Daily life of a cultivation judge

While Gong Jie may have not known much about their founder, Deng Wei, or his deep friendship with their ancestor, he did know enough about the royal family and the troubles that were brewing within. All the top figures within the six founding families did. It was why some, like the Mo family, were emboldened enough to try and whittle down their power as they made an attempt for the crown.

The Duan royal family was split and while the core reason for that had to do with the Zou family, the Zou family coming into the picture served more of an impetus for that split more than anything else.

The royal family was currently split into two factions and the reason for that split had to do with their ancestry.

Their ancestor, Duan Qui may have been a rogue cultivator in her earlier years, but she also had another identity, which was what forced her into the life. She had been the bastard child of a noble scion from the prestigious Xin family, a rank-two family with a rich history, and one of the prominent families famous within the circles of alchemy and herbology.

As far as he knew, outwardly it was known that the family had seven gold-grade alchemists and at least five gold-grade herbologists making the family one of their giants in those particular fields. Their repute was only less if compared to behemoths like the Medical Saint Garden Sect or the Flowing Valley Sect.

Them not measuring up to the two was fairly understandable. One was a rank-one sect renowned throughout the entire continent for its medical practices, and the other was a holy land, not much needed to be said about that. But when compared to their peers, the Xin family measured up and the first Empress, Duan Qui, was tied to them through her father who had been one of the rising figures of the clan.

Her story was not all that different from most stories which involved someone from a prominent background, getting involved with someone from a lesser background, except her story had a bit of a twist. In most common scenarios where both parents are of different standing, usually, one of the parents, the one with the better background, usually abandons and even mistreats the lower stratum partner and their child, but in Duan Qui's case, her father actually loved both her and her mother, dearly, to the point he wanted to forsake his family name and leave the clan and live with them both.

Despite his determination, things are never that easy, not when the object of his affection is a herbologist with no background to speak of. Duan Qui's mother was a farmer, who kept to herself and her little piece of farm where she took care of various kinds of spiritual plants and herbs, up until a young man who was casually flying around got drawn by the gentle and meticulous charm with which she worked, came and overturned her life.

The young man eventually fell in love with the gentle farmer, and the gentle farmer for the first time loved another person with the same fervor and honestness as she did her farm and the plants she so attentively and graciously took care of and eventually after years together, a little girl was born to them in Duan Qui.

Her first three years were spent on that farm, and then as any parent would, in the hopes that she would have a brilliant future ahead, her father took her and her mother back to the clan. He wasn't disillusioned by the kind of reception he would receive from the clan when he went there with his new 'family'. It was the reason he didn't choose to go back immediately after becoming dao companions with Duan Qui's mother and only waited after she had been born and was slightly old, for him to make that decision.

No matter how prepared he was, his estimates of how they would react still fell short. He had been away from the clan for almost 120 years and in that period like most clans of such stature would do, they had an arranged marriage for him to the princess of one of the powerful rank three kingdoms that had subordinated themselves to the.

The kingdom in question was the Radiant Swan Kingdom. Even if it was subordinate to the Xin clan when compared to other organizations of similar rank, it was at the top of the crop.

The Red Maple Empire despite being of similar rank could not hold a candle to them. They had five palace realm experts, with the one with the highest cultivation base being Duan Hu the former emperor, who was a third-stage palace realm expert.

Meanwhile, the Radiant Swan Kingdom had no less than thirty palace realm experts, and rumor had it that among those thirty there was one who was already at the peak of the palace realm. The Red Maple Empire just could not compare at all.

Their strength was what made the Xin clan look favorably upon them to the point that they even wanted to marry off one of their main-line descendants. That descendant was Duan Qui's father, and the princess he was marrying was rumored to be a one-of-a-kind genius who drew even the attention of the Xin clan's senior figures.

Even if they admired the Radiant Swan Kingdom, no matter how strong they were, it would still have been insufficient for them to consider marrying a direct mainline member to them, at most they would have chosen someone from the branch, or if they were to choose someone from the main line, it would not have been Duan Qui's father. Her father was a prodigal genius who stood out even within the clan. He would be the last person they would ever consider to marry someone from a subordinate kingdom, no matter her rank. They only made an exception due to the talent she had shown.

Gong Jie didn't know the specifics when it came to the talent, he could only assume it had to be one of a kind for it to prompt the senior figures of a rank two clan to make such an exception. Everything was arranged perfectly and agreed upon unanimously with even the grandfather of Duan Qui's father, one of the gold-grade alchemists of the clan, also one of the domain experts, signing off on the arrangement.

What they didn't count on was that one of the main parties in the said arrangement was already married and that he even had a daughter to boot. His return which should have been a joyous occasion ended up triggering a storm, and it got worse when he vehemently rejected the marriage, slapping the faces of all who made the arrangement, with his grandfather being on the list.

But no matter how much he refused the whole thing, at the end of the day, he was just a palace realm expert and a junior within the clan. Even if he was a prodigious talent, he still had not grown to the point that he could do whatever he wished in a powerful clan like the Xin clan.

Despite his refusal, the clan was adamant about going on with the arrangement, and as for Duan Qui and her mother, there was only one way to deal with such a 'mistake' and that was to erase it completely. The clan would have killed them both had Duan Qui's father not threatened to take his life if they did which prompted his grandfather to step in.

