Translator: SilverNeko
Editor: Dancing Dolphins Yo!
"Did anything happen in these few days?"
"Yes, our tortoise disappeared."
Jun YanZhi lowered his head and took a glance at him: "Disappeared?"
"It hasn"t come back for many days."
The two talked as they were walking. Jun YanZhi brought Wen Jing to the small living room, but he saw that a black clothed man was currently talking with Liu QianMo. That person was Zhu Jin. Zhu Jin seemed to have just sat down without any expressions on his plain and average face, but he stood up to greet Jun YanZhi.
Jun YanZhi warmly returned the greeting: "Senior shixiong, second shixiong, and Zhu shixiong are all here."
Liu QianMo also stood up and asked: "Did you cultivate to the first level?"
Jun YanZhi nodded.
"That"s perfect. Zhu shixiong came to see your progress."
Zhu Jin congratulated: "The sect head requested that once Jun shidi reached the first level, he should immediately go to Tian Heng peak. Peak master Lu has already gathered all the unconscious disciples into the main hall and is currently waiting for Jun shidi to use the technique."
Since things were urgent, Jun YanZhi nodded: "Although I already cultivated to the first level, I don"t know if it will work."
He turned his head, took a glance at Wen Jing, and his heart skipped a beat, but he still apologetically said to Zhu Jin: "I have just reached the first level. My abilities are still low, so a stalk of Su Xin gra.s.s needs to be prepared for each disciple. It must be crushed into juice and fed to them. Could Zhu shixiong go to Tian Heng peak first to prepare this herb?”
Zhu Jin sank into silence for a while: "It takes two hundred years to grow one stalk of Su Xin gra.s.s. Even Yu Rong peak only has about thirty or forty stored. It needs time to be prepared. I"ll leave first to prepare it." As soon as he finished talking, he walked out.
Once Zhu Jin left, Jun YanZhi said to Wen Jing: "Let"s go find the tortoise first."
Liu QianMo interrupted: "What tortoise?"
Wen Jing: "Jun shixiong"s spirit tortoise."
Liu QianMo frowned and said: "Doesn"t that tortoise crawl all around the whole mountain? What"s wrong with not being able to find it for a while?"
Wen Jing: "It hasn"t come back for many days."
Liu QianMo: "…………"
Wen Jing opened his mouth to explain, slightly embarra.s.sed: "That tortoise has never gone missing before. I"m worried something happened to it."
Liu QianMo gave a light cough: "Peak master Zhao, Tian Heng peak"s seventy-some disciples, and Gu Jing sect"s sixteen disciples in total add up to ninety-one people who are unconscious. Danger is upon us. That tortoise……look for him a few days later."
He Ling sat while drinking a cup of tea as if none of this had anything to do with him.
Wen Jing: "To help them, Jun shixiong easily cultivated for half a month to a full month. In such a long duration of time, what if something happened to the tortoise? I would definitely regret it to my bones." After some thinking, he added: "Since shixiong needs to save people, he could just sense where it is and then tell me the general direction. I will go by myself to find it."
That tortoise would never fail to come home without a reason. Wen Jing"s intuition told him that something had happened to it.
Jun YanZhi lowered his head and said: "Zhu Jin still needs to prepare the herbs. It would take some time. I"ll first go and find the tortoise. This short period of time wouldn"t delay that many things."
Liu QianMo could only say: "……Go quickly and hurry back."
Jun YanZhi and Wen Jing left together. Liu QianMo drank tea with his head lowered. His expression contained a little bitterness as he said: "I"ve calculated. Shifu should come out of closed-door cultivation in these few days."
He Ling remained silent.
Liu QianMo continued to talk to himself: "……So many years have gone by. This should be his last time of closed-door cultivation."
"En."
"I have a feeling as if my head will start boiling off. Shifu finally doesn"t have to go into closed-door cultivation anymore. Jun shidi also became the savior of a cultivation ancestor. I have a feeling that the next time the mountain doors are opened, Hui Shi peak will become a lot livelier."
He Ling: "Concentrate on cultivating."
Liu QianMo smiled as he talked: "My talent isn"t as good as yours. I can"t reach Golden Core stage in this lifetime. You should concentrate on cultivating. I"ll just take care of the various things that happen in Hui Shi peak."
