Chapter 1985: Warning
“Hub of Freedom?” Zu An repeated. He had really never expected the Hub of Freedom to be a branch of the Devil Sect. He couldn't help but become a bit confused. “Huh? But in Cloudcenter Commandery, the Pegasus and Zhenyuan Merchant Groups seemed to be fighting quite intensely.”
One had the Hub of Freedom backing them, while the other had the Devil Sect behind them. At the time, the two had been tearing at each other's throats and wanted the other to disappear from this world, but after all of that, they were actually both from the same place?
Yan Xuehen didn’t seem too bothered. She replied, “I told you that the Devil Sect was no longer the Devil Sect of the past. After the divide more than a hundred years ago, the three schools and six paths have practically already all split apart. Furthermore, because of the Devil Sect’s savage nature, their relationships with each other might even be worse off than those between ordinary sects.”
Zu An nodded to himself. Even one's own family would become practically strangers once they were two or three generations away, let alone these clans that had been apart for more than a hundred years.
“The current Devil Sect mainly sees the Heavenly Devil School as their leader. Beyond that, places like the Shadow Group and Hub of Freedom have already become formidable forces of their own and will not listen to the ideas of any Devil Sect Master,” Yan Xuehen said.
She didn’t feel happy about the situation at all. It was something even she sympathized with Yun Jianyue about. The Devil Sect was divided, but weren’t the daoists the same? However, the daoists did walk the orthodox path, so they were still reasonable to some extent, unlike the Devil Sects’ factions that were just too inflexible against each other.
“What's the situation with the other factions?” Zu An asked.
Chu Chuyan brought over a cup of tea and said, “Master, have some tea to moisten your throat.” At the same time, she told Zu An with a smile, “I've never seen master speak so much to a man before.”
Yan Xuehen immediately felt guilty. She tried to cover the truth up while drinking tea and replied, “In the end, am I not helping your man?”
“Yes, of course; this disciple will thank master in Ah Zu’s place,” Chu Chuyan said, helping Yan Xuehen massage her shoulders with a big smile and an obedient attitude.
When she saw Zu An look at the two of them with an ambiguous smile, Yan Xuehen just felt a bit strange. After all, she knew about their relationship. She pushed her disciple away and said, “Enough already; stop getting in the way of proper business. The recording mirror costs a lot to use.”
Then, she recovered her usual cold demeanor and continued to explain, “The Treasure Hunter Path, as the name implies, had a founder who was a master of Feng Shui. Of course, that is their romanticized way of explaining things. In reality, they are tomb raiders. Almost all of their members engage in tomb raiding, and they are especially passionate about robbing the tombs of the ancient past, or the present world's nobles. They look for all kinds of treasures and secret technique inheritances.”
When Zu An heard that, he couldn't but sigh. No wonder the Devil Sect’s reputation was so bad. There was no way the people in such of work wouldn’t be hated!
“The Treasure Hunter Path seems to be divided into several factions, and even I do not know them too well. However, because they have offended too many powerful individuals and their descendents, they were targeted severely and have declined the most out of all of the Devil Sect’s factions. It is now hard to find even a few of their inheritors," Yan Xuehen said. She then added, “By the way, I heard that they have a branch on the Fiend side. I wonder how that side is doing now.”
Zu An had a weird expression. That fatty Wu Liang he had met in the Fiend races' territory seemed to be from a tomb raiding clan. Could they be a branch of the Treasure Hunter Path? Their clan’s treatment wasn't much different from that of the Treasure Hunter Path on the human side. As expected, tomb raiders really didn’t have much popularity no matter where one went…
“There is also the Yin Yang Path,” Yan Xuehen said. Her face suddenly turned a bit red, and her expression was full of disdain as she continued, “Their path talks about yin and yang harmony between men and women. That is fine and all as an objective, but eventually, they went the wrong way and most of them began to research… techniques of the bedroom.”
Zu An thought to himself, So what if they study those techniques? Isn’t passionate love an important part of the world? If he were alone with Chu Chuyan, or even with Yan Xuehen, he would argue a bit for them on the spot. However, when both of them were together, he sensibly chose to give up on that thought.
When she saw Yan Xuehen become silent, Chu Chuyan just thought of it as her master being too embarrassed to continue, so she explained for her, “The Yin Yang Path’s people say that it is for the sake of yin and yang harmony, but many of them have long since lost themselves in indulgence of superficial carnal desires. Many of them have started… cultivating together with Heavenly Devil School members.
“Even so, those female disciples from the Heavenly Devil School are all extremely formidable and their ‘standards’ high ; they aren’t women that those from the Yin Yang Sect can mess around with however they want to. That's why they often kidnap women from respectable families to use as their personal tools. A large portion of the Devil Sect’s bad reputation comes from them.”
Zu An said with a scowl, “Those people truly deserve to die ten thousand times over.”
If both sides were willing in the first place, that was understandable. But that kind of behavior really was intolerable. He thought, To be honest, why is Yun Jianyue even letting scum like this stay in the sect?
