Mo Yaoqing was a proud person at heart. Her refusal to engage in dual cultivation stemmed from self-respect, not so-called chastity.
Gradually increasing age and a growing number of enemies were forcing her to make a decision. Her character was resolute; when she decided to act, she did so swiftly. In any case, she did not value chastity, and Zhong Muling was someone she held in rather good regard—so why not? Thus, she devised a plan involving Zhong Muling, utilizing a technique of plundering cultivation to break through to the Nascent Soul stage in one fell swoop.
After forming her Nascent Soul, Mo Yaoqing went to cause trouble for the Danxia Sect. Alone, she naturally could not oppose the entire sect, so she secretly killed many descendants of that Grand Elder. Such methods were indeed rather ruthless, but when Mo Tiange thought of her ancestor's earlier experiences, she could only sigh.
With Mo Yaoqing's talent back then, she had already formed her Core by over a hundred years old. If her cultivation had proceeded smoothly, she likely could have formed her Nascent Soul by three hundred. Yet she had paid an extra two hundred years and indescribable hardships. If she hadn't been clever enough back then, she probably wouldn't have escaped the fate of being forced.
Of course, the Danxia Sect still had late-Nascent Soul cultivators, any one of whom was beyond the reach of the newly Nascent Soul Mo Yaoqing. Moreover, she had many other enemies. So, after venting her pent-up anger and killing her targets, Mo Yaoqing made a decisive break and fled far away. Later, through a series of coincidences, she arrived at the Tianji Region.
When she reached Tianji, she first settled in Linhai City on the shores of the East Sea. The events that followed, Mo Tiange already knew: she established the Bixuan Pavilion, temporarily making a home in Linhai.
However, it was at this very time that she discovered she was pregnant!
This was five years after her single night as husband and wife with Zhong Muling.
Normally, if pregnant, one would give birth after ten months. But Mo Yaoqing was a cultivator, and there was an extremely small chance of a 'hidden pregnancy.' A so-called hidden pregnancy occurred when the fetus, before developing, became enveloped in spiritual energy, thus delaying the appearance of pregnancy symptoms. After her night with Zhong Muling, Mo Yaoqing immediately entered seclusion to form her Nascent Soul. During Nascent Soul formation, with spiritual energy swirling chaotically, the possibility of this occurring was quite high. It was precisely because of this that Zhong Muling remained unaware of this child from beginning to end, only discovering many years later that Mo Yaoqing had left him a bloodline.
In the end, Mo Yaoqing could not bear to part with this child. Remembering that his father, Zhong Muling, was a kind person, she finally decided to give birth to the child. Unfortunately, although the child had two Nascent Soul cultivators as parents, he possessed no Spirit Root. Helpless, Mo Yaoqing went to the mortal world, pretending to be a mortal for several decades to raise the child. Only after the child grew up, married, and had children of his own did Mo Yaoqing feign death from old age and extricate herself to return to Linhai.
Reading this, Mo Tiange's view of this ancestor changed. Beyond her strong-willed and decisive character, she was also a woman, and a mother. Many cultivators looked down upon children without Spirit Roots, but she was willing to pretend to be a mortal for decades for this child.
From this part of the record, Mo Tiange sensed the sorrow permeating between the lines. The child she carried for years and gave birth to, her own flesh and blood, had no Spirit Root. She could only watch helplessly as he went through birth, aging, sickness, and death. Therefore, she preferred to place the child in the mortal world, severing the mother-son bond.
Producing offspring was so cruel for cultivators. Even if both parents were Nascent Soul cultivators, they could not guarantee the child born would possess a Spirit Root.
She couldn't help but think of herself. After becoming husband and wife with Qin Xi, neither of them had brought up this issue. She had vaguely considered it but never dwelled on it deeply, because compared to mortals, cultivators were even less likely to conceive. Only now did she realize how cruel this problem was. Both she and Qin Xi were individuals with firm Dao hearts, dedicated to arduous cultivation, inherently unsuited for having children, not to mention this additional issue...
