Chapter 4 – Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know

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Chapter 4 – Two birds with one stone

Being the protagonist of a novel, Baili Qingmiao’s appearance had no flaws. She wore the buttercup yellow dress of the female disciples of Shangqing Sect, hair tied in a simple bun with an ordinary multicolored string. A fresh peach blossom was stuck in her hair, and her face held the same gentle flush as its petals. A few strands of hair fell elegantly across her forehead and framed her face, clear and free from makeup. She wore a pair of light yellow bead earrings and was filled with a youthful grace.

Wenren È was engrossed with her divine light and hadn’t noticed her appearance at all. Yin Hanjiang clutched his sword. In his eyes, this girl who had confronted Wenren È with hostile intent was already dead.

Hè Wenzhao finally made it up the stairs. He had known Baili Qingmiao for over ten years, and would’ve gotten used to it no matter how beautiful she was. After getting to the second floor, all his attention was on Shu Yanyan. With a few coins, he sent one of the waiters to get a doctor who could treat fractures, then crouched near Shu Yanyan’s chair and said anxiously, “Don’t worry, Miss Shu, I’ll make sure to get justice for you!”

Shu Yanyan: …

No way, was she the only one who noticed this little Baili Qingmiao girl was really quite beautiful? Do these three men all have eye problems? And the one getting justice is clearly Baili Qingmiao, what is Hè Wenzhao trying to get in on the action for?

Even though she was filled with doubts, Shu Yanyan had a strong work ethic and remembered her task—seduce Hè Wenzhao. With effort, she placed her pale hand into Hè Wenzhao’s considerably larger palm, and said with eyes full of affection, “This maiden’s life is as thin as paper. Being able to meet Young Master Hè today is the fortune of three lifetimes. Miss Baili, you don’t need to make enemies for someone like me.”

Even if you do, you can’t beat them, Shu Yanyan grumbled in her heart.

Baili Qingmiao was still too young, barely at Foundation Establishment. Hè Wenzhao was a bit older, but still only at Core Formation stage. Wenren È didn’t need to act, and Yin Hanjiang didn’t need to unsheathe his sword. He could kill these two Shangqing Sect juniors with one finger.

Baili Qingmiao was even more furious after hearing Shu Yanyan’s words, and she also felt regretful. That day, Hè Wenzhao had wanted to call on Miss Shu, saying that some disciples met her in the small town a few days ago and helped her out. Even if it was a chance encounter, they had to take responsibility until the end. If they helped her but abandoned her halfway, this karma would be on them, and their heavenly tribulations would be harder in the future.

Baili Qingmiao was always preoccupied with her own jealousy. She’d just had yet another spat with her shixiong Hè Wenzhao about Liu-shijie. They had originally planned to set out at seven in the morning, but she had delayed them until nine. Her shixiong’s cultivation was much stronger than hers and he could deduce the ways of heaven better than she could. Maybe today he’d gotten a feeling that something was wrong, and that’s why he was anxious to leave early. If she had been just a bit earlier, maybe Miss Shu wouldn’t have…

While berating herself, Baili Qingmiao heard Shu Yanyan’s words and couldn’t restrain her anger anymore. She reached out an arm and the strip of silver silk around her waist, which clashed with the color of her clothes, moved of its own accord. This was the bonded weapon she had refined after attaining Foundation Establishment, the Moonlit Frost Silk. As it uncoiled, it resembled a streak of silver light glittering under the full moon, sublime and beautiful.

“Shimei!” Hè Wenzhao was concerned about Shu Yanyan, but he also worried for Baili Qingmiao, whom he had taken care of throughout her childhood.

Seeing her bring out her bonded weapon, he was anxious she would get hurt if her opponents turned out to be cultivators. He flashed in front of her, the sword on his back rising out of its sheath to float in the air, tip aimed at the two men.

“Please don’t get hurt for my sake!” Shu Yanyan sobbed.

All the guests in the cafe had already run off when Yin Hanjiang threw Shu Yanyan off, so the only people left on the second floor were the few caught in this confrontation.

Yin Hanjiang’s expression darkened. If the opposing side had already brought out their weapons, then he might as well…

“Hanjiang.” Wenren È held Yin Hanjiang’s hand on his sword down, gripping it tightly, preventing him from killing the two protagonists in one stroke.

Because Yin Hanjiang had lain in a corpse pile for several days in his childhood and still had death qi left in his body, no matter how much he cultivated, his limbs were always chilled, and his hand was currently ice-cold.

Wenren È sought the Dao in hot-blooded warfare. His body temperature was higher than normal people’s, and his hand was burning hot. Wrapped around Yin Hanjiang’s hand, it slowly transferred warmth to it.

Yin Hanjiang, after coming into contact with Wenren È, didn’t dare to move. It seemed to him it would be improper to let even the tip of one finger brush against Wenren È’s palm.

