Neighbors Who Could Not Visit

The truth was, killing someone to silence them because they had discovered one's secret...

Chen Du was a cultivator who lived in the mountains, but even if he were an ordinary person from the world below, with a modern moral education, only a few truly vicious people could bring themselves to do such a thing when faced with it in real life, even if they occasionally ran their mouths online. He had watched legal programs before, and many violent criminals had been caught because they could not bring themselves to do it, leaving the police with traces to follow.

This little fellow was far too timid.

But there was clearly no need to comfort him now. Instead, his words had caught Chen Du's attention.

"Then tell me about the origins of this Daoist temple."

"This Daoist temple worships the Earth Sage..."

Who didn't know that? The venerable one's statue stood in the very center of the main hall, with the Heavenly Emperor and the Heavenly Venerable beside him. Chen Du had only gone before him and taken an apple to eat today.

"Who is the Earth Sage?"

"I, I haven't eaten anything about him, nor have I heard anyone at the temple speak of him. I only know, I only know he must have been a great deity from ancient times!"

"..."

"Immortal master!" The little fellow grew anxious. "I also know that many demons, ghosts, and even deities were suppressed in this mountain by ancient immortals, and many treasures were sealed here too."

"Immortals? Deities?"

"I call them immortals. The deities they suppressed were earth gods who committed evil, and evil spirits."

"Mm, tell me something else I don't know."

"Ah..."

The little fellow froze on the spot, racking his brains.

"Do you mean that if you eat a book, you can remember what's in it?" Chen Du asked. "Shu Yidu, Shu Du, are you a bookworm?"

"That is indeed the case."

"Then do you have a cultivation method?"

"I have the chain-form method of gathering essence and lighting the fire."

"I have that too," Chen Du said. "What about a method for refining qi afterward?"

"Ancient books of that kind are generally very precious and well preserved, and they're hard to bite through. I, I never got to eat one."

"What about spells?"

"Nor those."

"Wait, then what classics do you have?"

"The Analects."

"I have that too."

"Zhuangzi."

"Isn't that the one above your head?"

"I remember a little of the divination arts too."

"Don't tell me it's Plum Blossom Divination and Six Ren Divination?"

"Don't rush! Don't rush!"

The little fellow's face flushed bright red. Those two cries seemed to be addressed to himself, so he could calm down and think. Only after a long while did he say:

"Although I never ate any cultivation classics back then, I do know that the ancient immortals preserved all the learning of the sages of ages past in books. But to prevent it from being lost, or to keep later generations from following the texts and practicing recklessly when the spiritual qi of heaven and earth had dried up, suffering qi deviation as a result, they sealed it with a special method."

"Oh?"

Chen Du looked up at the shelves full of ancient books.

So it really was just as he had thought!

But the methods he had thought of-soaking them in water, burning them with fire, or steeping them in vinegar-were merely mundane tricks, not how an expert would seal secret manuals.

"Do you know how to break the seal?"

"No, but I have another way!"

"What do you mean?"

"I..."

The little fellow stood on the shelf, opened his mouth, and pointed at it. "When I eat a book, its meaning comes to me naturally."

That really was useful.

Still, Chen Du showed nothing on his face. He did not trust this seemingly harmless little demon enough, either, so he took out an ancient book instead. It was Yang Xiong's Model Sayings.

"Try this one first."

He tossed the ancient book onto the desk with a thump.

"Yes..."

The little fellow stood on the bookshelf, some height above the desk and some distance away. Chen Du stood still, wanting to see how he would get across.

He saw the little fellow cautiously walk to a divider in the bookcase, which connected the shelves and ran all the way to the floor. He glanced down, carefully turned around, and slowly climbed down headfirst along the vertical wood of the bookcase, moving just like an insect.

"Spider-Man!"

Curious, the cat jumped off the desk, wanting to meet him on the floor so she could get a closer look.

"Spare me!"

The little fellow immediately jumped in fright.

"Come back."

"Come back!"

The cat repeated the words, then reluctantly walked back.

Only then did the little fellow descend to the floor.

He looked up at Chen Du and the cat, then climbed the desk leg, got onto the desk, and walked over to the book.

Seeing how pitifully small he was compared to even a single sheet of paper, Chen Du could not help worrying. "How long will it take you to eat one sheet?"

"If I eat as much as I can, I can manage two or three pages a day."

"..."

"Three or four pages would work too, if I ate a little more."

"..."

"If I'm not afraid of getting fat, I can eat four or five pages."

"You can eat that much?"

"I only eat the parts with writing on them."

"What about the hidden writing?"

"It's like a person eating a stuffed pancake. Even without looking, they can more or less tell where the filling is and where it isn't."

"Fair point." Chen Du found it interesting. "Go ahead and eat, then. If the contents are the same as what's written on the surface, there's no need to eat it. If there's anything special, keep eating."

Although he seemed harmless and was very small, most demons knew transformation arts, so looking small did not necessarily mean he really was small. And with the mysteries of magic, even being genuinely small did not mean he was weak.

At the same time, he had been the first to awaken and knew the most of Chen Du's secrets, yet he had hidden in this study the whole time without going out. Even if all the reasons he had given were true and made sense, that was enough to show he gave things a great deal of thought and was more calculating than Yunzhi. He could not be trusted lightly, and Chen Du had to guard against him.

Fortunately, checking was fairly simple.

So Chen Du asked directly, "Where did you break out of the ground?"

"Just outside the courtyard wall behind the study. That's why, as soon as I woke up and ran out, I was in the study."

That was quite close.

He had not sensed anything at the time, and the seal had not warned him either. Perhaps the spiritual qi had still been thin then, and the temple's mechanisms had yet to awaken.

