In the Zongmen Hall of the Qingxuan Holy Land.
The atmosphere was oppressive to the extreme.
"Sect Master! All the Xianling Cranes on Zhuo Peak died today. It was Gu Xiu who deliberately mixed Hua Gu Powder into their feed. This disciple saw it with my own eyes and can testify!"
"Master, this disciple has also investigated. The Xianling Cranes were indeed killed by Hua Gu Powder. I also found this bottle of Hua Gu Powder in Gu Xiu's residence."
The accusations ringing in his ears snapped the dazed Gu Xiu back to his senses.
"Gu Xiu, tell me, is what they're saying true?"
A breathtakingly beautiful woman in a Phoenix Robe, her bearing one of immense grace, sat upon the Sect Master's throne, her expression stern as she gazed at Gu Xiu.
*Was I... in an Illusory Realm just now? A dream that lasted ten thousand years?*
Gu Xiu murmured to himself, his eyes filled with horror as he took in the familiar yet alien surroundings.
A moment ago, he had been in the Zongmen Hall, vehemently arguing his innocence in the matter of the poisoned Xianling Cranes, when he was suddenly dragged into an Illusory Realm.
There, he had become a mere spectator, watching his own life play out from beginning to end...
"Gu Xiu, the evidence is irrefutable, and you were caught red-handed! What more do you have to say for yourself? You must have felt that being made to feed spirit beasts was an insult, so you did this to vent your anger, didn't you? Master, I've said it before: Gu Xiu isn't fit to stay on Zhuo Peak, let alone feed the spirit beasts!"
Little Senior Sister Lu Qingyao berated him, while Third Senior Sister Xu Wanqing shook her head in disappointment.
"Gu Xiu, five hundred years ago, you were an honorable man. I never imagined you would sink to this. If you didn't want to stay on Zhuo Peak and feed the spirit beasts, you could have just said so. Why resort to such extreme measures?"
"I thought that in the past five hundred years, you had only lost your cultivation and your innate talent. I never thought you would lose your Dao Heart as well!"
Both of these women were his senior sisters.
Little Senior Sister Lu Qingyao was a Beast Tamer renowned throughout the lands, while Third Senior Sister Xu Wanqing was the chief Alchemist of the Qingxuan Holy Land.
As for the one on the Sect Master's throne...
That was Gu Xiu's Master, Guan Xuelan—a Supreme of the Great Ascension Stage and the Sect Master of the Qingxuan Holy Land. Her disposition was cold and she was not one for pleasantries.
At this moment, the gazes of all three were strikingly similar.
Disgust!
They weren't looking at the hero who had sacrificed himself in the Forbidden Land for five hundred years, losing his cultivation and innate talent for the sake of the sect.
They were looking at...
Trash. Trash that should die immediately, lest it tarnish the sacred air of the sect.
These were gazes Gu Xiu had grown accustomed to over the past three years, but they still made him involuntarily recall what he had just witnessed in the Illusory Realm.
Only a moment had passed in the outside world, but within the Illusory Realm, ten thousand years had gone by.
In the Illusory Realm, Gu Xiu had become a spectator—or perhaps, one listening to a tale unfold—and had witnessed the stories of this world over the next ten thousand years.
The events of this moment were but a trivial footnote in that grand story.
The truth of the Xianling Cranes' death was that his Third Senior Sister had poisoned them, with his Little Senior Sister's help.
And their goal?
It was to drive him out of his residence on Zhuo Peak. They wanted the space to build a beast pen for their Little Junior Brother, Jiang Xun, to practice the art of beast taming.
As direct disciples of the esteemed Qingxuan Holy Land, they couldn't just seize another direct disciple's residence by force.
They needed, at the very least, a legitimate-sounding reason.
Whether that reason was flimsy, or whether the victim would accept it... was irrelevant.
After all, with his cultivation completely destroyed, Gu Xiu was now a cripple with no power to resist.
