“Is Host not afraid of making people angry?”
Seeing Yun Heyin flick his sleeve and leave, while Fu Jinyue unhurriedly continued to pick at the pastries and drink her tea, the system couldn’t help but ask out loud.
System: “His cultivation is decent, he’s handsome and tall, and his cold personality suggests he might still be a virgin. Feels like a pretty good catch.”
Fu Jinyue took a bite of the osmanthus cake. Whether it was due to special ingredients, the floral fragrance was exceptionally crisp and the rice aroma rich, leaving a faint, lingering scent upon swallowing.
She leisurely took a sip of tea and said, “With a man like this, you don’t fear his concern; you only fear his indifference. Getting him irritated so he remembers me vividly is just another way of putting myself at the center of his mind. Trust me, when it comes to men I want to pursue, there hasn’t been one I couldn’t handle.”
“Besides, he will definitely come back.”
The system displayed a bewildered question mark: “?”
Fu Jinyue: “This is the residence arranged for him by the Sword Sect. He definitely has to return; he can’t very well stay out all night every day within someone else’s territory, can he?”
She maintained a posture of waiting, though she knew her move of testing him was finished. It all depended on how the other party would respond next. Fu Jinyue thought to herself, “He probably won’t resort to violence; at most, he’ll keep me confined.”
Sure enough, before the man even returned, the guide sent by the Sword Sect Master, Yu Feichen, arrived.
Fu Jinyue was brought out by Sinian and Siyan. Seeing the semi-familiar guide at the courtyard gate, she let out an “ah.”
“It’s you again,” she said. “Cultivator Lu’s talisman—the Truth Talisman, was it? So incredibly formidable, I still remember it vividly.”
Lu Liuru’s features were naturally sharp, but her expression when looking at people was gentle. Hearing this, she gave a bitter smile, lowered her head, and said, “I am truly sorry, Fellow Daoist. Previously, I acted in a rush before clarifying the situation. I was too eager for quick success.”
How was that not clarifying the situation? It was asked all too clearly back then. However… among the crowd at that time, she was also the first to help her up.
Lu Liuru was originally a Sword Sect member. Receiving a report and launching an attack against her was actually a justifiable stance from her position.
What was most surprising, conversely, was her attitude. Indeed, as the situation had shifted, explaining her difficulties at the time to others would sound like an excuse, regardless of the facts. The only way was to not talk back or argue; if asked, she simply accepted the fall and shouldered the blame, sliding into a smooth bow to finish it off. Only in this way could the matter be put to rest.
Such a familiar handling attitude.
Fu Jinyue discerned a trace of a weary working-class fatigue from her.
If she pursued the matter further, it would be too demanding. Fu Jinyue reined in her annoyance and asked gently, “Who told you to come?”
Sensing the softening of her attitude, Lu Liuru looked up with slight surprise and replied, “The Sect Master instructed me to guide the distinguished guest.”
Since it was the Sect Master who spoke, it meant Yun Heyin had already reported the matter up, which was why they deliberately sent someone who knew she belonged to the Hehuan path to receive her. Barring any accidents, the other members present at the time should have also been silenced one by one.
The Hehuan Sect possessed a foul reputation that spread far and wide. Placing it within a grand sect like the Sword Sect made it far too easy to dirty one’s hands, yet the Stargazer’s prophecy could not be disregarded either. Since they had to revere her as an honored guest while keeping her hidden to avoid leaking any leverage to others, they compromised by letting someone who already knew her identity interface with her.
Fu Jinyue thought, “Mm, perfectly reasonable.”
Then she proactively asked, “Then I guess the accommodation arranged for me by the Sect Master is a remote and quiet courtyard deeply hidden within the forest, right?”
Lu Liuru showed a look of difficulty.
It seemed so.
Fu Jinyue didn’t make things hard for her, pointing directly at the courtyard opposite and saying straightforwardly, “I want to live opposite Senior Yun. I’ll trouble Cultivator Lu to arrange it for me.”
This way, it wouldn’t count as Lu Liuru acting on her own initiative; it was something she was forced to do.
She surmised the matter would succeed, since it didn’t trample over too many bottom lines.
