CHAPTER 18: I’m So Delicate

Yu Youyou woke up early, hugging her gradually fluffing tail, burying her face into it as she curled up into a small ball.

She retained all the memories of her original body.

So she remembered being beaten and scolded by Granny Zhang, being bullied by those people, and even the pain of being tortured to death in the end.

That’s why, when she heard about those two swords last night, some lingering memory from infancy must have been triggered—she had nightmares the entire night.

In her dream, blood poured down on her like rain, drenching her, suffocating her.

At that moment, knocking sounds came from outside.

Yu Youyou got dressed and opened the door, only to see Qi Nanfeng standing there with a multi-tiered food container in hand.

She looked up. The sky was still dim, with only the faintest hints of morning light.

“Why are you here so early?” She glanced at the food container, puzzled. “Besides, isn’t the dining hall still closed at this hour?”

“Yeah, so I sent word to my family last night and had them hire Master Chef Li from Yellow Crane Tower to make some breakfast and deliver it early.”

Qi Nanfeng walked in on his own and started unpacking the food. “I’m starving—come eat while it’s hot.”

But Yu Youyou stood still at the doorway, silently watching him.

Seeing this, he had to put down his chopsticks. “I noticed last night that you didn’t look too well.”

Qi Nanfeng hesitated before asking, “So… were you feeling emotional after hearing about those two swords?”

As expected of his beast-like instincts—he had guessed half of it right.

He continued, “Are you afraid that if people find out you’re from the demon race, they’ll hunt you down too? Cut off your tail, pull out your fangs, and use them for forging artifacts? Don’t be scared—we’ve coexisted peacefully for a hundred years now. Didn’t we see plenty of demons coming and going freely in the black market? No cultivator would dare lay a hand on you.”

“As for the sect… if you ever get expelled, I’ll just learn alchemy myself and come teach you.”

Qi Nanfeng assumed she was worried about being outed as a demon and feared being rejected or even exiled from the sect.

What he didn’t know was that Yu Youyou currently had no demonic aura whatsoever. Other than her tail, she was indistinguishable from an ordinary human—this was why none of the demons in the black market had recognized her.

Unless someone lifted her skirt to check for a tail.

Thankfully, no perverts in the cultivation world had developed such a hobby yet.

Leaning against the doorframe, Yu Youyou listened to Qi Nanfeng’s earnest plan to help her hide her identity. The shadow in her heart from the night before dissipated significantly.

She walked over, picked up a delicate bun, and took a bite. “I’m fine now. Hurry up and eat—we need to attend Elder’s lecture later.”

They had barely eaten a few bites when someone else arrived at the courtyard.

Su Yizhi came in carrying two plates of spiritual food.

“Qi Nanfeng, you’re here too? Perfect, I don’t have to go to your place to deliver this.”

He looked excited. “The inner sect actually provides free spiritual food! Outside, a single portion costs a fortune in spirit stones. I woke up before dawn just to grab some from the dining hall! There was no way I could finish all this alone, so I brought it back to share.”

Unfortunately, they only allowed one portion per person each time, so he had to queue up over ten times to get this much!

Su Yizhi deliberately pushed the bigger plate toward Yu Youyou. “You seemed a little down last night—have some free spiritual food to cheer up.”

Yu Youyou was momentarily stunned. She hadn’t expected even him to notice.

Her mood had already improved a lot. After swallowing the bite of bun, she lazily glanced at Su Yizhi. “Yeah, I was feeling a bit down. How about you call me ‘Big Sister’ to make me happy?”

After hearing how he had flattered those Senior Sisters to gather information yesterday, she was really curious about how he did it.

And Su Yizhi was actually a few days younger than her, truly just a brat.

“Alright.”

Su Yizhi actually sat up straight with a serious expression. Though his fair face was slightly flushed, he still firmly extended his hand.

“One spirit stone per call. Pay first.”

“…”

At the mention of spirit stones, Yu Youyou fell silent. Sorry, but she couldn’t bear to part with them.

Qi Nanfeng, on the other hand, eagerly handed over a spirit stone. “Call me!”

Su Yizhi swiftly pocketed the spirit stone and then perfunctorily called out—

“Sister.”

Qi Nanfeng was dumbfounded. “I wanted you to call me ‘Brother,’ who told you to call me ‘Sister’?! Give me my spirit stone back!”

