Chapter 290: Hard to Distinguish True from False
Li'er, lying on the bed, slowly told the truth of that year: "Actually, double agents like me were far from the only ones back then."
"The sects and great clans and the Great Zhou were harmonious on the surface, but in reality, they had long been like fire and water." She turned to look directly at Ji Lingxiu, "And the root of all this is precisely the Heaven, Earth, and Human Steles—especially the Human Stele."
"At first, all the sects deeply believed in the Human Stele rankings, vying to get their geniuses on the list. These prodigies also did live up to expectations, creating many powerful experts in the short term."
"But when the time is stretched to ten thousand years..." Li'er's voice gradually turned cold, "The sects were horrified to discover that the number of cultivators who could reach the Longevity Realm and the Heavenly Human Realm had actually sharply decreased."
Ji Lingxiu's pupils contracted slightly.
"The Human Stele seemed to lessen the burden on the sects of discovering geniuses, but in reality, it buried even more true prodigies." Li'er sneered, "Not to mention far-off examples, take the current master of your Immortal Spirit Holy Land, Xiao Chen—the universally acknowledged number one prodigy of the current era on the entire Xuanying Continent. Was he ever on the Human Stele back then?"
"Let's not even mention Master Xiao's age. Back when the Human Stele still existed, Master Xiao had already been born. If we follow the Human Stele's conventions, then Master Xiao, to say nothing of being first on the Human Stele, should have at least been in the top three!"
"Besides this, there are Elder Han and Elder Jiang of your esteemed sect, neither of whom were ever on the Human Stele. Just from your Immortal Spirit Holy Land alone being like this, how many true talents across the world have been buried by this system?"
"Although the Great Zhou improved the welfare of mortals, it caused the high-end combat power of the Xuanying Continent to wither day by day." Her voice was bitter, "If we were invincible in the lower realm, it would be fine, but our enemy is precisely..."
"The Upper Realm." Ji Lingxiu subconsciously continued the sentence.
"Correct! And so... gradually, some people began to suspect..." Li'er nodded, saying word by word, "The Three Steles might be a massive conspiracy."
"How the Heaven-Reaching Path was severed is still disputed." Li'er said faintly, "But there is one point that is not disputed—among the lower realm's cultivators, no one thinks that being unable to ascend is a bad thing."
She looked meaningfully at Ji Lingxiu: "On the contrary, Heavenly Human Realm cultivators remaining in this realm is a good thing for both themselves and their sects. Furthermore, the ancient records of the various sects are very clear..."
"The Upper Realm's relationship with the lower realm has never been one of equal exchange; instead, it is mostly one of exploitation and enslavement. There are even records of many lower realm sects being completely annihilated for refusing to submit to the Upper Realm's control."
...
Li'er sighed deeply: "So... the Great Zhou seemed righteous, but it was an enemy to the entire world!"
She smiled bitterly and shook her head: "Although it won the hearts of the people, what use is the support of rogue cultivators and mortals? When the Upper Realm invades, are we to rely on mortals to resist the Upper Realm's cultivators?"
She said with a sneer: "Or perhaps rely on those rogue cultivators who, even at the Return to One Realm, insist on calling themselves 'This Seat' or 'This Ancestor'?"
Ji Lingxiu was thoughtful, then asked: "But if that's the case, why did the First Ancestor fake his death? Why did he go along with the plot?"
Li'er shook her head: "This is also something I cannot figure out. But when His Majesty gave me that item, he once sighed: 'The Way of Heaven has changed'."
"'The Way of Heaven has changed...'" Ji Lingxiu repeated softly twice, but couldn't feel any specific meaning in the sentence, so she looked up and asked again: "Then how did you manage to..."
"Reverse time and space?" Li'er picked up the thread, taking a seemingly ordinary writing brush from her robes, "This is what the Grand Emperor His Majesty gave me at that time."
Ji Lingxiu took the brush, looking it over and over but couldn't see anything special about it.
Li'er explained: "Ever since I got this brush, whenever I have a question, this brush will automatically write down the answer. I have confirmed it repeatedly; the answer has never been wrong."
"When I stabbed out that blade..." her voice was low, "it was also this brush that told me it was Her Highness the Princess's only path to survival."
"Back then, when Your Highness went to Fengwu City to seek refuge with Fu Yunlan, although he didn't want you to die, his subordinates might not have been so." Li'er paused. "The person who came to receive you held immense killing intent toward you. I hesitated for a long time before deciding to do as it said, but I never expected this brush could actually reverse time and space, allowing Your Highness to be reborn."
"But ever since then, this brush became unusable..." Li'er took a deep breath, "until... a few days ago."
She looked at Ji Lingxiu with a grave expression: "So, regardless of whether Your Highness believes me, I want to remind you: you are, after all, the legitimate bloodline of the Ji clan. If you firmly stand on the Grand Emperor's side, perhaps it will be fine. But if the Great Zhou is no longer in your heart..."
"This time, with the reopening of the Heavenly Stele, I'm afraid it will be the center of the Grand Emperor's game against all the sects and clans of the Xuanying Continent. Your Highness must be careful."
...
Walking out of Li'er's room, the sky had already darkened.
Ji Lingxiu's brows were tightly knitted, her fingertips unconsciously caressing the seemingly ordinary writing brush.
She tried to inject true essence, even repeatedly probing it with her spiritual sense, but the brush remained completely unresponsive, no different from a brush worth a few copper coins in the marketplace.
The night wind blew across the eaves, scattering the stray hairs on her forehead.
Ji Lingxiu, without even realizing it herself, found that what was swirling in her mind was not the authenticity of the brush, but another, more unsettling thought—what exactly was the First Ancestor plotting? Would this grand game affect the Immortal Spirit Holy Land? Would it endanger the safety of Immortal Spirit City?
"No." She suddenly stopped in her tracks, the moonlight stretching her shadow long and thin. "This matter must be reported to Master and Eldest Senior Brother."
This decision slightly relaxed her tense nerves.
As for Li'er... Ji Lingxiu looked down at the brush in her hand, a trace of complexity flashing in her eyes.
Those words were too bizarre, their truth hard to discern.
But at least one thing could be certain—the her of today was no longer that Jinxiu Princess who could be easily manipulated.
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