Fanning the Flames

Fifth Elder: Oh, I really ought to thank you!

Li Bai was so frightened that he no longer knew whether he should cry.

A moment later, he let out an earth-shaking hiccup, nearly blowing a bubble out of his nose.

"Pfft!" Lan Yue couldn't stop laughing. She hurriedly took out a Recording Stone and captured a close-up of her eldest senior brother.

[Eldest Senior Brother is such a goof. What was the author thinking, making him a villain? Who ever heard of a villain this cute?]

A villain?

Li Bai scratched the back of his head, unable to make sense of the word.

But Lan Yue's thoughts soon skipped past that and returned to the gossip about the sect master.

"Eldest Senior Brother, let's talk about it in secret later. There are too many people here," Lan Yue whispered furtively beside him.

Feeling the countless concealed strands of Divine Sense around them, Li Bai's scalp practically crawled. Too many people? No kidding! Everyone's Divine Sense is focused on us. Only Junior Sister is carefree enough not to have noticed.

"Maybe you shouldn't say anything, Junior Sister," he suggested, trembling with fear.

"Huh?" Lan Yue had been searching for gossip and hadn't quite heard him.

"Nothing, nothing. Go on, Junior Sister. Go on." Li Bai shook his head repeatedly. He didn't dare join the conversation again, afraid that a few more words would bring another handful of his master's embarrassing secrets spilling out.

If that happened, he really would cry, and he wouldn't even know where to go to do it.

[Should I read those juicy little stories about the sect master and his sworn enemy first, or check the female lead's location?]

Lan Yue couldn't make up her mind. The gossip about the sect master was just too delicious!

None of this had been recorded in the novel she'd read. Most of it had described the main cast's gradual progress. She hadn't expected the Three Realms Gossip System to be this amazing.

There was just one drawback. It did have plenty of gossip, plenty of fresh, juicy tidbits, but reading them consumed Divine Sense.

And she had only recently begun Qi Induction, so her Divine Sense was pitifully limited.

Reading two pieces of gossip today had already left her dizzy.

Damn it, I'll have to cultivate properly, or I won't even get to feast on gossip anymore!

For a gossip-loving girl, that was simply intolerable!

*[Forget it. I'll check my darling daughter's location first. My poor darling has it so rough. Sob, sob, sob...*

*System, where exactly is the female lead right now?]*

Lan Yue couldn't help asking the system in her mind, though she hadn't actually expected an answer.

Ever since she'd bound herself to this system, she had mostly been talking to herself. The system had barely ever replied, and she had almost resigned herself to it.

Yet in the next second...

[System: Soon. The female lead is being bullied on the back mountain right now. You'll find a lead very soon.]

Lan Yue: "!!!!"

[System, so you are alive! What a miracle. You've finally made a peep.]

[System: If I weren't alive, could you feast on gossip? Could you do without me? (▼ヘ▼#)]

[You're right, System. I can't live without you!]

Lan Yue hugged the round little yellow ball of fluff in her sea of consciousness and planted a smacking kiss on it.

The system... the system stopped moving, as though it had crashed.

[Right, what were we talking about? My darling daughter is already on the back mountain? Holy shit, when did the female lead get here?]

Lan Yue was so shocked that she nearly jumped up. She had waited so long for the main cast, and finally, the first one had arrived!

[What a shame. I can't even use Sword Flight. Even if I went, I'd just be serving myself up on a platter...]

Lan Yue frowned, utterly miserable.

[Sigh, when will the sect master notice? Will she have to suffer at other people's hands for a while first, like in the novel? My darling daughter would be too pitiful! Huh? Wait, where's the sect master? Where did he go?]

She turned to look and discovered that the sect master had vanished from the seat of honor at some point. Even many of the elders around him were gone.

They had probably gone to deal with something important. Apparently, the sect master had all sorts of things to handle every day, even the most trivial odds and ends. He was busier than her high school homeroom teacher.

The system had fallen silent, the gossip system wouldn't let her feast on gossip endlessly, and a little weakling who couldn't even use Sword Flight couldn't save the female lead. Lan Yue could only prop her cheek on her hand in boredom and watch the people competing below.

[This round of matches seems a lot more halfhearted than the last. With the sect master gone, have they stopped bothering to keep up appearances?]

At the familiar sound of her thoughts, the people fighting in the arenas nearly spat blood.

What did she mean, they had stopped keeping up appearances because the sect master had left? Wasn't it because the gossip she served up was so sweet that they couldn't resist taking a bite?

How exactly had the sect master and the North Ridge Sacred Son met? They wanted to hear more about the love, hate, and tangled grudges between those two!

Couldn't she take advantage of the sect master's absence to look up more gossip about him?

[Strange. Why are all the arena matches so limp, like they haven't eaten? Could they have worked too hard last night?]

As soon as that thought ended, quite a few elders flew down and fixed stern gazes on the arenas.

Under the elders' severe scrutiny, the disciples no longer dared to pull their punches. Before long, they were locked in fierce back-and-forth exchanges.

[That's more like it. This is how strong my senior brothers and sisters should be. I must not have been fully awake earlier and seen it wrong.]

Lan Yue offered her commentary inwardly while letting out a yawn.

The people in the arenas: "..."

Even knowing that their junior sister was praising them, they still had very mixed feelings.

"Senior Brother in blue, yes, a left hook! Strike while he's weak and take his life!"

"Pretty Senior Sister with the umbrella, when we summon Spirit Rain, we can secretly add something extra! Then you won't just take down that one opponent-you could drop a whole crowd! From now on, let's open with our ultimate move!"

"Senior Brother in black, our silver needles aren't just for healing. We can use them as hidden weapons too..."

"..."

There were five arenas in total, and Lan Yue egged on almost every one of them. The elders overseeing the matches soon noticed that the disciples who had been fighting so peacefully a moment ago had suddenly turned ruthless.

Some concealed needles in their attacks, some laced their rain with poison, and some landed punch after punch squarely on flesh.

Each was fiercer than the last.

Watching them, the elders silently added another layer of protective barriers around the arenas, then quietly retreated a few steps.

They looked at the disciples locked in fierce combat inside the barriers, then at Lan Yue yawning nearby, and their feelings grew even more complicated.

It seemed that although this girl's cultivation talent wasn't much to speak of, her mouth truly could work wonders! Just a few simple words of provocation had transformed the atmosphere of the entire arena.

She had accomplished more than they had by watching over the matches all morning.

The elders didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then they turned their heads again.

Well, well. The little rascal had actually fallen asleep beside the Fifth Elder, clutching his beard. Looking at that sweet, docile little face, no one would ever guess that she had just been stirring up trouble everywhere and fanning the flames.