All of Xianhao Sect was buzzing about how formidable this spirit-plant thief must be, able to slip in and out of the protective array around the third-grade Spirit Plant Garden completely at will. In reality, that wasn’t quite the case, the thief had gotten in, but had then been trapped inside the whole time, never actually getting back out. When the Grand Elder had gone into the Spirit Plant Garden and found no one there, he’d simply assumed the thief had fled.
But in truth, that thief wasn’t a person at all.
Xu Yifan arrived outside the protective array, pinched two fingers together, and used his spiritual energy to carve a fusion-array rune onto a small wooden tablet.
This was a fourth-grade inscription technique, not especially advanced, but this particular fusion-array rune was extremely obscure. If he hadn’t originally fallen into a spacetime rift and been swept into the depths of the Lotus Blossom Secret Realm, learning things like this within that secret realm, he’d probably still be trapped in that rift now, unable to get out at all.
Once the fusion-array rune was carved, Xu Yifan activated it, and his entire body vanished instantly from outside the protective array.
The demonic plant had rooted itself in the spirit plant field, disguised as a second-grade spirit plant. Ever since it had refined those six chests of spirit stones, its strength had surged dramatically, still only at early Foundation Establishment cultivation, but its spiritual energy had grown far more abundant, its body had grown half a fist taller, and its nerve had grown bolder too.
Back when Xu Yifan had seen through its disguise at a glance, it had pestered him with questions after the contract was formed, and only then learned that out in the world, no grass or spirit plant was ever black. So it had gotten smarter.
At least, these past few days, that old bastard who kept shouting about wanting to hack it into ten thousand pieces still hadn’t managed to spot it.
Hehehe~
“You can still laugh at a time like this.” A voice drifted down from overhead, cold and distant.
The demonic plant jolted with a start, looked up, and who else could it be but Xu Yifan? It immediately put on a pitiful act. “Boss? Boss, you’re finally here, wuuuu…”
Xu Yifan stood there without a word, quietly watching it perform.
The demonic plant reverted to its true form, popping out of the soil and hopping over to Xu Yifan’s feet, wrapping its vine tip around his calf, sobbing. “Boss, I missed you so much!”
Xu Yifan still showed no expression at all, lowering his gaze to stare at it, his tone flat. “Is that so.”
The demonic plant’s vine tip bobbed a couple of times, mimicking a nod. “Mm, more than half a month without seeing you, and I’ve had no appetite for tea or food at all, I’ve thinned out a whole size.”
Xu Yifan felt like he’d just heard the joke of the century.
Thinned out?
The demonic plant used to be about the size of a little finger, and now it had swollen up a whole size larger, and it was claiming to have thinned out?
It probably didn’t even understand what “thinning out” meant.
“Do you still remember what I told you to do?” Xu Yifan asked, teeth gritted.
The demonic plant’s two leaves, which had been swaying nonstop, suddenly went still. “I, I…”
Xu Yifan let out a scoffing laugh. The anger he’d been holding back finally broke free, and he snatched the demonic plant up, twisting and coiling it into a braided knot. “You’re going to be the death of me. Hah, all this spirit grass, if you’d been caught, I could sell my own ass and still not have enough to pay it off. You’ve caused a massive disaster.”
“Boss, I can barely breathe,” the demonic plant said, sounding guilty. “I know I was wrong. I won’t do it again next time.”
“I don’t believe your nonsense for a second.”
This demonic plant had absolutely no discrimination in its palate, raw or cooked, meat or vegetable, it didn’t care.
Only two days after bringing it back with him, it had already devastated most of the village’s chickens.
He hadn’t even known at first, it was the young man next door who’d told him some strange things had been happening in the village, that some demonic beast or monster must have come down from Beiman Mountain, specifically targeting the village’s chickens to eat, and picky about it too, never touching the heads or the rear ends. That alone might have been fine, but it also had a strange fondness for feeling up dogs’ backsides, several dogs in the village ended up with their backsides rubbed completely bald.
