So You’re into His Disciple Too
After the commotion, the rampaging Gou Snake finally breathed its last, and the once-chaotic inn returned to peace.
The cultivators chattered excitedly as they prepared to strip the Gou Snake down to the bone and divide up its flesh and blood. Unfortunately, the monster was not quite dead yet. The venom in its blood had not dissipated, and before long, it had brought down several inexperienced, unlucky souls.
【Some people are beyond saving, no matter how much good advice you give them. Even great compassion cannot save those who are determined to destroy themselves.】
Xie Fangnian looked on coldly and muttered words of schadenfreude that no one else could hear. 【Those two sayings certainly fit the situation.】
“…”
Dressed as a woman, Jiang Xuesheng had a veil draped over his face. Looking frail enough to be blown away by the wind, he staggered forward one step at a time and stopped beside the Gou Snake’s mangled head. In a languid voice, he commented, “This snake reeks of blood. It must have terrorized the surrounding area and harmed quite a few mortals. Given how it ended up, I’d say it got what it deserved.”
The forest was deeper in the night, and the dew had grown heavy. Shu Fu followed closely behind and draped an outer robe over her little sweetheart.
As for the image these two great personages were presenting, she was already too tired to comment.
They were both easy on the eyes, anyway. They could do whatever they wanted.
Xie Fangnian had trouble walking, and now that he had turned into a cat, he was still a slow-moving creature with comically short legs. He gradually made his way over, belly nearly brushing the ground, and wrinkled his pink little nose.
【Master Tanhua, do you also feel that the smell of blood from this snake demon is somewhat unusual?】
Jiang Xuesheng was examining it intently. Hearing this, he lowered his head and sniffed as well. The beauty’s brows drew together ever so slightly, creating a scene of utterly captivating allure and doing his utmost to wreak havoc on the hearts of every straight man in the world.
Several cultivators nearby who could not tell whether “she” was male or female were staring at him in a daze, glaring jealously at Shu Fu.
Shu Fu thought, Senior Brother Liu and my master are both straight men. Why must you two fight among yourselves? You were born of the same root—why torment each other so?
The straight man wearing a beauty’s disguise pondered for a moment before slowly nodding. 【There is indeed something unusual. There seems to be a trace of parasite venom mixed with demonic energy in the Gou Snake’s flesh and blood. It is extremely faint and difficult to detect. It is impressive that Elder Xie managed to notice it.】
Shu Fu froze. 【Parasites? Demonic energy?】
Jiang Xuesheng raised his head and glanced at her. His eyes flickered, but his expression was hidden behind the veil. 【Fuer, do you remember which of the Seven Demon Lords is skilled in using parasites?】
Shu Fu naturally remembered.
There were seven great demon lords in the cultivation world. Ninglu and He Xiuwen were two she had already encountered face-to-face—the former had crossed paths with her, while she had smashed the latter’s shop. Zhao Jiuge was the hidden final villain, whose dungeon she had yet to unlock. As for Nan Gongming, that love-addled, old-fashioned Demon Lord, she had not encountered him in this lifetime.
Besides them, there were three others.
One was called Jiaohui. Ranked second among the Seven Demon Lords, he stood above the original novel’s male supporting character, Nan Gongming. All in all, he could be considered reasonably intelligent. However, he was still a step behind Zhao Jiuge. Without realizing it, he became Zhao Jiuge’s shield, the sort of person described by the saying: “He schemed with all his might, only to be born with the fate of a cannon fodder.”
Another was called Taotie. He was Zhao Jiuge’s subordinate, and his characterization was as simple and brutal as his title. His greatest hobby in life was eating people—and he had elevated it into an art form, complete with style and culture. He could practically host a show called A Bite of Demonic Cultivation.
And then there was another who called himself Six Poisons. He was most skilled at using parasites and venomous creatures. Believing himself to possess one more poison than the Five Poisons, he had chosen that name.
From this, Shu Fu concluded that he was a one-track specialist, gifted only in biology and chemistry, while his language skills were truly abysmal.
Of course, there was another possibility: the original author had simply been too lazy to give a cannon-fodder character a proper name.
【Are you saying this Gou Snake was sent by Demon Lord Six Poisons?】
Shu Fu struggled to keep her facial muscles under control, lest her anticipation show. Ever since reaching the Core Formation stage, she had received generous guidance from various seniors, but she still had yet to meet an opponent who could truly match her. What she needed now was a big, hard-to-kill fish to test her sword against.
