Chapter 5 – Being an Author is a High Risk Occupation

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Seeing the little black cat looking so utterly wronged, Ziche Duanyuan felt aggrieved himself. Without the Jade Bee, he couldn’t continue tracking Zhong Yanqing. Not only could he not snatch his opportunities, but he also couldn’t trip him up from the shadows. He’d have to deal with it later. Since that was the case, he didn’t want to waste any more time here. He stood up, ready to leave, but to his surprise, the black cat refused to go with him, instead running in a different direction.

Was it leaving him? Ziche Duanyuan let out a cold laugh.

Was he that repulsive? Even a cat wouldn’t stay with him.

“Come back,” Ziche Duanyuan said coldly. If that cat disobeyed him, if it ran away just because he spanked its butt… an unfaithful creature was better off dead.

Pei Bufan shuddered in fear, then quickly ran back and tugged on the hem of the male lead’s robe, pulling him in the other direction.

Ziche Duanyuan’s killing intent dissipated. He stared at him, dumbfounded. “You want me to follow you?”

Pei Bufan nodded. Getting their brainwaves to finally sync up was so damn difficult!! QAQ

Should I throw some confetti to celebrate?

Is it easy for me to complete a stupid mission?! Is it?!

Ziche Duanyuan followed without hesitation. He had nothing better to do anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, just as Ziche Duanyuan was considering whether to keep following, Pei Bufan led him around a dense thicket and stopped. He nodded his little head. Just as he’d designed it. The distance on the little icon had also become ‘0’. This was the place.

Ziche Duanyuan was astonished. What came into view was a different world,¹ completely unlike the outside.

It was a huge valley, and the most eye-catching feature was the clear spring at its center. Birds with colorful wings frolicked in the water, and the herbs growing by the spring were at least a hundred years old. In the middle of the spring was a pavilion shrouded in a hazy mist. Its peculiar feature was that there were no stone steps leading to it. To get there, one had to ‘walk’ across the water’s surface using a movement technique.

Swimming was also an option. If you had the life for it.

The feathers of the birds in the spring were brilliantly colored but highly poisonous. Any cultivator below the Foundation Establishment stage would die on contact. Didn’t you see there wasn’t a single fish in the water? However, this was no great obstacle for Ziche Duanyuan, who had already reached Foundation Establishment. Besides, his family had a hereditary movement technique that allowed him to cross without touching the water’s surface at all.

As for Zhong Yanqing, he probably swam across relying on his cultivation base. Ziche Duanyuan remembered seeing him return in his past life with his clothes heavily corroded.

Which meant that this was Zhong Yanqing’s big opportunity.

A wide smile spread across Ziche Duanyuan’s face. He looked down and stroked Pei Bufan’s little cat face. “You knew, and you brought me here on purpose?”

Pei Bufan puffed out his little chest and whimpered proudly.

“So before, you were also… trying to get me to follow you?” Ziche Duanyuan chuckled and rubbed Pei Bufan’s cat butt. “I wronged you earlier.”

Holy shit! You know you wronged me and you’re still touching my butt!!

Get your paws off me! Touch it again! You dare touch it again…

The moment I get back, I’m starting a new pit! The title will be “The Path of Ziche Duanyuan, the Ultimate Shou”!

Ancient martial arts world! I’ll make you fall into a male brothel,² getting screwed and then sold, sold and then screwed again! Ridden by a thousand men, pressed by ten thousand, you’ll never get to top in this lifetime!

Ziche Duanyuan looked at Pei Bufan’s cat mouth with disgust. “You’re drooling.”

Pei Bufan instantly slurped it back up.

Ziche Duanyuan: What are you thinking about that’s so… titillating?³

With light, floating steps, he crossed the poisonous spring and arrived at the pavilion. In a daze, Ziche Duanyuan and Pei Bufan found themselves in another world.

The pavilion held yet another mystery within.

Ziche Duanyuan marveled at it. This kind of craftsmanship, even in the Middle Realm, could only be achieved by the great masters. Who could it have been, stranded in this Lower Realm with its scarce spiritual qi, to have left behind so many rare treasures?

Pei Bufan whimpered. He didn’t know the specifics either. It was just a dungeon stronghold he had randomly set up so the male lead could get some good stuff.

With Pei Bufan as his huge, prophetic cheat code, Ziche Duanyuan smoothly followed the black cat, bypassing all the obstacles and reaching the deepest part of this small grotto-heaven directly.

The deeper they went, the more Ziche Duanyuan’s doubts grew. With his eye for things, it wasn’t hard to see the dangers within this grotto-heaven, yet the little black cat could accurately find the safe paths hidden among the traps and lead him deeper.

