The couple didn't know that this unfounded trouble had already been brewing a few days ago.
The people in black searching the village, are disciples of the demonic cultivator Wei Jiu. They are also the group that came to Jue Mountain every year to bury those iron boxes.
Just two days ago, several black-clothed disciples stood respectfully at the foot of the mountain and reported to a beautiful woman in a black gauze and gold-embroidered long skirt.
"Elder Tu, the entire Jue Mountain seems to be surrounded by some spiritual force. We circled around the mountain and couldn't enter at all."
The woman in black gauze narrowed her eyes slightly, "You are not here for the first time. Just hire some villagers to go in. They don't have spiritual roots and won't be blocked by the spiritual barrier. Plus, with the Soul Capturing Spell making them lose their senses, they can at least reach halfway up the mountain."
The lead disciple replied tensely, "This disciple did exactly as instructed, but… in the past, those people only needed to bury the boxes filled with resentment water at the foot of the mountain and didn't need to go up. But now, after they enter the mountain, they seem to encounter a ghost wall and have been wandering in the mist for the whole day, just circling at the foot of the mountain and are unable to go up at all!"
This woman in black gauze, named Tu Jiu Yuan, was an Elder under Wei Jiu. Hearing this, she suddenly waved her sleeve and the chilling wind knocked more than a dozen disciples to the ground, "A bunch of fools! This is the year the Rebirth Tree will bear fruit. Twenty years ago, Mu Qingge's was destroyed and a wisp of her scattered soul was lodged in the tree. If there is not enough resentment water to irrigate the roots, the fruit that is grown may end up a useless being. Our revered Master is currently at the stage of **Yuan Ying transforming into a divine being, urgently needing the aid of the reborn Mu Qingge. We must ensure that the Rebirth Tree will bear spiritual fruit that is up to standard!"
** Yuan Ying is from Taoist cultivation concept, Nascent Soul.
"Cultivators form a new untouched soul which must ascend to the heavens facing heavenly tribulation at each step."
While she spoke, the disciples who were knocked away seemed to be suspended in mid-air by some invisible force, their eyes bulging as they let out painful howls.
Tu Jiu Yuan clenched her fist and a black mist suddenly rose. With a fierce pull, she seemed to have extracted some energy from those disciples. The men fell to the ground as if they had been skinned and deboned.
"I have used the Bone Sacrifice Spell to strip all your spiritual energy, so you can go in and investigate without hindrance. Even without spiritual roots, the compass made of dragon bones is enough to break through the Smokescreen Spell to reach the mountaintop. I believe you can handle it better than those villagers. Once the boxes are buried, I have the means to restore your spiritual energy."
These nonchalant words were really just to fool the newcomers of the Sect.
The Bone Sacrifice Spell is the most vicious punishment for disciples who violate the sect rules. It has been unheard of, for anyone who has been stripped of their spiritual roots to be restored after.
Even the female demonic cultivator Mu Qingge, who once caused chaos in the immortal cultivation world, became powerless to fight back after being hit by the Ninefold Bone Sacrifice Curse.
Since Mu Qingge's demise, the top demonic cultivator is their revered Master Wei Jiu of their Crimson Gate , whose cultivation far exceeds that of Mu Qingge back then.
It's too bad that the rebirth of the once all-powerful witch Mu Qingge, will merely be as a ginseng fruit to boost their master's cultivation.
**人参果 is a legendary mythical fruit
However, it's obvious that not only the Crimson Gate covets this ginseng fruit. Even the righteous sects that claim to be orthodox have sent people to set up a spiritual shield on the mountain, forbidding others from encroaching the Rebirth Tree.
After the soul has scattered, the person reborn from the Rebirth Tree will be as reincarnated, unrelated to the past, neither righteous or evil. It will be easy to teach and nurture.
Mu Qingge had a naturally extreme yin spirit demonic physique, with strong spiritual power embedded in her soul.
Many famous orthodox sects, even as they do not openly declare it, have the intention to obtain this spiritual child of the immortal tree, to raise from a young age, and used for their own purposes.
After all, the heavenly lightning tribulation that occurs once every three hundred years is approaching, and many powerful cultivators who are almost able to ascend need talented disciples to help them overcome the tribulation trial.
Mu Qingge's reborn body is just right for this purpose.
Thinking of this, Tu Jiu Yuan's heart felt much more at ease.
Mu Qingge and her were once fellow disciples. Seeing their Master favor Mu Qingge, allowing only her to learn the true teachings and form her golden core early on, while she was always inferior to this junior in every way. Tu Jiu Yuan had always been tormented by jealousy.
But now, Mu Qingge is just a fruit on a tree. When the fruit ripens and falls, it will just be the beginning of her tragic rebirth…
Thinking of this, Tu Jiu Yuan broke into a sinister smile.
She took a few strands of hair that she had just pulled from the heads of those disciples, put them into a small bronze censer in her hand, and silently recited a spell. In no time, she was able to connect with those disciples who went up the mountain, replacing her own sensory input with theirs.
Sacrificing a few disciples was indeed beneficial, indeed much more useful than those villagers.
Maybe the spiritual shield had been set up for too long. This time she was able to control the puppet-like disciples to reach the mountaintop without any resistance, and she could clearly see everything on the mountain through their eyes.
However she was stunned when she saw the weathered fragments under the tree – could it be that the Spirit fruit had fallen long ago?
She made the disciples on the mountain lift their heads and saw a large fruit hanging on the tree, which reassured her a bit.
