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After listening to the maid’s report, Ziche Liangxing’s expression instantly turned grim. With his sharp intellect and powerful analytical mind, it didn’t take much thought for him to guess what had happened in the secret realm.
This Zhong Yanqing!!!
Ziche Liangxing gritted his teeth and slammed the teacup down on the table. The celadon cup shattered on impact, and tea trickled down the side of the table. The maid cautiously took a step back, hiding herself in the shadows. Ziche Liangxing usually spoke and acted with a smile, and others’ evaluation of him was that he was a gentle person. But as Ziche Liangxing’s personal maid, she knew very well how terrifying he could be once he became angry.
Ziche Liangxing rubbed his brows. This Zhong Yanqing was ambitious and wasn’t content to be beneath anyone. Ziche Liangxing didn’t dislike this point; in the cultivation world, a cultivator without ambition, unless they were whole-heartedly devoted to the Dao, would find it difficult to go far. He naturally didn’t want to recruit a nobody. But a person with a wolf’s ambition could not be kept either.
No matter how much he disliked Ziche Duanyuan, that person’s surname was still Ziche! If Ziche Duanyuan had provoked a powerful enemy and gotten himself killed, he wouldn’t have bothered to care. But who was Zhong Yanqing? He ate the Ziche family’s spirit rice and used the Ziche family’s spirit stones, and then abandoned a member of the Ziche family in a moment of danger, and might have even given him a push from behind? What was this? Did he look down on the Ziche family? Did he think that even after bullying a member of the Ziche family, the family would continue to support and raise him well? And he still dared to come and ask for his help?
Was he looking down on him, Ziche Liangxing?
Even if he pushed Ziche Duanyuan towards Zhong Yanqing, it was so Ziche Duanyuan wouldn’t cause him trouble. He only wanted Zhong Yanqing to help keep an eye on him, not to hand him over for Zhong Yanqing to torment as he pleased!
His uncle had the same idea. Otherwise, why would he have chosen someone with no background, who was once a beggar in the Lower Realm, to be Ziche Duanyuan’s partner? Besides seeing that his single lightning spiritual root was indeed good and had great development potential, wasn’t it also because of Ziche Duanyuan’s bad temper that he hoped to find someone who could tolerate him, or even wouldn’t dare to bully him, to be Ziche Duanyuan’s partner?
But he never expected Zhong Yanqing to be so audacious.
He had originally planned to get rid of that youth, but now it seemed it would be better to get rid of Zhong Yanqing. If Ziche Duanyuan came to hate him, or even the entire Ziche family, because of this matter, then he would truly be a great sinner (he had already hated them for a long time).
Having made his decision, Ziche Liangxing immediately took action. He ordered a maid to bring a black box from his storeroom. Looking at the medicinal pills in the box, Ziche Liangxing couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain.
A total of three Life-Extending Pills, priceless and not available on the market. Now they were all going to that lecherous old man. Just thinking about it made his teeth ache.
But for the sake of the relationship between the Ziche family and the You Ran Sect, and the Baili family that might also be implicated, he had to go all out. Especially now that the cultivation sects were about to start recruiting, he couldn’t afford to offend anyone. Ziche Liangxing picked up a brush and wrote a letter. The content roughly described how his dear cousin had met a youth in a secret realm in the Lower Realm and was instantly smitten. The youth also reciprocated his feelings, and only later did they learn he belonged to Perfected Chongyu. However, the two had already had a “substantive development,” so there was no way to send the person over. Now, he was specially sending three Life-Extending Pills as a token of his apology.
The letter was thousands of words long, and his posture was very humble. Even though they were in the wrong first, since they had both apologized and sent a gift, whether Perfected Chongyu was willing or not, the You Ran Sect and the Baili family couldn’t find any fault with them.
And the fact was, when Perfected Chongyu saw the letter, he was still furious, but the moment he caught sight of the three Life-Extending Pills, all his anger instantly vanished. No matter how rare a youth with a pure-yin constitution was, it couldn’t compare to the preciousness of a single Life-Extending Pill. Moreover, a youth with a pure-yin constitution wouldn’t live long. Even if he squeezed out the most cultivation from him, he would never reach the Soul Separation stage, let alone ascend. But with these three Life-Extending Pills, his future was now uncertain. The longer he lived, the greater his chances of encountering opportunities. Therefore, Perfected Chongyu’s reply to Ziche Liangxing was also extremely polite. He repeatedly said that he didn’t care about the youth, had even almost forgotten his existence, and wished the two of them a harmonious union.
The two went back and forth, their conversations growing more and more polite, more and more hypocritical.
And the center of their conversation, Ziche Duanyuan and Gong Yi? One was in his room, amusing himself by teasing a cat, having long forgotten about Gong Yi. The other was keeping a close eye on Zhong Yanqing, wary of him meeting Ziche Duanyuan, while also observing and learning his actions, hoping to hit the other’s G-spot1 the next time he saw him…
Time passed slowly like this. When Pei Bufan could finally write simple, broken characters with his tail, the next stage of the plot arrived.
That is, the thing that appeared2 in every cultivation novel: the recruitment by cultivation sects.
