"Speak up! Did you secretly pocket that pair of Yin-Yang Koi for yourself?"
"You alone have caused all of us outer disciples to undergo scrutiny from the inner sect. I advise you, if you've hidden it, bring it out now! The spiritual essence of those two hundred years of Koi is not something a lowly early-stage Qi Condensation cultivator like you can benefit from!"
A group of outer disciples, in a secluded location of the Heng Yue Sect, surrounded a person, exchanging heated words and blows.
The person at the center of the circle, the target of their wrath, wore a Four-Symbols Mask that completely concealed their true face.
The Four-Symbols Mask is quite common in the cultivation world, even found in the bustling markets of the mortal realm; it's considered a low-grade spiritual tool. When worn on the face, it coalesces into spiritual mist that manifests based on the wearer's intentions. Simply put, when you wear this mask, to those who see you, you appear as they wish you to be.
Yan Chun had only sought a place to hide, but who could have predicted that she would end up in this remote corner near the mountain's gate, where peace was still elusive and stumbled upon outer disciples gathering to brawl.
The disciple at the center of the beating endured the onslaught silently, neither retaliating nor attempting to escape. They didn't even lift a hand to shield their face, standing straight and taking the blows like a dumb pillar stuck in the ground.
At the outset, they had only uttered, "Consuming sentient beings to enhance cultivation contradicts the Heavenly Dao..."
Despite continued coercion and beatings, they refused to relent
"But even Yan Chun, who had been sitting not far away with his arms crossed, could easily see that the pair of brocade carps, said to be intended as a gift for the elder in the mountains, was hidden away by this beaten outer sect disciple.
'Damn! Still a tough guy! You were the only one who entered the dining hall with the Yin-Yang carps last night. Do you think if you don't say anything, we can't do anything to you? If you don't tell us where the Yin-Yang carps are today, do you believe we'll beat you to a pulp!'
The speaker's face had turned as red as liver, and what was originally a fairly handsome face had twisted completely out of shape from anxiety, while his strikes became increasingly heavy.
Each punch landed solidly, each kick whipped through the air.
The outer sect disciples following him clearly looked to the liver-faced man for guidance, and seeing him use heavy-handed tactics, they followed suit."
Yan Chun hadn't seen this kind of beating method for many years. Without using spells or magical artifacts for protection, just beating up like this... She felt a bit terrified, although she was concealed by a magical artifact, making her invisible and unheard, she still feared being splattered with blood and rubbed against the bushes behind her.
If this had happened eleven years ago, Yan Chun would have rushed over to save the person being beaten at the very first moment. She used to love doing such things, more so than her grandmother’s Buddhist practice of saving others.
All day long, it was either pitying the suffering of the world or lamenting the flowers turning into mud. If anyone was having a harder time than her, she would want to trade places, simply like a big fool numbered one.
And the result?
Now she understood, what the hell does good deeds leading to good rewards mean? After "saving the masses" for so many years, her ending was worse than anyone else's!
Moreover, she was now too busy to care for herself. If she dared to remove the artifact's protection, she would soon be dragged back to the Kang Ning courtyard, endlessly soaking in the Cleansing Spirit Pool for treatment. The pain of healing the cracked spiritual mansion was comparable to that of the tearing of the soul, far more than the mere skin injury this kid was suffering in front of her.
Yan Chun changed her posture, leaning against the tree, continuing to watch, her heart indifferent as she thought: this kid really is stubborn; entering the delusion realm only makes him slightly stronger than an ordinary person. He might recover from injuries a bit faster, but if he gets beaten hard enough, he would still die. This guy has already been knocked down, yet he refuses to surrender?
“Still not willing to surrender?! Do you really expect us to send you to the Punishment Hall and hand you over to those disciplinary disciples to search your spiritual mansion before you’ll tell us the whereabouts of that Yin-Yang Koi?!” A face like pig liver stamped on the belly of the already sitting person who looked like slush, speaking viciously.
Upon hearing "Punishment Hall" and "searching the spiritual mansion," Yan Chun's previously bored expression changed slightly. Her pale lips moved, her brow furrowed for a moment, then quickly relaxed.
“This is just bragging without any taxes…” Yan Chun muttered quietly, relying on the artifact to block the sound.
The Punishment Hall is indeed very severe, and every disciple there is like the incarnate Yama, merciless. Searching the spiritual mansion is even heavier punishment; it would never be used unless it's a serious crime. Once a cultivator is searched for their spiritual mansion, it’s like fertile land turning into saline-alkali soil, unable to recover the loss, and their cultivation will stagnate for life.
For those with low cultivation, it directly results in the cracking and disintegration of their spiritual mansion, jeopardizing their lives.
