Immortality Starts With Face

The long, opulent corridors of the main manor were just as I remembered them from the original Jiang Li's youth, all polished dark spirit woods and silent, gliding servants. As we walked, a procession of servants having swarmed us at the entrance hall, bowing deeply and murmuring respectful greetings, Yue moved closer to me. She had watched the entire exchange with my brother with an amused, predatory glint in her eyes, like a cat watching a mouse play with a trap.

"That was quite the display back there, Little Li," she said, her voice a nearly sub-vocalized murmur that only I could hear.

"Judging by that reaction, the contents of that ring must have been... substantial. But was it truly wise to waste such resources on someone as insignificant as Feng? I seem to recall that he's hated your guts since you were children."

She was correct, of course – in any scenario that was still dependent upon common sense, that is.

My dearest cousin had no concept, of course, that for me, "resources" were not a finite quantity to be hoarded, but a near-infinite stream to be directed. The more I showed or gave away, the crazier the rumors around me would become – and the more belief I could harvest. My "wastefulness" and "generosity" were merely a tool in a self-reinforcing loop that I had every intention of escalating as much as I possibly could.

No matter how absurd my actions looked from the outside.

I calmly stopped, turning to face her in the empty corridor. Slowly, carefully, I opened the simple leather pouch on my belt and tipped it slightly for her to see.

Inside it, gleaming softly in the dim light of the corridor's spirit stone-powered lanterns, were twenty-nine more storage rings, each one identical in outward quality to the one I had just given away.

Some, I knew, pulsed with an even denser aura of mid-grade spirit stones, which I was finally able to manifest after healing Feng the Restored's legs.

Yue's eyes widened almost comically, her professional composure finally cracking. Her breath caught in her throat, a small, sharp sound in the silence of the hallway.

I plucked up two of the rings from the pouch and casually tossed them to her. She caught them with a warrior's reflex, her movements swift and sure – but her gaze was one of utter disbelief.

"Here, Sis" I said. "Consider them a welcome-home gift!"

She fumbled with them for a second, her gaze darting from the rings to my face, then back again, before her curiosity won out and her spiritual sense dipped inside.

Her breath hitched again, this time more sharply. Her eyes, usually so sharp and focused, were now wide with a dawning, world-altering comprehension.

"Please understand, Big Sis," I continued, my voice quiet but firm.

"All of this," I gestured to the pouch, "has not even scratched the surface of the true immortal inheritance I received. That imprint of the Old Master I met, the one who saved me that night, considered all of it mere 'trash,' not even worth protecting – or even cataloguing!"

I leaned in close, reiterating the secret I first whispered to her back at the Fallen Star City's Myriad Treasure Pavillion.

"The truly valuable things will remain locked away in that space—until I am deemed more powerful and wiser in the ways of the Dao."

Yue's belief in my fabricated story, I could feel, was now cementing itself into an unshakeable conviction. And the System agreed: a familiar, satisfying chime echoed in the back of my mind, rewarding me with 80,000 more belief points.

+++

A mere short while later, before I've had a chance to get too comfortable in my prepared suite, a servant led me to the chamber where the family's most powerful and influential members had assembled.

The meeting room wasn't some dramatic "Hall of Ancestral Punishment" the older, prideful families were rumored to possess.

Instead of a prison, temple, or a weird torture dungeon, I entered a practical, almost corporate-looking meeting room, a place where reports were given and business was conducted.

However, the furniture inside had been recently – and rather melodramatically -- rearranged. A heavy, semi-circle of ornately carved, high-backed chairs sat upon a newly constructed wooden platform, raised around a foot off the floor. These chairs "looked down" upon the empty space in the center of the room – space that was clearly meant for me.

It was a stage, of a sort – one designed to make the target feel small, to place him in the position of a supplicant before his judges.

I had to suppress a laugh at the sheer, childish theatricality of it all.

I saw that Ruolan was already present, standing demurely to the side near the entrance, her head bowed, her hands clasped before her. So… they had summoned her here as well, no doubt to answer for her failure to report on my activities.

I felt a flicker of cold anger at that thought.

She had only done as I had requested. I would not let her be harmed over her loyalty to me.

I calmly made my way into the center of the room and surveyed the figures seated on the elevated platform, my gaze moving from right to left.

