Cultivating in Reverse: My Sign-In System Wants Me Dead

Chapter 271: Chapter 271 - A Pact of Silence and Old Regrets

For a while after Lu Canghai finished speaking about Su Qingshan, neither master nor disciple said anything.

Finally, Lu Canghai spoke again.

"My disciple, there is something you need to remember."

The change in his tone immediately drew Su Bai’s attention.

"Do not speak casually about what I told you today concerning the Great Fissure."

Su Bai frowned slightly.

He had already understood that many details were obscure, but the warning sounded more serious than simple caution over uncertain history.

Lu Canghai saw his confusion.

"After the Great Fissure was closed, the surviving major sects and forces reached an agreement. Most of what truly happened during those years was removed from public record."

"Removed?"

"Some records were sealed. Some were restricted to the highest levels of their respective forces. Others were destroyed entirely."

Lu Canghai’s gaze drifted toward the mountains.

"What remains for the current generation is the version everyone can safely know. The Great Fissure appeared, foreign beings invaded the Human Realm, countless cultivators fought, and humanity eventually survived."

It was not technically false. It was simply missing nearly everything that mattered.

Su Bai finally understood why years of reading throughout his life had given him so little useful information about an event that had affected the entire cultivation world.

"Master, you all agreed to erase it because of what crossed through?"

Lu Canghai did not answer immediately.

His hesitation told Su Bai there was more to it.

"When the fighting ended, everyone assumed surviving would be enough."

A bitter trace entered the old man’s expression.

"It wasn’t."

Too many cultivators had returned from battle carrying wounds that medicine could not touch.

They had watched companions die only to face the same Naraka beings again months later. They had seen Hungry Ghosts consume things no living creature should have been able to devour, watched entire cities disappear beneath beast tides, and learned that beyond their own realm existed horrors they had never imagined.

Some survived the Great Fissure only for their Dao Hearts to collapse afterward.

"There were people who had spent their entire lives pursuing the Dao," Lu Canghai said quietly. "After what they saw, some became afraid to cultivate at all."

Su Bai looked at him.

Lu Canghai gave a weary sigh.

"A breakthrough meant becoming stronger, but becoming stronger also meant that if something similar happened again, they would be among those sent to face it."

The fear had spread farther than anyone initially expected.

Some cultivators found themselves remembering old battlefields whenever they circulated Qi. Others lost control during seclusion or broke down when attempting a breakthrough.

There had even been periods when hearing that an unusual spatial disturbance had appeared somewhere was enough to send entire regions into panic.

A cultivation world that had survived an invasion had begun fearing the possibility that the invasion might happen again.

Lu Canghai lowered his gaze.

"That was also around the time certain pills became far more common."

Something in his tone made Su Bai suspicious.

"The Shattered-Soul Oblivion Pill was one of them."

Su Bai went still.

Lu Canghai continued without noticing the sudden change in his disciple’s expression.

"It was originally created for people who had already given up."

They are for the cultivators whose foundations had been destroyed beyond repair, those whose Dao Hearts had completely collapsed, and those who could no longer endure what remained of their lives.

The pill allowed them to abandon everything while spending their final moments inside an illusion of overwhelming peace and contentment.

It was, in the simplest possible terms, a suicide pill.

Lu Canghai sighed.

"There were years when too many people wanted one."

Su Bai stared silently at the tea before him.

So that was the origin of one of his favorite pills.

Of all the histories he could have discovered, that was not the one he had expected.

Learning that it had been born from an age when broken cultivators wanted to die peacefully made that fondness suddenly feel difficult to explain.

Su Bai wisely kept that thought to himself.

Lu Canghai was still speaking.

"The agreement was not made because everyone believed later generations were weak. It was made because those who survived understood what uncontrolled knowledge could do."

Stories changed as they spread.

Warnings became rumors. Rumors became panic.

There had also been forces eager to study the other realms, cultivators who wanted to find the old passages, and madmen convinced that treasures left behind by Devas, Asuras, or other beings were worth reopening something humanity had barely managed to close.

Eventually, the surviving powers agreed that some knowledge was better sealed.

Lu Canghai looked directly at Su Bai.

"You may tell someone if there is ever a genuine need, but do not spread it simply because you know it."

Su Bai nodded.

"I understand, Master."

That was enough.

Lu Canghai trusted his judgment.

Su Bai finally understood something else as well.

The silence surrounding the Great Fissure was not the result of history fading naturally.

People had tried to forget.

An agreement spanning the forces that survived the disaster had helped them do it.

That alone said more about the Great Fissure than many surviving records ever could.

Su Bai let the subject settle.

There was little point digging further when Lu Canghai had already reopened memories he had spent decades avoiding.

Instead, Su Bai reached toward the dark-green pouch tied at his waist.

"Master, there is something else I wanted your opinion on."

Lu Canghai’s gaze fell toward the pouch.

Before he could ask, spiritual light appeared across the courtyard.

One ancient weapon after another emerged from the Spirit Beast Pouch.

By the time the last weapon settled across the courtyard, Lu Canghai had stopped moving entirely.

Hearing Su Bai describe them earlier had been one thing.

Seeing more than a dozen ancient Artifact Spirits gathered in front of him was something else.

