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Chapter 266: End of the Holiday
🕑 Added 2024-09-30 08:17:02 +0000 UTCWith the fifteenth day of the lunar month passing, the New Year’s celebration had officially come to an end.
Qin Jianghe was preparing to leave with his mother and Tie Tou’s mother, while General Mo was also getting ready to head back to the capital. Naturally, Mo Yuanjiao and Mo Que were going to see him off.
Since the journey was long, Lin Xiao lent them the spiritual boat for their travels.
Before dawn, Jiang Youfu had already busied himself in the kitchen, preparing and packing large amounts of food for Qin Jianghe and Mo Yuanjiao’s two groups to take with them.
By the time the sky turned pale, both groups had gathered near the Ten-Mile Peach Blossom Tree, their luggage packed and ready. The other members of the Lingxian Sect also came to send them off.
After chatting for a while, Lin Xiao handed the spiritual boat to Qin Jianghe. Following Lin Xiao's instructions, Qin Jianghe activated the boat. It quickly expanded to accommodate six or seven people, just enough for the three headed to Songyang County and the three going to the capital.
Once everyone was aboard, the group took off, flying away from the sect with a storage bag full of food, bathed in the early morning light as they left Xiushui Village behind.
After seeing the six of them off, the Lingxian Sect felt noticeably quieter. But after a moment of wistful reflection, everyone returned to their cultivation chambers on time to begin their daily practice.
Lin Xiao had intended to join them in cultivation, but the system suddenly chimed in his mind:
[Sect Construction—Facility (7): How can a great sect not have a dedicated medicinal garden? A sect without a medicinal garden is incomplete. The host is required to build a medicinal garden as soon as possible, providing a place for cultivating high-grade medicinal herbs.]
Another task.
A medicinal garden, huh...
Thinking about this, Lin Xiao headed toward Liao Pantu's residence. Who else in the sect had more experience in such matters?
After all, many of the herbs they had brought back from the Green Wild Secret Realm still hadn't been planted because some of them had very specific environmental and soil requirements. After inspecting the spiritual fields of the sect, Elder Liao had advised against planting them, as they would likely die.
When Lin Xiao arrived, Liao Pantu was already pouring tea into a new cup and placing it beside him. "What now?" he asked, clasping his hands together and closing his eyes, pretending to rest.
Lin Xiao grinned as he sat down beside him, picked up the tea, and took a sip. "Great tea!" he praised before adding, "Elder, are you interested in managing a medicinal garden?"
Hearing this, Liao Pantu cracked open one eye and looked at him. "You're building a medicinal garden now?"
Lin Xiao nodded. "How about it? Interested? You can design and build it however you like."
"Are you serious? I can build it however I want?" Liao Pantu asked.
Lin Xiao nodded enthusiastically.
Seeing Lin Xiao’s confidence, Liao Pantu felt pleased. Satisfied, he waved his hand and said, "Alright, leave it to me. You don’t need to worry about it!"
"Great! I’ll await your good news!" Lin Xiao cheerfully left Liao Pantu’s house, having successfully delegated the task.
It wasn’t that Lin Xiao was trying to avoid work. He just had other plans to attend to, so the task of building the medicinal garden would have to fall to Elder Liao, who had more expertise.
Meanwhile, thanks to the spiritual boat, Qin Jianghe and his group quickly arrived at Songyang County. They landed in a nearby forest before parting ways. Qin Jianghe took his mother and Tie Tou’s mother into the county, while Mo Yuanjiao and Mo Que continued their journey to return General Mo to the capital.
As they were about to take off again, they noticed someone passing overhead. Looking up, they saw a large spiritual ship speeding eastward.
Mo Yuanjiao only had to think for a moment to realize that the ship most likely belonged to members of the Shangyang Sect. After all, only two sects were in the area—Lingxian Sect and Shangyang Sect.
Given the recent news that some of the Shangyang Sect’s people in the capital were planning to return to reclaim their mountain, it wasn’t surprising to see them now.
Once the spiritual ship disappeared into the distance, Mo Yuanjiao restarted their own spiritual boat, and they resumed their journey.
The Shangyang Sect’s spiritual ship continued for a while after passing Mo Yuanjiao’s group before finally reaching the sect’s mountain. However, the mountain gate was still in the same dilapidated state it had been left in after Wei Hai’s attack. Perhaps because the sect had been leaderless for so long, there wasn’t even a gatekeeper anymore.
Seeing the desolate state of the once-proud sect, the returning members couldn’t help but feel a wave of sadness.
But that didn’t matter now.
They were back! And it would be up to them to restore the Shangyang Sect to its former glory.
Elder Luo, now the de facto leader, strode into the sect with his fellow elders and elite disciples, full of confidence. During their time in the capital, they had argued many times over who should be the new sect leader, but in the end, Elder Luo, who held the sect’s leader’s token, had emerged victorious. Now, he was the official sect leader.
They entered the main square with the mindset of saviors, ready to rally the disciples who had been left behind during the chaos.
However, as Elder Luo stood on the platform and Elder Xu loudly summoned all the disciples, only a handful came out to gather in the square.
Even those who did emerge walked slowly and hesitantly, a far cry from the energetic enthusiasm the Shangyang Sect once had.
The returning elders were stunned.
They immediately began questioning the remaining disciples to find out what had happened.
Only then did they learn that most of the remaining disciples were those who still had some hope of advancing in their cultivation. As for those who saw no future in cultivation, they had taken advantage of the lack of leadership and fled the sect long ago.
These lower-ranking disciples had been the ones assigned all the menial tasks—cleaning, maintenance, and the like. Without them, the sect had become even more desolate.
The only ones who hadn’t escaped were the workers in the sect’s small spirit stone mine. Whether under Wei Hai’s rule or in the aftermath of his death, there had always been cultivators guarding the mine. Whoever controlled the mine pocketed its profits, and as such, some people had remained behind.
But now, with Elder Luo and his group returning to reclaim control, the remaining sect members weren’t exactly happy about it.
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