Chapter 15

Water and buckets were already waiting at the edge of the spirit garden.

The water in the buckets was pale blue, with scattered specks of light shimmering through it like stars.

What kind of water was this? Zhao Yingzhi had never seen it before. But he knew that any plants capable of growing in such a cold environment had to be extraordinarily precious.

Zhao Yingzhi lifted a bucket and sucked in a breath. Although it was not as bone-piercingly cold as the stone platform outside the entrance, its temperature was still more than a mere Qi Refining cultivator like him could withstand.

Zhao Yingzhi watered his way along the garden. There were many varieties of medicinal herbs, but he had never seen any of them before.

An hour later, he finally became unable to make even one last movement. His body froze in place, and his awareness gradually blurred.

Zhao Yingzhi wanted to laugh, but he could no longer manage even that simplest of expressions. In his daze, he thought, No wonder this task pays so well. This is fucking harder than hunting demonic beasts. Who would have thought I'd end my life not in a beast's jaws or at another cultivator's hands, but frozen to death watering plants? I wonder if this grand feat will make me famous after I die.

"Ah." A quiet sigh sounded.

"The people coming here have lower and lower cultivation. Another newcomer, probably."

Those were the last words Zhao Yingzhi heard before he lost consciousness entirely.

Inside an icy, pure-white palace, two tall, elegant figures stood talking.

"There's nothing we can do about it. Without cultivating the earlier sections, the later parts of this cultivation manual won't unlock at all."

"No one has practiced it for thousands of years. The ancient texts contain no record of anything like this happening."

"So, what do you intend to do?"

The boy with the younger-looking face lowered his eyes and said coldly, "I can regulate it myself."

The slightly older-looking young man said, "This can't go on forever. That little girl-"

The boy gave a seemingly derisive scoff. "Enough! I, Chu Luohen, am not so useless that I need a little girl's help."

The boy walked coldly into his room.

Chu Mojin watched him recede into the distance and sighed softly, a trace of worry settling over his features.

Seven days passed in a flash. Su Jiu did nothing but cultivate each day. Whenever Senior Sister Han wanted to talk to her, she found her still cultivating. During this time, news also arrived, one after another, that Su Mianmian, Jin Chen, Lu Tianqi, and others had successfully completed qi induction.

Once the seven days were up, Su Jiu went to the Library Pavilion as promised to report to Elder Sun, the old man who had always watched over it.

"Little girl, I'll be leaving the Library Pavilion in your hands for a while."

Su Jiu bowed with her hands clasped. "I won't fail you."

Su Jiu smiled, her blue-green tear mole gleaming in the sunlight. A halo of light seemed to settle over her face as well. She was already adorable, and this added another layer of beauty.

The eyes of several Outer Gate disciples nearby flickered.

One boy, who looked about seventeen or eighteen, curled his lip. "Shame she's a little too young."

Another, plumper boy suggested, "You could start getting on her good side now. It's only a few years."

"That doesn't seem right." Although this boy also liked Su Jiu's pretty face, he harbored no filthy intentions. Instead, he rather disliked the way his companions discussed a little girl.

"Go on, get lost. You're so annoying, Zhao Yingzhi, playing the good guy again." The plump boy shoved the boy who had spoken up for Su Jiu.

Zhao Yingzhi promptly lost interest as well. He clasped his hands toward the two and left.

To him, those two were merely roommates, which was why they sometimes went places together. They were not actually close. As they spent more time together, he had come to understand their temperaments better and better. They were simply not his kind of people.

When he woke up that day, the Steward Hall had informed him that he needed to pay a fine of one spirit stone. He had felt utterly miserable. Now that he had paid it, he was truly penniless.

All he wanted now was to pick up a couple of easy little tasks to replenish his funds. He no longer dared even look at the highly paid ones.

Ever since Su Jiu took charge of the Library Pavilion, she had stopped attending classes. After all, she could already cultivate normally, and the knowledge she had accumulated in her previous life was probably beyond anything those instructors had ever comprehended.

