The next day, the two of them said goodbye to everyone at Biehe Sect.
There really wasn’t much left at Biehe Sect for Yu Qingtang to take with him anymore, yet somehow they still managed to stuff an entire storage ring full of miscellaneous odds and ends. One of his Senior Sisters even wanted him to bring two little stools so he could sit down and rest whenever he felt tired.
Yu Qingtang turned to Ye Chenyan. “What did you take?”
“Well...” Ye Chenyan hid his hands behind his back. “Secret.”
He guiltily looked away. He could hardly admit that he’d taken a few keepsakes related to Yu.
Yu Qingtang smacked his lips out of habit and touched his cheek—the wound he’d bitten open last night had already healed.
Sure, he was a music cultivator with a rather unimpressive constitution, but even he recovered from tiny injuries like mouth ulcers much faster than an ordinary person.
Thank you, immortal cultivation.
“What’s wrong?” Eldest Senior Sister leaned closer curiously. “Something wrong with your mouth?”
“Nothing.” Yu Qingtang answered casually, “I accidentally bit myself last night. It’s already healed today.”
Every member of Biehe Sect turned in unison to look at Ye Chenyan.
Ye Chenyan: “...”
It took Yu Qingtang a moment to realize what they were thinking.
His face changed dramatically. “Why are you looking at him?! I bit myself!”
Everyone slowly turned back to look at him, wearing a variety of expressions.
Eldest Senior Sister chuckled twice and nodded indulgently, with the benevolent tolerance of an elder humoring a child.
“Of course, of course. You bit yourself. If you say so, then you did.”
Daoist Idle Crane rolled his eyes. “Hmph.”
Third Senior Brother opened his mouth, hesitated, then finally reached out and pulled Ye Chenyan aside.
“Junior Brother Ye.”
He lowered his voice.
“Our Little Yu is made of flesh too. You... you should restrain yourself a little.”
Ye Chenyan’s eyes slowly widened.
He glanced back at Yu Qingtang, cleared his throat, accepted the blame, and nodded solemnly.
“...I understand.”
Yu Qingtang: “!”
“What do you understand?! Stop understanding things you shouldn’t!”
Third Senior Brother slung an arm around Ye Chenyan and spun him away, dodging Yu Qingtang’s attempts to grab him. Then he secretly slipped Ye Chenyan a small booklet.
“Ahem. Don’t say your Third Senior Brother never looked out for you. Study this.”
“I even found one specifically suited to your situation...”
The courtyard was full of music cultivators. Lowering his voice this theatrically accomplished absolutely nothing.
Yu Qingtang immediately shouted, “Master! He’s hiding porn!”
Third Senior Brother paled. “Little Junior Brother! I’m doing this for your own good!”
Eldest Senior Sister finally seized her chance. She rushed over and smacked him on the back of the head with an amount of force that contained a noticeable personal grudge.
“What kind of rotten ideas are you thinking about all day?! Don’t corrupt people!”
She grabbed Third Senior Brother and dragged him aside, snatching the booklet out of Ye Chenyan’s hand.
“You can’t just help with things like this!”
Third Senior Brother snapped, “You think he was some innocent little lamb to begin with?”
Eldest Senior Sister replied righteously, “He’s a perfectly good person!”
Then she leaned closer.
“What booklet is that? How come I’ve never seen it before? Let me take a look.”
Third Senior Brother: “...”
“Ahem.”
Their Master cleared his throat.
Everyone immediately straightened up and pretended they hadn’t been looking.
Ye Chenyan only glanced in that direction once before Yu Qingtang leaned toward his ear.
“What? Regretting that you didn’t get to keep it?”
“No.” Ye Chenyan immediately looked away. “That sort of thing doesn’t require studying.”
Yu Qingtang was about to respond when he suddenly remembered that, in the original novel, Ye Chenyan really had been a naturally gifted prodigy who required absolutely no instruction in that particular department.
He fell silent.
Then quietly took one step backward.
Ye Chenyan immediately noticed.
“...Why are you backing away?”
Yu Qingtang’s expression became complicated.
“Ahem.”
Daoist Idle Crane cleared his throat again and curled his lip.
“Honestly. Look at yourselves.”
