Zhao Zhi immediately chased after Wei Zhongran, asking him to cast a spell to check on her daughter's situation.
In fact, Wei Zhongran did not agree to do this, but in the end, driven to a headache by her nagging, he had no choice but to cast a spell to project the images of Li Yan and Zhao Min.
His cultivation was already outstanding, and what's more, this was Little Bamboo Peak. What could he not do?
However, Wei Zhongran did not want to listen to his daughter's private conversations. That would seem too disrespectful for his age. So, he only projected their images, without any sound.
This made Zhao Zhi quite resentful. A mother really wanted to know everything, but Wei Zhongran was absolutely firm on this point.
When he saw Li Yan and Zhao Min leaning against each other on the platform, watching the night scenery, Wei Zhongran immediately grew impatient and withdrew his divine ability.
"It's a pity that Li Yan's parents and older brother have all passed away. Otherwise, I would go over tomorrow and have them make a betrothal gift. It's not like we want anything from them, just a promise from an elder..."
Zhao Zhi was still chattering on, and Wei Zhongran's head began to throb...
On the afternoon of the second day, a group of familiar fellow disciples came to Li Yan's courtyard.
It was the few people Li Yan was familiar with in the sect: Wang Tian, Zuo Shengyan, Baili Yuan, and Du Sanjiang.
Wang Tian still had a gloomy look. He had already become Dao Companions with Zuo Shengyan. These four had all successfully formed their cores at different times within the last hundred years.
From their auras, Li Yan could roughly guess the quality of their Golden Cores. He valued the quality of one's Golden Core more than their realm.
Baili Yuan and Du Sanjiang were probably at the "Numinous Treasure Heavenly Lotus" level, which was about the same as his Eldest Senior Brother, both considered superior Golden Core qualities.
Wang Tian was slightly inferior, and Zuo Shengyan was the weakest. But fortunately, they had all stepped into the Golden Core stage, which was already an immortal fortune one in ten thousand.
At this reunion, they were no longer as hot-blooded as they were in their youth; the arrogant air about them had lessened.
These four had received the news spread by Li Wuyi early this morning. They were all shocked by the contents. In their minds, Li Yan and Zhao Min had long since perished.
They had never expected them to suddenly return one day. And they had also heard that these two had successfully condensed their Golden Cores.
After taking their seats, two young girl-like puppets served tea. These puppets were all gifts from Bai Rou back in the Tianli Clan.
Although these few puppets were not skilled in combat, they were quite good at doing chores.
Li Yan, of course, couldn't tell them about all his experiences. He just picked and chose some things about the Forsaken Continent.
Finally, he explained that he had encountered a human Nascent Soul cultivator who happened to be traveling the world and had brought him and Zhao Min back along the way.
Wei Zhongran strictly forbade anyone from revealing the manner of their return.
After all, the way Li Yan and the others had returned was a bit strange. Even Wei Zhongran and his group had their own suspicions, but they were unwilling to press the matter, let alone others.
The four of them were repeatedly shocked as they listened to Li Yan's experiences.
To have survived under such perilous conditions, and now to have truly returned to the sect, they had no choice but to believe it.
At the same time, it was not their place to inquire about the identity of the Nascent Soul senior who had brought Li Yan back.
After some conversation, Li Yan also learned that Mei Bucai and Chu Weili had also survived that great war and had been in seclusion for over thirty and fifty years respectively, both attempting to break through to the Golden Core realm.
Chu Weixiong, Zhou Guan'er, and Zhu Gaotai, whom he was relatively familiar with, had all died in battle during that great war. Li Yan had already learned of Chu Weixiong's death when he was at Windy Cool Mountain.
But hearing it again now, and looking at the few people before him, he couldn't help but feel a sense of melancholy. The few of them, looking at Li Yan, also felt as if a lifetime had passed.
Among the few who came, the one with the highest cultivation was Baili Yuan, but he was still one step away from reaching mid-stage Golden Core. For all these years, they had been bitterly chasing after Li Wuyi's footsteps. When they saw that Li Yan had revealed a late-stage Golden Core cultivation, they all looked at each other, speechless for a moment. When Wang Tian was leaving, he let out a long sigh.
