After Lord Zezhou promised me that we would talk about it later, after waiting for a whole year, the talk did not come. Instead, he raised me like a pretty house pet, completely without the slightest use.
However, he would give me several pills to consume every day, saying that it was used to stabilize the soul.
The pills were unpalatable, tasting extremely bitter and were even unusually large. I gritted my teeth and swallowed it one by one but would always end up choking in tears.
Day after day, I consumed the pills, but I didn’t feel like it did anything. Instead, my belly would often swell and my head would occasionally feel uncomfortable.
But I didn’t dare stop eating them, I was afraid Immortal Lord Zezhou would discard me, afraid he would think I was a burden.
****
Immortal Lord Zezhou treated me really well. One time, he came across Lu Yan bullying me and reprimanded him, even punishing him to sweep the library.
After a few days, while he was out, Lu Yan brought a group of people to take revenge on me, forcing me to drink the dirty water in the pond and stepping on me, pointing at my nose and spitting out verbal abuse.
My face was half submerged in the water, half being stomped by Lu Yan. Dirty water seeped into my eyes, making me feel stinging pain.
But I didn’t cry. In that instant, for some reason, I suddenly recalled Xie Lin.
He was afraid that I wouldn’t eat my fill at Qing Xu Sect and told Immortal Lord Zezhou I needed to eat four-five meals a day.
I was now able to eat until I was full but I was still being bullied. It hurt trying to bear the beating everyday. Sometimes I was in so much pain I couldn’t breathe, coughing out blood directly.
I blinked my wet eyes and thought to myself, why did Xie Lin’s bullying feel comparably gentler?
****
Lu Yan bent down and pinched my chin, threatening me not to tell Immortal Lord Zezhou, otherwise, he was going to throw me into the snake pit behind the mountain.
I naturally wouldn’t tell Lord Zezhou, I was worried he would think I was being too meddlesome and provoke his vexation in the end.
But I couldn’t understand. Why did Lu Yan, who came from a distinguished background, harbor such sinister and malicious thoughts? Was it because Immortal Lord Zezhou made an exception and brought me to the Qing Xu Sect?
****
Actually, I felt a bit regretful. There was nothing that was bad about the demon world. Xie Lin loved to scare me but I didn’t fear him at all. His second highness’s temper was also good, it was just that Xun Xi was a bit scary. However, as long as I don’t approach his second highness, he wouldn’t pay me any heed at all.
Yet, Immortal Lord Zezhou called them villains, harboring penchants for crime, caring only about their greed and completely without the slightest morals.
I reminisced the days I spent in the demon world and silently drew a conclusion in my heart. It turned out that villains could also live happily, I actually felt a bit jealous.
But deep in my soul also hid an evil person’s figure.
****
After Immortal Lord Zezhou came back, he held my wrist like usual and inspected the state of my soul. He then furrowed his brows and asked what happened to me in the past few days.
I wanted to conceal the matter but when I raised my head and came face to face with his anxious eyes, my heart warmed and the contents of everything spilled out of my mouth.
Once Immortal Lord Zezhou learnt of the matter of Lu Yan pressing me down on the pond and beating me, he held my hand and waited at the front courtyard, ordering people to bring Lu Yan and his gang to his bamboo residence for interrogation.
They knelt on the slab and it was my first time seeing Lu Yan trembling with trepidation, begging Immortal Lord Zezhou for mercy.
Immortal Lord Zezhou might have assumed I was scared and lightly patted my back to show comfort.
Lu Yan secretly raised his head and glared at me.
Immortal Lord Zezhou coldly said, “There’s no need for you to reflect on yourself. Following the rules, go receive 30 floggings for harming a fellow disciple.”
Nobody acknowledged that I was their fellow disciple but they didn’t dare disobey Immortal Lord Zezhou’s words, forming a line to go to the punishment room to receive their penalty.
Once they had gone, Immortal Lord Zezhou turned to me, “If this matter happens again in the future, inform me immediately.”
Behind the place where Immortal Lord Zezhou stood was a bamboo forest. His back was straight like a tall bamboo tree, refined and noble.
