Chapter 94: Disciple Conference (Part 6)

“Are you going to let anyone sleep or not?” Hua Qingyu exclaimed as a talisman flew out from her sleeve, wrapping around the candlelight. Annoyed, she said, “Sorry to remind you, but you just won’t stop. Why have you been coming to find me every day? As soon as you arrive, I have to entertain you. Don’t I get any time off?”

Wuzhen replied, “Don’t sleep.”
Wuzhen added, “Let’s chat.”

“Chat my ass, you’re wasting my spiritual energy.” Hua Qingyu coughed a bit and lay flat on the coffin board. “Why don’t you go find Xu Qianyu to absorb some spiritual energy? She’s young, recovers quickly, and has plenty of energy.”

Wuzhen said, “Get up.”
Hua Qingyu retorted, “I’ll call her over.”

A breeze swept through the room, causing the paper meant for communication to flutter up and immediately block Hua Qingyu’s path.
Hua Qingyu snorted coldly, lifted the paper, and muttered in doubt, “What is she doing? I’ll have to ask her tomorrow.”

Xu Qianyu wasn’t doing anything.

It was already late at night, and she was quietly sleeping in the Zhaoyue Palace when she was suddenly awakened by a murmuring voice. As she opened her eyes, she felt a chill behind her. “Keyun, did you hear someone talking in my room?”
The system replied, “It seems someone is talking.”

Xu Qianyu held her breath and suddenly lifted the curtain to look around. Everything in the room was as usual, with no one in sight.

But the faint voices continued: “You little bastard, trapping your grandfather here, you’re worthless.”
“All day long, only thinking about eating and sleeping; even a pig isn’t as comfortable as you.”

The clay pot was suddenly lifted, and a sharp intake of breath was heard, abruptly cutting off.
“Are you the one talking?” Xu Qianyu held the clay pot in front of the window, her gaze flickering as she looked at the trembling blades of grass inside.

She remembered that earlier there had only been a barely discernible bud of Floating Grass but somehow it had fully unfurled, growing four deep blue leaves.
However, the leaves drooped and curled, looking a bit wilted.
Xu Qianyu quickly pressed the Dream Shadow Tube, saying, “Master Uncle, your grass can talk now.”

Wuzhen’s phantom had his eyes tightly shut, looking exceptionally weak, so he couldn’t be relied on.
“What’s so great about talking? Your father can talk too, can’t he?” The leaves of the Floating Grass trembled and scoffed. “Since you’re raising me, how do you not know the rules?”

Xu Qianyu asked, “What rules?”

The system chimed in, “I think I know! Just pet it more, praise it, compliment it, and it will grow faster.”

Xu Qianyu turned her gaze coldly to the Floating Grass Shenchong, and said, “It disturbed my sleep, and you want me to praise it?”
The system realized Xu Qianyu was trying to suppress her temper and timidly said, “Isn’t it for the grass to grow well? Just give it a polite compliment.”
The Floating Grass Shenchong retorted, “What are you whispering about?”
Before the words finished, Xu Qianyu unleashed a wave of sword energy, flinging the window wide open and sending two clay pots flying out.
The system hurriedly said, “Don’t be impulsive!”
Xu Qianyu only pushed Shenchong onto the windowsill.

“How about this: you go compliment these two pots and leave the other two for me,” Xu Qianyu crossed her arms and said. “I’ll give you a night; tomorrow morning, we’ll compare and see if what you said is true.”

The system lamented internally but had no choice but to morph into a mosquito and flew out the window, dividing into six and buzzing around the two Floating Grass Shenchong, desperately showering it with compliments.

Inside, Xu Qianyu stared at the cursing Floating Grass Shenchong before her.
This girl had big eyes and long eyelashes, making her look fluffy, and when she stared expressionlessly at the grass, it was somewhat frightening. After a cold stare, the leaves of Floating Grass Shenchong drooped even more, and small dewdrops began to form on the leaves: “…”

Xu Qianyu’s rosy lips suddenly moved: “The weeds in the underground ditch can’t become human no matter how long they cultivate. Four leaves on one stem, even if it became human, it would still be an ugly thing, ugly enough to make your ancestors scream. Grass with mouths die early; if you wake me up again, you’re dead.”

Having said that, she lifted the curtain and climbed back into bed, continuing her deep sleep.
The Floating Grass Shenchong trembled, seemingly wanting to say something but dared not make a sound.

Until midnight, when Xu Qianyu was sound asleep, Wuzhen’s lonely soul drifted in.
A layer of frost instantly formed on the leaves of Floating Grass Shenchong, which shivered and angrily shouted at the bed curtain, “Your father is dead!”
Wuzhen: ?
The soul turned around and wrapped around the stem of the grass.
“Ah, ah, I’m sorry, my father is dead.”
The next morning, Xu Qianyu got out of bed and was surprised to see that the Floating Grass Shenchong by the window had grown a significant height. The two newly grown leaves had completely unfurled, and a new leaf had sprouted on top. It looked serene and quiet, making no noise.

