Mo Lingzi nodded his head solemnly. “When this penniless master first came up the mountain, these bandits were extremely vicious. Later on, I discovered that I was even more powerful than the second-in-charge, who had lost his memory, so they worshiped me!”

That second-in-charge was referring to the military advisor at that time, the current grand preceptor, Peng Tianming.

“That second-in-charge of theirs was also a capable person. This penniless master only saw that his brain was damaged. When I was in the mountain stronghold, I had nothing to do, so I narrated some of his abilities to him. If it wasn’t for this penniless master, he wouldn’t even be the current grand preceptor!” His face was full of pride.

Xie Pinggang acknowledged that.

Back then, the grand preceptor had wandered into the mountain stronghold and did not know anything. He was completely a beggar.

However, seeing that he was born well, his mother felt that this person might be a talent, so she took him in.

One day, the grand preceptor accidentally read a book and found that he actually knew how to read!

Just like a piece of absorbent cotton, he suddenly learned many things. Anything could be inferred by him. Initially, she thought that he only knew how to read, but who knew that after the Taoist master came and guided him, he had actually learned feng shui.

Yu Xian had never heard of such things and was very interested.

If it were not for the fact that they still had business to do, she would want to sit down and listen to Mo Lingzi tell them more about the past.

When Xie Qiao came down from upstairs, they stopped talking about the past.

Xie Pinggang explained everything that they had found to Xie Qiao.

“What’s the use of the blood? Why would someone spend so much effort to buy it?” Xie Pinggang asked.

Hearing that, Xie Qiao frowned, then he looked at Mo Lingzi. “S-Senior brother, this placenta has innate qi, and the blood of the dead is mixed with their last breath… I’m not very familiar with these evil techniques, so I can’t remember which book it was from…”

“You secretly read the forbidden book in our Taoist temple when you were young, and I beat you up.” Mo Lingzi glanced at her.

He rarely beat up Xie Qiao, only once.

Of course, it was just a light blow with a horsetail whisk, and he was afraid that she would not feel any pain.

“You even beat her up? Her health is lacking!” Xie Pinggang frowned.

“I was raising a child. I can beat her up however I want. It’s none of your business!” Mo Lingzi did not show any weakness.

“Stop arguing.” Xie Qiao rolled her eyes at them.

Yu Xian was confused as she listened. She felt that something was wrong.

She knew that Xie Qiao was Mo Chusheng. Then… Mo Chusheng was Mo Lingzi’s junior sister, Mo Lingzi was Xie Qiao’s master… and Mo Lingzi raised Xie Qiao? So… the person Xie Pinggang was protecting was Xie Qiao?

That meant that Xie Pinggang already knew that Xie Qiao was Mo Chusheng?!

Yu Xian’s mind was in a mess.

“Our Water Moon Temple is a proper Taoist temple, so we don’t use those crooked and evil techniques. It’s just that there are some Taoist masters out there who don’t care about morality and do all kinds of bad things. To be on the safe side, we also have to learn these things. It’s just that you were still too young back then. I was afraid that you were too curious and young and did not know the severity of things that you would learn the forbidden techniques and do bad things…”

After Xie Qiao turned twelve, he showed her the forbidden techniques again.

However…

“When I read the book later, many pages were eaten by rats. This is one of them, right?” Xie Qiao asked.

It was one thing that the pages were eaten, but when she read it carefully, she found that there were many disgusting techniques in the book, and there were even drawings. She felt her scalp go numb from reading it, so…

Toward the end, when she saw that the pages were missing, she only briefly understood it from her master and did not study it in detail.

It could be said that she had thought about it, but she did not write it down seriously.