Just look at the awful position those two were in...
The little nun had originally been half-seated on the ground. Twisting sideways to push Qi Yan away and shield him with her body made it look as though she had thrown herself onto him. It could hardly have been more embarrassing.
And the little nun herself apparently still had not realized it. She even turned her head to shout, "Senior sister, stop!" her face flushed with urgency.
The flames of Jing Chuan's loathing for stupidity, stoked by Wuzheng, died away entirely. He could not help thinking, It seems we've interrupted you two. Shall we leave?
Wuzheng stared blankly for a long moment before snapping, "Get up already! Where's your propriety!"
"Ah..." Only then did Wunian react, hurriedly getting to her feet.
Having taken Qi Yan's medicine earlier, she had recovered quite a bit by now. At least she did not fall again, or this would have become even harder to explain...
Under everyone's gossip-hungry gazes, Wunian stammered, "S-senior sister, he wasn't taking liberties with me. He was... was helping... It's just that men and women shouldn't touch, so I... I wouldn't let him help. That's all..."
Qi Yan sat on the ground and sighed. "Not bad. For someone so adorably dumb, your reasoning is still perfectly clear. Much better than that senior sister of yours who calls herself Wuzheng."
Wuzheng raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when Qi Yan cut her off. "Enough. I can't stand stupidity, and I don't want to waste any more breath on you. Didn't you hear a nun scream earlier? Go save her already!"
No sooner had he finished than footsteps sounded again. It was the junior brother from Jade Bamboo Peak whom Jing Chuan had teamed up with earlier, carrying an injured, unconscious nun on his back. "Someone help her. She's about to stop breathing."
Soft light immediately rose from Wunian's hands and enveloped the injured nun. A moment later, she relaxed slightly. "It isn't fatal... Our opponent underestimated senior sister's protective Buddhist light and was too hasty."
Qi Yan and Jing Chuan breathed sighs of relief as well. If a nun really died here, even if they had not done it, the aftermath would be troublesome. By now, they were quite certain these nuns were definitely not from some Pure Heart Nunnery. They absolutely came from some prestigious sect and had arrived with ill intentions toward the Heavenly Evolution Sect.
With that background, an actual death would be a real headache. It was good that she could be saved.
Now even Wuzheng could no longer pick fault with them. She bowed to the Jade Bamboo Peak disciple. "Thank you."
The disciple said sourly, "Just stop acting like we owe you eight million. People say long hair means short insight, but you lot have no hair, so how come you have no insight either?"
Wuzheng: "..."
Jing Chuan inwardly gave him a thumbs-up, then asked Qi Yan, "You exchanged blows with the attacker? Could you make out their style?"
Qi Yan was giving him a thumbs-up too. Whatever else might be said about the Heavenly Evolution Sect, it felt pretty damn good to join his fellow disciples in laying into outsiders.
He gave a brief summary aloud. "The attacker wore a black cloth over his face, so I couldn't see it. He used a spear and seemed to be a martial cultivator, but he knew witchcraft curses. His strength should be somewhere between the late Foundation Establishment stage and peak Foundation Establishment. The little nun was only at the early Foundation Establishment stage and couldn't withstand him at all. She crumbled at first contact. So did I."
Jing Chuan's expression grew rather ugly as he listened, because that description sounded very much like the Heavenly Evolution Sect.
Most sects on the Heavenly Prefecture Continent banned witchcraft. Only the Heavenly Evolution Sect had no such prohibition, because its sect master practiced it himself. Although the sect did not openly teach it and most disciples knew none, since it was not prohibited, a handful of disciples naturally explored it on their own. This had always drawn criticism from all sides.
Now this had happened right at Heavenly Evolution's feet. Anyone's first reaction would be to suspect a Heavenly Evolution disciple. Even they themselves thought so, let alone these nuns.
Jing Chuan asked the junior brother from Jade Bamboo Peak, "Do we have anyone who uses a spear? I don't remember any."