However… among the outer sect, these few could hardly reach the "ordinary" level together; they wouldn’t dare to trouble the disciples of the Punishment Hall for two Yin-Yang fish that are insufficiently spiritually nourished even for cooking?
It seems this pig liver-faced guy was truly out of options; he didn’t dare to actually kill someone, after all, even the outer sect disciples of the Heng Jue sect have life tokens recorded in the Tian Ming Pavilion.
Killing a fellow disciple is far worse than stealing fish, and this kid, who had grown a body like a rolling knife, just wouldn’t speak no matter what. The pig liver face couldn't do anything; it was just a scare tactic.
Unfortunately, pulling out the Punishment Hall option didn’t work. The fish-thief, like a dead fish, was tossed around, pitiful like a fish scraped of its scales, but his mouth remained tightly shut like a clam.
Yan Chun sighed, watching as a few outer sect disciples dared not hit him anymore but were unwilling to leave, hopping around him like monkeys, somewhat admiring this fish-thief.
“You better talk to me!” The pig liver face fiercely flipped the fish-thief over.
The fish-thief had been lying down, and with this flip, facing up, he was slapped again, his head slanting toward Yan Chun’s direction.
From Yan Chun's perspective, there was nothing on that four-image mask, only covered by a thin layer of spiritual mist. The mist twisted at times because Yan Chun’s thoughts were too chaotic and fast to form a proper human face.
But just as she was staring at the fish-thief's four-image mask, that pig liver face suddenly kicked the fish-thief in the back of the head. The fish-thief still didn’t make a sound, but the four-image mask was kicked off by the pig liver face, filled with resentment.
Before Yan Chun could get a good look at the fish-thief’s appearance, she saw the fish-thief, who had been treated like a dead fish, suddenly springing up!
He had no reaction to being beaten so badly, but once the four-image mask was removed, it was like having one’s pants pulled down, and he began to struggle violently.
He covered his face and scrambled up from the ground, screaming like mad, bumping wildly under the siege of a crowd. Perhaps his frenzied appearance was too frightening; those people were momentarily stunned, and he really broke through the encirclement.
Before Yan Chun could cheer for the fish-thief, she saw him crashing towards her direction clumsily—he was about to reach her!
Yan Chun: … Damn it!
The next scene was somewhat absurd. The artifact covering Yan Chun, called "Returning to Truth," could conceal her form, aura, and voice, but it couldn’t simply make her disappear.
The fish-thief was clearly about to crash into her. Getting stepped on was a small matter, but being exposed and caught by her father would be a big deal!
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Who would have thought the fire observed from the other side would come close!
The affected Yan Chun could only grit her teeth, climb up, and move her limbs, which were occasionally uncooperative, stumbling and tumbling as she tried to get out of the way, looking quite awkward.
"She originally thought it would be fine to just avoid him, but who would have expected that she and this fish-thief were somehow 'in sync' -- wherever she ran, he would run after her. If it weren’t for the fact that the returning essence was a birthday gift from her master brother to save her life, she would have definitely been discovered with ease. Yan Chun was beginning to suspect that this fish-thief had seen her and was preparing to lead her into trouble!
So she fled, he pursued, with the pig-liver-faced one and a bunch of loud monkeys following behind.
After running a few steps, Yan Chun was gasping for breath, as if she were about to die. The dull pain in her spiritual core began to sharpen into a piercing ache.
When her steps faltered slightly, the fish-thief directly collided with her back rudely.
“Ah!” Yan Chun let out a short cry, and the magical tool lost its effect upon being touched; she was immediately knocked down to the ground.
The person behind her seemed shocked as well, letting out a gasp since encountering someone suddenly while running was quite frightening.
However, neither of them had time to think, as they soon rolled down the slope like a pair of entwined balls of dung.
The monkeys chasing them saw that they were rolling even faster than they were running and immediately turned around to follow, their shouting echoing throughout the usually desolate valley.
At that moment, someone who had been trying to track Yan Chun’s aura suddenly opened a pair of phoenix eyes that resembled cold stars.
He formed a hand seal and disappeared from the room, soaring toward this remote peak—
Meanwhile, as Yan Chun was rolling, her waist accidentally slammed harshly against a tree trunk, causing pain like a thirsty fish, silently opening her mouth.
Then she and the fish-thief rolled down a steep slope, landing in a pit filled with leaves.
The rotten scent of decay filled her nose; Yan Chun had no time to grunt in pain or to check whether the dead fish or live fish was under her, quickly reaching to her waist, shaking open her storage bag, and once again activating her magical tool to cover both her and the fish-thief.
At the very moment their traces vanished, the person tracking them flickered within the forest and had already arrived.
After landing, he stood before the group of monkeys chasing Yan Chun and the fish-thief.
