Chapter 190: Respected Senior
“No,” said Song Jia quickly, her face reddening a bit. She was innately beautiful, and had a tender personality.
The woman next to her laughed, looking at her lovingly. She didn’t say anything.
Her voice light, Song Jia continued, “I just think he’s interesting. He offended so many people, and yet so many people are willing to stand by his side. Also, he doesn’t really look like a Cultivator. He looks more like a scholar.”
The middle-aged woman laughed again, and her expression grew even more gentle. She lifted her right hand, and a flaming jade slip appeared. It burned into nothing, and suddenly, a slight tremble ran through all of the mountains in the Song Clan. The tremble was so minor that anyone under the Nascent Soul stage wouldn’t notice it. Up in the dark sky, the moon shimmered.
Within the moon, countless magical symbols appeared that seemed to be deducing matters pertaining to both the past and the future. After a long moment, they faded away. It was then that in front of the middle-aged woman, time seemed to move in reverse. The jade slip seemed to un-burn as it reappeared in front of her.
Song Jia watched this happen, not with surprise, but with anticipation.
“Alright,” said the woman, pressing her finger onto the jade slip. “Let me take a look at the past of this person you find so interesting.”
As soon as she pushed down on the jade slip, it projected a screen into the air. On it could be seen a small county, and a boy sitting next to a window. He was reading a scroll by lamplight.
As he read, he slowly shook his head and fanned himself with a feather fan. It was obviously summer.
The boy was none other than Meng Hao.
The screen flickered, and Meng Hao was now wearing a neat, clean scholar’s robe. He walked out of his house and stood up against a nearby wall, looking a bit shifty-eyed. Soon, a sedan emerged from the courtyard opposite him. He craned his neck to look at it, an excited expression on his face. 1
The screen shimmered, and now Meng Hao stood on top of Mount Daqing. He sighed and tossed a gourd bottle down into the river. 2
Next, he was in the Reliance Sect, holding aloft a medicinal pill, face filled with anxiety as he gave the pill away. 3
When Song Jia saw this, she laughed out loud. The middle-aged woman smiled and shook her head.
The next image was of Meng Hao’s shop on the plateau, and his shy, bashful smile as he sold medicinal pills at exorbitant rates 4 There were many images from that time, but they suddenly flashed by quickly, making it difficult to make everything out quickly. The middle-aged woman frowned, seemingly lost in thought.
The next image that Song Jia saw was that of Eccentric Song on the mountaintop and Meng Hao running along with the iron spear. She saw Meng Hao in the city of Cultivators and the deal he made with Lu and Song for the spear. After that were all the bloody events that resulted.
Song Jia couldn’t stop laughing. “This Meng Hao is awful… he’s nothing like a scholar!” She continued to watch, her laughter causing her eyes to look like two crescent moons.
The images again became somewhat blurry. By this time, he was in the Southern Domain. However, in this instant, the jade slip suddenly begun to crumble into pieces. In the blink of an eye, it was covered with cracks. A woman’s cold snort could be heard from very far off in the distance. It filled, not only the room, but the entire Song Clan.
The middle-aged woman’s face filled with shock, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood. She grabbed the astonished Song Jia and staggered backward several paces, a look of disbelief covering her face.
All of the mountains within the Song Clan began to tremble. As they did, the moon in the sky above the Song Clan suddenly exploded with a blinding light. It was a flash that instantly began to tremble and darken, as if it were being forcefully suppressed by someone.
At this same moment, the seemingly endless mountains of the Song Clan continued to tremble and then… one by one, the mountains suddenly sank down an entire inch, as if they were being pushed down by some incredible force.
That inch seemed to be a warning, some demonstration of power by… someone. This person seemed to be saying that if they wished, they could wipe out the entire Song Clan mountain range.
At the same time, all of the Nascent Soul Cultivators began to tremble and spit up blood. Deep within the Song Clan mountains, near the location of their Dao Reserves, a roaring sound rose up. It didn’t disseminate outward, and only certain people could sense it.
In the deepest, most remote location within the Song Clan mountains, was a stone pillar. Atop the pillar was a corpse, or rather, half of a corpse. The bottom half was nowhere to be seen. The corpse’s eyes suddenly snapped opened, whereupon the aura of the peak Dao Seeking stage exploded out. The corpse trembled, as if it couldn’t