In my eyes, he looked like a god.
****
Immortal Lord Zezhou was partial towards me.
I slowly heard a lot of gossip, they all said that I was the shame of Cui Wei peak, that I wasn’t fit to live in Immortal Lord Zezhou’s bamboo abode, that I was the stain on Immortal Lord Zezhou’s path to cultivation.
I evilly thought to myself. Wait til I learn how to cultivate, I would cut off their tongues.
But before I could even cut off their tongues, I fell into their traps.
Immortal Lord Zezhou was going to the mountain of Yunjing to find a specific medicine for me and it would take him a couple days of leave. I begged him to take me with him but was rejected.
He said he was going to Mountain Yunjing which sounded like a beautiful place, but was in reality, a place that was filled with hidden danger everywhere, asking me to wait for his return in his bamboo residence.
Left without a choice, I could only listlessly agree.
****
Before a few days had even passed since Immortal Lord Zezhou’s departure, I was tricked by a new disciple to go to the back mountain.
He showed me a jade pendant and asked if I recognized it.
The jade pendant was Immortal Lord Zezhou’s, I was very familiar with it and said I did.
The disciple said in shock, “Did Immortal Lord Zezhou really come back? I just saw someone treating their injuries in the spiritual springs and since there was a boundary erected, I didn’t dare go in. On the way back, I coincidentally picked up this jade pendant.
I had just gotten to know this disciple so I didn’t really trust him and merely vaguely responded with a few words.
First, even if Immortal Lord Zezhou was injured, I didn’t know any healing techniques so there was no use in looking for him.
Second, ever since Immortal Lord Zezhou reprimanded Lu Yan and his group, they haven’t dared do anything to me in daylight, only scheming in the dark, so I was worried this was going to be one of their ploys.
****
Seeing that I didn’t pay him much attention, the disciple handed me the jade pendant and said that there was no use for him to hold on to it and asked me to give it back to Immortal Lord Zezhou upon his return.
After he said his piece, he then left without delay and without reluctance, as if the words he said earlier were said without thinking and he didn’t care about my reaction at all.
I held the jade pendant and looked at it for half an hour, my heart growing anxious, thinking what if….what if it was not a scheme?
I glanced at the back mountain, the fog swirling around, appearing sinister.
I stood at the courtyard of the bamboo residence and felt tangled for a long time.
****
After a while, the disciple came back again, followed by a red-crowned crane. He smiled and said, “These newly raised flock of red-crowned cranes can carry passengers. The Sect Leader asked me to deliver this.”
I gave him thanks and received the crane.
The crane was white and fat, appearing extremely cute. I wanted to stroke its head but was pecked by it, the feeling was light, not at all painful.
In the evening, when I took the crane for a stroll outside the residence, and went to a remote place, the crane suddenly opened its beak and bit my clothes, fluttering its wings and flying away.
I screamed in fright but no one was able to hear my calls for help.
Immortal Lord Zezhou’s residence was far from civilization and there were scarcely any visitors, moreover, it was currently late at night.
I was taken to the rear mountain by the crane.
When my feet had finally touched the ground, I turned around wanting to look at the crane but discovered that it had turned into a talisman.
****
A step away from where I stood was the snake pit of the rear mountain.
The snakes inside the pit were originally raised by the Grandmaster’s Junior Martial Brother to be used for the concoction of immortality pills.
After he departed from this mortal coil, nobody kept an eye on the snake pit and because these snakes didn’t have poison, they weren’t threatening to humans and have remained in place, ignored and unsettled.
I cast a look down and saw a group of snakes slithering everywhere, stacked atop each other and immediately felt my scalp turn numb, promptly turning around to flee.
But after taking a few steps, the talisman suddenly let out a ray of light and pushed me into the snake pit.
Mid-air, I tried to grab onto the edge of the snake pit, working hard not to let myself slide down.
After holding on for god knows how long, my entire body was drenched in cold sweat and in the end, I lost strength, my hands letting go and my body dropping down.