Chapter 17

The Qingxin Grass, a natural treasure of heaven and earth, whoever gets their hands on it, it belongs to them. Song Hansheng thought he had everything under control, only to encounter this group of shortsighted wandering cultivators.

His face darkened, and after a moment of sensing something, a smirk of schadenfreude appeared on Song Hansheng’s lips.

“They’re here.”

“What’s here?”

Yè Qiào’s mind was slow to catch on.

Not only did Song Hansheng perceive it, but the others present also seemed to notice. Mu Chongxi stroked his chin. “Beasts.”

—Beasts?

Yè Qiào occasionally flipped through some basic knowledge about the cultivation world while cleaning the book depository. It mentioned that beasts often roamed in sparsely populated areas where spiritual plants in secret realms were abundant.

In such a large medicinal herb field, it was perfectly normal to have beasts.

“It seems like there are quite a lot of them.” Xue Yu’s voice was calm. “I estimate there are over a hundred.”

As a pill cultivator, his spiritual awareness was stronger than other cultivators’, and he easily sensed that many beasts were converging towards the medicinal herb field.

Perhaps sensing that human cultivators had occupied the herb field, the first beast to arrive emitted a threatening roar and swiftly charged towards them.

Estimated body size is around two meters tall, with a yellow outer skin, resembling modern locusts in appearance. Its thin wings fluttered as it abruptly flew towards Yun Que’s direction.

“Ah—!” The girl let out a piercing scream, instinctively moving closer to the strongest person present.

Yes, she targeted Mu Chongxi.

In this secret realm, sword cultivators are the most effective, especially a Foundation Establishment stage sword cultivator.

Yun Que hurriedly took refuge behind Mu Chongxi, meeting the boy’s slightly surprised gaze, blushing and remaining silent.

Mu Chongxi tossed his long sword into the air; the sword energy pierced the locust’s head like a bamboo breaking through, with a sharp sound as the blade penetrated its flesh, instantly killing it. The demon beast fell straight to the ground.

Yun Que let out a sigh of relief and softly said, “Thank you.”

Mu Chongxi glanced at her, harboring no good feelings toward disciples of Yueqing Sect, lazily saying, “No need to thank me. I wasn’t trying to save you.”

“You’re as strong as an ox,” the boy muttered. “My little sister got pushed behind by you.”

Yun Que: “…”

Because of her pretty appearance since childhood, she had received many favors. This was the first time she encountered a man who didn’t flatter her. Her eyes reddened involuntarily; clearly, she didn’t want to cry, but couldn’t control herself. “I—I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Mu Chongxi stared blankly for a moment. Just as Yun Que was about to speak again, he swiftly pulled Ye Qiao back.

Too frightening.

Are all female cultivators this scary now?

Crying at the slightest provocation—Mu Chongxi didn’t understand, but was greatly shocked.

Yun Que’s swirling tears froze.

Was she infected with some virus? What was happening?

“Little sister.” Su Zhuo noticed the girl’s fear when facing the demon beast just now, sighed lightly, “Don’t be afraid. You don’t need those sword cultivators to protect you.”

“Senior Brother Song is very powerful, and I have drawn several Vajra Talismans. Those demon beasts won’t be able to get close to you at all.”

Listening to his incessant words, not only did Yun Que not feel comforted, she even thought Su Zhuo was subtly mocking her for being cowardly in the face of a mere demon beast.

Feeling inferior because she had come from the mortal realm, especially when facing Ye Qiao back then, she felt the injustice of fate even more.

Both came from the mortal realm, but Ye Qiao had been lucky enough to be picked up by the Sect Master of Yueqing Sect and had an easy time since childhood.

With Su Zhuo chattering endlessly in her ears, Yun Que clenched her lips tightly, her face flushed. This time, purely out of irritation, her voice suddenly rose, “Shut up!”

The soft voice suddenly sounded somewhat harsh. Su Zhuo was stunned, looking somewhat bewildered, “Junior, little sister?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Yun Que realized her emotions were off track. She quickly regained her composure, forcing a smile, “I-I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry, I was feeling a bit off just now.”

*

On the other side, Ye Qiao was quite pleased to see Fourth Senior Brother avoiding Yun Que like that. At least he didn’t fall for the female lead like in the novels. That was a good thing.

