Chapter 93

“Oh, it’s from the batch of top-tier herbs that Jin Xuan brought back from the secret realm last time. She just handed them in to the inner storage,” Lin Du sent a voice transmission to the two, then immediately ignited a voice transmission talisman and contacted the sect master.

After arranging everything, Lin Du felt a weight lift off her chest, and as her tension eased, the spiritual energy in her dantian began to circulate.

She had encountered a slight barrier in her cultivation realm—not much, just a bit.

Lin Du forcefully suppressed the flow of spiritual energy, nonchalantly dispersing the surrounding spiritual energy that had started gathering around her. Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind. She turned around, intending to release the restriction on Tao Xian, but instead, she was met with a pair of deep, almost hypnotic eyes.

Those weren’t Tao Xian’s usual eyes.

Or rather, they weren’t the eyes of the honest, hard-working Tao Xian she knew.

Lin Du took a step forward, just enough to stand right in front of Tao Xian, staring directly into his eyes.

As she gazed into them, she quickly connected the dots with the strange happenings at the Divine Mansion.

The room was unlit, completely dark, and there wasn’t even a trace of light in Tao Xian’s eyes, so they didn’t reflect Lin Du’s deliberately fierce expression at all.

Lin Du suddenly smiled. Fixing her gaze on the person in front of her, she softly said, “Borrowing someone’s body, eavesdropping on private conversations, spying on people’s secrets—how’s that working for you? Did you find what you were looking for?”

“How many bodies can you borrow? If one comes, I’ll kill one. How about that?”

As her slender hand extended, about to grab Tao Xian by the neck, the person blinked and then let out a loud yelp, stumbling back several steps.

“Daoist Lin, why are you staring at me like that?”

Tao Xian clutched his wildly beating heart, almost feeling like it was about to jump out of his throat. He thought to himself, “This ‘Junior Master’ of Supreme Sect is way too terrifying!” The room was already dark, and with that pale face and large black eyes, grinning like she was about to eat someone alive, he could have sworn she was a ghost crawling out from the ground!

Suddenly, a heavy iron folding fan appeared in Lin Du’s outstretched hand, which she casually spun around her knuckles. With a lowered gaze, she cryptically added, “Usually, when someone stares at another person for so long, there are only two reasons. The first is that they want to kiss them…”

Tao Xian was so scared his soul practically left his body. Hearing this, he almost wanted to kneel before Lin Du. How old was this kid again…?

“The second reason,” Lin Du raised her eyes and took a step forward, her expression cold and severe, “is to beat someone up. Clearly, between you and me, it’s only the second reason.”

Tao Xian let out a soft “oh” of relief, “Well, that’s not so bad.”

But he quickly realized, “No, no, Daoist Lin, why do you want to beat me?”

Lin Du raised her hand and pointed to her ear, her gaze sharp, “Why do you think?”

“I have no idea,” Tao Xian obediently shrank back into himself.

Lin Du fixed her eyes on him. “When did your hearing return? And when were you able to start speaking again?”

Tao Xian’s cultivation was higher than Lin Du’s, so he could have broken through the restrictions himself. But evidently, the original Tao Xian was a cautious person. Since Lin Du had sealed his hearing, he should have known that he wasn’t supposed to overhear certain things.

Lin Du had seen many people and believed she was pretty good at reading them. The original Tao Xian reminded her of someone content with slowly climbing the corporate ladder, satisfied with a stable job and promotions.

But the Tao Xian just now didn’t seem like that type at all. He resembled a sharp boss secretly checking to see if his graduate students were slacking off in the lab.

Tao Xian suddenly snapped back to reality, “Oh yeah, why?”

“What were you just doing? It seems you weren’t being honest. Could it be that you’re a spy from the Fei Xing Sect, sent to snoop on the secrets of our Supreme Sect’s disciples?” Lin Du stepped closer again.

Tao Xian jumped, stepping back, thinking his heart couldn’t take much more of this. At this rate, he might die of heart failure before Mo Lin did.

Why did this kid have such an intense presence?

It was pitch black outside. If not for the lack of a knife, Lin Du could have passed for a murderer.

“I… I don’t remember much. I tend to zone out when I’m bored. You sealed my throat and my hearing, so I was just daydreaming.”

Lin Du stared at his panicked face and then chuckled, “Daydreaming and accidentally breaking my spiritual seal? You must be exceptionally gifted.”

Tao Xian thought about it and realized she was right. Although Lin Du’s cultivation was lower than his, she was at the peak of the Qin Heart Realm and known for her talent. Could it be that he really had some hidden potential he wasn’t aware of?

Seeing that he was wearing his thoughts on his face, Lin Du snickered and turned away, “Just messing with you. I was bored too. I lifted the seal myself.”

