Chapter 2

Throwing out twelve Spirit Jade Pills only resulted in a chorus of barking dogs.

“This bit of Spirit Jade Pills is just alms for beggars?”

“Fellow Daoist, I advise you: if you have no money, don’t cultivate. You’d be better off going home to grow sweet potatoes.”

“What nonsense is the upstairs guy spouting? At first glance, this new fellow Daoist looks like Sword Dao material. Fellow Daoist, you’re asking how to break through from Shedding Mortality to Heart Fixing? It’s simple—head to the Martial Practice platform, spar with someone, get beaten half to death, and you’ll break through.”

“Feng Qing, when do you plan to pay back those 1.2 million Spirit Jade Pills you owe Medicine King Mountain?”

“Fellow Daoist, see that? That’s the fate of sword cultivators. Better to learn spirit cooking—one fish earns you thousands of Spirit Jade Pills that they make.”

Li Ruoshui: “…”

Free stuff was indeed the most chaotic.

Having gotten no results from Tianyan, Li Ruoshui temporarily set the matter aside. Her tangible and intangible assets were pathetically few.

Among the outer sect cultivators, many were just freeloading and waiting to die—probably not even as well off as her. Li Ruoshui could only rely on her own meager knowledge to fumble around. No matter what, supplementing vital energy couldn’t be wrong. The vital energy in spirit pills was refined purely through special methods and wasn’t suited to her constitution—she couldn’t digest it. But some common spirit herbs were usable at her level.

Thanks to her outer sect work, while wielding her masterful Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art to tend fields, she had memorized some herbs and knew of one called Nourishing Essence Grass that she could consume.

Unfortunately, she tended fields every day, but the herbs in them had nothing to do with her. She needed to find some wild ones in the mountains.

The next day.

Li Ruoshui rose early and numbly watered the medicine fields that were worth more than ten of her.

Unlike the inner sect, which focused on studies, the outer sect had plenty of jobs that needed hiring hands. The pay wasn’t much, but it included food and lodging. Tasks varied—running errands for inner sect cultivators, helping them avoid punishment by copying scriptures, or farming. Good or bad work depended on who grabbed it first.

The original owner had taken on the heavy labor of farming because it let her learn the Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art.

Li Ruoshui wanted to enter the mountains, but she had to finish irrigating all the medicine fields first.

After Li Ruoshui had busied herself for three hours and completed her tasks, a commotion stirred in the outer sect. A crowd of fellow disciples ran faster than dogs being chased. Li Ruoshui vaguely heard phrases like “the great benefactor is handing out wealth again.” While she was dazed, a fellow disciple grabbed her arm.

“Senior Sister Li, didn’t you ask earlier when Junior Sister Xie would come? What are you standing around for? If you’re late, there’ll be nothing left.”

Li Ruoshui was practically dragged along as they dashed forward. Once she steadied her feet, she glanced at her panting fellow disciple and slowly wiped her sweat. Up ahead, a crowd squeezed together, a sea of bobbing heads. From the gaps in the throng, Li Ruoshui caught only a glimpse of a snow-white figure.

The disciples at the front were enraptured by Xie Chaosheng’s voice, as refreshing as a spring breeze. A hint of delight showed on Li Ruoshui’s face too, but thinking of her twelve Spirit Jade Pills brought a subtle ache to her brows.

The God of Wealth’s supplies were limited—not everyone in the back would get any.

Li Ruoshui kindly let a fellow disciple who nearly stepped on her heels cut in line ahead of her. Amid a string of thanks, she took her place at the tail end.

When her turn came, the people ahead had all received their goods and left amid profuse gratitude to get back to work.

From several feet away, Li Ruoshui subtly sized up Xie Chaosheng. Her gaze was restrained, but when she saw the black snake—vividly iridescent—coiled around Xie Chaosheng’s wrist, she couldn’t help but look a few times longer.

The future lord of the demonic path, Cang Lang, the mighty True Dragon—now reduced to a pet snake, could only raise a pair of brilliant golden snake pupils, hissing and flicking its tongue, emitting a sinister, threatening hiss.

“Sorry.” Xie Chaosheng looked apologetically at the rigidly upright Li Ruoshui. The spirit pills she had brought were all given out.

The great benefactor was truly compassionate but also truly lovesick. Yet Li Ruoshui didn’t want to step into that tragic fate. When Xie Chaosheng reached for Spirit Jade Pills, she took out the pill bottle and handed it to Xie Chaosheng. “Many thanks, Junior Sister, but I can’t use this.”

Xie Chaosheng recognized the spirit pill she had given. She paused at the words, her puzzled gaze roaming over Li Ruoshui, experiencing this novel and bizarre scene.

She had been rejected for the first time.

Li Ruoshui trotted out her prepared excuse in a low voice. “I’m only at Shedding Mortality cultivation and can’t withstand this pure pill energy. This item is precious—”

Xie Chaosheng blinked and interrupted Li Ruoshui. “It’s just ten Spirit Jade Pills.”

Li Ruoshui: “…” Her fists clenched. That was her entire savings from a month of not eating or drinking.

The black snake coiled on Xie Chaosheng’s wrist writhed, rearing up halfway, its gaze growing even colder.

Li Ruoshui paid no mind to the sinister, slithering Cang Lang. Rather than giving her pills, she might as well teach her cultivation tips. But per the plot, Xie Chaosheng was the type to level up just by sleeping—she was a genius worlds apart. Li Ruoshui set the jade bottle on a stone step, gave Xie Chaosheng a cupped-fist salute, and turned to stride away briskly.