First on the right was my paternal Aunt, Jiang Meili. She was a stern-faced woman in her late sixties. Her cultivation stalled at the Seventh stage of Qi Gathering, she was responsible for running the family's mining operations. Her hands, resting on the arms of her chair, were clean and manicured, but her gaze was as hard and unyielding as the unrefined ore she managed.

Next to her sat my paternal Uncle, Jiang Zemin. An Early Foundation Establishment cultivator, he served as the family's legal expert and managed our permits, local government relations, and complex supply chains. This was a man with a sharp, calculating face and thin lips… and he was visibly vibrating with fury at having been left out of the loop on my recent dealings.

In the center, in the two largest and most ornate chairs, sat my parents – both of them well into their eighties, but looking to be in their forties thanks to their peak Foundation Establishment cultivation levels.

My father, Patriarch Jiang Hongji, was the very picture of authority, his face a stern, unreadable mask. Beside him, my mother, Madam Liu Ruyue, was a study in cold, elegant composure, her expression analytical, her eyes missing nothing.

To the left of my Mother sat Jiang Tianheng: my third cousin once removed, and Big Sis Yue's father.

He was, arguably, the "traditionalist" at this meeting. His cultivation was a respectable Qi Gathering Stage 8 – but I knew he was stuck there, having consumed a truly staggering amount of family resources over the years in futile attempts to advance further.

Perhaps to compensate for those failures, he looked especially pompous and self-important. His robes were impeccably neat, his posture rigid.

I was amused by the fact that his own daughter, Yue – sitting right next to him – could likely defeat him in two moves or less.

I knew from the original Jiang Li's memories of the immense pressure Tianheng had placed on Big Sis in her youth, grooming her to be the next family head, the one who would elevate their branch of the family back to prominence. Her decision to abandon that path for a life of discovery and adventure on the Frontier was a wound to his pride that had never truly healed.

And finally, there was Jiang Yue herself.

She sat to the far left of me, looking profoundly bored and slightly annoyed, her fingers drumming a silent, impatient rhythm on the arm of her chair. From earlier conversations with her, I knew that she positively hated meetings like these, clearly only being present here for my sake.

My father, Jiang Hongji, began the proceedings. His voice was a low rumble that filled the silent room.

"Jiang Li. This is not a disciplinary process… not yet. However, an explanation of your actions is required."

Before he could continue, however, Uncle Zemin leaned forward, his indignant voice sharp and cutting.

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"Not a disciplinary process? Patriarch, with all due respect, several highly irregular and dangerous events have occurred! There are rumors of new businesses being started without permission. Of vast sums of wealth being wasted like discarded trash upon worthless land and vassal families! Of an important strategic engagement being dissolved without approval! And, most egregious of all: direct contact and dealings with a representative of the Imperial family itself without even notifying the clan!"

He took a ragged breath, his face flushed with anger, getting almost as red as a tomato. I had to work to hold in a snort.

"Oh, you think this is funny, do you, boy? A representative from Princess Xueyue arrived this morning. She brought a 'small prepayment' for this… procurement contract of yours. A sum, Jiang Li, that was paid in high-grade spirit stones. An amount that could buy our entire Yuhang estate here three times over! Do you realize the position you have put this family in? The risks to our very survival should we fail to deliver? If your cousin Yue had not vouched for you, had not staked her own reputation on your ability to somehow fulfill these impossible promises, we would be having a very different conversation right now! An explanation is the least you owe us, you foolish, reckless child!"

I listened to the tirade with a calm, placid expression. When he was finished, I took a breath and began my performance.

"Father, Mother, honored Elders," I began, my voice steady and respectful. "I understand your concerns. My actions must seem… unorthodox. But, I assure you, they were natural and even necessary response to the fortuitous encounter the Heavens have seen fit to bestow upon me. The truth is; my recent good fortune is not due to me actively seeking out dealings with the Royal family, nor any business acumen of my own, but rather… to a fated encounter of profound significance."

I let my gaze sweep across their expectant, skeptical faces, and I began to weave my tale, my voice taking on a more somber, reverent tone.