Clad in long white robes, with sharp brows and piercing eyes, he spoke with a voice as crisp as shattered jade: “What are you doing?”
A spirit bird perched on his shoulder but quickly turned into spirit mist and vanished, losing Yan Chun’s trail. His brow furrowed as he looked at the outer sect disciples, inquiring whether they had seen Yan Chun.
However, before he could ask more specifically, he saw the outer sect disciples shaking their heads like a rattle drum.
“Running around the mountain… exercising!”
“Yes, yes, yes, we’ve seen… Master Brother.”
“We’ve seen Master Brother…”
A group of them bowed nervously, trying their best to appear humble, wishing their heads and bottoms could touch in submission, simply because this person before them was none other than the top disciple of Hengjue Sect—Jing Yangyu.
Who doesn’t recognize Jing Yangyu? But Jing Yangyu is someone who literally is above the dust of the world and wouldn’t know these outer sect riffraff.
“Have you ever seen… any suspicious person?”
Jing Yangyu had intended to ask if they had seen Yan Chun, but realizing that Yan Chun had been in a deep sleep for eleven years, he thought that new disciples in the sect wouldn’t recognize her, so these outer sect disciples wouldn’t have seen her either.
“Ah? Ah… no, no one saw anything, we were just exercising!” Pig-liver-face led the excuses, after all, they had hurt outer sect disciples this time, and it could be a big deal.
If no one saw, it wouldn’t matter. If someone did, the consequences might be either a minor disregard of sect rules or a major case of harming fellow disciples.
Especially since Jing Yangyu is famously more merciless than even the execution disciples. Now that fellow rolling down the hill had gone silent, if he makes a sound later, they outer sect disciples would definitely be kicked down the mountain for harming fellow disciples.
One disciple behind pig-liver-face wanted to say, “I just saw a woman appear out of nowhere,” but he just moved his lips and swallowed the words back down.
Who didn’t know the seriousness of this matter? They could only hope Jing Yangyu would disappear quickly so they could rush down the slope to find that kid...
Jing Yangyu’s brief silence and the pressure of his presence spread soundlessly. Pig-liver-face felt like he was being tormented in blazing fire, and his posture sank lower, his throat constricted with a heavy feeling; he almost wished to kneel on the ground, struggling to say, “Master Brother… we indeed…”
“Left.”
“Left, oh my god…”
“Ugh…”
Someone directly knelt down on the ground and threw up from fright mixed with pressure when Jing Yangyu vanished.
“Quick! Let’s go down and find him!” Pig-liver-face hurriedly directed the others down the slope.
But they searched all over the slope, and they couldn’t go too far; if they crossed the outer sect’s activity range, that would be another issue.
“What to do, that little brat runs quickly!”
“The woman who just rolled down with him is also gone; I hurriedly glanced, and she looked like she was wearing the inner sect disciple's clothes.”
“Quit rambling; when you see a woman, you can’t move. Would an inner sect disciple come to this ghost place?”
“Bah, I don’t believe it; he can run away from the monk and he can still run from the temple! We’ll wait for him to come back. When I block him again, I’ll definitely skin him alive…”
The sound of chatter and footsteps gradually faded, and the two people covered by the magical tool beneath the leaves finally let out a huge sigh of relief.
As the tension dissipated, they realized their current situation… was a bit hard to explain.
Yan Chun was pressed against the fish-thief, fitting tightly against him. She could clearly hear his frantic heartbeat, and of course, her own was in a frenzy as well.
Not only was her heart racing, but due to her physical condition, she was also heavily panting, right next to the fish-thief's ear, heaving...
The fish-thief tried to rise, moving his waist.
Yan Chun quickly whispered in the fish-thief's ear, “...Don’t, huff, move!” The space that the magical tool could cover was limited; it had been crafted by her master brother according to Yan Chun's physique. If they didn’t cling closely, they would be exposed; her master brother's spiritual awareness was definitely still nearby.
However, she was too anxious and accidentally touched her lips to the fish-thief's earlobe, like a solid kiss.
Yan Chun quickly attempted to lift her head, but coincidentally, at this moment, her body was acting up and not functioning well again. She managed to lift it a bit only to crash back down again... Well, this time her lips were directly stamped on the fish-thief's cheek.
The fish-thief tilted his head slightly, but because they were pressed too tightly, he couldn’t escape her rough breaths and could not avoid her descending lips.
His body stiffened, then trembled slightly; Yan Chun could feel the intensity of his trembling increasing, simply… like a little wife being suppressed and humiliated by a tyrant bandit.
Yan Chun: “……” I can explain.
Forget it, she couldn’t explain.
Now her lips were pressed against his face. If she moved her lips now, that would be even more shameless!"