The Wedding

Baojian was not a hereditary servant of the Mo family. He had only heard one of the old household servants mention it in passing later on. By then, Young Master Mo had grown older and no longer had much contact with the Second Miss Xuanyuan, so Baojian himself was not entirely sure of the details.

After hearing Baojian’s explanation, Sun Yigao understood. He found it rather amusing that Mo Yuanjiao had apparently been bound by a childhood verbal engagement.

Judging from what had just happened, Mo Yuanjiao seemed to be taking fairly good care of the Second Miss Xuanyuan. Otherwise, with his current cultivation at the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, it would have been far too easy for him to quietly shake off a young girl on the way here.

But the Heart-Questioning Path lay just ahead. Once the girl found herself unable to enter, she would probably realize the situation and give up.

Sun Yigao and Mo Yuanjiao had come to the same conclusion.

When Xuanyuan Haoyue reached the foot of North Mountain, she was indeed stopped by the Heart-Questioning Path.

Standing on the mountain road, Mo Yuanjiao called out gleefully, “Can’t get in, can you? Can’t catch up now, can you? Hurry up and go home.”

Xuanyuan Haoyue gazed at the beautiful peach-blossom path before her. It was as though an invisible wall stood at the entrance, preventing her from taking even one more step. Seeing Mo Yuanjiao standing inside with a look of schadenfreude on his face, she couldn’t help growing irritated.

“Jiaomei, go call the carriage!”

The Xuanyuan family’s carriage had been following several people from a distance. Upon receiving the order, the maid called Jiaomei immediately went over and brought it around.

Mo Yuanjiao then watched as the girl, supported by her servants, lifted her skirt and climbed into the carriage. He initially assumed she intended to turn around and go home, but to his surprise, she simply sat down inside. She even had the curtains propped open, sitting there as calmly as an old monk while drinking the tea and eating the fruit prepared in the carriage. Then she raised her eyebrows at Mo Yuanjiao.

It was as if she were saying, “I’m not leaving.”

Mo Yuanjiao was helpless. After thinking it over, he decided that this was, after all, the foot of Lingxian Sect’s mountain, so there shouldn’t be any danger.

He glanced at Xuanyuan Haoyue’s loose, disheveled bun and the hairpin that looked ready to fall out at any moment. In the end, he chose to leave a trace of his divine sense on the peace-lock necklace hanging around her neck.

He remembered that the girl had worn the necklace ever since she was little. She should not easily part with it. That would ensure he could immediately sense it if anything happened to her.

He then said to Xuanyuan Haoyue, “If you refuse to leave, I’m not going to look after you. And if someone bullies you here, don’t go home crying about it.”

With that, he turned and dashed up the mountain.

A few days earlier, he had been learning to carve an extremely complicated formation when he suddenly received a letter from his mother telling him to hurry home.

Since General Mo still held office at court and did not have much time to cultivate on ordinary days, Madam Mo and Old Madam Mo did not often remain at Lingxian Sect to cultivate either. They spent about half their time in the imperial capital.

So it was not unusual for them to summon Mo Yuanjiao home from time to time, and he had not thought much of it.

He had never expected that this time, they wanted him to go home for a matchmaking meeting…

At the thought of this, Mo Yuanjiao couldn’t help shaking his head and letting out a long sigh. He was cultivating immortality now! Where would he find the time or inclination to get married? His mother and grandmother were always worrying about things that were none of their business. Honestly.

In his opinion, if his mother put all those miscellaneous thoughts into cultivation instead, wouldn’t that be much better? How else could three years have passed, and she still only be at the second level of Qi Refining?

Mo Yuanjiao truly couldn’t understand it.

What was the point of getting married? From then on, he would have to keep a girl by his side and take care of her constantly. Girls were the most troublesome creatures in existence. If he wasn’t careful, he might offend her without even knowing where he had gone wrong, and then she would cry pitifully. She looked so miserable that he would feel compelled to comfort her, but the more he tried, the harder she would cry. No matter what he did, it was wrong.

And getting married meant having children too. Mo Yuanjiao decided it was better to forget it. He had a lifespan of several hundred years now—why would he need children?

Besides, cultivation was such a fun thing. Now that he had reached the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm, he was delighted every day just playing around with all kinds of spells. Why would anyone willingly get married and bring trouble upon themselves?

Mo Yuanjiao was worrying over the marriage his mother had arranged for him in the Formation Hall.

On the other side, Old Master Lin was also worrying over Lin Yun’s marriage.

Last year, Lin Lei, the eldest of the Lin family’s grandchildren, had met a girl from Songyang County while carrying out a mission outside the sect. At the time, he had been wearing some old clothes instead of his sect robes because he thought it would be more convenient when working in the local area. The girl had not known Lin Lei’s identity and assumed he was merely a temporary helper accompanying the county government officials.

The girl’s family was responsible for cooking for the runners sent to Songyang County, and the two of them became acquainted after seeing each other repeatedly.

She was a very straightforward person—hardworking, efficient, and sensible in the way she handled matters.

Lin Lei had turned nineteen the previous year. Once the feelings of youth stirred in his heart, he began paying special attention to her.

He was an honest and direct fellow. Once he realized how he felt, he found an opportunity to tell her.

Fortunately, the girl thought Lin Lei was quite a good man as well. Thus, after completing his mission, Lin Lei returned home delighted and had his family visit hers to propose marriage.

When the two families discussed the engagement, both sides were expected to be honest with each other. However, Eldest Uncle Lin was worried that the girl’s family might agree only because of the Lin family’s identity as members of Lingxian Sect, which would make the marriage less than genuine. So they merely claimed to be villagers from Xiushui Village.

Although outsiders knew that Lingxian Sect was located in Xiushui Village, they had no idea which people in the village belonged to the sect.

Only after the two families had reached an agreement and the engagement had been formally settled did Eldest Uncle Lin awkwardly reveal the truth to the girl’s family. Naturally, he had also spent some time observing them and determined that none of them seemed like the sort to gossip or cause trouble.

That was when the girl’s family learned that the young man who had taken a liking to their daughter—and his entire family—were actually the immortals of legend from Lingxian Sect!

For a time, they were both delighted and at a loss as to how to react.

However, the Lin family had specifically instructed them not to spread the news. They had also explained at length how revealing the matter could bring trouble upon their family. As a result, the girl’s family kept the secret tightly under wraps.

They were afraid that if word somehow got out, their daughter’s excellent marriage might fall through.

After the two families discussed the wedding date, they settled on November of that year.

It was midsummer now, so there was still some time before Lin Lei’s wedding.

Thus, to this day, hardly anyone knew that an immortal from Lingxian Sect was about to marry.

With his eldest grandson’s marriage settled, Old Master Lin—who had spent the past few years happily cultivating and farming—suddenly remembered his second grandson, Lin Yun.

Lin Lei was twenty that year, while Lin Yun was only a year younger, making him nineteen as well. Yet he had no marriage prospects at all. Old Master Lin felt that he must have been so absorbed in farming that he had completely forgotten about his grandson.

The more he thought about it, the more troubled he became.

Then he reconsidered. Wasn’t Lin Lei’s marriage being handled by his parents too? As the grandfather, surely it was understandable that he had forgotten. The blame lay with Lin Yun’s father—how could he fail to worry about his own son’s lifelong happiness?

With that thought, he stood up, dusted off his backside, grabbed the hoe lying nearby, and went looking for Lin Dayou to give him a piece of his mind.