Sure enough, when Lu Liuru reported the situation, the Sword Sect Master didn’t offer much resistance, and Fu Jinyue successfully settled down in the residence opposite Yun Heyin.
A serene bamboo forest, a standalone residence, and a neighbor who was the optimal dual cultivation partner with influence, looks, and cultivation—there could be no better opening move.
Fu Jinyue exerted all her effort to draw the man under her skirt, yet for several consecutive days, she hit a wall one after another. The two attendants were frequently present, but Yun Heyin was rarely around. Sometimes it was “Master went to discuss a difficult problem with other medical cultivators,” and sometimes it was “Master went out to procure goods.”
Meanwhile, Lu Liuru had finished her guiding mission. For the first few days, she would spontaneously come to entertain her, but in the following days, she gradually stopped coming altogether.
Living in such a grand, empty residence made Fu Jinyue feel thoroughly desolate.
Not to mention this bamboo mountain was bizarre; turning around and around, she actually couldn’t find her way out, completely unable to retrace the path she took when entering. She was trapped.
Furthermore, as she expected, the spiritual stones and magic tools Yu Feichen had previously promised verbally were nowhere to be seen. The so-called compensation only materialized in the form of her living quarters. However, regardless of how one looked at it, providing for her politely at least kept up a decent appearance on the surface.
Unfortunately, all the cultivators forgot one point—
Fu Jinyue had not yet achieved Inedia.
In this cultivation world, there was no shortage of mortals attaining sudden enlightenment and successfully drawing Qi into their bodies every day. Because of the abundant spiritual energy, there truly were people of cultivation everywhere. Within the Sword Sect, only the members who had newly entered cultivation had not yet achieved Inedia.
The spiritual energy in Fu Jinyue’s current residence was so abundant it could condense into droplets, and even slight cultivation yielded great progress. Who could have imagined that she still needed to eat every meal?
Even Fu Jinyue herself hadn’t anticipated it. She cultivated diligently every day to study the Hehuan cultivation method, and due to the nature of the technique, it didn’t advance her cultivation by half a fraction, while her stomach grumbled with hunger.
Thus, quite naturally, using this excuse, she steadily knocked on her neighbor’s door according to the routine of three meals a day.
Between eating food and sleeping with the man, one of them had to be resolved.
Sinian and Siyan had long grown familiar with her and would come out to wait for her.
Today, the one guarding the courtyard gate was Siyan. He had his hair tied in two buns, half-bound and half-loosed, with red silk ribbons fluttering down over his dark hair, looking exceedingly handsome and lovely.
At this moment, he was crouching down using a thin bamboo stick to poke ants, hitting every mark with precision. Fu Jinyue lightly patted his head, and the young boy raised his face to smile.
“Little Fellow Daoist Fu, pat it more.”
He spoke in a slow and soft tone, saying, “Neither Master Yun nor Sinian likes to pat my head. I like it.”
Fu Jinyue felt thoroughly filled with a sense of guilt upon hearing this, saying, “It won’t do like this right now. Change back to your original form first.”
Siyan blinked. “Then my hair will have to be tied all over again.”
“I’ll help you tie it when the time comes,” Fu Jinyue coaxed. “Anyway, I won’t pat Siyan while he looks like this.”
Dealing with a minor was illegal.
The young boy blinked slowly again, and with a sudden shift of focus, the boy before her eyes vanished, replaced by a red-crowned crane covered in white feathers with a vivid red crown atop its head. Its body feathers were pure white, its throat and neck tinged with black, its form slender, elegant, and otherworldly.
The crane nuzzled its head into Fu Jinyue’s embrace, seeking pats.
The red patch on its head was bare skin, rough to the touch, but the white feathers were smooth and soft. Fu Jinyue indulged in petting the crane, moving her hands all over it.
The red-crowned crane not only didn’t avoid her, but even tilted its head forward, saying, “Little Fellow Daoist Fu, scratch me right here, it itches so much.”
Fu Jinyue parted the layers of white feathers and spotted un-shed feather sheaths at the base of the feathers.
Before the newborn feathers of birds fully matured, they would be encased in feather sheaths for protection. Once fully grown, they relied on their own preening or external assistance to rupture the sheaths so the new feathers could unfold normally. The feathers on the head were difficult to preen, so it was no wonder he said it itched.
