Chapter 60: Recording Part 1

“Ji Caiyan, hurry up.”

Bo Xuenong’s urging voice occasionally rang out in the private booth. Ji Caiyan felt a bit dizzy from the constant prodding.

She adjusted her mask with one hand and continued battling the paper edition of the Absolute Beauty Ranking on the table. To be more precise, she kept voting for Bo Xuenong.

They had agreed to go out for a stroll to get some fresh air, but as soon as Bo Xuenong came out of the Divine Pavilion, she dragged Ji Caiyan into a tea house private booth and filled the table with stacks of Absolute Beauty Ranking booklets freshly bought from the Divine Pavilion.

Bo Xuenong did not dare to boss around her two nominal elders, so she grabbed Ji Caiyan to repeat this utterly boring task.

The paper edition’s voting method differed from the pamphlet issued by the Divine Pavilion. The pamphlet only required tapping a name, but the paper version needed circling the name with a pen.

The paper was quite special too; once voted, it would burn up. Ji Caiyan nearly singed her eyebrows several times.

Ji Caiyan touched her slightly warm eyebrows and looked depressed as she cast her gaze out the window toward the bustling street. Shen Yanting and Ye Zhiyao had not followed them up, saying they were going to buy candied hawthorns for Feng Jin.

One sheet after another turned to ash at her fingertips, the ink gradually depleting.

Ji Caiyan dipped her brush in ink again but did not immediately reach for the papers. Instead, she sincerely sighed to Bo Xuenong, “They disappear after voting. The Divine Pavilion sure knows how to make money.”

Bo Xuenong did not respond to Ji Caiyan.

While she kept her head down circling names, she tapped the table with her index finger, signaling Ji Caiyan to keep working.

Ji Caiyan resignedly circled another name, but her thoughts grew more chaotic. “Senior Sister, if you can do this, others can too. How long do we have to keep voting?”

“No,” Bo Xuenong shook her head. “The Cultivation World doesn’t pay much attention to this ranking. Plenty of people dislike it. Probably only the senior who first proposed it out of confidence in their looks would fake votes like me.”

Bo Xuenong paused her brush tip.

She seemed to have forgotten to ask Shen Yanting who that senior in the Divine Pavilion was who proposed the ranking due to confidence in their appearance.

Away from Ye Zhiyao, Ji Caiyan’s voice returned to its gentle tone. “Senior Sister, you know this is faking votes?”

Without deliberately raising her pitch to sharpness, the words lost their aggressive edge and sounded much more pleasant.

She could clearly just speak normally.

Bo Xuenong inwardly grumbled and grew even more baffled by Ji Caiyan.

Normally, no matter how wild she got, she never lashed out at Shen Yanting. Ji Caiyan’s temperament was mild by nature, but she bristled all over whenever she faced Ye Zhiyao.

Ji Caiyan had not been like this before… What was she like before? Bo Xuenong could not quite recall. Back in the Imperial Serenity Sect, she had always brushed them off one by one, paying no attention to Ji Caiyan and the others. She only remembered Ye Zhiyao as taciturn, Ji Caiyan as steady and gentle—completely unlike fake-nice types like herself.

Her intuition told her that Ji Caiyan liked Ye Zhiyao.

If she liked her, was she not afraid of being hated?

Ji Caiyan had decent patience. Anyone else would have fled at the sight of the pile of papers, but though she sighed, her hands did not slow. After getting the hang of it, she even sped up.

Finally, the little paper mountain shrank a bit, but Bo Xuenong pulled another thick stack from her storage jade bracelet.

Ji Caiyan pressed her forehead. “Senior Sister, how many did you buy exactly?”

Bo Xuenong kept her head buried in the tedious voting and casually replied, “The Divine Pavilion limits purchases. I did not buy that many.”

A light breeze blew in through the window, rustling the papers.

Ji Caiyan wished the wind were stronger to blow away a few sheets. Her expression grew even more bitter. “Senior Sister, since the Divine Pavilion limits purchases, it’s to prevent vote rigging. Buying this many only gets you votes within their allowed range.”

Bo Xuenong knew the Divine Pavilion’s limits curbed rigging, but she had already bought them.

She waved her hand, and a spirit incantation landed on Ji Caiyan’s mouth. “Quiet. Vote faster. Once we’re done, we’ll go find Master.”

Master.

Bo Xuenong cherished those two words like a treasure in her heart. Even saying them curved her lips into a brilliant smile.

Ji Caiyan caught sight of Bo Xuenong’s smile from the corner of her eye. It tugged at her sensitive heartstrings, causing a faint ache in her chest.

