Wen Shuangbai carefully pondered the matter. In the book, among the named characters participating in the sect's competition, most were either Yu Xiaoxiao's allies or mindlessly malicious cannon fodder so vile that even she, the villain, found them unbearable.
Those who remained neutral already had fixed partners and wouldn’t be easily persuaded to join their side.
There was only one candidate Wen Shuangbai had her eye on—Li Zhuohua, the top-ranked disciple in the Sword Arts Pavilion competition and the daughter of Qingling Mountain’s sect leader.
Senior Sister Zhuohua possessed extraordinary talent and profound mastery of the sword. For a long time, the protagonist Yu Xiaoxiao lived under her shadow.
It wasn’t until the mid-to-late stages of the plot, during a life-and-death duel with Li Zhuohua, that Yu Xiaoxiao comprehended her sword intent, crippled Zhuohua, and finally broke free from that shadow.
But in the early and middle stages, Li Zhuohua was indisputably the strongest among the younger generation of disciples.
Wen Shuangbai had long coveted this senior sister’s alliance, but the woman’s whereabouts were elusive, making it impossible for her to establish any connection.
However, Wen Shuangbai recalled that Shen Hefeng and Li Zhuohua were acquainted—and on quite good terms.
Thinking this, she asked directly, "Can’t you invite Senior Sister Zhuohua?"
Shen Hefeng’s expression turned aggrieved. "Do you think I made you wait so long for no reason? I was looking for her! If she had agreed, I wouldn’t even be here with you!"
Wen Shuangbai: "?"
Was this something a human being should say?
Xie Ziyin, who had been about to leave, paused and said coldly, "You can back out right now."
Wen Shuangbai glanced at him out of the corner of her eye but, for once, didn’t retort.
"Tsk tsk tsk, you two are truly wicked," Shen Hefeng scoffed, refusing to take the bait. Where would he even get the spirit stones to compensate them if he backed out now? "Give it up. Senior Sister Zhuohua won’t come. When I went to find her, before I could even finish speaking, she told me to get lost. She said she’s going to conquer Mount Taihua alone."
Fine.
In the book, Senior Sister Zhuohua had indeed gone solo and still achieved impressive results. There was really no need for her to team up and carry dead weight.
The original Wen Shuangbai had formed a team with those good-for-nothing elders’ descendants, but after transmigrating into the novel, she had cut ties with them.
She tentatively suggested a few relatively less idle candidates, but after Shen Hefeng divined the outcomes, the omens went from "disastrous" to "catastrophic."
"Never mind. We still have a few days left. Let’s call it a day for now." With that, Shen Hefeng took his leave, and the three parted ways.
---
Three days later.
The proprietress of the Hundred Ghosts Tower sent a message summoning Wen Shuangbai to collect garbage.
Without hesitation, Wen Shuangbai grabbed her storage pouch and rushed over.
The proprietress lived in a modest three-courtyard residence within Qingzhou City.
She introduced herself as Xu Ruyi, a widow who had lost her husband. She spent her days crafting magical artifacts, setting up a stall at the Hundred Ghosts Tower, and scraping by with small-scale business.
The name sounded obviously fake.
Wen Shuangbai grinned but didn’t call her out, reciprocating the courtesy. "Just call me Xiao Bai, Sister Ruyi."
"Here you go, Xiao Bai." Xu Ruyi handed her a storage ring. "Everything’s inside—about 2,300 catties in total. Hurry up and take it away. I don’t want my ring cluttered with junk—it’s an eyesore."
Wen Shuangbai took it. The ring’s spiritual seal had already been released. When she probed it with her spiritual energy, she saw it was packed with all sorts of broken and misshapen artifacts—a veritable miniature landfill.
"..."
Wen Shuangbai clutched her tiny ten-square-foot storage pouch and sighed.
She had miscalculated.
There was too much garbage. Her pouch couldn’t hold it all.
Xu Ruyi, sipping tea, noticed the girl frozen like a statue and asked curiously, "What’s wrong?"
Wen Shuangbai kept her expression blank. "Nothing. Sister Ruyi, are you selling this storage ring?"
Xu Ruyi: "Two thousand spirit stones." Then, remembering something, she quickly added, "No bargaining!"
Wen Shuangbai: "..."
She nodded understandingly. "No problem. Then let me rephrase—do you have any storage rings or pouches with similar capacity here? Preferably under 230 spirit stones?"
Xu Ruyi nearly choked on her tea, barely managing to swallow it.
Was this girl’s "rephrasing" not just bargaining in disguise? And she wanted to slash the price from 2,000 to 230?
