It Wasn't as If She Would Be the One in Pain

Su Fuxi arranged for Lin Sui to stay on the first floor of Chongming Pavilion. She disliked having people wait on her and had always lived alone, so only now did she realize that the pavilion had no other daily necessities.

Su Fuxi found taking on a disciple rather troublesome, but one glance at the golden light above his head was enough to cheer her up again.

"Lin Sui, you can stay in my room and make do for the night." Su Fuxi pushed open the bedroom door.

The room inside was spacious, grand, and comfortable, with a curtain of hanging beads over the inner doorway. It was bare apart from a neatly made bed, with none of the elaborate and delicate furnishings usually found in a woman's chamber. Yet the moment he stepped inside, he smelled a fresh, rippling fragrance, identical to the one on her.

"As for everything else, I'll make arrangements tomorrow."

The jade rabbit had risen high, and Cloud-Capped Peak seemed very quiet in the dark of night. Su Fuxi had only just emerged from seclusion after failing to form her Nascent Soul, then spent the whole day traveling back and forth. It was nearly midnight now, and she did feel a little tired.

"I'm going to rest in the secret chamber. Make yourself at home, and don't wander around the back mountain. It's dangerous."

She formed a Dust-Cleansing Technique and cast it on Lin Sui. Before he could react, Su Fuxi vanished in a flash.

She had gone without food for many years of cultivation and had long since forgotten that Lin Sui needed to eat. The fiend had arrived at Locust Tree Village before dawn, so Lin Sui had gone an entire day and night without food. He was malnourished to begin with, and the next day, low blood sugar nearly made him faint dead away.

Only after Su Fuxi woke and left the underground secret chamber to find him for a preliminary visit to Azure Cloud Peak did she discover him lying there, impossible to wake no matter how she called.

"Oh no!"

Worried that her vessel was damaged, Su Fuxi scooped Lin Sui up and hurried to find the spiritual herb steward at the neighboring herb garden to revive him.

"Elder Su, there's no need to worry. He only fainted from hunger. I gave him some sugar water... Oh! Look, he's awake already. All right, take him to the outer sect and find him something to eat."

The herb steward began waving them away. Su Fuxi thanked him and led Lin Sui to the outer sect, master and disciple both looking a little sheepish. She found it somewhat embarrassing that an elder's disciple had fainted from hunger.

The outer sect had more than ten thousand menial disciples, and many people lived at the foot of each mountain. Auxiliary peaks had been set aside for various auxiliary courtyards and an affairs hall.

The auxiliary courtyards served various functions. Su Fuxi knew this place very well, having spent several decades here, but things had long since changed beyond recognition.

The only familiar manager left in the affairs hall was someone she had promoted herself. Now his hair was snow-white and his face covered in wrinkles.

"Oh! It really is you!" The old man was still fairly hale, and even upon seeing Su Fuxi, he could scarcely believe it.

"I heard you went into seclusion for ten years. I feared I might not see you again. Please, Elder, have a seat."

Su Fuxi sighed inwardly, sensing the faint air of death around him. He was at the tenth layer of Qi Refinement, yet though he was only ninety, he had little lifespan left.

If she had no hope of forming her Nascent Soul, she feared that in a few decades she too would suffer the five signs of a celestial being's decline, just like him. Now she finally understood why countless mighty cultivators were so unwilling to accept it and afraid when their lifespans neared their end.

"Wang Yuan, there's no need for formalities." She did not sit, instead getting straight to the point. "I only came to ask whether you could recommend a reliable menial disciple. I've taken on a new disciple, and he needs a servant to attend to his daily needs."

Outside the room, Lin Sui was gnawing on a steamed bun a menial disciple had just brought him. Hearing this, he glanced through the doorway and saw Su Fuxi standing tall and graceful, her hands behind her back as she gazed at the landscape painting above the square table.

"Yes! What do you think of him? He's a younger relative of mine, nineteen this year, and in the first three layers of Qi Refinement." Wang Yuan looked at the youth beside him. Su Fuxi followed his gaze with a sweep of her spiritual sense and saw a short young man who did not look as old as he was.

