Unparalleled Artist: Unlikely Hero
Following his father's murder, Wu Ling's mother returned to the life of a courtesan, disguising her young son as a girl to take refuge in the Bamboo Silk House, a women's only sect dedicated to the arts. Now, as his powers awaken, he'll find himself torn between protecting his family and the goals of powerful cultivators who see him as a means to an end. "Wu Ling, I've accepted a marriage proposal on your behalf," the bewitching Hall Master of the Bamboo Silk House declared. "When you enter the Inner Sect, you'll enter under the name 'Hua Qianhu', fiancee of a young lord of the Liang family." "Hall Master, that's impossible!" Wu Ling protested. "Even if you ignore my relationship with Meifeng, I might have dressed well enough to hide as a mortal woman but I could never..." "So you truly didn't realize what you were doing," the Hall Master said, a dark smile on her lips. "Little Ling, you're a natural-born Shapeshifter. I'll teach you what you need to know," she said, her features shifting until she looked like a mirror image of the stunned Wu Ling. "As long as you follow my arrangements and learn my techniques, it isn't impossible for you to reunite with Meifeng..." "But you should consider Young Lord Liang carefully," the Hall Master added. "His affection for you is genuine. Perhaps, one day, you'll even feel the same for him..."
The Importance of Virtues (Part One)
"Opportunity grows on trees," Su Xiang said lightly, refusing to allow a vague promise of opportunity to consume her attention. Both Elder Guang and Warden Niu had made it clear that they were opposed to her association with Wu Ling. Against the very real possibility that the sect would bar her from visiting her sworn brother, cryptic promises of opportunity were irrelevant.
"If there is an opportunity that isn't to my taste, I need only seek out another. If the opportunity isn't yet ripe, I need only wait. If the opportunity requires me to abandon my sworn brother, it can rot on the tree till it falls to the ground where lesser jackals can fight over it," she declared, her voice sharpening at the end. "I have no need for such opportunities."
"Is that the truth your eyes reveal to you?" Elder Guang asked. "That your road is full of opportunity and you need only stretch out your hand to take the one you like?"