As the saying goes, “stealing chickens and feeling up dogs” [1]偷雞摸狗, a chengyu literally meaning to steal chickens and grope dogs, used to describe petty, sneaky misdeeds jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3015885_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3015885_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, you steal the chicken, then you’ve got to feel up a dog too, or how else would it earn that name? At least, that’s how the demonic plant seemed to reason it, so every time it finished stealing a chicken, it would take a stroll through the whole village looking for a dog to feel up.
The moment Xu Yifan heard about it, he’d known exactly what was going on. He’d gone back and warned the demonic plant not to steal any more of the village’s chickens, and the demonic plant had agreed, only for the village’s ducks to fall victim a few days later instead.
When he confronted it about it, the demonic plant had said, all innocent, “Boss, I listened! You said don’t steal chickens, you never said I couldn’t steal ducks!”
After eating meat, now it had switched to eating greens instead, and specifically targeting third- and fourth-grade spirit plants to eat, damn it.
In a low-grade continent this deficient in spiritual energy, third- and fourth-grade spirit plants were an incredibly rare thing! Some single plants could sell for over a hundred thousand spirit stones. Hadn’t it seen the Grand Elder surround the Spirit Plant Garden with three layers of guards inside and three layers out, and even have the Formation Academy elder set up several third-grade protective arrays to guard it?
“Come back with me right now.”
“Okay!”
Xu Yifan sighed. Everyone said the demonic plant was an ancient demonic plant species, particularly formidable, so far he hadn’t seen any of that formidable side, but he’d certainly seen plenty of the infuriating side.
Foolish through and through, all it knew how to do was eat, play, and cause trouble.
On the flight back by sword, Xu Yifan passed by the spot where the earlier fight had taken place and instinctively glanced down, only to find that, though so much time had passed, Xian Qinglin was still standing there, holding the exact same posture he’d been in when Xu Yifan had left.
What was going on here?
Why hadn’t he left?
Wasn’t going home to sleep in the middle of the night preferable to this?
Xu Yifan hopped down off his sword. Xian Qinglin felt only a sudden gust of wind pass by, and then heard a voice say, “Aren’t you going home to sleep?”
Xu Yifan was concealed, by all rights, Xian Qinglin shouldn’t have been able to see him. But the moment he landed, Xu Yifan noticed the man’s gaze land precisely on him. Seeing that lost, dazed expression fixed on him made Xu Yifan almost suspect he’d committed some outrageous act of villainy just now, which was absurd.
Sure, every time he saw this pretty little beauty he wanted to kiss those soft-looking lips of his, wanted to touch and pinch those fair, smooth hands of his, sure, his thoughts were pretty filthy, but he hadn’t actually done anything yet!!
So why was the man staring at him like this? Utterly baffling.
“This talisman and this pill, I don’t want them.” Xian Qinglin held out the items in his hand.
“Why not?” Xu Yifan was confused.
Was this man an idiot? These were life-saving items, precious beyond measure, and yet he was saying he didn’t want them.
If someone gave these to him, Xu Yifan would’ve accepted them without a second thought. Come to think of it, when the Seventh Elder had given him that spatial ring, precisely because it was so valuable, he’d taken it without a hint of hesitation.
Xian Qinglin said, his voice soft, “I have nothing to give you in return.”
Xu Yifan waved a hand. “So what if you don’t? It’s not like I’m trying to trade with you.”
“Last time you said you never do business at a loss.” Xian Qinglin suddenly said.
Xu Yifan blinked, staring fixedly at Xian Qinglin, and after a good long while finally tore off his concealment talisman, revealing a face full of confusion. “You recognized me? That shouldn’t be possible! I had a concealment talisman on last time. How did you recognize me?” Could it be because of his “cash flow” abilities? Thinking carefully about it, of all the times he’d met this pretty little beauty, he’d practically “given” him pills every single time.
Being this generous on first meeting probably wasn’t common.
Xian Qinglin said nothing.
He was just too easy to identify, honestly!
Last time in Xiaolin Village, when that man had carried him back, being pressed so close together, he’d been able to feel the soft, doughy fat on the man’s belly. That was when he’d known this person was probably plump.
Xu Yifan was plump, from Xiaolin Village, and could conceal himself too, with the same voice. Although he’d changed his appearance just now, that plump body of his was basically a dead giveaway, there was hardly any way not to notice.
