The sword was stabbed into her body.
The Spirit Stones? Wanhuagu only gave her a measly amount.
As for clothes, they still didn’t give her shoes, but they did teach her an advanced application of the Feihua Dun.
On the day before she was about to leave Wanhuagu, Hua Jian took stock of her gains over these past few days and found it hard to judge Wanhuagu’s actions.
If you said they were stingy, that would definitely be wrong.
When it came to Spirit Techniques and other resources, Wanhuagu gave Hua Jian an inexhaustible supply.
She could do whatever she wanted and hit whoever she wanted.
But on the simplest matter, Wanhuagu was particularly principled—they absolutely refused to let Hua Jian wear shoes.
Who made it a rule that the Saintess of Wanhuagu had to go barefoot! This would make everyone think Wanhuagu was an unserious Sect, right!
Oh, well, it wasn’t like Wanhuagu was a proper Sect anyway, so no problem.
Compared to Hua Jian, who only had one set of seasonal clothes and no shoes, Xia Hui actually got her new outfit.
It was a uniform specially prepared for her as a Saintess Attendant.
Overall, it looked similar to Hua Jian’s Saintess uniform, but you could tell at a glance who was the master and who was the servant.
And unlike the Saintess, the Attendants could wear shoes.
Xia Hui was wearing this outfit, and Hua Xinrui also got a set. According to the girl herself, she had been personally assigned by the Gu Zhu to serve Hua Jian.
Obviously, Wanhuagu didn’t want Hua Jian to completely slip out of their sight, but they also didn’t want her to feel too uncomfortable, so they arranged for this little fool, Hua Xinrui, to follow Hua Jian as a pair of eyes.
Hua Xinrui herself was very satisfied with this arrangement.
When putting on the clothes, she was even happier than Xia Hui, acting as if once she wore this outfit, she would belong to the Saintess Daren for life.
If it weren’t for the fact that Hua Jian was a relatively proper person, Hua Xinrui would probably have climbed into Hua Jian’s bed as a chambermaid that very night.
Hua Jian didn’t resist the arrangement too much either. Fooling Hua Xinrui was much simpler than dealing with those old foxes, and she was adorably silly.
And so, the Saintess’s traveling party was fixed at three people: herself and her two attendants.
Of course, in name, the entire squad heading to the Qian Family would be under her command, but in reality, that wasn’t the case.
This squad was led by an Imperial-grade disciple with the Flower surname. Hua Jian had no authority to command the squad’s actions.
On the contrary, that Imperial-grade could oversee her movements.
According to information leaked by Huaxinhu, this leading Imperial-grade was actually one of the more good-tempered among Wanhuagu’s Imperial-grades, with no flaws other than a love for pleasure and entertainment.
After all, they were going to interact with another faction, and a friendly one at that. They couldn’t send someone with an explosive temper to cause trouble, right?
Other than that, Wanhuagu placed almost no restrictions on Hua Jian, and they weren’t worried at all that she might take the opportunity to escape.
That wasn’t hard to understand either, because Hua Jian now literally had a weakness in Wanhuagu’s hands.
Her mother was still being held captive by Wanhuagu.
It turned out that keeping Hua Xinjie alive was a very correct decision.
A young girl who had grown up without a mother, battered by storms, suddenly learning that her mother was still alive—the dependence and affection that surged forth became the strongest chains possible.
What made matters worse was that this mother was truly a good mother.
Hua Jian sometimes even wondered if Wanhuagu had deliberately raised someone like that to impersonate her mother.
But whenever she got close to Hua Xinjie, she could feel that bond of bloodline. It couldn’t be faked.
The Transformation Spell Wanhuagu used on Hua Jian was said to be transformation, but it was more like reincarnation.
Hua Jian had merely inherited the power and talent from her past life, but she had none of her past memories.
In theory, she was completely Hua Xinjie’s child, completely different from Bai Hua Zun Zhe’s relationship with her.
Bai Hua Zun Zhe had created a movable Human Puppet, but the Venerable’s true body still existed.
As for Hua Jian, she had completely abandoned her original body and taken her current human body as her true form.
So, every other day, Hua Jian would take time to visit Hua Xinjie and absorb a hearty dose of mother energy.
Today happened to be her day to visit Hua Xinjie.
The inventory she had just taken was Hua Xinjie checking her luggage.
“Beijing is not like other regions. Once you leave the valley, be careful in everything.”
“Mm-hmm, I understand, Mother. Don’t worry, I’m not a child anymore!”
Lying on her side beside Hua Xinjie, her head resting on Hua Xinjie’s thigh, Hua Jian squinted her eyes and said confidently.
She wasn’t going out this time to stir up trouble. She was just going to visit a friend and experience the local customs of Beijing.
The mission from Wanhuagu had nothing to do with her. Yang Hong Zun Zhe hadn’t told her to help with anything, only said not to cause too much trouble.
Things like indiscriminate killing, massacring cities, wiping out races—Wanhuagu didn’t do that.
They preferred using shady methods, like assassination or seduction.
What Yang Hong Zun Zhe meant was that even if Hua Jian wanted to stir up trouble, she had to do it using Wanhuagu’s signature methods, and not learn bad habits from those ordinary Mad Dao.