"As you know," I started, "my time in Qingshan began in a state of despair. My cultivation was stagnant, my future bleak. In the depths of my sadness, I tried to drown myself in loose women and wine – but none of it gave even the briefest moment of satisfaction. And so, in a fit of hopelessness, desperate to feel something – anything at all – "

I pointedly looked towards the chair where Big Sis Yue sat.

"I began to wander the desolate lands beyond the town, exploring places others deemed worthless, seeking… something. I know not what. A sign. An escape. Perhaps… even my own swift death."

At that, I heard my mother stifle a quiet gasp.

"My wanderings led me to the Black-Mist Fen, a dangerous swamp that even the local hunters avoid. It was there, deep within its suffocating fog and treacherous mire, that I stumbled upon a hidden cave system, its entrance concealed by a cunning illusion and overgrown with venomous spirit thorns. Driven by a strange compulsion, a feeling that I was being drawn forward, I entered it."

My audience members were all leaning forward now, literally at the edge of their seats.

"Deeper within, I found not a beast's lair, nor an old tomb, but a structure of impossible antiquity: a great stone gate, collapsed and half-buried in the earth, its surface covered in strange symbols the likes of which I've never seen before. And, when I reached out and touched the cold, ancient stone, my world dissolved. A surge of energy, neither Xue nor Ling Qi, neither Yin nor Yang, neither hostile nor benevolent but simply… immense… poured into me then. It was not a physical force, but a profound, spiritual pressure, as if a mountain were weighing down my very soul. I remember a sense of being judged, of my spirit, my blood, my very essence being scanned and then found… adequate. Praiseworthy, even! I could feel something long dormant deep within me wake up. And then, there was only darkness."

I paused, letting the sudden silence in the room deepen.

"I awoke in a different place. One my companions have seen. A world beneath the world. It was there that I met the spiritual imprint of the one who once built that place. A merest echo of a memory. An Immortal from an era so long past that his name predates our histories, and even – perhaps – this world itself."

I paused again, stroking my chin in apparent thought.

"Well… to say that I 'met' him is to give my own role too much credit," I said, a note of genuine awe entering my voice, drawing inspiration from the sheer scale of the cavern I had manifested.

"Our encounter was more akin to a mote of dust perceiving a star. Even that insignificant remnant of His consciousness was held such unimaginable power and wisdom that to merely exist before it felt like being scoured clean by a celestial tribulation. He told me that the gate had tested me, and that – by some one-in-a-million-million-million fluke of fate, my body held the potential to manifest a special constitution that was legendary even among the Immortals: a key that fit the ancient lock of his legacy."

"Before the remnant dissolved," I explained, my voice dropping to a near-whisper, "the Immortal senior granted me two boons. First, a vast repository of knowledge for every cultivation art—on alchemy, formations, beast taming, talisman crafting, immortal techniques, and cultivation methods that have been lost to time. Knowledge of all of that and more was sealed directly within my mind. It is a library that, I was told, I would only be able to access in stages, as my own power grows and I prove myself worthy of the knowledge within. This has been the source of my recent insights."

"And second," I concluded, looking each of them in the eye, "he bestowed upon me what he called 'some small measure of his material wealth.' A trial inheritance, he called it. A test – to see if I possessed the wisdom and temperament to manage resources without being corrupted by them. But, I assure you – what is small and insignificant by the Immortal Senior's standards, I assure you, should be more than enough to satisfy Princess Xueyue."

As I finished, I saw Yue frown slightly. She recognized this latest story as a partial fabrication, different in many ways from the tale of a "soul-space" I had told her earlier. But she was sharp. She understood I was either dramatizing for effect or concealing a deeper secret – and thus, she said nothing.

Which is more than could be said about her father.

Jiang Tianheng scoffed loudly, his voice filled with derision.

"Preposterous! A child's fantasy, nothing more! Do you take all of us for fools, Jiang Li? A legendary special constitution? I can't feel any cultivation from you, boy! You are a mortal in all but name! Whatever "encounter" you've dreamed up in your drunken state, whatever stash of wealth you luckily stumbled upon, you are clearly too weak and unworthy to hold it! For the good of the clan, it must be handed over to the family. Immediately!"

"Honored Elders," Ruolan said, her voice trembling – but brave and firm as she stepped forward. "What the Young Master said is true, I saw—"

"You dare?!"

