A sixteen-year-old kid actually had no trouble finding work. With Nangong Yu's good looks, she first landed a job at a milk tea shop.
But precisely because she was too attractive, she ran into some unwanted trouble and quit the job soon after, deciding instead to pick up trash.
No one would pay extra attention to a trash collector. Reeking of filth all over, she barely got a second glance from anyone.
Nangong Yu wandered everywhere collecting cardboard boxes and plastic bottles, pedaling a discarded old tricycle that someone had thrown away. She left home before dawn and did not return until it was pitch dark.
She earned over three thousand yuan each month. It was not enough to cover her grandmother's medical bills, but it was enough to feed the whole family, so that they could have eggs and meat on the table every day.
While her peers were all in school, and the girls she knew got to wear clean, pretty new clothes every day, Nangong Yu never once felt her life was hard.
She never thought her life was tough at all, not until the infinite flow game arrived.
All she thought about each day was living a quiet life with her grandparents. Occasionally, when she picked up half a pack of discarded cigarettes, she would tease the old man at home: "Want to try this? You've never smoked a cigarette your whole life."
Smoking smelled terrible, and her grandmother hated it. Her grandfather had never touched a cigarette in his life.
But when people are feeling low, they need a little distraction. Some people drink, some smoke, but her grandfather would just sit in the yard doing the laundry.
During the more than half a year Nangong Yu spent picking up trash, she built up a lean, sturdy layer of muscle on her frame. Her hands had been pricked by shards of broken glass, sliced by sharp metal scraps, and bitten by stray cats. At times, she would plant her hands on her hips and bicker with the elderly aunties and uncles who were her fellow trash collectors.
She did not feel that life was bitter back then, but after countless hours of scraping by and surviving in the infinite flow game, looking back on those days now made her break down in happy tears.
Yun Sheng had given her a gift. He had retrieved all her forgotten, blurry old memories, carved them deep into her mind so that she would never lose them again.
But he had also driven a knife straight into her heart, because those happy, peaceful days were gone forever, never to return.
"Despicable, low, filthy, vicious, vulgar, useless, good-for-nothing, trash... your stupid game isn't fun at all..."
Nangong Yu racked her brain, hurling every creative insult she could think of at the system.
Unbeknownst to her, in a corner out of her sight, the gray profile picture that had been offline for a very long time flickered once.
More and more cultivators were starting to talk about the Lin family's massacre.
"The Zi Yang Sect is definitely going to send people over, right?"
"Of course. Luoxia City falls under the jurisdiction of the Taihua Continent. When such a vicious evil cultivator's method appears, the Zi Yang Sect has to step in and investigate."
"Strange to say, I haven't heard of any new evil cultivators wandering around lately?"
"Maybe the Lin family was just too arrogant? They only managed to cling to the Wu Wang Sect, and they started acting so high-profile that it's no wonder someone set their sights on them."
"It might not be an evil cultivator. Maybe they stumbled onto a precious treasure, and someone targeted them for it?"
The young girl who had been munching on a chicken paw in the corner had stopped crying. Her dark, clear eyes held no trace of tears, shining bright like stars.
The Zi Yang Sect was sending people over?
She quietly slipped out of the teahouse, and made her way to the Tianji Building once more.
"Manager," she called out to the familiar face she had met last time, "it's me, I'm back again."
The manager met countless customers every day, so it was impossible for him to remember every single one of them. But he did remember Nangong Yu, that mortal child who had spent spirit stones to ask him to open a cultivator's storage bag last time.
"What brings you here?" the manager said, grabbing a handful of spirit fruits and handing them to her.
Nangong Yu happily took them, and asked, "I forgot to ask you last time, how do you use the spirit-measuring formation disk?"
The manager said, "You've heard about what happened to the Lin family, right?"
"Mm-hmm," Nangong Yu nodded as she munched on the spirit fruit.
The steward said, "In as little as seven days, or as long as half a month, people from the Zi Yang Sect will arrive. This time, they are coming not just to look into the Lin family's incident, but also to recruit new disciples."
