Two days later, at Qi Manor.
Wu Ren and his brothers returned from patrol, chatting about the six individuals who had risen through the ranks at an astonishing speed.
One guard said enviously, "They’re so lucky. They’ve only been here for a few days and were already transferred to the inner guards."
"That’s not just luck," Wu Ren said bluntly. "Think about it—those who crawled out of that fire alive are all ruthless! Plus, they managed to win Steward Qi’s favor. Little Tu even dared to hug Steward Qi. Would any of you dare?"
"That’s not something you just do!" the guards exclaimed in horror. "Let’s not talk about that. Hey, are we playing cards at Wu’s place tonight?"
"Sure—" Wu Ren suddenly smacked his forehead. "Damn it, I forgot! That Wen Shuangbai still hasn’t returned my deck!!!"
The night in the small town was quiet and peaceful, stars twinkling overhead. As usual, the group gathered at Xie Ziyin’s place to play cards.
The wooden box containing the deck was tossed carelessly to the side.
The little straw goose, having untied itself from Wen Shuangbai’s belt, hopped down and "noticed" the words "Wu Ren’s Property" carved on the box.
Four Hundred: Huh?
That’s not its owner’s name.
Four Hundred promptly scratched out the words and replaced them with "Wen Shuangbai & Four Hundred’s Property."
Amid the sound of carving, Wen Shuangbai cautiously played a card, accompanied by a note: [No abnormalities in the Artifact Hall.]
Xie Ziyin played swiftly: [No abnormalities in the Medical Hall.]
Shen Hefeng, paranoid about someone peeking at his hand, covered his cards with a tortoise shell, calculating the played cards as seriously as if he were divining. After all, they were gambling with spirit stones!
Li Zhuohua grew impatient. "Hurry up! What kind of man hesitates like this?"
Shen Hefeng, wary of Li Zhuohua’s sword—knowing she wouldn’t hesitate to use it—suppressed his sarcasm and settled for a few venomous expressions before playing a card: [The Talisman Hall is full of incompetents. Their talismans are only slightly better than mine.]
Li Zhuohua played instantly, her handwriting radiating fury: [The ghosts in the Training Grounds are all trash! I might’ve killed too many—they got upset and banned me! Now they only let me carry the wounded. Unbelievable!!!]
Yin Xuan tilted his head. "?"
He’d wondered why he was allowed on the field while Li Zhuohua wasn’t.
So that was why—he hadn’t been killing enough.
Yin Xuan nodded, having learned his lesson. Tomorrow, he’d make sure to ruin his own workload too.
His note was concise: [None.]
Meaning, no issues in the Training Grounds.
Lu Jiayao, holding an unbeatable hand, stifled a laugh. Noticing the others staring, he hurriedly played: [No problems in the Demon Soldier Hall either. The people there are so nice—they keep feeding me delicious food!]
Wen Shuangbai narrowed her eyes. Lu Jiayao’s expression gave away his luck.
Seriously, he’d been winning all night.
Unacceptable. They had to break his streak!
She immediately marked Lu Jiayao as the primary target. Exchanging glances with Xie Ziyin, Shen Hefeng, and Li Zhuohua, the four smiled faintly.
She played a card and asked: [Are you sure there’s nothing unusual in the Demon Soldier Hall?]
It was obvious—the entire Qi Manor, the town, even the city of Zhuoguang, revolved around the ghosts.
The Demon Soldier Hall, where Lu Jiayao was stationed, had to be hiding something.
Xie Ziyin cut in mercilessly: [Even if there were, he wouldn’t notice.]
Shen Hefeng added sarcastically: [Steward Qi isn’t stupid. Out of all of us, he assigned the most reliable Lu Santu to the most critical Demon Soldier Hall.]
Lu Jiayao: [You’re just jealous! Jealous that I’m Steward Qi’s favorite!]
Xie Ziyin played a few cards casually: [Jealous of what? Your lack of brains?]
While Lu Jiayao was reeling from the verbal assault, Wen Shuangbai subtly played several cards and said:
[Tell us everything about the Demon Soldier Hall. Every detail.]
Lu Jiayao, bursting with gossip, spilled immediately: [The hall has inner and outer sections. The outer section is where we rest and work—over a hundred people, all kinds of cultivators. That flamboyant musician we met? He’s in dual cultivation relationships with several others! It’s a mess! Yesterday, Steward Qi came because they were fighting over lovers! And our hall master? Rumor has it he’s infatuated with the brothel’s fox demoness owner—visits her every night…]
Li Zhuohua: [Too many words. Not reading!]
Xie Ziyin: [Focus on the inner section.]
Lu Jiayao: [The inner section houses the ghosts. There are formations and sword guards at the entrance—no one from the hall is allowed in. With so many ghosts, we musicians can’t control them. Going in would be like sheep entering a tiger’s den. Terrifying!]
Wen Shuangbai played her last card. "You lose."
Lu Jiayao checked—sure enough!
How?! He had the best hand!
Before he could analyze further, Wen Shuangbai snatched the collected notes from Four Hundred, storing them in her ring to keep them from listening.
Then she approached Lu Jiayao solemnly. "Senior Brother Lu."
Lu Jiayao, who had never been addressed so formally by her, tensed. "Wh-what’s wrong?"
"Do you know the saying, ‘When one man ascends to heaven, even his pets rise with him’?" She gripped his wrist. "The five of us are counting on you now. You’re Steward Qi’s favorite—you’re crucial. You must master music. Don’t disappoint him, understand?"
Lu Jiayao was flustered. "I—I’m important?"
