Chapter 1286: Promise of the moonlit orchid (1)

“So, the moonlit orchids, Daoist Chen Yun…” Yang Qing gingerly prompted as he poured wine for the elderly man seated before him.

The man had a crown of frost-white hair that seemed to have weathered countless winters, along with a beard thinning in places. He wore a short, loose outer coat of faded yellow over a plain white, short-sleeved hemp shirt and matching trousers that barely reached his ankles, with a bamboo hat hanging over his shoulders. He looked more like a seasoned farmer or a wandering traveler.

“Yes, yes… but first, you won’t begrudge an old man moistening his throat, will you?” Chen Yun said with a cheeky, toothy grin. He licked his lips, his eyes gleaming with desire as they fell on the light pink frost blossom wine Yang Qing had poured. It was as though winter and falling cherry blossoms had been captured in a single cup. One of Yie Jie’s masterpieces. If Yang Qing had to grade it, he would place it solidly among the top four.

“Sure,” Yang Qing replied with a smile. He reached for his own cup and, as if on cue, the two of them downed their drinks together. A deep hum of satisfaction escaped Chen Yung’s lips, and he unabashedly gestured for Yang Qing to pour him some more.

“This might just be the finest wine I’ve ever had,” he said with emotion, gazing lovingly at the cup that had just been refilled. This time he only took a small sip before setting it down, his gaze reluctantly parting from the wine to fall on Yang Qing.

Whether from age or the wine, his eyes looked a little cloudy, though even so, they carried a sharpness—a sharpness that came from the wisdom of age..

“So, the moonlit orchids…” he murmured as he leaned back comfortably in his wicker chair, his eyes drifting to the night sky above them.

“How much do you know about our founder?” Chen Yung asked.

“Not much, sadly. Other than that he leapt from the qi refinement realm to the domain realm from a single burst of enlightenment,” Yang Qing said as he reached for the roasted peanuts set on the square table between them.

“And you believed that?” Chen Yung chuckled.

“It’s not true?” Yang Qing asked in faint surprise—not because he thought the tale could be false, but because Chen Yung dared to suggest otherwise. As a native of Hebei, he would have expected him to support the claim, perhaps even add details to prove it true. After all, the story of their founder was part of the allure that drew cultivators to Hebei Kingdom: the land where the inexplicable had happened, where a cultivator had broken through from qi refinement all the way to the illustrious domain realm.

If Cheng Yun was out here openly hinting that it wasn’t true, wasn’t that smearing the charm of his kingdom?

“Who knows, it could be true…” said Chen Yung as he fiddled with a peanut between his fingers before popping it into his mouth. “Or it could not,” he added mysteriously.

“But that’s not why you’re here,” he quickly went on, taking another sip of wine. “You’re here because of the moonlit orchid,” he said wistfully, and as he spoke, a moonlit orchid suddenly appeared in his hands.

“The more powerful a cultivator is, the more likely it is that, at some point in their lives they stumbled upon a fortuitous encounter. Joined a powerful sect, got picked by a master, caught the eye of an influential figure, had circumstances that awakened their latent talent, discovered a heavenly treasure, entered a competition that let their talent shine, or gained a random favor of someone… things of that nature,” he said, swirling his wine before taking another swig.

“Every one of us, without fail, has had a moment—or moments—that propelled us to the heights we’ve reached today.” His eyes lingered on Yang Qing, who nodded in agreement. The strength he had today was born partly because of talent, but equally so because of opportunities, too, like his Yin Yang jade nature bones peerless jade physique.

He might wish nothing but misfortune on his clan members for all they had put him through over the years, but he had no doubt in his heart that he would never have acquired his peerless jade physique had he not been born into the Yang clan. Their extensive research and obsession with body refinement had been his fortuitous encounter where the peerless jade physique was concerned. As for the latter part of his cultivation, that credit belonged to the Order.

He bore grudges against both, yet he could not deny that without them, he would not have what he had today. His clan had given him his physique, and that physique had led him to Ren Shu, who in turn gave him a purple-grade art perfectly suited to it. He often wondered: had he been in any other organization, would he have obtained a purple-grade art so quickly? And even if he had, what were the chances it would have fit him as seamlessly as the Universal Resonance Light art did? The odds were slim to none.

So yes, he agreed that while talent played its part, fortuitous encounters had carried him just as far, and likely the same was true for many other powerful experts out there.

“Hebei’s founder wasn’t any different,” said Chen Yung. “He was quite the troublemaker in his youth, always getting into all sorts of mischief—and having a mind more curious than most didn’t help matters either,” he added with a chuckle.

“But…” he paused, “he was brilliant. As brilliant as anyone could be,” he said with pride in his tone, before his eyes and smile flashed with a hint of cheekiness.

“Because of his infamous antics in youth, you can imagine there were quite a few people who nursed grudges against him. And one of them just happened to be the examiner at the civil test he was taking at the time, when he sought to become an official,” he said, a gleeful chuckle escaping his lips.

Seems like Old Chen is the sadistic sort who relishes other people’s misfortunes, Yang Qing thought as he caught the joyful gleam burning in Chen Yung’s eyes. It shone with the same brilliance he’d seen earlier when the old man was drinking frost blossom wine.

“It’s often said that for a gentleman, even a thousand years isn’t too late to have his revenge. And it was no different for that proctor,” Chen Yung continued with growing excitement, further confirming Yang Qing’s suspicion of his sadistic streak.