***
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!
Bai Yunsheng’s idea might have sounded hopelessly old-fashioned, but as the saying goes, it doesn’t matter how many tricks you have as long as one of them works. And really, the fact that this trick had stood the test of time was proof enough that it did.
Wu Guanyue’s face lit up at once, but after thinking it over, she began to look hesitant.
“But…”
She fidgeted, unable to make up her mind.
Bai Yunsheng was exasperated. “What are you hesitating for? You never hesitated when you were tormenting me! And now you’re suddenly thinking things through? What, do you feel bad for him? Feel sorry for him?”
“It’s not that…”
Wu Guanyue stammered and faltered.
In the end, she blushed and said, “But… men more handsome and charming than Brother Ying are so hard to find…”
Bai Yunsheng: “…………”
Bai Yunsheng: “………………”
Bai Yunsheng was floored!
This time, he really couldn’t be bothered to say another word.
The young nobleman rolled his eyes so hard they nearly disappeared, wolfed down the last two bites of his noodles, then primly took out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. With a flourish, he snapped open his folding fan and gave it a few gentle waves.
Only then did he notice Wu Guanyue watching him thoughtfully…
Bai Yunsheng: “…………”
Bai Yunsheng stiffened. “Why are you looking at me?!”
Wu Guanyue: (*^▽^*)
The Little Shopkeeper Wu suddenly put on her trademark sweet smile again… It was certainly adorable, but whenever she smiled like that, it usually meant things were about to go very, very, very badly!
Wu Guanyue declared with righteous conviction, “It’s decided! You’re the one, Bai Yunsheng!”
Then she immediately added, “You’re not as handsome as Brother Ying, but you’re not bad either… You’ll do, barely!”
Bai Yunsheng flew into a rage. “Who are you calling ‘barely’?! Who?! …Wait, why should I be the tool for you two love-crazed lunatics to play at being a loving couple?!”
Had he lost his mind?!
Sure, watching Wenren Ying burn with jealousy would be incredibly satisfying… but if he was the one being envied, that was an entirely different matter!!!
What if Wenren Ying went berserk and split him in two with a single swing of his blade?!
Why not Chu Yingfeng?! Chu Yingfeng and Wenren Ying could kill each other! Hahaha, just imagining it was already entertaining.
Bai Yunsheng immediately tried to redirect the disaster toward Chu Yingfeng.
But Wu Guanyue’s twin tails swayed as she answered with complete honesty, “But Chu Yingfeng is a good person. I don’t want Brother Ying to accidentally hurt him.”
Bai Yunsheng: “…………”
So she didn’t care if he got hurt instead?!!
The answer was obvious, so he didn’t bother asking and humiliating himself.
With a stern expression, Bai Yunsheng considered his options very calmly… Maybe he should head back to the Yunmeng Bai clan and lie low for a while.
He could put off returning to the Xuantian Sect. It wasn’t as though he had anything to do there. His master, Perfected Renhua, spent three hundred and fifty days out of the year in seclusion, so Bai Yunsheng was free to do as he pleased at the Xuantian Sect… though nobody ever taught him any profound and arcane cultivation techniques, either.
But…
He really wanted to see Wenren Ying heartbroken and humiliated…
He couldn’t bring himself to leave. He really couldn’t.
As the saying goes, people never mind going to great lengths when they are up to no good. Naturally, the same held true for cultivators.
So Bai Yunsheng began to ponder: how could he watch Wenren Ying suffer a setback without getting caught up in it himself...?
Just then, a handsome fellow happened to stroll past...
Lifting the hem of his robe and stepping over the threshold, the newcomer smiled. “Shopkeeper, do you have any vacant rooms?”
He wore a robe of deep green, and his complexion was fair. He was indeed strikingly handsome—except that he had been cursed with a pair of roguish peach-blossom eyes, making it seem as though he were forever flirting with women through his gaze...
He had only just entered the inn to seek lodging, yet he already seemed to have exchanged a thousand silent words with Wu Guanyue.
...A frivolous rake who drew bees and butterflies wherever he went.
Hm?
A frivolous rake who drew bees and butterflies?
Bai Yunsheng spun the folding fan in his hand, intending to poke Wu Guanyue in the waist with it as a signal—wasn’t this exactly the heaven-sent tool, the perfect sucker they had been looking for?
But before his fan could touch Wu Guanyue, the green-robed rake made his move. He curled and flicked a finger, sending a pearl the size of a fingertip shooting from his hand. With a crisp clang, it struck the jade rib of the folding fan, producing a clear, melodious sound like clashing gold and jade.
Expressionless, Bai Yunsheng turned his head and looked at the man.
The man merely smiled. “Young master, do not disturb the beauty.”
Then he cupped his hands toward Wu Guanyue. “Shopkeeper, one upper room.”
Wu Guanyue said, “Oh, certainly. An upper room is five taels of silver per night.”
After all, she ran an inn. This sort of everyday transaction was perfectly ordinary to her... Besides, cultivators generally were not bad-looking. From Chu Yingfeng to Master Chongxu, they were all quite handsome, really...
What she cared about most in a man was the breadth of his heart. Yes!
Thus, she did not find this man especially attractive.
But he, on the other hand, seemed to find her very attractive...
From the moment he entered, his eyes had remained fixed on Wu Guanyue. Fortunately, because he had such a pleasing face, the attention was not altogether unpleasant.
Wu Guanyue said, “Payment first.”
The green-robed man gave a soft laugh.
With a flick of his hand, a flower-shaped hairpin suddenly appeared between his two fingers. Its pearls were round and lustrous as he gently set it on the counter.
“I am Miaolangjun. Might this item cover the cost of the room?”
Wu Guanyue’s heart was hard as iron. “No. Give me five taels of silver.”
