Qingxin Sect actually didn’t have a cafeteria.
Qingxin Sect actually didn’t have a cafeteria?!
Qingxin Sect actually didn’t have a cafeteria???
Li Yijiu sat on the jade steps beneath the statue, eating the offerings, which had already gone cold. She was in a foul mood. How could a Qingxin Sect this enormous not have a cafeteria???
She felt she’d been too hasty in deciding to join Qingxin Sect and began considering a switch. There were sects more powerful than Tianyan Sect, such as Tianren Yue and Zizai Sect…
Just then, Xie Lang came running over, shouting, “Fellow Daoist Li! You passed the examination! So did I! From now on, we’ll be fellow disciples of Qingxin Sect!”
“……”
Li Yijiu took a sip of wine. Never mind. It wouldn’t be much trouble to eat in town when they went down the mountain. The restaurants Xie Lang had taken her to down there were pretty good.
Xie Lang came up to her, about to say something, but noticed the wine in her hand. Then he saw that some of the offerings in front of the Patriarch’s statue were missing again. “…Fellow Daoist, where did you get that wine?”
Li Yijiu drained it in one gulp and put the empty wine jar back.
“The Patriarch appeared and invited me to drink.”
Xie Lang: “……” Please don’t take me for an idiot.
Well, they’d both passed the examination, anyway.
Xie Lang gave the statue an apologetic bow, then said to Li Yijiu, “Let’s hurry and take our exam tokens to register.”
Li Yijiu nodded and followed him.
Qingxin Sect was handing out outer-sect disciple tokens, uniforms, copies of the sect rules, and other items to those who had passed the examination.
Li Yijiu’s arrival drew quite a bit of attention.
“Fifty-Nine actually passed?!”
“Hey, didn’t you hear? She got fifty-nine in general cultivation knowledge, but a perfect score in talismans!”
“How is that possible?! I thought talismans were the hardest subject. They say Fu Yangzi is very strict, and hardly anyone ever passes…”
“No idea, but I heard she just scribbled a few strokes during the examination and left. The Elder said something about Dadao Zhijian…”
“Even a blind cat can stumble across a dead mouse, I guess?”
Li Yijiu strolled over like she was everyone’s best friend. “What are you all talking about so excitedly? Speak up so I can hear.”
“……”
No one said another word.
Li Yijiu collected her things.
The disciple handing them out happened to be the same Qingxin Sect disciple who’d advised her earlier, “Cultivation isn’t the only way in life. Being an ordinary person is pretty good, too.”
The disciple handed everything over with a complicated expression. “…Congratulations, Fellow Daoist. We’ll be fellow disciples from now on. I hope we can look out for each other.”
Li Yijiu took the items. “Thanks.”
She casually flipped through the little booklet of sect rules. Then her hand paused, and the careless look on her face vanished. Wait—what had it said?
No going down the mountain? No drinking? No eating? No sleeping? No falling in love…???
Why not just say they weren’t allowed to live?!
Li Yijiu looked the rules over from every angle, but could squeeze only three words out of them: “Don’t be human.”
She snapped the booklet shut.
Was it still in time to run away?
Just then, a sheet of paper blew in through the window and slapped against a Senior Sister’s face.
She peeled it off and saw that it was a wanted notice.
The portrait on it looked nothing like its subject, but the name “Su Liu” was written underneath.
Li Yijiu was about to make a run for it—
But the Senior Sister paid no attention to the notice itself. She frowned. “Tianyan Sect? What a nuisance!”
Then, without even looking at it, she crushed the wanted notice with her spiritual energy.
“……”
Great. Qingxin Sect had a grudge against Tianyan Sect.
Her safety rating had just gone up.
Li Yijiu, a weak little Qi Refining cultivator, pulled back the leg she’d been about to use to flee.
Better to keep lying low.
Rules were dead, but people were alive. Sect rules were there to be broken.
Next, the Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters assigned the new disciples their quarters. “You’ve all worked hard on the examination, Junior Brothers and Sisters. Get a good rest today. Formal lessons begin tomorrow.”
The quarters were a shared room with four beds.
It was just like college, Li Yijiu thought.
