Pudding

Gu Changhuai did not immediately answer True Person Chonglang's question. Instead, he sat down and regulated his breathing, and a bottomless pool appeared.

Not a ripple stirred its surface. It was like a dark blue-black mirror, in which a feather rose and sank, tracing the path of the dark fish as it rose and sank in Weak Water.

True Person Chonglang, whose face had been angry just moments ago, could not help showing his appreciation. The Immortal Foundation "Sinking Feather Abyss" drew on the three thousand reaches of Weak Water, upon which even a goose feather could not float.

The dark fish sank into the pool, transforming weakness into darkness. Darkness meant black; Weak Water bore nothing, and what was dark and heavy sank. Thus there was Profound Abyss Heavy Water. This water was a Purple Mansion-grade spirit water, black as ink jade and heavy as Mount Tai. A single drop could become a great lake, across which neither people nor objects could pass.

The dark fish that rose and sank within the Immortal Foundation "Sinking Feather Abyss" was formed from a single drop of Profound Abyss Heavy Water. Presumably, it was a gift from his Weak Water fate, a Purple Mansion spirit water to nourish his Immortal Foundation.

As Sinking Feather Abyss dispersed, Gu Changhuai's eyes cleared. He sat calmly and cupped his hands toward True Person Chonglang. "Uncle, I handled this matter poorly. I apologize to you!"

"As for why I was so eager to seek a position at Lüyu, it was for Alchemy Invocation Peak, one of the eighteen peaks of the Southern Fire Heavenly Manor that will soon appear!"

True Person Chonglang lowered his eyelids, then looked outside the hall toward Lüyu's Water College. "Alchemy Invocation Peak. Its last Peak Master was Great True Person Sudan, one of the rare cultivators highly accomplished in the Dao of Alchemy on the Weak Water path. In those days, she was hailed as the third Great True Person in Qinghuan who might ascend to the [Weak Water] gold position!"

"You're after that Great True Person's Weak Water Divine Ability, 'Dark Radiance Manor.'"

Seeing that True Person Chonglang had exposed his objective in a single sentence, Gu Changhuai answered frankly, "More than a thousand years ago, True Lord Dongyuan fell in the Zangke Dark Desert, and the Weak Water fate Divine Ability 'Profound Darkness Return' drew its last breath."

"Great True Person Sudan wanted to replace it with 'Dark Radiance Manor.' That may be the best option in the past thousand years!"

True Person Chonglang could not help sighing. "You've only just reached Foundation Establishment, and you're already thinking so far ahead? You're far too impatient!"

Gu Changhuai spoke with a resolute look in his eyes. "Aim high and you may achieve middling results; aim for the middle and you can only achieve the lowest. In the great age we live in, there's a reason Foundation Establishment cultivators are inferior to those of a few hundred years ago!"

"These so-called Foundation Establishment seeds are nothing more than gamblers who can only seek an Immortal Foundation. If they could gain even a little of its mysteries, why would they have to face nine deaths for one life? They value methods over the Dao and practice techniques without understanding. How lamentable!"

At this point, Gu Changhuai looked at the expressionless True Person Chonglang and continued, "The same is true of Purple Mansion Divine Abilities. They seek only to gamble blindly, without seeing a Divine Ability's True Intention. Even if they get through by luck, they'll only be trapped for five hundred years, finding it hard to cross into Purple Mansion!"

"We cultivators must first see Mount Tai and pursue it. Then we may find a place to stand at its foot."

True Person Chonglang nodded impassively. A Weak Water Child of Fate ought to see Mount Tai. Without such bearing, how would he dare plan at Foundation Establishment to replace that long-lost Divine Ability?

"Unfortunately, that Great True Person fell in the Southern Fire Rebellion. No one knows whether 'Dark Radiance Manor' can succeed!"

"Uncle, whether it succeeds or not, I must have 'Dark Radiance Manor' in my grasp. It's my opportunity, and also a means for outsiders to interfere with me!"

True Person Chonglang raised his teacup, discovered the tea had gone cold, and put it down again. "With such ambitions, you do have some of the bearing of the Gu Household's predecessors. What else? Did you come to Lüyu just to enter Alchemy Invocation Peak?"

Gu Changhuai rose solemnly and walked halfway across the reception hall. From there, he could clearly see the Heavenly River descending from Yuanhuai Heaven. "If I have the chance, I'd also like to see the grotto-heaven's 'Moon-Gazing and Tranquility Painting.'"

