He did not know Nangong Yu.
Nangong Yu slowly spoke up. “Hello, Senior Brother Zhao.”
Her sweet, obedient manner drew several senior brothers and sisters over to pat her on the head.
“Where did you go to play?”
“We told you to go out and have fun, but you really stayed out all day?”
“Did you have fun? Did anyone bully you?”
Before Nangong Yu joined the sect, she had hardly been easy to get along with. She had been a very difficult mortal child.
But her breakthrough—and that of the other disciple—was directly connected to her. Besides, now that she had become their junior sister, all that difficult behavior had been transformed into a quirky and adorable personality.
“I went to the ruins of the Lin family today.” Her eyes darted around as she asked in a small voice, “I didn’t break any rules, did I?”
One of the disciples laughed. “If you did, don’t say anything! If anyone asks, just tell them you didn’t go and that you have no idea where you went.”
Another disciple elbowed him. “What kind of things are you teaching our junior sister?”
“I just think she’s too honest.” The disciple who had offered the advice tapped Nangong Yu on the head with a bent finger. “Why are you so straightforward?”
The knock hurt, so Nangong Yu kicked him.
“Did you find any treasures?” He quickly pulled his leg back and asked with a grin.
Nangong Yu replied, “I did! But I’m not telling you!”
“You must have found a pile of trash.” He teased her.
Who knew how many waves of cultivators had passed through the Lin family ruins? How could any treasures possibly remain?
When the Ziyang Sect had investigated the clues, they had searched every inch of the place. It was even less likely that anything had been overlooked.
Nangong Yu ignored him and sat down to eat, listening to the disciples talk with Zhao You.
“Congratulations on breaking through to the late Foundation Establishment stage. That’s truly something to celebrate.”
“Let’s see who still dares look down on you now.”
“With your aptitude and cultivation speed, when you return to the sect, perhaps one of the Peak Lords will take you as a disciple.”
Zhao You was an outer disciple. Nangong Yu remembered Senior Brother Zhou Yun mentioning it before.
She turned her head and curiously asked one of the female disciples, “Wasn’t Senior Brother Zhao already accepted as someone’s disciple? How come he doesn’t have a master?”
Nangong Yu had only just been recruited and knew very little about these things, so the senior sister explained, “Disciples who enter a sect are divided into servant disciples, outer disciples, inner disciples, and direct disciples. Senior Brother Zhao is an outer disciple.”
Without waiting for Nangong Yu to ask, she continued, “Those with relatively ordinary spiritual roots, or who have difficulty drawing qi into their bodies, are registered as servant disciples. They do miscellaneous work around the sect.”
Nangong Yu nodded. “I understand. Sweeping floors, wiping tables, cooking, farming, and feeding spirit beasts.”
The senior sister glanced at her in surprise and smiled. “More or less. Those with better aptitude become official disciples of the sect. If they are accepted by an elder or Peak Lord, they become inner disciples. If they have no master and cultivate on their own, they are called outer disciples.”
“Some elders and Peak Lords have detached personalities and won’t personally guide their disciples. Instead, they have their eldest disciples teach them. Others may take a disciple they particularly like with them and teach them personally. Those are called direct disciples.”
Nangong Yu hurriedly asked, “At the teahouse, I heard people mention something called a ‘closed-door disciple.’ Is that also a servant disciple? Are they responsible for closing the doors every day?”
“Pfft!”
“Hahaha!”
The senior brothers and sisters around them all burst out laughing.
The senior sister explaining everything to Nangong Yu was laughing so hard that she could not speak. After a while, she finally said, “No.”
Her expression became more serious. “A closed-door disciple refers to someone whom a cultivator takes on as their final disciple, after which they will accept no others. Everything the cultivator knows in this lifetime will be passed on to that one disciple.”
“Oh!” Nangong Yu put on an expression of sudden understanding. “So it means they’re closing the door and refusing further guests.”
The senior sister gave a soft laugh. “Exactly.”
