It Would Be Good to Be Reborn

After hearing that, Liu Yunan hesitated before asking everyone, “Do you think the way we’ve arranged things makes us seem a little… unwelcoming?”

In the past, matters concerning new recruits had always been arranged and overseen entirely by Lin Xiao.

This was the first time anyone present had ever formally welcomed complete strangers into the sect. For all of them, it was a brand-new experience.

Mo Yuanjiao also spoke uncertainly. “Having the people who arrive first wait in a thatched shed… doesn’t that seem a little unfriendly?”

Everyone fell silent and began to think it over seriously.

Jiang Youfu, however, looked completely unconcerned. After swallowing the fried beans in his mouth, he said, “What’s the big deal? When our sect was first starting out, Brother Xiao and I cultivated in a thatched shed. It’s a tradition of our sect. Let the newcomers experience it too. Wouldn’t that be great?”

“All right, let’s not overthink this. We’ve already done everything we could. A few oversights are perfectly normal. Cultivation is a matter of mutual willingness. If they’re unhappy with us, they can leave. We’re not silver—we can’t possibly be loved by everyone. Let’s leave it at that.”

Qin Jianghe brought the discussion to a decisive end.

The young men and women thought about it and decided he had a point, so they cast aside their worries and stopped dwelling on them.

The elders were not especially curious about the newcomers, and hardly any of them had come. The oldest person in the entire Miscellaneous Affairs Hall was Mo Que, who stood beside Mo Yuanjiao, but he would never offer his opinion. As long as his young master had no objections, that was enough for him.

“Speaking of which, this newcomer called Baizhu is pretty impressive. He’s only been in there for one night, and he’s already made it through,” Liu Yunan said.

Hu Liang reached into the small storage pouch at Jiang Youfu’s waist and pulled out a handful of fried beans. As he ate, he nodded.

“Yeah. Our Heart-Seeking Path has been made more difficult several times by Brother Xiao. Every time I go in, I have to stay there for ages.”

“Hey, now that you mention it, if we’re being honest, Baizhu’s speed ranks among the best in our sect.”

Mo Yuanjiao carefully recalled the details.

“His time seems to be about the same as mine!”

Everyone thought it over, and it really did seem to be true.

So far, with every upgrade to the Heart-Seeking Path, the only people in the Lingxian Sect who could pass through it almost without stopping were Lin Xiao and Sun Yigao. Of everyone else, Mo Yuanjiao had consistently taken the least time.

The total time he had spent on all his attempts did indeed seem to be about the same as Baizhu’s time today.

There was one important difference, though: Baizhu was a mortal, while Mo Yuanjiao was a cultivator.

The Heart-Seeking Path tested mortals for less time than cultivators. It would release them within three days at most and would never trap them inside until they died.

Just as everyone was chatting about the newcomer Baizhu, Sun Yigao suddenly received a voice transmission from Fang Tuantuan, who had gone to take Yuan Qing’s place at the entrance.

After listening, he turned to the others and said, “Something seems to have gone wrong on the Heart-Seeking Path. Tuantuan wants us to go over and take a look.”

The group of young men and women immediately rose and hurried toward the mountain path entrance.

This was the first time their sect had ever recruited disciples. They absolutely could not afford for anything to go wrong.

Niutou Village lay on the southern border of the Kingdom of Pu Si. It was an impoverished village, desperately poor.

In that village, selling one’s sons and daughters was nothing unusual.

As a result, not many people remained in the village, and most of those who did were elderly. There were hardly any young people or children to be seen.

Not long after Tong Jialiang was born, his parents were sold by his grandparents to wealthy households elsewhere, where they became servants.

His parents had begged a literate steward to name him after they had worked well in the wealthy household and earned the steward’s favor.

In the first few years, his parents would occasionally send back some of the rewards they received through intermediaries.

But later, the gifts stopped coming.

The wealthy family had gone bankrupt, and from then on, Tong Jialiang lost all contact with his parents.

He did not know whether they had been resold elsewhere or had died.

In any case, after that, Tong Jialiang never heard from them again.

His uncle and aunt pitied him, so they took him in and raised him as best they could. In doing so, they preserved the only surviving bloodline of their elder brother and sister-in-law.

When Tong Jialiang was three, a broker came to the village to buy children. At the time, the family was suffering through the lean season.

They were not quite starving to death—but only barely.

So his grandparents once again intended to sell someone.

However, the only able-bodied workers left in the household were his uncle and aunt, so naturally they could not sell them.

Tong Jialiang, meanwhile, was too young, and the broker had no interest in him.

In the end, the broker took a liking to his cousin, who was three years older than him.

Tong Jialiang still remembered how desperately his aunt and uncle had knelt before his grandparents that day, begging them not to sell their son.

Just as his own parents had begged them years before.

But perhaps selling people brought money too quickly. Compared with sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren, the silver the broker placed directly into their hands seemed far more real to them.

Children could always be born again.

The second son and his wife were still there, after all.

Once their eldest grandson had been sold, the second son and his wife could simply have a few more children. By then, the second grandson would have grown up too.

One batch after another—wouldn’t that be faster and easier than scratching a living from the soil?

At the time, Tong Jialiang’s cousin was only six years old. Unlike Tong Jialiang’s parents, who had still been able to maintain some contact with the family after being sold, his cousin vanished without a trace the moment he was taken away.

Tong Jialiang’s grandparents, however, never lived to see a steady stream of grandchildren born for them to sell.

They died.

They died one night at the foot of a cliff behind Niutou Village.

Tong Jialiang was ten years old then.

Their bodies were discovered early the next morning by an old hunter who had hunted in that area for many years.

No one knew how they had died, nor why they had gone there.

Only Tong Jialiang knew.

Because he had been the one to trick them that night, telling them he had seen an idle villager bury some silver in a small hole beside the cliff at the back of the mountain.

And he had been the one to push them over the edge.

Looking back, it had not been difficult at all for a ten-year-old boy to do it.

He still remembered the excitement and greed that had appeared on his grandparents’ faces when they heard the word “silver.”

They had been too busy urging him to lead the way, too busy feeling around beside the cliff according to his directions. It had never occurred to them that the grandson who seemed so foolish and useless in their eyes might harbor any ill intentions toward them.

Niutou Village was plagued by food shortages year-round. Even with the money they had received from child brokers, Tong Jialiang’s grandparents were gaunt and malnourished. They did not weigh much.

So with a gentle push, both of them fell like kites with severed strings.

Tong Jialiang also remembered how the cold wind rushing over the cliff had left his face stiff.

So stiff that he could not produce even the slightest unnecessary expression.

Looking down at the two motionless figures at the bottom of the cliff beneath the night sky, Tong Jialiang had thought at the time:

Some people were perhaps meant to remain at the bottom of a cliff.

Later, when the village chief came to ask questions, Tong Jialiang’s uncle and aunt said that the family might have run out of food. Perhaps the old couple could not bear to watch their family go hungry, so they had gone up the mountain late at night to gather wild greens and accidentally fallen.

The elderly village chief was merely going through the motions. Seeing that no one in the Tong family intended to pursue the matter, he accepted the explanation given by Tong Jialiang’s uncle and aunt and declared the case closed.

After all, everyone could barely afford to eat. Who had the time or energy to worry about what happened in someone else’s family?