Chonglang gave the Gu scion a meaningful look. "Is it you who wants to see it, or the Southern Pond Dragon Lord behind you?"

The Gu scion turned sideways, and Weak Water Qi suddenly surged out around him. A cold pool appeared in the Xie Household's reception hall, a dark fish rising and sinking within it as his Weak Water fate manifested!

"Uncle, might you help me?"

Without so much as a glance, the True Person sent the lukewarm tea splashing out. Blue-green rain descended from it, Clear Water turning into rain from the sky. In just a few breaths, it filled the cold Weak Water pool to overflowing. The dark fish sank out of sight, and the Weak Water fate dispersed!

"Gu Changhuai, who gave you the courage to come and test me? Was it your Weak Water fate, the Dragon Lord hiding behind you, or the 'Vast Cold Heaven' you've been making eyes at?"

Gu Changhuai's robes had been soaked by the clear rain that had just swept over him, and icy drops fell from his hair. "Uncle, since you know everything, why not choose to support me, to support [Weak Water]? The Gu and Xie were originally one."

"What do the Gu and Xie of the past have to do with the Gu and Xie of today? And why should I risk betraying Yuanhuai Heaven to support a former criminal clan?"

"A criminal clan?" Gu Changhuai sounded as though he had heard an enormous joke. "Uncle, you actually call our Gu Household a criminal clan? For the past thousand years, our Gu Household..."

Before he could finish, True Person Chonglang cut him off coldly. "Those were the achievements of True Lord Dongyuan and the Gu Household's predecessors. What do they have to do with the present-day Gu Household of Lingnan, or its present-day scions?"

"During the Central Palace Rebellion, the Gu Household escaped unscathed only because the Xie Household did everything it could to intercede. Surely I don't need to remind you what a grave wrong it was to harm a Dao Child of the grotto-heaven!"

Gu Changhuai's lips trembled, but in the end he said nothing in rebuttal. He had not been present back then either, and the various sides gave different accounts of the many details. It was a tangled skein!

He wiped the droplets from his face and calmly sat down again, as if the argument had never happened. "Uncle, even if we set the past aside, we should look at the present. Is Luyu University still the domain of Clear Water and Weak Water that it once was?"

"For years, True Person Chonghuan's faction has spared no effort to suppress the Water Virtue departments. That's an uncontested fact among the great clans of Jixia. Yuanhuai Heaven lies deep in the heart of Jiangnan, and Qinghuan's four Metal powers use Yuanhuai as a springboard to recruit Jiangnan's talent in droves."

"If this goes on, is our dignified Weak Water Xuantian to become a blood bag of talent for Metal Virtue?"

True Person Chonglang sighed. "Gu Changhuai, your ambitions on the Dao Path are lofty, and even I must admire them. But did your fate send you here to act as a lobbyist?"

"From childhood, you were deeply influenced by the Gu Household's teachings, and you even had dragon scions among your friends. With your exceptional fate and the help of your friends, 'Vast Cold' came from the north. You've woven the net of your Weak Water fate ever wider, trying to bind everyone within your pool!"

"At our Lüyu, in our Water Virtue departments, there are still old professors who remember the ties of the past. They waited for you for more than ten years, but you never came!"

"More than ten years later, you want to return to Yuanhuai Heaven as a lecturer rather than a Lüyu student. You could say that was a hard slap across the face of our Water College."

True Person Chonglang slowly rose, then turned his back. "At the meeting to approve your appointment, all four voting professors from the Water Virtue departments voted against it. Two of those four had long ago prepared to become your mentor themselves."

"It was True Person Chonghuan, whom you say opposes your return to Yuanhuai Heaven, who used the principal's authority to force your approval through. At our Lüyu, Weak Water fighting Clear Water, Metal Virtue fighting Water Virtue, and professors fighting the principal have been part of the school's culture since ancient times."

"But outside, you're merely someone with a Weak Water fate. Does Lüyu care so very much? In Qinghuan's past thousand years, how many of the four generations of True Lords, Dong, Xuan, Cheng, and Miao, attained the Dao as Children of Fate?"

"Gu Changhuai, once the matter of Alchemy Invocation Peak is over, leave Lüyu and return to Lingnan!"

