Watching the Mountain

Chapter 24: Chapter 19: Caique’s Departure

When Xu Ran saw the Chores Courtyard, he was instantly struck by a peculiar atmosphere, like the chill that settles in as the sun dips below the horizon.

Not only were there few people, but the entire place was desolate, utterly devoid of life, and steeped in a deathly stillness.

It made him feel extremely unsettled.

He had come here once before, several years ago, to visit Ning Caique, and what he had seen then was nothing like this.

His only impression of the Chores Courtyard back then was that it was crowded.

People were everywhere, creating a suffocatingly crowded feeling. Compared to the rest of the Sect, it was like another world.

Yet in the blink of an eye, it had all changed.

He couldn’t help but ask the person guiding him, ”When did it get like this?”

The man replied impassively, ”It started a long time ago. The earliest point would be when Senior Brother Ye Shan entered the Secret Realm. Back then, the Sect’s reputation was at its peak.”

”The Sect hadn’t even begun a new round of recruitment, but the Chores Courtyard was suddenly flooded with new arrivals. The whole place could barely contain them.”

”Later, when the Sect suffered a defeat in the Secret Realm, many people left. After that, the Sect cut its expenditures and dismissed nearly ninety percent of the staff. Only a fraction remained, and all their benefits were slashed.”

”The benefits here now are worse than what you’d get at some Golden Core Sects.”

The man’s tone was perfectly calm, devoid of any emotion. Perhaps he was used to it, or perhaps he was just numb. Either way, it left Xu Ran feeling deeply unsettled.

Xu Ran was an Honorary Elder and didn’t participate in the Sect’s administration. He had only inferred that the Sect’s situation was poor based on a few changes he’d noticed.

But now, having come to the Chores Courtyard, he felt the Sect’s situation was far more severe than he had anticipated.

For a Sect, the Chores Courtyard wasn’t as simple as a place to keep a group of servants for menial labor; it was a crucial reserve of talent.

In truth, a Sect didn’t really need menial laborers at all. The Chores Courtyard existed to catch the talented individuals overlooked during the entrance examinations, giving them a chance to rise above their station.

The path of cultivation involves aptitude, Comprehension, temperament, willpower, and serendipity—things that a single, simple entrance test could never fully gauge.

According to some statistics in the Cultivation Realm, cultivators who emerged from the Chores Courtyard could make up ten to twenty percent of a Sect’s powerhouses, sometimes even thirty percent.

Many of the greatest figures in the Cultivation Realm started in a Chores Courtyard, and they often went on to surpass their more privileged peers.

Now, however, the Sect had purged the Chores Courtyard of most of its disciples. One could only imagine how dire the situation truly was.

Then again, it made sense. In recent years, the Sect’s external assets had been all but destroyed, and three of its main branches had vanished. How could things possibly be good?

And it all began with the fall of Ye Shan, the peerless prodigy who had once dazzled the entire Cultivation Realm.

Xu Ran recalled the man’s words. After a moment of silence, he asked, ”Do you also think it was Senior Brother Ye Shan’s fault?”

The man shook his head. ”Back then, although there was some talk in the Sect—people saying he was too ostentatious, that he shouldn’t have broken through to the Golden Core realm inside the Secret Realm, and that his showboating led to the tragedy...”

”...in reality, that was more an expression of regret for his tragic fate. After all, if he had just been a bit more cautious and broken through to Golden Core safely within the Sect, then we wouldn’t have a fallen prodigy. We’d have a peerless genius capable of leading the Sect to glory. For that, any price would have been acceptable.”

”But even so, very few people truly blamed him, and even fewer hated him. There was only regret and sorrow.”

”But now... now I hate him!”

”I hate him for falling and never getting back up. I hate him for not stepping forward to stop his master, Nine Profound True Monarch, when the True Monarch, wild with grief over his fate, went on a vengeful rampage that caused so much turmoil for our Sect. And I hate him for everything he did before that.”

”As the invincible prodigy in whom the Sect placed all its hopes, he had no right to fall. The fact that he fell is his fault.”

He looked up, his gaze locking onto Xu Ran’s. ”Look at our Chores Courtyard now. Tell me I shouldn’t hate him.”

”Why did he have to fall? He should have remained invincible and led the Sect onward in battle. But no, he just had to fall.”

Xu Ran fell silent at his words.

He had thought that after Ye Shan’s devastating injury, the person who would have the hardest time accepting the fall from grace would be Ye Shan himself. But now it seemed that wasn’t the case. It was the people who had cared about him, the disciples who had once seen him as their idol.

Although the man beside him spoke of hatred, Xu Ran couldn’t detect the slightest trace of it in his voice.

Xu Ran listened closely. The man’s voice was a cauldron of complex emotions, but the hatred he spoke of was conspicuously absent.

To many disciples, the true source of all the Sect’s misfortunes was Nine Profound True Monarch. Even after the incident in the Secret Realm was officially over, he couldn’t bear to see what had happened to his disciple and lashed out in vengeful fury, setting off a chain of tragedies.