It was as if it was so familiar with the place it had walked it a thousand times.

Thinking of this, he laughed at himself for overthinking. It was just a newborn kitten, what could it possibly know?

Suddenly, another thought entered Ziche Duanyuan’s mind, a thought that sent a chill down his spine. The look he gave the black cat turned unfriendly.

What if the black cat was like him, reborn? Or perhaps, its body was possessed? Although he couldn’t imagine who would possess the body of a low-level Firewood Cat, if it was by some twist of fate…

The thought that the black cat by his side wasn’t a real pet, but a person, made it impossible for Ziche Duanyuan to calm his mind.

After all, the black cat was different from a person. A person would think a lot, scheme a lot. Not like a pet, whose world consisted only of its master and itself, so simple and pure.

If it were a person, why would it bring him here?

If it were just a pet, how could it know so much? And how could it know what he wanted? Even a high-level spirit beast didn’t have such high intelligence.

In just that short walk, a thousand thoughts had spun through Ziche Duanyuan’s mind, but he couldn’t figure it out.

Forget it, he thought. I’ll just wait and see.

If Pei Bufan knew what he was thinking, he would have furiously flipped a table: What am I scheming against you for? In my current state, what’s the use of scheming against you? I have a pile of magic treasures I can’t use, a pile of spirit stones I can’t spend, and a pile of money that can’t even buy half a bag of kitten formula! Who the hell would sell anything to a cat!! If you can really guess that I’m an author who transmigrated here to be tormented because of reader resentment, then I’ll be truly impressed!! What the actual F**K!⁴

Passing through a long corridor, the man and cat arrived at the innermost room. The moment they entered, their four eyes were nearly blinded. Piles of magic treasures, materials, and medicinal pills were strewn casually across the tables and floor, like a treasure vault. It was clear the original owner was a very carefree person.

On a table lay a letter, with several large, flamboyant brushstrokes: To the Fated One.

Ziche Duanyuan picked up the letter, opened it, and read it, a strange expression appearing on his face. He forcefully crumpled the letter into a ball and crushed it into powder.

Meanwhile, while the male lead wasn’t looking, the black cat had secretly slipped into a corner of the room, licking its paws. He wasn’t concerned with the contents of the letter. He was currently busy examining the last trap in the room. He had just used the correct way to open the door, so the trap hadn’t been triggered.

In fact, the moment they arrived at the entrance, Pei Bufan had noticed that the previous mission was already complete, and the next one had followed right on its heels.

They really won’t let a cat rest!

[Mission: Please have the Host help the Male Lead trip up Zhong Yanqing
Completion Reward: 1000 EXP, 10 Gold Coins, Cute Meow-Meow Bell Collar 1/4
Failure Penalty: Obliteration]

Pei Bufan: “…”

Whether I can even survive is still a question mark! Can the Zhong Yanqing mission wait a bit?? I remember this is where the male lead met the first tough mini-boss he encountered, a giant eight-headed spider! Two meters tall!

Back then, he had even Baidu’d what a spider looked like, and combining that with his own imagination, his vivid and graphic descriptions had made his readers’ skin crawl, making them want to line up and throw rotten eggs at him. But now… he’d rather be buried in rotten eggs.

Today, Your Grandpa is going to see a real, 5D version of a giant eight-headed spider!! Someone save me, holy shit!

Complaining was one thing, but the mission still had to be done if he didn’t want to become a dead cat.

The little black cat’s tiny body ran to the corner and rearranged some strange objects.

The setup of a formation array was ever-changing. With just a slight alteration, one could create a formation with the complete opposite effect. Pei Bufan was very certain that Zhong Yanqing would come. In the original novel, he had appeared here by a stroke of luck, and the male lead had followed him, only appearing after Zhong Yanqing found the treasure. Not only did he steal the goods, but he also fought with Zhong Yanqing. Just as Zhong Yanqing was about to discover the identity of the masked male lead, a giant spider came out and crashed the party, allowing the male lead to escape from Zhong Yanqing, though he almost lost his life in the process.

However, because of this, Pei Bufan had no idea what the condition was for triggering the ‘spider appearance’ side quest!

The male lead was busy picking out treasures and putting them in his storage bag when he suddenly saw a huge black stone. His eyes instantly lit up.

It was a Divine Meteorite, said to have come from the God Realm, naturally formed and nurtured, having absorbed the essence of heaven and earth. It was the best material for forging a life-bound sword. In his previous life, he had seen Zhong Yanqing with a sword forged from a Divine Meteorite. Zhong Yanqing wasn’t a sword cultivator, and he only used that sword occasionally, but it was incredibly sharp. He figured the material used to forge it must have come from here.