When Xian Qinglin didn’t answer, Xu Yifan reached out and poked his arm, urging him. “Hey, come on, answer me!”
Xian Qinglin blurted out instinctively, “Because you’re fat!”
“…”
That comment landed like a direct hit to Xu Yifan’s most vulnerable spot.
The truth is always the most hurtful, and plump people are always the most sensitive about others pointing out how much extra flesh they have.
Xu Yifan felt like he’d just taken ten thousand points of damage, utterly unable to believe it, on such a scorching hot day, this man had somehow managed to say something so bitterly cold and cutting.
“Do you even know how to talk to people?”
His tone had turned sour. When the Sixth Elder kept calling him chubby boy this and chubby boy that, he’d never thought much of it, but when Xian Qinglin said it, it felt like the man was looking down on him, which infuriated him to no end. The good impression he’d just started forming after Xian Qinglin helped him out before had vanished all over again.
“I’ve saved you twice now.” Xu Yifan held up two fingers. “However you slice it, that makes me your life-saving benefactor, and yet here you are insulting me like this, you’re truly detestable.”
With that, he huffed and turned to leave in a fit of anger. Xian Qinglin hurriedly reached out to grab him. “That’s not it, that’s not what I meant.”
Xu Yifan puffed out both cheeks in fury. “Then what did you mean?”
“I…” Xian Qinglin found himself at a loss for words.
Xu Yifan had asked how he’d been recognized, and Xian Qinglin had recognized him precisely because of his fat, being plump and having extra flesh seemed, at some deeper level, to mean the same thing.
Just as he was thinking this through, Xu Yifan’s voice sounded in his ear.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have stepped in to save you just now after all.”
Xian Qinglin’s fingers curled slightly, his palm turning cold, staring at him in disbelief. Xu Yifan continued, “Before, I figured people gather with their own kind, and things sort themselves into categories, you’re close with Gu Qingyun, and he’s no good person, so you probably aren’t either. But my broad-mindedness told me maybe I’d misjudged you, especially since you’d helped me out before. Now, though, it looks like there was no misunderstanding at all, your heart really is just as black.”
“No, that’s not—” Xian Qinglin’s thin lips trembled, his tone rising slightly. He rarely lost his composure like this, ordinarily he never cared much what others thought of him, and yet now he found himself desperate to explain. “I’m not what you think with him. There’s nothing between us at all. I’m not close with him.”
“What’s it to me.” Xu Yifan pried his hand off, summoned his flying sword, and, ignoring Xian Qinglin’s calls to stay, slapped on a concealment talisman and flew off.
Damn it.
He was never helping this person out again.
Helping him again would make him a total pushover [2]literally “a dog,” implying blind loyalty despite mistreatment jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3015885_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3015885_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.
So what if he was good-looking? Big deal. He was done chasing after this particular dish. Hmph!
The demonic plant glanced at him, clearly noticing he was flying into an embarrassed rage and lashing out without thinking. “Boss, I feel like you’re talking nonsense. Last time you said in this whole wide world only you were worthy of the pretty little beauty.”
Xu Yifan: “…”
This was an annoying thing too.
Xian Qinglin, thrown into a panic, gave chase without care, but Xu Yifan was far too fast, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye. Xian Qinglin knew he lived with the Sixth Elder on Spirit Sword Peak, so he headed straight in that direction, only to be stopped the moment he reached the inner sect’s boundary by disciples on night watch.
“By order of the sect, sword-flight is forbidden within the inner sect grounds.”
Xian Qinglin had no choice but to step down off his sword. Xianhao Sect’s inner sect grounds were vast, and even moving with practiced familiarity, it took him the better part of an hour to reach the foot of Spirit Sword Peak.
Looking up at the layers upon layers of restrictive wards around Spirit Sword Peak, glinting coldly in the moonlight, Xian Qinglin finally snapped back to his senses.
How utterly foolish of him.
He was just an outer disciple, without permission, there were many places in the inner sect he couldn’t set foot in freely, let alone the very peaks where the great elders themselves resided.
References[+]