The man lightly parted his thin lips: "You must be a descendant of my Jian Clan, aren't you?"
Jian Dan nodded in response: "Yes."
"My name is Qingyue, and I am the first patriarch of the Jian Clan! I see hostility in your eyes and the seal of time-reversal upon you. Have you experienced a reversal of time?"
"Ancestor, please examine the truth. I do indeed have memories of my past life. It seems a being of great divine power helped me turn back time and rescue me from certain death!"
"Some things are predestined. When they are meant to happen, they naturally will. How could you possibly reverse them?"
Jian Dan bowed slightly in salute, looking at Ancestor Qingyue with a resolute gaze:
"I harbor no regret, only unwillingness. I know that the will of Heaven cannot be defied, but my standing here before you is the best explanation. Fate is in my own hands, and paying a price for it is well worth it!"
Ancestor Qingyue smiled calmly:
"Knowing what to give up and what to keep makes your previous Cultivation worthwhile. The Heavenly Dao always leaves a thread of survival. As for the path you take, it all depends on your choices and your Dao heart.
I have manifested here because this trace of my soul is about to depart. I shall pass the Heaven and Earth Chaos Formula on to you, and then I must return to my main body."
With that, Qingyue flicked his finger, and a ball of purple light flew into Jian Dan's sea of consciousness. Jian Dan hurriedly closed her eyes to receive it. The six characters "Heaven and Earth Chaos Formula" slowly unfolded before fading into points of light that sank deep into her sea of consciousness, leaving only the Qi Refining Stage cultivation light points leaping within her sea of consciousness, awaiting the unsealing.
Jian Dan knew that this technique was created exclusively by the Jian Clan for descendants with the Chaos Spiritual Root. It allowed Cultivation all the way to the Mahayana Stage to ascend to the higher realm, and subsequent techniques could be obtained by returning to the main family of the Jian Clan in the Immortal Realm. It was also a way for the Jian Clan to gather and unite its own bloodline descendants, thereby ensuring the family's everlasting prosperity.
In fact, in her past life, Jian Dan had not returned to the main family, but she had been fortunate enough to hear of the great reputation of the Jian Clan. She simply harbored doubts at the time and did not rashly enter the main family.
Part of this was due to Du Yanran's vague obstruction. Du Yanran was afraid that if Jian Dan returned to the family and found a backing, she would be even less likely to acquire the White Magnolia Pendant.
Therefore, she hinted both openly and covertly to Jian Dan that the Jian Clan was filled with dark and filthy secrets, and that for the sake of family prosperity, women possessing the Chaos Spiritual Root were given away as cauldron vessels to disciples of prominent families in the cultivation world in exchange for more resources.
As for the actual truth, Jian Dan had not probed deeply, but the ways of the world were remarkably coincidental, as if destined, causing Jian Dan to run into a fleeing Jian-surnamed woman who had escaped during her training journey.
The woman's cultivation had regressed, and her body clearly bore the traces of being harvested. Desperate to escape, she entrusted the child in her arms to Jian Dan, a stranger she met along the way, and chose self-detonation to perish with her pursuers.
Jian Dan checked the entrusted child and found that he had no spiritual root, so she swapped him with a premature, stillborn child from a mortal family and retired with merit.
As for the child's subsequent fortunes, she paid them no further heed. It was this incident that caused Jian Dan to abandon any thought of returning to the family.
This time, she possessed the Chaos Spiritual Root and a matching technique, which would make her Cultivation much smoother.
If someone treated a Chaos Spiritual Root as a cauldron vessel, as long as it wasn't a one-time harvest resulting in death, it could be harvested continuously—essentially a human-shaped leveling artifact.
For a female cultivator, however, it was a fate worse than death. Watching one's cultivation rise only to be harvested repeatedly, breeding inner demons over and over, trapped by the curse of never being able to ascend, the end was never a happy one.
Her thoughts flashed by. Jian Dan opened her eyes and looked at the empty Space before her. The painting had turned into a bamboo door, blending seamlessly with the adjacent bamboo wall without the slightest trace of discord.
Jian Dan walked around the desk, came to the door, reached out, and gently pushed. The bamboo door swung open lightly.
Stepping across the threshold, she felt the Space instantly expand. Rows of antique shelves were neatly arranged, holding various items classified and placed separately—gold, silver, jade, books, jade slips, sabers, spears, swords, and halberds, too numerous to mention. However, all of them were protected by a thin layer of light, perhaps because she, lacking cultivation at the moment, was not yet suited to look at them.
Only the foremost antique shelf had no protective measures whatsoever, presumably holding items she could use right now.
Jian Dan walked forward slowly and picked up the items one by one to examine them. First was a scroll. Opening it, she saw "Like Shadows Accompanying" written upon it—a cultivation technique for movement arts.
Its origin could no longer be traced. It belonged to a non-elemental cultivation technique, and therefore was not recorded on jade slips, but rather written and preserved on animal skin, which testified to its antiquity.
In her past life, after Jian Dan entered the cultivation world and was exploring a ruin, she had harvested a jade slip that others looked down upon. The jade slip recorded that in ancient times, the Dao and Demonic paths were not separate; only their cultivation systems differed. Some techniques were interconnected and could be studied and referenced mutually.
Therefore, she did not care whether a technique belonged to the Demonic or Daoist path. One must know that in ancient times, when the Demonic and Daoist paths flourished, it was precisely because their techniques focused on the cultivation of the physical body that they could still hold their own even in realms devoid of spiritual energy, making them highly revered.
Jian Dan casually picked up a wooden box in a nearby compartment. Upon opening it, her pupils constricted: the box contained a set of White Magnolia Jewelry, identical to the one before the Space merged.
This left her puzzled. A small jade slip lay beside it. When Jian Dan swept her spiritual sense over it, she learned it was merely a replica used to deceive ancestors and patriarchal families, only to be reclaimed by later descendants of the Jian Clan.
This artifact was also a top-grade magical tool, possessing storage and defensive functions after the merger, though compared to the genuine article, it belonged only to the entry-level tier.
Holding the wooden box, Jian Dan digested the contents of the jade slip. She lowered her gaze in contemplation for a moment, then left the Space carrying the box. No sooner had she placed the box into the drawer than a knock on the door sounded.
"Jian Dan, are you home?"
It was unmistakably the voice of Du Yanran.