Chapter 62

In the crowd, Nanny Liu, the trusted confidante of the Marchioness of Jian’an, watched as her young miss went from self-sabotage to coughing up blood from sheer rage. Her brow was knit tight, her expression grim. Ever since this young miss had regained her status as the legitimate daughter, she had done nothing but stir up trouble.

The current Marquis of Changle’s estate was so influential that even the Marquess himself chose to avoid direct conflict with them. Did the young miss truly think she could outscheme them? She was digging her own grave and dragging the Marchioness down with her.

There was no shortage of noble ladies with treacherous hearts and deep schemes, but they usually masked it well. This young miss was usually shrewd enough, yet whenever she went up against Miss Ruyi of the Changle estate, she fell apart as if her brain had rotted away.

Today’s mess wasn’t going to be easily suppressed. It was hard to say what the Prince of Wei’s estate would think. If this perfectly good marriage alliance was ruined, the Marchioness would be beyond furious.

Nanny Liu watched in silence as Qiu Lan helped the young miss slink away in disgrace. She turned and headed back to report the situation so the Marchioness could prepare for the fallout.

The onlookers felt a lingering sense of excitement, but with the main subjects of the gossip gone, there was no point in loitering around the Changle gates. The crowd gradually dispersed.

However, Daoist Yunqing did not leave.

Previously, his attention had been entirely consumed by the dense, golden light of merit surrounding Cheng Ruyi. He hadn’t had time to look at anyone else. Now that he looked closely at the rest of the household, he gasped.

The Marquis of Changle also possessed a layer of golden merit, though it was quite faint. Daoist Yunqing recalled what his senior brother had told him before he left the temple regarding the major events in the capital over the last few months.

Among those stories was the Marquis of Changle’s grand gesture of donating a million taels of silver—twice. In the past, the Marquis had a terrible reputation for swindling and deceit. But ever since he found a source of rapid wealth through the “miracle medicine,” he had donated half the profits to the Prince of Pingnan. Public opinion of him was a mix of praise and condemnation.

Daoist Yunqing had spent years in secluded cultivation without making progress. Seeing the merit on the Marquis—thin as it was—struck his heart like a bolt of lightning.

“Virtue intended is virtue unrewarded; vice unintended is vice unpunished.”

It turned out that was wrong. Heaven is impartial; every act, whether good or evil, is recorded stroke by stroke. The Marquis’s donation was intentional, but it had a tangible impact, bringing hope to tens of thousands of soldiers guarding the borders. Thus, Heaven granted him a reward. That thin layer of golden light was the proof.

Whether one followed Buddha or the Dao, merit was the only way to advance, and merit was incredibly hard to accumulate.

The Marquis had stumbled into it by accident. The Prince of Pingnan was the God of War for the Zhou Dynasty—upright and selfless. His army was constantly at the borders, and military funds were always tight. The Marquis’s two massive donations had undoubtedly been put to good use by the Prince.

Moving his gaze from the Marquis, Daoist Yunqing locked onto Rong Mo. His pupils suddenly shrank. His eyes filled with horror, and he staggered back, a cry escaping his lips.

“It’s you!”

Rong Mo looked at the Daoist with a slight frown, his expression curious. “Daoist, what do you mean by that? I don’t believe we’ve met.”

The look in Yunqing’s eyes was complex—shock, joy, and an unspeakable sense of regret. It was bizarre.

“This is no place for a conversation,” the Marquis of Changle interrupted. “Daoist, why don’t you come inside for a chat?”

Daoist Yunqing took a deep breath, gathered his thoughts, and nodded. Still dazed by the shock, he followed the Marquis into the estate.

Behind them, Cheng Ruyi tugged at Rong Mo’s sleeve. As they walked, she whispered mysteriously, “A-Mo, I think this Daoist Yunqing has a story.”

Rong Mo was amused. “How can you tell?”

Cheng Ruyi looked a bit smug. “I can sense it with my special ability. This Daoist’s life force is very strange.”