“Fourth Senior Brother.” She nudged his arm. “Did you notice how Yun Que cried? Any feelings about that?”

In the novel, it was mentioned more than once how various male supporting characters were moved by the female lead’s crying, finding it so pitiful that they felt compelled to bully her.

Mu Chongxi nodded seriously, “I did.”

Ye Qiao’s heart skipped a beat. “What did you feel?”

He concluded with a serious expression, “She wants to extort me.”

He hadn’t even said anything, and her tears flowed like a faucet. Besides extorting money, Mu Chongxi couldn’t think of any other reason.

Ye Qiao: “…?”

She earnestly recalled the original plot. In those Mary Sue novels, the female lead was always a delicate and foolish beauty who didn’t need to do anything to have people willingly go through fire and water for her.

In the original story, Mu Chongxi would fight with a group of pursuers for the female lead, causing scenes of chaos.

However, now, not only had they failed to spark any fire, but Mu Chongxi deep down believed this woman just wanted to extort money from him.

Ye Qiao lightly patted his shoulder, sincerely saying, “Fourth Senior Brother, please maintain this line of thought.”

As long as his thought process stayed abnormal enough, the future harem showdowns for the female lead wouldn’t catch up to him.

As the two talked, hundreds of demons had silently surrounded them in a circle. They were low-level demons with undeveloped intelligence, quick to kill but numerous in number.

If these demons had higher cultivation levels, what they faced now would terrify countless cultivators—an onslaught of demons.

Mu Chongxi was about to act and deal with these demons, but Xue Yu stopped him.

“Do you remember who the Sect Master sent out for training this time?”

Qin Fanfan originally wanted to drive away these trouble-prone disciples, while also allowing Ye Qiao, this little girl, to see the world and toughen up.

Mu Chongxi, quite worried, gripped and then loosened his sword sheath. “But Little sister has just left the mountain for the first time…”

In his opinion, letting Little sister kill one or two demons to toughen up should be enough, not making her face hundreds of demons alone.

Xue Yu remained unmoved, smiling slightly. “Are you afraid?”

This question was directed at Ye Qiao.

She replied, “Not really.”

Surveying the giant locusts gradually closing in around them, she admitted that while she wasn’t scared, these things were pretty disgusting.

Considering Ye Qiao only knew basic sword techniques so far, Mu Chongxi anxiously planned to help her deal with these demons first to reduce their numbers.

This way, it would both toughen Ye Qiao’s courage and avoid too much danger.

“Little sister, let me teach you a move.” Mu Chongxi’s voice was clear as he blinked at her. “Watch closely.”

“This is the first move of the Clear Wind Technique.”

As his voice fell, his hand drew the Chaoxi Sword from its scabbard, and the snow-white sword shadows swept across before her eyes. In an instant, countless sword energies transformed into blades at a speed impossible to capture with the naked eye.

The wind whispered past their ears, and the next moment, the ferocious demon beast had its head cleanly severed, rolling to the ground and stirring up a cloud of dust.

Watching this scene from behind, Ye Qiao widened her eyes slightly, trying hard to capture Mu Chongxi’s sword movements when he attacked, silently committing this move to memory for future ostentation.

“What sword technique is that?” Su Zhuo, standing beside them, was also stunned. The speed was incredible, and the sword intent was overwhelming.

Not only him, even Song Hansheng’s brow furrowed deeply. “If I’m not mistaken…” He stared fixedly at the scene, “That looks somewhat like the sword intent of Changming Sect.”

Changming Sect, one of the Five Great Sects?

Su Zhuo looked incredulous. “How is that possible? Senior Brother Song, you must be mistaken.”

Those wandering cultivators couldn’t possibly be disciples of Changming Sect.

Yun Que also felt a sense of incredulity. She couldn’t articulate her thoughts clearly but subconsciously wanted to deny this possibility. “Yeah, didn’t she say before that they are from a small sect? How could they be disciples of Changming Sect?”

Song Hansheng’s expression turned colder. “I wish I was wrong myself. But that was indeed the sword intent of Changming Sect.”

The sword energy was like the wind, like a blade, moving at a speed too fast to be captured.

If they were just wandering cultivators, even if they couldn’t defeat them, they could compete for resources. But who would have expected these few bandits to be genuine direct disciples of Changming Sect?