Daily life of a cultivation judge

In the shock of it, Han Lei ended up going to his grandaunt's body and tried to shake her in the hopes that she would wake and tell him that this was all just a nightmare.

It was in the middle of shaking her that he saw something fall from the sleeves of her robe, a petal of rainbow mist peony. To anyone else, that petal was of no significance even to the rest of the Han family, had they been the ones to see it, it would have no meaning to them, but to Han Lei, it held a message, something his grandaunt had left for him as only he would recognize it.

When he was small whenever he wanted to get something from his parents, if he knew they would refuse him, he would always try to enlist his grandaunt's help but it never came from free. His grandaunt had been a seasoned herbologist who had reached the blue-grade tier. The ink they used for their talisman was made from the starry ink vine plants she grew. Everything his mother knew about nurturing spiritual herbs from his grandaunt.

As a child whenever Han Lei wanted her help she would make him promise to take care of her rainbow mist peonies which other than looking beautiful, smelling great, and clearing the mind, had no other use. Han Lei hated that flower, it offered so little but demanded a lot of care, where any slight misstep and the plant would die. It was a sky-rank herb but had the fragility of a mortal-rank herb.

It was the neediest plant he had ever seen as it demanded every single thing from the person taking care of it. If you diverted your attention for even a second, the flower would detect, and wither a single petal or it would refuse to bloom. If you showed emotions of anger and reluctance, somehow the flower would sense it, and it would wither, be off by even a millimeter in its nutrient requirement and it would wither.

Its care demanded patience, a steady heart, and attentiveness, which was something Han Lei was forced to learn if he was to get his grandaunt's help, and was more than likely her last message to him, which in a sense had saved his life as it forced him to think things through amid the panic and the suddenness of his new reality.

Before he saw the flower, he had planned to go to the allies they had to seek shelter and even assistance from them. Because of their trade, the Han Family had formed countless connections and favors which Han Lei wanted to take advantage of.

His mind had been filled with nothing but anger and fear, which had made him overlook one crucial thing, the ease with which his clan was wiped out.

Who would help him against a foe that could wipe out an entire rank 3 clan with two palace realm experts without creating a commotion?

Other than the strength of the foe, there was also Han Lei's title as the last surviving member of the Han Clan.

What if whoever wiped out the clan came after him? He risked not only himself but also whoever sheltered him, and those organizations would likely consider that as well and deny him at the door.

There was only one option, Han Lei had to die and in his place, Chen Xin was born. He set fire to the clan grounds and used the ensuing flames as cover to leave the area.

He waited fifteen years before he started investigating what happened to his clan as he improved his strength whilst also searching for a treasure or cultivation art that would enable him to seal his memories.

Even though those fifteen years he didn't overtly investigate the demise of his clan, it was plenty of time for him to think things through over and over and plan what his next steps would be if he uncovered the identity of the perpetrator.

The manner in which his clan was destroyed screamed of an assassin's work, cold, precise, and meticulous. Whether it was done by an individual or by an organization, he could not approach them with his memories intact. Those who were in that line of work would easily sniff out the scent of vengeance in someone.

He buried his impatience deep and ensured every step he took was measured. It took him seventy years before he finally caught a line on who executed his clan which led him to the doors of the Ghost Viper Court.

For the next forty years, he schemed and planned on ways to destroy them but he couldn't do it until he knew who hired them and why and there was only one way he would find the answers to those questions. He had to be one of them.

Though it wasn't easy, he managed to join them, but before he did, he had to seal his memories away which he managed to do with a blue-tier memory-altering cultivation art, the black sea of illusions that was paired with a monarch-grade herb the soul sealing gourd which he used to seal a part of his soul that would only be unlocked if he reached the palace realm.

If he didn't, his memories of what happened even his real identity would forever be lost to him.

His measures proved effective, as he managed to join the Ghost Viper Court, and worked tirelessly as one of their members even drawing the eyes of one of the elders who took him under his wing. With his memories of the destruction of his clan sealed away, he truly believed he was one of their own, making his integration into the court smooth.

He killed for them for years on end, rising through the ranks, completely unaware of why he was there. Neither he nor the court were the wiser. That was until he finally broke through to the palace realm, then all the memories he had sealed came back, and by then he was already a core elder of the manor.

His years of living in subterfuge made him an expert in hiding his true thoughts, so even with his memories back, no one other than him knew he had changed. As a core member of the court, it wasn't difficult for him to uncover what happened to his clan, and what he discovered left him surprised.

Over the years, he had thought of countless reasons on why his clan would be destroyed. Some competitors wanted them gone, a jealous organization eyeing their talisman-making technique. He had thought of many reasons but ultimately they fell short of the real reason.

They were destroyed because of a sky-grade artifact. A rank 3 clan that had existed for over 30,000 years had been destroyed to the last person because of a sky-grade artifact.