The disciple shook his head. "I've never heard of anyone in the sect using a spear. Besides, senior brother, never mind spears-we barely have any martial cultivators to begin with. Otherwise, why would it have taken you so long to find one for your team? Very few practice witchcraft on the side either. Who could there be who does both?"
Jing Chuan turned to Wuzheng. "Did you hear that? Someone is very likely steering you toward suspecting Heavenly Evolution disciples. That bastard attacked our people too. Do you think my Martial Uncle Qi's injuries are fake?"
This time, Wuzheng finally felt something was amiss, but she could not quite bring herself to swallow her pride and apologize. After pursing her lips in thought for a while, she asked Wunian, "What did you discover?"
"Someone tampered with the earth veins," Wunian said. "It's difficult to determine the causes and consequences for now. I need to see the main burial chamber."
No one objected this time, and they all gathered together and headed farther inside.
For a small family like the Wang Family, there was a limit to how much land their burial grounds could occupy. The interior was not very large, and before long, they reached the main burial chamber.
The coffin lid had been lifted, revealing a shriveled, dried corpse lying inside. This was Qi Yan's first time seeing such a thing, and he found it a little nauseating. Everyone else took it in stride. Even the little nun Wunian stepped forward to examine it without a change in expression.
"No corpse refinement, no corpse puppet, no drought demon," Wunian concluded. "But there are traces of witchcraft."
Wuzheng asked, "What sort of traces?"
Wunian scratched her little bald head.
"Pfft..." Qi Yan nearly coughed up blood from how cute she was, turning his head aside as he held back his laughter.
Wunian kept her expressionless face stiff and said nothing, as though she had only now learned how to properly play a little nun whose name meant "no thoughts."
"What are you laughing at?" Wuzheng snapped. "Your Heavenly Evolution Sect understands witchcraft. Why don't you analyze it?"
Jing Chuan bristled. "What's with that tone? What fucking business is it of yours whether we can analyze it? Do we have to tell you? If you can't work it out yourselves, you're welcome to get lost."
"You..."
"It's the truth. This was none of your damn business to begin with. Do you have any idea how much trouble you've caused us by coming here looking for trouble? We let you come along because we hoped you could figure something out. Since you can't, crawl back wherever you came from."
Seeing tempers flare again, Qi Yan, despite thoroughly enjoying having Jing Chuan give voice to his own thoughts, still coughed twice. "Enough... We're here on a mission. Solving the Wang Family's problem is our main objective. In other words, if these earth veins have been tampered with, we need to restore them... Can you do that?"
Jing Chuan's expression froze.
Could he, hell.
Qi Yan turned to Wunian. "Little nun, can you?"
Wunian kept her face stern. "How rude."
"All right, all right. Venerable little nun, can you?"
Wunian did not find his strangely intoned "venerable little nun" particularly respectful either. It seemed even worse than "little nun"...
After a moment of restraint, she still answered, "I can restore them... Consider it an apology for intruding and inconveniencing you. But I also have one small request."
"You said it was an apology, and you still have demands?"
"..." Wunian's lips flattened, and her expressionless facade began to crumble.
So stupid. How could she talk away her own bargaining chip...
Forget it. She had already said it, and monastics did not lie. Wunian still forced herself to continue stating her request. "Have these two fellow disciples leave, and my senior sisters too. I have something to tell you privately."
Jing Chuan: "?"
Wuzheng: "..."
Qi Yan was dumbfounded. "That's your request?"
Wunian kept her face stiff and said nothing.
Qi Yan gave Jing Chuan a look. Jing Chuan coughed twice and glared at Wuzheng. "Come outside! We'll fight another three hundred rounds!"
Wuzheng could not be bothered with him. She looked at Wunian, hesitating to speak, and finally said, "Be careful."
With that, she led the others straight out. Jing Chuan followed, giving Qi Yan a look as though he were some master of romance before leaving.
Fuck, you really couldn't tell... This was a nun!