Ornaments and money were not the same thing! Most importantly, no matter how valuable an ornament might be, it could not be counted as part of the inn’s takings!
The corner of Miaolangjun’s mouth seemed to twitch. Clearly, he had not expected Wu Guanyue to be so utterly impervious to romance.
Still, he recovered quickly.
Reaching into his sleeve, Miaolangjun took out a silver ingot and placed it on the counter. The smile on his face remained as confident as ever. He did not take back the hairpin, merely smiling as he said, “Once a gift has been given, there is no taking it back. If this flower pleases you, miss, and can add a little adornment to your beauty, then it has found its rightful owner.”
With that, he went upstairs in a carefree, elegant manner.
The moment Miao Langjun stepped inside, the Blood Demon Ancestor’s voice sounded in his ear.
“See for yourself? That woman’s as steadfast as they come! Splitting up that pair of lovebirds won’t be easy.”
A sly, lazy smile spread across Miao Langjun’s face.
He drawled, “Ancestor, you’re nothing but a wisp of mist now, and you’re still keeping tabs on whether people are faithful?”
The Blood Demon Ancestor: “…………”
The question left him with no good answer, and he fell silent.
As it happened, Miao Langjun and the Blood Demon Ancestor went way back.
Calling them old acquaintances hardly did their relationship justice. After the East Hua Blood Moon incident, the Blood Demon Ancestor had founded his own sect. Many survivors who fled the city had no idea how to deal with the blood poison, so they flocked to him and became his disciples and grand-disciples. Miao Langjun was one of them.
Later, Lord Chasing Clouds burst onto the scene and slew the Blood Demon Ancestor with a single sword stroke. Naturally, the followers beneath him scattered like monkeys from a fallen tree, drifting to every corner of the Nine Provinces. Over the next two hundred years, Wenren Ying hunted them down and killed them one by one.
Of those who were still alive, fewer than one in ten remained.
And the reason Miao Langjun was still alive… was that he’d had another stroke of fortune.
While fleeing Wenren Ying’s pursuit, Miao Langjun had accidentally fallen from a cliff. As everyone knows, falling off a cliff is bound to lead to a fortuitous encounter. Sure enough, at the foot of the mountain he found a stone chamber. As luck would have it, this was one of the lairs of the great demon Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord, sealed away a thousand years earlier.
Back when he was still human, the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord had diligently practiced his cultivation here. It was here, too, that he mastered his terrifying Soul-Draining Art.
The Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord had once been a modestly successful cloth merchant, with two shops to his name. His wife had died young, leaving him to raise their only daughter alone. The girl showed some talent for the Dao, so at the age of ten she entered an immortal sect.
But who could have guessed that she would die there at sixteen? The sect wouldn’t even let him take her body home. Someone took pity on him and told him the truth: a young man from a powerful family had taken an interest in his daughter. When she refused him to the bitter end, the enraged man beat her to death.
The Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord was consumed by grief and fury. From that day on, he devoted himself to seeking justice. But what chance did a humble cloth merchant with no connections have of winning his case?
As his long, winding struggle for justice wore on, he gradually came to understand how insignificant he was—and that this world ran on the law of the jungle.
But he was a mortal with no spiritual roots. He couldn’t use any of the five elements’ spiritual energies: metal, wood, water, fire, or earth.
Then, through some unknown stroke of fortune, he somehow mastered a unique cultivation technique that let him draw power from human souls. The more people he killed, the more “soulfire” he gained—and the stronger he became.
The Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord killed countless people. Once he had gathered enough power, he wiped out the immortal sect responsible for his daughter’s death, sparing not even the watchdogs. When the sect’s cultivators died, their souls became further nourishment for him. Convinced he was invincible, the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord cast off all restraint and plunged the Nine Provinces into chaos and bloodshed.
“Hundred Eyes” referred to the sheer number of people he had killed. The wronged souls he had drained away had corroded his flesh, leaving countless blood-red holes of all sizes across his body. From a distance, they looked like a hundred dead eyes that refused to close.
Later, after killing enough cultivators of high realms, he became capable of summoning wind and rain—practically more of an earthly immortal than any earthly immortal.
What happened afterward is even more widely known: Sword Lord Taibai sacrificed himself to suppress the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord. However, that fiend had long since replaced his fleshly body with a puppet vessel. So, most likely, he was not dead even now—only firmly sealed away somewhere no one knew.
Of course, Miaolangjun was not concerned with any of that. The only thing that interested him was the other man’s Soul-Absorbing Art…
And in this stone chamber, there truly was half a surviving volume of the Soul-Absorbing Art.
The Soul-Absorbing Art allowed even ordinary people without spiritual roots to extend their lifespans and gain immense power rivaling that of cultivators. It was precisely what Miaolangjun needed.
Thus, Miaolangjun steeled his heart, crippled his Spirit Palace to stop the blood poison from spreading, and began cultivating the Soul-Absorbing Art instead. His days became fairly comfortable, and because of it, he even managed to evade Wenren Ying’s pursuit.
Still, he did not have the audacity to go around killing people like the Hundred-Eyed Demon Lord.
Since he was already practicing a cultivation art that Heaven and earth could not tolerate, he ought to keep a low profile and behave himself. Making a great show of it would only be asking to get beaten, wouldn’t it?
But how was he supposed to obtain a large amount of soul flames?
He thought of Donghua City. Wasn’t that city hiding the souls of countless dead people?
And so, more than a decade ago, Miaolangjun returned to Donghua City. By then, however, the city had already been sealed off by a barrier. Miaolangjun knew nothing about formations, and he circled the dense fog again and again without finding a way in.
That was when he met someone well versed in formations.
—The man’s name was Wu Guizhen, and he was an old man with hair as white as snow.