Li sat down on her bed. It was cold and hard, because it wasn’t meant for sleeping—it was a Spirit-Gathering Stone, quite valuable, meant for sitting in meditation.
But what was the point of life if you couldn’t eat or sleep?
Li Yijiu decided she’d find a way to get herself a soft, comfortable quilt.
“Are you Fellow Daoist Li Yijiu?”
One of her roommates spoke up. The other two tried to hold her back.
But she came over anyway.
She was a bright-eyed, neatly dressed young woman with a practical air about her. She cupped her hands in greeting. “I’m Xilin Lulu. We’ll be roommates from now on. How about we become friends?”
Li Yijiu stood and returned the greeting. “Hello. You have a lovely name.”
Did people in later generations really like making friends this much? The Patriarch, who was used to communicating with people through their lives, was trying to learn from Xie Lang what people could talk about when making friends.
“Thank you.”
Xilin Lulu smiled, dimples appearing in her cheeks. She looked at Li Yijiu and said, “Fellow Daoist Li, you’re so pretty.”
“……”
Li Yijiu suddenly understood why Lulu had decided to befriend her—just as she herself had once wanted to date a cultivation partner.
They were both looks-obsessed.
The other two roommates watched from where they were, displeased, but didn’t come over.
One of them, a young woman in green, glanced at Li Yijiu and suddenly asked, “Fifty-Nine… no, Fellow Daoist Li, why did you only get fifty-nine in general cultivation knowledge?”
Li Yijiu: “Because of you.”
The young woman in green: “What does that have to do with me?”
Li Yijiu leaned lazily against her bed. “Right. What does it have to do with you?”
“……”
The young woman in green was at a loss for words. “You!”
Seeing that she was angry, Li Yijiu perked up. She sat straight and asked, “Want to fight?”
People in later generations were generally too friendly.
This was the first time she’d been around so many people without anyone throwing a punch or dying. It was making her feel a little out of sorts.
“……”
The young woman in green was furious. “You’re only in the early stage of Qi Refining, and you dare challenge me?!”
The young woman in red beside her hurriedly intervened. “Yin Lan, private fights aren’t allowed in Qingxin Sect. It’s our first day here—don’t break the sect rules!”
Yin Lan had no choice but to suppress her anger. She gave a cold laugh. “Why should I bother with the famous Fifty-Nine? Yu Jinmian, let’s go to the Scripture Pavilion.”
The red-clad Yu Jinmian left with her.
Li Yijiu lay back down, disappointed.
Xilin Lulu watched in amazement as Li Yijiu managed to make the other girl turn red with anger after only a few words, while she herself remained utterly unruffled. “You’re not angry?”
Li Yijiu had a terrible reputation at the moment.
She’d failed general cultivation knowledge, and her spiritual root was mediocre. Yet she’d made a stunning impression in the talisman examination, earning a perfect score unlike anything anyone had seen before. No one could make sense of it.
The people who had spent ages preparing to enter Qingxin Sect, studying general cultivation knowledge until they could barely stand it, felt it was unfair. They thought she’d only gotten into the sect alongside them through sheer dumb luck.
But they didn’t dare question Elder Fu Yangzi, who had given her the perfect score.
So they took their frustration out on her instead.
Li Yijiu looked languid. “Why would I be angry? They’re not fighting me or trying to kill me. They’re just babbling on and on. It’s a little boring.”
Even if they did fight her, she couldn’t be bothered to get angry. She was used to it.
Xilin Lulu: “……”
You think they don’t hate you enough already?
She hesitated, then asked tentatively, “Um, can I ask you something a little personal? Why did you get only fifty-nine in general cultivation knowledge? I’m just curious.”
At that, Li Yijiu sighed. “Because my descendants are unworthy.”
Xilin Lulu: “?” What?
Xilin Lulu didn’t understand, but didn’t feel comfortable asking her to explain.
So she returned to her own bed and sat down to meditate. Before long, she heard Li Yijiu breathing evenly and peacefully, and she opened her eyes in disbelief.
A-asleep?
Sleeping on the very first day after joining the sect?!
How could anyone lie down and sleep so peacefully on top of an incredibly precious Spirit-Gathering Stone???
Fellow Daoist Li was truly a remarkable person!