“While methods of righteous cultivation have become different throughout the years, you still have to keep a pure heart. If you develop an obsession, greed, or any kind of possessiveness, you’ll easily Qi Deviate and the chances you’ll fall into the Devil Path are greater,” Fu Qing explained. “As for the Devil Path, you must be careful to not let your powers consume you. Anyone can cultivate the Devil Path, but it’s a matter of whether or not you can mentally handle it. For people like me, I couldn’t handle it, so I was advised not to continue.”

She thought about it and continued, “Those who cultivate the Devil Path do so out of desperation, so few worry about how to do it ‘properly’, but if it isn’t done properly, you could very likely lose your life to the power. Same with Spiritual Cultivation. If you aren’t guided by a proper mentor, as many are not lucky enough to be a once in a lifetime prodigy, you could easily Qi Deviate and fall into madness or die.”

Fu Qing shook her head with a long sigh. “The path of cultivation, whether the spiritual path or the devil path, is full of thorns. People only like to make the spiritual path look more like a field of flowers because most methods don’t require you to ‘steal’ from anything else. But when you think about it, devoid of morals, aren’t both things horrifying? Even transforming your mortal body through cultivation is sort of freaky, isn’t it? You become inhuman, yet you’re still human.”

Fu Qing seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before she turned her attention back to Ge Nianlan. “That’s just what I think though! Either way, I think cultivators are super admirable, but a normal person like me won’t ever be able to comprehend their thought process.”

Ge Nianlan hummed softly. He agreed, somewhat. Cultivators were humans that were not comprehensible by other humans.

“Are there any books about Black Mane Palace?” Ge Nianlan asked.

“Of course! Would you like me to take you to them, Young Lord? There is a whole floor dedicated to Black Mane Palace’s history,” Fu Qing said.

Ge Nianlan nodded. The pair stood and slowly walked up the stairs to the third floor.

Fu Qing guided Ge Nianlan to the back and made a grand gesture. “These two shelves and that shelf against the wall are all about Black Mane Palace! Was there something in particular that you wanted to see?”

“Um…how about the most current leaders?” Ge Nianlan hesitantly asked.

“It’s sorted by year, so it should be over here,” Fu Qing said. She smiled sheepishly. “Though, I have to apologize. I’m not sure if I can read them to you, Young Lord.”

“Don’t worry about that! I just wanted to look around and see how many words I remember from when I spoke to Zhao-jiejie about it,” Ge Nianlan lied.

“Oh, I see,” Fu Qing said. She let out a small sigh of relief.

“Um, Fu-jiejie, you can take a break for now. I’ll stay here to read,” Ge Nianlan said.

Fu Qing frowned. “Are you sure, Young Lord?”

Ge Nianlan nodded. “You’ve been helping me all morning. You should take a break too. Besides, if I need anything, there are guards outside, aren’t there?”

Fu Qing hesitated. “Then, I’ll come back with snacks at noon.”

“Alright!” Ge Nianlan eagerly agreed.

Ge Nianlan waited for Fu Qing to leave before he grabbed the nearest ladder, set it against the shelves and climbed about to browse. His fingertips traced the spins of the aged books as he tried to decide which to pull out first. Eventually, he settled on a scroll. The pattern and shine of it attracted his attention the most.

He pulled it from the shelf and slid down from the latter. He grabbed a few more things on his way down and sat on the ground near the ladder. He unfurled the scroll and looked at the long, complicated sentences.

Even at the end of his life, according to the cursed artifact, he barely knew how to read. His literacy was that of a ten-year-old child, so one could say that he had now caught up to his peers. As he looked at the words on the page, the knowledge from those false memories slowly melded with his current ones and he was able to decipher most of the meaning.

The Eight Saints were as they were. As for the others, Ge Nianlan realized that the Lords of the Four Cardinal Directions usually changed with each new reign. The Three Great Clans remained the same.

Ge Nianlan moved onto the next book. This one was on the simpler side and was much more readable. He leaned his back against the shelves and slowly thumbed through the pages.

