The next day, I sat in the palanquin, the two little foxes following behind, and made a grand departure from Trích Nguyệt Pavilion. When we reached Lan Sơn, I ordered the bearers to stop. Giang Úc didn’t understand why, but obediently led Giang Miên down.
I dissolved the master-servant contracts, then tossed them a bag of spirit stones and a few protective talismans. “Go.”
The two little foxes stared at me blankly, looking adorable. I couldn’t help smiling softly. “The contracts are dissolved. You’re free now. Go wherever you want.”
Giang Úc and Giang Miên looked at each other, then stepped forward. “Master…”
“I’m not your master.” I cut him off and pointed toward the mountain road. “There are two blue talismans in the bag. Don’t use them unless it’s absolutely necessary. Go, and don’t let yourselves get caught again.”
Giang Úc stared intently at me, as if searching my face for some trace of a lie. He couldn’t believe I would really let the siblings go. Who would pass up a snow fox, considered a peerless cultivation cauldron—especially when his yang essence was still intact?
He was certain that Ngân Linh, the arrogant celestial maiden, must have some other scheme in mind. But soon, he had to eat his words. I ordered my attendants to carry the palanquin on, and before long, it had disappeared from the siblings’ sight.
As for Ngân Linh, she actually wasn’t mentioned much in the story. She was one of the catalysts for the villain’s corruption, and appeared only a few times early on. Most descriptions of her painted her as a troublesome female cultivator, so spoiled by the leader of the Phi Tinh Sect that she thought the world was hers and went around throwing her weight about.
But… In the memories I inherited, before she turned five, Ngân Linh had once tended to a nestling with a broken wing, once released the butterflies her senior brother had caught to please her, and once carefully helped an ant colony move its nest… Everything changed after her father died.
In Ngân Linh’s eyes as she grew up, her master was the best person in the world. No matter what mistake she made, he helped her deal with it. No matter what she wanted, he made sure she got it.
Her master even told her that the Phi Tinh Sect stood above all the other sects, and that she was its future leader. The entire cultivation world ought to kneel at her feet. This made Ngân Linh look down on everyone even more. A sweet little girl had been warped by the way she was raised.
But how could someone be raised in a way that changed their entire personality, until they even began treating lives as worthless?
I didn’t dwell on that question for long. On my first day back at the sect, my good master gave me the answer.