Chapter 73: Forgetting One's Roots

By the time Tang Yi returned, the gathered disciples seemed to have dispersed. Luo Yuangong, Su Po, and Tang Susu were still waiting where they had been.

The moment Tang Susu saw her return from the mountains carrying a wine jar, her expression darkened and she immediately demanded, "He gave you that?"

Tang Yi met her gaze with unprecedented seriousness. If anything, it forced Tang Susu to calm down somewhat.

"This jar of wine may have been buried in the mountains by Father," Tang Yi said quietly.

"..."

Tang Susu opened her mouth, then stopped. She had been about to tell Tang Yi to throw away anything that man had given her, but once she heard it might be something Tang Mu had left behind, she could no longer bring herself to say it.

Su Po glanced toward the direction Tang Yi had come from and ventured, "Sect Leader, where is he?"

Tang Yi sighed softly. "He refused to stay. He's gone."

Tang Susu gave a cold snort. "A disgrace to the Shangqing Sect! He still has the face to set foot within Shangqing Sect territory? If Senior Brother Sect Leader hadn't protected him back then, he wouldn't even be alive today!"

"Enough of that useless angry talk," Luo Yuangong rebuked her as the senior brother, then turned back to Tang Yi. "Sect Leader, after he appeared and intimidated them this time, I doubt anyone will dare trouble the Shangqing Sect again in the short term. What we need to do now is clean house. We've already sent people after the dozens of disciples who deserted earlier, though finding them quickly in these vast mountains will be difficult. I ask the Sect Leader to issue an order notifying our covert contacts outside to keep watch. The moment any of those traitors are found, they are to report at once so we can send people to eliminate them."

Tang Yi said, "Those traitors leaving may not be a bad thing. Anyone unwilling to share hardship with the sect would have been useless even if they stayed. Some of them may even have been outside spies planted among us. After what happened today, perhaps misfortune has turned into fortune and the crisis has helped clear out the eyes and ears other powers buried in the Shangqing Sect."

Her words made the three Elders either nod or tacitly agree. It was true. Anyone planted inside by outside powers would be unlikely to share life and death with the Shangqing Sect and might well have fled under the pressure earlier. But all three also sensed something different about Tang Yi.

Ordinarily, Tang Yi listened to the views the three Elders worked out and then acted on them. This time, however, she was plainly thinking from the position of Sect Leader and actively expressing her own judgment.

Tang Susu said bitterly, "Those traitors absolutely cannot be spared!"

"Naturally, we won't let traitors go," Tang Yi replied. "But this is not the time to spend most of our energy chasing them. As Elder Luo said, that man has helped us intimidate others for the moment. No one should dare move against the Shangqing Sect in the short term, but only in the short term. We should use this favorable breathing space to make the preparations we need. Recall the disciples who went in pursuit. As for those deserters, the Shangqing Sect should issue a public statement to the cultivation world exposing them as traitors and ruining their reputations, making it difficult for them to establish themselves elsewhere. We can settle accounts with them slowly once an opportunity arises. And Song Shu. In my capacity as Sect Leader, I hereby declare that Song Shu ordered his son to murder fellow disciple Niu Youdao. When the attempt failed, he framed his own master's sect and then colluded with the Liuxian Sect to attack it. His name is to be listed together with the others as a traitor who betrayed his master and ancestors, for all beneath Heaven to condemn!"

"..."

The three Elders stared at her. List Song Shu among those who had betrayed their master and ancestors? None of them thought the charge itself unreasonable. Colluding with the Liuxian Sect to attack one's own master's sect was certainly enough. It might even have been exactly what happened.

But the attempt to kill Niu Youdao had clearly been ordered by Tang Susu through Song Yanqing. Pushing that crime onto Song Shu was outright framing him.

Still, after the Liuxian Sect's surprise attack, if the Shangqing Sect issued its statement first and seized control of the narrative, few people would believe anything Song Shu said in his own defense. It was an excellent method.

