Daily life of a cultivation judge

While Duan Hu remained completely impassive to Wu Mingli's remarks, the same could not be said about the Gong clan's elder. Gong Jie had deeply clenched his fists as he cast a cold gaze toward Duan Hu.

"Didn't we tell you that your approach would do more harm than good? See what it bore. Is this what you truly wished for?" asked Gong Jie, as he used his palace sense to communicate with the former emperor secretly.

"What other choice did I have? The Five Clover Kingdom already had the backing of the Zou family, and we were all on our own. How did you expect us to contend against them when they had that sort of backing?" asked Duan Hu in a slightly frustrated tone, as part of his attention fell on Deng Wei, who still had the look of serenity and gentleness.

"There could have been a better way to handle it that didn't end up with us selling out the entire empire to the Golden Bamboo Pavilion.." Gong Jie said with a certain reluctance and regret in his tone.

"If only I had discovered the ancestor sooner.." he thought.

Back then after one of his regular clash with one of the elders, on a whim, he ended up deciding that he would leave the clan for a bit and roam the continent. He had stagnated at the realm of a peak orange-grade blacksmith for so long, that it left him feeling frustrated, stifled, and highly volatile. This not only had an adverse effect on his work but also his relationships within the clan.

Fights were a regular thing in the clan. It was something that had become part of their culture, but even if they fought regularly, it always had a substantial reason to it, and more often than not it was always centered on the art of blacksmithing.

Rarely, bordering on almost never, would clan members fight about a personal matter. It almost always had to do with blacksmithing; the measurement of an ingredient here, the temperature of an ingredient there, the better secondary material, the right smelting method, and many other things.

It was because of this that though the Gong clan members fought a lot, they were among the most close-knit clan in the empire. They would fight one minute and once one or both were proven right or wrong in what they were fighting about, the matter would be considered resolved, and immediately after those members would be sharing wine and laughs together until the next smithing-related argument came.

That fact was true for Gong Jie. While he got into a lot of fights, not once had those fights not been related to blacksmithing. But after the frustrations of languishing at the orange grade got to him, he began fighting just cause, all to vent that frustration.

People from the clan started avoiding him and it wasn't long before some of the senior figures of the clan, including the clan leader, talked with him. The conclusion of that talk ended up with him being given suggestions to help him deal with the frustration.

He wasn't the only one from the clan to get frustrated at getting stuck. Since their founder, they only ever managed to produce one other blue-grade blacksmith, who fortunately and unfortunately was from the same era as their founder. The world only knew they had one at the time, but only those from the clan knew there were actually two of them. The royal family may have had its suspicions, but they could never verify it.

Sadly, after the two of them, the Gong clan had never been able to produce another. A curse and a nightmare that haunted every Gong clan member since.

From the suggestions given, Gong Jie decided leaving the clan and taking a breath was the best solution for him. It was only after he made that choice and informed them of it that the news of one of the founders potentially being alive was made known to him by the clan leader and the two grand elders.

Of the six founders, Deng Wei was closest to their founder Gong Zhi. It was to the point that Gong Jie was surprised that their founder had even gone against Deng Wei's wishes to be anonymous. Despite not being a literary person, their founder had been the person behind the story that made certain highlights about Deng Wei. Like how the inheritance left to them by the Red Maple spirit had more to do with Deng Wei than Duan Qui.

He didn't know why, but Deng Wei didn't want the fame associated with the real events that happened that day, but their ancestor because of how close they were, was unable to keep it silent.

Before he left he was given an amulet Deng Wei had left their ancestor. Deng Wei had left that amulet for their ancestor or descendants as a means to find him if they ever found themselves in a desperate situation.

Before their ancestor died, he left vehement instructions behind, that the clan was only allowed to use it if they feared destruction of the clan, anything less and they should not use it.

It was with that amulet that he eventually found him. Though it took him close to six hundred years for him to do so. Using an invocation, the amulet released a glow that showed Deng Wei's general direction. He kept following that direction until it led him to the coastal towns next to the Bestial Churning Sea, and then the glow disappeared without him spotting Deng Wei.

It took several months before Deng Wei met him, and even then he had a feeling the only reason he met him that early was because Gong Jie, with his fiery personality, ended up angering someone he should not have, which left him being used as live bait by said person at the Bestial Churning Sea.

Deng Wei intervened just when he was about to torn apart by one of the spirit beasts that had taken a shine to him.

As for why the clan patriarch and the two grand elders decided to seek out Deng Wei, despite the clan not facing any clan-destroying peril, it was because of the state of the Red Maple Empire. The noble clans were at each other's throats, to the point that it had gone even beyond the point of just stealing each others' benefits, with lives being lost. Then there was the Golden Bamboo Pavilion which was deeply entrenching itself into the affairs of the empire via their subsidiaries and other means.

But more than that, the thing that made them desperate enough to ignore their ancestor's precepts on when to use the amulet, was because of the royal family, and the dangerous rift brewing within, that they had kept hidden from most.

That hidden bomb was dangerous enough to the point that the clan leader and the two grand elders felt that the Gong clan's future was at risk along with the rest who were unlucky enough to be caught in the explosion.