Path of the Sect Leader-Chapter 39: The Loose Cultivator Yu Denuo

That very evening, Zhan Yuan returned with a guest, the first outsider to set foot inside Chu Qin Sect’s newly completed mountain gate.
The Hug Essence Hall was formally opened for the occasion. Qi Xiu personally welcomed the man at the steps, Zhang Shishi at his side.
“Forgive the hasty preparations, Brother Yu,” Qi Xiu said with an embarrassed smile. The hall was grand, but the furniture was still raw, unpainted wood.
Yu Denuo waved it off warmly. “Not at all! In just a few short months you’ve turned this forsaken peak into something magnificent. Word has spread among us Baishan wanderers; we all wondered who the madmen were. To finally meet Sect Leader Qi in the flesh, truly a blessing of three lifetimes.”
He accepted the tea Gu Ji poured, bowing slightly.
Qi Xiu laughed, deflecting the over-the-top praise with practiced humility, then steered the conversation to lighter topics while quietly sizing the man up.
Yu Denuo was tall but stooped, white-haired and white-bearded, face etched with permanent worry. His once-dark indigo robe had faded to ash. Qi Xiu had guessed seventy; the man was barely fifty-five and already at the eighth layer of Qi Refining, genuine late-stage.
Life had not been kind.
Once a disciple of a minor Baishan sect, it was destroyed a decade ago. Rather than join the victors, he chose the lonely road of a loose cultivator, shuttling goods between Baishan, Qi Nan City, and the Southern Chu territories. Then bandits took everything; he survived but drowned in debt. Ten years of endless flights had aged him twenty.
Timid, soft-spoken, nothing like the bold smugglers Qi Xiu imagined. The golden array and soaring halls actually intimidated him at first. But cultivation spoke louder than fear; soon he relaxed and spoke freely.
Baishan lay south beyond the Death Marsh, named after a solitary white peak said to pierce the heavens, home to esoteric sects and rumored Spirit Severing recluses. Ordinary folk, however, meant the loose alliance of small clans and sects huddled around its base, the Artifact & Talisman Alliance, highest authority a Golden Core. Their city on the southern bank was Artifact-Talisman City.
Men like Yu Denuo ferried talismans and artifacts north, returning with spirit herbs, beast materials, and Qi Cloud specialties. The route was brutal: the Death Marsh swallowed anyone who touched ground, and even flying demanded a top-grade sword plus late Qi Refining strength. Profit was thin, competition vicious, betrayals common.
Yu Denuo, once burned, now stuck to the safer but still exploitative Ninety-Three Market to Artifact-Talisman City run, enduring the Chu family’s price gouging in silence.
Lately he kept crossing paths with Zhan Yuan on supply runs; familiarity bred today’s invitation.
Once pleasantries were done, Qi Xiu brought up the Wind Array Spirit Boats. Yu Denuo produced two on the spot, thirty percent cheaper than Ninety-Three Market.
Sold.
A few more daily necessities changed hands at honest prices. Everyone left happy.
Yu Denuo politely declined the offer to stay the night and departed at dusk.
Back in the hall, the three leaders huddled.
“Reliable?” Qi Xiu asked.
“Seems so,” Zhan Yuan said. “Honest to a fault. Useful trade route.”
Zhang Shishi nodded. “Cultivation solid, temperament mild. Worth keeping in touch.”
Qi Xiu pondered longer, cities and powers flickering through his mind like sparks, almost forming a pattern, but not quite. He shook his head, refocused.
“He’s trustworthy enough, but timid. Guard against coercion. Make it clear we deal only with him, no ‘friends’ tagging along.”
“Understood.”
Three days later, two Imperial Beast Sect disciples arrived riding a second-tier Silverback Carrier Ray.
The creature blotted out the sun as it descended, wings silent, a drifting black cloud made flesh.
Qi Xiu, Zhang Shishi, and Zhan Yuan leapt aboard the broad silver back and nearly choked.
Palaces, pavilions, gardens, an entire flying estate perched between the wing roots.
“Move it!” the lead driver barked from the beast’s flattened head. “Deacon Zhao’s sticking his neck out lending this beast, don’t waste time gawking!”
The trio flushed crimson, hurried inside.
The second Beast Sect disciple, Zhao Liangde’s own grand-nephew, was far more courteous. Over tea he patiently explained every detail of sowing Blackheart Lotus and building the enclosures.
When he finished, the three from Chu Qin Sect could only stare at one another in stunned silence.
They had come to raise pigs.
They were leaving on the back of a flying palace pulled by a creature worth a hundred times their entire sect.
The world, Qi Xiu thought with a wry smile, truly had a sense of humor.