After Transmigrating as an Immortal Master, I Hold a Group Meeting - Chapter 84

The palm covering his lips wasn’t soft. On the contrary, it was strong and firm.

It was the hand of a martial artist, capable of completely enclosing his soft lips, even trapping the warm breath exhaled from his nose within its grasp.

It was a gesture only someone with a strong desire for control would make.

Facing that expectation, Ning Mingmei gave only one response, “Senior Brother, do you also not wear gloves when you steal things?”

“I took off my gloves on purpose, just so I could cover Junior Brother’s mouth,” the man replied.

Ning Mingmei raised an eyebrow.

Qi Miancheng then let go of his hand. “Sigh… why is Junior Brother reacting like this? I only meant to play a little joke.”

Ning Mingmei said, “So, what did Senior Brother steal?”

As he spoke, he moved to wipe his lips with his sleeve.

Qi Miancheng remarked, “I wasn’t planning on telling anyone about this but if Junior Brother insists… Wiping your mouth with your sleeve will only make it dirtier. You might as well not wipe it at all.”

Ning Mingmei found that statement rather strange.

What did he mean by not letting him wipe his mouth? Did Qi Miancheng expect him to leave his fingerprints on his lips?

Feeling uncomfortable all over, Ning Mingmei raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is Senior Brother’s sleeve somehow cleaner than mine? If you don’t mind, I can use yours instead.”

Qi Miancheng replied, “I just stole something, so of course my sleeve isn’t clean. But I do have a handkerchief. Would you like it, Junior Brother?”

…Better not.

“This object has been missing for years. Recently, I finally found it in the Lian family’s possession,” Qi Miancheng said. “They guarded it closely but fortunately, I also have Lian family’s blood.”

Ning Mingmei asked, “What could be so valuable that even the noble and upright sect leader of the Supreme Clarity Sect would resort to stealing?”

“The thieves were the Lian family a thousand years ago. Back then, they didn’t just take half of an incomplete new cultivation technique from the Kindle Fire Island.”

An incomplete new cultivation technique from the Kindle Fire Island?

A statue of a young girl flashed through Ning Mingmei’s mind, along with a strange, eerie book she had left behind.

The text in that book was inconsistent; some parts were lively, while others were unsettling. It inexplicably reminded Ning Mingmei of the Uncanny Valley, as if in the end, something human-like but not truly human had taken the girl’s place in writing and drawing the book.

Based on the book’s content and the information he had gathered so far, Ning Mingmei reached a conclusion.

Before he arrived in the cultivation world, another transmigrator had already been there.

The transmigrator who had arrived a thousand years ago was also a top student who had just graduated from high school.

The young woman had boundless enthusiasm. She traveled the world, gathering knowledge, and eventually obtained the inheritance left behind by the ancient Goddess who once mended the Heavenly Gate, the glazed lotus lantern. She went on to establish an organization called the ‘Kindle Fire Island’ where she shared her cultivated techniques with the world, techniques that allowed anyone, regardless of race or spiritual aptitude, to practice cultivation equally.

But later, something went wrong with the techniques. In her haste, the young woman sought ways to improve them. Meanwhile, the once-brilliant organization was destroyed by rumors, greed, and human nature. People refused to speak of it and anyone associated with it was slaughtered. The purest goodwill in history became the greatest lie, excuse, and source of terror for future generations.

Ning Mingmei did not know how ‘grand’ and devastating the ‘eradication’ of the Kindle Fire Island had been. Aside from his own investigations, no books recorded its story. Erasing a dream and defiling it was as easy as wiping away a story or removing a few lines of text.

But considering the massacre triggered by the demon concubine’s rebellion and the powerful cultivators who died gruesomely in the Rebirth’s secret chamber, Ning Mingmei could easily imagine that the events of that time must have been beyond anyone’s comprehension.