That day, as usual, Su Jiu took out a book related to ice spiritual roots to read while no one was entering the Library Pavilion.

Suddenly, she sensed someone behind her. She turned and caught the mischievous hand reaching toward her.

"Su Mianmian?" Su Jiu stared at her in astonishment, clearly never having expected her to appear here.

Su Mianmian wore sect robes embroidered with golden patterns. Su Jiu could not have been more familiar with those clothes: they were the Personal Disciple robes she had worn throughout her previous life.

Looking at her captured wrist, Su Mianmian blinked her big eyes. "I knew you must have completed qi induction."

As she spoke, she sat on a rock beside Su Jiu.

"How's life in the sect?"

Su Mianmian pouted. "How else could it be? Same as always."

"But my master is really, really strict. He wouldn't even let me leave Blazing Flame Peak until I completed qi induction."

Su Jiu smiled. "You sneaked out to the Outer Gate this time too, didn't you?"

Su Mianmian choked on her words. "It was all because of you."

Then, apparently remembering something amusing, Su Mianmian curved her beautiful, large eyes into crescents. She leaned toward Su Jiu's ear and asked with a quiet laugh, "Do you remember Lu Tianqi?"

Su Jiu paused, not expecting Su Mianmian to bring him up suddenly.

Without waiting for Su Jiu to answer, Su Mianmian continued with a smile, "You know about Lu Tianqi playing the hero and rescuing a beauty in your Outer Gate, right?"

Su Jiu shook her head honestly. "When did that happen?"

This time, Su Mianmian was the one who froze. "Ah Jiu, seriously? You really do shut your ears to everything beyond your window. Disciples on all five main peaks know about this, yet you don't, even though you're in the Outer Gate?"

Su Jiu was baffled. These days, she did nothing but cultivate. It really had been a long time since she paid much attention to anything else.

"Bai Su, the daughter of a concubine from the Bai Lineage in our Peace City. Surely you know her?"

Su Mianmian paused. "I heard Lu Tianqi rescued her outside your Outer Gate dining hall, and now the two of them are together."

Su Jiu smiled. "What's strange about that? Isn't it perfectly normal for like-minded people to become partners?" It was just that Bai Su had rather a lot of like-minded people.

"If that were all, of course there wouldn't be a problem."

"But a True Disciple on Water Shadow Peak, the same peak as Lu Tianqi, seems to have taken a fancy to him and keeps making trouble for Bai Su every day."

"To protect Bai Su, Lu Tianqi took his complaint straight to Luo Cang, the peak master of Water Shadow Peak. Guess what happened?"

Su Jiu frowned. In her memory, the peak master of Water Shadow Peak appeared unfettered, but he was stricter than anyone about his disciples' character. For Lu Tianqi to ask the peak master to intervene over such romantic entanglements would surely make Luo Cang think him ill-suited to pursuing the Great Dao. Even his position as a True Disciple was probably in jeopardy.

"He's probably no longer a True Disciple, is he?"

Sure enough, it was just as she had expected.

Su Mianmian stared at her incredulously. "How did you know?"

"At the time, I kept thinking, a single water spirit root with seventy-percent aptitude! Peak Master Luo really discarded him just like that."

"Lu Tianqi is in the Outer Gate now too, but judging by how little you know, you probably haven't run into him yet."

Su Jiu kept feeling that something was wrong. Only after Su Mianmian left did she suddenly remember what had been recorded in that book.

Lu Tianqi had indeed rescued Bai Su outside the dining hall, and he had indeed brought his complaint before Luo Cang. But Luo Cang had not expelled him to the Outer Gate over it; he had only given him a verbal warning. She remembered that, right up until her death, Lu Tianqi seemed to have remained a True Disciple.

Where exactly had things gone wrong?

Night deepened. Su Jiu gazed at the stars filling the sky. The blue-green tear mole at the corner of her eye glimmered, as though responding to the thoughts in her heart, but she never noticed.