Wang Yuan raised his wrinkled old hand and slapped it down on the young man's head. "Hurry up and greet the elder, you good-for-nothing!"

He turned back to Su Fuxi and said, "Xiaohu's aptitude is ordinary, but he's reasonably quick-witted. If you don't mind him, please give him a chance to earn his keep. I don't have much time left, and I was just about to send him back to our hometown. It's quite a coincidence that you came today."

The young man called Xiaohu hurriedly said, "Greetings, Elder Su. My name is Wang Xiaohu."

Su Fuxi tipped her chin in a nod. "Very well. He'll do." She would treat it as sowing a seed of goodwill; he was only a menial disciple, after all.

Now that she had someone to help, Su Fuxi tossed Lin Sui into Wang Xiaohu's care and told them to collect everything a new disciple was entitled to from the affairs hall. She herself washed her hands of the matter.

Patting Lin Sui on the shoulder, she said considerately, "I'll give you two days to familiarize yourself with the sect and learn its taboos. The day after tomorrow, I'll begin overseeing your cultivation. Go on."

Lin Sui did not want to trouble her so much either. Although he was very happy to be with her, he was always a little nervous. He stole a glance at the slender fingers on his shoulder and obediently said, "Yes, Master. I understand."

The boy can be taught. Su Fuxi watched Lin Sui follow Wang Xiaohu into the distance. The smile at the corner of her lips immediately faded, and she stepped onto her flying sword and flew straight to Chongming Pavilion.

How was she to teach a disciple? Time flew by. Su Fuxi refined the Spirit-Concentrating Pill and completely mended the cracks in her Golden Core caused by her attempt to form a Nascent Soul. After emerging from seclusion, she propped up her head and considered how to cultivate a perfect physical body.

She had no technique for devouring fortune, and fortune alone was not enough. Cultivation also required going out on adventures, and her own aptitude was truly too poor.

The best thing would be to get herself a new body: one with sufficient talent, heaven-defying fortune, and suitability for possession!

No one could be more suitable than Lin Sui.

She had once obtained a cauldron cultivation technique. If a suitable body were found and made to cultivate it, a special imprint would gradually form within that body as its cultivation deepened, allowing the imprint's master to possess it with ease.

Though the technique was vicious, it was very effective. As long as the cauldron's cultivation was no higher than hers, she could easily erase the other party's spiritual sense and expel or devour their soul!

I'm sorry, disciple... Unless she had no other choice, Su Fuxi did not want to go to such extremes either.

She closed her eyes for a long while, took a deep breath, and took stock of her assets. She had few spirit stones left, and had used up most of her spiritual materials as well.

To give Lin Sui's body a solid foundation, Su Fuxi went to the library on Azure Cloud Peak and spent spirit stones to make a copy of a high-grade Foundation Establishment body-tempering technique-

Nine Transformations Blood Refinement used the blood essence of living creatures alongside other spiritual materials to temper the body. It could strengthen the body, widen the meridians, and develop the acupoints, forging a body of adamantine sinews and iron bones.

"Mm, this is the one."

Su Fuxi did not want to end up possessing a weakling's body. As for the fact that after the third transformation, every subsequent transformation brought pain like ten thousand ants gnawing at the bones, she ignored it completely. It wasn't as if she would be the one in pain anyway.

Only by enduring the bitterest of hardships could one rise above others. For the sake of Foundation Establishment and Core Formation, what was a little pain?

Su Fuxi thought indifferently, her hollow eyes devoid of emotion.

The next day, she flew alone to a market three hundred li from the Azure Cloud Sect: Purple Flower Valley Market. Eight hundred li beyond it was a mountain range that was an extension of a demonic beast jungle, fraught with danger.

Despite the danger, quite a few cultivators went inside to try their luck.

Many cultivators had already made the outskirts of the jungle a place to temper themselves.

Thus, the nearby Purple Flower Valley Market had become a gathering place for cultivators to trade.

"Are you Fellow Daoist Su?" A female cultivator in a black hooded robe had quietly appeared in Purple Flower Market. Although she had used a cheap disguise pill whose effects lasted six hours, she was still recognized.