According to the future he had seen in the Illusory Realm, Gu Xiu would have refused to admit to the crime he was framed for, trying everything in his power to find evidence and prove his innocence.
But he never would have expected that his own Master, Guan Xuelan, had known the truth all along!
In fact, it was Guan Xuelan who had instructed Third Senior Sister Xu Wanqing to poison the Xianling Cranes.
She was the true mastermind behind it all!
Even though he had seen all this in an Illusory Realm where a glance spanned ten thousand years, Guan Xuelan's indifferent gaze at this very moment made Gu Xiu understand.
That was likely no illusion.
It was real.
A reality so real, it was heartbreaking...
"Master, Gu Xiu has always been in charge of the spirit beasts. When something happens to them, according to sect rules, the responsibility is his. Not to mention, he actively poisoned them! He must be punished severely!" Little Senior Sister Lu Qingyao declared self-righteously.
His Master, Guan Xuelan, frowned. "Gu Xiu, you have rendered great service to the sect in the past. Confess honestly, and I will not punish you too harshly."
This time, Gu Xiu remained silent.
"Gu Xiu..."
Guan Xuelan was about to speak again when Gu Xiu suddenly looked up.
"This disciple was at fault."
"Oh?" Guan Xuelan was taken aback, not expecting Gu Xiu to admit it so readily. Still, she nodded. "Then tell me, why did you poison the Xianling Cranes?"
"I did not poison the Xianling Cranes."
"You're changing your story now?"
"I am not." Gu Xiu shook his head, his tone flat. "I have always been responsible for feeding the immortal birds. That the Xianling Cranes were poisoned on my watch is indeed a dereliction of my duty."
At his words, Guan Xuelan flew into a rage as if she had been mocked.
"You dare make a fool of me! Since you insist on being stubborn, you will be punished in the water prison!"
"You are to be confined to the water prison for seven days!"
"Furthermore, you are to move out of Zhuo Peak immediately. You are forbidden from residing there and from ever going near the spirit beasts again!"
At this, smiles of relief appeared on the faces of Xu Wanqing and Lu Qingyao.
Gu Xiu glanced at them.
In the end, he said nothing. He simply averted his gaze and walked out of the Zongmen Hall.
In his heart, there was no sense of injustice from being wrongly accused, no indignation from being slandered.
He only found it laughable.
Laughable that for the past few years, he had so carefully protected the sect and cautiously treated his master and senior sisters.
He was an orphan, taken in by the previous Sect Master of the Qingxuan Sect. After arriving, the old Sect Master had placed the young boy in Guan Xuelan's care.
That had been the happiest time of his life.
He became the young disciple of the Sect Master's successor, Guan Xuelan. His master doted on him, and his seven senior sisters spoiled him rotten.
In those days, Gu Xiu was a prodigy, the hope of the entire sect.
But five hundred years ago, when the Fuyuan Forbidden Land appeared, the Qingxuan Sect was on the brink of annihilation. Someone had to represent the sect, enter the Forbidden Land, and endure five hundred years of torment to seize a great fortune for them all.
As the sect's Holy Son, Gu Xiu stepped forward.
He offered himself as a sacrifice, binding himself and entering the Forbidden Land alone.
For five hundred years, Gu Xiu endured inhuman torment. To seize the great fortune for his sect, he gritted his teeth and persevered.
In the end, he succeeded.
Gu Xiu seized the entirety of the karmic fortune, and in just five hundred years, the Qingxuan Sect rose from an unknown, third-rate sect to a first-rate Holy Land.
But Gu Xiu paid an enormous price.
The five hundred years of battle and slaughter had left him with countless Dao injuries, nearly shattering his very soul. Though he had managed to cling to life, his cultivation was gone, his innate talent and constitution utterly destroyed. Worse, the lingering Dao injuries subjected him to constant, unbearable pain.
To the Gu Xiu of the past, it had all been worth it.
This was his sect, and the people he cared for were here.
But...
Five hundred years pass in the blink of an eye.
