Chapter 65 Part 2

He had originally appeared like an immortal, with his blue-and-white long hair and ice-and-snow features making him seem as if he had descended from the heavens. But in a very short time, he had suffered several heavy blows, leaving him much more haggard.

As Pei Ji had said, the greatest blow to him was not that his master believed he had betrayed Tianling Sect, but that his master fundamentally did not believe in the years of camaraderie and kindness between them.

Previously, Gao Chunqiu had been agonizing over the dilemma between his sect’s grace and his family’s vendetta.

But in the end, his immortal-like master did not believe he would feel any gratitude toward the sect at all. In his master’s heart, Gao Chunqiu was not someone capable of gratitude! All his sincere feelings had been wasted!

“Because we are of the Demon Race,” Pei Jiye said coolly. “Even if we started as humans, now that we’ve awakened our Demon Race Bloodline, Nine Spirits Sect treats us like Spirit Beasts to extract Bloodline Divine Abilities from, and the Tianling Sect Master sees us as Demon Domain cultivators. We’ve been expelled from the Human Race.”

Only then did Gao Chunqiu realize he had voiced his inner resentment.

His body trembled slightly, his emotions surging. “If we truly weren’t bound by such feelings, why are there countless tales of love, hate, and passion between Demon Race and Human Race? Besides, if I really didn’t care, why would I pursue my family’s vendetta? I would have flown to Demon Race territory and secluded myself in some valley long ago!!”

The exquisitely beautiful black bird couldn’t help but roll its eyes.

Yao Huang had been the same back then, clutching his sleeve and crying her heart out—just in time for Tianling Sect Master to see it, leading her to misunderstand that Yao Huang had shifted her affections, even staging a melodramatic “if you’re heartless, I’ll divorce you” scene that thoroughly disgusted Pei Jiye at the time.

Back then, Pei Jiye was being hunted by the Immortal Sect Orthodox while hearing that Xie Linlang had held a Dao Companion Ceremony with someone else. His state was at its worst. He couldn’t be bothered with the mess, so he simply used Yao Huang as a meat shield, broke through the encirclement of Immortal Sect cultivators, and fled in a sorry state back to the Demon Domain.

Pei Jiye asked, “So what do you think? Do you still want to avenge the Qiu Family?”

Gao Chunqiu opened his mouth, instinctively glancing at the black bird in the shadows. He let out a pained whimper before saying after a long pause, “I don’t know. I don’t even know what the truth of that year was.”

His trust in Pei Jiye was at rock bottom, but considering their shared bloodline, Gao Chunqiu hesitated and said, “Setting aside the vendetta for now, I really want to find the child my mother left behind that year.”

“Your younger sibling?”

“I don’t know if it’s a brother or sister.”

Pei Jiye was puzzled. “You don’t know?”

Gao Chunqiu smiled bitterly and explained in detail, “Silent Night Palace’s pursuit back then was too swift and urgent. Though my mother was pregnant, it wasn’t full term. Whether aborting or extracting it would severely damage her vitality, so my parents discussed and… directly removed her fetal palace and placed it in a Taming Bag for nurturing Spirit Beasts.”

Pei Jiye: “…Ah?”

Gao Chunqiu hurriedly added, “It’s somewhat like refining a part of the body into a second nascent soul or second substitute—a rather obscure secret art. My mother did this as an emergency measure, planning to retrieve it once the crisis passed.”

Pei Jiye suddenly understood, then hissed, “A genius idea.”

Gao Chunqiu sighed. “My mother had no talent in cultivation but some ingenuity in spells. Shizun used to say the same… Sigh. Besides the Taming Bag, Father left a token for recognition, imprinted with a secret art to ensure neither the Taming Bag nor the token emitted any spiritual fluctuations. Then he entrusted them to an ordinary family.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard to find, right?”

“…It’s not that simple. To avoid attention, Father chose a somewhat reputable mortal squire family in the area. Many years later, Mother asked Shizun to send people to search, only to learn that due to conflicts between cultivators, the terrain had changed, rivers diverted, and the next year a mountain flood poured down—that area… was inundated.”

Pei Jiye nearly laughed out loud, barely holding back from saying “serves them right.”

“The local villagers scattered in escape, and that family migrated with the flow, who knows where.”

Gao Chunqiu frowned tightly. “I only know they’re probably still in the Demon Domain, that my unknown younger brother or sister is still alive, and there’s a token left by Father. That’s all…”

Pei Jiye pondered for a moment and found the matter troublesome.

“If it’s a child that’s already grown, it would be manageable. As the descendant of a cultivator, your sibling likely has a demonic seed or spiritual root and would inevitably join a sect to cultivate.”

But when Gao Chunqiu’s mother had extracted the child, it had been the entire fetal palace, meaning the child was still slumbering inside, without independent mobility.

Without finding that family from back then, it was utterly hopeless.

“What if something happened to that family? The Taming Bag and token would probably be sold for money…”

Pei Jiye asked further, “Ordinary people might not recognize the Taming Bag’s value, but the token? What did your father leave as the token?”

Gao Chunqiu said without hesitation, “A Black Jade Pendant—the only treasure preserved after the Qiu Family’s destruction, kept by Father.”

“Black Jade Pendant? And? What pattern? What does it look like? Size?”

“No pattern, palm-sized, a very ordinary jade pendant. It reacts to my blood.”

Pei Jiye said flatly, “Silent Night Palace has considerable influence and territory. I can have people try to search, but honestly, with so little information, the success rate isn’t high.”

Gao Chunqiu sighed. “Sigh, I know it’s difficult, but I have to find some answers.”