The tapping of Qing Chen's fingertips against the table stopped abruptly.
"So, the Teleportation Formation back then sent you to Annan Province?"
"Yes, eldest brother."
"If you were in Annan Province, how did you end up stranded in Southern Yue, as the chief of the Eighteen Grottoes?"
Qing Jie's Adam's apple bobbed, and he sighed. "Eldest brother, you know that rogue cultivators who aren't on the Immortal Register are nothing but rootless duckweed."
"We either throw ourselves in with a sect, lineage, fortified settlement, or some other faction, become bandit cultivators, or... fend for ourselves until we die. I nearly killed myself trying to get into a little fortified settlement. Who knew... I'd run into a Qing Clan disciple there?"
"At first, that bastard couldn't have been more attentive to me. He treated me wonderfully and often asked about my background, asking whether I belonged to the Qing Clan. I honestly told him I didn't, yet he generously gave me cultivation techniques and medicinal pills to help me improve my cultivation."
"I was overjoyed at the time. I thought I'd met a benefactor. Who could have imagined... it was all a scheme he'd painstakingly devised!" Qing Jie's voice rose sharply.
"Only later did I learn that I looked extremely similar to another Qing Clan disciple.
"And that real Qing Clan disciple had broken the law and brought a great calamity down on himself, falling into the hands of Annan Province's dreaded Profound Mirror Sky-Hunting Bureau.
"The Profound Mirror Sky-Hunting Bureau didn't care whether he was a Qing Clan disciple. They were determined to exile him to Southern Yue.
"Qing Yuxuan got scared and wanted a scapegoat. And I... became that unlucky bastard!"
"...That Qing Clan disciple was named Qing Yuxuan. Relying on his Qing Clan bloodline, he ran roughshod over