novelraw Chapter 8: The Fifth-Generation Sect Leader
Chapter 8: The Fifth-Generation Sect Leader
“Qi Cloud Sect’s Chu Clan!”
“Qin Siyan brought the Chu Clan!”
“Old Ancestor Chu hasn’t abandoned us after all!”
The cramped room detonated. Bodies surged against the carved door like fish fighting the net.
Qi Xiu never stood a chance. He was trampled flat, cheek grinding into the cold floor, tears and snot mixing with dust.
“Master… you didn’t love the wrong person after all…” he sobbed into the stone, voice cracking. “He brought the Chu Clan… he really did…”
The Chu Old Ancestor they spoke of was Chu Zhen—late Nascent Soul, elder of Qi Cloud Sect, terror of a thousand years. The founding ancestor Qin Lie had been his direct disciple. The sect’s very name—Chu-Qin, Chu before Qin—was an eternal monument to that debt.
Even if the Chu Clan had never formally split from Qi Cloud Sect and could not yet call itself a “family” to outsiders, three measly Foundation Establishment cultivators were less than ants before a Nascent Soul.
The three allied sect leaders bowed and scraped as the newcomers descended from the sky and were ushered into the main hall with all ceremony.
Hope buzzed through the prisoners like wine.
“Maybe Qin Siyan begged on his knees and moved Old Ancestor Chu’s heart.”
“Impossible—he only fled this afternoon!”
“Secret transmission talisman, obviously!”
Sister Qin, clutching her toddler, spoke with quiet certainty. “Whatever the reason, the Chu Clan coming can only be good for us.”
The scripture keeper nodded and sat cross-legged. “Nothing we can do but wait.”
Everyone settled—except the child, who decided midnight was playtime and wailed loud enough to wake the dead. Sister Qin slapped up a silencing ward and rocked him inside it with the other women.
Qi Xiu, cried dry, slumped against the door and slept.
Hours later the door swung open. A Flowing Cloud disciple barked, “The Chu Clan senior summons you all to the main hall.”
They shuffled out, Qi Xiu near the front because he’d been leaning on the door.
Someone slapped his shoulder. A junior pointed. “Senior Brother Qi, your robe hem is filthy.”
He paused, lifted the crimson cloth to peer in the dark—and heard muffled snickers. By the time he looked up, the scripture keeper and his little clique had already swept to the head of the line.
Sister Qin caught up, sighing. “Let it go.”
Qi Xiu only shook his head. The taste of dust was still in his mouth.
The main hall had been stripped bare. The old Chu-Qin plaque was gone; the beam above looked naked and ashamed.
Eight figures sat in two rows.
On the invaders’ side: the three Foundation Establishment leaders plus their newly crowned puppet sect leader, all sipping tea with lazy elegance.
On the guests’ side:
- First seat: a magnificent middle-aged man in cloud-embroidered robes that actually drifted like living mist—clearly the Chu Clan envoy.
- Second: a white-haired elder, eyes closed, aura unfathomable.
- Third: a breathtaking girl of sixteen or seventeen, bright curious eyes fixed on the prisoners.
- Lowest seat: Qin Siyan, fourth-generation sect leader, staring at the floor as if it held the secrets of immortality.
Formal greetings were exchanged. Only the puppet leader bothered to rise half an inch.
The Chu envoy wasted no time.
“My Old Ancestor originally intended to wash his hands of Chu-Qin Peak. However, another of our ancestors recently founded a sect in the Southern Border wastelands. The place is empty of people. He asked us to send cultivators and mortals to fill it. Since you have lost your home, I am here to offer: come south. The Chu-Qin Sect may continue as an independent sect under that ancestor’s protection. No one will dare bully you again. Your founding ancestor’s incense fire need not end. What say you?”
Silence.
All eyes turned to the sect leader.
Qin Siyan kept staring at the floor.
The scripture keeper cleared his throat. “Sect Leader, guidance please?”
Nothing.
Sister Qin stepped forward gently. “Siyan?”
Still nothing.
The Chu envoy’s brow twitched. He coughed—once, heavily.
Qin Siyan shot upright like he’d been stabbed with a needle and bellowed at the top of his lungs:
“I love An Hong’er!”
Sister Qin: “?????”
The Lotus Temple abbess—a dignified Foundation Establishment nun—choked on her tea and sprayed it across the floor, then hid behind her cup shaking with laughter.
The girl called An Hong’er turned scarlet to the tips of her ears and covered her face with both hands.
Qin Siyan, face burning, plowed on like a runaway cart.
“The An Clan of Huang-Zuo has no male heir left. They will only let Hong’er marry someone who joins the family. I begged Master when he was alive—he forbade it! Now I’m sect leader. I decide my own fate!”
Sister Qin’s voice cracked. “You… you mean to marry in? Become their son-in-law?”
“Yes!” Qin Siyan declared, turning to gaze at An Hong’er with dog-like devotion. “The moment I took the throne I went to the An Clan and settled everything. I only want to be with Hong’er!”
Qi Xiu saw red.
His master’s body wasn’t even cold and this ungrateful whelp was selling the sect for a pretty face?
“You animal!”
He lunged.
The white-haired elder flicked a sleeve. A gust of wind picked Qi Xiu up and flung him across the hall. He rolled seven or eight times, nose bleeding, ribs screaming.
The scripture keeper tried reason. “Sect Leader Qin, the direct line of the founding clan has only you left. Do you truly feel no duty?”
Pain twisted Qin Siyan’s handsome features.
“Duty? Look around!” He flung an arm at the empty plaque beam. “The Qin clansmen spent my whole life jealous, scheming, selling us out! I never asked to be sect leader. I never asked to be a Qin!”
He yanked the wooden command token from his belt and hurled it.
It landed with a clack in Qi Xiu’s lap.
“Today I pass the position to Senior Brother Qi!”
He spun on his heel.
“From this day forward, Chu-Qin Sect has nothing to do with me!”
“Brother Qin!” An Hong’er cried, skirts swirling as she chased after him.
The hall doors slammed shut behind the fleeing couple.
Twenty-three pairs of eyes slowly turned to the dazed, bleeding man on the floor clutching the sect leader’s token.
Qi Xiu looked down at the carved wooden plaque in his trembling, bloody hands.
Fifth-generation Sect Leader of Chu-Qin Sect… apparently.
【Terminology Updates – Chapter 8】
- Chu Zhen (楚震): late Nascent Soul elder of Qi Cloud Sect, master of founding ancestor Qin Lie
- An Hong’er (安红儿): beauty from the Huang-Zuo An branch clan; Qin Siyan’s beloved
- Southern Border new sect: offshoot founded by another Chu Clan ancestor, desperately in need of population
- Sect Leader Command Token (掌门令牌): wooden authority plaque passed from leader to leader; now in Qi Xiu’s possession