Once their conversation ended, the people at Zhao You’s table began talking again.
“Senior Brother Zhou Yun ran into you, so that’s his bad luck.”
“He’s always liked bullying people. Many outer and inner disciples have suffered at his hands.”
Nangong Yu listened with interest and asked the senior sister beside her, “Who is he? The sect master’s son?”
“Pfft!”
Another wave of suppressed laughter swept through the group.
Someone waved Nangong Yu over. “Little Yu, come sit here.”
Perhaps they simply had not been around mortals for a long time. Otherwise, why would they find this mortal child so adorable?
She really did know how to talk.
Nangong Yu obediently went over. “Senior Brother, who is Zhou Yun?”
“He’s a disciple of Fuyu Peak,” someone explained. “The Peak Lord of Fuyu Peak has a domineering personality and is very protective of his own. Whenever anyone bullies one of his disciples, he flies into a rage. As a result, the disciples of Fuyu Peak tend to act rather arrogantly within the sect.”
Nangong Yu jotted down the words “Peak Lord of Fuyu Peak” in her little notebook.
“Is the Peak Lord of Fuyu Peak very powerful? Can’t the other Peak Lords beat him?” Nangong Yu asked.
“How could they not? He’s a Divine Transformation Dao Lord, and the other Peak Lords are no weaker.”
“However, his master once rendered the sect a great service. You understand, right?” It wasn’t that they couldn’t defeat him; it was simply inconvenient to make a move against him.
But Nangong Yu did not understand and continued asking, “What great service?”
The disciples all sighed. “You know about the five great sects and eight major schools, right? Our Ziyang Sect used to be one of the five great sects.”
“Later, something happened, and we were pushed out of the ranks of the five great sects. The sect’s resources declined as a result. The Former Peak Lord of Fuyu Peak suffered severe injuries while saving one of the sect’s spirit veins, and passed away not long afterward.”
At this point, the disciples’ expressions all became solemn.
“I shouldn’t have fought with him over it.” Zhao You let out a sigh.
The other disciples came back to themselves and comforted him. “In any case, you were the one who found the Blood Jade Fruit first, so it belongs to you. He was in the wrong to try to take it from you.”
The Blood Jade Fruit? Nangong Yu thought back. Hadn’t Zhou Yun clearly said it was a Bodhi Fruit?
“What is a Blood Jade Fruit?” she asked, since she did not understand.
A senior brother explained, “It’s a heavenly treasure with body-tempering effects. Do you know what body tempering means? It means tempering your skin, meridians, and bones, taking your physical constitution to the next level. It’s an excellent foundation-building treasure, and something one can only encounter by chance.”
It was not the same thing Zhou Yun had mentioned.
Zhou Yun had said it was a Bodhi Fruit, which could help someone break through to the Golden Core stage by calming the mind and focusing the spirit.
She was a mortal, a mascot, a complete nobody. Once they finished explaining, they stopped speaking to her and continued discussing matters concerning cultivators.
Zhao You had quite a good relationship with the others. Although he was an outer disciple, he often accepted missions from the External Affairs Hall and had completed assignments for many senior brothers and sisters.
He did not talk much, nor did he shamelessly cling to the female disciples. As a result, both the male and female disciples treated him well.
They chatted animatedly until after nine o’clock, when someone said to Nangong Yu, “Junior Sister Little Yu, you should go rest. If you don’t sleep, you won’t grow taller!”
Nangong Yu hated being short.
She glared at him gloomily. “You’re tall, but I don’t see your cultivation being very high.”
He was left speechless.
The others snickered. “Why did you provoke her?”
She had only been well-behaved for the past two days. Had he already forgotten how prickly and difficult she had been before?
“Senior Brother Zhao, I have something to ask you. Come with me.” Nangong Yu turned to Zhao You.
Zhao You was somewhat surprised, but he still got up and followed her upstairs.
The others paid them no attention and began discussing something else.
