Chapter 289 - 253: The Demon Queen’s Chief Attendant
Jinya Pavilion.
This serene and picturesque place has never lacked scholars and poets. Before such stunning scenery, they compose verses, exchange confidences, and drink cup after cup of fine wine. Whatever sorrows they harbor, they dissolve completely in the flow of spirits.
But Taichua Goddess Yin Weiyin never drinks wine.
Taoist cultivators aren’t all prohibited from drinking. Only the Quanzhen Sect mandates abstinence from alcohol and meat. Ordinary Taoists typically adhere to the "four don’ts"—they avoid eating beef, dog meat, goose, and black carp.
The Taihua Mountain sect isn’t part of the Quanzhen lineage. Unlike the Quanzhen Sect, which welcomes a wide variety of disciples, Taihua Mountain emphasizes severing mortal ties through the practice of the "golden boy and jade girl" path, pursuing hermitic cultivation. Otherwise, Yin Weiyin wouldn’t have spent so much effort searching for a golden boy. Yet in the end, she ended up entangling herself. Not only did she fail to retreat into reclusive cultivation, but she also had her cultivation stolen by that very person.
Yin Weiyin’s brows furrowed tighter, her thin lips pressing into a hard line. Memories she couldn’t bear to revisit surfaced unwillingly. That person had left cruel marks on her, leaving her body defiled. When she thought of it, she couldn’t help but shiver. That time, when she returned to the Prince Mansion, she had inadvertently caught her reflection in a bronze mirror and realized just how pitiful she looked. Panic surged in her belated recognition. She locked herself in her room, terrified that her servants would notice something amiss. If they reported it to Prince Jing and Princess Jing, revealing that their eldest daughter had descended into such a disastrous state in her cultivation and had been defiled by someone like Chen Yi, the Prince Mansion would undoubtedly collapse into chaos.
Thinking it over carefully, Yin Weiyin realized that compared to what that situation could’ve escalated into, it might still be tolerable. Ultimately, even the worst scandals are buried. But after calming down, she realized that what truly brought despair wasn’t the incident itself—it was that person’s cold and dismissive rejection afterward.
"Miss Yin, what are you thinking about?" asked a Shangqing Taoist nun beside her, noticing her furrowed brows.
Yin Weiyin snapped back to her senses, offering a faint smile. She lightly shook her horsetail whisk and replied, "What could a cultivator be thinking about?"
The Shangqing nun looked admiringly at her and poured her a cup of tea with a gentle reverence.
Yin Weiyin returned the courtesy with a similar gesture before noticing that the Taoist nun turned her gaze away. Her eyes bypassed the group of erudite Taoists engaged in animated conversation and landed squarely on Feiyuan True Man.
The year was drawing to a close, and the Shangqing Sect should have left the capital long ago. However, during Demon Extermination Day, Feiyuan True Man had been seriously injured, and Feiyuan’s junior, Zhenzhen Daoist, had also suffered grave wounds. Unable to move easily, they had stayed to recuperate. Only now were they departing.