“Heh, once given, there’s no taking it back. No way!”

…

By the time they finished eating, dawn was just breaking. Yet, none of the three had any intention of going back to sleep. They stepped onto the floating bridge among the clouds, heading toward the Library Pavilion.

In the months leading up to the Four Realms Tournament, the inner sect elders would conduct special training for all eligible disciples and then decide the final participants based on their performance.

After ranking last in the tournament for a hundred consecutive years, the Pill Cauldron Sect was in a dire situation. Talented disciples had all been snatched away by the medical cultivation sects of the other three realms. This time, the disciples under sixteen were all temporarily recruited from the outer sect—every single one of them knew how to refine pills, and every single one of them specialized only in fasting pills.

A perfect match for the “useless teammate” setting from the original novel.

By the time Yu Youyou and her companions arrived at the Library Pavilion, the others had yet to arrive.

It was called a “Library Pavilion,” but in truth, there were no books—only countless jade slips and illusion arrays.

Looking down from the lowest level, the jade slips emitted a faint glow, densely packed like stars in the night sky.

The guardian of the Library Pavilion was Elder Niu, a lean and patient old man who kindly explained the purpose of these items to them.

“Books alone cannot truly help one understand spiritual herbs. Many medicinal plants look similar, yet their properties differ vastly. That is why our sect disciples always carry recording jade slips when they go out to gather herbs, so they can document the plants’ growth environment and every minute characteristic.”

“What you see here is the accumulated knowledge of our Pill Cauldron Sect’s predecessors over nearly a thousand years.”

“Your task is to memorize the contents of every jade slip in this Library Pavilion within three months.”

Yu Youyou picked up a jade slip and tried it out. Instantly, her vision changed dramatically.

She found herself standing in an endless desert, golden sand stretching as far as the eye could see. Amidst the vast golden expanse, a lone patch of tender green was particularly striking.

The recorder seemed to be a young girl, her crisp voice reciting the herb’s name and properties. She even detailed which pills it was best suited for and which ingredients it was incompatible with.

Yu Youyou’s eyes lit up.

She had to admit, this method was far more effective than the herbal compendium used in the outer sect.

The apocalypse had been desolate, filled with ruins everywhere—either that or endless swarms of grotesque zombies. All medicinal plants had been grown in incubators or greenhouse chambers. In this life, she had never even left Tonghua County, let alone seen the wider world.

These jade slips showed her a vast new horizon. The rare medicinal herbs recorded within perfectly matched her needs, giving her a better chance to survive.

Though her medicinal baths were gradually repairing her body, the backlash from her bloodline was growing more severe with each occurrence. At this point, her body was like a ship riddled with holes—if she ever slowed down in bailing out the water, she would sink and drown.

So Yu Youyou once again began spending all her time in the Library Pavilion, returning to the frantic study routine she had in the outer sect.

Only now, instead of steamed buns, she was subsisting on fasting pills. Fortunately, she had refined plenty beforehand, so she was able to eat a different flavor every day without repeating.

She enthusiastically invited the other two to try the newly made fruit flavors, but Su Yizhi’s face turned green the moment he saw them.

Qi Nanfeng wasn’t any better off, shaking his head frantically. “That durian-flavored one you made last time is still haunting me—I refuse!”

Yu Youyou sighed in disappointment, then popped a strawberry-flavored pill into her mouth and continued her study session.

As she flipped through the jade slips faster and faster, Su Yizhi’s voice took on a slightly sour tone.

“If I counted correctly, she’s already gone through 250 jade slips this morning alone. At this rate, she’ll finish the entire Library Pavilion soon.”

Damn it, even his best record was only 200 in a morning! Was he really destined to be second place forever?

Qi Nanfeng was puzzled. “How do you know that so clearly?”

Su Yizhi ground his teeth. “I’ve been watching her and counting all morning!”

Qi Nanfeng: “…You know, if you’d been watching the jade slips instead, you’d be almost done too.”

Just when Su Yizhi thought Yu Youyou was about to start her second round of review, she suddenly stood up.

“Where are you going?”

Yu Youyou glanced back at them. “Time to learn something else.”

The two behind her immediately jumped up as well. “We’re learning too!”

Indeed, they had more to memorize than just medicinal ingredients—they also needed to learn countless pill recipes and master the refining process for various healing pills.

