Volume 5 Chapter 87

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Volume 5 Chapter 87: Under Heavy Burden, My Journey Is Tough (Part 1)

When Lv Qingshang, Li Yuhan, and the others suddenly appeared, the Qingxu Gate members felt a bit awkward. After all, they had just been speaking ill of their leader. However, the disciple who had always been dissatisfied with Xu Qingfan merely snorted coldly and then turned his head away.

"So it’s Daoist friend Lü and Daoist friend Li. I wonder if you have any advice?" Lv Ziqing asked politely. At this time, Hua Xian was seriously injured and recovering at ‘Ronghua Mountain.’ Although he had taken the incomplete Qingxu team into the Jiuhua Team, he was still considered the leader of the Qingxu disciples, so he spoke first.

"I can’t deny it, so it seems I really was talking badly about my Junior Brother Xu," Lv Qingshang replied with that same cynical attitude. Over the years of constant fighting and battling, Lv Qingshang was one of the few who had not changed, at least on the surface; as for what was in his heart, who could know?

Hearing Lv Qingshang say this, Lv Ziqing awkwardly nodded. After all, everyone had been flying together, and it was impossible not to hear each other’s conversations. Moreover, the dissatisfied disciple had intentionally let others hear, showing no effort to hide his words.

I initially thought Lv Qingshang would criticize something, after all, Xu Qingfan has become the pride of all Jiuhua by now. But I didn’t expect Lv Qingshang to just smile and nod, slowly saying, "That Xu Qingfan really is awful. You don’t know, before you came, we were often scolded by him terribly. I have three junior brothers who were put in confinement by him for reflection, and I doubt they will get out before the catastrophe ends. Even I, as his senior, was scolded in front of everyone once, just because I didn’t follow his plan during a mission, and I was only a little late. You this time were treated kindly."

Hearing Lv Qingshang say this, the people from Qingxu Gate didn’t know how to respond. They couldn’t say that Xu Qingfan’s so-called "kindness" meant they should feel honored, could they?

Seeing the silence from the Qingxu Gate crowd, Lv Qingshang put away his playful smile and suddenly asked, "If you can’t handle being scolded just once, do you know that my Junior Brother Xu has scolded us Jiuhua Gate for seven years? Why have we never complained?"

"Isn’t it because that Xu Qingfan is your Jiuhua Deacon Elder? As your Jiuhua’s future elder, and now so popular, bringing you so much glory, who would resist him?"

The previous disciple finally turned his head and coldly snorted.

Lv Qingshang smiled slightly and said, "Before you joined this small team, although everyone in this team is from Jiuhua Gate like me, there are not only ‘Qing’ generation disciples like me but also many respected ‘Hua’ generation seniors. Would they tolerate Xu Qingfan just because he is the future sect leader?"

The disciple was slightly taken aback and could not help but ask, "Then why?"

Lv Qingshang slowly said, "Because we all know that Junior Brother Xu is doing this for our lives. His scoldings and teachings are just to help us live better. To accomplish this, he would rather destroy his own reputation and relationships, making others hate and fear him, just so everyone else can survive. You know Junior Brother Xu’s original personality; he was gentle and refined, and while this kind of personality is likable in daily life, what about in a catastrophe? As a leader, does this kind of personality inspire trust and confidence? That’s why he had to change; he forced himself to change, even though this change is not what he wanted."

The disciple was slightly stunned but replied, "That is just your understanding. To me, he has achieved so much over the years that he no longer allows others to disobey him."

Lv Qingshang sighed softly and shook his head, saying, "I just heard you talking about everything Junior Brother Xu has done over the years, driving out the ‘Eight Wilderness Hall’, completing all the tasks assigned by the Righteous Alliance, or cutting off the source of ‘Beast Madness’ by killing the core members of the ‘Ming’ organization… But do you know how much our team sacrificed while Junior Brother Xu was leading us to complete these tasks?"

Seeing everyone look at him with confusion in their eyes, he realized that they were only focused on Xu Qingfan’s achievements over the years and were unknowingly neglecting the rest. He couldn’t help but sigh softly and said slowly, "There were eleven of us, seven elders from Jiuhua and four elders from other sects who joined our team. But do you know how many people we lost in these seven years? Twenty-six!"

When Lv Qingshang said this, everyone was shocked. In fact, the total loss of twenty-six during the battles against ‘Eight Wilderness Hall’ and the Beast Madness cultivators was not many; for example, the Qingxu Gate had already lost thirty elders over the past seven years. But what puzzled them was where the extra fifteen elder losses came from.