If there was no Spirit Root, what should they do? To let the child know of the world of immortal cultivation yet have no affinity for it—how cruel would that be? The only option would be to place him in the mortal world, but then the familial bond would be difficult to sustain.
After pondering for a while, Mo Tiange sighed and pushed the matter to the back of her mind. Since it was unsuitable, then it was better not to have one. Anyway, Qin Xi was in seclusion and wouldn't emerge for at least ten or twenty years. They could discuss it then.
After returning to Linhai, Mo Yaoqing continued her cultivation. Although Tianji was smaller than Yunzhong, Kunwu had so many cultivators that its prosperity was no less than Yunzhong's. In such an environment, living in seclusion in Linhai without the disturbance of enemies, she smoothly advanced to mid-stage Nascent Soul.
In the intervening years, she had also returned to Yunzhong once. Relying on her numerous magical treasures and formidable strength, she intended to seek revenge, only to discover that the Grand Elder who had pressured her back then had actually already passed away in meditation.
Upon learning this news, Mo Yaoqing stood stunned for a long time, finally sighing and letting go of her hatred. Only at this moment did she see through it—what did hatred matter? In the end, it couldn't withstand time. Nascent Soul cultivators had lifespans of over a thousand years, but so what? One day they would fall or pass away in meditation, and by then, they would be nothing more than a handful of yellow earth.
Returning to Tianji, Mo Yaoqing devoted herself to cultivation. However, she was never able to advance again; this was her limit. The aftereffects of having abolished her cultivation were severe. She could never cross that hurdle, stagnating at mid-stage Nascent Soul for several hundred years, ultimately failing to advance to the late stage, and finally passing away in meditation in Tianji.
Before her passing, Mo Yaoqing recorded her life story, reviewing her lifetime. She had spent her entire life struggling against fate, and until the end, she had no regrets.
Setting down the jade slip, Mo Tiange sat for a long while, exhaled a breath, and looked up at the sky.
A day had already passed, and the sky was filled with colorful sunset clouds. Soon, night would fall, but so what? There was still the beauty of a sky full of stars, and the dawn was something to look forward to.
She smiled, put away Mo Yaoqing's jade slip, and sat cross-legged to meditate.
Although she did not possess Mo Yaoqing's world-shaking talent, she had a luck her ancestor did not. She had met a master who sincerely cared for her and found a lover with whom she shared mutual affection. Although she had also experienced loss, she had gained far more.
Once she entered meditation, her mental state easily settled into a realm of peace and emptiness. Heaven and earth seemed to merge into one, ethereal and tranquil. The Primordial Chaos within her body began to circulate, the Five Elements generating each other, Yin and Yang flowing, endlessly perpetuating...
Mo Tiange felt she had entered a very mysterious state, one she had never experienced before. She felt her entire being dissolving into it, gradually losing herself...
The wind blew, the scent of flowers and grass reached her nose, and the sound of ocean waves reached her ears. She seemed to fall asleep, then wake up.
Opening her eyes again, it was still night. Mo Tiange didn't know how long she had been cultivating, only that she felt refreshed and full of energy.
She circulated her spiritual energy and felt something unusual within her dantian, as if it were stirring restlessly. She felt an intense desire to continue cultivating, to set this spiritual energy circulating, absorbing external Spiritual Qi, channeling it through her meridians to reach her dantian. Her cultivation was now at the peak of the early Core Formation stage. She had stopped absorbing Spiritual Qi for some time; her recent cultivation sessions had only been for meditation and regulating her breath. Given this situation, could it be that her body wanted to advance?
Thinking of this, a surge of joy rose in her heart. It had only been a little over a decade since she successfully formed her Core; she originally hadn't thought she could advance so quickly. Her natural talent was exceptional, and she lacked no pills, so her cultivation progress was inherently fast. But this meant her mental cultivation would lag, often requiring her to linger at the peak of a certain stage for a period before breaking through. Just like during Foundation Establishment, she had deliberately suppressed her cultivation speed for a long time to let her mental state catch up with her cultivation level. Yet she never expected it to be this fast this time—only a little over a decade, and she could advance!
