“Junior Sister, are you sneaking around like a thief?” Fourth Senior Brother Lu Shibai poked his head out from behind her.
Mu Zhiyao patted her chest and glared irritably at her Fourth Senior Brother, who looked unreliable at a glance. “Second Senior Brother told me to come read.”
“Oh? What book are you looking for? The Library Pavilion is pretty big. Your senior brother will help you.” With that, Lu Shibai stepped into the Library Pavilion first.
“I’m not sure either. I wanted to first see what basic cultivation mantras and formulas might suit me.” Mu Zhiyao shook her head, confused.
In the original novel, Mu Zhiyao’s spiritual root was too mixed. After entering the Lingxiao Sect, she only thought about how to make things difficult for Mu Qingrou and never properly learned the Lingxiao Sect’s cultivation methods. The original novel focused on Mu Qingrou, and other cultivation methods were only mentioned in passing, leaving Mu Zhiyao completely blank in this area and with no choice but to search for a needle in a haystack.
“Hmm, that makes it tricky. Little Junior Sister, what spiritual root do you have?”
“Mm, maybe a fire spiritual root.” Mu Zhiyao picked one from her several mixed spiritual roots, thinking at least one of them had to be trainable.
“Why don’t you first look at the Blazing Flame Art: Basic Method? No rush. If you can’t finish, take it back and read slowly.” Lu Shibai was himself a fire-type sword cultivator and had his own ideas about fire-path cultivation. With practiced ease, he pulled a book from the fire-type cultivation methods and handed it to Mu Zhiyao.
Mu Zhiyao nodded obediently. “Okay.”
Taking the booklet Lu Shibai handed her, Mu Zhiyao lowered her head and quickly flipped through it. In just a few minutes, she had rapidly read the thin booklet from beginning to end.
When she looked up again, she saw Lu Shibai pulling one book from each of several different shelves, roughly seven or eight books in all.
“Fourth Senior Brother?” Mu Zhiyao looked at Lu Shibai, puzzled.
“You didn’t expect that, did you, Little Junior Sister? Our sect has an unwritten rule. After joining, besides the faction of your own spiritual root, you must first take seven, eight, nine, or ten introductory courses.” Lu Shibai stacked the books into Mu Zhiyao’s arms as he explained with a dead-serious expression.
“Oh, okay.” Mu Zhiyao hugged the stack of booklets and nodded vigorously, obedient and cute.
“Oh, right, Little Junior Sister. If you can’t understand the introductory fire-type methods, you can come find me. I also have a fire spiritual root. Guiding you through the entry level won’t be a problem.” Lu Shibai recalled that he seemed to have heard Master instructing Second Senior Brother, mentioning that their Little Junior Sister’s spiritual root was not very good and her talent seemed rather ordinary. He figured she might not understand the basic method on her own, and thought he could guide her a little.
Mu Zhiyao thought of the Blazing Flame Art Introductory Volume One she had just read. She formed a hand seal, and a small flame flickered from her fingertip.
Looking at the tiny flame at her fingertip, as weak as one struck from a match, Mu Zhiyao scratched her head sheepishly. “Senior Brother, is my flame too small?”
Now Lu Shibai could no longer hold on to the book in his hand. “Little Junior Sister, you already know how to Gather Qi and Condense Fire? Why didn’t you say so earlier? I thought you didn’t know how, so I gave you the most basic method. Judging by your flame, you should be learning the second level of the Blazing Flame Art. Here, here, look at this one.”
Lu Shibai snatched the basic method from Mu Zhiyao’s hands and stuffed it back into the bookcase, then pulled out the second level method from beside it and handed it over.
“Okay. Senior Brother, why don’t you give me all the remaining Blazing Flame Art volumes?” Mu Zhiyao struggled to hold the stack of booklets in one arm and freed a hand to point at the remaining Blazing Flame Art booklets on the shelf.
