In other words, while Young Master Shao Yuan's words were somewhat shocking, he had indeed opened up an entirely new line of thinking — venturing into territory that no one else had explored.
In that moment, every trace of doubt that anyone harbored toward Jiang Chen began to waver.
Could it be that this young man was telling the truth?
The way he spoke with such certainty and conviction, he hardly seemed like someone running his mouth at random. Nor was he like Pill King Jilang, who talked a big game yet was ultimately full of empty air.
The Grand Priestess drew a deep breath. "Young Master Shao, if what you say is true, then how should we go about remedying the situation?"
Jiang Chen waved his hand dismissively. "There's no need for remediation. It's only a minor effect — no fatal root cause has taken hold yet. However, Sister Xu Shan must stop tending to the Moon God Treasure Tree. With your Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline talent, you should have a cultivation path tailor-made specifically for this martial dao aptitude. Your future potential would then be truly limitless."
As he spoke, Jiang Chen turned to the Grand Priestess. "This is the first reason I congratulated you earlier. With this Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline in your Moon God Sect, a great figure is bound to emerge in the future."
These words struck like a thunderbolt, booming in everyone's ears. If what Jiang Chen said was really true, then had Xu Shan not been wasting her talent all along?
The Grand Priestess felt her head buzz. The sheer volume of information was overwhelming — she could barely keep up.
They had suddenly discovered the source of the Moon God Treasure Tree's ailment, and on top of that, there was now a martial dao prodigy in their midst?
Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline — what kind of bloodline was that? The Grand Priestess was a woman of vast experience, yet she had never heard of such a thing. Was it really as miraculous as this man claimed?
Xu Qingxuan had never heard of this bloodline either. She guessed that none of the other Priestesses knew about it either, though it wouldn't do to show their ignorance openly.
But Xu Qingxuan didn't particularly care about such things — she didn't have nearly as many scruples as the others.
"Young Master Shao, you talk as if you have all the answers, but it sounds more like an outlandish tale. What exactly is this Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline? Tell us about it."
Strictly speaking, given Jiang Chen's status as an honored guest, Xu Qingxuan's question was a touch impertinent. But her personality was girlish and a bit naïve, with an endearing coyness to her — when she threw a little tantrum, people simply wrote it off as youthful temperament and didn't take it too seriously.
Jiang Chen actually had a rather favorable impression of this younger sister of his.
Since Xu Qingxuan had asked, Jiang Chen was more than happy to show off a little. He knew that the more impressive his display, the more likely it was that Xu Qingxuan would hand the Storage Ring over to their mother.
That was the key.
Jiang Chen pondered for a moment, then looked at Xu Shan and spoke slowly. "Sister Xu Shan must still be quite young — thirty at most, I'd imagine?"
A girl being asked about her age would always feel a little self-conscious. In the martial dao world, thirty years old was equivalent to early childhood in the life of an ordinary person — it was still extremely young.
Even so, Xu Shan blushed and answered in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "I'm twenty-eight this year."
"Twenty-eight — you haven't yet missed the prime window for cultivation. If you had passed sixty, then it truly would have been a shame to waste such an Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline."
Jiang Chen continued. "When you trained as a child, you likely found it extremely difficult to gather spiritual energy. It was always scattered and unstable — one moment your dantian felt like it was on fire, and the next you felt as though you'd plunged into an icy abyss. These symptoms appeared seemingly at random depending on the hour. Am I correct?"
Xu Shan's eyes lit up with agitation. "Yes, yes, yes! How do you know about all of this? What... what exactly is wrong with me?"
"The Inverse Yin-Yang bloodline — if you don't properly grasp its characteristics, if you lack a cultivation method tailored specifically to it, the result is bound to be utter chaos. Following a conventional cultivation path, your progress wouldn't even reach one-fifth of what an ordinary person achieves. In other words, in the Moon God Sect, you possess first-rate talent, yet the outcome has been that you're treated as a first-rate waste. Tell me if I'm wrong."
Xu Shan burst into another sob. All these years, she had endured countless grievances because of her cultivation troubles. Just thinking about it filled her with sorrow. The mockery from her peers, the abandonment by her clan, the feeling of being pushed to the margins — for a young woman, bearing all of that was twice as crushing.
In all this time, no one had ever cared what she was feeling inside. No one had ever asked whether she was hurting.
And now, a complete stranger — a Pill King of the highest stature — had spoken these words of understanding and warmth, stirring up every grievance buried in her heart all at once.
Possessing first-rate talent yet ending up as first-rate trash — what a cruel, devastating fate.
At first, Xu Shan had resented Jiang Chen deeply, believing he was putting on an act, trying to shift the blame onto her and make her the scapegoat for the Moon God Treasure Tree's decline.
But now, Xu Shan was mortified. She realized she had been far too narrow-minded and had wrongly accused Young Master Shao.
From beginning to end, Young Master Shao had never had any intention of targeting her. Quite the opposite — he had defended her, cleared her name, and restored her honor!
If they weren't in front of such a large crowd, Xu Shan would have knelt down right there and then to offer her respects to Jiang Chen.
Every martial cultivator, regardless of gender, carries within them a dream of greatness.
And Xu Shan's dream of genius had been brutally strangled before it ever had the chance to bloom. What could possibly be more cruel than that?