After the fairy disappeared

Chapter 2392 The Life of a Useless Person's Rise to Power

Chapter 2392 The Life of a Useless Person's Rise to Power

"His performance in the first few years of his cultivation was mediocre, and he did not show any outstanding qualities. There were countless disciples like him in Changfeng Valley, and no one paid special attention to him. He even made several mistakes along the way, and he did not correct them despite repeated teachings. As a result, his master demoted him again and again, and he was made to do menial tasks. For a period of time, he was assigned to serve the Earth Mother."

Liu Yisheng pointed at Li Yun: "Li Yun learned that the mistakes he made were actually framed by others. He was also impressed by Li Yun's diligence and hard work, so he stepped forward to plead for him. Shangguan Biao quickly returned to his master's side, and thereafter his abilities gradually became apparent. He rose through the ranks rapidly, and his path to promotion was much smoother and faster than others. After the three sects besieged Changfeng Valley, the sect was depleted of talent, so I relied on him as my right-hand man to help me handle the affairs of Bailufeng. He did a great job, but little did I know that he was always harboring evil intentions."

He Lingchuan had already noticed a few suspicious points, so he asked directly: "Shangguan Biao was already twelve years old when he entered Changfeng Valley. Immortal sects usually only accept disciples under the age of seven. His talent is not exceptional, so why was he able to enter the sect?"

The Changfeng Valley family is large, powerful, and famous. They are selecting people on their own territory. Whether commoners or wealthy families, which one wouldn't be eager to send someone in? Any exam with a large number of applicants and a limited number of spots should be very difficult and tricky to achieve the goal of weeding out the majority of candidates.

The disciples of Changfeng Valley must be selected from the best of the best.

Shangguan Biao was just the son of a pharmaceutical merchant, so why was he able to "smoothly" pass the test?

Generally speaking, those who can pass this test are either exceptionally talented and outstanding, or... well...

But Liu Yisheng just said that Shangguan Biao is only "decently qualified" and not a genius of his time, so he is not worth making an exception to admit.

This is an old story from many years ago. Changfeng Valley is gone, and all those involved are dead. Liu Yisheng has no need to cover it up anymore.

So he paused for a moment and then said, "To be honest, Shangguan Biao's talent isn't particularly outstanding, and Changfeng Valley could accept him or not. But his family, which is a medicine merchant, is quite wealthy and very devout. In the end, they found an elder from their sect to vouch for him and recommended him several times. Sigh!"

Everyone understood.

Another shortcut to entering a prestigious sect like Changfeng Valley is to spend money, a lot of money.

This money must have been spent on finding connections.

Aunt Zhu couldn't help but ask, "Then why did you take him in and then belittle him all the way? What's the meaning of that?"

“He lived a life of luxury at home and couldn’t get used to life in the monastery. He also had poor relationships with his fellow disciples, which affected his spiritual practice.”

He Lingchuan laughed: "If you really want to bring down Shangguan Biao and avenge yourself, then stop trying to cover things up. We need real information to make the right judgment. Otherwise, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison, living with lunatics every day, suffering endless humiliation from Shangguan Biao, and never finding release!"

Liu Yisheng lowered his eyes. Yes, he had fallen to this state; his pride was now the least valuable thing to him.

Changfeng Valley is long gone. What is there to hide about the past of Changfeng Valley?

The highly specialized atmosphere within that vast sect was passed down from generation to generation, and it cannot all be blamed on him.

Having been imprisoned here for thousands of years, Liu Yisheng had long since come to terms with it, so he took a light breath and said:

"Our sect encourages its disciples to cultivate diligently, and everyone should strive to be the best. However, not every disciple can be among the top. If they cannot compete openly, then some people will resort to underhanded means."

The right path is rugged and difficult, so it's inevitable that some people will want to take shortcuts; it's human nature.

He Lingchuan said, "If too many people want to take shortcuts, then it's no longer a shortcut, but a crooked path."

As a high-ranking member, how could Liu Yisheng not know what the sect's atmosphere was like? "Shangguan Biao was a bit stubborn when he first entered the sect. He always thought he could distinguish right from wrong, disapproved of this and that, and 'righteously' stood up for others a few times, which offended some fellow disciples and seniors. He didn't understand that the world doesn't revolve around him. He broke those bad rules, and when others wanted to deal with him, how could he possibly be a match for them?"

Aunt Zhu snorted: "You humans do all sorts of bad things and still feel smug, thinking that your own set of rules is above all else."

“In Changfeng Valley, some rules are absolute and no one can disobey them,” Liu Yisheng said slowly. “Not to mention Shangguan Biao, even I, or even Sect Leader Wang, cannot!”

"Shangguan Biao was unreasonable. The more he fought back, the more he suffered. Not only was he beaten to a pulp, but he was also demoted to menial tasks. His enemies even bribed Du Zhishan's supervisor to make him suffer in secret. Working at Du Zhishan was actually quite dangerous. Many of his disciples had accidents there. I know that most people who continued like this would never be able to rise again and would disappear quietly after a few years."

Changfeng Valley is a large sect with over 100,000 members. What's so strange about dozens or hundreds of people going missing every year?

"I don't know the details of what Shangguan Biao experienced when he was a menial laborer." In fact, how could Liu Yisheng not know about the sordid things among the lower classes? But he never went into the details because, "The creed of Changfeng Valley is that only by enduring the bitterest of hardships can one rise above others. In our sect, the capable rise and the incapable fall, and almost everyone has gone through this process."

He himself was no exception.

The four remained noncommittal. Liu Yisheng couldn't help but defend Changfeng Valley, which was also a way of defending himself.

But in He Lingchuan's view, just because everyone is like this doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with it.

Aunt Zhu laughed and said, "So in the end, Shangguan Biao became the dominant figure, while you spent your life in jail. Isn't that reasonable?"

Liu Yisheng remained expressionless.

He Lingchuan then asked, "What happened next?"

Liu Yisheng pointed to Li Yun, who was still lying on the ground counting grains of rice: "Shangguan Biao worked as a handyman for seven or eight years, and he figured it out. He seized the opportunity to curry favor with Li Yun and regained his position. His subsequent development was no different from that of other disciples of Changfeng Valley, only faster. He became the cave master of Qufeng Cave in less than a hundred years."

Is he trying to curry favor with Li Yun?

So, Li Yun is the nobleman who brought Shangguan Biao out of the dust, so why is he being imprisoned here and tortured?

So, what unspeakable things are going on here?

How exactly did Shangguan Biao's mindset change?

However, time was precious, and none of the four of them pressed for such details.

Before the invasion of the three sects, Changfeng Valley had five peaks and eighteen caves. The caves varied in strength, but becoming the cave master meant wielding great power. Qufeng Cave, in particular, had a large population, and Shangguan Biao's power was close to that of ten thousand people.

"The previous master of Qufeng Cave perished while we were away, and in retrospect, there are still some suspicious points." Liu Yisheng took a light breath. "In the more than one hundred years that followed, the conflicts between the various peaks and caves became unprecedentedly intense. They were no longer content with covert struggles, and many talented people either fought amongst themselves or were punished according to the clan rules. Within the clan..."

(End of this chapter)