The sound of footsteps reverberated throughout the old, wooden house. The creaking became especially loud as they further approached the dining room where Jiang Fei was.
“Fei-er, your mom and I are home, can you believe the amazing deals we got? 4 catties of rice for a catty of pork.” Jiang Lu, Jiang Fei’s father, boomed loudly as he walked into his bedroom to store a few sacks of hemp.
Jiang Lu was a large,burly man who was renowned in their region for being both handsome and reliable. It caused him to be the object of envy of many men in their region, in fact the jealousy even spread to some of the cultivators in the Eternal Flame and Torrent sect.
It got to the point where he was nearly kidnapped by a female cultivator who lusted after his body, thankfully the female cultivator was only in the 1st stage of body-tempering and was defeated by Jiang Lu.
“Fei-er, could you come out to the courtyard and help me salt the pork?” Jiang Fei’s mother, Jiang Nan, chirped from the courtyard. Clearly she was also quite pleased with the trades they made today.
Jiang Lu quickly picked up on the fact that Jiang Fei was frozen like a statue at the dining table, completely unresponsive to the changes in his surroundings.
Jiang Fei was still in deep contemplation as to how he should proceed from now on, he could choose to embark on the arduous path of cultivation or choose to remain ignorant of the way of cultivation and forever stay a mortal.
However, he ultimately decided he should at least tell his parents, after all it was not just his inheritance it was his entire family’s legacy.
“Dad… I have something to tell you and mom. Could you guys drop the chores for now and come to the dining room?” Jiang Fei stammered.
Jiang Nan walked into the dining room and noticed Jiang Fei’s anxious expression and immediately softened, pulling him into a comforting embrace. “Fei-er, what’s wrong? You look so ghastly.”
“Oh Fei-er did you forget to water the crops today? It's okay, they won’t die from not being watered for a day. Now come outside and help me salt the pork.” Jiang Nan reassuringly said as she rubbed Jiang Fei’s back therapeutically.
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“No it is not that mom, dad can you come here quickly it is very important.” Jiang Fei said in a desperate and pleading tone as he gently pried himself away from his mother’s loving embrace.
Jiang Lu heard his son’s desperation and noted that it was completely out of character for him to act so frazzled. So he quickly left his bedroom and came to take a seat at the dining table, his usual jovial demeanour replaced with one of concern and worry.
Now with both his parents at the dining table, he took a few deep breaths to compose himself.
Jiang Fei exhaled loudly, his hands trembling slightly. “While I was paying respects to our ancestors today, I... I cut myself on something sharp in the shrine. Then,some..some of my blood dripped onto the floor.This revealed a staircase, and it led to a hidden room with old scriptures by our ancestors.What do you think we should do?”
The room instantly quietened down, and for a brief moment Jiang Fei wondered if he had touched upon a taboo topic, slightly beginning to regret telling his parents about this.
Oh my heavenly dao! Is Fei-er serious right now? I cannot believe this! Jiang Lu excitedly thought,his pupils dilated slightly, lips trembling. “So my father was right…we still have a chance at redemption! Oh Jiang Fei, you are our family’s saviour!” Jiang Lu eagerly rushed to Jiang Fei and gave him a bear hug before lifting him up in the air.
Jiang Nan’s brows furrowed together and she raised her voice to ask “What hidden room? Lu did you know about this? Why did you never tell me about this? Fei-er are you ok? Was the room dangerous?”
Jiang Lu slowly turned his head to look at his wife, his eyes fraught with fear.He knew he had pissed her off and rightfully so, at their wedding they vowed to share everything with each other. Now, he had to tell her that he had been hiding a major secret about their family for the past 19 years.
What made things worse was that he had pissed his wife off only 7 times throughout their 19 years of happy and loving marriage. This would make it the 8th and he was not pleased about it, the last 7 times he had to sleep in the shed next to the outhouse and was given the cold shoulder for a week. If this 8th time was anything like the past 7 times he knew he would be in terrible trouble.
“Well honey, there is this book which has been passed down for the past 25 generations. It basically tells us that we had an illustrious past which included numerous cultivators who have ascended via the Heaven’s gate. Sadly, it does not go into the specifics only warning us to never try to start cultivating. When I was a kid all I ever wanted to be was a cultivator, so it devastated me when my father forbade me from even trying to start cultivation.Now I finally have the chance to find out the reason behind that, and maybe even start cultivation!” Jiang Lu's hands were shaking and he broke out with tears of joy.
“No Dad listen, I searched all the manuscripts but they were all about cultivation and had none about the history of our family. Plus think about it, would our ancestors have written the reason why we cannot cultivate in a hidden room full of cultivation manuals? Even if we do not have access to our family’s cultivation techniques with our previous background we would be able to source techniques from other forces, even if they are the worst grade ones.”
Jiang Fei had been given quite a bit of time to ponder his family’s background and circumstances leading up to the sealing of the hidden room, armed with this new knowledge about being forbidden from cultivating he quickly pieced the information together and came up with multiple theories, this being his leading one. What scared him the most was that his ancestors were so powerful, but even they were so afraid of something to the point of abandoning their roots. Could he really continue on with his peaceful life?