"How long until your master comes out of seclusion?" Qi Yan suddenly asked after a moment's thought.
Mu Xunzhen said, "About another year."
"What cultivation does that outer peak steward martial uncle have?"
"Middle Golden Core stage."
"Hmm... do you have to stay in the sect?"
"Without permission from my elders, I really can't leave. At most, I can buy things in the city outside the mountain and return the same day." Mu Xunzhen understood what Qi Yan meant. Hiding outside first and returning once she reached Golden Core would certainly give her more confidence, but confident as she was, she knew hiding outside for a single day wouldn't be enough.
Breaking sect rules over this would only turn her from being in the right to being in the wrong.
Qi Yan could understand that no school would let students stay away for long without approval. After some thought, he asked, "Do you absolutely need your main peak senior brother's approval to leave?"
"Not necessarily. If I take a mission from the External Affairs Hall..." Mu Xunzhen paused, then suddenly caught on. "Brother, you mean I should take a mission outside!"
"Isn't that obvious?" Qi Yan relaxed and smiled. "Once you're out, the seas are wide for fish to leap. You can dodge this imminent Essence-Nurturing Grass business outright, and they'll have to use their own. Once you return at Golden Core, you'll have much firmer footing. We can work out our next move then."
"But I only returned from a mission a few days ago. The rules don't allow taking them back-to-back."
"In principle, something like this shouldn't be a hard-and-fast issue. You're a young girl; sweet-talk them a little when you ask for a mission. The people at the External Affairs Hall don't know about the friction on your main peak. Making a small exception wouldn't be unusual... either way, you have to try. If it doesn't work, we'll talk."
The more Mu Xunzhen thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. Finally, she asked a little anxiously, "Doing this seems like it'll completely offend even Eldest Senior Brother. Would that..."
"You think nobody intervening when you were hit with the Essence-Draining Incantation was only that so-called Sixth Senior Brother's doing?" Qi Yan sneered. "Golden Core at sixteen... first, you need to understand something. The one who most wants you to fade into the crowd isn't your so-called Sixth Senior Brother, but your Eldest Senior Brother. From the very beginning, your opponent was him, along with all the other fellow disciples who don't want you standing above them."
Mu Xunzhen froze, then suddenly felt as though enlightenment had been poured over her head. Scattered scenes from the past six months flashed through her mind, and many questions that had troubled her abruptly became clear.
"So that's it. So that's it..." Mu Xunzhen murmured, momentarily dazed and speechless.
"As for your elders... normally, if you're just an ordinary disciple, he won't necessarily favor and protect you. But once you're the most outstanding genius under him, he'd have to be out of his mind to abandon a genius and protect mediocrity. In short, strive to become the best of all his disciples. That's your best way out of this situation. Whoever among your fellow disciples you fall out with along the way doesn't matter."
"Understood. I'll head to the External Affairs Hall now."
"Uh, wait."
Mu Xunzhen asked curiously, "What is it?"
Qi Yan broke down an obscure character and described its shape. "Do you recognize this character?"
"Testing me again, Brother?" Mu Xunzhen smiled. "It's one of the substances that make up blood. The most basic Witchcraft terminology."
Witchcraft... Something stirred in Qi Yan's mind, and he quickly asked, "Then what about this one..."
"It's the medium between oneself and heaven and earth. Dao Arts call it Qi, but it isn't entirely that. It's a sort of intermediary substance..."
"And this..."
"It means a certain kind of resonance, generally used on the other party... huh, Brother, are you trying to use the Blood-Chaos Curse on someone? This incantation doesn't require a medium from the target's body, but the chant is rather long and its effective range is short. It's a bit of a chicken rib."
She's really incredible. She could actually guess the incantation from just a few characters!
Qi Yan wiped away cold sweat. He had no intention of stubbornly saving face by saying he was "testing her." He felt that would lead to social death sooner or later, so he might as well be honest. "I don't know much about Witchcraft. I'm learning too, and I may have a lot of questions for you in the future."
Mu Xunzhen nearly jumped for joy. "Yes, yes! As long as I can help you, Brother! Otherwise, I wouldn't even know how to repay you."
"Why talk about repayment?" Qi Yan was in a very good mood. "Heaven brought us together to help each other."
"Yes." Mu Xunzhen's eyes sparkled on the other end. "This is fate."
Before her words had faded, Brother A-Yan, whom the girl believed to be at least at middle or late Golden Core, ran out of Law Power, and the call ended.
Mu Xunzhen thought that her final mention of "fate" had been a little too forward and displeased him. Hugging her knees at the head of her bed, the girl nearly cried again. "Ooh... I didn't mean it that way..."
After sniffling for quite a while, she suddenly sprang up and swiftly swept everything in her cave abode into her ring. After a moment's thought, she even took the meditation cushion.
Leaving her shabby cave abode empty, she shot out the door.
Dawn was just breaking.
A white-bearded old man sat cross-legged in the outer peak's External Affairs Hall. He opened his eyes in puzzlement. "Little Seven? It's not even properly light yet, and the External Affairs Hall hasn't opened. What are you doing here?"
The girl began wheedling. "Grandpa Wu, could you give me another mission..."
The old man blinked. Lately, he had always seen this girl wearing a bitter-melon face. How long had it been since she'd wheedled like this? Puzzled, he nevertheless answered instinctively, "Didn't you just get back?"