Wanhuagu still had some face to maintain.
“Maybe soon I’ll be able to take you away from here, Mother!”
With only one year left before the Five-Year Agreement ended, after that year, Hua Jian could run away from here!
Based on Wanhuagu’s current behavior, Hua Jian didn’t think these flexible Smiling Tigers would choose to keep Hua Xinjie hostage and become enemies with her.
She had also indirectly asked about Wanhuagu’s view on Hua Xinjie, and the answer she got was reassuring.
Now, aside from her connection to Hua Jian, Hua Xinjie had no other use. If Hua Jian really wanted to take Hua Xinjie away, Wanhuagu would not oppose it in principle.
As for what would actually happen when that day came, no one knew. For now, Wanhuagu agreed quite straightforwardly.
“Mother, do you think Wanhuagu will let us leave?”
A pause.
Hua Xinjie gently stroked the long black hair scattered on her skirt, without any hesitation.
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
Hua Jian had expected Hua Xinjie to hesitate, to think that Wanhuagu would definitely go back on their word.
She never expected Hua Xinjie to trust Wanhuagu so much.
“My understanding of them might not be deep, but I do know one thing: Wanhuagu’s only principle is profit.” Hua Xinjie extended a finger and explained calmly.
“My foundation has been completely destroyed. It’s impossible for me to make any breakthroughs in this life. The only reason they keep me is to earn your favor.”
Hua Xinjie was actually not young anymore. And as a Flower-surname disciple of Wanhuagu, her current strength was only at the Ling Wang Realm, the initial stage.
That was also one of the reasons Hua Jian cared so much about Hua Xinjie. It was because giving birth to her had caused Hua Xinjie to end up like this.
Giving birth to Hua Jian was no easy task. Other cultivators having a child would at most suffer a slight loss of Qi and blood, but giving birth to Hua Jian was truly a nine-out-of-ten-death ordeal.
After Yao Mei’s mother gave birth to her, her body was severely damaged, and she eventually died of illness. The same was true for Hua Xinjie.
Fortunately, Wanhuagu had taken good care of Hua Xinjie’s injuries; otherwise, what Hua Jian would be seeing now would be Hua Xinjie’s grave.
But even so, Hua Xinjie’s foundation had been completely shattered. She could barely retain any Spiritual Power in her body, and could no longer even practice cultivation.
One could say she had the strength of the Ling Wang Realm, but in reality, she might not even be able to match a Spirit Master.
For Wanhuagu, her only use now was to win Hua Jian’s goodwill.
If they actually used her to threaten Hua Jian, and Hua Jian was forced into a corner and bit back, that would be an unacceptable loss for Wanhuagu.
In dealing with Hua Jian, Wanhuagu had always adopted an attitude of winning her over.
Even if they couldn’t ultimately make Hua Jian submit, they couldn’t become mortal enemies.
So on the matter of Hua Xinjie, Wanhuagu would never trip Hua Jian up.
“There are many bad people in Wanhuagu, but there are also those with pure intentions, especially the Gu Zhu and others. To continue and strengthen Wanhuagu, they would do anything.”
Wanhuagu couldn’t be judged simply by good or bad. They were pure existentialists.
Existence is everything. Everything for existence.
Compared to the Saint Sect, they were bad. Compared to the Demonic Sect, they were good. They had carved out a unique advantageous niche for themselves.
The people here were basically the kind who were a little bad, but not beyond redemption.
To put it more plainly, they were the type who engaged in petty theft.
Other Demonic Sects looked down on Wanhuagu’s cowardice and profit-driven nature, but when it was time to form a team, they still had to hold their noses and let Wanhuagu join.
After all, Wanhuagu really was strong, and if given enough benefits, they actually delivered.
“In the past, I also joined Wanhuagu just to survive. They gave me a lot, but in the end, I still felt this wasn’t what I wanted.” Hua Xinjie softly recounted the reason she had joined Wanhuagu back then.
It was simple, really. She was about to freeze to death and wanted a place to stay. Just then, Wanhuagu was recruiting, so she gave it a try.
Her cultivation talent was decent, and she was successfully accepted into Wanhuagu.
At first, life was passable, but soon she felt she couldn’t adapt to Wanhuagu’s way of life.
Probably because her moral bottom line was too high.
When the fellow disciples who entered with her were infatuated with their newly acquired Wanhuagu secret techniques and used them daily, she never used a single one of those techniques.
Instead, she hid in her room and cultivated alone.
“In fact, the Gu Zhu and others noticed my peculiarity very early on, but they never reduced my resources at all. Later, they even granted me the Huashen Canon.”
Hua Xinjie’s feelings toward Wanhuagu were very complicated.
She didn’t like it here, but she had indeed received favors from Wanhuagu, and later, she had actually done things that harmed the Sect’s interests.
“Later, I was selected along with a few sisters to become Flower-surname disciples. I was quite happy at the time, but soon I heard someone say that we new Flower-surname disciples weren’t true Flower-surname disciples. We were just containers chosen for a monster.”
“That monster was naturally referring to Hua Jian before she became human, but it was somewhat unbelievable that Hua Xinjie managed to find out such news.”