Chapter 2513

What happened afterward differed little from what everyone knew.

Shangguan Biao struggled to adapt within the sect, facing setbacks everywhere, falling from being a direct disciple of Tang Lin Zi to becoming a menial laborer on Duzhi Mountain.

His family was frantic, exhausting their wealth to save him.

In real history, without He Lingchuan's unexpected interference, Shangguan Biao's self-rescue had only one path:

Sacrifice his birth mother!

Compared to Shangguan Biao's other misfortunes, this matter went surprisingly smoothly.

He returned to his hometown, knelt before his mother, weeping bitterly, begging her to save his life.

His mother had less than two months to live; hearing his plea, she readily agreed. Father, mother, and son embraced and wept all night, and Shangguan Biao swore a vicious oath: he would surely rise to prominence in the future, not to betray his mother's sacrifice.

The next morning, he personally extracted his mother's heart-blood, pouring it while hot onto the Wind-Dew Golden Lotus.

Seeing this, Mingke Xianren let out a long sigh.

Although the real Shangguan Biao had no manifested Red Ghost beside him, everyone understood that he had now nurtured his inner demon in his heart, unable to drive it away.

The legend did not deceive him. Before sunrise, the Golden Lotus had already condensed precious blood-dew.

The Shangguan family's medicinal ingredients were complete; Shangguan Biao distilled the dew for three days and three nights, finally succeeding in refining the "Blood-Dew Golden Pill."

He then returned to Changfeng Valley, presenting the Golden Pill to Li Yun.

The reason he did not, as in the Duzhi Mountain Secret Realm, directly offer it to Sect Leader Wang Ye, was because at this time Shangguan Biao simply could not reach that level.

What qualifications does a lowly menial have to see the Sect Leader?

Even Li Yun, Li Elder, was someone he had to painstakingly connect with through Xu Liangye.

Li Yun received the Golden Pill and immediately offered it to his sect. This pill indeed healed the Earth Mother's soul wound; Wang Ye was greatly pleased and richly rewarded Li Yun.

Thanks to the merit of healing the mountain guardian spirit beast, Li Yun was promoted to Cave Master.

Shangguan Biao finally got his wish, escaping his menial status—but not returning to Tang Lin Zi's side as a disciple, instead being taken into Li Yun's retinue.

To outsiders, this seemed like a leap to heaven. But Shangguan Biao soon discovered that Li Yun's retinue tolerated no idlers; competition among fellow disciples was fiercer than under Tang Lin Zi, with factions forming and mutual suppression.

The strongest faction was Xu Liangye's.

Because of the Blood-Dew Golden Pill's merit, Li Yun was deeply dissatisfied with Shangguan Biao and Yan Yuese, and secretly punished Shangguan Biao several times. The latter, newly transferred, had unstable footing and knew Li Yun's favor was unreliable, so he could only swallow his anger and flatter Xu Liangye.

Xu Liangye tested him, putting forward a demand:

Xiao Ying.

Left with no choice, Shangguan Biao found an opportunity to get Xiao Ying drunk and personally delivered her to Xu Liangye's cave dwelling.

Xu Liangye was very pleased and finally believed in his defection, thereafter regarding him as a trusted confidant.

Thereafter, Shangguan Biao overcame obstacle after obstacle, launching his counterattack life.

But the price of his counterattack was often tied to all kinds of perverse conduct and bizarre acts, so much so that even Mingke Xianren, well-versed and experienced, was left speechless in shock.

The image faded, the water surface returned to calm, a flash of deep red shadow flickered beneath the water, vanishing before anyone could examine it closely.

Zhu Xiuer snorted:

"Karmic retribution! Shangguan Biao still claims he only believes in cause and effect, not in retribution."

"His goal is wrong." He Lingchuan said calmly, "So-called power, so-called strength, are actually just byproducts, mere side effects. To obsessively pursue these is to abandon the root and chase the branches."

"Then what is the 'root'?"

He Lingchuan pointed to himself: "Do you think I have power? Am I strong enough?"

Everyone nodded.

"If the Nine Nether Great Emperor can arm-wrestle with Jia Lou Tian, and if he lacks power, who else could be considered truly strong?"

"Have I ever, like Shangguan Biao, deliberately pursued these two things?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Nine Nether seems to have always been busy, always doing things. But unknowingly, he has attained his current status and cultivation—"

"The talented Shangguan Biao, despite his lifelong bitter efforts, could never catch up to this cultivation."

"How is this achieved?"

"What I do, the problems I solve, is the 'root.'" He Lingchuan said, "In this process, I naturally grow stronger; there is no need to deliberately pursue it."

"Conversely, if one spends a lifetime only pursuing power, this path has no end; everything else becomes a cost, expendable, so that in the end, nothing remains beside one."

"Strength? How strong must one be to be called strong?"

"Power? What kind of power is the ultimate?"

"No end, no endpoint;"

"No endpoint, this matter will never end, desire will never be satisfied."

"Desire unsatisfied, the heart remains restless, unable to find peace."

"The more pursued, the more lacking; the more lacking, the more pursued."

"Such an endless cycle, until body and spirit are both destroyed."

Mingke Xianren asked him: "Then what kind of goal should one set?"

"Don't be so vague; be more specific."

"More specific goals, for example?"

He Lingchuan laughed: "For example, slaying heavenly demons, saving the world."

"..."

"Is this specific enough?"

"'Grand' does not mean 'not specific.'" Zhu Xiuer, having just scratched her head, He Lingchuan pointed at her and asked, "Auntie, what was your former goal?"

The Spider Queen replied offhand: "To become stronger."

"In ancient times, her life was just eating, drinking, and fighting; after the heavenly demons descended, it became eating, drinking, and fighting heavenly demons."

Fighting is cultivation, and the purpose of cultivation is not to become stronger?

"Then what?"

"Dead."

Yes, on the path to becoming stronger, there is also a side path that leads directly to hell.

Shangguan Biao also died on this side path, but he stubbornly carved out a crooked path for himself.

"After leaving Mount Xushan, then what?"

"Hmm..." Zhu Xiuer thought seriously, "Follow you, whatever you do I do, if you want to resist the heavenly demons, I will resist the heavenly demons."

"Then what?" He Lingchuan patted its long leg... on the thorns, "Have you become stronger?"

Zhu Xiuer said "aiya": "You saying that is actually true."

Having been by He Lingchuan's side for over ten years, having gone through countless hardships, defeated countless strong enemies, learned from him to take it upon himself to expel the heavenly demons, the Spider Queen had long forgotten her former single-minded desire to become stronger.

It is no longer simple.

But in this process, it has indeed become stronger!

"Blindly pursuing strength does not necessarily make one strong; but if you set a more realistic and concrete goal, while focusing on the task at hand, strength will naturally come." He Lingchuan pointed east, "Let's go, into the city."

Walking out of the Singing Sand Forest, the mist thinned, the moon bright and stars sparse.

Outside the city, the wheat waves swayed in the breeze, the ponds and puddles echoed with a chorus of frogs, the stone lion heads occasionally revealed in the wheat fields had honest faces, grinning wide at people, showing no trace of the previous ferocity when they fiercely attacked the Longfeng Valley people.