Looking again at the two pots of Shenchong outside, they had only grown a few inches, and Xu Qianyu laughed, “It seems it doesn’t like being praised; it just likes me scolding it.”
“What?” The system flew up from the grass leaves, furious. “That shameless thing made me rack my brains all night to come up with compliments. Starting tomorrow night, I’m going to scold it properly!”

It had labored all night praising the grass, almost exhausting itself. However, there were benefits; it could now split into ten mosquitoes without getting mixed up, connecting together like a small snake, be able to open and close windows, hand over items, and carry buckets of water.
Finally, it had gained a bit of strength.
Tomorrow, it would also work hard to cultivate!
After this day, Xu Qianyu thought the Floating Grass Shenchong had submitted, but to her surprise, she was awakened in the middle of the night by a wailing sound.

“Are you done yet?” Xu Qianyu, once unable to sleep well, got extremely irritable, threw off her covers, and rushed over. “Do you want me to pull out all your leaves?”
Floating Grass Shenchong lamented, “You need to manage this; someone is stealing my descendants!”
“What descendants?” Xu Qianyu pushed open the window and saw that one of the Floating Grass Shenchong placed outside was missing half a plant, as if it had been dug up by someone. She quickly asked, “Who did it?”

“A woman in a white dress.”
“All the female cultivators in the sect wear white dresses; can you be more specific?”

The system replied, “It was Lu You. She just passed by here, stared at Shenchong for a long time, and seeing no one around, she used magic to dig up a plant. What should we do?”
“Let her take it.” Xu Qianyu closed the window, thinking she was worried that this grass couldn’t be sent to Xie Yuzhen, and now Lu You had delivered it to her doorstep.

Meanwhile, Lu You planted half a pot of Floating Grass Shenchong into her own flowerpot, her heart pounding.
She was astonished to see the spirit grass outside Xu Qianyu’s pavilion, suspecting she had missed it.

Wasn’t this the spirit grass she had planted in her previous life, Shentu? On the entire continent, only she could grow Shentu in a flowerpot, making this skill her “golden finger.” Now, seeing Xu Qianyu could grow the exact same spirit grass made her feel extremely uneasy.
Why could she also grow it?

In this life, whenever they crossed paths, she had almost never come out on top, and even her golden finger, the koi, had been taken away, making her doubt: could Xu Qianyu also have a system?
She carefully tended to Shentu as gently as in her past life, stroking and praising it. The next day, Shentu visibly grew taller and more robust, its leaves emitting a radiant glow, seemingly rejuvenated.

Lu You felt pleased; it turns out Xu Qianyu couldn’t grow it; the golden finger was still hers.
Coincidentally, Xie Yuzhen had a headache and couldn’t find peace day or night, so she plucked some leaves to brew tea and soup for him.

Xie Yuzhen saw faint blue spiritual energy points rising from the bowl and shook it, asking, “Where did this come from?”
Lu You hurriedly replied, “It’s the spirit grass I grew; it can stabilize the soul. Please drink it quickly.”

Xie Yuzhen still had doubts about Lu You, but what she offered was indeed beneficial to him. Rather than like, Lu You’s attitude towards him was more like flattery. This was also the reason he took Lu You as his disciple: besides wanting to retrieve his soul, he could alleviate his pain and recuperate by being near her.

Although he didn’t know her motives, why not take advantage of something beneficial?
Xie Yuzhen felt he had seen through Lu You, firmly believing this, and drank the tea, quickly falling into a deep sleep.

Last night, he dreamt of the young lady again. He was teaching her how to use a sword in a pavilion, and she wielded that long, snow-white dagger.
The dagger had fallen into his hands; where was she?

He also dreamt of someone he disliked: Wuzhen, who had entangled with him years ago, sitting with his back to him by the sea, his black robe embroidered with peach blossoms fluttering. The young man turned around, his eyes dark and deep, yet unable to hide the fleeting smirk within: “You’re just a maggot hatched from my brother’s tailbone. How dare you like peach blossoms?”

*
In the Zhaoyue Palace, Xu Qianyu sat in meditation, practicing her inner power and observing her consciousness within her spirit house.
She noticed that her four turtle legs had elongated somewhat. On the bright “turtle shell,” several golden runes had appeared.

The first rune was spiral-shaped, resembling the spirit-gathering talisman she had drawn. She lightly touched it, and immediately a wind rustled her clothes, a vortex appearing above her head, with spiritual energy starting to gather in the spirit pool.