Lu Shibai was stunned for a moment. Realizing that Little Junior Sister wanted to take all the books with her, he quickly explained, “Little Junior Sister, haste makes waste. Cultivation must be done step by step.”
Afraid that his Little Junior Sister would read too much at once and fail to understand it, and that if she got badly discouraged, he, the one who started this prank, would surely suffer for it, Lu Shibai waved his hands repeatedly.
Actually, Lu Shibai did not know that Mu Zhiyao did not know how to Gather Qi and Condense Fire at all. Just now, she had merely flipped through the book quickly, then run the contents of the basic method through her mind once, and naturally learned it.
“It’s fine. I’ll learn one and then read the next. Senior Brother, you don’t need to worry about me.” Mu Zhiyao answered obediently and softly. “Besides, if I don’t understand something, aren’t you still here, Senior Brother?”
Under Mu Zhiyao’s expectant gaze, Lu Shibai’s mind was filled with how cute Little Junior Sister was. He couldn’t resist. He simply couldn’t resist.
“Take them, take them all.” Lu Shibai turned and took all the Blazing Flame Art booklets down from the shelf.
Now the books in Mu Zhiyao’s arms were taller than she was, and she could not see anything at all.
“That’s too many, Little Junior Sister. I’ll help you carry them back.” Lu Shibai looked at his Little Junior Sister, who was shorter than the stack of books, and felt his heart ache. “Even with a mixed spiritual root, you’re this diligent. Little Junior Sister is truly earnest!”
After carrying the pile of books back to Mu Zhiyao’s courtyard, Lu Shibai once again told Little Junior Sister to read slowly and not to rush, then left.
Mu Zhiyao looked at the small mountain of books before her. Too lazy to organize them, she pulled out the Blazing Flame Art: Second Level Method and began studying it seriously.
Before transmigrating into the book, Mu Zhiyao had been a top student with an extraordinary memory. She easily immersed herself in reading and could multitask.
She also flipped through the second level method in just a few minutes. Looking up at the small flame on her fingertip, now a little bigger than before, Mu Zhiyao thought that there were seven volumes of the Blazing Flame Art in total. That meant Gather Qi and Condense Fire had at least seven levels, and her current fingertip flame was only at the second level.
She simply went on to read the later volumes. Mu Zhiyao rapidly flipped through one book after another with her left hand. Her right hand’s fingers flew, forming one-handed seals according to the gestures in the books, while she silently recited each mantra.
Mu Zhiyao read the first five volumes extremely quickly. By the sixth, she clearly felt the mantras had become much more complex. Afraid she might have misremembered, after finishing the seventh volume, she read volumes six and seven again.
Immersed in the complexity of the mantras, Mu Zhiyao repeated them over and over in her mind and formed seals again and again with her right hand. She did not notice that the flame formed by her right hand’s seals was growing larger and larger. When the last mantra was recited, the flame gathered in her palm and shot upward rapidly.
When Mu Zhiyao came back to her senses, she found the fire in her palm had leaped to the height of a person. Even more shocking, the small mountain of books beside her hand had already caught fire.
“Who is setting fires so brazenly in Little Junior Sister’s room?” Lu Shibai’s shout came from outside the courtyard.
It turned out that Lu Shibai had noticed Little Junior Sister had not come to eat dinner, so he kindly came to deliver dinner to her, and just happened to see the flames inside the room.
Pushing open the door, Lu Shibai saw the pile of ashes in front of Mu Zhiyao and her dazed expression.
“Little Junior Sister, are you all right?” Before she could react, Mu Zhiyao, along with the flames in front of her, was drenched by a large bucket of water from Lu Shibai.
“What happened?” After the flames were extinguished, Lu Shibai looked at his bewildered Little Junior Sister. “How did it catch fire? Little Junior Sister, are you okay?”
“Hey, Senior Brother. I’m fine, but these books are not.” Mu Zhiyao pointed at the pile of ashes before her.
“Books? What books?” Lu Shibai looked at the ashes before him. “Holy crap, Little Junior Sister, don’t tell me you mean this pile of ashes?”
