Nong Qingying lowered her eyes in thought.
She knew Feng Qing well and understood that the sword cultivators of the Wind Moon Heartless Sect were not easy to deal with. Their sword escape techniques were fast, and they were incredibly tough. If it had just been Feng Qing holding off three opponents, she and Feng Deyin teaming up would have had a good chance of eliminating them.
But now, this unfamiliar female cultivator had an overwhelming aura, making her quite troublesome as well.
After pondering for a moment, Nong Qingying quickly made her choice. She raised her Tianyan Mirror and smiled brightly. “Fellow Daoist, what is your name? How about adding each other as friends?”
Li Ruoshui smiled faintly. “Scattered cultivator Li Shangshan.” Friends were never a bad thing. Moreover, seeing Feng Deyin’s icy expression on the side, it was clear she had no interest in making alliances. This would only deepen her objections to Nong Qingying, making it impossible for them to team up.
Speaking of which, among the Golden Core cultivators from Three Saints Academy, which one was the true disciple of their close friend? Or had they already been sent out of the Shanyue True Form Chart?
Feng Deyin watched Nong Qingying expressionlessly. Behind her, only one cultivator from Three Saints Academy remained. After seeing Nong Qingying and Li Ruoshui exchange name seals, she raised an eyebrow and snorted coldly before turning to leave, directly giving up the chance to claim the Sun and Moon Divine Sand.
Seeing Feng Deyin depart, Nong Qingying clicked her tongue at her retreating back before turning to Li Ruoshui’s group, attempting to negotiate. “What about the Sun and Moon Divine Sand—”
“I can’t make decisions on this matter. We have to wait for Fellow Daoist Ji to arrive,” Li Ruoshui said with a straight face.
Nong Qingying had no desire to run into Ji Wuxin. While they could exchange a few words with the Immortal Dao Seven Sects, their ties to the Origin Sea were thin, and she had no idea what kind of temperament Ji Wuxin had. They were both True Dragons—but would that make her much like those from the demonic path? With such thoughts in mind, though reluctant, Nong Qingying had no choice but to lead her people away.
Once that group was out of sight, Li Ruoshui let out a quiet sigh of relief. She slapped her palm toward the upright stone grotto, retrieving the jade pot containing the Sun and Moon Divine Sand. “Let’s go quickly,” Li Ruoshui urged, lest Nong Qingying or Feng Deyin come to their senses and double back.
“Aren’t we waiting for Ji Wuxin?” Yue Shenlin gazed at Li Ruoshui in confusion, still believing she was really coming. She had personally seen Fellow Daoist Shangshan exchange name seals with Ji Wuxin. She knew the Origin Sea had pinned their hopes on Ji Wuxin, and since they hadn’t clashed at first sight, some agreement must have been reached, right?
“Fool.” Feng Qing tapped Yue Shenlin on the forehead. “It was all to bluff them.”
It was also thanks to Yue Shenlin’s presence that Nong Qingying had been so easily fooled.
“Fellow Daoist Shangshan, how do you lie without any tells?” Feng Qing examined Li Ruoshui, inwardly amazed. First, she had raised a great banner to intimidate them, making Nong Qingying think they had backup. Then, she subtly revealed a hint of her own abilities, heightening their wariness. It was a perfect case of subduing the enemy without fighting!
“Was that even lying?” Li Ruoshui glanced at Feng Qing and huffed indignantly. “Tell me, back in Shanyue City, didn’t Ji Wuxin cover a batch of Spirit Jade Pills for you?”
Feng Qing: “…”
After obtaining the Sun and Moon Divine Sand, Li Ruoshui’s group hid in the mountain woods to cultivate. Reflecting on the process, Li Ruoshui felt there were still some areas that could have been handled better. For instance, her act of helping fellow Daoists had seemed insincere due to her impatience; directly robbing them outright would give others ammunition against her; and what if someone actually stole the Sun and Moon Divine Sand?