Just then, a gust of wind blew by and her scalp tightened. In the blink of an eye, someone had pulled a few strands of her hair.
The next moment, Tu Jiu Yuan also lost her senses and came under the control of another.
The remaining disciples respectfully knelt down and shouted in unison, "Long live our Revered Master!"
A man in a black robe had arrived. Although he had a somewhat feminine appearance, his tall stature and the coldness in his narrow phoenix eyes made him unmistakably a man full of murderous intent.
He is Wei Jiu, the Revered Master of the Crimson Gate.
Wei Jiu slowly twirled the strands of Elder Tu's hair around his long fingers, already having a clear view of the situation on the mountain. He directed the disciples on the mountain to pick up the fruit shell fragments and used a Retrospection Spell to deduce that the fruit had fallen in the Qing Geng year.
Wei Jiu curled his thin lips, snapped his fingers to burn the broken hair at his fingertips and coldly ordered, "Send people down the mountain to search. Find all the children born in the Qing Geng year for me!"
At this time, Tu Jiu Yuan's senses returned and she hurriedly knelt down and saluted, "Revered Master, could the spiritual child from the prematurely fallen Rebirth Fruit already be gone from the vicinity of Jue Mountain?"
Wei Jiu narrowed his eyes coldly and sneered, "The premature falling of the Rebirth Fruit has already posed a great risk. If the spiritual child is too far from the Rebirth Tree, there's no chance of survival. She must be nearby. Search thoroughly!"
With numerous disciples and vast influence of the Crimson Gate, an order from the Revered Master led to a thorough search of the nearby villages and towns.
However, despite finding several boys and girls of the appropriate age, none of them possessed the aura of the Rebirth Tree's spiritual power.
After hearing the report from his disciples, Wei Jiu turned his gaze back to the mountaintop of Jue Mountain, where another fruit was still rapidly growing on the tree, seemingly about to ripen soon.
He was also present during that battle back then, and was well aware that Mu Qingge's sister, Mu Ran wu, had also perished together with her.
It made sense that two souls had entered the tree and resulted in two fruits.
Now that one fruit had fallen too early… although Mu Ranwu with her mediocre talent was more likely to have fallen first, Wei Jiu felt that a thorough investigation was necessary to avoid any future troubles.
"Mu Qingge…" Wei Jiu softly uttered the name, his eyes filled with a determined and sinister gleam.
He practiced a demonic path that involved devouring souls and craving spirits, which amplified his innate greed. Wei Jiu was obsessed with Mu Qingge, whom he had always coveted but never obtained.
Thinking of this, a bloodthirsty red light flickered in Wei Jiu's eyes, and his originally noble appearance became terrifying to behold.
Meanwhile, Qiao Lian and her husband had made their decision. They planned to stay at home for the next few days, waiting for the unorthodox disciples and their people to leave before their next move.
Fortunately, they had been cautious and hadn't immediately brought the child back to the village when they found her. So, when someone did come knocking, they stuck to the story they had told the other villagers, giving a fake birth date for their daughter. Since they had delayed her age by a year, the records clearly did not match the Qing Geng year. The villagers could all testify, leaving no loose ends.
When the black-clothed men burst into the courtyard and saw the frail and sickly daughter of the Xue family, they couldn't be bothered to take a second look.
After all, this little girl had no aura of spiritual wisdom and seemed a mere ordinary mortal who was not even qualified to enter the path of cultivation, let alone be the spiritual child reborn from the Rebirth Tree!
After that one visit, no one else came knocking.
Although they had delayed their daughter's birth year by one year, Ranran had always been frail and appeared smaller than children of her age, so no one ever suspected anything.
However, in the village, five children born in the year of Qing Geng were said to have had their fingers cut by the black-clothed disciples, and their blood was dripped into a black incense burner.
After carpenter Xue found out about this, he turned pale. His daughter Ranran was delicate and weak, and if she were really cut with a knife, it would take her at least ten days to half a month to recover.
Later, that group of black-robed disciples, stubbornly determined, took away all the children born in the year of Qing geng from the surrounding villages.
Although they claimed to be checking for spiritual roots, this act of kidnapping without any trace of the victims was utterly lawless.
Some people resisted fiercely, but in the end, they were beaten half to death by the powerful demonic cultivator disciples and could only watch helplessly as their children were taken away.
Ranran didn't understand why her parents had been very listless the past few days, with her mother even lying in bed for two days like she had been traumatized. But as a daughter, she felt it was her duty to show filial piety when her mother was ill.
Ranran asked her father to help heat up the stove, and she made sesame sweet potato cakes that she had seen before. After they were steaming hot from the oven, Ranran placed them on a small table for her parents to eat.
Qiao Lian was amazed at the delicate cakes her daughter made and asked where she had learned to do so. She was full of praise as she asked her.
Ranran didn't know either. She just nibbled on the cake contentedly and mumbled, "I knew how to make it after eating it once. Mother, do you think I starved to death in my past life? Is that why I always think about food?"
Qiao Lian spat once on the ground forcefully, "Tsk tsk, what's a little girl like you saying about life and death in this way? I think you just died of gluttony in your past life!"
After saying that, she paused, realizing she herself had mentioned about life and death, while her clever daughter laughed out loud and took a big bite to satisfy her craving.
Qiao Lian laughed along with her daughter and the tension of the past few days eased—the black-robed people hadn't been coming to the village much these days, so they are probably in the clear.
Qiao Lian and her husband decided that after the winter, they would put together some money and return to their old home in He Ning, far away from this troubled place.