Qingling Sect.
Among the thirteen peaks, Canglan Peak stood the tallest—rising above the clouds. In a way, it was the central peak that all other twelve peaks revolved around.
Although Qingling Sect had no formal position of Sect Master, Canglan Peak’s master, Immortal Fengqing, was the key figure who maintained the internal operations of all thirteen peaks.
On Canglan Peak, there was a massive open space, which had been developed into a martial arena in past years. This arena was much larger than those on the other eleven peaks, and was thus chosen as the venue for the sect’s Grand Tournament.
Today was the day of the Sect Grand Tournament. Lin Mo led a small group of disciples from Qingzhu Peak to observe the matches at Canglan Peak. As for the participants, aside from Lin Mo himself, there were also Duan Susu, and four junior disciples of Qingzhu Peak who had recently been summoned back from their training travels. Among them was Fang Bo.
Though these four junior brothers had yet to reach the Golden Core stage, they, like Duan Susu, had already reached the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage. They usually got along reasonably well with Lin Mo, though one of them had a quiet and withdrawn personality and preferred to act alone.
“Brother Lin Mo, this peak looks way more impressive than Qingzhu Peak,” Gu Qingxue remarked as they arrived at Canglan Peak.
She quickly noticed that whether it was the main hall at the summit or the disciples’ living quarters, everything here was far more luxurious than on Qingzhu Peak.
“Yes. Canglan Peak is the most well-developed of the thirteen peaks in Qingling Sect,” Lin Mo replied.
“So is Qingzhu Peak ranked high within Qingling Sect?” Gu Qingxue asked curiously.
“Qingzhu Peak? In every aspect, it falls short compared to the other eleven peaks,” this time, it was Duan Susu who answered instead of Lin Mo.
Lin Mo had heard that since the founding of Qingling Sect, Qingzhu Peak had always been the worst among the thirteen peaks. Over the generations, there had only been four or five peak masters—and none had ever been able to change that.
The root cause likely lay with the personality of the first peak master. Succession was always passed down to the disciple with the highest cultivation level, and those successors, influenced by their predecessors, never truly worked toward Qingzhu Peak’s development.
This led to a vicious cycle, until finally the position of peak master was passed to his own master, Master Yuehua.
When Lin Mo first arrived at Qingzhu Peak, there was actually another elder martial uncle still around. But he was too old and passed away in seated meditation without ever breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage.
In Lin Mo’s mind, he couldn’t help but wonder: Had Master Yuehua only become peak master by outliving all her senior brothers?
Of course, that was just speculation in his heart—nothing he could ever say aloud.
Even though the original Lin Mo had followed Master Yuehua for so long, aside from her name, he knew nothing about her. She had never spoken about her past, never removed her veil, and not even her age was known.
Even more absurd—he himself had never thought to ask.
The original Lin Mo never asked questions, and his master never volunteered anything. In that sense, the two of them had very matching personalities.
“Master, do you think the food on Canglan Peak is better than on Qingzhu Peak?” asked Qu Ruyan, still in her cat form—her focus always fixated on food.
When it was just familiar people around, she called Lin Mo “Senior Brother.” But in front of larger crowds, she would switch to calling him “Master”—as per Lin Mo’s instructions.
“The food’s more or less the same,” Lin Mo said. That’s only thanks to the subsidies the original host provided.
Without that, the food on Qingzhu Peak would easily have been the worst among all thirteen peaks.
The original Lin Mo, as senior brother, had been quite diligent. But in Lin Mo’s view now, this was just the work of a gullible, overly kind fool. Trying to get closer to Qingzhu Peak this way was just taking things too far.
“Brother Lin Mo, why don’t the disciples from other peaks bow or greet you?”
Along the way, Gu Qingxue had noticed something odd—disciples from other peaks would always greet higher-ranked disciples politely. But when they passed by Lin Mo, those disciples would pretend not to see him at all.
