What a Transmigrator Should Do

Xue Mu turned to Yue Xiaochan. "Didn't you say that everything besides strength was merely peripheral? Why is this music so accomplished?"

Yue Xiaochan replied lazily, "Because sound is also part of martial arts, and our sect happens to excel at it. What you're hearing has actually been infused with a rudimentary layer of our sect's Bewitching Arts, which is why it feels as though it reaches straight into your soul. Remove the technique, and its standard would be fairly ordinary."

"Uh..." Xue Mu understood now. Anything useful to martial arts—such as clothing or musical arts—would be developed to a high level because it could serve as part of the Bewitching Arts. Things useless to martial arts, like calligraphy, painting, poetry, and the like, were merely hobbies and diversions, so they developed poorly.

It was not just the Star Moon Sect. The whole world was like this.

Yue Xiaochan pointed at her own nose again. "If you're truly interested in music, this young lady is a top-notch expert, one who ranks among the best in the world. Yet you came all this way just to listen to musical courtesans sing. Your brain must be growing grass."

You've never shown me anything... How about playing the flute in a bamboo grove sometime? Xue Mu could not be bothered to squabble with a child, so he simply laid it out plainly. "Compared to the music, those lyrics just now were unbearably vulgar. What was that 'My lord has not come for so long, and my heart is frantic with sorrow'? Could they be any more idiotic? No matter how good the tune is, those lyrics kill all the atmosphere! Do the customers really buy into it?"

"How many characters do you think the customers know? Even if the girls sang something flowery and luxuriant, tender and heart-wrenching, what would be the point if the customers could not understand it?" Yue Xiaochan looked at him strangely. "Most things in the world are like that, aren't they? When you write a martial arts manual, you do it to preserve your own legacy, so naturally the easier it is to understand, the better. Unless you deliberately want to trick people, if you make it all mist-shrouded mountains and cloud-wreathed peaks and cause people to practice wrongly, wouldn't you be severing your own legacy and cutting off your own Dao?"

So you're saying Huang Shang was an idiot? Daoist terminology misleading people could still be blamed on Mei Chaofeng being uneducated, but why was the general outline even in Sanskrit...? Xue Mu realized that Yue Xiaochan had actually brainwashed him with a single sentence. He had truly begun to wonder whether Huang Shang had been a little foolish... It took him quite a while to come back to himself. His mouth twitched. "What you're saying... The Capital City looks prosperous. Surely people aren't that uneducated? Could they really fail to understand a song?"

"It has little to do with the Capital City. Only those born into major sects and great Lineages generally care about literacy, since their legacies are profound." Yue Xiaochan thought for a moment. "Ordinary people basically know some characters too. Bookshops sell basic cultivation techniques, after all, so they have to be able to read them. Besides, what if one day they got lucky as dog shit and stumbled upon some inheritance? Wouldn't they be furious to death if they could not read it? Anyway, that's roughly how it is. Nobody cares about flowery things. I forget what year it was, but someone once presented the emperor with a congratulatory essay full of parallel prose in fours and sixes. The imperial brush wrote in reply: 'Nothing but dog fart.' It became the laughingstock of the realm. Don't you go learning that."

"Besides manuals, what other books do you have?"

"Do tales of the martial world count? Or the history of the founding of the nation?"

"Fine. Barely."

Xue Mu suddenly felt that the literacy rate in this world might be outrageously high. After all, everyone needed manuals, and their reading comprehension was probably not low either. They were certainly not the illiterates he had originally imagined. It was simply that they treated writing only as a condition and vehicle for martial practice, emphasizing practical value. It had never developed into literature; to them, ornate writing had no meaning whatsoever. In a world with such an atmosphere, literature was probably the most obscure discipline. Poetry and song were basically still at the stage of folk ballads, while popular novels likely had not yet developed.

