The festival was a joyous event as there was many people here Gu Zhi was happy to meet.
"Son, you're all grown up now, look at you".
Gu Zhi had obviously invited his parents along with him to his wedding including his now 4 year old brother.
"Mom, Dad, its so great to see you again you wouldn't believe what I've been through".
"We've heard rumors while we were brought here of you winning a tournament. And now you've married into a wealthy cultivator clan." she said with tears coming out of her eyes.
"We're proud of you son. You have done more than we ever thought possible. We wanted to let you know that we give you our full blessings and hope you make it high in the cultivation world. We were never able to do so, so seeing you here today living our dreams makes us so happy".
"Thanks Dad, Mom I'll do the best I can in the following years. I hope you raise Wu Mao just as well as you raised me."
"We will do our best" they said as they held the hand of a small child 4 years old. It was his brother, he took on a appearance more like his father with black hair and a quiet stoic personality.
"I hope to one day see you on the cultivation path as well brother." He said as his brother gave him a short nod.
Next he went to go meet the big leagues when it came to the Gu family.
"This is the Gu clan matriarch, she is well known for her skills in divination as well as having some of the best spiritual sense and perception in the Yangoo country" Gu Ming introduced.
She looked like a old women with a blindfold over her eyes and greying hair. But by no means did she seem weak or frail. Instead he got a unique sense of power emanating from her.
"I am Gu Ling, its an honor to meet the infamous Gu Zhi".
"No, its my honor to meet the head of the clan. I wouldn't be infamous if it wasn't for the clan's help". They smiled and exchanged pleasantries. 'The matriarch is really friendly I wonder what types of divination she does and how well she is at it.'
"It, might not be my place, and I don't have much knowledge in divination but tell me how well will we do in the palace of eternal love".
She smiled and said "I don't know, divination has a lot of limitations and one such divination is that if you try to divine things related to someone more powerful than you or you try to divine a fortress filled with formations that disturb divination results, you are unlikely to receive answers to your divinations. The palace of eternal love has both, not only was it set up by a person with a superior cultivation to mine, it also has many formations that obscure it from divinations. What I can tell you however is that compared to your competition you should have a much better chance at succeeding given your talent and resources given to you. As for talents that come from a large sect, I wouldn't worry. They are unlikely to invest as much as us into one person in hopes of that one person succeeding. They are more likely to send as many talents as they can, winning from a numbers perspective instead of a quality perspective. I have divined that our strategy has the best chance at giving us the most rewards. However they are likely to mimic ours in some way, so I would still be careful around their "Chosen" as they call them. They should be their strongest and greatest in their field and will most likely bring out the best results in the palace. however because of this, they won't expect a merchant clan with a focus on divination to send the strongest talent they can find into the palace with as many resource investment that we have given you. It only takes a small predication to know that they will ignore most of their competition besides the other chosen. This should give you a unique advantage of surprise, given their are any conflicts with the competition". she said
"I wanted to ask about that actually. From my knowledge the palace of eternal love is testing the love between partners. What kind of danger can the other competitors pose in the palace."
"There are some instances of fights breaking out between competitors in unique environments in the palace. The locations and geography of the palace change every time it opens. But there is a record of past events were competitors kill one another, so its best to be cautious. I don't think that this will happen this time but its best to be safe" she replied.
"Well it was great meeting you, I hope I can continue to be of value to the clan and I hope you continue your support".
"Likewise" she said with a smile on her face.
Elder Ming then took him around to meet various other people of importance as well. Clan elders, sect elders, allies and such. The two people that he paid the most attention too however was the matriarch and the young heir. It seemed like the Gu clan was a clan with a leadership from women with a lot of supporting elders to fill in the gaps. But really he bet that it had less to do with gender and more to do with abilities. They may just be that much better with running a clan or with divination abilities, it was hard to tell. The festival continued with lanterns, spirit wine, tea, and more.
With the event coming to a close it was time for the long awaited act of dual cultivating. Himself and Gu Xiao had been preparing for this for years.