Chen Du nodded, dropped his cat off the desk, sat down in the chair, dropped his cat off the desk again, and took out a brush.

[This demon is forbidden to leave this desk]

[This demon is prohibited from using magic power]

Once again, he dropped the stubborn cat off the desk.

Smack! He stamped the seal down!

The mountain wind surged in, spiritual qi flowed into the commands, and they took effect.

When the two stone talismans touched the little fellow, they actually shrank of their own accord, each becoming a dot the size of a sesame seed. Like the jade plaque affixed to the main gate, they attached themselves to him.

Chen Du breathed another sigh of relief.

This also showed that the little fellow was not very powerful. A stone talisman inscribed on a piece of bluestone could restrain him.

The little fellow sat motionless on the desk, holding the first sheet of Model Sayings and gnawing on it as if it were a paper-thin pancake. He watched helplessly as the spiritual qi of heaven and earth confined him, then watched Chen Du leave.

Behind the study, beside the courtyard wall.

Taking care to protect the wall, Chen Du cautiously turned over the earth and stones with a stone talisman. Sure enough, he dug two stone boxes out of the ground, one already open and the other still sealed.

There was also a jade plaque.

It read: A worm the size of a grain of rice, a paltry little demon, dared to steal and eat my books. Suppressed for ten years as a small punishment.

It bore a seal that had already lost its power.

"It's true."

Chen Du murmured to himself.

"Ten years?"

Sorry, but it might have been several hundred.

That meant there had been less than ten years between his suppression and the complete depletion of spiritual qi. He had suffered an even greater injustice than the Door God.

And when he had taken form and become a demon, the spiritual qi of heaven and earth might already have been on the verge of depletion. He had probably managed it purely because of the books he had stolen and eaten, just as Yunzhi had benefited from the mysteries of someone else's enlightenment.

"A paltry little demon..."

He did not know just how paltry the ancient patriarch had meant, but however powerful the venerable one had been, he could not possibly have called a demon like the Door God a paltry little demon, could he?

Besides, a worm that already lived by eating books stealing a few pages was simply not the same kind of offense as going out and committing evil.

Chen Du even wondered whether, with that patriarch's divine abilities, it was unlikely that he had failed to notice a worm in his own study becoming a demon. Following that line of thought, it was possible that the patriarch had even sealed him because he could not bear to see the little worm that kept him company as he read return to being ordinary and die an ordinary death. Under the pretext of suppressing him, he had let him live through the long night without spiritual qi and survive until now.

Of course, that was only conjecture and could not be taken as fact.

After filling the earth back in just as it had been, Chen Du took the jade plaque and the two stone boxes back with him. By the time he returned to the study, the little fellow, not even the size of a finger, looked almost pitiful to him.

Such a tiny thing had only stolen a few pages to eat, yet had been suppressed for ten years. And once those ten years were up, four hundred years had passed.

Although more than four hundred years had passed in an instant and might not make up for an unfinished hundred-year suppression, if it had only been ten years, that sounded entirely different.

"How is the eating going?"

"Reporting to you, immortal master, it's just as I said. This book looks like Yang Xiong's Model Sayings, but it actually records a spell."

"What spell?"

"It is called Greater Earth Evasion, one of the Five Elements Evasion Techniques."

"Greater Earth Evasion..."

Chen Du sat down in thought, looked straight at him, and spoke from the bottom of his heart.

"By rights, for such a small mistake, I should have let you go long ago. Besides, the patriarch only sentenced you to ten years of suppression. Those ten years are long past now, so I should let you go."

"Immortal master..."

The little fellow held the page, looking pitiful.

Chen Du waved a hand to interrupt him. "But you should also understand that I really can't feel at ease letting you leave now."

"Immortal master! What I mean is..." Only then did the little fellow speak. "As a bookworm, I was born in a study and will die in a study. Besides, I'm small and weak. Wind or rain would be a great calamity for me. If you let me go, immortal master, I surely wouldn't make it to the foot of the mountain."

"Maybe."

Chen Du gave no definite answer and simply continued.

"Then we happen to want the same thing. You'll be my translator, translating the classics for me here and helping me cultivate. In return, I'll provide your food and lodging and keep you safe. It's just that, for the time being, you can't leave this study. Once my cultivation reaches a certain level, you'll naturally be free to come and go."

"Immortal master, you are magnanimous!"

By now, Chen Du had already calmed down.

On careful thought, if he could keep the harm this little worm might cause under control, his appearance might not be a bad thing.

For one thing, he felt terribly cooped up here.

Some things were inconvenient to discuss with Yunzhi. As for telling his cat, never mind that her brain was only so big-she was only three years old, and it had only been a few months since she gained intelligence. Even if she were human, how much intelligence could she have at that age?

As a result, there were many things for which he had no one to consult or offer him advice.

This little fellow seemed capable of gradually filling that role.

And conveniently, he was easy to keep under control.

Chen Du had already gotten a good grasp of Yunzhi's character. She almost never entered the study without permission. The little fellow named Shu Yidu, meanwhile, was weak and small; a single stone talisman could keep him from leaving the study. The two could not meet, like neighbors forbidden to visit one another, so naturally there was no possibility of him exposing Chen Du's secrets or bewitching Yunzhi into harming him.

At the same time, Chen Du had the seal, the jade talisman, and the treasured sword, as well as his cat. Even if Yunzhi did discover the truth one day and develop other intentions, he would be fully capable of standing against her.

Oh, and there was the Door God too.

If he also sped up his cultivation and raised his cat more quickly, then nothing could go wrong.

Of course, as Chen Du came to understand Yunzhi better, the chances of such a thing happening were extremely slim, and it would be best if it never did. But when a gentleman traveled the world, even if he did good wherever he went, how could he go without a sword at his side?