Their interaction had already caught the attention of the other three. Granny Ma watched as the young girl turned around, a playful smile flashing on her face. She absentmindedly rubbed the engraved silver bracelet on her wrist.

This kid, she’s quite the clever one.

Feeling tricked, Tao Xian thought to himself, Thanks, but let’s not have a next time. My heart can’t handle these ups and downs.

Lin Du lowered her gaze, folding her arms as she waited for Xia Tianwu to ask about the details of the curse removal. She absentmindedly tapped her fan against her arm.

“The Gu worm isn’t immovable. By using the force it fears the most and the force it’s most attracted to—one to drive it away and the other to lure it out—I can catch it and remove it with a secret technique, killing it in the process.”

Granny Ma glanced at Lin Du, “The spiritual energy that just surged from you—is it pure ice energy?”

“Yes.”

“Once the herbs arrive, come to my place, and I’ll handle the rest.” After a pause, Granny Ma added, “As for payment, I want you to find and destroy an original Gu mother worm.”

“You’ll need to swear an oath to the heavens, and I’ll give you only ten years.”

Lin Du was taken aback. The death of a mother Gu worm would mean the end of a Gu master’s lineage. If that mother worm already had a master, it would be equivalent to crippling the Gu master.

It could even lead to the death of an entire group of Gu masters.

Granny Ma must truly hate Gu worms. No wonder she treated people’s Gu poison but lived in seclusion.

Before Lin Du could ponder the implications further, she hurriedly spoke up to prevent the naive Tao Xian from saying something inappropriate. “Granny Ma, is there no alternative? After all, encountering a Gu master is rare. What are the chances of us running into one?”

Granny Ma gave her a knowing smile, “Don’t play games with me. The mountains behind this village are full of Gu villages. If you really want to, you’ll find one. You’re just worried that killing a Gu master would be an unnecessary slaughter, aren’t you?”

Lin Du tapped her head with the fan, “I wouldn’t dare. It’s just that I’m young and not well-read. How about you lend me some books on Gu masters and Gu worms? Know your enemy and you’ll win a hundred battles, right?”

“I was planning to stay here for a few days, but since you’ve come, we’ll leave tomorrow afternoon. You should stay here for the night.”

Granny Ma paused and then kindly warned, “After sunset, the mountains are full of miasma. It’s not safe to go back. Stay inside and don’t cause any trouble.”

As she spoke, she handed Lin Du a booklet wrapped in parchment paper. “I doubt you’ll have the patience to read through it all.”

“I’ll definitely read it,” Lin Du replied with a bright smile as she accepted the booklet, “Thank you, Granny.”

That night, the four were assigned to two guest rooms, but Lin Du insisted that Mo Lin and Xia Tianwu had to stay together, leaving her to squeeze into a room with Tao Xian.

As soon as they entered, Lin Du lit a lamp. The two round orbs of light made the original candle flame look like a tiny speck.

Tao Xian, who had been feeling awkward, suddenly brightened up. Traveling with a well-off sect really did have its perks.

Lin Du tossed the book onto the table and glanced around. Although the furniture was made of simple wood, it had been polished to a shine, gleaming under the lamplight.

Looking around again, Lin Du noticed that the room was spotless, despite it being an unoccupied guest room.

Narrowing her eyes, she ran her fingers across the surface. Not a speck of dust.

Had someone just cleaned it?

This village was surprisingly hospitable.

She opened the booklet and saw that it was handwritten, using an ancient script that resembled seal script with some pictographic characters. It wasn’t the standard script used in today’s cultivation world.

Lin Du regretted deeply at that moment that she was a science student.

She knew she needed to learn seal script—her senior sister had given her some books on it—but she hadn’t picked it up quickly. Reading a whole book in seal script was still challenging for her, especially when it wasn’t just seal script, but also full of pictographic characters she had to guess at.

She let out a long sigh, “People really do need to read more.”

Tao Xian glanced over at Lin Du, who was sitting at the table, furrowing her brows in deep thought. She looked like she was struggling to read, and after a while, she even pulled out another thick book and started flipping through it rapidly.

…Do the disciples of Supreme Sect read books instead of cultivating late at night?

When do they even practice?

“Daoist Lin, don’t you need to meditate and cultivate? I can sit on the stool, and you can take the bed,” Tao Xian offered, not wanting to take advantage of the younger one.

Lin Du, irritated by the difficulty of translating the seal script, absentmindedly replied, “I’m skipping cultivation today. I need to suppress my level for now, or I’ll break through to the Core Formation stage.”

Tao Xian: ?

He thought to himself, being around these geniuses, he’d better stock up on some heart-calming pills.