All that remained of the Kindle Fire Island’s dream were a few cultivation techniques deemed forbidden arts. One foundational technique had likely been taken by the demon concubine who was a cultivation furnace, sparking yet another era of chaos. As for the unfinished, modified technique… judging from the Lian family’s rise to power, Ning Mingmei could easily guess that they had taken it.

And they had used it in the vilest way possible.

“Her ideals were never fulfilled. Instead, they became nothing more than tools for others to fight over.”

At that moment, the system suddenly detected a faint fluctuation of energy. But when it looked at Ning Mingmei, he remained expressionless.

“Thousands of years ago, the Heavenly Gate collapsed three times due to the greed of various races. The third collapse nearly led to the destruction of the Six Realms. It was only thanks to the Goddess who used her people’s ancient divine artifact, the lotus lantern, to save the realms from catastrophe,” Qi Miancheng said.

“That lotus lantern bloomed in the primordial chaos, requiring the essence of the five elements as its wick and holding seven lotus seeds. The Goddess used her own soul along with six of the seeds to nourish all living things, leaving only one behind. That lotus lantern was revered as the divine lantern. But after the Goddess passed away, it was lost.

“Then, sometime later, an ‘evil lantern’ appeared in the world. It was called evil because it belonged to Weng Xingyun, the master of the Kindle Fire Island. It was said that the lantern burned with human blood as fuel, crafted to resemble the former divine lantern in every way. Outraged, people condemned Weng Xingyun as a demoness,” Qi Miancheng continued. “But in truth, no one knew that the ‘evil lantern’ in Weng Xingyun’s hands was the very same divine lantern from before.”

So that high school girl… was called ‘Xingyun’ there.

Ning Mingmei asked, “Did no one really know the truth?”

Qi Miancheng replied, “What do you think, Junior Brother?”

“Some ignorant people truly knew nothing,” Ning Mingmei said. “But for others… they couldn’t allow the truth to be known that the divine lantern was really in Weng Xingyun’s hands.”

The one who once wielded the divine lantern was a goddess who saved all living beings. After her sacrifice, she became an eternal deity in the eyes of the Six Realms.

But Weng Xingyun was different. She could wield the divine artifact too… but she was alive.

And she was someone who openly declared that everyone should have the right to cultivate, someone deemed ‘arrogant’ for wanting to grant that power to all.

So, regardless of whether the divine lantern had the ability to choose its master, as long as its wielder was a living, independent person, then to the world, what she held could never be the ‘true’ divine lantern.

Ning Mingmei murmured, “So this is what Little Thirteen and the others meant by the ‘good lantern’ and the ‘evil lantern.'”

In the end, they were both just lanterns. The only difference was who wielded them, what era they lived in, and what benefits their existence brought to those in power.

But was Weng Xingyun truly a monster beyond redemption? Was the Goddess truly supreme and infallible? What was the real difference between their acts of kindness? And why did their fates turn out so differently?

As for burning human blood as fuel… who knew what the truth really was?

Ning Mingmei asked, “So the last lotus seed is also in her hands… Did you come here to take the seed that once belonged to her?”

After the fall of the Kindle Fire Island, the lotus lantern was taken away by the now-dead powerful cultivator and had ended up in Ning Mingmei’s hands.

As for the lotus seed, it had been secretly taken by the Lian family along with the modified cultivation technique.

Qi Miancheng said, “However, it may no longer be just a lotus seed. Junior Brother, do you know? Just as the lotus lantern itself is a divine artifact, this jade lotus seed is also a sacred object. It is said that it can grant a single wish to the person it acknowledges as its owner. But, of course, each person can only make one wish in their lifetime. In exchange, their soul will be permanently imprisoned within the seed.”

…It truly lived up to its origin as part of a divine artifact used to mend the heavens.

Ning Mingmei frowned, sensing something. “Senior Brother, are you saying…?”

