A Pawn's Passage

The mist covering Sage Cihang’s body dissipated, revealing her true appearance. She looked to be in her thirties, with compassionate eyes and a graceful temperament that made her seem approachable. If she were younger, she would have been every man’s dream.

With Sage Cihang’s level of cultivation, she could have used anti-aging methods to keep a youthful appearance. In fact, most of the Sages had vastly different appearances back then. Some were white-haired old men, while some preferred to look like children. There were also some Sages who liked to maintain a teenage appearance.

The fifth-generation Grand Master was staunchly conservative, dissatisfied with the Sages’ wide range of appearances. Thus, he ordered that all Daoist disciples were strictly prohibited from altering their appearance to look like children. The reason given was that it would damage and undermine the reputation of the Daoist Order. Later, the banned age group was expanded to young adults.

There were some who supported this ban, while others opposed it.

The supporters believed that although eternal youth was possible, it was overboard for a Sage in their seventies or eighties to appear as a seven- or eight-year-old child. Although the Daoist Order had always encouraged one to remain pure and innocent, it referred to the nature of one’s mind, not one’s body.

Even though a bunch of old folks turned themselves into children, they were still shrewd and scheming on the inside. On the contrary, this would appear as fraudulent and pretentious.

Thus, under the fifth-generation Grand Master’s iron fist, he put an end to this chaotic image within the Daoist Order. The Golden Tower Council no longer had adolescents and teenagers in the audience. Many Sages either maintained their original age or remained an appearance between thirty and forty years old.

They were also required to dress in formal attire on important occasions. Anyone who dared to dress up in “strange disguises” or appeared sloppy in their formal attire would be given a serious demerit. The list of “strange disguises” included beggars, scholars, monks, court officials, civilians, wandering Daoists, fortune tellers, and so on. These were all prohibited.

Thus, the Golden Tower Council meetings no longer looked like a gathering of eccentrics since the fifth-generation Grand Master was in power. Everyone looked neat and formal in their uniforms.

Judging by the strict requirements on clothing, it was clear that the fifth-generation Grand Master had an authoritarian rule over the Daoist Order during his term. He was not tolerant of objections and imposed stricter rules.

There were pros and cons to this regime. The drawback was that the Daoist Order had adopted many bureaucratic procedures. The advantage was the centralization of the Daoist Order. The well-structured Nine-Rank System forced the relatively unstructured Buddhist Sect and Confucian School to imitate the Daoist system.

When the fifth-generation Grand Master was alive, no one dared to openly disobey the Grand Master. During his later years in power, he secretly divided the three Deputy Grand Masters of that time so that they would not unite against him to veto his policies. Finally, he forced the three Deputy Grand Masters at the time to retire early and become Virtuous Great Sages.

The fifth-generation Grand Master then promoted younger people without much experience to become the new Deputy Grand Masters—all three of them are still in office to this day.

The domineering iron-fist rule of the fifth-generation Grand Master also caused a backlash within the Daoist Order. After his ascension to heaven, the three incumbent Deputy Grand Masters reached a consensus to renounce the chosen successor of the fifth-generation Grand Master and elected a recognized kind old man to become the sixth-generation Grand Master.

No one had expected this, not even the sixth-generation Grand Master himself. Although the sixth-generation Grand Master had a high level of cultivation and was one of the best among the Omniscient Sages, he only expected to be an ordinary first-rank Daoist master. He was self-aware that he was not leadership material.

However, the three Deputy Grand Masters reached a consensus regarding this, so it was not up to him to decide. Besides, any Daoist disciple would be moved by the idea of being the Grand Master. For him, who was only an Omniscient Sage at the time, it was equivalent to skipping a rank and leaping to the highest pedestal in the Daoist Order. Moreover, the fifth-generation Grand Master had built such a strong reputation for the Daoist Order that everyone grew to respect and fear it.

Thus, the sixth-generation Grand Master agreed to take on the position of highest authority in the Daoist Order.

The sixth-generation Grand Master was undoubtedly a kind person who was tolerant and well-tempered. He had a much better personality than the domineering and violent fifth-generation Grand Master. However, when it came to securing power, the sixth-generation Grand Master was indecisive and lacked experience.

That was why the sixth-generation Grand Master was weak and unable to control the three Deputy Grand Masters.

Back when the sixth-generation Grand Master took office, the three Deputy Grand Masters were not as powerful as they are today. The three Deputy Grand Masters gradually grew more powerful and expanded their influence during the sixth-generation Grand Master’s term.