In the original novel, the male lead first hung around with Gong Yi in his family in the Lower Realm for a while, successfully taking the family’s resources for himself. Although he helped Gong Yi become the family head, he left him with just an empty shell of a family and then patted his butt and left, leaving Gong Yi alone in the Lower Realm, moping and giving up on himself. Ziche Duanyuan returned just in time for the cultivation sects to come to the great families to recruit. But now, because of Pei Bufan’s interference, the male lead didn’t go to Gong Yi’s family to cause trouble. As a result, when they returned, there was a large blank period, allowing Ziche Duanyuan to torment Pei Bufan to his heart’s content…
Pei Bufan: Is this f**king what you call reaping what you sow?!
System: …Heh heh.
In the male lead Ziche Duanyuan’s memory, he had not joined a cultivation sect in his previous life, so he wasn’t clear about this matter. It wasn’t because his aptitude was poor and they looked down on him, but because he himself was being difficult. The reason, of course, was Zhong Yanqing’s instigation, saying this and that was wrong with cultivation sects. Later, when the You Ran Sect and other sects came to find him, he rejected them very directly. He still remembered how bad their faces looked at that time. Thinking back on it now, what he did was indeed very humiliating for them. Joining a sect was equivalent to having a backer and protection. Even if a family had a deep foundation, it still couldn’t compare to the ‘professionalism’ of those who cultivated for a living, yet he had foolishly refused. And Zhong Yanqing, who had slandered the sects in every way, had, through the Ziche family’s recommendation, acknowledged an elder as his master, successfully latching onto another high branch. Thinking about it, I probably died of stupidity in my past life, right?
Ziche Duanyuan let out a cold laugh.
Now, he would absolutely not let this opportunity go.
The seven major sects were led by the You Ran Sect because it had the most Dao cultivators and was the strongest. But in terms of average strength, the strongest was Sword Immortal Valley, which was full of sword cultivators! In addition, there was the Hunyuan Sect, which was mostly pill cultivators; the Nanggong Hall, famous for talismans and artifact refining; the Zhanyan Pavilion, which played with mystical arts and celestial calculations; the Tianwu Sect, which was mainly composed of demonic and yao cultivators; and the Qingyu Tower, which had the most female cultivators and fewer male cultivators, who walked an unorthodox path and practiced dual cultivation.
Among them, the ones you couldn’t afford to offend the most were Sword Immortal Valley and Hunyuan Sect. The ones who loved to cause trouble the most were Qingyu Tower and Tianwu Sect. Zhanyan Pavilion liked to put on airs and play the ‘it cannot be said’ game. You Ran Sect liked to act like they were the greatest under heaven. Nanggong Hall, however, was nice to everyone on the surface but would stab you in the back. As for the sword cultivators, they didn’t seem to have any other characteristics besides loving to say, “If you’re not convinced, let’s fight.”
This was probably due to the different paths they specialized in.
In his past life, the sect Zhong Yanqing went to was the You Ran Sect. And the one that had come to invite Ziche Duanyuan the fastest, only to be directly rejected, was also the You Ran Sect.
But having been reborn and already decided to switch to a sword cultivator, Ziche Duanyuan naturally set his sights on Sword Immortal Valley. Not only because he was no longer a technique cultivator, but also because deep down, he still held a grudge against that sect. Although his death in his past life wasn’t caused by the You Ran Sect, the true culprits who led to his death were almost all from the You Ran Sect. The thought of his former enemies made Ziche Duanyuan’s aura unstable, and his killing intent began to leak out.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Pei Bufan quickly went forward and rubbed his fluffy little head against Ziche Duanyuan’s chin. Having been a cat for so long, his dignity was long gone. He was now a master of acting dumb and cute.
Ziche Duanyuan looked down and saw Pei Bufan’s large, moist eyes. His heart softened. Reborn, he was no longer alone.
“I’m fine,” Ziche Duanyuan said, holding the little black cat. “Bufan.” When Pei Bufan could write simple characters, the first thing he told him was his name. After all, how could a gong go by the name ‘Yuan’ (Round)? Bufan (Extraordinary) was what truly described him!
“I want to join Sword Immortal Valley,” Ziche Duanyuan said in a low voice. “Will you come with me?”
Pei Bufan was just about to nod when he heard that bastard system pop up again.
[Mission: Please have the Host join the Tianwu Sect
Completion Reward: 1000 EXP, 10 Gold Coins, Transformation Card 1/4
Failure Penalty: All fur falls out]
Pei Bufan: …F**k!
********
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Reika’s Notes:
- This text was translated by Kotori Translates, and given to BC Novels to publish.
- I helped with the footnotes, formatting, grammar, etc., the usual stuff that is needed to post this on the website.
- Please let me know if there are any errors. Thanks for reading!
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- The original text has □□ (two empty squares), which is a common form of self-censorship in Chinese web novels for sensitive or explicit terms. Given the context of “戳中 (chuōzhòng)” which means “to poke” or “to hit the mark,” it strongly implies a sensitive spot, likely a “G-spot” or “sweet spot” in a metaphorical sense, meaning finding what truly pleases Ziche Duanyuan.
- 粗线 (cū xiàn) is internet slang for 出现 (chūxiàn), which means “to appear.” It’s a cutesy, stylized pronunciation.