Chu Xingchen glanced over, then turned his gaze back.
First things first: never panic when something happened, even if Yaoqin's smile, which never reached her eyes, did look rather frightening.
Strictly speaking, though, there was no real relationship between him and Yaoqin.
She had no reason to interfere with him. As long as he didn't lose his nerve, he wasn't in the wrong!
Most importantly, bootlickers died miserable deaths. Better to die than lick boots.
There was no way he was admitting fault.
Clearly, however, Yaoqin thought otherwise.
Yaoqin took two steps forward, and the women surrounding Chu Xingchen automatically made way.
Her gaze fixed on Chu Xingchen, Yaoqin asked, "Didn't you say you were taking your disciples to the temple fair today?"
Only when Yaoqin approached and spoke did the women around him suddenly notice that an extraordinarily beautiful woman had arrived.
And she seemed to be an old acquaintance of the handsome young man before them.
But so what if they knew each other?
The woman in a dress leaning against Chu Xingchen couldn't bear to leave him. She said softly:
"The master said he would teach us palm reading. We're all his disciples~"
At those words, Yaoqin turned her icy gaze toward the woman in the dress.
Under the glare of those beautiful eyes, the woman felt her entire body turn cold and her soul tremble.
It was as though the gulf between them existed on the level of their souls.
"Get lost." Yaoqin's voice was cold.
The woman dared not argue another word. She hurriedly lifted her skirt, pushed through the crowd, and fled.
The other women also sensed trouble. A fine gentleman was all well and good, but their lives mattered quite a bit, too!
The woman before them was probably a cultivator. How could ordinary mortals like them dare provoke those cultivators who flew through the skies?
Reluctant though they were, they still quickly left.
A ring of empty space suddenly opened around Chu Xingchen.
Yaoqin's gaze returned to Chu Xingchen, and she repeated her question:
"Didn't you say you were visiting the temple fair with your disciples today?"
Chu Xingchen pointed at the ground. "Here's the temple fair."
Then he pointed at his two ungrateful disciples nearby. She had come right up to him, and neither had even warned him:
"Add those two disciples over there, and doesn't that make this a visit to the temple fair with my disciples?"
Looking at the utterly self-righteous Chu Xingchen, Yaoqin tightened her grip on her jade-handled fan.
"What brings you here, too?" Chu Xingchen asked with a light laugh. "I remember you don't like joining crowds like this. Could you have come looking for me?"
"Pah! Who came looking for you?" Yaoqin turned sideways. "Who do you think you are?"
"An old friend, of course." Chu Xingchen flicked his sleeves and planted both hands on his hips. "How do I look in this outfit?"
Yaoqin looked him up and down. She had to admit that clothes really did make the man. Compared with the shabbily dressed Chu Xingchen of the past, his bearing truly seemed to have undergone a qualitative leap.
"Who bought you those clothes?"
"My eldest disciple, of course."
"Hmph. Wearing those clothes, you actually look like a person," Yaoqin sneered.
"Thanks for the compliment." Chu Xingchen didn't mind in the slightest.
Li Yingling approached from a distance, waving her little fan with a broad smile, and called out cheerfully:
"Master~"
Chu Xingchen shot his little threadbare coat an irritated glare, then turned his eyes to Li Xingtian behind her, demanding to know why he, too, had failed to warn him.
Looking utterly innocent, Li Xingtian gestured toward his senior sister with his eyes. Senior Sister wouldn't let me!
Despite her icy tone, Yaoqin wasn't actually angry.
She knew Chu Xingchen's temperament. To put it in his own shameless words: With a face like mine, they expect to enjoy it without paying?
Even before Yaoqin had met Chu Xingchen, she had known he was a regular at the Brothel.
His specialty was getting freebies on the strength of his face. Naturally, the current scene hardly amounted to anything.
She was just a little annoyed. He was already at the golden core stage, so why did he still seem to lack even a shred of a golden core cultivator's bearing?
What golden core True Person sat around touching hands with ordinary mortals and reading their palms?
Yaoqin gently waved her fan, lifting a few strands of her fringe. "Today's Waterwood Dharma Assembly is worth a look."
Li Yingling was quick to make herself at home. She slipped her hand around Yaoqin's arm and asked curiously:
"Big Sister Yaoqin, does this Waterwood Dharma Assembly actually have something to it?"
Chu Xingchen said deliberately, "What do you mean, Big Sister? Call her Martial Aunt Yaoqin."
Without hesitation, Yaoqin raised her fan and smacked Chu Xingchen with it, then gave a cold laugh:
"Don't want your spirit stones anymore?"
At those words, Chu Xingchen instantly forgot everything he had just said and asked in an innocent tone:
"Big Sister Yaoqin, is there something special about today's Waterwood Dharma Assembly?"
Chu Xingchen was now so poor that he had nothing left but silver and gold. He didn't have a single usable spirit stone. If the Blood Qi Spirit Stones couldn't be restored, the spirit stones Yaoqin had promised as payment were his only hope of setting up a Spirit Gathering Formation.
What was dignity worth in the face of spirit stones?!
"Master... please, leave your disciple a little dignity," Li Yingling sighed. "If you keep this up, I won't dare go out with you anymore."
Li Yingling felt that her master's bottom line was far too flexible, especially whenever something like spirit stones was involved.
"My dear disciple, don't ask your master for spirit stones in the future!" Chu Xingchen snapped.
"Master! I was wrong!" Li Yingling promptly backed down as well.
Li Xingtian silently sighed to himself.
His senior sister had learned every last bit of their master's shamelessness.
Will I announce my sect someday, only for the fellow cultivator opposite me to look enlightened and say, "Oh, you're a disciple of that shameless sect"?
Watching the two clowns, Yaoqin felt a little helpless. Like master, like disciple, indeed.
"The Waterwood Dharma Assembly isn't simply a lively gathering," Yaoqin explained. "Chanwood Temple also uses it to gather the wish power of all living beings."
Chu Xingchen and Li Xingtian immediately lost interest. They wouldn't want wish power even if it were given to them for free.
In this world, immortal cultivation was the sole broad highway, the one absolute path.
But the world was vast, and beyond that great highway, there were naturally a few narrow trails.
For instance, there was the Martial Artist's path: tempering oneself until one's own body became a world.
There was also the Confucian Scholar's Way, attaining clarity of the Great Dao through study.
Wish power was another such path, and could loosely be considered a unique form of spiritual power.
Yet even Evil Cultivators looked down on this power.
Every power obtained for free came at a price, and this was especially evident with wish power.
Perhaps it had something to do with how absorbing wish power required neither root bone nor spiritual root. Even spirits and monsters of the wilderness could do it.
Most wilderness spirits and monsters occasionally awakened intelligence, but had no cultivation methods. They knew only how to breathe in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Even with excellent talent, without a cultivation method, they could breathe until they died and still never break through to foundation establishment.
Thus, wish power became the clearest of the paths available to them.
But its price was also painfully obvious.
Once someone used wish power to raise their cultivation, they could never do without it for the rest of their life. The moment they stopped absorbing wish power, the cultivation they had gained through it would fall.
Moreover, that decline was almost irreversible. Once they fell from golden core to foundation establishment, reaching the golden core stage again became nearly impossible.
Those who used wish power would ultimately be trapped within it.
And to ensure a steady supply of wish power, they had to fulfill their believers' wishes. If they merely took without giving, who would keep believing in them?
So, in essence, it was a troublesome and unreliable path.
Before you continue