A Night at the Guesthouse

The fastest update to Seeking the Dao in the Mortal World!

The guesthouse is located behind the main house, in a quiet and secluded place.

Qing Cha led Qin Yi outside, then ran off on her own, saying that the painting wasn't finished yet and that it was her homework.

Qin Yi ignored the little girl and stood quietly behind the house, enjoying the view.

A few camellias were blooming gently by the house, and a mountain spring flowed under the flowering trees. The water was clear and gentle, and occasionally a petal would fall and drift away with the water, not knowing where it would go.

Looking up into the distance, the sky was a hazy yellow, and the distant mountains were indistinct amidst the flickering clouds. The vast mountain range was nowhere to be seen, desolate and boundless. He Ming cried out from the deep marshland, its voice reaching the heavens.

"This scene is worthy of being painted." Qin Yi exclaimed softly, "If I were really a painter, I might want to live here forever and never want to leave."

Liusu said, "Back in Immortal Trace Village, you still had the heart to appreciate the insects chirping and the stars at night. After leaving the mountain, you became increasingly busy and lost those appreciation skills."

"Well, actually I'm a bit of a hipster, aren't I, lol?"

"Likewise," Liusu said calmly. "In the pursuit of Immortal Dao, what is the 'Dao'? The Dao Emulates Own Inherent Spontaneity. If one rushes past the beauty of nature without appreciating it, what Dao are you talking about? It's just piling up power and missing the True Intention. So the Calligraphy and Painting Dao has some significance; you can study it more."

"The Dao Emulates Own Inherent Spontaneity... Even a magic wand like yours says so..."

"In the earliest times, there was no distinction between good and evil in the Dao. Everyone was close to the primordial source. So-called good and evil are merely the two sides of Yin and Yang. From the perspective of the Supreme Being, there is no bias." Liusu said, "The same goes for demons. What is a demon? A soaring crane is not a demon, and the Qing Cha is just a tea leaf tip transformed into a demon. But the ferocious Ye Ling Soaring Serpent, with its raging heavenly fire, is a demon... It's hard to explain."

"Uh, is it a staffing issue?"

"Ha..." Liusu didn't say much, but laughed and said, "You have nothing to say to someone like me who has a cognitive gap of tens of thousands of years. You should discuss this with Minghe when you have time later."

Qin Yi nodded, looked at the scenery for a while, and only when the sun had completely set and the mountains were as dark as ink did he turn around and go into the house.

With a flick of the wrist, a spark landed precisely on the lampstand on the table, and the oil lamp gently ignited.

Surprisingly, the lighting here isn't provided by pearls or Technique Method, but by lamplight. True mountain hermits dwell among the Yunxiu, Return to Nature.

"Overall, the Ten Thousand Dao Immortal Palace isn't really Outer Dao; it's just a difference in ideology," Qin Yi finally said. "Judging from this mountain, they are indeed true immortals, at least much more respectable than the Myriad Phenomena Asura Sect."

The Liusu did not respond. This was exactly what Qin Yi needed to think for himself in his "Three Stacks of the Heart of the Harp," so there was no point in asking for more information.

This guesthouse is also quite unique.

The four sides were covered with lifelike Figure Painting. If Qin Yi didn't know it was a painting, he might have thought it was a photograph at first glance, and a very high-resolution one at that.

Because it's just too real.

It's not something that could be achieved with ink and paint; it looks like something taken with a DSLR camera.

Qin Yi reached out and touched one of the paintings, confirming that it was indeed a drawing and not a photograph.

However, the paper is unique, containing hidden spiritual energy, and even the ink used is very special.

Just like when I made talismans, yellow paper and cinnabar were rare items, and Jing Ze was recruited by the Myriad Phenomena Asura Sect because he had a Soul Startling Brush. The principle is similar. Mortal objects cannot be used to depict the treasures of immortals.

On the other wall opposite the bedside table was a whole bookcase, filled with books, countless in number.

Liusu suddenly said, "For ordinary collections, you only need to use the kind of jade slip that Minghe gave you to record. A single Law Technique can collect and record hundreds of millions of words, so there's no need for a bookcase like this. This is a special insistence, so don't damage other people's books."