She gently pinched the feather sheaths for Siyan with her fingertips, her neck nuzzled by the joyful red-crowned crane’s beak. The beak was too hard, not as comfortable as the feathers.
As she petted him, she recalled a matter: “Why do both you and Sinian call me little Fellow Daoist Fu?”
The red-crowned crane Siyan uttered a human voice: “Because little Fellow Daoist Fu is just little Fellow Daoist Fu?”
“No, no, no,” she corrected. “Fellow Daoist is just Fellow Daoist, why add a ‘little’?”
Sinian was a bit more stable but still harbored a bit of tsundere behavior, while Siyan went without saying, possessing a completely childish disposition. Both of their transformed appearances lay between a youth and a child, showing that their years were short, so Fu Jinyue ought to be the elder sister in any case.
Siyan blinked his eyes. “But little Fellow Daoist Fu is indeed younger than me. Sinian and I are already over seventy years old.”
The system and Fu Jinyue screamed together in her mind.
Fu Jinyue: What minor? It turns out you’re my grandfather!
“Then…” she asked with a trembling voice, “How old is Yun Heyin this year?”
She was truly terrified of hearing an age of eighty.
That psychological burden would be far too heavy.
Siyan: “Master Yun’s talent is exceptional; neither Sinian nor I can compare to him. Around the time I barely managed to transform, Master Yun had already formed his Golden Core. This year… mhm, he is only just past twenty-five.”
Perfect, he’s fair game.
Thanks to the fact that he’s a genius.
Fu Jinyue withdrew her hands, not daring to pet him anymore, always harboring a false impression of bullying an elderly person. She let out a few dry laughs, intending to walk into the courtyard to look for Sinian for food to fill her stomach.
Today, the courtyard door was half-ajar, and she could enter by pushing it open, yet Fu Jinyue felt a formless force gently barring her outside.
It felt like a barrier.
The red-crowned crane flapped its wings to catch up, its head popping out from behind her. “Oh my, I forgot to mention, Master Yun is in today.”
Fu Jinyue patted that formless barrier. “Senior Yun, are you in?”
“……” Silence.
Fearing the man hadn’t heard, Fu Jinyue raised her volume: “Senior, Junior has come to ask you for a bite of food.”
“……” No response at all.
Since that was the case, Fu Jinyue shouted loudly without any shame, “Senior Yun Heyin, Junior has come to discuss the Hehuan path with you!”
That layer of barrier suddenly loosened. Caught off guard, Fu Jinyue staggered a few steps as she burst into the courtyard, spotting a figure as cold as frost standing on the spacious ground paved with orderly stone bricks in the front yard.
He stood with his hands behind his back, casting a chilly glance over as he said, “Are all the members of the Hehuan Sect like you, chasing after every flower and grass, devoid of even a shred of shame?”
Fu Jinyue wasn’t angry. Although she wanted to tease him more, she was tightly pressed by hunger and lacked the energy to fight a war of words, so she said casually, “Senior, I told you already, I am not that kind of evil path.”
She brought up her old argument: “Once, someone coveted a shortcut and plundered the cultivation method. Even the numerous evil cultivators practicing this path didn’t know the method had long been altered by malicious hands, disrupting its core origin. Thus, it’s no wonder you all brand the Hehuan Sect, which ought to be classified as a reputable and orthodox sect, as an evil path.”
Yun Heyin cast a meaningful glance at her.
Fu Jinyue didn’t care whether he believed her or not, poking her head around to look for someone. “Where is Sinian? What dishes are there today?”
Yun Heyin said, “The two of them told me that you have been running to my courtyard every day during this period.”
“If your Sword Sect hadn’t withheld food from guests, and I couldn’t find my way out when I wanted to descend the mountain to look for something to eat, why would I come to sponge meals off you every day?” Fu Jinyue said with dissatisfaction, “It even delayed me from finding someone for dual cultivation.”
Hearing ‘dual cultivation’, Yun Heyin’s brow furrowed even deeper.
“Has no one been taking care of you? After apprenticing under the Danding Sect, I no longer interfere with the internal affairs of the sect. I actually didn’t know about this matter…”
As he spoke, he suddenly paused.
