Fireworks and Fostering

Within White Peak City.

The clouds on the horizon were a fiery orange-red, as if scorched by an unseen flame.

Yu Qingxuan and Qin Yan navigated the bustling, crowded streets, where the incessant cries of hawkers echoed all around them.

She clasped Qin Yan’s hand tightly, as if fearing her junior brother might get lost amidst the throng.

Though they had always been this way in their childhood, Qin Yan now stood taller than Yu Qingxuan.

“Junior Brother, would you like some candied hawthorn?”

Spotting a vendor selling candied hawthorn by the roadside, Yu Qingxuan turned to Qin Yan, posing the question.

“It would be my pleasure, Senior Sister.”

Qin Yan replied with a smile.

Approaching the candied hawthorn vendor, Yu Qingxuan produced several copper coins from her robes, though they had actually been retrieved from her storage ring.

She feared startling the vendor before them, a concern that explained her peculiar habit of carrying copper coins.

Being slightly older than Qin Yan and a girl, Yu Qingxuan had ventured out of the sect early to explore the world.

Whenever she returned, her thoughts invariably turned to her junior brother, toiling away in the sect, and she would inevitably bring back some of these worldly trinkets.

Pastries, snacks, local delicacies—she would always bring a selection, or perhaps some intriguing curiosities.

They took their candied hawthorn and continued their stroll, eventually arriving at a riverbank within the city, where numerous people had gathered.

Among them were wealthy young masters and ordinary commoners alike.

The surrounding townsfolk, observing Qin Yan and Yu Qingxuan walking side-by-side, maintained a respectful distance.

After all, their attire was remarkably opulent, and their bearing exceptionally distinguished, clearly marking them as a wealthy young lady and gentleman out for leisure.

Even though no retinue of household servants accompanied them.

As time wore on, the sky gradually darkened, yet the crowd around them only swelled, making the riverbank increasingly congested and clamorous.

“Whoosh—”

Just then, a whistling sound suddenly pierced the air.

A stone projectile, trailing a brilliant streak of light, shot skyward from the opposite bank, followed by an explosive boom as it burst open in the air.

Splendid fireworks instantly reflected in Qin Yan and Yu Qingxuan’s eyes, illuminating their faces.

In this foreign land, encountering something so familiar from his past life, Qin Yan felt an inevitable surge of emotion, much like the candied hawthorn in his hand, despite his personal dislike for it.

Yu Qingxuan covertly observed Qin Yan’s expression beside her, puzzled by the hidden trace of sorrow in her junior brother’s eyes.

She yearned to do something, yet found herself unable to utter a single word.

Such emotions, she realized, were not entirely unfamiliar to her, prompting her to recall events from her own past.

She had been born into the Yu family, a prominent cultivation clan renowned throughout the Northern Lands, whose members numbered in the tens of thousands.

Some were incredibly wealthy, others famous in the martial world, and many more ventured deep into the cultivation realm.

Yu Qingxuan hailed from a minor branch of the Yu family; her mother owned a shop.

While she had never wanted for food or clothing during her childhood, the pursuit of cultivation seemed nothing short of a fairy tale to her.

At that time, she was far more enamored with tales of martial heroes, of upholding justice and seeking swift retribution, until a man claiming to be a Yu family elder suddenly arrived at her home.

He discovered she possessed an exceptionally rare spiritual root.

The elder promptly took her to a grand Yu family estate within the Qin Kingdom; she was merely six years old then.

At six years old, one’s foundational bones were fully formed, making it the perfect age to begin cultivation.

Such a revelation was akin to telling a poor child that they were, in fact, a scion of the illustrious Ma family.

Beyond sheer bewilderment, there was nothing but bewilderment.

She resided in the grand Yu family estate in the Qin Kingdom for four years, where many children of the same surname shared similar experiences.

They too had inexplicably been taken from their parents’ sides, brought here to live, eat, and cultivate together.

Then, in her tenth year, she encountered her Master, Qin Nianci, and was subsequently brought to the Yanqing Sect.

The Yu family was a colossal power in the Northern Lands; their influence could be seen everywhere, from the great sects to the ruling dynasties.

It was into such a formidable clan that she had been born.

However, for Yu Qingxuan, being so young at the time, she hadn’t deeply grasped the implications of her lineage.

To the current Yu Qingxuan, bearing the Yu surname felt nothing short of a constraint.

Every individual was a pawn within the family, yet some yearned to be such a pawn but lacked the means.

Leaving aside common folk for a moment, how many cultivation families truly cared for the distant offshoots of their branched-off side families?

Such widespread proliferation was something great families welcomed, for no matter who triumphed or fell in the Northern Lands in the future, the Yu family would never be extinguished.

Even if a branch lineage were to overcome the main one, it would still be the Yu family!

Whichever line emerged victorious would simply become the new main lineage.

At the age of ten, Yu Qingxuan followed Qin Nianci to the Yanqing Sect, and over the ensuing four years of growth, she had come to understand her identity and her responsibilities as a Yu family disciple.

She conducted herself with strict adherence to rules and great rigor, never daring to displease her Master—a testament to the Yu family’s teachings on how to navigate the world.

Ultimately, however, she was still but a ten-year-old child, and with her Master rarely present on First Peak, she inevitably felt a pang of homesickness, left alone in her solitary courtyard.

At times, she mused that it would have been better to remain in the Qin family estate, where she had peers her own age to converse and play happily with.

Yet, as a scion of the Yu family, how could she possibly utter such willful words?

Suddenly, she found herself cut off from her parents; whereas in the grand estate, she had frequently received their letters, and occasionally even met them face-to-face.

Essentially, that grand estate functioned more like a private academy for the Yu family, where elders gathered talented Yu descendants from far and wide to cultivate them centrally.

They nurtured not only their abilities but also their sense of family identity and responsibility.

The sect, however, was different.

Its very nature was an organization detached from families and dynasties, and upon entering, one naturally had to prioritize the sect’s interests above all else.

Family affection was paramount within a clan, intrinsically linked to its rise and fall, but the sect operated on different principles.

Her Master would occasionally encourage her to cultivate diligently, and she would always cautiously agree.

Until one day, her Master approached her, cradling an infant still wrapped in swaddling clothes.

“From now on, this will be your junior brother. You must take good care of him.”

With those words, the child was placed into her arms.

For a moment, Yu Qingxuan was utterly dumbfounded.

Though she had grown mature in her speech and actions, she was still only ten years old; how could she possibly care for an infant still in swaddling?

She gazed at the infant in her arms, who, instead of crying, simply stared back at her silently.

“Junior Brother?”

She whispered the name.

“Waaah—”

A burst of vehement wailing was her immediate reply.

This sudden outburst instantly threw Yu Qingxuan into a flurry of panic.

She could only mimic the lullabies her father used to sing, attempting to soothe the child in her arms.

The crying was one thing; had the child in her arms actually responded with a serious ‘Senior Sister,‘ that would have been truly alarming.

Yet, this very chaos inadvertently eased some of the discomfort in Yu Qingxuan’s heart, for she found herself utterly swamped every single day!