A Pawn's Passage

Chapter 1429: Past Events

Qi Xuansu roughly sorted through everything Qi Jiaozheng had just explained.

Back then, the first-generation Qingping Melody, Zhou Shuning, married Shen Changsheng, the head of the Shen family. Both of them were famous figures within the Daoist Order and had even been commemorated on the Holy Xuan Cards.

Later, when the Holy Xuan abolished the Qingping Society, there was never supposed to be a second-generation Qingping Melody. However, Zhou Shuning’s son, Shen Qingchen, was extremely furious about it. He had always regarded himself as the rightful heir to the Qingping Society. With its abolition, he stood to lose the most. Yet, out of fear of the Holy Xuan’s immense authority, he did not dare openly reveal his dissatisfaction.

After the Holy Xuan passed away, the Taiping Sect, led by the Li family, became the staunchest defenders of everything he had decreed. Any decision made by the Holy Xuan was treated as absolutely unquestionable.

Seeing that the Taiping Sect would never support him, Shen Qingchen instead allied himself with the Third Earthly Preceptor of the Quanzhen Sect and secretly began preparations to rebuild the Qingping Society.

In rebuilding the Qingping Society, the Third Earthly Preceptor provided manpower and resources, but because it was politically inconvenient for him to appear openly, he remained behind the scenes. Shen Qingchen acted publicly on his behalf in managing the organization.

To demonstrate his claim to legitimacy, Shen Qingchen changed his last name to Zhou, becoming Zhou Qingchen. This act was effectively equivalent to betraying both the Shen family and the Taiping Sect. He became the second-generation Qingping Melody, giving rise to the Zhou family lineage.

The Shen family had always belonged to the Taiping Sect. Therefore, Zhou Qingchen’s cooperation with the Earthly Preceptor of the Quanzhen Sect made him a traitor to his family and his Daoist Sect. This led to all the subsequent conflicts and repercussions.

At that time, the Li family had not yet established the Heavenly Court, so among the three Daoist Sects, they were considered the most morally upright.

In the end, they passed a formal resolution defining the Zhou family’s status, which became the origin of the Zhou family’s long-standing historical problems.

Zhou Mengyao was a descendant of Zhou Qingchen and likewise inherited this same historical baggage.

The Daoist Order avoided collective punishment only in matters involving execution and death. In all other aspects, guilt by association still very much existed.

The current policies might have become more lenient, but that did not mean past cases could simply be erased or politically rehabilitated.

Zhou Qingchen’s greatest problem was that he had directly defied the Holy Xuan’s decision, perhaps even openly opposing the Holy Xuan himself.

That accusation was far too severe. Even the Third Earthly Preceptor could not afford to bear such a charge and therefore had to remain hidden behind the scenes.

As a result, even if someone attempted to reopen and overturn the case today, it would still face enormous resistance and would be extremely difficult to succeed.

Even if the Qingping Society had now been normalized and transformed into a legitimate organization, the accusation of opposing the Holy Xuan would not necessarily disappear. These were two entirely different matters, and at its core, it was a question of principle.

Thus, by the time it reached Zhou Mengyao’s generation, although she retained her status as a Daoist, she could only exist as an unaffiliated wandering Daoist. This was different from Madam Qi’s situation. Madam Qi chose to be a wandering Daoist out of personal preference. If she wanted to follow the orthodox path, nobody would stop her.

Zhou Mengyao, however, had no such choice. Being a wandering Daoist was her only option. Of course, she could also abandon her Daoist status entirely, but once discarded, reclaiming it would be extremely difficult. That difficulty itself represented the Zhou family’s opportunity for political rehabilitation, because the Zhou family still hoped to return to the true halls of power within the Daoist Order.

Given Zhou Mengyao’s circumstances, the moment Qi Haoran became involved with her, his political future within the Daoist Order was effectively finished.

This was because the Daoist Order had a strict background investigation system. It had been established after the Ancient Immortals infiltrated Jade Capital, specifically to prevent outsiders from penetrating the Daoist Order.

This authority did not belong to the Beichen Hall but rather to the Ziwei Hall. The former focused on damage control, while the latter focused on prevention. The two did not overlap and instead functioned as two separate lines of defense.

When Qi Xuansu first entered the Tiangang Hall, he had already undergone such an investigation. His past experiences and background were all documented in exhaustive detail and handed over to Zhang Yuelu.

Zhang Yuelu had actually noticed a few suspicious clues within that background report, enough to scare Qi Xuansu half to death at the time.

Back then, Qi Xuansu had only been a seventh-rank Daoist, joining Tiangang Hall as a deacon. That had only been the most basic level of background screening. The higher one climbed, the stricter the investigations became.

In this regard, members of aristocratic families had an enormous advantage. Their background reports consisted of information regarding their parents, siblings, spouses, and elders, who were likely all high-ranking figures within the Daoist Order.

This was also the reason many heirs of major families never personally handled dirty work. Their records needed to remain spotless, while the dirty work was delegated to family members whose prospects within the orthodox path were already hopeless.

The reason Qi Xuansu never encountered further issues with background investigations later on was that he had transferred to the Ziwei Hall, where Sage Donghua personally took over.

Since the Ziwei Hall oversaw background checks, it was effortless for Sage Donghua, as the Hall Master, to alter Qi Xuansu’s records. If Sage Donghua said there was no problem, then no one would question it.

Of course, this also had much to do with the fact that Qi Xuansu had been insignificant at the time. Nobody paid attention to him, making everything easy to manipulate. By the time people finally started paying attention, all they could see was the revised version of his file.

But the Zhou family was different. Their case was a well-known historical controversy that practically everyone knew about. Even the Grand Master himself would have difficulty manipulating such a matter in secret. It would have to be openly discussed and resolved in public.