It even cleanly removed Tang Susu from the matter. If rumors later spread outside that Tang Yi had schemed to seize the Sect Leader position, people would likely assume the Song clan was retaliating by smearing her. Speaking first and seizing the initiative was indeed a fine move. The solution left Tang Susu somewhat uncomfortable, but the look she gave Tang Yi softened noticeably.

A grandniece was still a grandniece. All the effort Tang Susu had spent raising her to the Sect Leader's seat had not been wasted. In the end, Tang Yi still stood on the side of her own great-aunt. Family was family after all. In short, all three Elders now realized that Tang Yi's manner and thinking had changed significantly.

Luo Yuangong pondered before saying, "Sect Leader, the method is good, but once we do this, we'll have completely torn apart all relations with the Song clan. They'll be able to retaliate openly. From now on, establishing ourselves in the State of Yan will become even more difficult."

"I have made my decision."

Tang Yi raised her eyes toward Shangqing Palace. A firmness never seen before shone in them. Still carrying the wine jar, she moved past the three and left one sentence behind.

"We will offer incense to the Founding Patriarch."

Offer incense to the Founding Patriarch? The three Elders looked at one another in surprise, but they could only follow. There was never an inappropriate time to offer incense to the Founding Patriarch. None of them had grounds to refuse. The group entered Shangqing Palace.

Tang Yi set the wine jar aside and walked to the seated statue of the Founding Patriarch in the center of the hall. She lit three sticks of incense, stepped back three paces, and raised her head to gaze at the lofty seated image in silence.

The three Elders also stepped forward one after another to light incense, then returned to stand in a row behind Tang Yi, together contemplating the sacred countenance of their founder. After a long silence, Tang Yi slowly sank to her knees. The sudden solemnity of the gesture startled all three Elders.

Kneeling to the Founding Patriarch was nothing unusual, but such a great formal rite was normally performed only during major ceremonies or on momentous occasions. Since even the Sect Leader had knelt, the three senior Elders could hardly remain standing. They knelt behind her as well. Holding the incense upright in both hands, Tang Yi gazed at the seated statue with devout solemnity.

"Founding Patriarch above, honored predecessors of every generation above. I, Tang Yi, eleventh-generation Sect Leader of the Shangqing Sect, kneel before you and confess my failings. The Shangqing Sect has fallen into its present peril and cannot free itself. This is because I, your disciple, am incompetent. Today, with the Shangqing Sect's life and death hanging in the balance, I swear before the Founding Patriarch and the honored predecessors of every generation that I will exhaust all my strength to restore the Shangqing Sect. If there is any fault in what follows, I alone will bear it. I humbly ask the spirits of our forebears in Heaven to protect us!"

When she finished, she bowed three times, each time lowering her forehead to the floor. All three Elders behind her were visibly moved.

Everyone knew the Shangqing Sect had not declined overnight. Three feet of ice could not form from a single day's cold. There was no possible way all responsibility for its present condition could be laid at Tang Yi's feet. Yet before the Founding Patriarch, she had taken the entire burden upon herself. The three Elders exchanged looks, then likewise held their incense and kowtowed three times.

Tang Yi rose and stepped forward, placing her three incense sticks into the burner on the altar before slowly retreating. Only after the three Elders had also offered their incense and returned did she turn to face them. Her grave eyes moved across their faces.

"Given the Shangqing Sect's present situation, do the three Elders have any way to free us from this predicament?"

The three fell silent. If they had possessed a good method, they would have proposed it long ago.

Luo Yuangong tested her meaning. "Does the Sect Leader have some idea?"

"I have no perfect solution," Tang Yi said. "But we cannot remain here and watch the Shangqing Sect disappear before our eyes. We cannot stay here waiting to die. If we truly do that, then we will become sinners of the Shangqing Sect for all ages!"

The words "sinners for all ages" were heavy.

All three Elders grew solemn. Yet the accusation was not unreasonable. If the Shangqing Sect truly perished in their generation, how could they face the honored predecessors who had come before them?

Luo Yuangong said, "Sect Leader, whatever you wish to say, speak plainly."

