Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing quickly pulled back his wayward thoughts before they drifted beyond his control. While his vast abilities as a palace realm expert allowed him to hold over seven different conversations with seven different people simultaneously—tracking every single detail and still having time to sneak in a daydream or two—given the gravity of the matter, and the toll it was clearly taking on Xia Fang to speak it out, the least he could do was offer her his undivided attention, especially now, when it looked like she was nearing the end of her story.

Xia Fang, who was looking more low-spirited by the second, stretched out her palms in front of her as she stared at them. The way she looked at them made it seem as though they were tainted, despite them lacking even a single blemish on them. With how smooth they looked, they appeared less like human hands and more like sculptures carved from the finest milky bronze jade.

"I only realized what their plan was on the day they executed it," she said, her dazed eyes still fixed on her open palms.

Yang Qing didn't know exactly what she saw in them, but judging by the broken, guilt-ridden look on her face as she stared, he had a pretty good idea.

The first time he ever took a life, he had worn the same expression—haunted and hollow—as he mirrored those same actions, staring at his own hands, ones that never stopped feeling the blood of his slain opponent clinging to them.

Whose blood does she see? he wondered.

"Things already decided and put in play… all I could do was… follow," she said, her tone carrying a frail helplessness as her gaze grew even more distant.

"We had been blockaded on all sides by the three clans, so to ensure a higher chance of success in our escape, our seniors decided that—because of the composition of our manpower, with us only having a single palace realm expert o rely on—rather than thin out our lineup by spreading out, it was better to concentrate everything on one side and puncture through as a unified force," she continued, before pausing briefly.

"The direction they chose to break out from was the Ning family's side," she added, shifting her attention from her palms to Yang Qing, though her hands still remained in the same position, with her palms facing upwards. It looked like either she wasn't done looking at them or she was afraid that if she moved them, whatever contents they held would spill over.

Yang Qing, on his end, nodded inwardly at the Xia clan's decision.

Targeting the Ning family made the most sense if they wanted to improve the younger generation's chances of escaping the encirclement and actually making a clean break. The Ning family was the most powerful of the three, which automatically made them the greatest threat to that plan.

If you were going to make a last stand, then better to do it against the family most capable of ruining everything—especially if you only had one arrow to fire.

Yes, it came with considerable risk, like charging straight into the dragon's maw. But if the Xia clan could somehow carve a narrow path through that danger, then Xia Fang and the others would stand a much better chance of lasting long enough once they were out.

If they had targeted either the Chi or the Fan family as their escape route, then yes, the fight would have been less intense than it would have been with the Ning family, and the odds of breaking through might have been higher. But surviving afterwards would be much more difficult because it would mean contending with a very healthy Ning family that had both the strength of reach and resources.

So, in that regard, it made more sense to aim for the Ning family. The battle would be the toughest, no doubt, but if they managed to punch through and deal the Ning family a heavy blow in the process, then the odds of Xia Fang and the others surviving on their own afterward would rise significantly.

And Xia Fang—sitting here now, pitiful as she looked—was living proof that the gamble had paid off. It had been eighteen months since she likely fled the clan, and she still hadn't been caught.

Yes, some might argue that the reason she'd evaded capture was simply because the continent was so vast. And they'd have a point. As connected as the Ning family was—even with the backing of the Song Kingdom—finding surviving members of the Xia clan in such a place was like searching for a transparent needle in an enormous haystack.

They wouldn't be wrong to think that… at least not entirely.

The continent was vast, but even with its size, if a cultivator was sufficiently motivated—and had the resources to match—that cultivator could usually find whoever they were looking for, especially if that target was weaker than them.

There were countless spells, techniques, artifacts, treasures, alchemical solutions, the use of certain spirit beasts, and other esoteric methods—such as dream haunting, bloodline tracing, karmic tracing, and more—that made tracking someone entirely possible.

While some of those methods might have been out of reach for a rank three clan like the Ning family—even with the backing of the rank two Song Kingdom—whatever they did have at their disposal should have been enough to track down Xia Fang even with the vastness of the continent being put into consideration. After all, she was just a late-stage core formation expert with no worldly experience to speak of. She may have been 380 years old, but when it came to her understanding and interaction with the outside world, she was practically an infant—an eighteen-month-old infant, to be exact—because that's how long she had been outside her clan since birth.

Her knowledge and means couldn't possibly compare to an old fox like the Ning family, who had schemed and plotted for thousands of years right under the Xia clan's nose.

The fact that she managed to survive even six months without being caught meant one of three things. Either A, she was extremely lucky; B, the Ning family and the others were grossly incompetent, and Yang Qing had severely overestimated their capabilities;or C, something had interfered with their ability to track her in such a short span of time.

Yang Qing leaned toward option C. But given recent events surrounding the disappearance of Bai Chen, his disciple, and their ferry filled with passengers and goods, perhaps the interference that made option C possible… was beginning to weaken.