Her mind drifted slightly. “Senior Sister, does Ye Zhiyao really have no memories?”

Bo Xuenong rolled her eyes at her. “Will you give it a rest?”

Ji Caiyan muttered, “No.”

Ji Caiyan needed Ye Zhiyao to have her memories so all her accusations and curses toward her would not be a one-sided show, nor the nonsense Ye Zhiyao called them.

She was still very angry—not just at Ye Zhiyao for being swayed by demonic breath and trying to use her as a human cauldron, but also at those repeated claims of nonsense.

The biggest difference between Ji Caiyan and Bo Xuenong was that she neither worshipped nor admired Ye Zhiyao.

The Imperial Serenity Sect was too small.

So small that any elder from the Ji Clan could wipe it out.

Ye Zhiyao was simply too weak.

Weak enough that even a random cultivator cast-off from her family outdid her by miles.

Ji Caiyan, bearing the Ghost Moon Vine bloodline, was a cast-off under restrictions, but she was still a noble young miss from a clan thousands of times stronger than the Imperial Serenity Sect. In the Ji Clan, she had even been stripped of cultivation rights, yet her elder sister was the next clan head. No one but the clan head dared trouble her too much. She had grown up pampered, and the weakest guard by her side as a child had been at golden core late stage.

When Ji Caiyan entered the inner sect and became Ye Zhiyao’s disciple, Ye Zhiyao had just broken through to golden core with Shen Yanting’s help.

That year, Ye Zhiyao sat at the head seat while she knelt to perform the apprenticeship rites. Hearing Ye Zhiyao say, “From today on, you are my disciple,” Ji Caiyan felt no sense of belonging—instead, she nearly laughed, a mocking laugh.

The more she interacted, the more she understood.

The more she looked down on Ye Zhiyao.

Ye Zhiyao had far too many flaws.

No strength yet putting on master’s airs; not as strong as Shen Yanting yet daring to act like the eldest senior sister; no talent like Feng Yingbo’s yet sulking over being surpassed in cultivation by the little junior sister; always secretly resenting Shen Yanting for supporting Fu Aoqing as sect master.

No talent, no magnanimity.

Petty, small-timer attitude.

As a new inner sect disciple, Ji Caiyan often thought she, with her Ghost Moon Vine bloodline, should not have such a master full of flaws. That was why she preferred sticking to Bo Xuenong early on.

In Ji Caiyan’s eyes, she and Bo Xuenong were cut from the same cloth.

Both talented, both tolerant and magnanimous.

Later… she gradually realized she and Bo Xuenong were not on the same path. Her bloodline was sealed, limiting her talent; truthfully, her spirit root was only a bit better than Ye Zhiyao’s. Ye Zhiyao was a master inferior in every way, and she was a disciple inferior in every way.

Not even comparable to Bo Xuenong—she sometimes could not even match Third Junior Sister Ge Qiqin.

They were fated to be master and disciple.

Equally mediocre.

Ji Caiyan truly grew close to Ye Zhiyao not because of that, but due to He Xin’s arrival.

He Xin was the fourth inner sect disciple. At the time, aside from the still young Feng Yingbo, every elder already had a disciple.

Ji Caiyan naturally assumed He Xin would apprentice under Feng Yingbo or Fu Aoqing. But Fu Aoqing’s cultivation was too low, and young Feng Yingbo was obsessed with cultivation and had no interest in disciples, so He Xin ended up under Ye Zhiyao.

Other masters had one disciple each, but hers had two.

That thought haunted Ji Caiyan daily, growing fiercer. She began nitpicking odd things, like Ye Zhiyao patting He Xin’s head today but not hers. Or Ye Zhiyao saying ten sentences to He Xin but only five to her.

Or He Xin acting spoiled and kissing Ye Zhiyao today—since she had not acted spoiled today, she would tomorrow, and if no kiss, she would make up for it.

She and He Xin got along well, but she envied everything He Xin got from Ye Zhiyao.

Bo Xuenong had guessed right.

When Ye Zhiyao insisted on dual cultivation with them, she had not forgotten the restriction on her. She knew from the start she could not dual cultivate, but she had to compete anyway.

If she could not.

Then He Xin could not either.

When Ye Zhiyao truly kissed her, she did not find it absurd. She stared intently at Ye Zhiyao, whispering in her heart, ‘Ye Zhiyao, you can only choose me. If we luckily break the restriction, we live together. If it holds, I’ll pick you a nice grave.’