"Absolutely." Wen Shuangbai reached back, fingers twitching until a freshly written note appeared in her palm.
She pressed it into Lu Jiayao’s hand, firm. "You really, truly matter."
Lu Jiayao unfolded it and read:
[Find a way—any way—to learn how to control every ghost in the inner hall.]
His hands trembled. "Huh?!"
Him?!
Yin Xuan patted his shoulder gently. "Junior Brother Santu, you can do it."
Li Zhuohua shuffled the deck noisily. "Just adopt a ‘succeed or die trying’ mindset. Guaranteed victory. Trust me."
—
From that night onward, the entire Qi Manor lived under Lu Jiayao’s shadow.
He practiced relentlessly—day and night, every spare moment.
First time awkward, second time familiar.
Hadn’t he once dug rocks and giant statues nonstop too?
Everyone had grown accustomed to it—at least this time, he was doing something he loved, and with the encouragement and support of his teammates!
Under the barrage of flattery—"You're so important," "You're the most crucial," "Our squad wouldn't have made it this far without you," "Without you, we'd be trapped here forever," "Only you can save us from this misery"—Lu Jiayao played with increasing fervor, his melody brimming with passion.
It was already unpleasant to listen to, but with his overflowing emotions, it became downright unbearable.
Every night, the other cultivators in Qi Town—even the spectral creatures kept in the Demon Soldier Hall—were forced to endure the torturous noise.
"What kind of nonsense is this? How can someone who plays this badly call themselves a music cultivator?"
"If it’s so awful it could kill, then he’s a great music cultivator."
"I fought the specters today, and they were even fiercer than usual!"
"..."
Someone finally snapped, "Can’t we just kill him already?!"
"You dare? He’s Steward Qi’s favorite. Steward Qi adores him."
Among the six, Steward Qi did indeed favor Lu Jiayao the most.
The boy was straightforward, easy to read, cheerful, and held no grudges—plus, he was easily fooled.
When Steward Qi heard that Lu Jiayao had become obsessed with practicing his music, he was delighted.
The people in Qi Town had grown too lazy. It was time to bring in some fresh blood to correct the atmosphere.
He pondered introducing an elimination system—any guard who failed to meet standards would be disposed of and fed to the demons. His hope was for Qi Town to eventually be staffed only by exemplary guards like Wen Shuangbai and his team.
...
While Lu Jiayao practiced, the rest of the squad was hardly idle.
They had long grown used to his dreadful music. With the earplugs Wen Shuangbai had prepared, they could block it out perfectly.
Li Zhuohua sat in meditation, cultivating his energy.
Yin Xuan, unusually awake, pored over a sword manual by lamplight.
[Where did Senior Brother Yin get that sword manual?]
[Oh, it fell off a wounded cultivator he was carrying earlier. He picked it up.]
[So… he’s not returning it?]
[Well, if he picked it up, doesn’t that make it his?]
[Exactly! Senior Brother Yin found it fair and square. Why should he give it back?]
[...]
Xie Ziyin spent his days in the medical hall refining pills, taking the opportunity to pocket some materials.
At night, he worked privately in his room, concocting any elixirs he thought might be useful later.
Wen Shuangbai spent his days repairing artifacts in the forge, also helping himself to materials on the side.
At night, he took the stack of talisman paper Shen Hefeng handed him, painted them, and returned a tenth of the finished talismans to the Talisman Hall every morning.
After all, wasn’t it perfectly normal for Shen Hefeng to ruin nine out of ten talismans?
Shen Hefeng, meanwhile, was busy divining.
He was calculating the optimal time to infiltrate the Demon Soldier Hall.
Success depended on the right timing, location, and people.
The location couldn’t be changed, and neither could the people.
So, they had to choose the most auspicious moment.
Divining the will of heaven cost Shen Hefeng clumps of hair.
He absolutely refused to take any more of Xie Ziyin’s hair-growth pills—that damned poison doctor! He consoled himself with the thought that once they got out, he’d buy a whole cartload of hair-growth pills and eat them like candy!
Over at Qingling Mountain, Elder Qian was also losing hair from stress.
These disciples had been in Qi Town for so many days, accumulating Sacred Stones daily. Once they returned, the sect would have to exchange those stones for spirit coins.
Elder Qian did a quick calculation—they’d spent eight days in Qi Manor, earning seven hundred stones per day. That was five hundred sixty thousand spirit coins per person!
And that wasn’t even counting their time in Qi Town. The full sum was staggering.
Disaster. Absolute disaster.
Where would Qingling Mountain get that much money? Every day, Elder Qian regretted his past self’s grand promise to exchange the Sacred Stones. He wished he could go back and slap himself silly!
He had underestimated these money-grubbing brats.
Money, money, money—when would it come?
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Just as he was lying in bed, sighing in despair, a fellow elder burst in. "Elder Qian! The master of Jade Rhino Valley has contacted our sect leader about a business collaboration. The sect leader wants you there immediately!"
"What?!" That obscenely wealthy Jade Rhino Valley, which had snubbed all major sects for years?!
Ahahaha! The eighty-eight spirit coins he’d spent on that fortune teller to pick his auspicious name had been worth it after all!
Elder Qian (Money-Comes) sprang back to life, vanishing in a gust of wind.
...
Divining the perfect moment was incredibly difficult because the world was ever-changing.
A stray breeze, an ordinary person’s fleeting thought—any of these could alter the outcome of a divination.
By the time Shen Hefeng had lost nearly all his hair, he finally pinpointed a rough window.
"Between midnight and the hour of the Ox tonight, we move." Shen Hefeng stroked the last three strands on his bald head and announced mournfully.
