Ye Chenyan drew the fused immortal-demonic energy back into himself, and the area finally returned to calm. Only then did Tu Jiaojiao arrive with the rest of the Heavenly Fire Cult, who had been helping guard the breakthrough.
“Well, look at you.” She swept in like a gust of wind, smiling brightly. “I asked you two for help because I wanted to save time. Who knew you’d have to stop and spend three days breaking through before we could even get moving...”
Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow and smiled back. “You could’ve just left us behind and gone on ahead.”
“Obviously.” Tu Jiaojiao planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You think I spent all three days doing nothing but standing guard over the two of you? We’ve already notified every village active around the oases in Rongzhou and had them evacuate immediately. I also had people mark several places with frequent suspicious activity so we can investigate those first.”
She tossed out a map and spread it in front of them, then gave Ye Chenyan a sidelong glance.
“You really reached Out-of-Body?”
Ye Chenyan laughed. “Want to spar and find out?”
Tu Jiaojiao narrowed her eyes.
She actually looked tempted.
Yu Qingtang poked his head in to discourage her. “If you want to spar with someone strong, I recommend not picking him. This guy hits really hard and has absolutely no concept of going easy on someone for practice.”
Tu Jiaojiao blinked. “He’s hit you before?”
“Not me.” Yu Qingtang denied it automatically. “But I’ve seen him beat up other people.”
He turned and introduced the Girl in the Bamboo behind them.
“Why not try her? Miss Bamboo has a much better temper.”
“Hm?” Only then did Tu Jiaojiao notice the young woman behind them. She looked surprised. “When did she get in there? I didn’t even notice her just now.”
“She tunne—”
Yu Qingtang almost answered instinctively, then choked the word back. For the sake of preserving at least a little of the mysterious-expert aura around the Girl in the Bamboo, he changed course.
“She comes and goes without a trace. Impressive, right?”
Tu Jiaojiao laughed. “Fine. Once we’re done here, I’ll ask this elusive young lady to spar with me.”
Then her expression turned strange.
“She is a young lady, right?”
Yu Qingtang: “...”
He was beginning to feel like he had inflicted a small but permanent psychological scar on the entire cultivation world.
He looked past Tu Jiaojiao toward the Cloudmarsh Sect group not far away and was a little surprised.
“They still haven’t left? You’re really bringing them?”
He lowered his voice.
“If that Qi Refining young sect master so much as bumps his head...”
“Don’t worry.” Tu Jiaojiao gave him a meaningful look. “He has a secret treasure called a Phantom Stone. If he encounters lethal danger, it shatters automatically and sends him straight home.”
Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened in shock.
“There’s treasure like that?”
Wasn’t that basically a town portal scroll?!
“It has a limited range. You can’t use it beyond the borders of a single province, and it’s extremely expensive.” Tu Jiaojiao laughed. “Our Heavenly Fire Cult is the one that makes the Phantom Stones. He’s basically one of our longtime customers.”
Then she lowered her voice.
“Most of his were made by Chi Yantian.”
Yu Qingtang immediately leaned closer to gossip.
“Then why does he hate Brother Chi so much?”
“That guy hates following blueprints when he refines artifacts. He prefers adding his own ideas.” Tu Jiaojiao was visibly trying not to laugh. “The Phantom Stone he made for that brat before... ahem. He added a little extra feature.”
Yu Qingtang looked expectant. “What kind of feature?”
“If it was Brother Chi’s handiwork... did he add some fire?”
“You really do know him.” Tu Jiaojiao laughed with pure schadenfreude. “Except the fire wasn’t meant to blow up the enemy. It blew up the owner.”
“He said the brat was reckless with his life because he knew the Phantom Stone would save him, so he needed to be taught a lesson. He installed a mechanism that activates along with the stone and...”
Tu Jiaojiao pointed at her own face.
“Blasts his face completely black with soot.”
Yu Qingtang: “...”
Ye Chenyan snorted. “He’s surprisingly childish.”
“Anyway, after that incident Kong Shanyu lost a ton of face and stormed over to the Heavenly Fire Cult demanding an explanation.” Tu Jiaojiao spread her hands. “Artifact refining is still a business. If something we sell doesn’t match what the customer expected, of course I have to take responsibility.”
“It was funny, sure, but an elder from the artifact-refining office still punished Chi Yantian and beat him half to death.”
Yu Qingtang looked sympathetic. “Let me guess. Brother Chi absolutely refused to admit he was wrong.”
“Exactly.” Tu Jiaojiao nodded with deep conviction. “Wouldn’t soften his attitude even with an outsider watching. In the end, they had to carry him back to his chambers.”