Tianheng roared, rounding on her viciously.

"Lin Ruolan! You are the reason we are in this mess! You failed in your duty! If you had kept an eye on this imbecile and reported to the family as you were commanded to do, we would not currently be in danger from the Imperial family, and the engagement with the Su would still be intact! And you still have the nerve to speak out of turn? It seems you must be shown your place!"

He appeared before the defeated-looking Ruolan in a blur of motion, his hand raised to deliver a full-power backhand from a Qi Gathering Stage 8 expert. It was a blow that would have reduced an ordinary mortal to bloody paste, calculated to make an example of her. To injure and humiliate.

I was half-way through a Shadowless Step before my mind had fully processed what I saw. The world slowed down to a crawl, Tianheng's enraged face a frozen mask, Ruolan's eyes wide with fear and resignation.

A silent whoosh of displaced air was the only sound as I executed Shadow's martial movement technique – now so refined that it was now less a martial art and more a form of localized teleportation.

I appeared between them, a fraction of a second before the blow landed.

And I did nothing, simply standing there and allowing his hand to connect with my cheek.

A sickening, wet CRACK echoed in the dead silent room.

It was not the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

It was the sound of a superhumanly-tough bone shattering against a body so impossibly durable that it might as well have been made out of solid Diamond.

Tianheng let out a strangled scream, stumbling back, clutching his right hand, his fingers now a mangled, unnatural ruin.

He stared down at his shattered hand, then up at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of agony, sheer disbelief, and dawning terror. I could guess at the calculating thoughts that must now be running through his mind. He was a Qi Gathering Stage 8 expert, and one who had a head start – and yet, I had outpaced him.

And then proceeded to take his blow head on.

But how was that possible?

If I had still been the Stage 2 trash of the past, that slap would have pulverized my head into a bloody mist.

And yet I now stood there with not a hair out of place.

Completely unharmed.

My cheek unmarked.

Still radiating no spiritual fluctuations whatsoever…

And it was his hand that was broken.

…

The room grew quieter than an abandoned cave.

…

My mother, Liu Ruyue, was the first to find her voice, her usual cold composure finally broken.

"Li'er?" she whispered, her voice tight, using a childhood pet name I hadn't heard in years.

"Just.... how powerful have you become?"

I turned to face her, a faint, cold smile on my lips.

"I am only a hair's breadth away from Foundation Establishment," I said calmly. "And, as for my physical body… well, it is likely already there." And, as they stared at me in incredulous disbelief, I deliberately released the suppression on my aura.

First came the Ling Qi. A palpable, frosty chill filled the room, so cold that it made my breath mist in the air. It was the aura of a Peak Qi Gathering Stage cultivator with a high-grade special constitution.

An energy so dense it was on the very cusp of liquefaction.

A sign of a Foundation that would be of terrifying purity and depth.

But that was merely the appetizer to the main course that was my Xue Qi.

It erupted from me not as a color, but as a presence. A massive, colorless, oppressive haze that dwarfed my Ling Qi aura several times over. It was heavy, suffocating, making the very air feel thick and difficult to breathe. This was the raw, primal power of a body honed to a level this continent hasn't seen in living memory.

And, for a brief, terrifying moment, I thought that I could see the very edges of the two auras beginning to touch. To synergize with each other.

To hint at a power that was far more than the sum of its parts.

There was more silence now – but this was a silence filled not with anger, but with pure, unadulterated awe.

Then, my father, Patriarch Jiang Hongji, threw his head back and began to laugh!

It was not a small chuckle, but a great, booming, jubilant roar of triumph that shook the very rafters of the hall.

"Ha! Hahahaha! Yes! That's my boy! My son! Foundation Establishment power before the age of twenty! I've always known I would produce a genius! I always knew it!"

The mood in the room flipped instantly, the oppressive tension of the "tribunal" vanishing as if it had never been.

Even Jiang Tianheng, clutching his shattered hand, was now smiling through the pain, a greedy, hopeful light dawning in his eyes.

This was now a celebration.

And why wouldn't it be?

In this grim and dark world of cultivation, weakness was a sin – the greatest sin of all, in fact.

But strength?

Strength washed away all transgressions.

It was the only virtue that truly mattered.