From now on, she could gather spirits without needing to draw talismans, as if it were a divine ability.

The second rune looked like a vertical eye.
Xu Qianyu tried to touch it, but there was no reaction. Suddenly, she thought of something, took her wooden sword, and threw it to pin down a centipede crawling up a pillar. In an instant, a rose-red flow pattern appeared in her field of vision and then disappeared.

So this was a sense of murderous intent, allowing her to see the killing intent on the sword.
The third rune resembled a sword, still somewhat blurry…
At this moment, she was startled awake by a noise and hurried to the ceramic pot, questioning, “You could just talk to yourself, but why can I hear Lu You’s voice?”
A sweet female voice lingered in the room.

The Floating Grass Shenchong, lazily scratched its stem with its leaves and said, “You foolish thing, I’m also called Di Er,’ so I can listen. Just listen to how that girl praises others. Ah, I beg you, I’m the foolish thing!”
Xu Qianyu tugged at the leaves of the Floating Grass making it tremble in fear.

Yesterday her senior brother came, and she asked him to remove the restriction. If this grass offended her, it would be easy to pluck its leaves.
But Xu Qianyu just examined the leaves for a moment and saw that they indeed had countless tiny protrusions, with a hollow in the middle, resembling little ears.

So it had this function. Xu Qianyu wondered, “Can she also hear me speaking?”
The floating grass Shenchong said, “Of course not. The offspring she dug away, I’m still here. Only I can hear my offspring, not the other way around.”

Xu Qianyu formed a hand sign, blocking both Lu You’s voice and the grass’s voice.
Continuing her meditation, Xu Qianyu saw her consciousness dragging a long tail, a faintly shining trace—this was a lock added by Shen Suwei, and for some reason, she felt a little distracted.

After pondering for a moment, Xu Qianyu knocked on her senior brother’s door, bringing a pot of floating grass Shenchong into Shen Suwei’s room. Facing Shen Suwei’s slightly puzzled gaze, she spoke with confidence: “You help me take care of this pot.”
After saying this, she ran back to her own room, placing the ceramic pot beside the table, preparing to listen to what her senior brother usually did.

However, after listening for several days, she still heard no sounds, leaving Xu Qianyu quite puzzled.
In these few days, the floating grass Shenchong had also been surprisingly quiet.
One day, while Shen Suwei was sitting at the table reviewing sect documents, he suddenly heard Xu Qianyu’s voice, pausing for a moment. He muttered, “Strange, why can’t I hear anything? Can you even do it?”
Then came the sound of him fiddling.

Shen Suwei: “…”
During the day, he had some free time and went to Zhuyu Pavilion to ask Song Zhilan about it, only to find out that the floating grass Shenchong had the attribute of ‘listening.’
However, the positive and negative attributes were probably linked to their cultivation levels, hence Xu Qianyu’s plan fell through.

Shen Suwei silently looked at the documents.
From the meaning in her words, Xu Qianyu sent him this pot of grass to… listen to the happenings on his side.
In an instant, he felt lost.

Fortunately, she currently couldn’t hear anything on his end, giving him some buffer time.
As night fell, Xu Qianyu no longer dwelled on it, took out a book, and began to memorize it.
After a while, Shen Suwei placed the floating grass Shenchong in front of him.

Besides practicing his own cultivation, he also had to help Xu Binglai deal with sect matters at night. Thus, while listening to Xu Qianyu recite and memorize, he went through the documents, unknowingly finishing the last document while still sitting at the table.

Xu Qianyu was still memorizing, losing track in the middle, frustrated enough to throw her book several times, spin around twice, and go to the waterside to practice her sword for a while; then she lay down on her bed in the cool breeze, continuing to memorize.

After a busy night, Xu Qianyu suddenly found the candles extinguishing one by one and the doors and windows closing automatically.
The room plunged into darkness, and she was startled.

Meanwhile, Shen Suwei placed his finger on the leaves of Shenchong, hesitated for a moment, and gently pinched it with his spiritual power.
The “ears” on the leaves began to push against each other like waves, all turning in one direction. After a moment, he said to the leaves, “It’s time to sleep.”

“I can hear it!” Suddenly hearing her senior brother’s voice, Xu Qianyu jumped out of bed, looked at Shenchong, and recalled her senior brother’s earlier words with calm surprise. Could it be that he discovered she was eavesdropping?

But how could he know she hadn’t gone to sleep yet? Had he been listening all along?
Instantly, she held her breath.
The faint sounds from over there became extremely clear.

Shen Suwei did not turn the leaves back. Removing his jade crown, loosening his belt, taking off his outer robe—crisp sounds and the rustle of fabric intertwined with a peculiar tenderness. He lay down on the bed and pulled down the curtain.
If she wanted to listen, then let her listen.