Pei Ye paused. He realized this was indeed no secret. In every Daoist text he had read-though most focused on Sword Theory-the opening arguments always included a few lines about Nature and Destiny, heaven and earth, and shedding the mortal shell to ascend.
Pei Ye had overlooked it not because he had never seen it, but precisely because he had seen it so often. He had thought it was like the opening of an imperial edict, which always had to say a few words about the Qilin and the emperor. Now, suddenly learning that Zhao Lingjun had betrayed his faith and left his sect over this, he felt a dazed sense of, So those weren't empty words after all.
Something suddenly occurred to him, and he turned to look at the girl beside him.
Jiang Yiner blinked. "Master never insisted I become an immortal. She said immortals and mortals each have their own destined paths, and I need only conduct