In her mind, Lin Mo was the senior brother of Qingzhu Peak. Those people definitely knew that—so it felt like they were all deliberately avoiding Lin Mo.
Duan Susu found it strange too. She knew that disciples from the other peaks generally looked down on those from Qingzhu Peak, but in the past, when they saw Lin Mo, they would at least nod or greet him occasionally.
Yet today, even though the Grand Tournament had brought together disciples from all the peaks to Canglan Peak, not a single one came forward to greet Lin Mo.
She was a straightforward person. Without hesitation, she grabbed a disciple from another peak who was about to ignore Lin Mo and frowned as she asked, “Why don’t you bow when you see my Senior Brother?”
“Oh, oh, sorry! So you’re Senior Brother Lin Mo from Qingzhu Peak? I didn’t see you—really, my apologies.”
It was only because Duan Susu had dragged him over that this disciple even greeted Lin Mo at all. But his tone was extremely casual, and as soon as the greeting was done, he used some excuse to quickly walk away.
“How outrageous,” Duan Susu muttered in annoyance at the other peaks’ disciples’ behavior.
She stepped forward and pulled over another passerby, but that person’s attitude was no different from the last.
Seeing that Duan Susu seemed determined to forcibly make every passing disciple from other peaks greet Lin Mo, Lin Mo quickly said, “Junior Sister Duan, that’s enough. Don’t bother—they’ll all react the same.”
“Why though?” Duan Susu asked, clearly confused. She had only been away training for a few years. Why did it feel like all the disciples from other peaks now had something against Senior Brother Lin?
“It’s nothing serious. Just some people think your Senior Brother is cold and ruthless, with a violent temper, and that he severely injured a fellow disciple.” Lin Mo chuckled lightly, as if he didn’t care at all.
As soon as he said that, about half of the Qingzhu Peak disciples following behind him guiltily lowered their heads.
It had all started with that incident at Yuan Li. Back then, they were young and naïve. Whatever rumors they heard, they believed—and they spread those rumors without a second thought. That ended up with almost everyone in Qingling Sect knowing about it.
To be honest, they regretted it. But as the saying goes, what’s been spilled can’t be gathered back. What they had spread were like water thrown out of a basin—there was no taking it back.
Even though they truly did feel regret, they didn’t know how to explain the truth anymore.
Lin Mo, of course, reaped some regret points from them once again.
He knew very well what the root of the issue was. These junior brothers and sisters from Qingzhu Peak were just clueless, fickle types without minds of their own. That they had turned on him so quickly was because of one person—Ye Kai.
Of course, Shen Ke’er wasn’t here at the moment. Mostly because she didn’t have the face to show up.
If she were here, she wouldn’t have felt a shred of regret.
Right now, Shen Ke’er believed she was on the brink of death, and yet Lin Mo still refused to save her—in her eyes, that was the epitome of cold-bloodedness.
On top of that, just days earlier, Lin Mo had forcibly removed her veil, revealing her disfigured face to several fellow Qingzhu Peak disciples. The seed of hatred that had long taken root in her heart had now fully sprouted. It could be said that she now hated Lin Mo to the core.
Back on Duan Susu’s side, she furrowed her brows at Lin Mo’s words and asked, “Senior Brother, are those things really true?”
Lin Mo just smiled and said, “Just treat it like a joke.”
“That’s a pretty bad joke,” she replied.
“If you’re considered cold and violent, then how many truly kind people do you think are left in this world?”
“You’ve managed everything on Qingzhu Peak by yourself—you even go out to the Great Continent Mountain Range to hunt, just to improve your junior brothers’ and sisters’ living conditions. If it weren’t for you, Qingzhu Peak would have fallen apart long ago.”
Duan Susu understood better than anyone the amount of hardship Lin Mo endured. In the past, she had helped him with Qingzhu Peak’s affairs once or twice, but didn’t think much of it.