For this pile of junk, Xu Ruyi was even willing to pay 230 spirit stones as a disposal fee, but this girl wasn’t offering a single stone!
Xu Ruyi shook her head, taking a moment to compose herself before sighing, "...In my thirty-plus years of life, I’ve never met a poor girl as shameless as you."
Wen Shuangbai smiled sweetly. "There’s a first time for everything..."
"Alright, enough." Xu Ruyi had no interest in hearing her nonsense. Then, recalling something, she smirked. "Lucky for you, I do have something. But it depends on whether you dare to take it."
...
After the first round of the competition, Lu Jiayao returned home for a few days of rest. Today, he had just arrived back at the sect and was heading to the outer peaks when he happened to run into Junior Sister Wen.
He brightened, about to greet her, when—
Thud!
A broken sword suddenly fell from her person, embedding itself into the dirt.
The junior sister paused, bending to pick it up, when—
Bang!
A lopsided alchemy furnace crashed down.
Then came a cacophony of clattering as a flood of bizarrely deformed artifacts spilled onto the ground.
Wen Shuangbai stood frozen, clutching a broken sword in one hand and a ruined furnace in the other, staring skyward in despair.
Will this ever end?!
Lu Jiayao rushed over and blurted the obvious: "Junior Sister Wen, your storage ring is broken!"
Wen Shuangbai shot him a sidelong glance. "I know."
Lu Jiayao hadn’t seen the ring on her before and asked, puzzled, "Where did you get it?"
Wen Shuangbai fell silent for a beat. "I just bought it."
Lu Jiayao was stunned. "Why would you buy such a broken ring? You’ve been scammed! Come on, let’s go find the seller and demand justice!"
"Thanks, but no need." Wen Shuangbai gazed fondly at the ring. "It doesn’t scorn me for being poor—how could I scorn it for being broken?"
After hearing the price, Lu Jiayao couldn’t help but marvel, "That’s really cheap."
As he helped her gather the scattered junk, he still felt uneasy. "But no matter how cheap it is, a storage ring that leaks is unusable, right?"
"It’s fine. I can fix it." Wen Shuangbai hugged the pile of garbage and headed home, then asked curiously, "What are you doing here?"
Lu Jiayao: "Senior Brother Yin sent for me."
Wen Shuangbai nodded.
Yin Xuan’s injuries had long healed, but he had only woken up this morning.
When Wen Shuangbai and Lu Jiayao entered the courtyard, the silver-haired man was eating with elegant haste.
Wen Shuangbai: "Where’s Junior Sister Wen?"
Yin Xuan yawned. "Gathering flowers."
Junior Sister Wen Xin was the last to join their faction. By then, Wen Feng had already begun his descent into debauchery—drinking, gambling, and shirking all responsibilities.
At that time, demonic cultivators ran rampant, abducting children with spiritual roots. The sect elders had rescued a group of these children from a demonic stronghold. Most were returned to their families, but a few orphans were brought back to Qingling Mountain to be raised.
Among them, Wen Xin had the weakest aptitude—a seventh-grade earth spiritual root. None of the pavilions or elders wanted her, so after endless buck-passing, she was dumped onto Wen Feng.
Wen Feng couldn’t care less. After all, he wasn’t raising any of them. Whether his disciples lived or died—what did it have to do with him?
But the little junior sister had never given up on herself. Without a master to guide her, she taught herself to cultivate spiritual flowers and herbs. Just as her cultivation was gradually improving, she met a tragic end due to the original owner’s relationship with Wen Feng.
"Senior Brother, when are we setting off?" Lu Jiayao asked.
The senior brother, bleary-eyed, glanced at Wen Shuangbai and asked weakly, "Junior Sister, is it time to go?"
Wen Shuangbai: "?"
Last night, Shen Hefeng had indeed arranged to meet them that afternoon to finalize the team lineup.
But what was Lu Jiayao doing here?
Wait… no way?
Wen Shuangbai turned to Yin Xuan: "Hold on, Senior Brother, you didn’t actually agree to let Lu Jiayao join our team, did you? Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?"
Lu Jiayao had never been on her team list—after all, he was infamous in the novel for being a master at sabotaging his teammates.
Yin Xuan looked utterly confused, probably still groggy from oversleeping: "I didn’t agree to it. Didn’t you agree, Junior Sister?"
Wen Shuangbai: "Me?"
Yin Xuan nodded, munching on snacks without missing a beat, his voice gentle: "Back at the Sword Arts Pavilion, Jiayao mentioned wanting to team up with me, and I said I’d have to ask you. A few days ago, he messaged me on the Mystic Heaven Mirror saying you’d agreed. When I saw it this morning, I called him over."