“Couldn’t we simulate the aura of the Sun and Moon Divine Sand, create some purple qi to lure people over? Then, when they grab the jade pot and realize they’ve been silently poisoned, we swoop in to ‘save’ them?” After thinking it over, Li Ruoshui suggested seriously.
Yao Changliu, ever dutiful and good-tempered, replied, “I’ll give it a try.”
Feng Qing’s eyes lit up at this. She reached out and captured a strand of purple thunderous qi. “I can help with creating the purple qi momentum!”
Yue Shenlin listened in bewilderment. She decided to empty her beautiful but muddled mind and simply follow Li Ruoshui’s orders. “What can I do?”
Li Ruoshui stared at Yue Shenlin intently.
Truth be told, bringing the merfolk into the Shanyue True Form Chart for training had been incidental. Li Ruoshui only knew that Yue Shenlin’s Heavenly Blessing Dao seemed cursed, allowing it to be used in reverse. As for any other abilities, she hadn’t bothered to ask.
“Fellow Daoist, besides granting blessings, does your cultivation of Heavenly Blessing Dao have any other divine abilities?”
Yue Shenlin: “Merfolk Song.”
“What effect does it have?” Li Ruoshui asked warily, silently adding in her mind, against enemies or allies?
Yue Shenlin hesitated. “Illusory… I suppose?” Meeting Li Ruoshui’s gaze, she smiled sheepishly. “I don’t like singing.”
Li Ruoshui understood.
Unclear effect, low proficiency.
But one ability was one ability. She glanced at Feng Qing before saying to Yue Shenlin, “Want to give it a try?”
Yue Shenlin blushed. “Really?”
Li Ruoshui nodded.
Feng Qing asked eagerly, “Can I request a song?” She laid her dharma sword across her knees and plucked at its blade, producing a sharp, resonant twang.
Yue Shenlin wanted to contribute too. After a brief hesitation, she nodded. As Yue Shenlin opened her mouth to sing, Yao Changliu swiftly popped a pill into her mouth, and Li Ruoshui quietly circulated her mana to temporarily shield her five senses.
Only Feng Qing remained enthusiastic, strumming her sword and trying to harmonize with Yue Shenlin.
Unfortunately, she only lasted the time it took for half a incense stick to burn before collapsing to the ground with her sword, as if lost in a dream.
Yue Shenlin stared at Feng Qing in bewilderment. She opened her mouth several times to speak but ultimately fell silent, overcome with guilt and embarrassment.
Li Ruoshui now had a good sense of it. She looked at the dejected merfolk, patted her shoulder, and praised, “Fellow Daoist Yue, you did great!”
On the ground, Feng Qing’s limbs twitched faintly. Under the gaze of three pairs of eyes, she suddenly raised a hand and declared wildly, “I can grasp the moon in the nine heavens above and catch turtles in the seas below—mere billions of Spirit Jade Pills are nothing I can’t repay!”
Li Ruoshui mused, “Looks like a good dream.” She turned to Yao Changliu. “We’ll need Fellow Daoist Yao to figure out how to wake her.”
Her own methods were too crude; one slap might turn Feng Qing against her outright.
Yao Changliu nodded. Yue Shenlin’s Merfolk Song plunged people into illusory dreams, and ordinary pills wouldn’t dispel it. After pondering seriously, she took out her cauldron and tossed in a pile of useless scrap materials to refine a medicine. In the semi-sealed cave, the medicinal scent couldn’t easily dissipate and gradually turned into a thick, turbid yellow smoke.
Feng Qing woke up, but her indiscriminate attacks nearly sent Li Ruoshui and Yue Shenlin packing too.
Facing Yao Changliu’s innocent and pure expression, Li Ruoshui couldn’t bring herself to complain about the potency.
She dragged Feng Qing over to ask about the illusory dream sensation, muttering to Yue Shenlin now and then.
Feng Qing patted her dazed head and huffed, “What are you all talking about?”