With his hand this cold, Yin Hanjiang probably had some internal injury, most likely left over from his childhood experience. This was likely also the reason Yin Hanjiang had a hard time advancing in realm, Wenren È thought. The treatment happened to be finding the strongest concentration of yang under the heavens, dwelling only in the bitterest frost—the novel’s Snow Flame.

Yes, the very Snow Flame Baili Qingmiao nearly threw her life away to get for Hè Wenzhao.

Wenren È wasn’t interested in taking the protagonists’ opportunity for himself. He was the number one cultivator in the world and didn’t need those kinds of things, but Yin Hanjiang did need the Snow Flame.

He hadn’t concerned himself with Yin Hanjiang for many years, just treating him as another subordinate. If it weren’t for that book, he probably would’ve disregarded him forever. Thinking of how Yin Hanjiang had become so crazed and obsessed after his death, Wenren È was emotionally moved and couldn’t help but want to treat him a little better.

“Seeing as you two are honorable cultivators with profound powers, what need is there to pick a fight over a lowly woman?” Wenren È didn’t want to make an enemy of his half master Baili Qingmiao, so decided to back down first.

“What did you say?!” Baili Qingmiao got angrier at his words and tried to charge, but Hè Wenzhao blocked her way.

Baili Qingmiao had yet to suffer the cruelties of the novel and had a simple and frank outlook, unable to see these people’s hidden depths. Hè Wenzhao already had much more experience with the outside world and could see that Wenren È was likely of higher capability than he let on. These two were so calm; what if they were Nascent Soul stage experts?

His palms broke into a sweat and he transmitted to Baili Qingmiao, “Shimei, they aren’t good opponents for us. I’ll hold them off for now, you hurry back to the sect for backup.”

In Hè Wenzhao’s heart, Baili Qingmiao was his beloved little shimei who he was deadset on protecting. Even if he died, he couldn’t let his lovely shimei get hurt.

“Shixiong…” Baili Qingmiao saw how tense and serious her shixiong was and realized they’d run into high-level opponents. She felt frightened, as well as grateful.

While they were transmitting messages and making plans, they were unaware that with how much lower their realms were, the other three in the room could hear them loud and clear.

Wenren È was a bit confused. He had already backed down, so how come the atmosphere had become even more tense? How should they end this? In the past, what did he usually do in these situations? It seems it was… kill ’em all? He couldn’t even remember the faces of the people who’d picked fights with him in the past.

Luckily, Shu Yanyan was there. As the Venerable’s Right Protector, she immediately saw though his thoughts and dragged her broken body to before the four of them, grabbing the silver piece on the table with a trembling hand. “Young Master Hè, Miss Baili, you don’t need to get hurt for my sake. What this master said was right. I am no more than a lowly woman.”

She bitterly put the silver piece into her lapel herself and choked out, “Thank you, honored guests, for your generosity.”

While saying her lines, she transmitted to Wenren È, “I’m begging you, Venerable, just say, ‘since you know your manners, I’ll save the Shangqing Sect some face and avoid picking a fight with its juniors’, and then go. I’m certain my acting has managed to hook him.”

Wenren È nodded and said woodenly, “Since you know your manners, I’ll save the Shangqing Sect some face and avoid picking a fight with its juniors.”

The moment he finished speaking, he grabbed Yin Hanjiang and disappeared. Hè Wenzhao and Baili Qingmiao couldn’t follow even if they wanted to.

“Miss Shu!” Hè Wenzhao frantically held Shu Yanyan in his arms, who had broken her bones and could only crawl. His heart ached incessantly for her. His cultivation was too low, and he had no way of defeating those two probably Nascent Soul stage experts. He could only let this frail but self-reliant woman who was like a lotus flower rising pristine from the mud humiliate herself to protect him. The fault was on him.

Baili Qingmiao looked at Hè Wenzhao holding Shu Yanyan, and, also seeing Shu Yanyan’s bleeding legs and her white dress which had already been stained half crimson, couldn’t bring herself to feel jealous. “Miss Shu probably won’t recover completely even if treated by a doctor. I’ll return to the sect and bring Yao-shixiong to help her.”

Hè Wenzhao nodded. “Alright, I’ll take her home.”

After Baili Qingmiao left, he picked Shu Yanyan up in his arms and brought her to her run-down thatch hut.

Though the inside was shabby, it was clean and neat, and a few pieces of delicate embroidery hung on the walls. You could tell at one glance that the owner was a poor but honest and cultured maiden.

Hè Wenzhao set Shu Yanyan carefully on her straw bed. Shu Yanyan had lost too much blood and was hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, her breathing growing faint. She weakly lifted her bloodstained fingers and said softly, “Young Master Hè, this lowly woman should’ve long since passed. There’s no need for you…”

The moment her cold fingertips touched Hè Wenzhao’s cheek, Shu Yanyan fainted, leaving a streak of blood down his face.

