Back to present.
"You never told your condition, Master Kaolin," Taohua said, adding. "May I ask what it is that you want?"
"Sure, it's nothing too difficult; not for our great commander."
Kaolin took his sweet time continuing, causing all the disciples and cultivators around them to perk up their ears and exchange words about what someone like Master Kaolin could possibly ask of the commander.
"I humbly ask you to allow me to meet His Highness in person once I retrieve all three Divine Artefacts."
Kaolin's words, though calmly spoken, struck through the air like a sharp dagger. The murmur of the disciples halted into silence, and even the rustling of robes and shifting feet stopped in the wake of what he had just demanded. In that moment, everyone could feel the weight of this peculiar condition, not just in its boldness but in the sheerimplicationof it.
A few disciples coughed under their breath, others turned to one another, their faces caught somewhere between disbelief and contempt. To see His Highness in person was no small matter, indeed. Even those who had served the Jinlian Sect for centuries had never once looked Zhenhai directly in the eye or gone so far as to speak with him during official celebrations and gatherings!
"Master Kaolin," one of the senior disciples began, cautious, his voice laced with the kind of false respect that hid contempt. "Don't you think such a condition is too much? Even Grandmaster Kilian—"
But Commander Taohua raised a hand, and silence returned that instance. His expression shifted, too; gone was the playful glint in his eye and the smug smile he often wore around the lesser cultivators.
"Let him speak his will," the commander said at last. "If any among us has earned the right to speak conditions, it is the one who once cured His Highness from the illness that struck two centuries ago. You know Master Kaolin by name only, fellow immortals, yet I know him as the man who defied fate itself when His Highness lay dying. If Kaolin demands an audience, it is not out of presumption, I guarantee you all, but out of purpose."
A hush rippled across the gathered cultivators; this was a piece of history none had known, or dared to speak of, that Kaolin had once saved the very immortal whom they pledged allegiance to, most without ever having laid eyes on him. And it was then, from the gathered crowd, a figure stepped forwards as if on cue, the one whose raised hand had defied the silence only moments earlier.
"In that case, please grant me an audience with Immortal Lord Zhenhai too, Commander!" Xiyan said, turning to Kaolin with a playful glint in her eyes. "Just as you've granted audience to Master Kaolin, as the dignified and respected representative of Jinlian."
Kaolin's gaze shifted from indifference to surprise as he locked eyes with Xiyan, whom he saw not merely as a woman like the others, but as someone out of place, sticking out like a sore thumb. An outsider. She wasn't an immortal from Huan-Yue or one of the disciples, yet her spiritual aura was tightly woven and well-concealed. But not enough to escape his notice. There was a hidden rage hidden behind her casual tone and a life shaped not by cultivation, but by loss.
Commander Taohua's expression hardened. It was an expression Kaolin did not think was possible for the commander to make due to how rigid and stoic he usually was, droning on about royalty and brotherhood every chance he got.
"You're not coming with us, Xiyan!"
"You do not command me, Commander!" she retorted without skipping a beat, her eyes ablaze with fire. "Nor do you determine who may or may not prove themselves before Jinlian! Be fair towards me, as you are towards the others! Or has your sense of honour vanished alongside your memories of who I am?"
Taohua clenched his jaws, his eyes welling with tears, and though he said nothing for a moment, the words eventually slipped from between clenched teeth.
"You lack the cultivation needed. Wujing Yuan is not soil for vengeance or childish pride. Do you really think you'd last an hour beyond the outer border? Besides—" He paused, making sure his words got through to her. "—you'd only slow us down."
"You're only saying that to scare me! I've changed! I'm not the Xiyan you remember and want to protect! Why can't you foroncetrust me?"
"About that," Kaolin chimed in before the commander could, addressing him directly. "If given the chance to prove her worth, would you not allow her to come along, Commander?"
Both Taohua and Xiyan turned to him, almost at the same time, as if they only now noticed his presence and weren't by themselves.
"What do you mean? How is she going to prove herself?"
