Hou Niao remained noncommittal. "I have no right to mete out punishment on Heaven's behalf. Besides, the rights and wrongs of the cultivation world were never as simple as right and wrong.
"From what you've said, although we blundered into your scheme, our mistakes happened to work out, and the result more or less matched what you hoped to achieve?
"So you stayed here, leaving everyone outside to fight to the death, while you leisurely advanced to the next realm?
"Such composure is truly remarkable. My admiration, my admiration."
Bamboo Madam gave a derisive smile. "I planned it all, but had they harbored no desires, my schemes would have been useless.
"I bear responsibility for the tour group's casualties, and I deliberately plotted the Canghai Pirates' destruction. There is nothing I dare not admit.
"I own everything I did."
Hou Niao fell silent for a long while. "But surely you didn't have to put all the Canghai Pirates to death just to achieve Core Formation?"
Bamboo Madam's expression was cold. "I had to sever ties with the past somehow. If they remained, my heart would never be at peace. They would constantly remind me of the sins I committed.
"Young man, you won't understand this yet. When someone suddenly discovers she has grown old and no longer likes noise, if she can stay on the island, she will never go out; if she can be alone, she will never join a crowd. She grows accustomed to solitude and comes to enjoy the quiet.
"In a cultivator's world, everything is real except happiness, which is feigned."
Hou Niao said, "One last question. How much longer can this formation hold?"
Bamboo Madam said, "If I successfully advance to Golden Core, there will be no worries for three hundred years. If I fail,