He Ling became silent for a long time before he finally said: "If you can live a bit longer, then live a bit longer."
"Everyone has their own roads. It"s just like with sect head Xi. In his eyes, there"s only the sect. There are too little, who could grasp the understanding of the Dao and ascend. Most people will eventually die. That"s why you have to find someone or something you can"t put down or let go of no matter what, something to worry and care about." Liu QianMo laughed, "You wholeheartedly concentrate on the Dao so you probably don"t think about these kinds of things——It"s good that you concentrate and put your whole efforts into the Dao."
He Ling didn"t make a sound anymore.
Liu QianMo continued to ask: "When are you planning on going into closed-door cultivation?"
He Ling went silent for awhile, before he said: "Once the things have calmed down."
Jun YanZhi stood on an empty s.p.a.ce in front of the stone house to sense the tortoise for awhile and then pulled Wen Jing up: "Let"s go."
After flying for a bit, the two entered the back mountain of Tian Heng peak. Halfway up the mountain, they stopped in front of a forest. The forest was dense and full of thorns. A waterfall fell from the top of the cliff downwards, but the splashes it made were small and inconsistent.
Jun YanZhi pulled Wen Jing to search the forest for awhile. Suddenly, they heard the groan of a dragon, low and heavy. It came from deep within the forest. Wen Jing was surprised, then he put on an "about to go all out" stance, and charged towards the place where the sound, that was made by the dragon, came from.
Tortoise meat could prolong life. It couldn"t have been eaten by some beast, right?
After walking for some time, they had come to the end of the forest and saw a light green snake that was around the size of a person. Its body emitted a soft light. With its back against them, it was currently rolling on the ground.
Wen Jing was anxious: "Isn"t this elder Lu"s YuYan dragon? Where"s our tortoise?"
Jun YanZhi was neither panicked nor in a hurry as he said: "Still alive."
Wen Jing rushed up and stopped about twenty to thirty steps ahead. He saw that dragon turned over with its face upwards. Its white belly was exposed, and its two front claws were slightly bent. It seemed to be sleeping very deeply.
The tortoise was crouched at one side. It seemed to know that it was held captive, and its eyes stared unblinkingly at the dragon.
Wen Jing frowned: "What did this YuYan dragon capture the tortoise for?"
"It probably had nothing to do and found a play buddy."
"How do we get it back?"
Jun YanZhi glanced at Wen Jing. Then his hands sent out a wave of spiritual energy, gradually covering the entirety of the dragon. As expected, that dragon"s four limbs all hung down and it fell into a heavier sleep.
Wen Jing carefully and silently went forward and hugged the tortoise in his arms. In a quiet voice, he said: "Let"s go."
The two rapidly retraced their steps out of the forest. Jun YanZhi: "I need to go to the main hall of Tian Heng peak. Are you going to follow me or go back and drop off the tortoise first?"
The tortoise moved around abnormally and turned his head.
Wen Jing: "I"ll get back first to lock the tortoise inside of the house. This dragon is too hateful. Who knows how he caught the tortoise. Hurry up and go. Don"t let them wait too long."
Jun YanZhi nodded and left first.
The tortoise"s four limbs randomly moved and it seemed to be very uncomfortable. Wen Jing couldn"t help but find it strange: "What"s wrong?"
According to the direction it was struggling in, Wen Jing carried it to the side of the cliff. That cliff wasn"t too high and was only about a few dozen meters tall. The branches and leaves of the forest below the cliff were very dense. There was a slight sound coming from there. Seemingly, there were people out there.
The tortoise desperately waved its limbs towards the bottom of the cliff. Wen Jing couldn"t beat it in terms of stubbornness. He thought for a while and decided that the cultivation of the person at the bottom of the cliff wasn"t high, just around the same as himself. There was no reason to be afraid, so he carried the tortoise and flew down.
Pa.s.sing through the branches and leaves and landing at the bottom, Wen Jing looked around and somewhat froze: "It"s you."
In front of him was a youth in dark blue colored clothes around seventeen or eighteen years old. Currently, he was half squatting in front of a small stream under the waterfall. He lifted his head and glanced at Wen Jing. His two eyes held a small smile in them: "It"s you again. Do you still remember my name?"
"……You Si."
A person whose character value was always flipping between negative and positive.