Seeing how he had all the attention on himself, Kaolin continued, folding his arms inside the wide sleeves of his robe.
"I've heard there's an evil spirit roaming around, one that slipped through Wujing Yuan during the recent earthquake along with other demons and devils. The thing devoured three cultivators from Jinzhulin only last fortnight; it now dwells in the Qhinshao Forest."
A shiver went through the crowd as Kaolin finished his speech, for they all knew that even a lesser spirit from Wujing Yuan would be no simple task to take on and bring to heel – if not impossible – not without the right level of cultivation and martial art skills.
"If she subdues it," Kaolin continued, unfazed by the horrified looks the cultivators were giving him, "and returns with its binding fang, I shall accept her into the company. And so should you, Commander."
Taohua gave him a long, heavy look, one that gave away that he didn't like this suggestion, not one bit.
"You're serious… about this?"
"I would not waste breath otherwise."
Taohua turned to Xiyan in a last attempt to persuade her.
"You understand this spirit will not be easy to handle? It was imprisoned along with its demonic master for good reasons. To fight it... is near suicide. You still want to do this? Xiyan, look at me properly and answer!"
"Then I'll die," she said, meeting Commander Taohua's concerned eyes. "What's the big deal? It's just a lowly evil spirit! You keep underestimating me because I'm a girl! It's not like I chose to be—"
"I never underestimated you, Xiyan. I would never! Only I don't want you to—never mind. Just give me your final answer."
"I already told you my answer, Commander."
Her words rang with a clarity that cut through all doubt, and for a moment, even the laughter and scepticism from the surrounding disciples dissolved into silence out of awe and respect. Commander Taohua drew a deep breath then, one that was unmistakably out of defeat but, strangely so, out of deep concern, too.
"So be it," he said. "But should you fail, you fall alone and neither I nor the Tuo household shall grieve your loss."
Xiyan said nothing, only bowed to the commander to confirm him, and then walked off into the shadows that clung to the temple's edge.
Wei Lan stepped beside Kaolin, gaping wide and at a loss for words at what he and the others had just witnessed. The girl had a petite frame, yet her words bore the boldness, or perhaps he should say, the foolhardiness of someone throwing caution to the wind.
"Are you certain this is wise?" he whispered. "She is but a young woman. Look at her. Judging from her aura, has she even cultivated for a full century?"
"Since when have I taught you to look down upon others?" Kaolin replied without sparing him a glance, his eyes following Xiyan until she vanished from sight. "Have you forgotten? Even the God of Space was once a woman, and it was with her divine body that she sealed the Demon God."
Wei Lan's expression stiffened at once. He fell to one knee and lowered his head deeply; one hand pressed firmly against his chest.
"This disciple has spoken out of turn! Please punish me, Master."
Kaolin helped him to his feet.
"Why would I punish you for something spoken without ill intent?" His gaze then darkened slightly. "Still, I cannot deny that this troubles me. An evil spirit from Wujing Yuan is no small matter, not even for someone at my level of cultivation."
At those words, Wei Lan immediately looked up at him, visibly taken aback by what his master seemed to be implying.
"You wish to help her! But why?" Then after a brief pause. "Could she perhaps be connected to your past, like Lord Immortal Zhenhai?
"No," Kaolin cut in. "Nothing like that. I simply admire her guts. But I have no intention of helping her cheat, either. Where would the fun in that be?"
Wei Lan stared at him blankly for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the casual remark. "Master, surely you do not mean to travel all the way to the Qinshao Forest merely to... watch?"
"And why not?" Kaolin replied. "Besides, what could possibly make this day more interesting than that? Hmm?"
"But Kaolin—"
"Enough! Follow me. We cannot afford to lose her trail."
Wei Lan stood frozen for a moment, speechless, his expression caught between disbelief and frustration as his master strolled through the bustling crowd with his hands clasped behind his back. He was even whistling! As though they were not on their way to witness a life-and-death clash in one of the most cursed forests known to both mortals and immortals alike!