Mu Zhiyao nodded.
“Wait, books taken out of the Library Pavilion?” Lu Shibai was about to cry.
Mu Zhiyao nodded again.
“We’re doomed, we’re doomed. Grand Elder is going to kill someone.” This time Lu Shibai really was scared to tears.
“Senior Brother, if you’re going to help someone, see it through to the end. Come with me to turn myself in to Grand Elder. I’m scared, boo-hoo.” Mu Zhiyao threw herself to the ground and clung to Lu Shibai’s leg, wailing loudly.
She cried until she was gasping for breath, crying until Lu Shibai’s head was buzzing.
His thought in that instant was: “Do Junior Sister’s tears have some kind of switch?”
But looking at Little Junior Sister’s appearance, Lu Shibai still could not bear to let her face Grand Elder alone.
At that moment, Grand Elder was staring in puzzlement at the large pile of books missing from the Library Pavilion. “No one in our sect who could use these books would be this diligent, and anyone truly diligent wouldn’t need these books at all. So, has the Library Pavilion been robbed?”
Just as he was pondering, Lu Shibai and Mu Zhiyao, carrying a basket of ashes, peeked in from outside the door.
“If you have something to say, come in and say it. Why are you skulking around like that?” Grand Elder snapped.
“Um, well, Grand Elder, we accidentally burned some books.” Lu Shibai honestly handed over the basket of ashes, his whole body stiff.
Grand Elder looked at the basket before him, so angry his head swam. “What an accomplishment, Lu Shibai. Poor in your studies, and now you’ve learned to burn books in a fit of embarrassed rage?”
“No, Grand Elder, listen to my explanation.” Lu Shibai quickly waved his hands and tried to explain.
“Listen to what? What have you done now?” Grand Elder turned to look at the newly arrived little disciple.
Mu Zhiyao weakly raised her hand. “Um, um, I burned them.”
Seeing Grand Elder about to huff and glare, Mu Zhiyao threw herself forward, fell to the ground, and clung to Grand Elder’s leg, wailing loudly. “Listen to me, I’m innocent! The Blazing Flame Art started it first! It’s too scary. How can the Blazing Flame Art be so terrifying? I just followed along and learned a few hand gestures. How come this flame couldn’t be stopped? Boo-hoo.”
Grand Elder froze.
Lu Shibai froze. It was a pity Little Junior Sister was not in an opera troupe.
Grand Elder’s focus was different. “You said you just followed along and learned a few hand gestures? You’ve never practiced before?”
“The Xuanming Sect’s books? Where would I have practiced before?” Mu Zhiyao looked up, confused, and casually used Grand Elder’s hem to wipe the tears and snot from her face.
Lu Shibai’s eyebrows twitched. Grand Elder was famously a neat freak, changing clothes three times a day if he could.
“So this is your first time practicing the Blazing Flame Art?”
“Yes.” Mu Zhiyao nodded solemnly.
“You read seven volumes in one go?” Grand Elder pointed at the entire missing set of Blazing Flame Art on the shelf.
“Ah, yes.”
Now Lu Shibai also came back to his senses. Little Junior Sister had indeed entered the Library Pavilion with him, and he had been the one to find the books. So, Little Junior Sister was actually a genius?
Grand Elder narrowed his eyes, then suddenly noticed a shiny blob on his wrinkled hem. Looking closely, he found it was snot Mu Zhiyao had wiped on him at some point when he wasn’t paying attention. He suddenly felt dizzy. What was he supposed to do?
Reaching out to steady himself on the nearby bookshelf, Grand Elder pointed a trembling finger at Mu Zhiyao, then at Lu Shibai. “You two, recite for me one hundred years of Lower Immortal World history.”
“But I haven’t even read it. How am I supposed to recite it?” Mu Zhiyao remained sitting on the ground, spread her hands, and shrugged.
Beside her, Lu Shibai wished he could shrink behind the bookshelf, hoping Grand Elder would not see him.