Jiang Xuesheng shook his head. 【We cannot be certain yet. Elder Xie, can you tell what kind of parasite was on this Gou Snake?】
【How could I possibly tell?】
Xie Fangnian sat elegantly in the grass, his fluffy tail swaying back and forth. 【I am not skilled in the arts of parasites and poison. It is merely that medicine and poison are closely related, and I often deal with such things, so I happen to be especially sensitive to them.】
【Besides, if one wishes to control a living creature with parasites, they would generally place the parasite in its head.】
He tilted his head. His blue cat eyes glimmered with a ghostly light as he glanced at the snake’s ruined head. With a teasing tone, he said:
【If the disciples of the Jiuhua Sect had held back a little, there might still have been room to salvage the situation. Master Bailian’s “Blazing Cloud Spear” truly lives up to its reputation.】
Shu Fu thought, “Are you starting again?”
Unexpectedly, while Xie Fangnian was enjoying himself at someone else’s expense, a cultivator from the Danhuang Sect—an Egg Yolk Sect—stepped forward and, without rhyme or reason, slashed at the snake’s body, apparently intending to pry off a scale as large as a wok lid.
The blade struck down. Blood sprayed everywhere. The cultivator himself was wearing protective robes, but Xie Fangnian, who had been sitting nearby, had no time to dodge. The monster’s filthy blood splashed all over his head and face, instantly turning him into a little red cat with patchy fur.
【You…】
Xie Fangnian nearly shouted aloud. Qin Huan immediately leaped forward, pulled an antidote for snake venom from her storage pouch, and poured it over Little Bai’s head without a word.
“Little Bai, bear with it! The snake venom has to be neutralized right away, or your whole body will rot!”
The snake venom was vicious, but the “antidote” was even more extraordinary. It naturally carried an indescribably bizarre stench. It smelled as though durian, stinky tofu, and canned herring had been mashed together, thrown into a pot, and simmered over low heat. Anyone who came near it would have their features twist in agony.
Xie Fangnian’s sense of smell was exceptionally keen. At this moment, he could not even bother concealing his reaction. He doubled over and began coughing.
“Cough, cough cough!”
With his cultivation, he could have resisted the snake venom easily. Qin Huan’s “kindness,” however, was something he found impossible to endure—and yet he had no way to refuse it.
“There, that should do it.”
After drenching Xie Fangnian in the foul-smelling antidote and nearly making him choke to death, Qin Huan finally let out a sigh of relief. She opened her arms and stepped forward.
“Little Bai, come here. I’ll take you back to the inn and give you a proper wash…”
“…”
Before she could finish, Xie Fangnian had already started running on his little short legs. Shaking his dripping, sodden fur, he plunged into the woods without even looking back.
Wash?
If he fell into her hands, she would probably scrub a whole layer of skin off him!
“Little Bai? Little Bai!”
Qin Huan called after him anxiously twice. In the end, she could not sit still and hurried after the white cat’s retreating figure.
Handan followed close behind. “A-Tian, I want to go look for the kitty too!”
“Senior Sister?! Senior Sister, wait for me! Master said we’re not allowed to run off by ourselves…”
There was nothing Shu Fu could do about it. All she could offer was an expression that said: Hope the cat is okay.jpg.
…
Afterward, Jiang Xuesheng and Shu Fu remained where they were and carefully examined the scene from top to bottom. Aside from confirming that the Gou Snake had indeed been infected by parasites, they found no other clues.
That old dragon, Jiang Xuesheng, was a devious one, but when it came to cultivation, he was impeccably upright and had never had anything to do with unorthodox or crooked practices.
He knew a thing or two about poisonous gu and its various applications, but his knowledge was ultimately too shallow for him to identify the type of gu worm from a mere trace of its aura.
Of course, Jiang Xuesheng had no intention of giving up so easily.
After a moment’s thought, he took a small sample of the Hook Snake’s blood, sealed it, and entrusted it to a wooden messenger bird. He had it deliver the sample to Tianyan Sect, where it would be handed to Shi Xiaolou—the man who spent his days idling about, drinking himself into a stupor, and dreaming his life away—so that he could search through Tianyan Sect’s vast sea of ancient texts.
Ever since Shi Chunyu had wisely retired at the height of his career and led the others into seclusion, three generations of the Azure Phoenix clan had lived as idle layabouts, enjoying over a thousand years of peace and quiet. It was about time they all worked some overtime.
By the time all this was settled, the moon was already high in the night sky.
Everyone returned to their rooms to rest. Shu Fu no longer had the energy to fool around with Jiang Xuesheng. After hastily saying good night, she undressed and went to sleep, resting her head against his shoulder as their steady, unhurried breathing mingled through the night.