“There were once suspicions that Weng Xingyun’s soul is trapped within this lotus seed,” Qi Miancheng said casually, dropping a heavy revelation. “After the Kindle Fire Island was destroyed, Weng Xingyun perished completely, her body and soul both erased. During the demon concubine’s rebellion, some people went to desperate lengths, raising a soul-summoning array in an attempt to bring her back. They firmly believed that if the so-called ‘demoness’ Weng Xingyun was as ruthless and wicked as the legends claimed, she would bring chaos to the world. If they could resurrect her, they thought they could use her to overthrow the ruling forces and ensure the success of their rebellion.”

The good news was that someone had once tried to bring Weng Xingyun back to life.

The bad news was that it was for the most absurd reason imaginable.

Hearing this, Ning Mingmei actually chuckled but his eyes remained cold. “Then they were doomed to be disappointed.”

“Yes. Ever since then, our master, Spirit Master Inaction, suspected that before her death, Weng Xingyun might have made a wish upon this lotus seed, causing her soul to be permanently trapped within it. And because this lotus seed is a divine artifact, Master said it must not be allowed to fall into just anyone’s hands. The reappearance of the lotus lantern and its seed could bring either great fortune or great disaster.”

Qi Miancheng continued, “Unfortunately, Master was never able to find it. But through my studies of the Lian family’s techniques, I discovered its existence… It seems they were never able to use it successfully.”

For the first time, Ning Mingmei laid eyes on the lotus seed.

Glowing like jade, it appeared pure and flawless, yet within it was a swirling chaos.

But the moment he looked at it, something within the seed seemed to pull at his consciousness, drawing him deeper.

Qi Miancheng closed the box. “From today on, I will take it back to the Supreme Clarity Sect’s forbidden grounds and have it sealed away.”

Ning Mingmei asked, “Senior Brother, you don’t plan to use it?”

Qi Miancheng smiled. “A wish… If you lack the power to fulfill it yourself, how can you expect some other force to make it happen for you? And if something else can grasp your desires, it can also grasp your weakness. Just like how everyone in the Qi family knows that Lian Tingyu is the patriarch’s greatest weakness. And just as the Lian family, knowing that my father and I were my mother’s weakness, tried to exploit that before she passed away. They almost succeeded.”

His words were cold.

“Succeeded?”

“That was before I turned one hundred,” Qi Miancheng said, frowning slightly, as if reluctant to recall the past. “The Lian family often came to me, speaking of their hardships, and of how my mother had misunderstood them. I naively believed that if my mother could be more forgiving and if they could reconcile, everything would be better. So I constantly tried to persuade her and even performed filial duties on their behalf. I told her the Lian family was just a second-rate clan and even if she forgave them, it wouldn’t affect us in any way. How amusing… How did I grow up to be that kind of person back then?”

Ning Mingmei’s gaze flickered slightly.

The person Qi Miancheng described himself as back then… seemed more like the kind of young master that would be raised in such a family.

“And then?”

“Then I did a number of foolish things. Before my mother passed, my father discovered that I had altered certain letters. He was furious with me,” Qi Miancheng said. “But at that moment, my mother spoke one last sentence, her final words before leaving this world. ‘Well done. That is the son I raised.’”

That was the last thing the Qi family’s patriarch ever heard from his beloved wife.

They had loved each other to the end. The Qi family’s patriarch had always been willing to sacrifice everything for her. But in the end, their worldviews had simply been too different.

Thus, the old master of the Qi family quickly fell silent. Other than continuing to manage family affairs, he spoke no further.

“…” Ning Mingmei said, “My condolences.”

Yet his mind remained on the lotus seed. For some reason, just one glance at it had made him feel as though a voice from within was calling out to him.

Qi Miancheng, meanwhile, was watching him.

What kind of person had Ning Mingmei been in his eyes before? Why had he kept his distance from Ning Mingmei?

Was it really because he wanted to be an honorable gentleman?

Of course not.

When Qi Miancheng first learned of his unique physique, one that required a ‘dual cultivation’ partner to advance, he was filled with disgust and resistance. Even though Spirit Master Inaction had reassured him that his condition meant he would never cause harm to his cultivation partner…

He still loathed it.

For reasons no one could have expected.