Chu Yunfei Blocks the Road

"Senior Brother, it's them!"

"Junior Brothers, please wait!"

Not long after Feng Zhuo and Cang Wuya left the Azure Cloud Pavilion, they encountered Chu Yunfei and Su Ruanruan waiting for them on the road back to the sect.

Ling Shuanghua and Ye Wuhen had seen their two junior brothers leave the building safely, with a Spirit Transformation mighty figure at their side to protect them.

As it happened, Yunxiaozi also needed them for something, so they had returned to the sect first.

Feng Zhuo, however, was not afraid of the two blocking their path.

The sect was close at hand, and Xuanweizi was there to protect them. Surely Su Ruanruan and Chu Yunfei wouldn't dare seize it by force.

As for Chu Yunfei?

Feng Zhuo had met him in his previous life. Who in the sect didn't know their eldest senior brother?

In this life, however, after Feng Zhuo had taken a master, he had spent all his time in secluded cultivation, except when he was with the people of Carefree Peak.

He shouldn't have known Chu Yunfei.

Unable to force his way past Chu Yunfei's obstruction, and with Xuanweizi unable to make the first move and offend Heaven-Soaring Peak, Feng Zhuo had no choice but to stop.

"Junior Sister Su, who is this senior brother?"

Feng Zhuo calmly swept his gaze over the two of them. "May I ask what business you have stopping us?"

A flicker of displeasure crossed Chu Yunfei's eyes. He's actually pretending not to know me?

Su Ruanruan immediately raised her voice. "Senior Brother Feng, this is Chu Yunfei of Heaven-Soaring Peak, True Person Chu, Eldest Senior Brother Chu!"

Pride filled every corner of her face, as though she were afraid Feng Zhuo wouldn't realize she had found herself a stronger backer.

Beside her, Chu Yunfei played along, waving his folding fan and giving a slight nod.

Chu Yunfei was the most accomplished cultivator of his generation in the Supreme One Divine Sect, a genius disciple who had reached Foundation Establishment at fourteen, comprehended Sword Intent at eighteen, and formed a Golden Core at twenty.

If nothing went wrong, he would inherit Heaven-Soaring Peak and the position of sect master of the Supreme One Divine Sect.

In the story, Chu Yunfei was also one of Su Ruanruan's six official dao companions.

Feng Zhuo wasn't surprised in the least that he was helping Su Ruanruan intercept them now.

"Eldest Senior Brother Chu."

Feng Zhuo's expression remained unchanged, his black-jade eyes meeting Su Ruanruan's watery gaze directly. "So, Eldest Senior Brother Chu, Junior Sister Su, why have you stopped us?"

Cang Wuya stood behind Feng Zhuo with his arms around his sword, dressed in dark robes and standing a good half a head taller.

Now, as he met the gaze of Chu Yunfei, who was eight years his senior, there was neither admiration nor fear in his eyes.

It was as though he were looking at ordinary flowers, grass, insects, and fish by the roadside.

Chu Yunfei was displeased. They were just two disciples at the Qi Refining Stage!

Anger quickly rose in his chest, but wary of Xuanweizi trailing far behind the pair, he held back from making a move.

"Senior Brother Feng, how can you still act like this when you've met Eldest Senior Brother?! Do you know that you're a member of the Supreme One Divine Sect now? The sect isn't your Lineage. How can you be allowed to act so recklessly here?!"

Su Ruanruan's manner, as though he were a child beyond teaching, was truly nauseating.

Feng Zhuo thought it, and so he acted on it.

"Y-you!"

"Sorry, Junior Sister Su."

Feng Zhuo patted his chest. "The food at the Heavenly Treasures Pavilion was truly delicious. I accidentally ate too much. Please forgive me, forgive me."

"Junior Brother Feng, bullying Junior Sister Ruanruan like this is hardly the conduct of a gentleman."

With a debonair flourish, Chu Yunfei snapped his folding fan shut. "Then I'll be frank with you two junior brothers about why I'm here."

"Junior Sister Ruanruan tells me that you were the ones in Private Room Jia One who bought the Dark Nether Sword Token?"