“The Three Great Clans are…Ge, Yong, Bai,” Ge Nianlan murmured. He skimmed the passages. His brows furrowed slightly as he tried to decipher the larger words, but his frustration only grew. As he was about to skip onto the next section, he heard the sound of wood creaking beneath the weight of another person.

He looked up, half expecting Fu Qing, but was surprised to see a girl.

The girl was about Luo Qianwu’s age. Her hair was tied into a simple ponytail, but her uniform told Ge Nianlan that she was an inner disciple at Black Mane Palace. When their eyes met, the girl looked more surprised than Ge Nianlan felt.

Her grip on her books tightened before she bowed.

“Young Lord.”

Ge Nianlan hummed softly and continued to watch her as she awkwardly skirted around him.

A few minutes later, she returned from one of the higher floors with fewer books. She glanced at Ge Nianlan, who she knew was still watching her, and attempted to walk by. However, before she could reach the stairs, a cute voice called her attention.

“Jiejie, can you help me read something?”

The girl froze. She glanced over her shoulder and then to the book in the boy’s lap. She awkwardly scratched her cheek and retraced her steps.

“Um…sure. What would you like me to read, Young Lord?”

Ge Nianlan grinned, turned the book around, and tapped the passages. “Here to here please. Thank you, Jiejie!”

The girl’s lips twitched. Her expression read “if you weren’t someone with authority, I wouldn’t help”, but she still sat down beside Ge Nianlan and skimmed over the passages.

Hesitantly, she glanced up at Ge Nianlan.

“What’s wrong?” Ge Nianlan asked. “You can’t understand it?”

The girl’s fingers twitched as she tried to suppress her irritation. “It isn’t that. I was just wondering if Young Lord got the correct book.”

“A book that describes the structure of Black Mane Palace,” Ge Nianlan said. “I got the right one.”

The girl looked at him skeptically.

She had never spoken to the Young Lord directly, but she had seen him around many times. And during those times, he always seemed much more childish and playful than he was now. Whenever she saw him from afar, she would always envy his carefree life, despite what Luo Qianwu said. Now, as she sat beside Ge Nianlan, she wondered if Luo Qianwu had been alluding to this when he told her not to envy the boy.

Up close, this child hardly felt like the same child. He was smiling, but his gaze reminded her of the orphans on the street, who were trying to receive something without being cheated of their money.

“Or you could just give me a summary,” Ge Nianlan said.

“Um…okay,” the girl hesitantly mumbled. She fiddled with the page between her fingers. “The Three Great Clans are Ge, Yong, Bai. These three clans are the ones that founded Black Mane Palace. At the beginning, Black Mane Palace was actually ruled by three people, but throughout the generations, it eventually ended up being only one.”

Ge Nianlan glanced at the page and noticed that she had omitted a big chunk. “What about this part?”

“It just talks about how they fought and killed one another,” the girl said. “But before that, there were three people ruling.”

“I see.”

“Um,” the girl glanced at Ge Nianlan kind of nervously before continuing, “The candidate for the next Palace Master is chosen from these three clans. It’s the most promising person who gets to become the next Palace Master. Around the time for selection, each clan will send a representative and those representatives will compete based on literary skill and martial skill for a period of two years. However, sometimes, there are also those who take the seat by force.”

The girl paused a moment before adding, “His Excellency is one of those people. But it happened by accident.”

“How?” Ge Nianlan asked.

“Uh, well, apparently he wasn’t even in the territory at the time, but the Yong Clan started a war and dragged in both Bai and Ge,” the girl said. “In the end, someone from the Yong Clan won, but at that time His Excellency returned. I heard that he wasn’t even competing for the seat, but when he saw that his sister—the one who should have been the next Palace Master—had been killed, he sought revenge and ended up taking the seat he has now.”

Ge Nianlan thought about it. “Is that sister Lord Jia’s mother?”

The girl nodded. “She was.”

Ge Nianlan frowned. Then, that person surnamed Yong deserved to die.

“Ahem, anyway, that’s what it says,” the girl said. “And also…it talks about what the Ge, Yong, and Bai Clans are generally involved in.”

“What are they generally involved in?”