Can you wipe your drool first?

Chuyan's small face stiffened.

Her pure features were filled with shock and humiliation, a pair of amorous eyes staring straight at Xiao Ran as she couldn't speak for a long time.

It was as if the flame had stopped and the firelight had frozen.

Lingzhou Yue was gnawing on a tiger leg, her divine face—like a painting—suddenly turning stern.

"You've only been initiated for two days, and you haven't even started Qi Refining, yet you want to take a disciple?"

Xiao Ran was unhurried, speaking slowly, "There's an old saying in my hometown: if you don't have a picture, you... cough, cough. It means that if an immortal cultivator doesn't have a disciple, people will laugh at them when word gets out."

Lingzhou Yue smiled faintly.

"You surely don't want to take this little sister as your disciple, do you?"

Chuyan felt aggrieved and extremely resentful, yet she didn't dare say much.

"Precisely."

Xiao Ran chewed on the tiger liver, its thick, bitter fragrance indescribable.

"Your disciple has mastered farming, architecture, and culinary arts, but I suffer from having no successor a hundred years from now. I'm afraid there won't be anyone to wait on Master by then, so I want to take a disciple first to pass on my mantle. That way, when your disciple departs for the west one day, it won't leave Master too lonely."

Rippling spring light fluttered slightly in her starry eyes as Lingzhou Yue raised her flask and took a sip of poisonous wine.

"As you like, just don't forget your master after taking a disciple."

Congratulations to the host for gaining 3 Filial Piety Points!

Xiao Ran felt a shock in his heart.

He hadn't expected that speaking nicely, as long as it could move Master, could also reap a wave of Filial Piety Points. This showed the importance of oral technique.

"Chuyan, why aren't you quickly calling out to Master and Grandmaster?"

Xiao Ran, I'm going to kill you!

Curse-assaulting inwardly, the young girl behaved very obediently on the outside.

"Master, Grandmaster."

Xiao Ran didn't let the opportunity slip, reaching out to pat that delicate little head.

"Good disciple."

Chuyan sat with an obedient posture, secretly gritting her teeth in her heart.

Xiao Ran looked back at Master, who was drinking by herself and didn't say much, though her voluptuous figure grew increasingly ethereal.

"Master, you seem to be poisoned."

"Is that so?"

Lingzhou Yue gave the wine flask a pretense of a glance.

"There's too much fake wine around nowadays."

Xiao Ran said, "Today is a good day. To celebrate Master becoming a grandmaster, we should drink a cup to our heart's content."

Lingzhou Yue shook her head.

"Pity my wine—people will die if you drink it."

"Wait a moment."

Xiao Ran got up, went to the wine cellar in the Southern Valley, and took out the malt wine that had just finished fermenting.

He packed it into a wooden barrel, weighing a full fifty-odd catties.

As expected of an immortal spiritual land, the speed of extracting juice was truly unmatched.

The liquid was pressed into the spiritual energy, cool as ice, transparent in color, slightly yellowish, with a very faint aroma resembling the light grain fragrance drifting from wind-blown wheat waves.

Returning to the Sword Plaza, he placed the wine barrel on a giant boulder.

He took out three white porcelain bowls and filled them with the clear wine.

Looking at the voluptuous, wool-bearing master and the petite tool apprentice in front of him, forming a stable closed loop of filial piety, Xiao Ran felt in a great mood.

"This is my newly brewed malt wine. Let's do a three-part master-disciple sworn brotherhood."

"Malt can brew wine too?"

Lingzhou Yue didn't care about any sworn brotherhood; her attention was entirely focused on the wine.

Her noble, slightly upturned nasal tip twitched slightly.

...This is clearly horse urine, isn't it?

Xiao Ran smiled without a word, picked up the porcelain white bowl, and took the first sip himself.

The coolness entered his throat like a cascading waterfall, pouring straight from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

His limbs, bones, and internal organs were cleansed and scoured clean, spotless, as if his physical body had opened a skylight. His entire body felt transparent, enlightened, and merged with heaven and earth.

All the toxins in his body and even his waste products were washed away, degraded, and completely dissipated.

This was a completely different experience from the tiger meat stimulating his taste buds and impacting the pill wall.

His entire person was purified!

Chuyan also took a timid sip.

