Grandmaster Yun

(These three chapters weren't written well, and I still don't know how to revise them. If they make you uncomfortable, please skip them for now. It won't affect the story that follows.)

The attendants on the pleasure boat soon cleared the table in front of Yi Xuan and the others and set out a fresh spread of delicacies and fine wine.

As Fatty Lin ate the food on the table, he seemed to have forgotten what had just happened.

Yi Xuan merely chuckled to himself without bringing it up again.

Fortunately, Fatty Lin was thick-skinned enough not to care about Yi Xuan's repeated chuckles.

"Fatty Lin, you've really made me see you in a new light today. Who would have thought you'd be unmoved by all the girls on this boat?" Yi Xuan clinked cups with Fatty Lin and asked.

"If it had been before, I'd have known what was going on as soon as your senior brother brought me to the river. But this time, my mind didn't go in that direction at all."

"What? Are you getting old? Can't you rise to the occasion anymore?"

"Get lost!" Fatty Lin said with a laugh. "It's because of that boy at home. Ever since he and I acknowledged each other, I've known what a bastard I was back then. From that day on, I decided I wouldn't touch that sort of thing again, whether for business or pleasure when I'm out. At least that way, I'll have done right by the boy's mother!"

Yi Xuan hadn't expected Fatty Lin to have come to such a realization, especially since he hadn't forced himself on the woman back then.

For a moment, Yi Xuan could hardly recognize the Fatty Lin sitting before him.

Unfortunately, when a graceful figure emerged from the depths of the cabin, Fatty Lin could no longer sit still.

It wasn't just Fatty Lin. The other guests on the boat also began to stir, and even Attendant Shen, who was always serious and unsmiling, breathed a little faster at the sight of the woman.

Only Yi Xuan, who had lived through the age of internet information in his previous life, could look at the figure before him without a change of expression or the slightest physical reaction.

After all, with the help of filters, every pretty girl on Douyin in his previous life could have stood comparison with the woman before him.

Seeing Fatty Lin's entranced expression, Yi Xuan cursed himself for being blind. He had actually believed the damned fatty a little just now.

Sure enough, if a man swore off women, either he couldn't perform, or the woman wasn't up to par.

The woman came to the center of the hall and began to dance gracefully to the musicians' accompaniment. Watching her dance, Yi Xuan instantly thought, She turns gently like the wind, poised as if to fly; her lovely sleeves rise, her form like jade.

As the woman's dance reached its height, she gently removed the veil from her face. A face beautiful enough to topple a city appeared before the crowd, and almost everyone was captivated by her beauty.

Yi Xuan was the exception, of course. The woman truly was beautiful enough to topple kingdoms and cities; even many actresses from his previous life paled in comparison.

But Yi Xuan had been steeped in the internet in his previous life, and the more beautiful a face was, the more immune he was to it.

That made Yi Xuan stand out sharply in the crowd, and the dancing woman was also somewhat surprised.

Could my beauty have faded? The woman shook her head and banished the thought. No woman would ever willingly admit that her beauty had faded.

When the piece ended, the woman bowed to the crowd and left the hall.

As the woman departed, people in the hall gradually began to talk, their voices growing louder and louder.

"Grandmaster Yun's dancing seems to have improved again!"

"Of course it has. That's Grandmaster Yun!"

"What a pity! Someone as heavenly as her has actually fallen to a place like this!"

"She sells her art, not her body. You think that just because she came to a place like this, a toad like you can eat swan meat? Dream on!"

"Who are you calling a toad?"

"Whoever answers to it!"

"You're asking for a beating!"

Bang!

Some people in the crowd actually came to blows over the woman, but the boat's crew soon stepped in and threw the two troublemakers overboard. With that warning before them, the others didn't dare make any more trouble.

Only then did Fatty Lin, sitting beside Yi Xuan, come to his senses. Wearing a look of rapture, he said, "Such a beauty! Could she be a fairy from the nine heavens? I never thought I, Lin, would see such peerless beauty in my lifetime. I could die happy now!"

"Heh!" Yi Xuan sneered. "Not mentioning your son now? Just a moment ago, someone was saying he wanted to make it up to the boy's mother and never touch this sort of thing again!"

Though Yi Xuan had exposed him, Fatty Lin wasn't annoyed. Instead, he said smugly, "What? Can't I think about finding the boy a stepmother?"

"Uh!" Yi Xuan was speechless for a long while. In the end, he could only say fiercely, "You're really something!"

"Alas, why must Grandmaster Yun do this to herself? Why insist on coming to a place like this and debasing herself?"

Just as Fatty Lin was about to speak, a scholarly-looking young man beside them spoke with a sigh.

"Brother, why do you say that? Isn't she just a prettier dancer?" Yi Xuan asked curiously.

The man glanced at Yi Xuan. "You're from out of town, aren't you?"

"That's right. It's my first time in the capital, and a friend brought me aboard this boat. I just heard everyone address that woman as Grandmaster. Could you explain it to me, brother?"

The man nodded. "Everyone in the capital calls Yun Shulan Grandmaster Yun because the reigning emperor declared her dancing the finest under heaven!"

"Yun Shulan?"

"That's right! But Grandmaster Yun's greatest asset isn't her dancing. It's her Spirit Root!"

"Her Spirit Root?" Yi Xuan couldn't quite understand. If her Spirit Root was exceptional, shouldn't she have become an immortal cultivator? How had she ended up on this pleasure boat?

"That's right. Grandmaster Yun possesses an Eighth-Grade Spirit Root!"

"What? Then how did she become a dancer? Were the sects of the Southern Frontier all blind?"

The man shook his head. "No! Back then, the sects that wanted to recruit Grandmaster Yun were practically lined up in rows. Even quite a few of the giant sects from the Central Land came to recruit her!"

"What happened afterward? From the way things are now, she doesn't seem to have chosen any of them!"

The man nodded. "That's right. Grandmaster Yun asked the senior figures those sects had sent a question that left them speechless. They could only slink away, and no sect has dared come to recruit Grandmaster Yun since!"

"What question?" Yi Xuan was curious what Grandmaster Yun could have asked to frighten off so many sects.

"Are immortal cultivators human or immortal?"

Yi Xuan answered without even thinking. "Human, of course!"

The man nodded. "Quite a few people from the sects gave that answer, but then Grandmaster Yun asked, 'Since immortal cultivators are human, why do they stand so high above everyone else?'"

"Some answered that they were immortals, but Grandmaster Yun then asked, 'Since they are immortals, why do they interfere in the affairs of the mortal world?'"

Hearing the man recount Grandmaster Yun's questions, Yi Xuan fell into thought. This was also the answer he, as a modern man who had transmigrated to this world, had been seeking all along: were immortal cultivators, or rather, immortals, still human?