Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

Rain pattered steadily outside.

“The Splendorbloom Secret Realm?” Xu Yinhe sat upright in the seat of honor.

“It seems you already know about it, Father.” Xu Yuan nodded.

“Lou Ji has informed me.” Xu Yinhe’s voice remained calm and unhurried. Any matter involving a secret realm would be submitted for his review at the earliest opportunity.

“Then have you already sent someone to investigate it?” Xu Yuan asked.

“No.” Xu Yinhe rejected the idea without hesitation.

“Why?” Xu Yuan was slightly surprised.

“The risk is disproportionate to the reward.” Xu Yinhe answered plainly, “Lou Ji reported that there are second rank spirit puppets inside, and the formations are still functioning.”

Xu Yuan did not quite understand what his father meant.

“That secret realm has existed for far too long. Besides, the only truly valuable thing inside, the Beguiling Divine Sakura, has already been cut down by you lot.” Xu Changge glanced at him and said coolly.

Xu Yuan froze for a moment and silently cursed that old hag before saying, “20,000 years is certainly a long time, but when I entered before, the basic formations were still intact. There were even a few surviving spirit puppets, and the mountain gate was almost completely preserved.”

“So what if it is?” Xu Changge took a sip of tea. “You have never handled matters involving secret realms before. There are many things you do not understand.”

How am I supposed to understand if you never teach me? Xu Yuan rolled his eyes, suppressing the urge to plant his fist squarely in his eldest brother’s face.

Still, since Xu Changge had said as much, the Chancellor’s Manor had probably already developed a complete system for evaluating and exploiting secret realms.

At that moment, Xu Yinhe gently set down his teacup and asked a crucial question. “Changtian, from what you are saying, it seems the Splendorbloom Secret Realm was never ravaged by war?”

Suppressing his irritation, Xu Yuan thought for a moment. “That’s right. The destruction of the Splendorbloom Sect happened because of a very unusual accident.”

Xu Yinhe lightly tapped his fingers against the table. “That truly is a pity. An intact secret realm is something one can only encounter by chance. Unfortunately, far too much time has passed.”

His father had reached the same conclusion as Xu Changge. But Xu Yinhe continued with an explanation of his own.

“In a secret realm this ancient, the voidstones used to create and stabilize the space would have lost their integrity long ago. Every time we enter, we cause the entire space to tremble. In other words, we have no way of knowing when it might collapse completely. And even if the mountain gate itself remains intact, the passage of time will have corroded the materials, medicinal gardens, and every other resource inside. Even if we entered and cleared out the spirit puppets and formations, the most we could recover would be a handful of obsolete cultivation arts and manuals.”

Only after hearing his father’s explanation did Xu Yuan finally understand.

Time was a butcher’s knife. Whether cutting down people or objects, it showed no favoritism. 10,000-year-old spirit herbs and pills existed only in storybooks in this world.

Many medicinal plants did have long growth cycles, but even the slowest of them could usually be harvested after 20-odd years. A hundred years was already the absolute limit for a spirit herb. Any longer than that, and it would simply rot in the ground.

The same applied to the pills, artifacts, and equipment stored in the warehouses of ancient sects. Some secret realms did have specialized spirit puppets and formations to maintain their stockpiles, greatly delaying the onset of decay. But 20,000 years was simply too long.

The meager scraps left behind in the Splendorbloom Sect’s secret realm would be a Heaven-sent fortune to an individual. To a behemoth like the Chancellor’s Manor, however, they were little more than chicken ribs, too wasteful to throw away, yet hardly worth the trouble of retrieving.

Rain continued to patter outside, and the main hall fell silent for a time.

Xu Yuan did know of secret realms that suited his family’s needs. There were probably more than a dozen of them, all told.

The problem was that during Xu Yuan’s journey north to the capital, that iceberg of a woman and resident treasure-hunting maiden had left his party. Even if he knew the general locations, with a Luck stat as abysmal as his, there was no chance he could actually find them.

And if he had never been there, how was he supposed to produce them? He could hardly say, Father, I have a feeling there might be a secret realm somewhere around there. Why don’t you send a few people to search for it?

Seeing Xu Yuan lapse into silence, Xu Yinhe gently consoled him. “Since you have brought the matter up, tell me more about this Splendorbloom Sect. I have never heard of it before.”

“You don’t know about the Splendorbloom Sect?”

A faint smile appeared in Xu Yinhe’s sharp eyes as he looked at him. “I do indeed know many things. But there are just as many things beneath Heaven that I do not know.”

Xu Yuan gave an awkward laugh. Out of habit, he had assumed that a sect as glorious and powerful as the Splendorbloom Sect must have left behind at least a few records within the Chancellor’s Manor.

He had forgotten that all of this had happened 20,000 years ago. Even 10,000 years could turn seas into fields and erase countless things from the world.

The people and events of the Splendorbloom Sect’s age had long since vanished into the river of time.

After a brief silence, Xu Yuan gave his father a general account of the Splendorbloom Sect. It had been a dual-cultivation sect. By relying on the Divine Sakura Dao Essence of the Beguiling Divine Sakura, it had nurtured a group of powerful cultivators and risen to glory. He also described roughly what remained inside the secret realm.

Xu Yinhe listened carefully. After pondering for a moment, he asked, “If that is the case, what did you mean earlier about the Sumeru Rings?”

Xu Yuan answered without the slightest hesitation. “Many powerful cultivators died in the Splendorbloom Secret Realm. Back then, more than half of the strongest cultivators beneath heaven died inside, so there should be quite a few Sumeru Rings left behind.”

“Oh?” Xu Yinhe’s eyes narrowed slightly at those words, but he did not ask how such a thing had come to pass.

To the Chancellor’s Manor, the exact events of 20,000 years ago were irrelevant. What mattered was whether the things left behind could still bring them any benefit.

Noticing the look in his father’s eyes, Xu Yuan ventured, “After 20,000 years, wouldn’t the formations engraved inside those Sumeru Rings have already decayed?”

Xu Yuan had discussed Sumeru Rings with Xu Xinyao before.

There were three reasons they were so rare. First, their creation required the assistance of a Sage. Second, it required a grandmaster of formations. And third, the sects of ancient times had mined voidstones without restraint, using them to construct secret realms for themselves until the stones had all but vanished from the world.

The first two problems could be solved. The third was a dead end.