“About Fellow Daoist Yue’s divine ability,” Li Ruoshui said, raising an eyebrow. “Your next goal, Fellow Daoist Feng, is to make every cultivator who hears the Merfolk Song feel like they’ve seen their great-grandma.”
Feng Qing: “…”
With everything prepared, Li Ruoshui’s group emerged from the cave.
It was now the fifth day since they had entered the Shanyue True Form Chart.
While searching for the Sun and Moon Divine Sand, whenever Li Ruoshui sensed nearby fellow Daoists’ auras, she would bring out their forged “Sun and Moon Divine Sand” to lure them in. Several clever ones fell for it without even needing Yue Shenlin to use her Merfolk Song—they kissed the jade pot upon grabbing it and were poisoned half to death on the spot.
Whether for profit or humanitarian reasons, Yao Changliu couldn’t stand by.
While pulling them back from the Ghost Gate, she didn’t forget to slap a Guiding Talisman Edict on their foreheads.
“I can still stay in the Shanyue True Form Chart?”
“Fellow Daoist is truly kind-hearted, as expected of a healer who roams the world offering aid. How about a mere hundred thousand Spirit Jade Pills to repay your great kindness? After the Tianjiao Competition ends, why not visit our sect as a guest?”
Yao Changliu smiled mildly, agreeing to each one. With her hands clasped behind her back, she silently counted down. When she reached “one,” the clever fool keeled over.
Having collected a pile of Spirit Jade Pills, Li Ruoshui’s group was in high spirits and didn’t roughly toss the victims into rocky crevices.
“Fellow Daoist Ji, we’ve found a few more fellow Daoists. Sending you the location,” Li Ruoshui messaged Ji Wuxin.
A thousand li away.
A crack appeared on Ji Wuxin’s otherwise expressionless face.
This was the eleventh time.
They had indeed sent off competitors, but no Sun and Moon Divine Sand had been obtained from them.
“Young Lord, I bet the outside world’s cursing us fiercely right now.”
“Those human cultivators are far too insidious.”
They had played the bandits, but the Origin Sea bore the curses.
“This is the last time,” Ji Wuxin gritted out. A string of Bodhi Beads appeared in her palm, clicking loudly as she fiddled with them. She replied to Li Ruoshui via the Tianyan Mirror: “Fellow Daoist Shangshan, the Origin Sea has our own matters to attend to.”
Seeing the veiled refusal in Ji Wuxin’s words, Li Ruoshui feigned regret.
Feng Qing was tallying accounts, wondering how much of the massive debt her junior sisters had left her she could repay this trip. Casually glancing at Li Ruoshui’s suspicious expression, she asked offhandedly, “What’s up?”
Li Ruoshui: “Time to switch sheep.” Without even changing the punctuation, she copied and pasted the message to her new friend, Nong Qingying.
Nong Qingying: “?”
Li Ruoshui let out an “Oops”: “Sorry, sent to the wrong person.”
After Li Ruoshui and Feng Qing slipped away, the last batch of Origin Sea cultivators and the Immortal Sect fellows dragged along by Nong Qingying ran into each other on a narrow path. After an intense battle, another dozen or so were sent out of the Shanyue True Form Chart.
Unaware of what had transpired there, after dealing with a few scattered cultivators using the same trick, Li Ruoshui slapped her forehead. “Isn’t this a bit strange? How come we haven’t run into any Empire cultivators?”
Yao Changliu reminded her, “The Liang clan ones.”
Li Ruoshui’s expression didn’t change. “Are those even people? They’re corpses.”
Feng Qing frowned. “The Empire can’t have only sent the Liang family.” The two Your Highnesses were unlikely to appear in the Shanyue True Form Chart—the Empire had resources to send them straight into Cave Heaven, no need for such risks. But beyond the imperial family, the Futu Gao Clan and Tianwei Chen Clan should have sent people too. Where were those guys hiding?