At the Wave-Gazing Residence, night was darkening to ink as Chen Suqiu hurried home with two food boxes. The first thing that glutton had done after coming out of seclusion, where she had spent nearly a week, was shout that she was starving and wanted egg tarts, barbecue, and snacks!

But put that together with her pair of golden pupils and her cultivation, which had jumped two levels to the Qi Refining Third Layer, and the picture was quite frightening.

Where had the Jiang brother and sister sprung from? What freaks they were! She had broken through two realms in one week and leaped into the top tier of the class!

What shocked Chen Suqiu even more, however, was Jiang Jinyi's pair of golden eyes. Meeting her gaze for a single instant felt like being plunged into a grim place bristling with weapons!

The once-unremarkable sixth-grade Cultivation Method, "Dui Metal Aperture Heart Qi Gathering Instruction," truly held great mysteries!

As soon as Chen Suqiu entered the Wave-Gazing Residence, she saw Lecturer Ye standing alone beneath a lamppost, looking desolate. His gaze was fixed on the cluster of buildings at the very center of the residence!

Gu Changhuai had not expected his visit to the Xie Household to turn out like this. He had thought True Person Chonglang might put him off or refuse, but he had not expected this result.

In the eyes of the Xie elder, the Gu Household had been wrong from the very beginning. Relying on him, their Child of Fate, the Gu Household had risen again within a little over a decade, and what it had always wanted to restore was the former stature of the Yuanhuai Gu Household!

But the old professors of Lüyu's Water College, who had always meant the Gu Household well, had been thinking of the Lüyu Gu Household. They had hoped he would return to Lüyu as a disciple of the Gu Household!

Yet over the past decade or so, the Gu Household had scrambled about, gotten involved with Vast Cold Heaven, and allied itself with the Dragon Lord to the south, pushing Lüyu's Water College to the opposite side.

In Qinghuan, without Yuanhuai Heaven's assent, nothing could be accomplished on the [Weak Water] path, even by someone of the Gu Household. The Gu Household had tried to increase his stake at the table, only to push away its greatest stake!

Was it truly wrong?

Gu Changhuai looked at the Gu Household's former ancestral grounds. He realized that the elders of the Lineage could not have been unaware of Lüyu's attitude, yet they had chosen to do this anyway!

The confidence that let them do it undoubtedly came from his Weak Water fate. In the elders' eyes, the fact that the Weak Water fate had once again been bestowed upon the Gu Household meant that the Gu clan was destined to reclaim its former position!

Did your fate send you here to act as a lobbyist?

True Person Chonglang's heart-piercing words had indeed hit the nail on the head. Gu Changhuai was truly a little lost. He could no longer quite tell who genuinely wanted him to attain the Dao and who was merely using his Weak Water fate!

Or who was really directing all of this from behind the scenes?

"Lecturer Ye, why are you here alone?"

Gu Changhuai turned sharply and saw the Chen scion standing behind him with two large food boxes, asking him the question with hesitation written all over her face!

Gu Changhuai could not help giving a bitter laugh to himself. If this Student Chen knew that because of her, the resources the Gu Household had accumulated at Lüyu over more than a century had been uprooted in a single day, he wondered what expression she would make.

"Student Chen, we really are fated to meet. I've been living here for a few days, and I suddenly grew curious about this whole compound, so I came out for a walk and a look around tonight!"

"Lecturer Ye, a new cake shop opened below the school. Would you like to try their pudding?"

Chen Suqiu recalled Jinyi's odd rule that everyone present should get a share, and handed the free pudding she had just received from a buy-three-get-one offer at the cake shop to this Lüyu lecturer, whom she suspected of making abstract human art in the middle of the night!

Then she waved goodbye! As she turned around, she heard that hoarse yet magnetic voice again. "Student Chen, may I ask where your clan resides?"

Chen Suqiu, who was in a hurry to get back and feed her roommate, gave it little thought and waved behind her. "The Jialing Chen Clan!"

The girl's hearty voice sounded surprisingly bold in the empty ancestral grounds of the Gu Household!

Gu Changhuai lowered his head, unwrapped the pudding, and stuffed it into his mouth. His body, which had not eaten for many years, resisted the foreign object from outside his Dao body. The young master of the Gu Household endured the discomfort and put the pudding into his stomach.

Unfortunately, he could make out no flavor. Only the wrapper in his hand retained a girl's faint fragrance!