Zhao Layue had prepared to cultivate since childhood and seldom ventured out. Until she went to Green Mountain, the people she encountered had been family, servants, or fellow cultivators. She had never considered these questions.
"This is the first time I've spoken to anyone about these things. Since they're dull, uninteresting, and meaningless, it will also be the last."
Jing Jiu looked at her and said calmly, "Monsters eat people, and cultivators eat people too. Some literally eat them, and some figuratively eat them, but either way, they eat."
Zhao Layue was silent for a while before saying, "Like those pearl divers you mentioned in Haizhou? But there must be a difference between the two."
Jing Jiu said, "Ultimately, cultivation sects need ordinary people to support them. But what have cultivators ever done for ordinary people?"
Zhao Layue raised her eyebrows. "We've both walked across the Sky-reaching Bridge in South River Province."
Jing Jiu said, "True, cultivators can build bridges and cut paths through mountains for ordinary people, slay monsters and vanquish demons. But compared with their abilities, they still do far too little. Cultivation means cultivating oneself. Take our Green Mountain Sect: if those second-generation disciples still had a chance to break through, they wouldn't even be willing to serve as outer-sect teachers, much less travel the world relieving suffering and resolving troubles."
"You mean cultivators treat ordinary people like sheep they raise?"
Staring into his eyes, Zhao Layue said, "Building bridges is merely helping them make their sheepfolds sturdier, and slaying monsters is only for fear that wolves will eat too many of their own sheep?"
Jing Jiu said, "A good analogy, but not quite accurate. Cultivators also come from among ordinary people. The relationship between the two is countless times more complicated than that between herders and