"Falling into the Devil's Cliff Crevice is a near-death experience, but it's a mix of misfortune and fortune!"
Baili Yuan and Du Sanjiang could only be described as extremely frustrated. They had been chasing for over a hundred years, yet they were still firmly suppressed by the few from Little Bamboo Peak.
Just when it seemed they might have a chance to catch up to Li Wuyi, another Li Yan had returned.
They were more or less aware of Li Yan's aptitude. Although Wang Tian no longer harbored any hatred for Li Yan, he still wanted to surpass him in cultivation.
This was also one of the reasons why Li Yan had suppressed his cultivation. Otherwise, if he had let them know his true cultivation at the Pseudo-Nascent Soul Realm, these few would probably have left as soon as they met.
That would be too demoralizing!
The reason Li Yan didn't suppress his cultivation to the initial-stage Golden Core was that he would soon be entering seclusion to prepare for his breakthrough to the Nascent Soul stage.
When the time came for the phenomenon to appear, if he had suppressed his cultivation by so many minor realms, it would inevitably make people uncomfortable.
After seeing the few of them off, Li Yan sat down in the courtyard. Coupled with some private conversations with Wei Zhongran yesterday, Li Yan already knew the current situation of the Malevolent Spirit Sect.
The current Malevolent Spirit Sect was not as peaceful as it appeared on the surface. In private, it was competing with another super sect—the Supreme Mystery Teachings—for some resource-rich territories in the south.
These territories were the areas that the Malevolent Spirit Sect, the Ten-Pace Courtyard, and the Jingtu Sect had helped the Supreme Mystery Teachings defend back then.
Later, after the Demon Clan and the foreign cultivators were defeated, the Supreme Mystery Teachings suffered the most damage to their vitality. On one hand, they had to re-consolidate their main sect in the South Sea and revive the Supreme Mystery Teachings. On the other hand, they had to clean up the traitors who had sided with the Demon Clan back then.
So, they had no time to manage some of the territories near the north, which remained in the hands of the other three sects.
However, as the Supreme Mystery Teachings slowly stabilized their territory and recovered some of their vitality, they began to want to take back these places.
But due to the appearance of Gu Jiuqi back then, the Supreme Mystery Teachings, after much deliberation, actually went to discuss with the Ten-Pace Courtyard and the Jingtu Sect in private first.
After giving a lot of cultivation resources to these two sects, they took back the areas occupied by them.
And after that, these three sects secretly joined forces again and began to pressure the Malevolent Spirit Sect to hand over the occupied territory.
But how could the Malevolent Spirit Sect agree to such a thing? They wouldn't easily give up the fat meat that had fallen into their hands.
Besides, he wasn't blind. It was obvious that the Ten-Pace Courtyard and the Jingtu Sect had both received huge benefits, yet they were trying to bully him. Did they take him for a fool?
However, for matters like competing for territory, the Four Great Sects had always had their Golden Core Sect Masters lead a group of elders and Foundation Establishment disciples to fight and compete.
Nascent Soul Old Monsters rarely made a move directly, let alone Spirit Transformation cultivators. They basically served as a deterrent.
In the view of the Four Sects, the struggles between them had always been the best way to temper their disciples.
So now, many Golden Core cultivators in the Malevolent Spirit Sect would go out on missions from time to time. The main battlefields were those few areas that originally belonged to the Supreme Mystery Teachings.
However, it hadn't reached the point of a full-scale war yet. Most of it was carried out by the Golden Core and Foundation Establishment disciples of each peak in rotation.
Li Wuyi and the others had also had a fierce battle with what were likely monks from the Jingtu Sect four years ago. Fortunately, none of them had gotten into trouble.
The reason they said "likely" was because those enemies had concealed their auras, and their cultivation methods were mixed, but traces of Buddhist cultivation methods could still be seen.
But the monks in this world were not limited to the Jingtu Sect. Without concrete evidence, they would naturally not admit to it.
Since the three sects had joined forces, they would not be easily caught by the Malevolent Spirit Sect. They had long made ample preparations to deal with it.
In addition, Li Yan received some more important news!