And in five hundred years, oceans can turn into mulberry fields.
The Qingxuan Sect had become the Qingxuan Holy Land. Guan Xuelan had become Xuelan Supreme. Even his senior sisters had each gained great renown in their respective fields of alchemy, talismans, artifact refinement, and more.
Everything had changed.
When Gu Xiu returned, the flowers and applause he had imagined were nowhere to be found. Instead, he was greeted with a single statement:
"Gu Xiu, your Dantian Sea is completely destroyed, and your innate talent and constitution are gone. There is no longer any possibility for you to cultivate. We have given the position of Holy Son to someone else."
"He is your Little Junior Brother, Jiang Xun. His cultivation is not yet high, but his talent is no less than yours was. He has immense potential in all Six Paths. He can be the second you, and lead the Qingxuan Holy Land to greater heights."
"From now on, you can live out your days peacefully in the sect. Don't worry, the sect will take care of you until the end."
Those words had deeply pained Gu Xiu at the time.
Not because of the attitude of his master and sisters, but because he could no longer contribute to the sect's glory.
But at that time, he could never have imagined that he himself would become the most redundant burden in the sect.
Aside from the initial polite reception upon his return, it wasn't long before he became an outcast—ignored, detested, and scorned by all.
That alone was tragic enough.
But from the future he had glimpsed in the Illusory Realm, his fate was destined to be even more pathetic...
Even in his crippled state, he would ultimately sacrifice his life for the sect.
The laughable part was that after he gave his life for the sect, not a single person mourned him. Instead, the entire sect turned to celebrate the breakthrough of his Little Junior Brother, Jiang Xun.
No one.
Not a single person shed a tear for him...
It wasn't until that Little Junior Brother revealed his true colors, turning on them without mercy, that the Qingxuan Holy Land was utterly destroyed with no one to come to its aid.
Only then did they finally feel regret.
But...
What good did that do?
"If that Illusory Realm was the future... then my life is truly pathetic."
Shaking his head, Gu Xiu collected his thoughts.
"Without this revelatory dream, I might have followed that path to my death, step by step, just as I saw."
"But now that I have glimpsed the secrets of fate..."
"I cannot walk that same path to ruin."
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"As for this sect..."
"I'm better off without it!"
Gu Xiu had once been blindly loyal, but now, after this sudden awakening, he wanted to change everything.
If that ten-thousand-year vision was a past life, then in this life, he would no longer live for the Qingxuan Holy Land.
He wanted to live this life for himself!
With this thought, Gu Xiu hurried toward his residence.
If he wanted to live for himself, the first step was to leave the Qingxuan Holy Land.
But before he left, there were two things he had to retrieve.
Two opportunities that belonged to him and him alone.
He ran all the way back, passing many disciples of the Qingxuan Holy Land. But every one of them pointedly ignored him, pretending not to see him at all.
This was the norm.
By seniority, he was their Martial Uncle. But clearly, these Inner Disciples, all at least at the Foundation Establishment stage, had no intention of addressing a mortal with crippled cultivation, one estranged from his own master and sisters, as such.
Gu Xiu paid them no mind.
Right now, his only concern was his two treasures.
Especially one of them.
Because, if the timeline from the Illusory Realm was accurate, that particular treasure was due to be stolen today.
He had to protect his opportunity!
Rushing as fast as he could, Gu Xiu finally made it back to his residence on Zhuo Peak. But as he reached the entrance, his brow furrowed.
He had run back with all his might, but he was too late.
His opportunity was already in someone else's hands.
The person holding his prize had also noticed his hurried return. An expression of worry and concern immediately bloomed on his face.
"Senior Brother, are you alright?"
"I heard Master punished you. I was so worried I came to check on you."
The young man was dressed in green robes, his features as handsome as carved jade. Though his cultivation was not yet high, he stood there exuding a natural Dao charm.
He was none other than Gu Xiu's deeply hidden and incredibly calculating Little Junior Brother.
Jiang Xun!
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