“Junior Sister Little Yu, what did you want to ask me?” Zhao You asked after entering the room.
He had entered Nangong Yu’s room.
Nangong Yu closed the door behind her and, seeing him raise an eyebrow, said, “There’s something private I need to ask you.”
So it was something that couldn’t be overheard. Though Zhao You felt this was inappropriate, he said nothing more. “Go ahead.”
“You got into a fight with someone a while ago. Did you accidentally injure a lot of mortals?” Nangong Yu asked.
Zhao You looked surprised, then remembered. His expression turned apologetic. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
His expression grew probing. “Junior Sister, how did you find out about this?”
Nangong Yu replied, “Half the villagers in Xiaoyan Village are dead. They asked me to find out from the Immortal Lord what they did to deserve it.”
Zhao You fell silent.
“I don’t know,” he said softly, his voice apologetic. “Zhou Yun was hunting me down. His cultivation was a minor level higher than mine, and he had a magic artifact his master gave him. I was only concerned with saving my own life...”
He had barely been able to protect himself. He had been focused on survival and hadn’t had the chance to worry about anything else. He hadn’t intentionally committed such a massacre.
“I’ll go to Xiaoyan Village another day and recite the Supreme Profound Scripture for the dead, so their wronged souls may be guided to the afterlife.”
Nangong Yu nodded, then brought up the actual matter at hand. “When you and Senior Brother Zhou Yun were fighting, you knocked over one of my self-heating hot pots.”
Zhao You had no idea what a self-heating hot pot was. But she was a newly initiated junior sister, and at that moment she wore an earnest, childlike expression, so he answered just as seriously, “What compensation would Junior Sister like?”
He took a piece of fine jade from his storage ring and said, “I obtained this warm jade during one of my travels. It stays warm in winter and cool in summer, and wearing it has a calming effect. I’ll give it to you as an apology.”
He had destroyed an ordinary person’s possession, yet the compensation he offered was something meant for cultivators.
“Consider it a meeting gift for my junior sister.” He opened his palm, revealing a piece of beautiful jade the size of a goose egg. It was translucent and powder-white, gleaming with a lustrous sheen.
Nangong Yu could only think that this NPC was incredibly crafty, trying to fob her off with a worthless stone.
What did “warm in winter and cool in summer” even mean? Could it withstand extreme heat or bitter cold? And as for its calming effect—could Wang Hezheng not afford something like that? He was as irritable as a glowing coal every day.
A purely conceptual trinket with no practical use whatsoever.
She was unhappy. What she had lost was a real self-heating mini hot pot—the rich broth, the mouthwatering aroma, that irreplaceable blend of technology and questionable ingredients. It had all tasted like home.
“Open your storage ring. I’ll take a look through it,” Nangong Yu said.
Zhao You didn’t understand. “What?”
“You destroyed something I treasured,” Nangong Yu said. “So I want something you treasure in return.”
That did seem reasonable.
Zhao You said coolly, “Junior Sister Little Yu.”
?
Zhao You curved his lips into a faint smile. There was little amusement in his eyes, only mockery. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.”
She was a mortal.
So what if she had temporarily been accepted as a disciple?
Did entering the sect automatically make her his junior sister? Having spent many years as an outer disciple, Zhao You understood better than anyone that it did not.
“Stop.” Nangong Yu called him back. When he turned around, she looked at him and said, “Senior Brother Zhou Yun has something he asked me to give you.”
Zhou Yun? Zhao You’s pupils contracted. “You’ve seen Zhou Yun?”
Nangong Yu said, “At a quarter past midnight, I’ll be waiting for you at the ruins of the Lin residence. If you don’t come, I’ll hand it over to the sect.”
She had leverage over him.
Something occurred to Zhao You, and a flash of murderous intent passed through his eyes.
After giving her a deep look, he slowly nodded. “Fine. I’ll be there at a quarter past midnight.”
With that, he strode out of the room.