Perhaps it was as the man said: Ye Shan should not have fallen, because he truly was an idol to so many disciples.

’And how can an idol be allowed to fall?’

It might have been unfair to Ye Shan, but it was what most disciples truly felt in their hearts.

Take his master, Nine Profound True Monarch, for example.

In fact, there was a crucial detail: even after hearing that Ye Shan had awoken, many other sects still feared him. They continued to provoke the Profound Pure Sect with petty actions, which is what drove Nine Profound True Monarch to lash out in indignation.

From Nine Profound True Monarch’s actions, it was clear that even until the last moment of his life, he believed his disciple would rise again and become that invincible young man once more.

It was just like in his final moments, when he dropped all his defenses to push Ye Shan out of the path of the Divine Techniques that had been aimed at him.

The Ye Shan of the past was an immensely proud man, and no one saw anything wrong with that. Everyone thought it was only natural—the invincible Ye Shan was supposed to be proud.

But when he fell, that pride quietly wounded a great many people.

Perhaps that was why everyone so readily accepted the way he was now.

’Because everyone’s feelings toward him are so complicated; no one knows how to interact with him. A situation like this is actually for the best.’

’It’s better for Ye Shan, and it’s better for the disciples of the Profound Pure Sect.’

*

*

*

After he finished speaking, the man didn’t bring up the topic again. He silently led Xu Ran toward Ning Caique’s residence.

When they arrived before a small courtyard, he stopped, cupped his hands in a slight bow toward Xu Ran, and said, ”I will take my leave now.”

Xu Ran returned the gesture and thanked him. He then stood before the small courtyard for a moment, straightened his clothes, and slowly pushed the gate open.

The moment he pushed open the wooden gate, he saw a little girl with her hair in two buns standing in the courtyard.

The little girl looked to be only four or five years old, and she was tiny.

She stood ramrod straight, her body stiff, her eyes opened so wide it was as if she were using all her strength just to keep them from closing.

The moment the gate swung open, Xu Ran’s gaze met her large, glistening eyes.

Being stared at the moment he opened the gate made him pause. As he was wondering what was going on, the little girl saw him, opened her mouth, and said in a soft, delicate voice:

”You’ve come.”

Then she nodded. ”Come with me.”

Her voice may have been soft and delicate, but her presence was surprisingly forceful. It gave one the strange impression that at any moment she might plant her hands on her hips, thrust her head forward, and start a fight.

Perhaps from standing for so long, she stumbled as she walked, looking as if she might fall at any moment.

Seeing this, Xu Ran started to move forward to steady her. But as if sensing his intent, the little girl whipped her head around, fixed her eyes on him, and said with great seriousness:

”Don’t. I can do it myself.”

”Er...” Xu Ran froze, his hands hovering awkwardly, unsure of what to do with them.

’What a strong-willed, imposing little girl.’

Xu Ran followed the little girl into a room and saw Ning Caique lying on a bed.

Compared to the last time he saw her, her hair was now completely white, her face was lined with wrinkles, and her cheeks had grown much thinner.

But her eyes were remarkably bright.

Hearing the footsteps, she turned her head slightly. Her bright eyes landed on Xu Ran, and a smile touched her lips, suggesting she was in good spirits.

”You came,” she said in greeting.

Xu Ran nodded. ”You can still manage a smile at a time like this. That’s not like you at all.”

Ning Caique smiled faintly again. ”That just shows you don’t know me. You think I enjoy crying, but most of the time, I prefer to face things with a smile. That time with you, I was just too heartbroken. It felt like all the fun in the world was leaving me behind.”

She was referring to when she had cried upon parting with Xu Ran at Xu Family Village.

Xu Ran also smiled faintly. ”Should I be proud of that, then?”

”You absolutely should be. That was one of the very few times I’ve ever cried,” Ning Caique said, her tone uncharacteristically firm.

After speaking, she reached out, stroked the little girl’s head beside the bed, and said:

”Her name is Xiyue. She’s my daughter.”

Seeing Xu Ran’s reaction, she quickly added, ”My adopted daughter. I was off the mountain on an errand when I happened to find her.”

But she had barely finished speaking when the little girl, Xiyue, shot her head up, eyes wide, and declared in a voice that was soft yet unshakeably firm, ”That’s not right. I’m your biological daughter.”

Ning Caique started, about to say something, but Little Xiyue spoke first. ”I am.”

She stared directly at Ning Caique, her small body rigid.

Seeing this, Ning Caique chuckled. She reached out to pinch the girl’s small cheek, then looked at Xu Ran.

”Xiyue is my daughter—my biological daughter. And so, I want her to take you as her master.”

She continued, her voice tinged with apology, ”I hesitated for a long time. In the end, between you and Senior Sister Yue, I still chose to trouble you.”

”I’m sorry, for having to trouble you at the very end.”

The moment she finished, Little Xiyue beside her turned her head, stared at Xu Ran with wide eyes, and said, ”I’m not a bother. I can take care of you, just like I take care of Mother.”

She spoke with the utmost seriousness, but her body was completely rigid, as if frozen solid on a cold winter’s day.