The Undying Immortal System

Su ShouDu. Su ShouLi.

Sharing the ‘Su’ character meant that they were from the same clan.

Sharing the ‘Shou’ character meant that they were from both the same lineage and the same generation. They were either siblings or close cousins.

As I watched ShouLi stare at my question, tears welled up in her eyes, and she spoke a single name.

“Mei.”

I couldn't stop the shiver that ran through my body, but I knew that ShouLi couldn’t be talking about the person from my memories.

Tears fell from ShouLi’s eyes, and she dropped to her knees.

“Ancestor, you said… You said we went back in time. To the year before I was born. Kill him. Now. Please.”

The scene of ShouLi falling to ground attracted the attention of several people in the surrounding area, and Liang rushed over to help her up and carry her away.

I didn’t know what might have happened to ShouLi in the past, but I didn’t need to know. I could help her settle this debt.

After my talk with ShouLi, I went to my room in YuanKong’s house, removed all the furniture, and replaced it with a small table and a couple of chairs.

An hour later, when someone knocked on my door, I pulled out a pot of qi-infused tea and placed it in the center of the table. Then, I opened the door and gestured for Elder TaiZu to enter.

He bowed deeply to me. “Prince— Lord— What… How may I address you?”

I smiled and pointed at the chair on the right. “We will discuss that later. Please, sit.”

Saying this, I took my seat, poured us both a cup of tea, and then took a long sip.

Elder TaiZu was shaking—not in anger, in fear.

“Grand Elder TaiZu, what can you tell me about the relationship between ShouLi and Su ShouDu?”

At first, he just furrowed his brow in confusion, bewildered by the seemingly random topic of conversation. Then, his eyes widened in horror, and he nearly dropped his teacup.

“Prince— Lord— That…”

I motioned for him to calm down.

“Be at ease. I will not punish you. I only want to know what happened.” I took a sip of tea. “Who is Mei?”

TaiZu winced.

“Mei… ShouMei…” TaiZu took a deep, unsteady breath. “MeiLi… Beautiful… Su ShouMei, Su ShouLi. They were… twins. They… Prince… I am sorry.”

I clenched my teeth. “Elder TaiZu, just tell me what happened.”

“Yes… Yes… Of course. YuanFeng has two sons, WeiJi and WeiXian. ShouMei and ShouLi were the daughters of WeiXian. ShouMei was… a beautiful girl, but when she was 14, her cousin, ShouJiang, the son of WeiJi… attacked her. In response, ShouMei’s father, WeiXian, crippled him.”

I nodded. Such things were unfortunately all too common in this world. Assaulting one’s cousin went a bit beyond the pale, but such things happened, even in the more civilized areas.

TaiZu closed his eyes, unwilling to keep speaking, but he forced himself to continue.

“Su ShouDu was ShouJiang’s elder brother. After his training—at the end of this training—he was sent to the Red Sun Empire, but unlike some, he maintained close ties back home. So, when he heard that his brother had been crippled, he returned and killed both WeiXian and ShouMei. ShouLi and her mother were left unharmed, but with WeiXian dead, their status in the clan… suffered.”

I took a sip of tea. “And the Su Clan did nothing about this?”

TaiZu looked down. “ShouDu was considered a prodigy in the Red Sun Kingdom. He became friends with one of its princes and helped strengthen the ties between YuanFeng, the kingdom, and the Rising Sun Empire. As for WeiXian, he had only produced two daughters. He was… expendable.”

I nodded. “I understand. Thank you for explaining.”

TaiZu sat there silently, but when I said nothing more for several minutes, he couldn’t take it.

“Prince— Lord— what—”

I waved a hand to silence him. “Relax your mind, release your hold on your qi.”

I had tried to force TaiZu into my inner world without his knowledge, but it hadn’t worked, not even when I tapped into my space affinity. I had to assume this was because the difference in our cultivation levels was too great.

However, the moment TaiZu relaxed, he disappeared from the world around me and appeared directly in front of ShouLi.

ShouLi and TaiZu had a good long talk. I was interested in hearing what they might say to one another, but I gave them some privacy and refrained from listening in. Eventually, ShouLi led him outside and showed him around my inner world.

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While it was still early days, the combined efforts of dozens of Ruler Tier earth cultivators had already transformed the place.

GuiMing and his team had carved nearly a hundred rooms into the quartzite wall that encircled the entire world. Initially, they had wanted to create suites that extended all the way through the wall so that residents would have a view out of both sides. However, when they discovered that the only thing on the far side of the wall was a featureless gray barrier, they gave up on this plan and instead focused on building apartments that had a good view of the world’s ‘inner courtyard.’

When carving out these rooms, the earth cultivators had piled up the excavated stones in designated dumping zones, creating a few small hills in the process. In the future, some of these stones could be used to construct additional buildings, but GuiAi was already talking about using them to give the world a more complex, interesting terrain.

Seeing so many powerful cultivators performing the monotonous task of hauling stones from one place to another left TaiZu in a state of shock. When he realized that these ‘powerful cultivators’ were not outsiders, when he realized that they were nearly all former members of the Su Clan that the elders had deemed worthless, he was filled with a mix of fear and shame.

When his tour was finally done, I pulled TaiZu out of my inner world and placed the oath stone in front of him.

“Now, you must swear an Oath.”

Shaken, TaiZu put his hand on the stone without a word of complaint and read the script that I had prepared for him.