Xue Mu found this world increasingly interesting... Their pragmatism toward writing actually made quite a bit of sense, but the people of this world seemed not to realize that playing with words could likewise produce extraordinary effects no less potent than Bewitching Arts. Moreover, words possessed a terrifying power to spread and brainwash, something other methods found difficult to achieve—what Xue Mu cared about was not literature. In his profession, what came to mind was propaganda.

They had a hundred schools contending for the Dao, yet they had not unearthed the propagandistic power of writing. Especially this sect that possessed song, dance, and Bewitching Arts—they did not know how to use such advantages for operations and promotion, celebrity endorsements, and instead treated them merely as disciplines accompanying martial arts.

No, they had celebrities too. Their celebrity was Xue Qingqiu. If anyone had joined the sect because of its fame, or had been willing to learn about the Dao of the Star Moon Sect, then Xue Qingqiu's power of appeal accounted for at least ninety-nine percent of it. Was that why they kept climbing the path of martial arts?

As before, different paths led to the same destination. The people of this world simply believed with one track minds that strength alone was the foundation of everything. That was not fundamentally wrong, but it was far too rigid.

Xue Mu even felt that, with the Star Moon Sect's foundation, if he were the one running it, there would be far too many moves he could make. Perhaps within a few years, he might bring earth-shattering changes to this world.

Pull the whole world into a rhythm he excelled at, then defeat them with his abundant experience—perhaps that was what a transmigrator truly ought to do?

Xue Mu looked downstairs. There were few customers in the main hall. Some held drinking courtesans in their arms while gesturing through martial moves, and the courtesans would even stretch out their delicate hands and exchange two or three blows with them—bang bang bang—all accompanied by lingering strings and bamboo pipes. The scene was absurd beyond measure, and Xue Mu could not help laughing aloud.

What an interesting world. It made him all the more eager to explore it.

At that moment, Meng Lan came in carrying a wooden tray, on which sat several small dishes and a pot of wine. Yue Xiaochan looked at her with a half-smile. "Why are you personally bringing the dishes? Could it be that you've taken a fancy to our Young Master Xue?"

Meng Lan covered her lips and smiled. "With the Young Sect Master here, naturally I could not let those clumsy servants spoil the refined pleasure."

Xue Mu tasted a bite of the food. It was quite good. It seemed that basic desires like appetite developed quickly anywhere...

The wine was even better... It was smooth and soft upon entering the mouth, its rich fragrance piercing straight through his lungs and entrails. Though its strength was not high, an ancient, rustic charm quietly spread through him. Though he was clearly seated in an elegant room, Xue Mu felt as if he were standing in a mountain stream, clear spring water flowing by. The effect was fantastical.

This world did have a touch of fantasy to it. Some things ultimately could not be judged by common sense.

Yet Yue Xiaochan seemed to be in a poor mood. She casually picked at a few bites, then set down her chopsticks and stopped eating. With a sigh, she said, "Master has gone to the Six Fan Gates. I wonder how things are going."

Meng Lan smiled. "With the Sect Master acting personally, there is naturally nothing in this world she cannot accomplish."

Yue Xiaochan shot her a glance. "Everyone knows Xiahou Di's mind is not normal. There's no point saying such pleasant words, Senior Sister."

Meng Lan seemed somewhat embarrassed and lowered her head without speaking.

Yue Xiaochan continued, "When I was little, I remember Senior Sister wasn't someone who knew how to flatter people either. Otherwise, you might have entered the inner sect long ago... But this time, you seem very different..."

Meng Lan remained silent.

Even Xue Mu, who had been immersed in the delicacies of this foreign world, lifted his head to glance at her. Compared to how she had eagerly flirted with him before, Meng Lan at this moment truly seemed like an entirely different person. Her silence astonished him. That Meng Lan who exuded seduction from every inch of her body seemed to have been nothing more than a fleeting glimpse in a dream.

Everyone in this sect truly had a thousand faces. Did Star Moon mean fickleness?

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