“Miss Shu!” Hè Wenzhao felt her pulse and found her life force extremely weak. He feared she couldn’t wait for his shimei to fetch Yao-shidi.

He gritted his teeth and said, “Sorry about this!”

He undid Shu Yanyan’s sash. Seeing a silver piece fall out, he felt another pang in his heart. Putting aside the proper relations between men and women, he pressed his palm to the warmth of Shu Yanyan’s chest and poured his spiritual energy into her, at the same time taking out a medicinal pill.

It was true that ordinary people could not withstand a cultivator’s medicine and couldn’t take them directly. But if a cultivator was willing to use their spiritual power to help break down the medicine and guide it through the body, they could absorb it.

The cultivator would lose some strength by doing this. Not often would cultivators waste their hard-earned spiritual essence on an ordinary person. Yao-shidi had drugs that would help an ordinary person take the pills, typically used for new disciples who couldn’t absorb qi yet, but he couldn’t wait any longer.

Hè Wenzhao was at Core Formation stage and had a comfortable amount of spiritual essence. After his qi completed a circuit in Shu Yanyan’s body, he fed the pill to her mouth-to-mouth, helping her absorb it.

After a few minutes, Shu Yanyan was completely healed. Hè Wenzhao embraced her and breathed a small sigh.

Only now did he realize how he was holding the warm and pliant body in his arms, like…

Why wasn’t shimei back yet?!

While pretending to be unconscious, Shu Yanyan sent a long distance transmission to her underlings. “You guys, delay Baili Qingmiao for me, I’ve almost got it. No matter what, don’t let her bring that Yao-shixiong to wreck my plans!”

“No need to send your subordinates. I have delayed Baili Qingmiao,” a familiar deep voice sounded by Shu Yanyan’s ear.

Shu Yanyan: …

Venerable, how come you want to do it yourself again? This—this subordinate doesn’t wish to trouble you; nothing good could come from you being involved!

Though she shed tears in her heart, she was fully in control on the surface. She opened her eyes with a soft cry and, finding herself lying in Hè Wenzhao’s lap, with her clothes… She exclaimed weakly, and her face turned bright red.

Elsewhere, Baili Qingmiao once again brought out the Moonlit Frost Silk, her expression grim, facing off against Wenren È and Yin Hanjiang.

Wenren È forbade Yin Hanjiang from acting and, extending a finger, tapped the silver silk once lightly. Baili Qingmiao’s bonded weapon quietly returned to within her body, and she found out she was unable to exert a hint of spiritual power.

Baili Qingmiao finally realized the extent of her opponents’ strength. She had grown up at Shangqing Sect and not really traveled the world before. As a cultivator, she had beaten countless Wulin martial artists, but she never expected such hidden masters to be mingling among the populace.

Her shixiong was far more experienced and had probably already seen through these people’s true depths, yet he still stood his ground in front of her. Her shixiong treated her so well, willing to risk his life for her, yet she was always throwing tantrums and distrusting him. Her behavior was altogether too ungrateful.

“If you want to kill me, then go ahead! If I even flinch, I’m not worthy of being a disciple of Shangqing Sect!” Baili Qingmiao said resolutely.

Wenren È didn’t know what twists and turns her thoughts were taking, and said evenly, “Miss Baili, don’t misjudge us. This Ven— I purposefully sought you out, as I have a request of you.”

He raised a hand, and in the mountain wilderness, three elegant chairs appeared. They didn’t come from a storage item on him, but were transparent chairs condensed from the spiritual energy of the mountains. Mahayana cultivators could connect to the heavens and the earth and manifest their will with a thought. Oftentimes cultivators at this stage wouldn’t lightly use their magic weapons, and could create weapons out of ambient spiritual energy to attack their opponents.

Wenren È made a gesture for Baili Qingmiao to help herself. After a trembling Baili Qingmiao sat down, he sat as well.

Usually he would sit first, but he had to show the proper respect to his half master, so he offered the seat to Baili Qingmiao first.

One of the three chairs was for Yin Hanjiang, but Yin Hanjiang didn’t sit, instead standing behind Wenren È without a word.

Wenren È didn’t make any demands to Baili Qingmiao. “Miss Baili,” he said, “you can probably tell that, with our strength, we’ve no need to trouble an ordinary person. Earlier, I had seen you walk by downstairs, and merely threw down an object to catch your attention.”

Baili Qingmiao was furious, but the people she was facing were too powerful. Holding herself back with fists clenched, she said, “That was a person, not an object!”

“Really?” Wenren È flicked a finger and an ant crawling across the ground was whisked up by a gust of wind and landed on Baili Qingmiao’s knee. “What difference between that and this?” he said indifferently.