Lu Jiayao nodded vigorously: "Yep, that’s exactly what happened."
He pulled out a freshly bought bag of snacks from his storage pouch and immediately offered them to Yin Xuan.
Yin Xuan was about to take them when he caught his second junior sister’s glare. After a long pause, he slowly pushed the snacks back.
Wen Shuangbai rubbed her temples, wracking her brain but unable to recall ever agreeing: "When did I say yes to you?"
Lu Jiayao was equally baffled, not understanding why she was going back on her word: "That day at the medical hall, I asked if I could join your team, and you said, ‘Mhm, mhm, sure, sure.’"
He mimicked Wen Shuangbai’s tone perfectly, even nailing the rising and falling inflections of "sure, sure."
"……"
Wen Shuangbai facepalmed.
Now she remembered. There had indeed been such a moment—but his voice had been hoarse at the time. How was she supposed to understand a single word?
Yin Xuan’s gaze lingered longingly on the snacks before he suggested, "Well, we’re short one person anyway. Why not take Jiayao along and see how it goes?"
Wen Shuangbai looked at her senior brother, who was practically drooling over the snacks, then at Lu Jiayao, who was blinking his big, hopeful eyes. She decided to leave it to fate: "Fine. Let’s see what the divination says."
—
By the time Wen Shuangbai’s group arrived at Shen Hefeng’s place, Xie Ziyin was already there.
He lounged casually by the window, one leg crossed over the other, a thick medical book resting on his lap as he flipped through the pages at a steady pace—about one every three seconds.
Wen Shuangbai was convinced the man was just showing off.
She pretended not to see him, explained Lu Jiayao’s situation to Shen Hefeng, then took a seat as far from Xie Ziyin as possible.
Yin Xuan and Lu Jiayao sat between the two.
Shen Hefeng was performing a divination, so the room fell silent.
Until the crisp sound of crunching broke the quiet—Yin Xuan was munching on his snacks, completely unbothered by the surroundings.
Lu Jiayao’s bright, curious eyes darted between Xie Ziyin and Wen Shuangbai.
He couldn’t help but find this engaged couple utterly bizarre. He was dying to know how their marriage would eventually play out. Lost in thought, he absentmindedly reached for a handful of roasted melon seeds.
Yin Xuan noticed the approaching hand, shifted his chair with a squeak, and scooted over to the empty space near Xie Ziyin.
Shen Hefeng’s room wasn’t large, and the only free spot left was by the window.
Lu Jiayao’s hand closed on empty air.
Yin Xuan continued eating his snacks, subtly shielding them from Xie Ziyin’s side.
Xie Ziyin: "……"
Seriously? Even the female lead’s sleepy senior brother was possessive over food?
"Ah?" Shen Hefeng suddenly spoke up, staring at the turtle shell on the table. "It’s changed to mid-lower?"
He stood up, clapped Lu Jiayao on the shoulder, and declared, "Alright, you’re in!"
At this announcement, Lu Jiayao beamed, Xie Ziyin and Yin Xuan remained indifferent, but Wen Shuangbai’s expression turned odd.
She hesitated, wanting to say something but holding back.
She remembered from the novel that the team Lu Jiayao had joined suffered greatly due to his blunders—though he meant well, his good intentions often backfired.
However, since his mistakes mainly affected the brainless cannon-fodder characters, they inadvertently helped the female lead, Yu Xiaoxiao, and her group, even becoming a source of comedic relief. As a result, Lu Jiayao was a fan-favorite character. Though not part of the main cast, he survived till the end and got a decent ending.
Wen Shuangbai never expected Lu Jiayao’s inclusion to improve the divination result.
"For the Taihua Mountain Secret Realm, disciples are only allowed to bring one magical artifact and empty storage tools. Nothing else can be taken inside," Shen Hefeng explained while swiping through his Mystic Heaven Mirror. "The storage tools are for collecting rare materials. Our ranking will be based on the total value of the treasures we retrieve, so everyone should bring extra storage pouches or rings—at least one per person, each with at least one acre of space."
This was part of the competition rules, so Wen Shuangbai and the others had no objections.
Xie Ziyin appeared calm and composed as usual, but inwardly, he sighed.
More expenses again?
Shortly after Shen Hefeng finished speaking, a series of chimes rang out as notifications popped up on everyone’s Mystic Heaven Mirrors.
Wen Shuangbai opened hers.
"[Shen Hefeng] has invited you, [No Money], [Sleepy Silver], and [Lu Dirt] to join the team."
"[Shen Hefeng] has changed the team name to [Today’s Auspice: Get Rich]."