The dull sound of the stone door closing rang out. Thoroughly baffled, Qi Yan looked at Wunian. "They're gone. Whatever it is, you can say it now."
Wunian said, "You practice witchcraft. Earlier, you used a curse that disrupted your opponent's blood and qi, briefly interfering with and controlling him."
"Tsk... You could even tell that? You really are pretty damn impressive." Qi Yan said helplessly, "You're not settling scores afterward and calling my witchcraft an evil path, are you?"
"If that were the case, I wouldn't have sent them away." Wunian lowered her voice. "My senior sisters hate evil with a vengeance. I'm afraid they would take issue with you without distinguishing right from wrong. But I think... I think you aren't as bad as I imagined, and I didn't want to ruin our cooperation."
Qi Yan's expression became quite a sight.
Wunian said, "Since you're versed in witchcraft, you should be able to tell what curse this corpse was afflicted with, and perhaps trace it to its source through the remnants."
Qi Yan understood. "So you want to find that person to get revenge?"
Wunian said with complete seriousness, "Even the Buddha has the vajra warrior's wrathful glare."
"Hahaha..." Qi Yan lost control again and burst out laughing.
Wunian glared at him angrily again.
"Since you're willing to keep my secret..." Qi Yan said with a smile, "I can indeed tell what curse he was afflicted with. I have some history with this curse and happen to have studied it in a little depth."
Wunian's eyes brightened.
"It's called the Essence-Draining Incantation," Qi Yan said. "Its effect is to transfer all beneficial energy absorbed by the target into the caster's body."
Wunian looked thoughtful. "So the earth veins were altered to let the corpse passively absorb their energy, while the caster used it as a relay to obtain the earth veins' power... No wonder I couldn't sense any demonic corpse-refining methods. It really has nothing to do with that."
With her laying it out like that, Qi Yan understood too. "He's at peak Foundation Establishment. He's probably trying to use this unorthodox method to break through to Golden Core. To think the earth veins' power can be borrowed this way. He really does have some ideas."
Gentle Buddhist light glimmered in Wunian's hands, illuminating their surroundings, with what looked like scattered fireflies drifting through it. "The departed's spirit could not endure such desecration, so its ghostly cries reached its descendants. The earth veins shifted, causing the sensation of earthquakes. That is most likely the chain of events... But there's still one thing I don't quite understand."
"What?"
"With a method like this, why didn't he go somewhere farther away? Why insist on doing it at the foot of Heavenly Evolution Mountain? Wouldn't your sect catch him easily?"
Qi Yan's eyes grew dark. "First... it isn't convenient for him to go far. The grand competition is about to begin."
Wunian was a little startled. "Jing Chuan and the others don't think he's from your sect."
"It's hard to say. I actually think he most likely is," Qi Yan said coldly. "Of course, I don't know who he is yet... But if I see him make a move again, I'll recognize him at a glance. Then just watch how I deal with him."
"And second?"
"Second, he's also cooperating with certain people's smear campaign, throwing dirty water on the sect and leading investigators like you toward it."
Wunian: "..."
"Little nun, if I'm not mistaken, you're from the Dharma Mystery Nunnery, aren't you? Monastics don't lie."
Wunian awkwardly retreated half a small step. "Pure Heart Nunnery is our morning prayer hall! I didn't lie!"
Qi Yan was expressionless.
The little nun's gaze began to wander. "H-how did you guess?"
"Did that even need guessing?" Qi Yan said irritably. "Never mind how few sects would dare investigate the Heavenly Evolution Sect. Only a major sect of that stature, styling itself Buddhist, would act as self-righteous as you lot. Acting like you represent justice, looking down from on high, yet refusing to bring your brains along. That's called arrogance."
Wunian pressed her palms together and fell silent.
Qi Yan sighed. "Go back, little nun. At least you haven't reached your senior sisters' level of arrogance. Think things through more in the future, and don't let others use you as their spear so easily... As for the sneak attack on you, I'll avenge it."