Path of the Sect Leader

Chapter 17: A First Visit Met with Coldness

The Wind Array Spirit Boat devoured spirit stones faster than Qi Xiu liked.

He had left in such a rush that the only stones on him were the two hundred low-grade scraps leftover from Clear River Market. The sect’s baggage held tools, not currency. This trip would barely cover a round voyage.

He cursed his own impulsiveness for the hundredth time.

Announcing the spirit array to every disciple had been stupid; he should have told only the older ones. Gu Ji’s mouth ran like the wind, and Qin Weiyu couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. One careless word to a passing rogue…

His stomach knotted again.

“What if some black-hearted wanderer stops at the peak while I’m gone? Ten defenseless children and a half-dead spirit vein—easy pickings.”

The worry looped endlessly, feeding on itself.

Only a few days as sect leader and already the weight felt heavier than thirty years of ordinary life.

He remembered a loose cultivator’s travelogue he’d once read: in certain lands the dead were buried in boat-shaped coffins. The vessel beneath him now looked eerily similar.

“Clever men toil, wise men worry, the talentless drift carefree on full bellies—like an unmoored boat.”

Was that why those ancients chose a boat as final resting place? Body freed from labor, soul freed from care?

Yet who in this world truly desired nothing?

Even seeking the Great Dao was a desire, the greatest desire of all.

Over Black River the land turned to monotonous green and blue. Qi Xiu brooded the entire flight and found no answers.

Perhaps I should have cut ties and become a lone wanderer after all.

The thought rose, then drowned beneath the memory of nine pairs of eyes looking to him for survival.

Three hours later a sorry little market appeared on the horizon.

He landed outside the wards—every proper market forbade flight overhead, and even Golden Cores obeyed.

The place had no formal name; Southern Chu folk simply called it Number Nine-Three Market after its owner, Chu Youmin—ninth branch, third son.

Four two-story wooden buildings huddled around a crossroad. That was the entire market. Compared to Clear River, it looked like a village fair.

Not a single cultivator walked the streets.

A mortal greeter met him at the first pavilion. First floor: ghost market, opened at odd hours, nearly empty now. Second floor: occasional auctions and swap meets. The other three buildings sold herbs and pills, artifacts and manuals, and ran a tiny inn—all under Chu Youmin’s personal banner.

Qi Xiu announced himself as Chuqin Sect Leader and requested a formal visit.

The mortal scurried off and returned with a mid Qi Refinement steward. Courtesy lasted exactly three breaths.

Once the steward learned Qi Xiu was merely second-layer Qi Refinement, the man’s face rearranged itself into a sneer.

“Wait here,” he snorted through his nose, already turning away. “Any stray cat can call himself sect leader these days.”

The mortal greeter’s warmth evaporated instantly. He dumped Qi Xiu in a side room with a cup of lukewarm tea and vanished.

Qi Xiu felt no real anger—only tired recognition.

He had eaten scorn for breakfast most of his life. The sneers on the shuttle, the mockery in his old sect; this was familiar ground.

Besides, a second-layer Qi Refinement sect leader was objectively laughable. In thirty years he had never seen a sect head below late Qi Refinement. The strange part was that the two Foundation Establishment Chu cultivators—Chu Youyan and the laughing girl Chu Zhuangyuan—had treated his title as perfectly natural.

That was the anomaly.

So he waited, calm as still water.

Chuqin Sect was weak enough to be harmless, indebted enough to be loyal, and—crucially—carried the fig leaf of legitimacy granted by old ancestor Chu Zhen himself. Push came to shove, Southern Chu could shove Chuqin forward as a meat shield and walk away clean. Perfect disposable buffer.

They needed him alive and in place.

Therefore Chu Youmin would see him eventually.

Qi Xiu closed his eyes and refined his breathing.

Face was cheap; the sect’s survival was priceless.

Half an hour later the greeter returned only to refill the cold tea and announce, “Lord Chu is occupied. Please continue waiting.”

Qi Xiu stood, cupped hands, and thanked the man with perfect sincerity. The mortal softened under the unexpected politeness and soon loosened his tongue.

Turned out Black River Peak had originally belonged to Chu Youmin’s personal branch before being “donated” to the sect plan.

Everything clicked.

No wonder the cold shoulder. In Chu Youmin’s eyes, Qi Xiu was the beggar handed his front yard.

Qi Xiu’s expectations dropped to the floor and settled there comfortably. Courtesy visit, buy the array, get home. Nothing more.

Dusk painted the windows purple before the surly steward finally returned.

Chu Youmin received him in a small side hall. Same generation as Chu Youyan, same early Foundation Establishment aura, but thinner, sharper, with a long goat-beard that twitched when he was annoyed.

Qi Xiu performed full junior ceremony, stated his purpose, and asked to purchase a small mountain-protecting formation.

Chu Youmin stroked his beard twice, nodded once, uttered a few perfunctory words of welcome, and closed his eyes—dismissal.

The steward led Qi Xiu to a storeroom and shoved a boxed set into his arms.

Yellow Sand Illusory Formation, mid first-rank. Defense and offense both mid first-rank, bundled with a low first-rank mist illusion array. Could withstand three sticks of incense from a peak Qi Refinement cultivator wielding a high first-rank weapon of neutral attribute. The illusion barely fooled anyone above seventh-layer.

Price: eighty second-rank spirit stones.

Double the going rate anywhere else.

Qi Xiu didn’t bargain. He counted out sect relics, heirlooms, and the last scraps of value from their single storage pouch until the scale balanced.

He walked out with the array box under one arm and thirty low-grade stones clinking in his sleeve—just enough, maybe, for the return flight.

Night had fallen. Worry for the peak gnawed like a rat.

He fed the spirit boat another stone and shot southward through the dark, a lone cyan spark racing against time.