“I, Su TaiZu, swear upon the Heavenly Dao that I will never reveal anything that Su Fang or his Revered Elders tell me is a core clan secret.”

I nodded. “Right now, the only core secrets are the existence of the world you just visited and the fact that I have traveled through time. Those are the only secrets that I will force you to keep. However, on Mount Jiang, you saw the consequences of allowing certain information to fall into the hands of the wrong people.”

TaiZu cupped his fists and bowed to me. “Yes, Ancestor.”

I smiled. “Good.”

When I didn’t say anything else, TaiZu looked around uncomfortably. “An… Ancestor, what now? What are your plans?”

“Now? I am nothing but a mere low-level Disciple in the Su Clan. What plans could I possibly have?”

“I… see.” TaiZu shifted in his chair. “Then…”

I waved away. “Go.”

TaiZu slowly stood and headed for the door, but as he reached to open it, I spoke.

“By the way, I would appreciate it if you could end the practice of the Disciples killing each other. Saving them is becoming tedious.”

He turned and bowed to me. “Ye… Yes, Ancestor.”

As I had hoped, TaiZu’s visit went unnoticed, and my time in the Su Clan’s training camp continued uninterrupted. While I might have been able to use him to quickly stake my claim to the position of Patriarch, I wasn’t ready for that yet. I didn’t want to rush to Peak Grandmaster until I had a better understanding of the cultivation techniques available to me.

So, with TaiZu having been dealt with, I returned to my original routine.

Three days later, Su Bo, the young man who had spoken to me before the start of the martial arts competition, arrived at YuanKong’s courtyard with a young woman in tow.

When I entered the sitting room to greet them, they saluted and bowed to me.

I nodded in response. “How may I help you today?”

The young woman looked at Su Bo who cleared his throat nervously. “Young Master Fang, we… We would like to join you.”

“Oh?”

Several muscles on Su Bo’s face twitched as he thought through what he wanted to say.

“This… This is XiaoFan. After the competition, she… replaced CuiLiang.” He paused to give me a chance to respond, but when I said nothing, he pressed on. “Both of us come from poor families, and neither of us has a place with Young Master ShouDu. So, we hope… We hope that you will accept us.”

I looked at the young woman, XiaoFan. “Is this true?”

She bowed. “Yes, Young Master.”

I stroked my chin in thought. Bo’s words sounded honest enough, but there was something a bit off about XiaoFan. Still, there wouldn’t be much harm in taking in a couple of more strays.

“Very well, you may join me for a few training sessions. If you show promise, then I will accept you.”

Over the next few weeks, I mostly stayed secluded away and continued my studies, but every few days, I would go out and spend a couple of hours training Bo and XiaoFan in both cultivation and martial arts.

The end of the second month came and went, and the competition was rather tame. No one was seriously injured, and no one seemed to even consider challenging me to a fight.

During the third month, I pushed ahead of the other Disciples and ascended all the way to Martial Disciple 5. I had yet to fully comprehend the differences between even Low-Earth techniques, so I was a bit unsatisfied with these breakthroughs, but I felt that advancing was necessary to maintain my position in the clan. I could go back and reset my cultivation base later to shore up any weaknesses.

All this time, I continued training Bo and XiaoFan, and their effort was showing results. I had yet to see ShouDu fight, so I didn’t know how strong he might be, but I was confident that both of my students could at least defeat any of the other elites.

One day before the final competition that would mark the end of the training camp, I had a final meeting with my students.

“Bo, XiaoFan, you both have shown a good deal of dedication over these past two months, so I am willing to accept you as my subordinates.”

They both bowed immediately. “Thank you, Young Master.”

I smiled. “Your training has helped you become strong, but training has its limits. Without a solid foundation, you will find it difficult to continue growing, and without a strong affinity, you will find it difficult to build a strong foundation. So, I will help you improve your affinities.”

They both widened their eyes in shock, and XiaoFan blurted out a quick “What!?”

I chuckled and then placed the oath stone on the table between us.

“It is true, but before I show you what to do, I will need you both to promise that you won’t tell anyone about this.”

They both nodded eagerly. “Of course, Young Master.”

I gestured to the oath stone. “Consider this a simple ritual. It will make your promise… official. Just place your hand on the stone and swear that you will not tell anyone that I was the one who raised your affinities and that you won’t reveal how I did it.”

Bo gave me a quick salute and slammed his hand onto the oath stone. “I swear not to tell anyone about who raised my affinity or how.”

I let out a light laugh. “That will work.”

XiaoFan looked a little nervous, but she quickly followed suit.

Then, I took them to a side room where two Rank 3 Essence Gathering Formations were waiting for them. An earth formation for Bo, and a metal formation for XiaoFan.

I had set up these formations several days earlier, so they had already gathered a large amount of essence, allowing Bo’s affinity to quickly increase by two stages and XiaoFan’s to increase by three.

Once the gathered essence was depleted, I sent them away with an admonition to cultivate diligently and not to tell anyone about what had happened.

After they were gone, I walked outside and found a nice spot to sit and wait.

Countless stars were visible in the night sky, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Still, somehow, a thick lightning bolt appeared out of nowhere, crashed down only a few hundred meters away from me, and rocked the entire mountain.

I let out a sigh.

Had that been too cruel? Possibly. I didn’t know XiaoFan’s story, and either ShouDu or the elders could have put her in an untenable position. However, I needed to send both Bo and TaiZu a message. I would just have to look at giving her another chance in a future life.