"Li Liu huh, so that's her real name..Ma Yuan, you had a good wife..." Yang Qing thought to himself with a sad smile.
"Can you do me a favor?" asked Yang Qing to the Wisteria tree as his dread fro going back to the headquarters increased a couple of notches.
"Anything young Daoist as long as I'm able.."
"Could you recreate the message in her voice, exactly how she was when she passed on those words to you? You can do the same for the remaining two messages. If it's not too much trouble.."
"I can.."
"Thank you.." Yang Qing said with a heavy sigh as he took out three recording white jade talismans.
He didn't know if it would help but he hoped hearing his wife's voice and her parting words would have offered some bit of consolation to him.
He would have preferred to have a visual recording of the moment itself, but the Wisteria tree didn't have long. It was using its last vestiges to communicate with Yang Qing.
After about two minutes, the three recordings were done.
Li Liu's voice was cold but it had a hint of gentleness and fluidity to it. The Wisteria had done its utmost to recreate that scene, as Yang Qing could feel the raw emotions contained in her words.
The Wisteria tree did the same with the other two victims who left their final words with it. One of them was an old woman in the core formation stage who was the matriarch of a small rank 3 clan. She was the most powerful member of the clan, and her name was Shao An. She had been abducted a couple of years prior to Ma Yuan's wife being brought back and was refined shortly after.
Her message was simple, and unlike Li Liu's the emotion contained in it was scarce. It felt more like her giving out her last instructions to her clan members more than anything else. Her instructions were directed to her chosen hair, which wasn't her children but her great-grandchild by the name of Shao Zhen. She left him instructions on where to find some of the treasures and resources she had hidden away with the bank owned by the White Rose Pavillion.
She also left him with a few more instructions such as who to trust, who not to, and who to go to for help within and outside the family, along with a few other things that would help him cement his position as the next head of the family.
The last message was from an inner-sect disciple of the Azure petal sect, a rank 4 sect that focused on herb growth and alchemy. Her message was to her master and it was her mostly thanking her for all the support she had gotten from her since she was a small girl.. She had been an orphan whom her master found when she was roaming in search of ingredients.
The inner sect disciple was called Xu Yun and her master found her when she was four. She had a yin wood-based physique, which was what drew her master's eye, and immediately accepted her as her personal disciple and introduced her to the Azure Petal Sect. Her life experienced a seismic shift from then on. She moved from orphan to prized disciple in a single leap.
However, her journey got cut short when she got kidnapped during a sect mission outside, which ended with her demise. Of the three, she was the earliest to be refined, and also the youngest, at seventeen years old.
Once Yang Qing had the three talismans he stored one of them away, as he held the other two in his hands.
"Do you know who the founder's master was? or how they met?"
Even if Yang Qing thought it was a long shot to ask, he decided to go ahead and try and glean the identity of the person who almost killed them, and set everything in motion that led to today's events.
"No, I don't know who her master was nor their interaction. By the time I gained sentience, she was already in the palace realm and stronger than me. I couldn't risk prying into her secrets, and she was always careful even with no one around, she never let down her guard when communicating with that entity.
However what I do know is, that the previous two sect masters before Zhao Ju were killed by her and then refined, and as for Zhao Ju, she had similar plans for her when she reached the fourth stage of the palace realm.
Though they didn't know it Zhao Ju and the other elders were nothing more than harvestable products for her.."
Yang Qing sighed when he heard this.
"It shouldn't come as a surprise I guess... and the fruits? I heard that the victims were all refined into fruits, was that your doing? Is it some ability of yours?"
"I don't have such an ability...I have an innate ability to sense yin treasures and creatures. I can improve their comprehension and quality by a bit. The sect used that ability to track those with yin-based physiques.
As for the ability to refine them, it has more to do with the seal implanted on me and that tree. I have no idea how it works either as every time it was activated, my mind would go blank, and they could use it even with my cut branches.
I'm afraid only the founder knows, but even her, I doubt she knew much about it since the mechanisms seemed to work in an alternate space, the same space, I felt like my spirit had been sealed..."
"That tracks, I guess...it seems the Ice Emerald Sect were nothing more than laborers for that person... well this is a little beyond me...."
"Thank you..uhm... I'm sorry I didn't ask your name.."
"It's Li Hualing, Li Liu asked me to share a name with her, so I went with that.."
"Thanks, Li Hualing.."
"You're welcome young Daoist, now I can finally go... thank you for letting me do one good thing at least... farewell.."
The shriveled stem withered away gently like burning paper and was blown away with the wind, releasing a gentle chill mist.
"Farewell.." Yang Qing exhaustedly said.
With that, the final living creature with ties to the Ice Emerald Sect was gone.
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