The corner of Ziche Duanyuan’s mouth curved up. This trip was truly worthwhile. He had recently been planning to switch from a technique cultivator to a sword cultivator. Most cultivators nowadays were technique cultivators; they cultivated the mind and advocated for not getting entangled in karma, preferring not to have too much involvement with non-cultivators. Sword cultivators, on the other hand, cultivated the sword and walked the path of slaughter. Because it was easier for technique cultivators to ascend to immortality, their numbers were greater. Sword cultivators, however, usually carried heavy killing intent, making it difficult for them to withstand the lightning tribulation, and many perished. Thus, not many people truly walked the path of the sword. Besides them, there were also talisman cultivators, pill cultivators, and so on.

His current state of mind was already unstable, and his heart demons were gradually forming. Cultivating the mind further would be futile. He might as well switch to being a sword cultivator now, while he was still in the early stages of Foundation Establishment. He no longer had any delusions about not getting entangled in karma. If he wanted to ascend, the path of the sword was his only way. The path of slaughter… it suited him quite well, didn’t it?

He packed up all the good things in the room, leaving only some things that looked nice but were useless, along with some medicinal pills. After wiping away all traces of his and the black cat’s presence, Ziche Duanyuan prepared to leave. Just then, both Pei Bufan and Ziche Duanyuan felt a wave of sinister, cold qi fly towards them.

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Author’s Notes:

Pei Bufan: ‘Ziche Duanyuan, with no father and no mother, was raised by his uncle. But because he was born naturally delicate and with a beautiful face, he was… by his uncle…’ (Skipping the next 3,800 words of text here.)
Pei Bufan: ‘The uncle gradually lost interest in Ziche Duanyuan. Coincidentally, he was being chased for gambling debts, so he tied Ziche Duanyuan up and used him to pay off the debt. The pitiful Ziche Duanyuan was… by several burly men…’ (Skipping the next 4,300 words of text here.)
Pei Bufan: ‘After that, the men sold him into a male brothel. From then on, Ziche Duanyuan lived a miserable life, every day he was…’ (Skipping the next 6,500 words of text here.)
Pei Bufan: ‘Because of this, a client became obsessed with Ziche Duanyuan, visiting him many times and even booking him exclusively, declaring that he was not allowed to serve any other customers. The madam was very happy, since that client had… special tastes. If he only tormented one person, she could reduce her losses. And so, Ziche Duanyuan was…’ (Skipping the next 2,100 words of text here.)
Pei Bufan: ‘His health fundamentally broken and abandoned by the client, Ziche Duanyuan had no way to make a living, so he had no choice but to sell…’ (Skipping the next 2,700 words of text here.)
Pei Bufan: ‘His smooth way of handling things caught the eye of a General, who bought him. Ziche Duanyuan thought he had finally escaped his suffering, but who knew that the General would make him act as a military honey trap to seduce someone. Ziche Duanyuan had no choice, and so he…’ (Skipping the next 6,200 words of text here.)

Ziche Duanyuan: “Hmm, this smut scene is written better than the last one. But compared to NP, I prefer 1-vs-1⁵. Still, there are a lot of techniques here worth studying.”
Pei Bufan: Σ( ° △ °|||)︴ “WTF! How long have you been watching?”
Ziche Duanyuan: “I’ve been here since the beginning.”
Pei Bufan: (;°;Д;°;) “Um… uh… about that…”
Ziche Duanyuan: “I like these scenes. Let’s try them out.”
Pei Bufan: “Try my ass!! You beast!! Put me down!!!” (:3【__】⁶

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Reika’s Notes:

• I think I did read this story, at least a few chapters of it, a few years ago, but I stopped when there were no more translated content.
• 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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1. 别有洞天 – literally “another cave heaven.” It’s used to describe a place that is unexpectedly beautiful or wondrous, a hidden paradise.
2. 南风馆  – is a historical term for establishments where male prostitutes were available. “Southern wind” (南风) was a classical euphemism for male homosexuality.
3. 荡漾 – literally means “to ripple.” As internet slang, it can describe a heart fluttering with excitement or, more suggestively, feeling aroused or flirtatious.
4. The original exclamation is 我了个大槽 (wǒ le gè dà cáo), a stronger, more emphatic version of 卧槽 (wò cáo), basically meaning “what the actual f**k” or “holy mother of god.”
5. Smut Scene / NP / 1-vs-1: These are common fandom terms. “H-scene” (from hentai) refers to explicit sexual content. “NP” refers to stories with polyamorous relationships (harems, gangbangs, etc.), while “1-vs-1” refers to monogamous pairings.
6. his emoji at the end depicts a person (:3) being thrown onto a bed (【__】), implying Pei Bufan was picked up by Ziche Duanyuan.