As if guessing his thoughts, Yan Xuehen said, “This is not actually something that can be blamed on Yun Jianyue. Even though she is a woman, first and foremost, she is a sect master. After the divide of the Devil Sect, there are still some from the Yin Yang Path who support the Heavenly Devil School faction. If they brought the hammer down on the entire sect, not only would the Heavenly Devil School lose their leadership position, the entire Devil Sect would become even more divided.”
Chu Chuyan gave her master a look of surprise. She hadn’t expected her to speak up so much for her enemy’s sake.
“What are you looking at me for?” Yan Xuehen snapped impatiently, “I am merely speaking of things as they are. Even though Yun Jianyue and I are enemies, I still acknowledge her in certain areas.”
Chu Chuyan smiled and replied, “No one asked you anything, so what are you feeling so guilty for, master?”
“You’re getting cheekier and cheekier, aren’t you?” Yan Xuehen retorted, feeling a bit helpless. She wanted to act with the dignity of a master, but whenever she thought about the two's special relationship, she felt so guilty that she wasn't able to really get that angry.
“What about the other few paths?” Zu An asked as he coughed lightly and helped Yan Xuehen out of her difficult position.
“The Unfeeling Path, as the name implies, cares about being emotionless…” Yan Xuehen began.
Before Yan Xuehen finished her sentence, Zu An voiced his surprise. “Why does it sound a bit similar to your White Jade Sect’s technique?”
“Of course it’s different,” Yan Xuehen snapped in annoyance. “We care about being unshakable, while they seek heartlessness without righteousness. Even family, friends, master, and disciples can be abandoned at a moment’s whim. Furthermore, people from their sect are often eccentrics whose behavior is grotesque and extreme. They cannot be viewed as normal people.”
Zu An recalled the origins of the other factions and couldn't help but ask, “What kind of livelihoods do those people typically engage in?”
“That I am not sure of, but they all seem to have some… hobbies that are not as accepted by normal conventions. Niche, neglected branches seem to receive the most respect among them. They seem to take pride in and enjoy the fact that they do not engage in mainstream activities,” Yan Xuehen replied.
“Not mainstream?” Zu An repeated, a bit startled when he heard that somewhat familiar wording. He was curious as to whether the founding master of the Unfeeling Path was another transmigrator from his past world.
Yan Xuehen didn’t notice that the wording ended up bringing him such surprise and continued, “The Secret Path practices secrecy through code words. They originated from the study of ancient divination. There were some who created some bizarre prophetic words, all of which were accurate; that was viewed by the people of the world as a miracle. Of course, more of those words of prophecy ended up vanishing in history.”
Zu An wondered if those prophetic words had anything to do with his Baopu Sutra’s divination and Qi Yaoguang’s astrological divinations.
“This faction is viewed by normal society as a group of religious idiots. Their first generation leader was a religious idiot, but this generation’s Secret Path leader is quite capable. Apart from the prophetic speech from the group, he is also good at formations. The reason why the Devil Sect has been able to exist all this time, apart from the Lake of Hatred being hidden well within the mountain depths, is also because he created an enormous formation near the Lake of Hatred that hides the Devil Sect’s main headquarters. There are even rumors that his achievements in formations are on par with those of Yan Xiangu,” Yan Xuehen said, her voice full of admiration.
“So it was like that!” Zu An remarked as he finally realized what was going on. He had always been confused before. No matter how well hidden the Devil Sect was, how could it have been hidden from the court all this time? So it turned out they actually had such an outstanding formation master.
“Maybe it is because their requirements for their members are quite high, so the Secret Path does not have many members. Even though their status in the Devil Sect is high, they are not particularly influential,” Yan Xuehen continued. “There is also the Freedom and the Pear Path. Those of the Freedom Path are either artists or musicians. They care the most about elegance and beauty. Comparatively speaking, they are the members of the Devil Sect that have the best reputation.”
“Artists?” Zu An repeated. He thought that these people probably would have had quite a few common topics to talk about with Yu Yanluo and the late libationer.
“As for the Pear Path, their founding master was a world-renowned opera singer, so that is why they tend to have more performing artists among their group. Their status in society is rather low, so many of them were dissatisfied and wanted to change that,” Yan Xuehen suddenly said with a serious expression. “They do not stand as aloof from worldly affairs as the Freedom Path. Their faction seems to be becoming stranger and stranger now. Regardless of whether it is their way of thinking or their cultivation, they are strange and difficult to defend against. You need to be careful. You cannot let yourself be caught off guard.”
When he saw how serious she was being, Zu An didn’t dare to act carelessly. He asked, “Where does the strangeness of their methods lie?”
“I do not know exactly, as I have not faced them directly. However, there are some from the sect who have fought them. I heard that they did not even know how the enemy attacked before they perished. That is why all those who met them all stated that they did not wish to meet those people ever again for the rest of their lives,” Yan Xuehen said. Her tone even made the room itself seem to become a bit colder.
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