Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 75: Bloodline

The Yuanjing clan possessed a unique and important heritage, so their elders took great care in planning marriages for the younger members, especially the talented ones. They aimed to keep their special bloodline pure and strong by arranging marriages within the clan, even if it meant marrying distant relatives.

A long time ago, some family members started their own branches but still maintained close ties with the Yuanjing clan and followed the same marriage traditions to keep the bloodline pure. Despite these branches developing their own identities over time, detailed family records helped organize marriages between descendants of those who branched out from the Yuanjing family many generations ago.

This careful planning ensured the Yuanjing bloodline remained exclusive and uncontaminated by outside influences.

Yufei's family history was a perfect example of this careful preservation of the Yuanjing bloodline. Her grandmother, who was from the main Yuanjing family, married into a branch that had split off a long time ago but was still related. When Yufei's mother grew up, she too married into a distant but related branch of the Yuanjing family, keeping up with family tradition.

Following the same custom, Yufei was betrothed to Xuan from birth in order to maintain bloodline purity within the web of Yuanjing offshoots. She was eventually sent to live in Xuan's household when deemed of marriageable age. However, before the arranged marriage could take place, Xuan was accepted into the prestigious Sacred Sword Sect, forcing him to depart and postponing their union.

Importantly, Yuanjing males were not forbidden from marrying outside the clan, as bringing in a powerful new bloodline from an outsider bride could prove beneficial. However, Yuanjing women could absolutely not marry outsiders, in order to prevent progenitor abilities from being lost to other clans.

The intricacies of the Yuanjing bloodline were a tightly-guarded secret known only to elite elders. Even among the clan, most were unaware of how it truly functioned. All they knew was that each member awakened different mystical abilities, rather than inheriting them directly from their parents.

For example, Xuan's father wielded an incredible lightness ability enabling him to leap across higher grounds and float. Yet Xuan instead developed the rare insight ability to foresee an opponent's moves in battle, which differed from his father's or his mother's talent, who came from a clan known for a divination bloodline.

Instances such as this led rival clans who studied the Yuanjing to speculate that the clan's bloodline power itself passed solely down the male line, enhancing whatever ability the mother possessed. So while it appeared Xuan did not inherit his father's talents, he likely gained a booster effect from his father's Yuanjing blood to make his mother's divination insight more profound and tangible.

However, this was only hearsay without conclusive proof.

A point to consider was Yufei's grandmother was now a respected elder of the Hidden Moon Sect. Just like the Sacred Sword Sect, Hidden Moon Sect was respected. Since she was an elder, she was respected everywhere.

Because of her grandmother, Yufei received special treatment in the Yuanjing clan - if she had said no, no one in the clan would have made her marry Xuan, but since she was betrothed, she came to Yuanjing to fulfill her duties.

The rumor that a child of Xuan had been born reached her as well. She found out the boy was living as a stable boy. Yufei was uncertain how to feel about it; on one hand, her future companion had fathered a child that was not hers, and on the other hand, she, coming from a righteous path, believed in being righteous and felt she could not do anything about it.

She had given everything in her life for Xuan, but he went on to father a bastard. To learn more, she sent her subordinate, assigned by the Yuanjing clan, to visit the boy and gather all the details about him, under the guise of a mission to collect special spirit sand from the desert.

Her subordinate had written to her about how the boy was not learning any noble arts or being taught cultivation. To Yufei's surprise, Meixu, her subordinate, for some reason liked the boy and mentioned that the child was different from many she had met. So, Meixu persuaded the subordinate clan to teach the boy cultivation.

This bothered Yufei more; her subordinate taking a liking to a bastard her future husband had sired.

Because of Lady Meixu, Lady Yufei had more information about the boy, but that was all she knew. Since the location was far, letters took months to arrive, even if messengers used teleportation channels.

A few days ago, she received information from her other servants that Xuan's father had sent a warrior to find out if Wuyi was demonic, and someone else from the outer clan was also sent to kill the boy. Hearing the boy was demonic, she felt relief for some reason; if the boy was demonic and died, her concerns might go away.

She asked her servants to dig deeper and found out from the outer clan records that problems arose when the boy started cultivating; she wanted to chide Lady Meixu for interfering already, or all these complications might not have arisen.

But then, she found out about the part where the teacher of the boy sent urgent news to the clan that the boy showed demonic nature. Since the boy was a bastard, without giving it further thought, the outer elders decided the boy should be eliminated. For obvious reasons, Yufei felt that the outer clan elders had taken the right decision.

She believed she would hear the news of the boy's death very soon.

But a few days ago, Lady Meixu had sent an urgent message about the boy having a spirit-calling bloodline and killing the member who was supposed to kill him. Hearing this, Lady Yufei's concerns grew that if the boy had a better bloodline than hers, then her value might decrease; compared to her worth, the ability was too special.

Yufei was torn between being righteous and worrying about her self-interests. Meixu informed her that she would be returning soon to explain the details. Yufei waited patiently for her subordinate to return.

She tried find out more but no one had clear information about it, but the clan officially had received news of the death of the warrior sent on the mission and the spirit-calling ability. Still, it did not create much waves, just rumors which were suppressed.