Behind her.

Xie Chaosheng’s voice rang out.

“Little Black, she’s not a bad person.”

“Even outer sect disciples of our Taiyi Sect aren’t bad.”

Li Ruoshui’s ears were sharp; her face stiffened from holding back laughter.

A Demon Venerable’s nickname—quite unique. The hallmark of a lovesick, heartbreak novel.

She wondered what “drama” they would pull now that she, the plot device, had veered off track.

In the plot, fifty years later, Cang Lang returned to Demonic Prison Heavenly Palace and became the Demon Venerable. Per the rotation of immortal and demonic paths guarding Return to Ruins, Demon Venerable Cang Lang couldn’t stay at Taiyi and had to lead her followers to guard Return to Ruins Realm.

But upon hearing that Xie Chaosheng’s mind had fractured, she abandoned her guarding duty to search for Xie Chaosheng. Unfortunately, her arrangements before leaving failed, and a major crisis erupted in Return to Ruins Realm. Taiyi Sect Master Lian Rusu noticed first, but she perished after entering Return to Ruins Realm.

She was Xie Chaosheng’s initiating master and irreplaceable white moonlight. From then on, Xie Chaosheng resented Cang Lang, turning their pursuit into a full-blown melodramatic chase.

If she got the chance, she had to warn the Taiyi Sect Master.

After all, when Lian Rusu fell, Xie Chaosheng hadn’t grown strong yet.

A sect without its Sect Master, plus those two’s stepping stones in love… even the dog guarding the cafeteria wouldn’t live peacefully.

If she had to die to the plot, at least wait until after she graduated.

Having temporarily escaped life-and-death crises, Li Ruoshui was in high spirits and headed into the deep mountains.

The mountain range was named “Taiyi,” stretching endlessly at a glance. Misty clouds gathered and dispersed like white silk across the sky; jagged peaks thrust from the milky haze like clustered sharp bamboo shoots.

Li Ruoshui had heard that the Taiyi Mountains had 9,900 layers. Apart from the main peaks shrouded by Taiyi Sect’s grand formation, inner sect, outer sect, and rogue cultivators alike could go wherever they pleased. Fortune was yours if you got rich; if you died, at least tigers and leopards would clean up your corpse, spreading boundless merit by filling living beings’ bellies even in death.

Li Ruoshui had no intention of becoming spring mud to nurture flowers. She targeted the first ten layers, where danger meant at least half a body dragged back. Cautiously, she drew a circle on the ground, tossed in nine stones, counted those landing inside, pondered, and chose “three.”

The third layer wasn’t hard to climb.

At her Shedding Mortality foot speed, it took two hours.

The mountains were quiet, with no sign of fellow Daoists passing through. Everyone knew the front layers were safe—and thus picked clean long ago, yielding nothing good.

For Li Ruoshui, great riches were impossible, but common Nourishing Essence Grass had a decent chance of being overlooked—after all, it had the fate of a minnow that slipped the net.

There were wild beasts in the mountains, but Shedding Mortality cultivators had formed their first strand of “qi,” fundamentally different from mortals’ “martial” prowess. Li Ruoshui shook her right hand and muttered as she walked that even a blind bear, she could now punch to death.

But hands that could punch bears weren’t great at blazing trails. Thorny underbrush and spiked vines left traces on Li Ruoshui bit by bit. Those jade-like hands gradually covered in bloodstains, inching toward trotter territory.

She hadn’t learned escape arts; cloud-riding, earth-shrinking were pipe dreams.

After tripping on a vine, Li Ruoshui took a deep breath and used her only technique—the Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art.

But true to its name, what harm could continuous fine rain do to thorny thickets? Either turn it into a flooding deluge or concentrate power on one point. The former needed vast vital energy; the latter, precise control. Li Ruoshui chose the latter.

Perhaps from ample experience with the Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art, she successfully snapped the obstructing bushes and thorns, crushing through like a decay-withering force. By dusk, Li Ruoshui finally found a few stragglers. Unable to refine pills, she rinsed the Nourishing Essence Grass with water and chewed it raw.

The spirit power spent on Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art recovered somewhat after swallowing the grass. Li Ruoshui hesitated but didn’t turn back.

To grow stronger, sleepless effort was necessary, right? One day and night was her limit—more would kill her.

Deep mountain night thickened, insect chirps rising and falling.

Water compressed into a thin line swept ahead like a saber.

Sizzles, rustles, and startled birds’ wingbeats echoed in the night sky.

Li Ruoshui bulldozed through the ancient woods with her masterful Spring Breeze Rain Transformation Art, following water sounds to a clear stream.

Moonlight ghostly pale, sparse rays like remnant snow filtering through tree gaps.

When Li Ruoshui pushed aside the final obstacle with a bit more force, the thread-like water stream burst apart like celestial maidens scattering flowers, pattering sharply.

Before Li Ruoshui could gloat over her improved technique, she nearly scared her soul from her body at the sight.

Under the bleak moonlight, a person sat cross-legged with blood streaming from all seven orifices. Their white-gold Daoist robe bore no water stains, but their face was drenched, blood trickling down ashen cheeks to drip on the collar. At her side, a half-eaten charred fish lay like black coal, eerie and sinister.

Li Ruoshui’s scalp numbed: “…” This couldn’t be her doing, could it?