It was as if her entire body had been unblocked. In an instant, her small face turned red, her gaze became clear-eyed, and her view of Xiao Ran was completely different.

To a germ-phobic girl like her, eating tiger meat was an act of forced helplessness—she had had no choice but to grit her teeth and bite down, ultimately resulting in her Dantian and Qi Sea being stimulated.

Drinking malt wine was simply fucking amazing!

"Really or fake?"

Looking at the exaggerated reactions of Xiao Ran and Chuyan, Lingzhou Yue picked up her bowl with a trace of disgust and took a tiny sip.

In just a fraction of a second, her sword-like brows softened, as if she were seeing the starry sky.

Xiao Ran silently collected Filial Piety Points.

Congratulations to the host for gaining 1 Filial Piety Point!

Another sip, and another, until it was drained in the blink of an eye.

Congratulations to the host for gaining 1 Filial Piety Point!

Congratulations to the host for gaining 1 Filial Piety Point!

Lingzhou Yue intuitively felt refreshed and clear-headed. Inadvertently, the accumulated toxic wine in her body was actually dissolved and cleared away...

However, as a wine world heavyweight, her stature was grand; she wasn't so easily conquered.

"Your clear wine does taste alright, but it's too light. It's not suited for an old wine drinker who has experienced the vicissitudes of life like me."

Xiao Ran smiled.

"Then drink some more."

Glug glug glug glug...

Congratulations to the host...

It wasn't just Lingzhou Yue.

Whether out of joy for joining Sword-Wielding Mountain, the suffocating frustration of being reduced to Xiao Ran's disciple, or simply because the malt wine tasted too good, Chuyan couldn't help drinking a lot of it as well.

Xiao Ran smiled without a word, but he didn't dare drink even a single drop more himself.

The after-effects of this wine were extremely strong!

Heaven-shattering! Moreover, these weren't aftereffects coming from alcohol or spiritual power, but from insights into heaven and earth and the tracing of one's life.

Xiao Ran had only taken a single sip before he recalled all sorts of things from his past life—sour, sweet, bitter, astringent, and how many people were separated by impassable seas of time.

Chuyan quickly fell victim as well.

Tracing back her past days in the palace, she suddenly thought of her deceased mother... Her delicate body went soft, and she collapsed onto the Sword Plaza.

"The little girl is still too green. Trying to drink like an adult—she can get drunk on three bowls of clear wine."

Lingzhou Yue was an old drinker after all; pointing rivers and mountains and shouting with abandon, the world spun upside down in the blink of an eye, seas turned into mulberry fields, and she thumped to the ground.

One soft cry, one heavy thump, with barely ten breaths between them.

This wine was vicious!

Xiao Ran sealed the wine barrel and placed it into the System Space, where it could be kept absolutely fresh.

He looked back at the ground.

On one side was the bold and unconstrained female master, her appearance as beautiful as a painting and her body carved like a deity or demon, though her collapsed posture wasn't very graceful, giving people plenty of room for wild imagination.

On the other side was the newly acquired female tool apprentice—a five-foot loli with a pure and ethereal exterior yet a lewd heart inside, whose limp posture made her look tender, delicate, and endearing.

Probabilistically speaking, two first-class stunning beauties weren't easy to gather together.

Xiao Ran looked up at the brilliant starry sky.

Transmigrators were always surrounded by beauties... It really was a law of the netherworld! He opened the System Panel and glanced at his Filial Piety Points.

After successively purchasing architecture arts, brewing arts, farming arts, and culinary arts--

His Filial Piety Points had still risen to 50!

Xiao Ran had a premonition that in the coming days, as long as he gave Master shoulder rubs and hot spring baths every day, along with fruits, vegetables, home-style stir-fries, and barbecued seafood...

100 Filial Piety Points, Qi Refining cultivation... was right before his eyes! Thinking this way, he suddenly became full of drive, wishing he could immediately--

Suddenly! A flash of white silk appeared before his eyes.

Xiao Ran was kicked flat onto the ground.

His left wrist was firmly pinned down by a knee covered in translucent bamboo-membrane white gauze, his right wrist was tightly pressed by a soft, slender little hand, and his waist and abdomen were pinned flat by another knee.

A sharp sword blade pressed against his lower jaw, flashing with a chilling, cold gleam amidst the flickering firelight.

