A Pawn's Passage

Yan Xiu still had not realized Qi Xuansu’s true identity or intent. “The Xuan Jade isn’t with me. It must have fallen into Qi Xuansu’s hands.”

Truth be told, Qi Xuansu was also curious. What did the Qingping Society want with the Xuan Jade? Could it have been meant for him? But this was just a passing thought.

The Qingping Society had been collecting Xuan Jades long before his existence, back when Qi Xuansu was a nobody and Madam Qi was not yet one of the six Privy Council members. It was unbelievable that the mighty Qingping Society would serve him alone because he was not Yao Pei, the third Earthly Preceptor’s descendant.

So Qi Xuansu speculated that the Qingping Society might also possess a Longevity Stone Heart, one left behind by the third-generation Earthly Preceptor. Madam Qi’s Longevity Stone Heart had come from the Lingshan Paradise and belonged solely to her, not to the Yao family or the Qingping Society.

After all, aside from being the Yao Family’s seventh daughter and Qingping Society’s Lady Qi, Madam Qi was also the Mogul Yao of the Seven Treasure Pavilion. Technically, that was her most formal and prestigious title. The upper echelons of the Daoist Order might not know who Lady Qi was, or that the Earthly Preceptor even had a seventh sister, but they certainly knew the famed Mogul Yao, who once headed the Seven Treasure Pavilion.

From this perspective, Madam Qi was herself the leader of a secret society, not anyone’s subordinate. Naturally, she had the confidence to claim finders keepers.

Which meant Madam Qi had likely been exploiting the Qingping Society all along, using their network to secretly search for Xuan Jades, only to claim them for herself, such as the Xuan Jade of Death.

Regardless, the Qingping Society’s quest for Xuan Jades was no secret. The Li family had likely heard about it long ago and would not easily link Qi Xuansu to the secret society. That was because it had come to light that Qi Xuansu’s Longevity Stone Heart came from the Lingshan Paradise, which had nothing to do with the Qingping Society.

Someone could forcibly argue that the Lingshan Paradise was tied to the second Earthly Preceptor, the Qingping Society was connected to the third Earthly Preceptor, and that Mogul Yao, who handed the Xuan Jade to Qi Xuansu in Jinling Prefecture, was tied to the current Earthly Preceptor, and then use the connection of the three Earthly Preceptors as proof that Qi Xuansu was linked to the Qingping Society. But even if that were true, Qi Xuansu would not even need to defend himself. The Quanzhen Sect would speak for him.

Since the Earthly Preceptor was the leader of the Quanzhen Sect, this was not just an attack on Qi Xuansu or even the Yao family. It was an attack on the entire Quanzhen Sect itself.

After all, anyone capable of knowing so much truth would not need to go to such lengths just to eliminate Qi Xuansu.