"The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion has already announced that only ten years remain until the Dark Nether Secret Realm appears this time."

Without needing to extend his Divine Sense, Chu Yunfei could see the pair's cultivation at a glance, though he couldn't tell their bone ages.

"You two junior brothers have only just reached Qi Refining Great Perfection. It would be rather difficult to pass through Foundation Establishment and form a Golden Core in ten years. When the time comes, rather than let someone else profit from the Dark Nether Sword Token in your hands, you might as well let me, your eldest senior brother from the same sect, have it."

"Wouldn't you two junior brothers agree?"

How arrogant.

Chu Yunfei had formed a Golden Core at twenty, so why did he think the two of them would struggle to do so even at twenty-two?

How could Feng Zhuo know that Su Ruanruan had never mentioned his age, and that Chu Yunfei thought the two looked so young because they had taken Appearance-Preserving Pills?

After all, Chu Yunfei was the only person in the Supreme One Divine Sect to reach Foundation Establishment at fourteen and Golden Core at twenty. He had long since stopped taking the sect's other disciples seriously.

"Private Room Jia One? The Dark Nether Sword Token?"

Feng Zhuo spoke in an exaggerated tone. "Senior Brother, are you joking?"

"The Dark Nether Sword Token sold for the staggering price of one hundred and eighty million high-grade Spirit Stones. Even you could only yield it to someone else at that price, Senior Brother, so how could two minor disciples like us possibly have that kind of wealth?"

"Then how do you explain the Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord behind you two?"

Chu Yunfei didn't much want to admit that his own resources were less abundant than Cang Wuya's, yet he was unwilling to miss out on the Dark Nether Sword Token.

He recalled how, before setting out, he had scraped together barely one hundred and fifty million high-grade Spirit Stones.

If only his master had been willing...!

"Who are you talking about, Senior Brother Chu? A Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord?!"

Looking utterly terrified, Feng Zhuo took a step back, turned, and buried himself in Cang Wuya's arms. "Little Senior Brother, has a Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord been following us this whole time?! I had no idea! What does the Exalted Lord want with us? Could he be plotting something against us?!"

"Don't be afraid."

Seeing his little junior brother lie without batting an eye, Cang Wuya found it immensely amusing.

"My junior brother and I couldn't produce half a Spirit Stone from our pockets. What could we possibly have that a Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord would covet? Perhaps the Exalted Lord just happened to be passing by."

As soon as he finished speaking, Xuanweizi vanished from Chu Yunfei's perception.

Feng Zhuo could no longer find any trace of Xuanweizi either.

Was this a challenge?

Did Little Senior Brother want to test himself against Chu Yunfei?

But Chu Yunfei was already a Golden Core True Person. Wasn't that a little overconfident?

Chu Yunfei was no fool, however, and he was even less inclined to act rashly.

If he had been uncertain before whether the Azure Cloud Pavilion had sent Xuanweizi to protect Feng Zhuo and Cang Wuya on their way back to the sect, he was certain now.

But to make him swallow this grievance just like that...

Chu Yunfei called out, "This is an internal matter of the Supreme One Divine Sect. Please do not interfere, Senior."

Xuanweizi gave no response.

"Senior Brother Chu, there's no Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord!"

Seeing Chu Yunfei act this way, Su Ruanruan cursed him as a coward inwardly. She thought this eldest senior brother of the sect was making a mountain out of a molehill.

It was just a Dark Nether Sword Token. Even if it was a supreme treasure, that was only true for Golden Core Realm cultivators and below. Why would the Azure Cloud Pavilion send a Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord out specifically for it?

"Did Senior Sister Yun Li say something to you, Senior Brother Chu, to make you doubt me and think I was deceiving you?"

"I've truly been wronged, Senior Brother!"

"If I hadn't seen them holding a dark token with my own eyes and being invited into the tower by the Azure Cloud Pavilion's shopkeeper, how would I have dared tell you they were the ones who bought the Dark Nether Sword Token?!"

A dark Azure Cloud Token! Even he only had a purple Azure Cloud Token!