Qin Yi hummed in agreement. Even without his Liusu, he could understand why the immortals used paper books; these were generally considered more solemn items, such as Buddhist or Daoist scriptures. For the women here, they probably treated any book as a kind of classic text.

The books placed in the guesthouse are not obscure classics, but mostly folk tales, meant to help guests pass the time and have some fun.

Qin Yi casually picked up a book and flipped through it; it was actually quite interesting.

This is, after all, a world with a long history of civilization. If calligraphy and painting can be considered essential skills, then one's writing level will naturally be quite high.

But as he looked at it, his eyes started to glaze over.

It's actually a harem novel, with a strong sense of romance and some ambiguous scenes that can make you blush. While it's not exactly explicit erotica, it certainly doesn't seem like something the women of this area would read...

Hmm, she probably hadn't read it before; she just casually left this kind of book in the guesthouse for the guests to read.

If it were before he transmigrated, Qin Yi would probably have really wanted to finish reading it, but at this moment he really didn't have much interest in reading novels, so he just flipped through it and put it back.

He found it rather amusing. In the mortal world, living in Crown Prince Residence —a place that should be filled with books and classics—he had no books at all. He had even asked Li Qingjun to find him some, but Li Qingjun got inexplicably angry, and to this day, he hadn't read a single book except for the secret manuals. Yet here in this fairyland, the hermitage of immortals, he found a cabinet full of idle books. It was truly a reversal of roles.

Since that's the case, it wouldn't be bad to give her some of the stories I remember tomorrow. It would be a way to let Chinese civilization flourish in this place and also to establish a good relationship with Boss Huiyang.

With that thought in mind, Qin Yi stopped observing, extinguished the candle, and went to bed to meditate.

Since he officially began cultivating immortality, his sleeping has been completely replaced by meditation. He really doesn't know why the woman here can sleep so soundly that her own disciple calls her a pig.

Night was falling.

Qin Yi was circulating his internal energy, and as his mind and spirit were in harmony, a warning suddenly arose in his heart.

This was a habit he developed through experience. He had simply set up a warning array when he entered the room, so that any strange force entering the range would wake him up.

Qin Yi regained his composure, opened his eyes, and was stunned by what he saw.

On the paintings of maids by the wall, one of the beauties actually walked gracefully down from the painting, leaving only the background and no one else on the scroll.

When the woman saw Qin Yi open his eyes and look at him, she simply smiled slightly and parted her cherry lips, "The night is bitterly cold, and the guest is lonely in his solitude. I have come to serve you in bed."

"I don't want to serve you in bed."

"Guest, please don't be alarmed." The woman bowed gracefully. "We are but the souls of a painting, possessing neither human purity nor the ethereal presence of ghosts and spirits. To keep you company in your loneliness is our duty as the Painting Souls in this guesthouse; beyond that, we have no reason to exist."

Qin Yi glanced at the other paintings on the wall, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Are all of you painted specifically for entertaining guests?"

"Yes." The woman smiled slightly. "Does Young Master feel that one is not enough?"

Before the words were finished, all the other women in the paintings also stepped down, each with their own unique fragrance and allure, like Plum Orchid Bamboo Chrysanthemum, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums, all looking down with lowered eyes and a look of complete acceptance. "At your service, Young Master."

Qin Yi clicked his tongue and sighed, "So learning to paint has this benefit? You can paint beautiful women for yourself whenever you want?"

"This is the power of immortals," the leading woman laughed. "Our master has given us consciousness, so we exist only for our master, and can be used for whatever purpose."

Qin Yi asked again, as if to confirm, "Really, I can do anything?"

The woman's eyes were alluring as she reached out and slightly opened her robe, saying in a sweet voice, "Of course, anything is fine."

The other women also blushed and gently loosened their sashes.

"Oh." Qin Yi nodded and said seriously, "Since you were painted by the host of this place, you must have a basic Calligraphy and Painting Dao. I have some books in my mind that I can record on jade slips. Copy them into a book and give it to the host of this place. That will be Qin Yi's way of repaying the kindness of staying here."

Several women stared in disbelief.

You asked us to stay and said we'd do anything, but in the end you just wanted us to help you copy books?

On the bed in the main house, the woman opened her eyes, her expression a half-smile, her beautiful eyes shining like stars in the darkness.