It was rumored that some of the Spirit Transformation cultivators of the Four Great Sects might have already ascended to the Immortal Spirit Realm. This news was mostly circulated among the upper echelons of the Four Sects, and no one was certain.
Even Wei Zhongran didn't know if his sect's Spirit Transformation cultivator, Su Changyang, was still in the sect, but at the very least, there had been no news of this Spirit Transformation Old Monster for a long time.
The Chimei Emissary, Gu Jiuqi, was long gone from Little Bamboo Peak. Now, no one knew where he had gone, or if he had transformed into a disciple of another peak.
There was even a period of time when those cultivators in the Malevolent Spirit Sect who knew of the Chimei Emissary's existence saw every disciple under the peaks as Gu Jiuqi.
Even many deacons of the major peaks changed their usual harsh words and actions towards new disciples, even being polite to some Qi Condensation stage disciples.
For a time, the entire sect was a picture of "harmony," for fear of accidentally getting themselves killed!
It was precisely because they knew of the Chimei Emissary's existence that the late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, Zhu Luan and Mo Gu, had also planned to ascend. The two had long since left the sect to search for an ascension node.
They had guarded the sect for more than a thousand years. They didn't have Su Changyang's ability and were unable to break through in the lower realm for a long time. It was time for them to ascend.
To this day, their soul lamps were still lit in the sect's Everlasting Soul Hall, but they had never returned to the sect.
The mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, Dacen, was also not in the sect. It was said that he had also gone out to travel and search for heavenly materials and earthly treasures, which was also in preparation for his ascension.
Mo Qing and the newly advanced Nascent Soul realm Wei Zhongran needed to continue to stay in the lower realm until a new Nascent Soul cultivator appeared.
Now that the Malevolent Spirit Sect was guarded by these two, plus the secret Chimei Emissary, the sect should be safe.
As for when Mo Qing and Wei Zhongran would decide to ascend after someone successfully formed a Nascent Soul, that would depend on their personal wishes.
The Malevolent Spirit Sect's requirements for Nascent Soul cultivators were also different now than in the past. In the past, the Devil's Cliff Crevice had been constantly draining the vast resources and energy of the Four Sects, and they never knew when the enemy would break through the realm barrier.
So, after late-stage Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation cultivators appeared, the Four Sects had always been preserving their strength, bitterly enduring in the lower realm, guarding the Desolate Moon Continent and the human race.
In this respect, the high-level cultivators of the Four Great Sects all shared the same philosophy of guarding their heritage as Meng Shangmo.
They couldn't be like Shuang Qingqing, who came and went as she pleased, without a care in the world.
On the morning of the third day, Sun Guoshu also flew to Li Yan's bamboo courtyard... When he left, he was all smiles.
And for a period of time after that, no one saw this Senior Brother Sun doing missions everywhere!
After sending Sun Guoshu away, Li Yan thought for a moment, then with a wave of his hand, the purple-robed youth appeared in the courtyard.
As soon as Zi Kun appeared, he looked around curiously. He had been taken into the Earthen Patch before Li Yan returned to the sect.
Now that he was out, feeling the rich spiritual energy around him, he already knew that this was an excellent place for cultivation.
"This is my sect, and this is my residence. You can set up the Great Dragon-Elephant Formation here. Then you can choose a room for yourself and cultivate here in peace from now on."
Zi Kun was overjoyed upon hearing this. He finally no longer had to enter that sparsely populated space.
"Master, can I walk around in the sect then?"
"Of course you can. I have already prepared a sect token for you. Anyway, there are plenty of non-human demonic beasts on Spirit Insect Peak. Just be careful not to cause trouble. You must remember this!"
After speaking, Li Yan waved his palm again, and a small, black token, seemingly neither iron nor gold, flew towards Zi Kun.
As long as Zi Kun didn't cause trouble in the sect, there was naturally no need to worry.
However, the methods of the Malevolent Spirit Sect cultivators were strange. Although Zi Kun's combat power was outstanding, if he encountered people like Li Wuyi and Li Changting, he might suffer a great loss.
After giving a few more instructions, seeing Zi Kun's eyes constantly darting towards the outside of the courtyard with an excited look, Li Yan no longer paid him any mind and walked towards the cultivation chamber in the back!