Thinking carefully, perhaps it was related to reading Mo Yaoqing's life record? Mo Yaoqing's account was extremely detailed. During that half-day, she experienced joy, sorrow, grief, and anger alongside the Mo Yaoqing in the jade slip, almost equivalent to living through Mo Yaoqing's entire life. In this process, she experienced and comprehended many things. Perhaps precisely because of this, her mental state had advanced by leaps and bounds, giving rise to this impulse to advance.
Logically, if she were to advance, she should enter the Virtual Heaven Realm. But for some reason, she suddenly very much wanted to sit here, experiencing everything Mo Yaoqing had felt.
She decided to act on it. Mo Tiange set up a simple defensive spirit-gathering formation around herself, took out several types of pills, sat cross-legged, and entered seclusion on the spot.
Advancing through a minor stage like this was much more casual, not as difficult as Foundation Establishment or Core Formation. Moreover, this place was the remote depths of the East Sea, uninhabited. So, Mo Tiange merely swallowed a Qingyun Pill and a Consolidation Pill before closing her eyes and beginning to absorb Spiritual Qi.
The sun rose and the moon set, the tide ebbed and flowed. Amid the sound of ocean waves, time passed day by day.
Listening to the rise and fall of the waves, Mo Tiange felt as if she had returned to the distant era five thousand years ago, the time when that proud, strong-willed woman lived.
Nothing was eternal except time itself. Mortals experienced birth, aging, sickness, and death; cultivators advanced or fell. As time passed, even the most astonishingly talented genius would eventually be submerged by time, left to be covered by wild smoke and overgrown grass, their traces lost.
Unless one cultivated to become a true Immortal, leaping beyond the cycle of reincarnation.
Only then could one grasp time, grasp eternity, become one with heaven and earth, never to be extinguished.
Four months later, Mo Tiange opened her eyes.
She looked down at herself. Nothing had changed outwardly, yet the fullness of spiritual energy throughout her body far exceeded what it was before seclusion.
These four months had passed, and she had smoothly advanced to mid-stage Core Formation.
Thinking of this, she smiled faintly. Although she hadn't formed her Core earlier than Qin Xi, her advancement to mid-stage Core Formation came at a younger age. She remembered Qin Xi saying that not long after he advanced to mid-stage Core Formation, he went to Tianmo Mountain, and at that time, he was already one hundred and sixteen years old.
Comparing herself to Qin Xi wasn't about wanting to compete. It was just that the gap in their cultivation levels was too great now; she needed to catch up to him sooner so that the two of them could walk side by side.
Thinking of Qin Xi, Mo Tiange's thoughts drifted far away. She had also been away from the Xuanqing Sect for half a year. Separated for half a year, she truly missed him somewhat. She didn't know how he was doing now. If he knew she had advanced to mid-stage Core Formation, he would certainly be very happy, right?
"Perhaps I should go back..." she murmured to herself. Even though Qin Xi would still be in seclusion if she returned, she could still see him occasionally.
After thinking for a moment, she shook her head again. That wouldn't do. In a cultivator's thousand-year lifespan, how many times would they experience seclusion? It had only been half a year. If she was constantly preoccupied with longing, how could she focus wholeheartedly on seclusion? He could manage it, so she should be able to as well.
But what should she do next? She had found Mo Yaoqing's cave abode; her objective was accomplished. According to her original plan, she should properly study and comprehend the cultivation insights Mo Yaoqing left behind.
Ah, right. This was the East Sea. Perhaps she could stay here, studying the insights while also hunting some sea beasts? She could obtain some demon cores not found in Kunwu, which might prove useful someday, and it would also allow her to hone her combat skills.
Thinking of this, Mo Tiange clapped her hands. That's what she would do then.