Especially Su Yizhi, whose round face was filled with determination. “This time, I won’t lose to you again!”

Yu Youyou chuckled. Standing against the light, her expression was indistinct, her tone lazy.

“I’m going to learn how to kill people.”

The two beside her only thought she was joking and continued grinning as they followed. “Alright, we’ll heal while you kill. If you can’t manage, just run back, and we’ll patch you up.”

Who would believe her?

She looked so weak—how could she possibly kill anyone?

But to everyone’s surprise, Yu Youyou actually went to seek out Elder Ma, the one responsible for teaching combat techniques.

It was said that Elder Ma had once fought a Nascent Soul-stage beast just to obtain a single sixth-grade spiritual herb. He was stronger than those who focused solely on combat, yet better at refining pills than those who specialized in alchemy—anyone weaker than him in combat had been beaten by him, and anyone inferior to him in alchemy had been crushed by him too.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t called combat training for alchemists—it was called self-defense training. After all, alchemists rarely went looking for fights.

Compared to the Library Pavilion and the pill refinement halls, which were packed to the brim, Elder Ma’s training grounds were utterly deserted.

After all, alchemists preferred the quiet company of their furnaces. Even when they traveled, they wished they could teleport everywhere. They generally hated exercise, let alone fighting and killing.

When the trio arrived, Elder Ma was drinking alone while grilling barbecue.

Qi Nanfeng, ever sensitive to food, immediately lit up. “Is that roasted celestial crane? But Senior Sister said that those spirit birds were a gift from the Beast Taming Sect, representing the bond between our sects. We absolutely can’t harm a single feather on them!”

Cough. Elder Ma choked, his old face darkening. “What celestial crane? Nonsense! This is just a wild pheasant I hunted.”

Yu Youyou pretended not to see the pile of half-plucked celestial crane feathers behind him.

Elder Ma gnawed on the roasted crane at lightning speed while listening to Yu Youyou’s request with a sidelong glance.

But he refused without hesitation. “Nope. Don’t wanna teach. Last year, I trained a brat named Zhu, and that kid turned out to be a genius. He beat up dozens of his fellow disciples. Even now, those old geezers still complain to me about it!”

Hearing this, Yu Youyou became even more eager.

Good heavens, so that Senior Brother Zhu, who single-handedly crushed dozens of his peers, was actually trained by you!

However, no matter how much Yu Youyou pleaded, Elder Ma refused to budge.

Qi Nanfeng cleared his throat, knowing it was time for his performance.

With the smug face of a second-generation troublemaker, he recited the lines they had agreed upon beforehand: “Forget it. Learning all those flashy techniques is useless. As a pill cultivator, you should just focus on refining pills. Isn’t it nice to hide behind sword cultivators and beg for protection?”

Since Su Yizhi didn’t receive any spirit stones, he halfheartedly agreed, “Exactly.”

Yu Youyou, full of emotion, countered, “No! How could our pill cultivators’ combat techniques be so worthless? Besides, my fate is mine to decide, not the heavens’. How could I entrust my life to others?”

Hearing this, Elder Ma scowled and threw a crane bone at her.

“You lot need to read fewer storybooks. ‘My fate is mine to decide, not the heavens’?’ You’re still chanting that outdated, corny slogan? I feel embarrassed for you!”

Yu Youyou: “…Is that phrase really that corny?”

Then why is it that every time her scummy father says it, all the great figures around him “tremble all over” and “immediately realize that this child is extraordinary”?

Elder Ma snorted. “Of course! The Undying Sword God shouts that line before every battle, so now everyone has been parroting it for the past century. Even the manure carriers at the mountain base yell it when they can’t lift their loads. You tell me, is it corny or not?”

Yu Youyou: “…”

A serious miscalculation.

Since Elder Ma refused to budge, Yu Youyou could only leave in disappointment.

But just as she turned, she suddenly staggered and collapsed to the ground.

Her voice remained utterly flat as she recited the line she had prepared—

“Ah, such a frail young girl like me… How could I possibly survive the Four Realms Grand Tournament without learning some combat techniques?”

The words sounded pitiful enough.

If only she hadn’t grabbed a handful of crane feathers when she fell—if only her face weren’t so blatantly saying, Teach me or I’ll report you for stealing celestial cranes—perhaps Elder Ma might have actually believed she was a delicate little girl.