“Our Heavenly Fire Cult doesn’t play around when disciplining disciples. If you make a mistake, you get beaten until the skin splits and the blood flows. Otherwise it doesn’t count.”
Yu Qingtang remembered the way Tu Jiaojiao had chased down one of her own misbehaving disciples back in Qingzhou and nodded solemnly.
“Ferocious sect culture.”
Tu Jiaojiao laughed. “Anyway, Chi Yantian was beaten bloody, and the little brat who’d come to complain was scared out of his mind.”
“He started thinking he’d done something terrible. After agonizing over it, he decided to go apologize to Chi Yantian. And then—”
Yu Qingtang rubbed his chin. “From what I know of Brother Chi, he probably wouldn’t hold a grudge.”
Ye Chenyan raised an eyebrow. “But I doubt anything nice came out of his mouth.”
Tu Jiaojiao muffled a laugh.
“He said, ‘Forget it. I’m not going to hold a grudge against a kid.’”
“And that was how the feud began.”
“Apparently the young master was born sickly and has always been much frailer than other people. He hates being treated like a child more than anything.”
She waved a hand.
“How was Chi Yantian supposed to know that? And even if he had known, he probably still would’ve spoken without thinking.”
“Afterward, though, the Cloudmarsh Sect master came back to our cult to buy another Phantom Stone. He specifically asked for one made by Chi Yantian, complete with the special mechanism.”
“He was probably worried that his young master was taking his life far too lightly too.”
Ye Chenyan looked thoughtful. “So you’re bringing him with us because if anything dangerous happens, you can kick him straight into it and have him die his way back to Cloudmarsh Sect?”
Yu Qingtang turned toward him wordlessly. “Could you not—”
Tu Jiaojiao nodded briskly. “Exactly!”
Yu Qingtang: “...”
All right.
My apologies.
That was presumptuous of me.
Ye Chenyan bumped Yu Qingtang with his shoulder. “Which one first?”
“You’re asking me?” Yu Qingtang looked appalled and pointed at Tu Jiaojiao. “Ask the local guide!”
“You’re lucky,” Ye Chenyan said with complete confidence. “You pick.”
“We don’t have any more clues anyway.” Tu Jiaojiao didn’t care either. “I’ll go with your choice.”
Yu Qingtang narrowed his eyes. “Then I’m picking completely at random, okay?”
He waved his hand around as though performing some mystical divination and stabbed his finger at the map.
“Here!”
“Let’s go!”
The group turned around with impressive decisiveness.
Yu Qingtang stared blankly after them.
“You guys actually trust me?”
Friends, that was way too cool.
...
Following the map to the oasis Yu Qingtang had randomly pointed out, Tu Jiaojiao gestured for the others to spread out.
“Dig down and take a look.”
Yu Qingtang had originally been worried that Kong Shanyu might refuse to follow orders, but apparently the boy had already started treating himself like a member of the Heavenly Fire Cult. Full of enthusiasm, he dragged Sifeng and Siyu off to dig holes.
Yu Qingtang: “...”
Ye Chenyan followed his gaze. “What are you looking at?”
Yu Qingtang rubbed his chin. “I feel like I’ve learned how to deal with children.”
He patted Ye Chenyan.
“Come on. Let’s dig too.”
He took one step—
and suddenly his foot slipped.
His body dropped with a plop as the sand swallowed him.
“Careful!”
Ye Chenyan reacted instantly and grabbed him. But instead of forcibly hauling him out of the sand pit, he followed Yu Qingtang down.
The Girl in the Bamboo hurried over, crouched, and touched the ground.
Yellow sand trickled through her fingers.
She looked up.
“There’s spiritual power in it. This isn’t natural. It’s a trap.”
“Who the hell is immoral enough to dig a quicksand trap in the middle of a desert?!” Tu Jiaojiao snapped. “Who are they even planning to catch? Don’t tell me someone knew we were coming and set it up specifically for us?”
The Girl in the Bamboo rose and surveyed the surroundings, thoughtful.
“It may not have been made by humans.”
“Not humans?” Tu Jiaojiao’s eyes shifted. “You mean some creature around the oasis deliberately dug the trap to keep people away?”
“Let’s look below.”
The Girl in the Bamboo spoke tersely. She touched her jade-green bamboo staff to the ground, opened a passage, and jumped down.
There really was something strange underground.
The area had been hollowed out, with obvious signs of artificial excavation. It looked like a mineral vein that had long since been completely mined out.
Tu Jiaojiao climbed down after her and looked around.
“This place has probably been abandoned for years.”
“There are claw marks from beasts. And fur.”