In a sense, the fifth-generation Grand Master had laid the groundwork for the current chaos in the Daoist Order.

To this day, the fifth-generation Grand Master’s policies still influence the direction of the Daoist Order. Among all the Grand Masters, his influence was second only to the Holy Xuan. However, his merits could not be determined until many years later. Of course, this did not mean that the other Grand Masters made no achievements. They each made some form of contribution to the Daoist Order.

Sage Cihang maintained this age because she was following the rules left by the fifth-generation Grand Master that thirty was the lowest limit. If she looked any younger, she would be targeted by Fengxian Hall.

Although Fengxian Hall would only give her a warning, it would still be extremely embarrassing for a Hall Master to be questioned over such trivial matters.

Of course, this rule could be changed eventually, but only a Grand Master could change their predecessor’s policies. However, the Holy Xuan’s policies were an exception. Similar to the Imperial Court’s ancestral edicts, the Holy Xuan’s policies were untouchable, as they formed the basis for the existence of the Daoist Order. Thus, if one were to modify the Holy Xuan’s decree, it would have to be approved by all members of the Golden Tower Council.

Sage Cihang sized up Qi Xuansu, not recognizing this man to be Zhang Yuelu’s confidant. That was because she had only heard of Zhang Yuelu mentioning Qi Xuansu but had never seen him in person, nor had she seen any portraits of him. That was because, to an Omniscient Sage poised to become the next Grand Master, a seventh-rank Daoist priest was really not worth her time investigating.

Thus, Sage Cihang had only heard of Qi Xuansu’s name twice in total. The first time was when Zhang Yuelu mentioned it in a casual conversation. At the time, Sage Cihang did not pay much attention to it. The second time she heard of his name was from a letter, when she learned that Qi Xuansu had sacrificed himself to save her disciple.

When Sage Cihang got the news, she let out a long sigh, lamenting that her disciple had lost a confidant. That was the reason she remembered Qi Xuansu’s name.

Qi Xuansu did not recognize Sage Cihang, and neither did she. Thus, the two looked at each other until Qi Xuansu took the initiative to salute her. “Greetings, Sage.”

Sage Cihang asked, “How do you know that I’m a member of the Daoist Order?”

Qi Xuansu replied, “I heard from the Black Robes that some masters from the Daoist Order are here to capture cult demons from secret societies. That’s why I figured that you must be a Sage from the Daoist Order.”

Sage Cihang did not deny his conjecture and probed, “Who are you, then?”

Qi Xuansu answered respectfully, “I am Wei Wugui, a wanderer.”

“How could a wanderer possess a perfected breathing technique?” Sage Cihang’s eyes seemed to have seen through Qi Xuansu’s facade.

Qi Xuansu hesitated for a moment before he replied, “To be honest, I was once from the Wanxiang Daoist Palace.”

Sage Cihang was not so easy to fool. “As far as I know, Wanxiang Daoist Palace only teaches disciples up to the Kunlun stage at most, but you are at the Yuxu stage. Who taught you the subsequent methods? It also seems to me that what you have learned has traces of the Cihang lineage.”

Qi Xuansu’s heart dropped. After he reached the Yuxu stage in Yulan Temple, he was not in Jade Capital and could not receive any conventional guided training on cultivation methods for Rogue Cultivators. Thus, he had asked Zhang Yuelu for advice.

Although Zhang Yuelu was a Banished Immortal, the Rogue Cultivator lineage stemmed from Banished Immortals. Thus, they had many similarities. That was why Zhang Yuelu could guide Qi Xuansu on the corresponding techniques and mystical abilities to aid his cultivation.

But then again, Zhang Yuelu was not an actual Rogue Cultivator, so whatever method she taught Qi Xuansu was derived from a simplification of her own learning back then. After all, the Rogue Cultivator’s Yuding Realm was not considered advanced, so Zhang Yuelu could still manage to guide Qi Xuansu.

However, Zhang Yuelu’s methods were slightly different from the orthodox Rogue Cultivator’s methods because she mixed in some of her private knowledge. That was what Sage Cihang was referring to when she mentioned that she could detect traces of the Cihang lineage on Qi Xuansu.

Qi Xuansu, clearly clueless to all this, was at a loss on how he should answer this Sage, so much so that cold sweat immediately broke out on his forehead.