As soon as his mother described the identity of the 'other woman' problems immediately became apparent to Wu Ling. With that kind of lineage, asking her to become a concubine or junior wife was insulting both to her family and to the Sanguine Saber Sect. If his father managed to become a Martial Champion and moved to the Shining Blade Hall's Inner Sect then the gap in status would still be problematic but he would at least have the standing to court Hong Xuefeng.
Over time, with additional achievements to his name, he might be able to win the approval of her parents and elders but that was predicated on him gaining the status that came with becoming a Champion. As a Warrior in the Outer Sect, even if his cultivation had been greater than the young woman's, her standing within her sect was much greater and her path to the Inner Sect was all but assured.
"We all understood that their relationship had to be concealed," Wu Ningly continued, her silver eyes misty and gazing into the distance. "But a year after your father brought her home, they had done the unthinkable. She was pregnant with his child. It was a secret that couldn't be kept. Hong Xuefeng had many suitors, she's a stunning woman with crimson hair and eyes and a figure that made even me jealous. Combined with her status, I'm sure you can imagine how many men turned their blades against your father for 'stealing' the woman they desired."
"Is that what got him killed?" Wu Ling asked, having never heard the reason his father had fallen to the blades of a powerful sect, only that it had been his father who had provoked the conflict. When Wu Ling thought of they types of people who would court a woman like Hong Xuefeng, he had no trouble envisioning peerless talents and powerfully connected cultivation families competing not only for her attention but for the approval of her family and sect. Depending on the attitudes of her family, it wasn't hard to imagine that her marriage had already been planned to forge a union or alliance with another powerful force. By having a child with Hong Xuefeng, Yun Kong wouldn't just have offended her family and suitors, he may have disrupted the plans of a number of powerful and influential individuals. What a mess.
"In a sense. It wasn't the other suitors who did him in, your father stood head and shoulders above such petty men," his mother answered. "It was after your half-sister, Yun Xuejing, was born when Hong Xuefeng's father imprisoned both mother and daughter in the sect that your father went mad with his desire to free her. No matter how much I begged him to wait until he could breakthrough, he refused to listen and charged the outer sect by himself," she said with a sad shake of her head. "He killed dozens, including the sons of several Elders and Masters, and in the end, he died before coming within a hundred meters of the courtyard where Hong Xuefeng and your sister were imprisoned."
"How could it go so wrong?" Su Xiang asked. "Surely he had an understanding of how much more powerful the forces of the Sanguine Saber Sect were. Aren't they also a second-rank sect like the Shining Blade Hall? Even if our techniques are comparable to theirs, he should have known that they'd have Champions within an Outer Sect branch." To Su Xiang, if one were to talk about a Warrior from a second-rank sect targeting a third-rank sect that possessed a single fourth-stage cultivator at most, it might be reasonable. To attack a branch of another second-rank sect, however, was madness!
"His mistake, his conceit," Wu Ningli answered. "Was in believing that the Sanguine Saber Sect behaved in a fashion similar to the Shining Blade Hall. He thought he could defeat their cultivators without killing them and force Hong Xuefeng's father into letting her free, but the Sanguine Saber Sect fights to the death and bloodshed fuels their cultivation. He was doomed from the moment he crossed their gates and the more people he killed, the worse the blood debt between our family and their sect became."
"What happened to Hong Xuefeng and my, my sister?" Wu Ling asked, stumbling on the realization that he had a long lost half sister that he'd never had the chance to know. At this point, she had to be eleven or twelve years old, almost ready to make her first attempts at awakening.
"Hong Du, Xuefeng's father, declared that she would be imprisoned until either your father's bloodline died out or your sister became powerful enough to claim your life to free her mother," Wu Ningli said, her face darkening. "That you've been left alive so long isn't because they couldn't have arranged for your death. It's because they want to use Hong Xuefeng's captivity to motivate your sister to kill you, to prove that her loyalty lies with the sect and not her blood kin. Between your father and her mother, her talents should not be any less than yours and likely more inclined towards the Martial path," she explained. "If she awakens, you can expect that her grandfather will invest significantly in developing her power so she can expunge the 'stain' on his family's honor. If you failed to awaken, it would be beneath them to target you, but now that you have…"
"So in a few years, I should expect to be hunted by my own half-sister?" Wu Ling said darkly. "I won't stand for that. She deserves to make her own choices, she shouldn't be forced onto such a dark path just to free her own mother," he added fiercely. While he couldn't understand how either his mother or Hong Xuefeng could decide to share a single husband, he understood very well just how far he would go to help his mother. If his sister was the same, Wu Ling imagined that she must be incredibly driven to do whatever it would take to see her mother walk free. That kind of motivation could make her a terrifying opponent!
"I happen to agree with you," Wu Ningli said. "Not just because I don't want you to be drawn into this nightmare but because I genuinely accepted Hong Xuefeng as a sister back then. She and I have more in common than you might think. Just like you and Su Xiang have taken each other as sworn siblings, I consider her my sister, even if there was never a wedding to make things formal. Her daughter is my daughter and both are being cruelly suppressed. That's why, three years ago, I fought my own way into the sect to try to rescue them. I almost succeeded," she said softly, holding up a crippled hand helplessly. "Instead, I made the same mistakes your father did and you can see the results of my failure."