"En……What did you come here for?" You Si smiled.
The tortoise desperately struggled towards You Si"s direction. Wen Jing awkwardly said: "What"s on you? This tortoise is never like this."
You Si lowered his head, slightly hesitating before taking out a string of grapes-like white fruits: "This is a string of "SuSheng fruit" that I won in a bet, a few days ago. Eating it can increase one"s cultivation as well. Your tortoise wants to eat it, I guess?"
Sure enough, the tortoise became more restless.
Wen Jing asked with embarra.s.sment: "Would you be willing to sell those fruits?"
This glutton actually smelled the white fruits from the top of the cliff……
You Si gave a smile and placed the fruits onto the ground: "Come eat."
Wen Jing put the tortoise down. As expected, it started crawling over and opened its mouth in front of You Si.
You Si squatted down and picked off the white fruits one by one, placing them in the tortoise"s mouth. He also petted its head.
Wen Jing frowned as he said: "You are Bei Yan peak"s disciple. What are you doing here?"
You Si turned his head to look at the waterfall falling from the top of the cliff: "Nothing. Just checking the water sources of Tian Heng peak."
Wen Jing watched him and tried to sound him out: "Checking the water sources? What for? Is there anything unusual?"
He had read the novel so of course, he knew the guesses of Xi Fang and Lu ZhiShan. The most likely one of them was that the demonic cultivator was using the water to mix in a little bit of their blood. If someone were to drink it, they would come under the control of the demonic cultivator and lose their reason.
It couldn"t be that this You Si also knew?
You Si smiled: "The water here is normal, but the water on the other side of Tian Heng peak seems to have some problems."
"What problems?"
You Si"s lips were curved up the whole time. He always gave off a slight feeling of smiling, but people couldn"t tell what he was thinking: "Tian Heng peak has two streams. This one"s on the backside of the mountain and is connected to over twenty different springs. Wen RenMu and over one hundred disciples all drink water from these sources. The other stream is connected to a little over ten springs. Those were precisely the streams that those seventh-some people who had lost their reason, drank from."
Wen Jing couldn"t help but look at You Si with a heavy expression: "You suspect that the water source on that side has problems?"
"……I just thought that it was a bit coincidental and investigated a little."
"What did you find?"
You Si glanced at him. His smile deepening: "I"ve read many ancient records. I know that a demonic cultivator could use their blood to control people"s minds. If the stream on the other side contains the demonic cultivator"s blood……"
He really did know that blood could be used to control people!
"It"s already late. Even if there was blood, it would"ve been scattered by now. You probably can"t find it……"
Xi Fang had already sent Zhu Jin to secretly investigate but found nothing.
You Si said, while maintaining his smile: "Out of the Tian Heng peak disciples who use this water source, there were twenty some people who did not lose their reason. I inquired for a long time and heard that they, in the same period of time, either went down the mountain or entered closed-door cultivation, so they didn"t drink water from the mountain for a few days. As such, it can be inferred that the demonic cultivator most likely mixed water into the stream that day.
Wen Jing calmly watched him while feeling excited inside.
What"s with this person? He actually had qualifications of a detective!
You Si, however, couldn"t help but laugh: "It"s just a pity. Even if I guessed, I wouldn"t be able to know who did it. I only know that the demonic cultivator must have mixed in the blood before the interpeak compet.i.tion day.
Wen Jing"s heart shook.
That day was precisely the day which the system warned him that it detected the demonic cultivator.
This news must be told to Jun shixiong!
Even if they needed to find the demonic cultivator, it must be found by Jun shixiong!
Footnotes:
Have I explained closed-door cultivation yet? If not, it is where you go into a secluded place. Normally, something only you know to concentrate on cultivation with no outside distractions. This is especially important in times when you are just about to advance into a new level, you"re trying to level up really fast because if something goes wrong when you"re advancing, you could demonize and fall to the demonic path.
Tn: All these pill names and gra.s.s(medicine) names, but from my experience, you don"t really need to memorize them. At least that"s what I do when I read cultivation novels.
I"m getting vibes that He Ling might be into Liu QianMo. ? It"s not just me, right?
Also, Wen Jing"s fanboy side is coming out lol. It"s so adorable how he"s doing his best to care for Jun YanZhi.
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