…
The next morning, Shu Fu woke early. Unable to remain in bed, she greeted Jiang Xuesheng and went alone into the mountains to find a secluded place to practice her swordsmanship.
The black-iron greatsword on her back was a new creation by Jiang Xuesheng. It was called “Slay Loulan,” a name she had painstakingly wrung from her own mind.
There was no kingdom of Loulan in the cultivation world, but “Slay the Heavenly Demon” sounded rather unpleasant, so she had no choice but to inconvenience Loulan and cast it as her hypothetical enemy.
Then again, Loulan had already been slain countless times in the poetry and prose of the old world. Li Bai alone had written, “I would draw the sword at my waist and slay Loulan,” as well as, “Swing the blade to slay Loulan; bend the bow to shoot the Worthy King.” Loulan had probably grown used to it by now and would not hold a grudge against her.
In any case, the greatsword Slay Loulan was astonishingly powerful, possessing a completely different magnificence from Guguang. Now that Shu Fu had formed her core, she had to find somewhere far from other people to practice, lest she injure innocent bystanders.
Her movement technique was incredibly swift. In the space of a few breaths, she had already glided down the mountainside like a falcon, coming to a stop beside a mountain stream surrounded by dense vegetation and utter silence.
Looking out, she saw a deep gorge bordered by steep cliffs that stretched for several miles. A clear stream, like a ribbon of jade, wound its way through the gorge, its surface glittering with golden ripples.
For some reason, the sight brought Shu Fu back to the initiation trial of her past. She, too, had once followed a mountain stream upstream, traveling alongside Ye Shusheng, a friend she had only just made.
It had been beside that very stream that she had encountered a beautiful snake demon. At the time, the snake demon had been pretending to bathe, trying to lure passing lechers into taking the bait.
Now, walking alone through scenery so similar to that of the past, Shu Fu felt as though she were revisiting an old haunt. The soft, pattering sound of water drifted into her ears…
…Wait a moment. Water?
Shu Fu abruptly stopped.
This was no auditory illusion. Barely a few steps away, she could clearly hear the sound of water.
And what was more, just as last time, it was unmistakably the sound of someone scooping up stream water and splashing it over their shoulders to wash themselves!
Shu Fu hurriedly turned around, but she was still a step too late. A hoarse voice barked, “Who’s there?” At once, several streams of water transformed into sharp arrows and shot straight toward her face.
Shu Fu: …
No, seriously. Am I actually the heroine or not?!
Why do I keep running into people bathing—and then getting hunted down as though I’m some lecher?!
This is absolutely not something the heroine should be doing! Though I am a man now!
She had no time to dwell on it. Gathering her qi, she leaped straight into the air and dodged the water arrows. Before she could even catch her breath, the branches overhead rustled violently. Countless leaves transformed into hidden flying blades and rained down upon her like a sudden storm.
Shu Fu was still in midair and had no time to adjust her position. She immediately twisted her wrist and swung the greatsword in her hand. A fierce, unstoppable wave of sword qi swept across the sky, scattering every one of the incoming “flying-leaf knives.”
At the same time, inspiration struck her. She immediately shouted, “Elder Xie, it’s me! I’m married—I wasn’t spying on you while you bathed!”
“…I know it’s you.”
As her voice rang out, a gloomy, feeble male voice answered, weak with insufficient breath. The water shimmered and swayed, and through the indistinct reflections appeared a figure so pale he was nearly translucent.
“I had finally managed to shake off those little brats, only for you to ruin my peace and quiet. It seems these past two days have truly been unlucky for me.”
Xie Fangnian rose from the mountain stream. His clothes were thin, and his long black hair hung loose, resembling a layer of dark crow feathers wrapped around his thin, frail body.
“Your reactions are passable, but your handling of a greatsword is far too clumsy. You haven’t even reached a third of Guguang’s level. How did Tan Hua teach you?”
His words were rather rude, but considering how formidable he was, Shu Fu decided not to take offense. She answered him honestly, one point at a time.
“Master isn’t a sword cultivator. He taught me cultivation techniques and how to wield spiritual artifacts. As for swordsmanship, he gave me the sword manual of Master Mingxiao and… ahem, some recording stones. Recently, whenever Master Mingxiao has had the time, he’s also been guiding me through a communication artifact.”
In simple terms, Jiang Xuesheng was responsible for teaching her internal cultivation, while for external techniques, she followed Master Mingxiao’s online classes and watched the videos on her own afterward.
Xie Fangnian gave a derisive laugh. “If he isn’t skilled in the sword, he should have stepped aside long ago. He wants to be both your master and your cultivation partner, claiming all the benefits for himself while keeping a young girl like you at his side. Does it make him feel very proud?”