In the end, both parties reached a compromise, Duan Qui and her mother would be allowed to live, but not within the Xin Clan. They were to be banished, and Duan Qui not to wear the Xin name, as for her father in exchange for the guarantee of their lives would agree to the marriage.

Thus the family of three was forever fractured and separated. Duan Qui's father started another life and as for Duan Qui and her mother,while the Xin clan promised not to act against them, the same could not be said of the Radiant Swan Kingdom.

With the chaos it created when her father brought them to the clan, and the passion with which he refused the marriage, even though the clan tried to put a lid on everything, news of it trickled to the kingdom. Whether by design or not, they became aware of Duan Qui's and her mother's existence, and the level of importance they held to her father's life, something the kingdom found intolerable.

As one would expect they did try to hunt the mother and daughter for years after finding out about them, luckily their father had left them with a lot of defensive measures such as artifacts and talismans, and debts owed by friends he had.

But even with such measures in place, with how potent those attacks were, Duan Qui's mom got a lot of injuries as she was trying to eke out a path to survival for her and her daughter. Even though she didn't succumb to those injuries, the accumulation left long-term trauma on her body, which coupled with the mental toll the separation from Duan Qui's father took, it shortened her lifespan immensely. She who as a core formation expert should have lived for thousands of years, ended up living for hundreds, leaving an orphaned Duan Qui, who ended up choosing to becom a rogue cultivator and eventually struck a lifelong friendship with the other founders.

The clan that they ended up feuding with which led to them eventually running all the way to the territory of the Red Maple Spirit had been a clan with ties to the Radiant Swan Kingdom. It was as they were running away that Duan Qui decided to reveal her history to them, a risk on her part because one of them could have sold her out to curry favor with those from the Radiant Swan Kingdom trying to target her.

Luckily no one did, and eventually, they created an empire together. Duan Qui, maybe in the hopes to spar her descendants on, divulged her ancestry to them in the hopes that someday the Red Maple Empire would stand at the same heights as the Xin clan that spurned her and her mother.

She may have intended that, but her descendants had other ideas of their own. Already within them, some entertained the thought of going back to their roots. To them returning to the mighty tree that was the Xin clan was better than the prospects of the Red Maple Empire. Despite knowing the history between the Xin clan and the treatment they showed to their ancestor, they dared entertain the thought because they felt their circumstance was different from Duan Qui's and her mother's.

When the duo was brought back to the clan they were rootless weeds with no background to speak of, but if they did it, they would be going back as royals of an established rank three empire that obtained the inheritance of a long-lived peak palace stage tree spirit.

Going back under those circumstances, they were optimistic the Xin clan would welcome them, and as for the hostilities of the Radiant Swan Kingdom, they were not all too worried about it. As long as the Xin clan accepted them, the Radiant Swan Kingdom as a subordinate kingdom would have to act in line with the clan's wishes and if one looked at it closely, in terms of bloodline, they were closer to the Xin clan, than the Radiant Swan kingdom was, after all, their ancestor was the daughter of a mainline descendant and one who had great standing at that. They believed that by leveraging on those lines, their standing may even be better than the kingdom's.

Eventually, such thoughts slowly grew a life of their own among the Duan clan members who were not satisfied at being overlords in a 'pond' but instead wanted an entire ocean. The thought truly got its legs when two things happened, one was when the Xin clan celebrated welcoming a domain expert in their ranks by the name of Xin Guyi. Xin Guyi was Duan Qui's father.

The other impetus was when the Five Clovers Kingdom became a subordinate of the Zou Clan. That development gave them all the more reason to seek out the Xin clan and eventually, the royal family ended up getting split into two factions. One faction wanted to go back to the Xin clan, and the other hoped to honor their ancestor's wishes and develop the Red Maple Empire.

With time as the Five Clovers Kingdom grew in strength, the faction that wanted to rejoin the Xin clan slowly grew in number while those that wanted to remain, dwindled. The return to the Xin clan faction looked well on its way to dominating, that was until Duan Hu appeared and forced their hand by entering a partnership with the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, essentially halting those plans.

But even with that move, there was still a divide among them. The royal family had three palace stage experts, and one of them supported going back to the Xin clan, the other remained neutral, and then there was Duan Hu.

The Empire was now in a precarious position which threw the Gong clan to desperation. They were stuck between two tigers..three, if the Zou clan was thrown into the mix. Whichever side wins, the empire stands to be the loser.

On paper, they were cooperating partners with the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, but in reality is with how things were in the empire, everyone could see there was no partnership there, the Red Maple Empire couldn't even be considered a subordinate to the Pavilion with how dominated they were by mere subsidiaries of the Pavilion.

Would it fare any better if the Xin clan came into play? Based on its history with Duan Qui, Gong Jie felt things would even be worse with the Xin clan. Only the Zou clan offered them a respectable fate, at least with the Zou clan, they would all die, or be banished, but when it came to the two rank two organizations, being slaves was the fate that awaited them.

Luckily all those fates could be avoided. Gong Jie silently breathed a sigh of relief when his gaze fell on Deng Wei.