Today, he had even put on the magical robes he normally reserved for maintaining appearances. From the front, he looked downright otherworldly and dignified.
Even though everyone present knew there was a hole in the seat of those robes.
“You’re leaving?” Daoist Idle Crane looked at Yu Qingtang and beckoned him over.
Yu Qingtang shuffled forward a couple of steps.
Daoist Idle Crane reached out and rubbed his head.
“Go on.”
“The immortal path is endless. Whenever you look back, home is here.”
He chuckled.
“You may be a Nascent Soul now, but we all know how watered-down your actual strength is. If you provoke some trouble you can’t beat, just run back here.”
Yu Qingtang looked up at him. “What if none of us can beat it?”
Daoist Idle Crane laughed.
“Then we’ll flee for our lives together.”
His gaze slowly shifted toward Ye Chenyan, and his expression changed slightly.
“I hear that despite your young age, you’re already the sect master of Pleasure Sect in Nanzhou. Quite accomplished.”
Ye Chenyan was exceptionally well behaved in front of him.
“I didn’t get the position based on strength, and I never actually manage them.”
Daoist Idle Crane ignored the pleasantries and asked, “Do you have the Pleasure Sect master’s seal with you?”
Ye Chenyan paused, then nodded.
Daoist Idle Crane crooked a finger at him.
“Take it out.”
Ye Chenyan had no idea what he intended, but still did as instructed.
Daoist Idle Crane gave him a long look, then took a flying-crane token from his waist and tossed it to Yu Qingtang.
Yu Qingtang fumbled to catch it.
“What’s this for?”
Daoist Idle Crane pointed. “Put some spiritual power into it and touch it against his.”
Yu Qingtang understood.
Dog Xiaosa had written about this later in the novel too. It was something sects did when formally establishing an alliance.
Who knew his Master had such foresight?
He was already latching onto Long Aotian’s thigh.
Yu Qingtang injected spiritual power into the translucent green-jade flying-crane token. A crane’s cry rang out as it lightly touched the black-gold seal of Pleasure Sect, around which faint traces of demonic energy curled.
For an instant, some subtle connection seemed to form between the two.
Daoist Idle Crane nodded faintly.
“From this day forward, Biehe Sect and Pleasure Sect will stand together, advancing and retreating as one.”
“Right now, it may look as though we’re taking advantage of you. But eventually you’ll understand that one person cannot fight everything alone. Neither can one sect.”
Ye Chenyan raised his head thoughtfully, then cupped his fists.
“Yes. This junior understands.”
Yu Qingtang secretly gave Daoist Idle Crane a thumbs-up.
Getting an alliance with Pleasure Sect before everyone else was basically the cultivation-world equivalent of becoming an angel investor.
Excellent vision.
Daoist Idle Crane looked at his stupidly cheerful face and sighed with concern.
Yu Qingtang noticed absolutely nothing.
Still grinning, he tried to hand the flying-crane token back.
Daoist Idle Crane didn’t take it.
“Keep it.”
“Huh?” Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Isn’t your qin sealed?” Daoist Idle Crane pointed casually at the token. “You can use this to undo the seals. And if the qin refuses to behave, you can use this to suppress it too. How else did you think I managed to put such complicated seals on it in the first place?”
“You can’t keep running to Heavenly Music Sect every time you need another seal undone.”
Yu Qingtang opened his mouth.
“Then what happens when you pass on the sect master position someday?”
Daoist Idle Crane gave him a sidelong look.
“You’re telling me that when something as important as choosing the next sect master happens, you won’t even come back?”
Yu Qingtang thought about it.
“Oh. Right. I definitely would come back for something that important.”
Daoist Idle Crane shook his head.
“Go on, go on.”
He waved them away impatiently.
“Dragging your feet like this... I didn’t prepare lunch for you, you know.”
“Got it.”
Yu Qingtang turned and called back to everyone.
“Then I’m leaving! Don’t miss me too much! You can send me messages with the transmission stone! And don’t get greedy with the Treasure-Gathering Basin! Using it too much will cause trouble!”
Eldest Senior Sister waved with tears in her eyes.
“Take care, Little Junior Brother! Junior Brother Ye, treat him well! Don’t raise him so badly he dies!”