Shu Fu listened without saying a word. The more she listened, the more she felt that his words reeked of sourness. Suddenly, a flash of insight came to her. After carefully considering it for a long while, she cautiously offered a theory.
“Elder Xie, do you have any disciples?”
Xie Fangnian: “…”
Shu Fu: “Could it be that you also want a disciple to inherit your legacy? But after all this time, you haven’t found anyone you consider worthy, and I’m the only one who’s passable?”
Xie Fangnian: “…”
Shu Fu: “So the reason you’re always at odds with Master isn’t that you have a problem with him personally. You’re actually coveting his disciple—”
“Enough.”
Xie Fangnian’s voice turned cold. “I merely saw that you had some aptitude and offered a few offhand pointers. Don’t push your luck. Since you have no use for them, I needn’t waste my efforts.”
With that, he gathered the loose collar of his robe, slowly climbed out of the mountain stream, and recited a spell to clear the water from his body. Then he sat down in the wheelchair waiting on the bank, turned around, and prepared to leave Shu Fu behind.
Yet for some reason, he still failed to roll away.
“…Forget it.”
From behind him, Shu Fu heard a long, enigmatic sigh. Then came a loud clang as a heavy object was thrown in front of her, flashing brilliantly in the muddy ground.
It was a greatsword.
Unlike the wholly black Slay Loulan, this greatsword was crystal clear and so polished that it reflected light like a mirror. Its material was hard yet delicate, as though it had been carved from a single enormous crystal.
“That day in Wei City, I saw you using an ancient zither as a greatsword. It was truly painful to watch. After I returned, I had nothing better to do, so I casually made this.”
Xie Fangnian waved a hand indifferently. “But it seems you have no use for it now. Keeping it would only arouse his suspicions. You might as well throw it into the stream.”
“……”
Shu Fu never would have guessed that, despite being so cutting to her face, he would be this thoughtful behind her back. Her feelings grew complicated, and she couldn’t help asking, “Elder Xie, you…”
“…You’re clearly a completely naked cat, so where on earth did you make all this stuff appear from? Sorry, but I’m genuinely curious!”
Xie Fangnian: “…”
Xie Fangnian: “There’s a storage bell tied around my neck. My fur is long, so you couldn’t see it. Satisfied now?”
Shu Fu: “Uh… Satisfied?”
Xie Fangnian: “…Why do you still sound like you’re asking a question?”
“Sigh. It’s because your character has changed so drastically, Elder, that I’m having trouble adjusting.”
Shu Fu bent down and poked the heavy sword lying on the ground. The moment her fingertip touched it, a bone-chilling cold seeped into her skin. It was probably made of something like frost iron or cold jade, materials suited to the Profound Frost Art—and of exceptional quality at that.
She had seen no shortage of rare treasures over the years, but a piece of cold jade this large clearly wasn’t something one could pick up by the roadside for three cents a pound.
—Your qin may sound awful, but your sword is beautiful. Even if someone listened to your music until they wanted to kill you, one look at your sword would make them reluctant to do it.
—Although she has absolutely no talent for music, she is a first-rate seedling for sword cultivation. Her future is limitless.
So that was how it was.
For some reason, a conversation suddenly surfaced in Shu Fu’s mind:
—Mommy, I want to wield a heavy sword!
—Then wield one. How about two?
—Two is enough, two is enough! Thank you, Mommy! Mommy is the best!
Without thinking, she blurted out, “Um… thank you, Elder. You’re really wonderful?”
Xie Fangnian: “…Was that truly meant as thanks?”
“Sigh. You’re the one who’s always being sarcastic and insulting people as effortlessly as breathing. Don’t set your standards too high for me.”
Shu Fu spoke seriously. “I really am grateful, but that’s simply the way I am. I’m not good at expressing myself. Besides, you know how narrow-minded my teacher is. I can’t get too close to other men, or call anyone else ‘Master.’”
“Master is out of the question. I don’t want a title he’s already used.”
Xie Fangnian made no attempt to hide his intention to poach her. He turned his wheelchair around and slowly pushed himself in front of Shu Fu, then silently looked down at her from head to toe.
“Or perhaps you could consider acknowledging me as your adoptive father? If you did, then Tan Hua could also…”
Shu Fu: “…”
—Well, well. So that’s what you’re after!
—Elder Xie, just to get one over on Jiang Xuesheng, you’re willing to stoop to absolutely anything!
Shu Fu: “I’ll pass on the adoptive father thing. I don’t make a habit of collecting fathers. But I might consider an adoptive mother. After all, I do like male moms…”
Xie Fangnian: “That’s enough. Get lost.”