But once brought into the open, it would inevitably involve the Holy Xuan’s policies. As such, this matter became immensely heavy and politically dangerous.

Due to all this, Qi Haoran’s situation became extraordinarily complicated. Even Qi Jiaozheng had no way to help his brother. He could only watch helplessly as his younger brother drifted farther and farther away, while all the effort he had invested over the years went completely to waste.

After organizing his thoughts, Qi Xuansu asked, “How did the two of them meet?”

Qi Jiaozheng replied, “Tian Yuan, you should know that the Daoist Order places great importance on grassroots experience. If I wanted to promote him, I first had to send him out for practical training to gild his résumé. The best place would naturally have been Shuzhou, but in order to avoid accusations of favoritism, I sent him to Zhongzhou instead. It was during that assignment that he met Zhou Mengyao.

“I don’t know how they met, whether someone intentionally approached him or whether it truly happened by chance as he himself claimed. By the time I learned of the matter, it was already too late. Their relationship had become public knowledge.”

Qi Xuansu could hear deep helplessness in Qi Jiaozheng’s tone.

It was understandable. If Qi Xuansu had sent Little Yin to the Jiangnan Daoist Mansion for training, only for her to come back after some time with someone like Wu Guangbi, he would have gone mad too.

Who could possibly accept that?

If Zhou Mengyao had truly married into the Qi family, then the background investigations of the rest of the Qi family would also have become problematic.

As the head of the family, Qi Jiaozheng had to consider all matters with the good of the family in mind. He did not hope for much, but he did not want anyone to become a burden, dragging the later generations down.

Qi Jiaozheng sighed. “I spoke with him several times and urged him to end that doomed relationship. If he admitted his mistake and turned back, I could still try to mediate for him. Perhaps there might have been some room for recovery.

“But he remained stubborn and refused to give up Zhou Mengyao. I even approached Yao Yi and Yao Shu because of this, asking them to intervene with the Zhou family. But in the end, nothing came of it.

“That’s how Qi Haoran and I completely fell out. In a fit of anger, I expelled him from the Qi family. He then changed his name. The Quanzhen Sect could no longer tolerate him, and the Taiping Sect certainly would never accept him either, so he ultimately went to the Zhengyi Sect.”

Qi Xuansu could roughly understand why the Zhengyi Sect had been willing to take in Qi Haoran. The Zhang family also carried historical baggage of its own. In order to resolve those issues, Zhang Wushou had paid an enormous price. He had no Daoist companion, no children, and had slain his own younger sister. He had truly become a solitary man with nothing left.

With this, many things finally began to make sense.

Qi Jianyuan believed Qi Haoran was in the wrong because from the Qi family’s perspective, Qi Haoran truly had betrayed the family.

The Qi family had also publicly claimed Qi Haoran was dead because the matter was too scandalous and might even affect the rest of the Qi family. It was simpler to erase him from the family records altogether. Once a man was dead, his troubles were buried with him, as though he had never existed.

This was why Qi Jiaozheng had previously refused to speak of the matter at all. Keeping family scandals private was only one aspect. More importantly, this could seriously damage his political career.

However, there were still some things that did not yet make sense.

Qi Xuansu asked again, “In that case, where did Qi Haoran’s immortal-level cultivation come from?”

If Qi Haoran had already possessed immortal-level cultivation back then, then it would have been impossible for so few high-ranking figures within the Daoist Order to know of him. He also would not have been casually erased from the family records, and Qi Jiaozheng would not have needed to personally pave the way for his promotion.

Moreover, the Daoist Order was extremely tolerant toward Immortals. Great Sage Lan had long neglected administrative affairs, allowing Wang Jiaohe to grow powerful, while the Lingshan Witch Cult and the Cult of Fates colluded with the Buddhist Sect to stir up chaos. If one examined the matter carefully, Great Sage Lan could hardly escape responsibility for any of it.

Yet did the Daoist Order ever truly punished Great Sage Lan for negligence or dereliction of duty? In the end, when merits and rewards were distributed, Great Sage Lan not only escaped blame, but was instead credited with achievements.

The key was that Great Sage Lan had no obsession with power, stayed far away from high-level political struggles, and happened to be one of the Daoist Order’s greatest combat assets. No matter who became Grand Master, they would always prefer an Immortal like that.

Thus, the Daoist Order could overlook a few small mistakes that a highly accomplished and deeply respected senior made.

The so-called “strict standards” actually contained enormous room for interpretation. In the end, it all depended on how the matter was framed. The same standard was never really applied to the matter itself but to the person involved. The exact same offense could produce entirely different outcomes depending on who committed it.

If Qi Haoran had already been an Immortal back then, then the Zhou Mengyao affair would never have escalated so badly. There would have been plenty of room for compromise and negotiation.

From this, it was clear that when Qi Haoran fell out with Qi Jiaozheng, he had not yet become an Immortal, not even a Pseudo-Immortal. His cultivation had merely been ordinary.

So what happened that allowed him to suddenly become a Corpse Liberation Immortal within such a short period of time?

What exactly had happened during that period of time?

That was the true key to unraveling the mystery.

Qi Jiaozheng gave a bitter smile. “I would also like to know what happened. But one thing is certain. It had nothing to do with the Qi family. If the Qi family truly possessed such capabilities, then wouldn’t it have been better for me to become an Immortal? In that case, I could even compete with Brother Xuan Ji for the position of Grand Master.”

Qi Xuansu said thoughtfully, “In other words, Qi Haoran only attained immortal-level cultivation after leaving the Qi family, and it is most likely connected to Zhou Mengyao.”