Seeing the confusion in their eyes, Lv Qingshang smiled bitterly and said slowly, "The extra fifteen losses did not come from the battle with ‘Eight Wilderness Hall’ or the chaotic fight to cut off the source of ‘Beast Madness’, but from the third action of our Jiuhua Team. That action was not dangerous at all, if we had followed Junior Brother Xu’s plan. But in fact, the original Jiuhua Team had many elders from the older generation who felt strong and experienced, but they acted on their own and did not listen to Junior Brother Xu’s commands. After the success of the first two actions, they even said Junior Brother Xu was overreacting, thinking it was easy to just eliminate some Beast Madness cultivators below Condensed Core Stage, with no need for any plans."

As he spoke, a complex expression flashed in Lv Qingshang’s eyes, something like both mockery and sadness.

At that time, although Beast Madness began to wreak havoc in the cultivation world, it did not attract much attention. This was partly because many people already had experience dealing with the Beast Madness, and partly because there were no Beast Madness cultivators above Condensed Core Stage causing chaos in the cultivation world at that time.

But Xu Qingfan did not see it that way; he believed that there might be Beast Madness cultivators above Condensed Core Stage. For some unknown reason, those spreading ‘Beast Madness’ did not release them. Thus, while tasked with eliminating those Beast Madness cultivators, Xu Qingfan arranged for some elders to scout and assigned others to keep watch several dozen miles away without engaging in battle.

At that time, in Xu Qingfan’s team, there was an elder named Lu Huajian who disliked Xu Qingfan, who had started to gain power in Jiuhua. He was particularly unhappy about being led by someone younger than himself and, being close to Gongsun Huasa, made it a principle to oppose whatever Xu Qingfan insisted on.

In his view, what they were doing now was to gather the strongest forces to quickly eliminate the Beast Madness cultivators scattered throughout the cultivation world, reducing the harm to the Shenzhou Continent. He believed Xu Qingfan’s plan only wasted time and weakened their power to eliminate the Beast Madness cultivators, so he firmly opposed it. With his encouragement, even those older elders who were originally close to him, as well as the new generation of elders, also felt it was better to focus their strength on a big fight, thinking those Beast Madness cultivators were all below the Condensed Core Stage and posed no threat as long as they didn’t get splattered with blood or injured.

Although Xu Qingfan insisted on his opinion, his usual gentle and refined nature made it so that he could clearly express his reasons and convince Luhua, but he could not win over others. Out of respect for the Martial Uncles, he found it difficult to argue back repeatedly.

Thus, although the team was officially following Xu Qingfan’s arrangements, the elders in charge of scouting were actually charging forward against the Beast Madness cultivators with the main force. After succeeding twice in this way, Xu Qingfan had effectively lost control of the team.

In the third action, the problem Xu Qingfan feared finally arose. Dozens of Beast Madness cultivators at the Condensed Core Stage appeared suddenly, catching Elder Jiuhua off guard, resulting in many casualties. The chaotic scene was just like yesterday, and Jiuhua was not getting the upper hand. Later, to save two elders trapped in the encirclement, the losses increased even more.

In the aftermath, although they managed to kill all the Beast Madness cultivators, the Jiuhua Team paid the price of losing fifteen members. As the leader of the Jiuhua Team, Xu Qingfan was completely powerless, and the "Xingyin Sect" team, not far from the battle, showed no intention of providing assistance.

After the battle, Jiuhua lost fifteen elders, including some familiar to Xu Qingfan. During the fight, Xu Qingfan’s only blood relative, Ting’er, and his spirit pet Little Black, who had always been by his side, were both severely injured, and the reason for their injuries was to protect Xu Qingfan.

No one could understand the pressure Xu Qingfan faced as the leader of the team. With Jiuhua’s strength severely weakened, he had to do everything possible to protect the few remaining members. At the same time, to gain more benefits, Xu Qingfan had to lead his team to earn enough merits. These two goals were contradictory, yet Xu Qingfan had to make this contradiction a reality.

Under the pressure, Xu Qingfan struggled and felt mentally exhausted. To stabilize the team and unite the older elders, he compromised repeatedly, thinking that this was the best way to meet Jiuhua’s expectations of him. But after the battle, seeing yesterday’s smiling faces turned into today’s broken bodies, and Ting’er and Little Black lying unconscious, Xu Qingfan froze.

At that moment, Xu Qingfan remembered a debate he had with Liu Huaxiang earlier.

If you are the minority, but you believe you are right, when faced with the opposing majority, will you choose to lead the minority to suppress the majority, or will you choose to submit?

Xu Qingfan thought his choice was right, but in the end, he realized he was wrong.