Fu Jinyue knew he had figured out the crux of the matter, so she smiled and said, “You seniors all slight me because of my cultivation, so what more need be said about the lower members?”
Presumably, when the higher-ups gave instructions, they merely passed over it with a casual sentence. Catching onto that lack of concern, the people below naturally harbored their own minor schemes.
Cultivating immortality meant cultivating the mind and the body.
Yet the majority of people cultivated in a muddled state themselves; it was already good enough if they understood that cultivating immortality could grant them longevity. For a grand sect like this where such a crowd gathered, claiming there weren’t a few whose minds were unaligned would probably be a joke.
Cultivation was difficult, resources were scarce, the weak were meat for the strong, and plundering was all it took.
A Qi Refining junior who possessed a hollow title without any background was left in the back mountain without anyone caring after a single mention. Wasn’t she just a soft persimmon that was easy to squeeze?
Ah, but they hadn’t expected it, had they? Although this soft persimmon lacked strength at present, her tongue was sharp, and she knew how to complain.
Thus, Fu Jinyue complained to Yun Heyin: “Look, the person carrying the Heavenly Mandate was almost starved to death by you all.”
Her gaze was scorching and filled with a smile, carrying a bit of slyness. Yun Heyin’s eyes fell upon the girl’s lips. The corners of her mouth were lightly curved and moistened with a watery sheen, looking very soft. Somehow, he recalled Fu Jinyue’s bold invitation from that day once more.
Yun Heyin hurriedly averted his head, speaking toward his back, “Sinian, call Steward Xu over.”
Hearing this, Fu Jinyue remained smiling radiantly, her mouth offering a false cheer: “Hooray, Senior Yun is going to uphold justice for me.”
She surmised this matter would mostly end up with nothing conclusive.
No matter the time or place, personnel management was always an immensely difficult problem.
Dozens of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people—with every increase in order of magnitude, the management difficulty would multiply. For a grand sect rarely seen in the cultivation world like the Sword Sect, the internal management personnel were stacked layer upon layer; superiors had leaders, the superiors of superiors also had leaders, and the leaders of leaders had leaders as well. The distance between the bottom tier and the top-tier decision-makers was as far apart as several galaxies.
When a major trouble loomed, as long as the blame was passed around, distributed evenly, and blurred from head to tail, then a matter as grand as heaven would flatten out into a mere drop of a splash when shared by everyone.
Unless the decision-maker flew into a great rage and singled out the implicated individuals one by one for punishment, no one would admit to it.
Fu Jinyue didn’t seek an admission either; she merely caused a scene so they would all still remember there was a person confined in the mountain within the Sword Sect, waiting to be let out.
Except… Fu Jinyue looked at the person half-kneeling before Yun Heyin and herself, the fury in her heart as large as a fist.
No, why did you admit to it?
Who told you to come out and take the blame?!
With a cold face, she stepped forward, intending to pull Lu Liuru up from the ground… but failed to budge her.
The female cultivator remained completely motionless, her head hung low as she said apologetically, “It is my fault, True Monarch Yun. The affairs within the sect have been numerous recently, leading to a momentary oversight… In short, I dare not excuse myself. Please punish me.”
The apology was full and lacked no remorse, and the explanation was smooth and didn’t provoke anger—very practiced.
Yun Heyin’s face was flat. “Is what you say true?”
Lu Liuru lowered her head even further. “It is truly my fault; every word is true.”
Yun Heyin then said, “Since that is the case, then according to what Cultivator Lu says…”
“Says my foot!” Fu Jinyue said in anger.
She let go of her hand, ignoring this female cultivator who couldn’t be pulled up, and glared coldly at Yun Heyin. “If you can’t afford to manage this matter, then don’t meddle blindly. In my life, I detest people who go with the flow to punish their subordinates the most.”
Regardless of how she had been treated at the beginning, Lu Liuru certainly shouldn’t take the blame for this matter; she was undoubtedly coming forward to shoulder the crime for someone else.
She didn’t believe Yun Heyin couldn’t see through it; it was merely that she wanted a result, and he was simply giving her one.
Just as Fu Jinyue was about to curse further, a pair of hands suddenly tugged at her sleeve. It was actually Lu Liuru. The naturally sharp features of the female cultivator softened into a curve as she shook her head.