Yu Qingtang: “...”
Ye Chenyan burst out laughing. “Don’t worry, Senior Sister. I’ll be very careful raising him.”
Only after the two figures disappeared from sight did Third Senior Brother turn toward Daoist Idle Crane.
“You’re not about to cry, are you?”
“Bah.”
Daoist Idle Crane flung out his sleeve.
“That little troublemaker is finally gone. I ought to be setting off firecrackers!”
“We’re having a feast tonight! Come on! Your Master will personally go catch the fish!”
...
Yu Qingtang and Ye Chenyan descended the mountain and headed toward Rongzhou.
They had already discussed where they would go after leaving the mountain the night before.
Yu Qingtang suggested that they more or less continue following the plot. The next immortal abode to emerge was located somewhere within Rongzhou, so they could simply take their time traveling in that direction.
Ye Chenyan, on the other hand, didn’t particularly care whether they followed the plot or not. He wasn’t especially tempted by those inheritances.
Despite the perfectly righteous way he phrased it, Yu Qingtang understood exactly what he meant.
He was afraid of meeting the girls from the original plot.
Yu Qingtang couldn’t help feeling a little wistful.
Who could have imagined that the beauties of the original harem, once considered perks, would now become dangerous cultivation trials?
Truly, blessings and disasters went hand in hand.
Though Hua Shimiao had gotten the blessing while Ye Chenyan got the disaster.
After Yu Qingtang solemnly promised that he would absolutely stop making snide remarks like that, they eventually set off for Rongzhou anyway. They also sent messages to Chi Yantian and Scholar Xiao.
Traveling from Yunzhou to Rongzhou required crossing a vast desert. It stretched beyond the horizon and was easy to get lost in, but both of them were cultivators, so a journey like this presented little difficulty.
Rongzhou itself was extremely hot. Supposedly, immortals from the Cloudmarsh Sect constantly summoned rain over the land to cool the air, easing the scorching heat and allowing ordinary people to survive there.
Because of that, spirit boats had to fly as close to the ground as possible. Flying too high not only consumed far more spiritual power, but also exposed travelers directly to the brutal heat.
At first, Yu Qingtang worried that flying so low might frighten ordinary people.
He soon discovered—
There were hardly any people here at all.
They hadn’t seen a single person the entire way.
They had, however, encountered a herd of Flamelet’s relatives.
These wild Blazing Rhinoceroses had violent tempers and absolutely no interest in peaceful coexistence. If they hadn’t been unable to catch the spirit boat, they might have chased the two of them all the way to Rongzhou.
After staring at nothing but endless yellow sand for so long, when a village suddenly appeared before them, both of them spent a dazed moment wondering whether it was a mirage.
Once Yu Qingtang confirmed that it was real, he excitedly grabbed Ye Chenyan’s sleeve.
“Look! Humans!”
They had been flying for so long that Yu Qingtang was practically suffering from human withdrawal. Now that he had suddenly spotted two actual people, he almost wanted to rush over and get a human fix twice over.
Ye Chenyan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“It’s only been a few days since you last saw anyone.”
He shook his head in amusement.
“Want to go take a look at the village?”
The two people they had first spotted near the village entrance were children.
They seemed to have never seen outsiders before. The instant they saw Yu Qingtang and Ye Chenyan, they dropped to their knees in fright and began murmuring, “Immortals... Immortals...”
The commotion at the entrance quickly drew several adults over.
A few men with skin darkened by the sun regarded the strangers with fear and suspicion. They hadn’t seen the two of them descend from a flying spirit boat, however, and assumed they were ordinary travelers.
Yu Qingtang enthusiastically stepped forward to greet them.
“Hello! We’re not bad people, just passing through! Do you know which direction Rongzhou is? I just want to make sure we haven’t gone the wrong way.”
The adults exchanged glances.
After a moment, one of them said quietly, “Please wait. I’ll go get the clan chief.”
Yu Qingtang was about to tell him there was no need to go to so much trouble when Ye Chenyan gently tugged him back.
His gaze swept across the village’s earthen walls.
There were numerous marks left by blades and axes.
The men in front of them were lean and hardened, and each carried a weapon at his waist...
This did not look like an ordinary village.
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