Rong Mo: “…”

His little fiancée’s abilities were truly formidable—she could even read a person’s life force.

“A-Mo, look at the deep wrinkles on his face. Do you think he’s over a hundred years old?” Cheng Ruyi asked with great interest.

From what she knew, people in ancient times didn’t live long unless they practiced internal energy like A-Mo. Compared to the lifespan of an Esper, they were far behind. If this Daoist truly lived to a hundred, he might actually have some real spiritual power. Maybe she could ask him about how to perform a ritual.

Rong Mo smiled. “I suppose he might be.”

In front of them, Daoist Yunqing overheard their conversation and bit back a bitter smile. A hundred years old… That was an unreachable dream. In a few years, his life force would likely snap entirely.

Once they reached the main hall, Rong Susu was surprised to see her husband and daughter bringing in an old Daoist. She quickly ordered the maid, Molan, to serve tea.

As they walked, Daoist Yunqing noticed that the entire Changle estate was brimming with vitality—far more vibrant than the life force gathered at the Yunshui Temple. He was astonished.

“Daoist, please, have some tea,” the Marquis greeted him warmly.

After thanking him, Yunqing looked at Rong Mo. He hadn’t expected this man to be the very person whose fate he had forcibly altered against the heavens twenty years ago. Looking at Rong Mo’s age—early twenties—it meant he had been an infant back then.

Faced with this truth, Yunqing found it hard to accept. A surge of blood hit his chest, and his life force ebbed away rapidly, making him look even more haggard and ancient in an instant.

The Marquis and the others were stunned by the visible aging occurring before their eyes. Cheng Ruyi’s jaw dropped. Scary, scary… what kind of shock did this guy get for his life force to drain away that fast?

Yunqing quickly recovered, realizing he had almost fallen into a mental demon. Having lost even more of his remaining lifespan, he calmed himself and looked at Rong Mo with a bitter laugh.

“This is my retribution!”

“Daoist, did you do something bad to A-Mo?” Cheng Ruyi, always sensitive to the word ‘retribution,’ glared at him accusingly.

The Marquis and Rong Susu also looked at him with suspicion. Rong Mo’s brow furrowed.

“Twenty years ago, I was traveling…” Yunqing began. He slowly recounted the story of how he had helped someone change a fate against the heavens. After speaking, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his heart. For him, death might be a relief.

Back then, he had only listened to a noble lady’s one-sided story. He had never seen her two daughters or the child whose fate was to be changed. He had simply used their hair and blood to open the altar and perform the ritual. Looking back, he was not only foolish but incredibly easy to deceive. If he had seen the lady’s daughter, would things have been different? He didn’t know. There were no “ifs” in life.

The Marquis and the others fell silent after hearing this. They knew Rong Mo’s fate had been tampered with, but they hadn’t expected the Daoist involved to be such a gullible fool.

Rong Mo, however, remained extremely calm. His biological father, Prince Rong, had once told him that his fate had likely been altered by a wandering Daoist—one who was reportedly killed by Old Lady Lin’s men shortly after leaving. It turned out the real culprit was right here.

And he was still alive. Though “alive” was a stretch; he was barely clinging to life, looking like a man at death’s door despite being only in his early forties. That was the price for the arrogance of messing with fate.

Rong Mo felt no desire to take his anger out on the man. If it hadn’t been Yunqing, it would have been some other Daoist. Old Lady Lin and that imposter would have found someone eventually.

“Daoist, can’t you tell fortunes? How did you get tricked?” Cheng Ruyi asked, sounding incredulous. Where is the “wise master” image? It’s completely collapsed.

Yunqing looked embarrassed at her bluntness. “I saw her crying so miserably, and she sounded so pitiful…”

Cheng Ruyi rolled her eyes, looking at him as if he were an idiot. “There are plenty of pitiful people in this world. A noble lady living in luxury with no worries about food or drink can’t be that pitiful.”