Looking thoroughly pitiable, she insisted on suffering the consequences herself.
With a flick of her sleeve to tear her garment corner back, Fu Jinyue pursed her lips, crossed her arms over her chest, and said, “Fine, since this matter can’t be managed, then I won’t care about it either.”
She compromised.
Fu Jinyue thought to herself: Anyway, it isn’t any grand matter; I can still rely on borrowing meals to sponge off Yun Heyin.
Obtaining this result allowed Lu Liuru to breathe a massive sigh of relief. Her coming forward to shoulder the blame was partly forced, but she also stood to gain. Having made her preparations, she had never imagined Fu Jinyue would let it drop so lightly; after all, the neglect from those disciples was substantial. In her heart, she couldn’t help but feel infinitely grateful toward Fu Jinyue.
Fu Jinyue couldn’t care less about gratitude, dismissing the person to leave.
She was displeased, the usual brightness in her eyes reining in its smile, displaying a trace of coldness. Her brow was furrowed, carrying a bit of anger and impatience.
It wasn’t until she reached the dining table and ate the food served by Sinian and Siyan that her brow slightly unraveled. From beginning to end, Fu Jinyue didn’t go to tease that flower of the high peaks again.
Unexpectedly, when she had no time to mind the man, the man clung to her instead.
Yun Heyin reversed his former routine of keeping out of sight, silently sitting down beside the dining table as well. He didn’t make a sound, nor did he move his chopsticks. His placid, waveless gaze watched a dish of stir-fried green leafy vegetables on the table, as if he had come solely to look at this dish.
Seeing this, Sinian and Siyan intended to step forward to liven up the atmosphere, but before they could speak, Yun Heyin merely cast a single glance at them, and the two cranes silently retreated.
Fu Jinyue didn’t feel even a shred of awkwardness.
She filled her stomach to her satisfaction and took a sip of flower tea, only then slightly revealing a bit of comfort.
It was at this moment that Yun Heyin opened his mouth.
“Since Fellow Daoist Fu’s demands have been met, can you resolve a doubt for me?”
His gaze moved slowly, looking toward Fu Jinyue and landing upon her face.
Those dark pupils were like an abyss, silently watching her every action, catching every minute shift.
Fu Jinyue pretended to be relaxed. “What?”
Yun Heyin said, “Fellow Daoist Fu mentioned previously that you follow the principle where heaven and earth intertwine and all things are transformed and generated, and what you practice is the ancient Orthodox Hehuan path.”
His aura shifted silently.
Even the sky seemed to darken abruptly, the surrounding scenery pressing closer in a dim mass, compressing her chest until she could barely breathe.
It was pressure.
Fu Jinyue’s hairs suddenly stood on end, her breathing growing uncontrollably rapid under a certain weight pressing upon her shoulders. Her mind went blank for a moment.
Yun Heyin appeared oblivious, slowly giving voice to his doubt: “Was every word Fellow Daoist Fu spoke previously truly genuine?”
His expression was dark and indiscernible, those dark eyes chasing after her without letting go.
Fu Jinyue’s hand beneath the table quietly clenched into a fist.
It was as though the wind blew over duckweed, revealing a dim mass of a corner of a deep pond. At this very moment, this man was no longer an elegant gentleman resembling a pine or bamboo; where was there any trace of being as clear and cold as snow? The entity silently gliding beneath the deep snow was clearly an ambush of a serpent, its vertical pupils fixed tightly upon its prey, its gaze detached and focused, waiting for an opportunity to strike and claim its prey’s life in one blow.
The pressure belonging to the Golden Core stage washed over her head, and Fu Jinyue felt as if she had plunged into an ice cave, her hands and feet turning numb. The romantic thoughts she had previously harbored scattered completely at present, leaving behind nothing but a reluctant humiliation.
Yun Heyin still appeared oblivious to her loss of composure, continuing flatly, “Fellow Daoist spoke with absolute certainty previously, yet recently I flipped through ancient records and haven’t seen any mention of an Orthodox Hehuan recorded within them.”
“I wonder…”
He brought up his doubt anew, every word clear: “How does Fellow Daoist Fu view this matter?”