The Girl in the Bamboo picked up a tuft of pale yellow fur from the ground.
“This is...”
She handed it to Tu Jiaojiao.
“Can you tell what kind of beast from this area it came from?”
“Hm?”
Tu Jiaojiao leaned in for a closer look and nearly sneezed.
“Looks like...”
The Girl in the Bamboo watched her expectantly.
Tu Jiaojiao slapped one palm with the other.
“A duckling!”
The Girl in the Bamboo: “...”
Her face went utterly numb.
She pointed at the marks inside the cave.
“Claw marks.”
“Duck claws...”
Tu Jiaojiao leaned closer, then gave two awkward laughs.
“Yeah, I guess ducks can’t scratch marks like that.”
“Where did those two go?”
There was no obvious oppressive aura underground, and Ye Chenyan had only just reached Out-of-Body. They probably weren’t in much danger.
Tu Jiaojiao raised her voice slightly.
“Qingtang! Ye!”
“Over here!”
Dozens of paces ahead, Yu Qingtang stuck his head out and waved excitedly.
“Come see what I found!”
Tu Jiaojiao’s eyes lit up and she rushed over.
“A clue to the immortal abode?”
Yu Qingtang thrust a fluffy, big-eared little cat right into her face.
“Kitty!”
Tu Jiaojiao slammed on the brakes and sneezed violently.
Yu Qingtang reacted at lightning speed, jumping backward with the cat in his arms and narrowly escaping the blast.
The adorable little creature had pale yellow fur and small ears. It opened its mouth and let out a threatening—
“Hiss—”
Tu Jiaojiao covered her nose.
“I know what it is now. Desert Spirit Cat! They have a habit of digging traps around their dens to keep large beasts away. Achoo!”
The Girl in the Bamboo looked at the tuft of fur in her hand. A strange gleam flashed through her eyes.
“This isn’t from that one.”
“That’s only a kitten. This fur is coarser. It should belong to an adult cat. Are there others nearby?”
“Over here.”
Ye Chenyan’s voice came from deeper within.
“There are several more.”
The Girl in the Bamboo quickly walked over.
A few Desert Spirit Cat kittens were scattered through the long tunnel, clearly having crawled out of their den on their own.
Yu Qingtang pulled out some jerky he had originally prepared for Flamelet.
“Do they eat meat?”
Before he had even finished asking, the kitten in his arms lunged ferociously at the jerky and started tearing into it, shaking its head as it chewed.
“Plenty of spirit.” Tu Jiaojiao nodded approvingly. “It’s got the makings of a hunter.”
“It probably crawled out because it was starving.”
Yu Qingtang scratched his head.
“Looks like the immortal abode isn’t here, but we found a whole litter of kittens instead... Does that count as an unexpected bonus?”
The Girl in the Bamboo turned around.
“Are you going to take them with you?”
“Meeting is fate.”
Yu Qingtang held the kitten up and squeezed one of its fluffy paws.
“Besides, their den is completely out of food. Something might have happened to their parents while they were out hunting.”
Yu Qingtang’s eyes sparkled.
“From now on, this little guy is my...”
He paused.
Then he pulled the kitten’s hind legs apart and took a look.
His expression remained deeply affectionate.
“...son.”
Tu Jiaojiao looked like she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why are you exactly like Chi Yantian? What is it with you people wanting to become the fathers of every small animal you see?”
Beside them, Ye Chenyan broke the jerky into smaller pieces and tossed them to the other kittens on the ground.
He glanced back at Yu Qingtang.
“Are we only taking that one, or all of them?”
He picked up one kitten that was huddled motionless in the den with its tail tucked tightly between its legs.
“This one looks like you. We should take it too.”
“No adult cats have come back here for at least half a month. On their own, these kittens probably won’t survive to adulthood.”
“Awooo!”
The Desert Spirit Cat in Yu Qingtang’s arms suddenly jumped to the ground. Tail held high, it yowled and raced deeper into the tunnel.
A thought struck Yu Qingtang.
“Don’t tell me it wants us to go save someone—no, wait, save a cat?”
“All living things possess spirit, and demonic beasts are intelligent to begin with.”
The Girl in the Bamboo hurried after it.
“Perhaps our meeting today was fated.”
As she said that, she ran faster than anyone else.
Yu Qingtang quietly slowed down by half a step.
“...Does Miss Bamboo really, really like small animals?”
“Huh?” Ye Chenyan thought about it. “She doesn’t look like she likes much of anything.”
“How could that be?” Yu Qingtang’s eyes widened. “Once you have consciousness, of course you have likes and dislikes. Even my qin likes beautiful women.”
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