However, in the past few months, while Lin Mo was away returning to the Lin family, she had to take care of all matters big and small on Qingzhu Peak.
She found herself barely keeping up with all the responsibilities Lin Mo used to handle alone. Now she finally understood—Lin Mo had been managing everything on his own for nearly ten years.
Duan Susu felt both heartache and shock—she couldn’t believe her senior brother had managed to grit his teeth and endure for so long.
What moved her most was how firmly he shouldered his responsibilities as senior brother. She admired him down to the bone.
After all, even after handling all the affairs of Qingzhu Peak, he still found time to cultivate, take care of the spirit fields, and even go out hunting in the Great Continent Mountain Range.
As for her? Let alone going out to the Great Continent Mountain Range to hunt—just taking care of Qingzhu Peak’s matters left her so drained she could barely muster any motivation to cultivate at all.
Didn’t that already prove her senior brother’s incredible capability?
Her words made the junior disciples trailing behind them lower their heads even further in shame.
At that moment, Lin Mo sent Duan Susu a sound transmission: “After I leave, be careful of Ye Kai. If possible, take him down hard. Don’t let him stir things up on Qingzhu Peak—he’s extremely good at pretending. He’s not as simple as he appears.”
Duan Susu responded through sound transmission as well: “Senior Brother… are you saying it was Ye Kai who ruined your reputation?”
In truth, she hadn’t interacted much with Ye Kai. She had left Qingzhu Peak not long after arriving to go on her training journey, and only recently returned.
“Just trust me,” Lin Mo replied.
He didn’t have any concrete evidence against Ye Kai, so he didn’t want to say too much. But he knew Duan Susu wouldn’t do anything to harm Qingzhu Peak.
Duan Susu silently committed his words to memory. She knew her senior brother’s personality well. He would never casually slander someone behind their back. He had never spoken ill of anyone in private.
If he said this much, then Ye Kai definitely wasn’t a good person. In her heart, her senior brother had never been wrong.
At this time, the arena atop Canglan Peak was already filled with people. As Lin Mo arrived, disciples from other peaks turned their eyes toward him.
Most of their gazes were filled with disdain. Some even started whispering among themselves.
“Isn’t that the trash senior brother from Qingzhu Peak?”
“Don’t say that—he’s a Golden Core cultivator now, after all.”
“So what if his cultivation is high? His character is disgusting. Just looking at him makes me sick.”
“Right? He didn’t even help his own junior sister when she was poisoned. Worse, he ripped off Shen Ke’er’s veil in front of everyone, exposing her disfigured face after she’d been poisoned. Do you know what a face means to a woman? Doing that is no different from killing her.”
“Exactly. I don’t get how someone like him can still have a woman that beautiful by his side.”
“Either he tricked her with sweet words, or she’s just as rotten as he is.”
At this point, the man who was talking suddenly froze.
He looked up to see Lin Mo staring at him coldly from a distance. The killing intent pouring from Lin Mo’s gaze hit him like a tidal wave, and an indescribable fear spread through his entire body. Cold sweat soaked his back—he couldn’t even speak a word.
In his heart, he was stunned. He had been standing at least seven meters away, and he’d been speaking in a very low voice—how had Lin Mo heard him?
“What’s wrong with you?” The man he had been talking with gave him a pat on the shoulder.
But just from that pat, the man’s knees gave out, and he collapsed to the ground.
Lin Mo, seeing this, withdrew his killing intent.
“What’s with you suddenly kneeling like that?” his friend joked with a teasing grin.
But the kneeling disciple still couldn’t say a word. Only he knew—he had no choice but to kneel.
In that moment, he no longer dared say another word about Lin Mo.
As for Lin Mo, he now had a pretty good idea of what had happened.
That rumor about Shen Ke’er had spread so quickly—someone must have helped fan the flames.
Lin Mo strongly suspected that Ye Kai, hiding within Qingling Sect, had something to do with all of it.