"I'm out of Spirit Stones, and I'm too embarrassed to borrow any." Mu Xunzhen tugged his sleeve pitifully. "Make an exception for me, Grandpa Wu..."
Her pestering made the old man want to laugh. "The sect never had a rigid rule about how long you must wait between missions. What sense would that make? It's only meant to teach you that cultivation needs a balance of tension and relaxation. If someone wants to strive to improve, there's nothing wrong with that. Just remember that going too far is as bad as falling short."
Mu Xunzhen nodded her little head vigorously. "I'll remember."
The old man tapped the Jade Slip before him, and a screen of light appeared. "There are about ten missions suitable for your current cultivation... choose one."
Mu Xunzhen picked one with a seven-day deadline. "This one! Thank you, Grandpa Wu. I'll definitely complete it within seven days!"
Seeing the little girl stand straight and salute, the old man couldn't help chuckling.
Before long, the sky brightened.
Eldest Senior Brother waited and waited, but Mu Xunzhen never brought the medicinal herb over. Finally, he couldn't hold back and went to her cave abode himself to find her.
The cave abode had no defenses whatsoever, and its entrance stood wide open. He walked in and saw that even the meditation cushion had been taken away. It was emptier and cleaner than if a dog had licked it bare.
"Damn it!" Eldest Senior Brother slammed a fist into the cave wall. "What's possessed this girl these past two days? How dare she!"
This is bad... Stocks of Essence-Nurturing Grass were scarce; it wasn't something he could easily find. Nor did he dare take it from the sect storehouse. If anyone happened to ask what it was for, the Essence-Draining Incantation affair could easily be uncovered. Things would snowball into a main peak scandal.
But Sixth Junior Brother's injuries were urgent and couldn't wait. He would have to supply this Essence-Nurturing Grass himself!
While dawn had barely broken on Mu Xunzhen's side, the sun was already three poles high on Qi Yan's.
Jiang Jinyue appeared in the room and stared dumbfounded at the soundly sleeping Qi Yan, unsure whether there was any point in waking him.
I gave you a night to decipher the text. It was called a bet, but really, I was giving you a step down, and you went and slept on that step?
You might as well never get up again!
She stormed forward indignantly and viciously kicked Qi Yan in the calf. "Hey! Pig!"
Qi Yan lazily opened his eyes. Seeing her puffed-up expression, he suddenly found her rather cute, and half the pressure he'd felt when they first met faded. "Don't tell me you're sixteen too."
Jiang Jinyue sneered. "Too? Like which little sweetheart of yours? Getting involved with a man so young-is she too ugly to marry?"
"Hey!" Qi Yan said, speechless. "Marriage at sixteen is prescribed by local customs and laws in most places. Who are you to judge? Anyway, how old are you really? Why do I feel like you're ridiculously strong, but you look so young?"
Jiang Jinyue's eyes darted around a few times. "That's right. I'm sixteen too."
Qi Yan didn't believe a word of it. Although that pair of A-cups did look rather sixteen, he felt her cultivation couldn't stop at Golden Core. "Fine, fine. Little sixteen-year-old miss, what are you kicking a man for first thing in the morning?"
"First thing in the morning?" Jiang Jinyue's eyes widened. "It's almost noon!"
"So you're saying you deliberately gave me several extra hours to study and went easy on me?"
Jiang Jinyue huffed. "Didn't I?"
Actually, she hadn't. Jiang Jinyue had gone to search the Luo Household for the clues she wanted and had only just returned. Naturally, she wouldn't tell Qi Yan that. The little demoness declared with perfect assurance, "Since we only made the bet at midnight, I deliberately extended it by several hours so I wouldn't take advantage of you. If you still can't decipher it now, don't make excuses."
Qi Yan smiled. "Yesterday, what did you say you'd do if I deciphered it?"
"Help you decipher the whole book."
"I thought about it for half the night, and something doesn't seem right... what do you mean, if I can decipher it, you'll help me decipher the rest? If I can do it myself, why would I need your help? Doing it myself would only be a little slower. This bet isn't fair."
Jiang Jinyue didn't believe he could decipher it at all. The supposed bet had only been a perfunctory way to give him a step down, so she answered casually, "So you're saying you've deciphered it?"
"I guessed a few characters. I don't know if they're right... I'm simply saying this bet is unfair."
Jiang Jinyue was utterly unconcerned. "Fine, then I'll change it to doing one thing for you that's within my abilities."
A smile appeared on Qi Yan's face.
"Oh? That expression." Jiang Jinyue looked him up and down. "Come on, then. Explain what this passage means."
Qi Yan smiled faintly and murmured under his breath, seemingly chanting an incantation.
Jiang Jinyue wore a mocking look that said, "What are you doing?" For some reason, she suddenly froze, and then her expression changed dramatically.
She felt the Blood-Chaos Curse invading her. Although at her level it was even fainter than the sensation of someone blowing a breath, and absolutely could not have any effect on her, this incantation was indeed attempting to take effect!
Qi Yan didn't need to explain the text's meaning. He had already cast the incantation. Was there any need to test whether he had deciphered it correctly?
"How is that possible..." Jiang Jinyue retreated half a step in shock. "This kind of Witch Incantation uses a completely different system from modern ones. Even the terminology means different things! I couldn't understand it without my master's guidance. How could you possibly understand it!"
Never mind her shock and bewilderment-no one in the world would have dared imagine that the person teaching him Witch Incantations was her very own dear master.