This wretched posture...

No, this posture wasn't wretched at all! Xiao Ran looked closely and saw that both hands with which he could wield Resonance Power were thoroughly restrained, while the waist and abdomen needed for executing movement techniques were also pressed flat.

In other words, even when dealing with him as a mortal, because she had tasted the potency of Resonance Power, the young girl didn't show the slightest carelessness and completely locked him down.

This little girl wasn't naive and innocent at all like she looked; she was extremely cautious.

Xiao Ran was glad he had used a roundabout strategy to conquer the young girl; otherwise, running into her during the Disciple Challenge would have been a very tricky matter.

Chuyan was a Golden Core cultivator after all. After fainting, she cleared the residual alcohol in her Dantian with her subconscious, suddenly flipped over, and kicked Xiao Ran down.

Then she knelt astride his body, firmly locking down his evil hands of resonance, and pointed her sword at him to wash away her past humiliation.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Sword-Wielding Elder hadn't woken up yet, Chuyan half-knelt on top of Xiao Ran and demanded in a sharp voice,

"You took advantage of me!"

Even with a sharp sword pressed against his jaw, Xiao Ran remained as calm as an ancient well.

He felt that apart from not being able to exert force, being pinned down felt quite comfortable.

"Master is bigger than you everywhere, and I didn't even think about taking advantage of her—how could I possibly take advantage of a child like you?"

"You--"

Chuyan gritted her teeth and steadied her breath.

"I mean, you took advantage of my seniority!"

Xiao Ran smiled.

"If you couldn't enter Sword-Wielding Mountain, you'd still have to call me Martial Uncle. Now calling me Master—is it really that aggravating?"

"Aggravating!"

Chuyan's face flushed red, and she looked close to crying from grievance.

"A good woman will never submit beneath a man!"

So that was your reason for wanting to be on top?

Xiao Ran simply said,

"You don't have to call me Master all the time. In situations where Master isn't around, you can address me by my name or call me whatever you like. However, if Master is nearby, you must call me Master. Sword-Wielding Mountain must maintain a sense of decorum."

Chuyan gave him a resentful look.

"What if I don't agree?"

Xiao Ran curled his lips, looking like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water.

"Then we'll see each other in the Disciple Challenge arena, and from then on you'll never have another chance to get this close to Master like today."

"Fine, I agree."

Quite unexpectedly, Chuyan agreed very readily.

Naturally, she knew the pros and cons of the matter; pointing her sword at him was merely to give Xiao Ran a preemptive warning so he wouldn't bully her in the future.

"Remember, you are not allowed to take advantage of me in the future!"

Xiao Ran thought to himself:

Was he, Xiao Ran, that kind of person?

Draining the pond to catch fish was unacceptable; mutual benefit was the perfect method for manipulating a tool apprentice.

"Your master dislikes using seniority to crush others. Even though you are a disciple, whatever you do or say will be entirely based on your own free will. As your master, I won't take advantage of you."

And you have the nerve to call yourself 'your master' while saying you won't take advantage of me? Chuyan pulled a small face, released Xiao Ran, got up, and put away her sword. While straightening her clothes, she issued a casual threat.

"If you dare to bully me in the future, sneak up and touch me while I'm sleeping, or get me pregnant, I'll castrate you and flee back to the palace, leaving your child to live from childhood in a world without a father, bullied by others, and subjected to endless humiliation!"

Xiao Ran's breath choked, and he couldn't speak for a long time.

His jaw dropped so far it felt connected by only a layer of skin.

As expected of you, thinking so far ahead...

After a long while, he steadied himself and said earnestly,

"That's a matter between husband and wife, not something that should be done between master and disciple."

Chuyan still glared at him.

"Don't lie!"

Xiao Ran shook his head and turned to look at Master.

"Master is too deep in her drunken stupor and probably can't be woken up. I need to carry Master to the hot spring pool to sober her up—give me a hand."

Chuyan's eyes went straight, and she hurriedly stopped him. "Men and women should not touch in public; let me do it!"

"Could you wipe your drool first, please?"

How could Xiao Ran hand over such a prime opportunity to show filial piety? Without another word, he hoisted Master onto his back and walked off.

"Remember one thing—filial piety toward Master is my responsibility, and your responsibility is to show filial piety to me."