The Sinister Tang Sect

At his words, Bei Bei looked utterly helpless, pointing at Chen Ping without knowing what to say.

"You're definitely going to be a troublemaker once you get into school. I can see that already... All right, my name is Bei Bei, and this is Tang Ya. You can call her Senior Xiao Ya."

As he spoke, Bei Bei shifted where he sat and held out his hand to Chen Ping.

Chen Ping hurriedly reached out and shook his hand, introducing himself. "Senior Bei Bei, Senior Xiao Ya, then we can officially say we know each other now."

"My name is Chen Ping. I'm here to take our school's entrance exam in a little over two months."

At that, Xiao Ya's eyes immediately began darting about.

The mere fact that Chen Ping had risked entering the centipede cave alone was enough for Xiao Ya to conclude that his family probably did not have a single soul master, and likely was not particularly well-off, either.

Otherwise, there was no way his family would have left Chen Ping to figure out how to hunt soul beasts himself. Even if they had to smash their pots and sell the iron, they should have spent some Gold Soul Coins to hire one or two soul master mercenaries to help him acquire a Soul Ring.

He might even have been an orphan!

At that thought, Xiao Ya immediately grew excited and shot Bei Bei a meaningful look.

Bei Bei nodded to her and asked, "Brother Chen, who else is there in your family?"

Chen Ping smiled somewhat helplessly. "They're all gone. I'm the only one left."

Tang Ya was delighted and blurted out, "That's wonderful!"

Chen Ping's face twitched. He had known it. With Tang Ya's emotional intelligence, there was no escaping that line.

Although the original owner of his body and his entire family had already died by the time Chen Ping transmigrated here, Tang Ya's dumbass level of emotional intelligence still made it awfully hard to choose to follow her.

Joining the Tang Sect was something Chen Ping absolutely would not do.

That was not merely because Tang Ya lacked emotional intelligence, nor because, following the original story's trajectory, Xiao Ya would most likely make new disciples kowtow to her instead of accepting them on behalf of her own master.

Although Chen Ping found those things somewhat hard to stomach, he still understood the principle that money was hard to earn and shit was hard to swallow.

If a few resounding kowtows could get him five or six self-created soul skills for free, Chen Ping would not mind sacrificing that little bit of dignity.

In a person's lifetime, the things they could never see past came down to eight words: life and death, success and failure, right and wrong, honor and disgrace.

Having walked along the edge of death, Chen Ping no longer placed quite so much importance on honor and disgrace.

The problem, however, was that something was wrong with the Tang Sect.

That was not to say anything was wrong with Bei Bei and Tang Ya, the two cats, big and small, among the Tang Sect's current handful of scraps.

Rather, the entire sect gave off an eerie, sinister air.

Where was the Tang Sect's old headquarters?

In Heaven Dou City!

Where did Huo Yuhao's story begin?

In Star Luo City!

Huo Yuhao, who lived in Star Luo City, had fucking grown up hearing legends about the Tang Sect, a sect from Heaven Dou City ten thousand years ago. Were they fucking kidding him?

Shrek had stood for ten thousand years, so growing up hearing legends about Shrek made perfect sense. But what sorry fucking shape was the Tang Sect in?

Judging by the job Chen Ping had taken a couple of days earlier, the Tang Sect had declined so far that it could not even decide the surname of a child with the blue silver grass martial soul born to a man who had married into the sect.

The dispute over whether the boy should be named Tang Xiaolong or Wang Xiaolong already showed just how far the Tang Sect had fallen.

Yet under those circumstances, Huo Yuhao had somehow fucking grown up hearing stories about the Tang Sect.

If Chen Ping still stubbornly dared to crawl into that demonic den, who knew when a mental brand would be welded onto his forehead?

And that was the better outcome. The worse one was that Tang San might discover this little insect could interfere with his training of Huo Gua and simply poke Chen Ping to death with one finger.

So Chen Ping merely shrugged and put on a troubled expression. "Is... is that really appropriate?"

By then, Chen Ping's remark had left Bei Bei red-faced with embarrassment. He glared fiercely at Tang Ya and rapped her on the head. "What kind of thing is that to say?"

Only then did Bei Bei cup his hands toward Chen Ping. "My girlfriend sometimes speaks without thinking. I'm sorry, Brother Chen Ping."

Normally, if Tang Ya heard Bei Bei outright call her his girlfriend, she would have jumped up, clawing and snapping, and demanded that he call her Teacher Xiao Ya.

But now she, too, had realized just how thoughtless her words had been. She hugged her knees and buried her head between them, too ashamed to face anyone, so naturally she could not emerge to contradict Bei Bei.

Bei Bei also knew that continuing to try to recruit Chen Ping into the Tang Sect at this point would truly mean showing him no respect and trampling him into the dust, so he hurriedly changed the subject.

"Brother Chen, since you and Xiao Ya have both obtained the Soul Rings you wanted, hurry and absorb them. I'll stand guard for you both."

"But to be safe, it would be best if you took turns rather than doing it together. How does that sound?"

"I also happen to have some medicine here, so we can treat the wounds on your face."

"We won't be able to prevent scarring, but our academy's healing teachers are very experienced at removing scars. You can have them removed once you get to school."

At those words, the somewhat chilly expression on Chen Ping's face immediately melted, and he smiled faintly. "I'd feel bad putting you to so much trouble."

Although Chen Ping had known all along that Tang Ya would blurt out that offensive remark, and felt little about the words themselves.

There were plenty of things that, if you did not mind them, others might take as an invitation to push their luck.

Thus, Chen Ping had still kept his expression slightly cold.

Only when Bei Bei changed the subject, offered to stand guard, and provided medicine free of charge did he show his goodwill.

Chen Ping then took the offered way down, restoring the warm atmosphere the three of them had shared just after killing the Greater Touch Dragon King.

Stripped bare, that was all there was to navigating human relationships.

If you only ever gave others face, you were failing to value your own dignity. And what you did not value, others would not value either.

In the original story, Huo Yuhao showed little reaction upon hearing Tang Ya's words and instead continued to show Tang Ya and Bei Bei every courtesy.

So Tang Ya and Bei Bei genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with that remark, and went right ahead with inviting Huo Yuhao to join the Tang Sect and making him kowtow.

That did not show how wicked Tang Ya and Bei Bei were. They genuinely believed it was no big deal. You could not expect two thirteen- or fourteen-year-old children to consider every angle.

Had Huo Yuhao's expression changed even slightly at those words, the two of them would have hurriedly picked up the social graces they had tossed to the back of their minds.

By then, Tang Ya had lifted her head from between her knees again. "Hehe, little brother Chen, don't be angry with me, okay? You absorb your Soul Ring first. Once you've finished and become a one-ring soul master, I'll have two soul masters standing guard for me. That'll be safer."

For a girl Tang Ya's age, that already counted as an apology. Chen Ping nodded slightly as well. "How could I be angry, Senior Xiao Ya? Then I'll absorb my Soul Ring first."

"I'll try to make quick work of it. I'll be counting on you two seniors to stand guard while I absorb my Soul Ring."

In the end, Chen Ping had not called them Big Brother Bei Bei or Sister Xiao Ya, but addressed them as seniors instead. It was hard to say there was not a little calculation behind that choice.

If nothing else, given Bei Bei's identity as Mu En's great-great-grandson, once Chen Ping addressed them as his seniors, Bei Bei was sure to guard him to the highest possible standard unless some life-or-death crisis arose.