Tang Yi replied, "I don't need to explain the Shangqing Sect's current situation. Even if no one attacks us again, our means of obtaining cultivation resources have already been cut off. The Song clan will almost certainly stop supplying us as well. Once that supply is gone, how are we supposed to answer to the disciples below? How do we keep their hearts? When that happens, it won't merely be those few dozen who desert. The entire Shangqing Sect may fall apart completely. And if that happens, with what strength will we clean house? Move a tree and it dies; move a person and he lives. I intend to temporarily abandon the sect's ancestral seat and lead all Shangqing Sect disciples elsewhere to seek cultivation resources, so that we may restore the sect!"

Luo Yuangong's and Su Po's eyes widened slightly. Tang Susu reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.

She shrieked, "You are the dignified Sect Leader, yet you actually intend to abandon the sect's ancestral seat? Have you considered how all beneath Heaven will look at you? They will laugh at your incompetence! Have you forgotten that the bones of the Founding Patriarch and generations of honored predecessors are buried throughout these mountains, including your own father? You're simply going to walk away and leave them to be trampled by outsiders? How can you stand before the Founding Patriarch and our honored predecessors and speak words that forget your roots and betray your ancestors?"

There was one thing she did not say aloud. Her own husband and son were buried here too. How could she permit outsiders to flatten their graves?

Some of the honored predecessors' remains had long since decayed to dust. Even if they wanted to dig them up and move them elsewhere, there was nothing left to relocate. And what meaning would there be in moving only a portion? The reality was indeed as the Liuxian Sect had said. The Shangqing Sect occupied a spiritually rich blessed land. The instant the Shangqing Sect left, someone else would occupy it. Leaving would be easy.

With the Shangqing Sect's present strength, taking the place back later would be difficult beyond measure. After all, they themselves would have abandoned it. They themselves would have chosen to give it up. What right would they then have to demand that whoever occupied it move away and return it?

Tang Yi answered firmly, "If the people who protect the Shangqing Sect are all gone, how will we preserve this ancestral seat then? It will still fall into someone else's hands! So long as the Shangqing Sect can recover, so long as we regain strength, there will naturally come a day when we can take it back. I don't want to watch the graves of the Founding Patriarch and our honored predecessors be humiliated either. But this is the price we must pay if the Shangqing Sect is to rise again. Otherwise, all we can do is sit here and wait to die. I believe the Founding Patriarch and our honored predecessors would understand us!"

"You..."

Tang Susu pointed at her with a sweep of her sleeve, furious enough to laugh.

"Fine, fine, fine! For the moment, let's say you're right. Then this old woman would like to ask the Sect Leader something. The State of Yan is vast, but where can we go? Tell me, where? Are you planning to imitate Niu Youdao and run off to seek refuge with Feng Lingbo?"

Tang Yi said, "Faced with the Shangqing Sect's difficulties, I have thought day and night about our options. After learning that Shang Chaozong had been accepted by Feng Lingbo, I did consider the possibility of seeking refuge with Feng Lingbo. But it would not be suitable. Feng Lingbo can accept Shang Chaozong, but that does not mean he would accept the Shangqing Sect. Taking in Shang Chaozong has already put him under pressure. The Tianyu Sect had to send explanations throughout the cultivation world. If the Shangqing Sect then entangles itself with Prince Ning's son as well, the Tianyu Sect may not be willing to bear the additional pressure. Even if they were willing, Feng Lingbo's power is still too small. At present, I see no ability in him to expand, and he is nowhere near strong enough to compare with the imperial court. The State of Yan itself is already battered by wind and rain and could be broken apart and divided among the surrounding states at any moment. If Feng Lingbo's power were caught in a tide that large, I fear he would be unable to resist it. So no regional lord within Great Yan is suitable as a place for the Shangqing Sect to seek long-term development."

Tang Susu laughed mockingly. "Don't tell me the Sect Leader intends to lead the Shangqing Sect into another state? Every land excludes outsiders. The powers of another state aren't going to casually let foreign forces move in and divide their share of the benefits!"

Tang Yi said, "I intend to lead our people north and seek refuge with Shao Dengyun, the rebel general of Great Yan!"

[End of Chapter 73]