His eyes slowly traveled across them.

Su Bai could almost see his master recalculating everything he had heard about the Sanctuary.

Lu Canghai eventually looked at his disciple.

"How much did you actually leave behind?"

Su Bai thought about it.

"The Sanctuary itself."

Lu Canghai’s beard twitched.

That answer was apparently not reassuring.

For a brief moment, the old man seriously wondered whether his disciple had returned richer than Radiant Sky Sect.

Considering the unopened Immortal storage rings, ancient materials, sealing weapons, Boundary Pillars, star-metal, inheritances, and everything else Su Bai had mentioned, Lu Canghai decided not to calculate too carefully.

The Artifact Spirits, meanwhile, had become unusually well behaved.

They had remained conscious within the Spirit Beast Pouch and knew enough about what was happening outside to understand the relationship between Su Bai and the old man before them.

This was Su Bai’s master.

Even the saber, normally incapable of remaining quiet whenever an opportunity to announce its greatness appeared, did not say anything.

Its body needed repairing.

Pride could wait until afterward.

Su Bai gestured toward the damaged weapons.

"Master, do you know anyone capable of repairing them?"

Lu Canghai stared at him for several breaths.

"Brat."

Su Bai waited.

"You already do."

That answer caught him slightly off guard.

Lu Canghai pointed toward the collection of ancient weapons.

"If you want someone capable of dealing with Artifact Spirits this old, where else would you go except the Divine Artificer Citadel?"

Su Bai paused.

The answer was so obvious that he had somehow overlooked it.

Lu Canghai’s expression immediately became much more cheerful.

"You even became sworn kin with one of their geniuses. When it comes to useful connections, you have already surpassed your master by several streets."

A laugh escaped him.

"I spent half my life making friends. You disappeared into a forbidden land and somehow came back with ancient Artifact Spirits, and sworn kin among geniuses your master would have needed years to approach."

Su Bai glanced toward the weapons.

Seen from that perspective, the comparison did seem somewhat unfavorable to Lu Canghai

He nodded.

"I’ll contact them when the situation outside becomes more stable."

"That would be sensible. Do not simply hand these things to an ordinary artificer."

Lu Canghai’s eyes swept over the ancient weapons again.

"Repairing a damaged weapon is one thing. Repairing a weapon while preserving an ancient Artifact Spirit is another. If something goes wrong, replacing the metal will not necessarily restore what was lost."

Su Bai had already considered that possibility.

That was precisely why he had waited.

He waved his hand, and most of the artifacts returned to the Spirit Beast Pouch.

One object remained.

It was little more than the surviving remnant of an ancient spear.

The damaged spearhead still carried that faint trace of spirituality Su Bai had protected since Fallen-Star Sanctuary.

The courtyard became quieter again.

Lu Canghai already knew its story.

Su Bai had told him how the ancient spear had helped him survive when he needed it most, and how little remained afterward.

"This one is different."

Lu Canghai leaned forward.

He examined the spearhead without touching it at first.

The spirituality inside was extremely weak, but it had not disappeared.

After a long while, Lu Canghai shook his head.

"I cannot tell you how to restore it."

Su Bai had expected that answer, yet disappointment still flickered through him.

Lu Canghai noticed.

"Old Huo may know more than I do. Among us, he understands artifact forging best."

His gaze remained on the spearhead.

"But even he may not know how to restore something like this. Repairing the other surviving ancient artifacts is already difficult enough, but this spear is barely more than a remnant, and what you want to preserve is not merely the weapon."

The problem was the faint spirituality.

Forging another spear was possible.

Making that new spear become the same existence was something else entirely.

Lu Canghai sighed.

"If the Great Fissure had never happened, perhaps Old Huo would have walked much farther along that path."

Su Bai looked at him.

"Peak Master Huo Yan?"

"He had exceptional talent for artifact forging when he was younger."

That was something Su Bai had never heard.

Lu Canghai smiled faintly.

"Radiant Sky Sect needed different things after the Great Fissure."

Too many experts had died.

Too many inheritances had been damaged or lost.

Entire industries that once relied on particular elders or specialized halls had collapsed with them.

A sect rebuilding from ruin could not afford to let every genius pursue only what interested them most.

"Huo Yan learned talisman crafting. He studied formations. Later, he spent years improving methods that could be reproduced by his disciples instead of creating one precious artifact every few years."

Lu Canghai’s expression held neither pity nor regret for his old friend. There was only recognition.

"Those things earned Spirit Stones. They protected disciples. They could be produced in numbers the sect actually needed."

Su Bai looked toward the ancient spearhead.

He had always known the Great Fissure devastated Radiant Sky Sect.

Only now was he beginning to understand how far its consequences had spread.

Lu Canghai’s damaged foundation was one result.

Huo Yan abandoning the path where his greatest talent might once have taken him was another.

There were probably countless others no record would ever mention.

People who survived but lived different lives afterward.

Su Bai carefully returned the spearhead to storage.

He would ask Huo Yan.

If Huo Yan did not know, he would eventually take it to the Divine Artificer Citadel along with the others.

The spirituality remained. As long as that had not vanished, Su Bai had no intention of giving up on it.