“Daoist, remember to bring your brain next time you travel. Or if you don’t, it’s fine, as long as you have overwhelming strength like me,” she said earnestly, demonstrating her “monstrous strength” by crushing an empty porcelain cup into powder with one hand.

Being told he had no brain by a young girl made Yunqing’s face flush a deep red. He wished the floor would swallow him whole. Then again… he really was embarrassingly stupid back then.

Rong Susu’s lips twitched at her daughter’s words. She looked at the Daoist with a hint of pity. Her daughter’s tongue was too sharp; she hoped the Daoist was mentally strong.

“Daoist, don’t mind her. She’s just talking nonsense,” Rong Susu tried to smooth things over.

Cheng Ruyi argued back unhappily, “Mother, I’m not. He really is dim-witted. Take today for instance—he didn’t even take a single cent of silver and let Cousin Qingyao trick him into coming here like a fool.”

Yunqing wanted to argue that he wasn’t tricked, but that he had sensed a karmic connection to the matter. But having just confessed his past crimes, his confidence was shot, and he couldn’t find the words.

Rong Susu: “…” Her daughter’s logic was so sound she had no retort. She could only let out a dry laugh. “The Daoist is a man of high character and integrity.”

The Marquis laughed at his wife’s awkward attempts to cover for the man.

“Mother, that’s not how you use that phrase. He’s just a dummy. By the way, Daoist, when you helped that wicked old lady back then, did you at least take any silver?” Cheng Ruyi stared at him, intensely curious.

Yunqing felt utterly humiliated. “No!”

The Marquis looked at the wrinkled, white-haired man and didn’t know what to say. How could anyone be this stupid?

“You didn’t even take any money and still managed to turn yourself into this ghostly wreck? Daoist, you are truly ‘great’!” Cheng Ruyi thought the man must have had water in his brain.

Rong Mo watched his fiancée roast the Daoist into a state of shamed silence, and his lips curved upward. This Daoist had been tricked on his travels, nearly died, and then hid in a temple for twenty years—heaven knows what he actually achieved in his “cultivation.” Most people would have hidden the truth of their past, but this man blundered right back to the victim to confess. He hadn’t changed at all in twenty years. Pitiful and tragic.

“Daoist, I think you should travel more to gain some perspective. What happened back then is in the past; don’t take it to heart.” The true culprit was dead; Yunqing was just a fool who had been used.

Cheng Ruyi nodded. “A-Mo is right. Closing yourself off is no way to learn.”

He was forgiven… Yunqing’s body trembled with emotion.

After seeing the Daoist off, the Marquis and the others shook their heads. Cheng Ruyi looked at Rong Mo, a bit unhappy.

“A-Mo, why did you ask me give him a bottle of Ginseng Liquid?”

That stuff was a treasure—made from the ginseng she had accelerated with her powers. It was bursting with life force and could extend one’s life. It was incredibly precious. She couldn’t understand why A-Mo wanted to give it to someone who had once hurt him.

“This Daoist is still useful. He cannot die yet,” Rong Mo said, his eyes narrowing slightly as he smirked.

The imposter was dead, and that was that. But the imposter’s crimes were still being blamed on his biological mother. He couldn’t let it end that easily.

The Marquis looked thoughtful. “Rong Mo is right. To cover up the scandal, the Imperial Family hasn’t cleared the real Princess Consort Rong’s name. After Rong Mo returns to the family, people might pity him for a while, but if a natural disaster strikes, things could change. This Daoist is a vital witness.”

“Oh, so that’s it!” Cheng Ruyi’s unhappiness vanished. She muttered, “If only A-Mo didn’t have to return to that family.”

Rong Mo smiled and patted her head. His background was exposed; whether he returned to the family or not, he would be blamed when the time came for someone to take the fall.

Just then, the butler came in with exhilarating news: The Princess Consort of Wei had gone to the Jian’an estate next door to call off the engagement.

Cheng Qingyao had been desperate to get out of that marriage, and now she had her wish. One had to wonder if she was actually happy about it now.

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