Nangong Yu nodded. "Oh."
"You're going to go then," the steward said, seeing how interested she was, and grabbed another handful of spirit fruits for her. "You'll find out for sure if you have a spirit root."
Nangong Yu blinked twice and said, "There are bad people in the Zi Yang Sect. How am I supposed to know they aren't just messing with me?"
The steward asked, puzzled, "How do you know there are bad people in the Zi Yang Sect?"
"I read it in a storybook," Nangong Yu said seriously. "The steward elders have their own selfish agendas. They trip people up just because they don't like them. What if I accidentally offend an elder, and he hides my real talent?"
The steward burst out laughing. "The spirit testing array plate is always placed where everyone can see it. Someone has to stand nearby and channel their spiritual energy to activate it."
Nangong Yu listened intently.
"You can tell at a glance if the array plate is on or not. If that elder wanted to tamper with your talent, he'd have to mess with the array plate. It'd be far easier for him to just kill you."
After all, why would he go through all that unnecessary trouble just to deal with a mere mortal?
Nangong Yu understood. "So anyone can use that spirit testing array plate?"
The steward sorted through his account books. "Theoretically, yes. But such a precious artifact is usually kept in the hands of an elder."
Nangong Yu got the message. She had eaten two handfuls of spirit fruits, and her mouth was full of sweet saliva, so she decided to return the favor. "This is for you."
The steward, curious, took the small porcelain bottle from her hand, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed it. "Honey from thousand-eyed bees?"
"Where did you get this?"
"I stole it from your place!" Nangong Yu snapped at him, pretending to be fierce.
The steward laughed heartily and put it away. "I'll take it."
Nangong Yu carried the plate from the counter, poured all the spirit fruits onto a handkerchief, and hopped away while munching on them.
The steward didn't stop her, and greeted the new guest who walked in with a big smile.
Meanwhile, Nangong Yu walked out of the city, randomly grabbed a cultivator, and made him activate the spirit testing array plate.
"Don't try any tricks," Nangong Yu warned the man. "Or I'll kill you."
The man didn't dare doubt her. After all, the young girl looked like an ordinary mortal, yet she had the abilities of a cultivator.
"Honored friend, you think too highly of me. I don't have the skill to do that," the man said awkwardly, and channeled a wisp of spiritual energy into the spirit testing array plate.
The array plate lit up, and all the colored gemstones on it glowed before dimming again.
Nangong Yu placed her hand on the central transparent gemstone, and soon green, yellow, and blue lights lit up one after another.
"Go on, tell me," she said, looking at the man beside her.
Pity was obvious in the man's eyes, and he couldn't hide it. "Congratulations, honored friend. You have wood, earth, and water three spirit roots."
Three spirit roots?!
Nangong Yu was hit hard. Even though this was her first time stepping into the path of cultivation, she had read way too many novels. All the geniuses were either single-spirit-root or five-spirit-root.
Three spirit roots? That's total trash!
"What are the values?" she asked again.
The man glanced at the array plate and said, "They are 6, 9, and 7 respectively."
That didn't sound too bad.
At least one of the numbers was 9.
Nangong Yu was just starting to look pleased, when she suddenly thought of something. "Is that out of ten, or out of a hundred?"
The man clearly understood what she meant, and he felt even more sorry for her. "Out of a hundred."
"!!!"
Nangong Yu couldn't hold back anymore and let out a furious rant. "You damned system! Come out and get beaten!"
There was no way she could be such a useless loser. Nangong Yu refused to believe it. "Did you eat my real spirit roots?!"
"Give my spirit roots back!"
Damn it! She knew it all along. If her spiritual root was outstanding, there wouldn't be some NPC yelling at her in the alley about swapping spiritual roots.
Seeing that she was in a foul mood, the captured cultivator quickly used a secret technique to make a run for it.