The ant struggled to crawl on Baili Qingmiao’s leg. She lifted it with one hand and set it on the ground. “They are different,” she said in a shaky voice. “And ants are also guiltless.”

“In your life, have you eaten meat?” Wenren È asked

Baili Qingmiao didn’t say anything. Cultivators past Foundation Establishment could go without food, sustaining themselves on the qi of the environment. She established her foundation a year ago, and had grown up eating mortal food for the previous seventeen years.

She could only shake her head and say, “That’s not the same.”

“As a cultivator, you should know that all life under heaven goes to the same destination, and all things have their own awareness. There is no distinction between man and other living beings,” Wenren È said. “We as cultivators absorb the spiritual energy of the environment. Do you know how many lives that energy could’ve given rise to? Shangqing Sect has occupied its spiritual mountain for centuries—do you know how many unique creatures and spiritual beings that mountain sustained in ancient times? Why is it that now, not one is left? Because human beings cultivating on that mountain have seized the spiritual energy. That mountain is no longer able to give rise to mystical creatures.”

Baili Qingmiao had been a cultivator for only a short time, and had no way to refute Wenren È’s words. Her heart was in disorder, feeling like her old worldview had been toppled. Her spiritual essence ran wild out of her control, and sharp pains stabbed into her internal organs like knives.

Wenren È wasn’t willing to just watch his half master have a qi deviation, so changed his angle and said, “There’s no need to blame yourself for this. Humanity is currently the chief of all living things, and this was also decided by fate. In the age of gods and demons, humanity suffered endlessly. Any beast of the land or air, or deadly flower or tree, could treat human beings as its prey, refine their bodies into magic tools or absorb their souls. Now, the fact that humanity has the upper hand can be seen as nothing more than the revolution of fortunes.”

Hearing this, Baili Qingmiao’s expression eased. The things that bewildered her in her mind seemed to be resolved, and her mental state relaxed quite a bit.

She closed her eyes to contemplate in silence. After a quarter hour, she opened her eyes, stood, and cupped a fist toward Wenren È. “Thanks to this master for the guidance.”

Wenren È waved a hand. “It was hardly anything. I just randomly said some truths of heaven. The fact that you were able to comprehend shows that you’re naturally suited to cultivate the Path of Indifference. In your future cultivation, don’t choose the wrong path.”

Baili Qingmiao had just enlightened to a principle of heaven, and the expression in her eyes was currently far from that of the innocent young girl she had been. Underneath her long lashes, her eyes were dispassionate yet held compassion, and though she was looking at that ant, she also seemed to be looking at nothing at all.

Wenren È looked upon her with approval, but in the next instant, Baili Qingmiao’s eyes brightened. Coming back to her senses, she said, “Shixiong and Miss Shu are still waiting for the medicine!”

Her eyes twinkled like stars, resembling once more the lovestruck girl from before.

“No need for concern, that woman is fine,” Wenren È said. “I came to you because I needed you to help me retrieve something.”

“Senior just guided me in my cultivation. Baili is deeply grateful. If there’s anything I can do to help my senior, I would not hesitate to do so,” Baili Qingmiao said.

“I am looking for the spiritual treasure called the Snow Flame, to help my sub— friend recover from his injury,” said Wenren È.

Yin Hanjiang looked at Wenren È in astonishment.

“I have heard of the Snow Flame from my master before. It appears in the Thousand Mile Ice Plains, and no one knows its location. Any cultivator below Core Formation stage who enters would almost certainly die. Senior, your cultivation is profound. Can this junior really be of use?” Baili Qingmiao said in confusion.

“The Snow Flame is fated to be yours,” said Wenren È. “Other people can’t take it. We can only have it with your permission. Everything has its predetermined outcome, and one cannot obtain everything just by having power.”

Actually, they could just follow Baili Qingmiao, and after she obtained the treasure, take it from her. This would be the way of a demonic cultivator. But Wenren È couldn’t steal something from his master, and he didn’t want to do something as lowly as rob another person of their fortune either. He wanted to make an exchange.

“I can help you ascend to divinity. I can help you comprehend the Dao. I can assist you in obtaining the things you want, all in return for the Snow Flame.”

Wenren È thought this was a fine idea which could repay his debt to his master and help Yin Hanjiang at the same time, and secretly approved of himself for his own quick thinking. Behind his back and unbeknownst to him, Yin Hanjiang’s eyes were faintly rimmed in red.

Yin Hanjiang bowed his head, hiding his eyes, and spoke hoarsely. “Venerable—”

Wenren È, with a sweep of a gold-embroidered black sleeve, cut off Yin Hanjiang’s words. He transmitted to him, “This Venerable is giving it to you, so you’re not allowed to refuse.”

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Thank you for reading. If there are any mistakes, I hope my fellow cultivators will offer guidance.

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