Chu Yunfei wanted all the more to grind the two beneath his feet!

And then there was Su Ruanruan. Elder Yu had clearly said she was the one favored with immense fortune in this world, yet she was so stupid!

Could the Heavenly Dao of this world really be entrusting the future of the Profound Firmament Continent to a fool like her?!

Chu Yunfei forced a smile onto his face. "Of course I believe you, Junior Sister Ruanruan."

"It's just that your cultivation isn't high enough yet, Junior Sister Ruanruan, and you can't use Divine Sense, so you didn't know that a Spirit Transformation Exalted Lord really was following the two of them to protect them just now."

It seemed Little Senior Brother wouldn't get his fight.

Feng Zhuo began calculating how much longer it would take Eldest Senior Brother and Second Senior Sister to bring their master here.

Divine Sense?

Only then did Su Ruanruan recall that Chixiao had told her that, aside from cultivation, nothing mattered more to a pill cultivator than Divine Sense.

But at the time, Su Ruanruan's heart and eyes had been set entirely on cultivating the sword. She had an Innate Sword Heart and was destined to be a genius of the Sword Dao!

If Chixiao hadn't forcibly taken her in before Lingxiaozi could, she would already have been Chu Yunfei's personal junior sister!

But had someone at the Spirit Transformation realm really been following Feng Zhuo to protect him just now?!

Tch, I knew the protagonist's fortuitous opportunities wouldn't be easy to take!

And...

Su Ruanruan cursed inwardly, System, didn't you say the protagonist obtained a Yi Wood Broken Branch at the auction this time?! Why did the Dark Nether Sword Token appear at the auction instead?!

[Sweetie, don't worry. The system has detected a deviation in the worldline's plot and is reporting it to the Main System for you.]

Su Ruanruan suppressed the urge to curse out loud. You only came online yesterday, causing me to offend the protagonist without knowing the plot.

I could have let that go. I wasn't planning to cling to the protagonist's thigh anyway! But the plot you showed me was all wrong!

In the original plotline, Feng Zhuo had joined Crimson Firmament Peak of the Supreme One Divine Sect and, not long afterward, attended an auction at the foot of the sect's mountain, where he bought a second-tier Yi Wood Broken Branch.

The cultivation art Feng Zhuo practiced was special, and the broken branch still retained a trace of life.

Later in the plot, Feng Zhuo used his cultivation art to revive the Yi Wood and, thanks to his Wood Spirit Body, contracted it as his Life-Bound Spirit Plant.

That was the divine plant Yi Wood!

Su Ruanruan also had a Wood Spirit Root. Although she couldn't form a life-bound contract with a divine plant, other contracts were possible.

So Su Ruanruan was truly envious!

But now the plot had deviated. There had been no sign of the Yi Wood Broken Branch at the auction at all; instead, there had been the Dark Nether Sword Token!

The Dark Nether Sword Token was good, but having the token and entering the sword tomb didn't mean she would definitely be able to contract a divine sword.

Besides, she was only at Qi Refining Ninth Layer now. How could she possibly form a Golden Core in ten years?!

So compared to the sword token, Su Ruanruan naturally preferred the divine plant that was there for the taking.

Could it be that because Feng Zhuo had joined Carefree Peak and become a sword cultivator, even his originally destined fortuitous opportunity had changed?

The Heavenly Dao was biased to such an extent!

And...

Su Ruanruan thought of the pebble she had fought Yun Li for. In the original work, it had actually been a divine beast, a white tiger with an impure bloodline!

She had clearly gotten her hands on it. If Feng Zhuo hadn't meddled!

The protagonist-it was all the protagonist's fault!

[Sweetie, the system has already reported it to the Main System. Please be patient.]

Damn it, what a robotic system.

A heads-up: to clarify, the system's only functions in this story are to tell Su Ruanruan the original book's plot and use its calculation function to predict what is most likely to happen next based on that plot. It cannot know any plot beyond the original book.

It also will not issue missions or provide any items to help.

In short, it's basically there for decoration.

Of course, it has other uses later on, but I can't spoil those here.