As for looting treasures? How dare he? This person was clearly a sinister, vicious evil cultivator who had seized an ordinary mortal's body, only to end up stuck with a useless spiritual root.
If she flew into a rage any second now, she might kill him to silence him for sure. Better to get out of here while he still could!
After Nangong Yu ranted furiously for a while, it actually did not go to waste. She heard two beeps, "Ding! Ding!"
A thought flashed through her mind, she slapped a defensive talisman on herself, then opened the player panel.
The customer service icon, which had been gray and offline this whole time, was now flashing nonstop. She quickly tapped on it, and a message popped up right away.
[Player, do you wish to swap your spiritual root?]
[Yes; No.]
Nangong Yu tapped "No" sharply.
This lousy system never does anything without an angle to profit. It took the initiative to strike a deal with her, there was no way it had good intentions.
Right after she rejected the offer, the customer service icon stopped flashing. When she looked closely, it had turned gray and offline again.
"Don't you ever dare show your face again," Nangong Yu sneered, put away the spiritual testing array disk, and headed back toward Luoxia City.
The manager of the Heavenly Secret Tower was not wrong in his guess.
Seven days later, people from the Ziyang Sect arrived.
White and purple sect robes were worn on a group of handsome male cultivators and beautiful female cultivators. Leading the group was a middle-aged female cultivator with her hair in a bun. Her temperament was as gentle as running water, and her expression was full of compassion, making anyone who saw her feel instant admiration and respect.
There were over twenty of them in total, lined up in two teams. As they walked down the street, everyone along the way made way for them.
"Chen Zhi, take two people with you to handle the recruitment," the middle-aged female cultivator instructed.
Her voice was soft and gentle, without a hint of arrogance.
The male cultivator named Chen Zhi put his fists together in a salute, "Yes, Elder Lu."
"Bai Xuan, take two people to gather information," the middle-aged female cultivator called Elder Lu said as she walked forward, arranging tasks one by one.
A female cultivator stepped out of the queue, picked two other people, and left the main group.
"The rest of the disciples, come with me to the Lin family," Elder Lu said.
The whole group responded in unison, "Yes!"
Nangong Yu weaved through the crowd, catching every bit of the Ziyang Sect's plan, then hurried after that male cultivator.
Chen Zhi brought two fellow disciples, one male and one female, and walked straight out of the city.
Outside the city, they set up an incense table and a sect flag, then took out a stack of paper cranes and channeled spiritual energy into them.
One after another, the paper cranes quickly came alive, flapping their wings and flying off in all directions.
Nangong Yu was curious, so she caught one in her hand, and the paper crane suddenly spoke, "The Ziyang Sect is recruiting new disciples in Luoxia City. All children under the age of sixteen are eligible to sign up."
After saying that, the paper crane fluttered its wings, and Nangong Yu let go of it. The paper crane immediately soared into the sky and soon disappeared in the distance.
"Why does it have to be under sixteen?" she asked a passing cultivator.
This was the city gate, where all eight gates were wide open for cultivators and mortals to come and go.
Nangong Yu stopped a team that was entering the city, and the person she asked replied, "Because the last recruitment was sixteen years ago."
Most great sects recruit new disciples once every dozen years or so.
If they did not get enough new disciples in the last recruitment, they might hold the next one earlier, sometimes as soon as ten years later.
If a sect had no shortage of disciples or no one available to teach new recruits, they would delay the recruitment.
But no matter what, they would never wait more than twenty years. After a person turns twenty, their bones are fully formed, and their spiritual root will degenerate, which will affect their cultivation aptitude.
Most of the people in the queue were rogue cultivators, with a handful of disciples from small sects or clans. Every so often, they would glance over toward the incense table, chattering amongst themselves. There was no denying that Ziyang Sect was a great, prestigious sect that countless people dreamed of joining. Even though there were only three people manning this particular incense table, no one dared to show them the slightest disrespect. Nangong Yu rolled his eyes a little, then lifted his feet and trotted over toward the recruitment spot with a series of pattering steps.
