Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

Sleeping Through the Literature Conference

Azure Sky Mountain, outside Five Willow Manor

Just like in old days, the Lord of Demons was accompanied by his two Protectors. His Left Protector stood at the side of his missing arm, while the Right Protector held a pipa, a silk veil over her face. She wore a thin blue robe which accentuated her figure, and was playing the pipa for Wenren È. Inadvertently, she let the scar on her right arm show. It stood out starkly against her fair skin and must've been caused by some terrible injury, garnering the pity of anyone who saw it.

They were at a library just outside Five Willow Manor, which was a favored place for mortal scholars to gather and read poetry or discuss literature. It was also a place where the Zhongli cultivation clan recruited disciples.

The greatest difference between a cultivation clan and a sect was that a sect was situated apart from the mortal world, while a cultivation clan participated in it. The Zhongli were a clan of learned scholars, situated in Five Willow Manor, and the main family were cultivators. The branch family would enter the court through the imperial exams, dedicating their lives to serving the emperor.

This was the path of a cultivation clan. Just like Wenren È had sought the Dao on the battlefield, the Zhongli clan took the path of sages, writing poetry or books to gain the acclaim of mortal academics, and using that to advance in cultivation. In ancient times, the one known as the Poet Sage, the Azure Lotus Immortal, of "Killing one man in ten steps, unstoppable in a thousand li" fame, had also walked this path.

Therefore, each of the four major cultivation clans would accept disciples from the general public, and each generation the clan head and successor would build up their own reputation. Their admirers and fame served as the foundations of their cultivation. The more people read books in the mortal world, the further their works would spread, and the greater the power of the Zhongli clan would be.

They were split into the same ranks as the righteous and demonic cultivators, but their strength could be drastically different. Those disciples of cultivator clans with many fans could become more powerful the more highly they were thought of in the world, but if they didn't have fans, they might not even be able to defeat a Body Unity stage at Mahayana.

The cultivation clans had originally been little-known, but the Great Sect War, while causing the cultivation world heavy losses, ushered in a prosperous age for the mortal realm. More and more people had the chance to read books, and even the lower class could learn a few words, recite a few lines of poetry, and remember the names of some sages. Thus, the cultivation clans had now grown in influence. After the fifty years of prosperity won by the war, Zhongli Qian had the clout to steal Baili Qingmiao away from Shangqing Sect.

This time around, because of Wenren È's personal interference in the Great Sect War, even more spiritual energy had been returned to the mortal realm, and the Zhongli family had grown influential and powerful in just twenty years. The library at Five Willow Manor was bustling, and the fact that Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang were able to get a window seat was only thanks to Shu Yanyan forking over money.

They had come because this was the day several young masters from the Zhongli family would discuss literature here. Scholars came from far and wide to attend, and no one could get in without an invitation.

It was easy enough for them to bluff their way in with an illusion, but the seating was more trouble. Shu Yanyan had pressed a silver into the doorman's hand, and let her hand brush against his a little. He was only a Foundation Establishment cultivator and no match for Shu Yanyan's seduction, so pocketed the silver in a daze and showed them to an out-of-the-way position.

The Zhongli clan young masters had not yet arrived, but the seats were already filled. A few people, seeing how Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang were dressed like martial artists and not even wearing scholarly robes, yet had gotten such good seats, came over to pick a fight.