CH 26

Lou Qiongzhi stared dumbfoundedly at the Golden Net Luotian Array before her.

Wasn't this an artefact reserved for the capture and suppression of heaven grade spirit beasts? And one cultivators reserved for hunting groups of five or more??

Was she being treated as a Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolf??

You could build half of another He Huan Sect with the amount of resources this artefact consumed per use. Was she supposed to be flattered??

She stopped running. She knew it was no use.

There was no shame in getting caught by the Golden Net Luotian Array.

"Not going to run anymore?" Xi Huai asked her while standing on Shukuang.

Lou Qiongzhi stopped. Xi Huai was prepared to fend off concealed weapons when she turned around, but to his surprise she immediately knelt down. "Young Sect Master, I only entered the Nuan Yan Pavilion to deceive two well-known, handsome cultivators. I haven't done anything too heinous, so please let me go!"

Well wasn't this He Huan Sect disciple eager to bend the knee.

Xi Huai said unhurriedly, "You know why I caught you, right?"

"I don't, ah..." Lou Qiongzhi feigned ignorance through her tears.

Xi Huai leaped down from Shukuang, which automatically returned to the scabbard on his waist.

He walked up to Lou Qiongzhi and said, "You don't need to help him hide anymore. It's Chi Muyao, right? Props to him for actually going to hide in the Yu Chong School."

"..." Lou Qiongzhi's heart skipped a beat, but she refrained from answering right away in case this was a trick of sorts.

Xi Huai shook his sleeve back and showed her the blood vessels of his wrist. "See? He just snatched me for a cultivation session."

All the furnaces that cultivated with He Huan Sect disciples had identifying marks on their body. When spiritual energy was gathered about their wrist, reddish pink blood vessels could be seen.

But not just by anyone. Just He Huan Sect disciples.

Lou Qiongzhi looked at Xi Huai's wrist before glancing at him. The corners of her mouth lifted uncontrollably.

Her Little Shige was really amazing to have snatched the Qing Ze Sect's Young Sect Master in his first attempt of eighty years.

It was no secret to the He Huan Sect that Xi Huai had been searching for Chi Muyao for more than two years. Naturally, she's heard about it too.

He wasn't the first to search for He Huan Sect disciples, but few cared whether they were found dead or alive like Xi Huai did.

And only Xi Huai searched like a real madman.

She snuck another look at Xi Huai.

His tall stature, broad shoulders, narrow waist, high nose ridge and the aura he exuded from his entire body... Her Little Shige was in for quite an adjustment period.

But nothing but bliss would follow after.

Xi Huai noticed her gaze and became somewhat unhappy. He asked again, "I just want to ask you something. How should I appease him after making him angry?"

Lou Qiongzhi didn't want to spill the beans, so she half-heartedly said, "I'm not familiar with Little Shige—"

She immediately shut up.

It seemed like she ended up spilling the beans anyway. Now Xi Huai knew she knew who he was looking for.

Xi Huai wasn't impatient. He asked again, "It doesn't matter if you're not familiar with him. Just tell me what his interests are."

Lou Qiongzhi had already memorized the description of Chi Muyao made up by her fellow Sect disciples: vixen eyes with raised eyelashes, seductive features, and a plunging neckline that went to his belly button. This description wasn't trying to make Chi Muyao seem ugly, it just happened to be the exact opposite of what he actually looked like.

But that didn't answer Xi Huai's question, ah!

So how was she supposed to answer him? Did her fellow shijie and shimei get asked as well? Would she be killed if their answers didn't align?

She suddenly felt a deep sense of regret.

Zong Sichen saw her secretly using concealed weapons when she thought she was alone, but she breathed a sigh of relief too hastily since they didn't come to find her right away.

Now, it seemed more like they just weren't in a hurry to find her.

"Little Shige is..." Lou Qiongzhi shifted from kneeling to sitting cross-legged on the ground. She mulled over what to say. "I'm quite young. The last time I saw Little Shige was seven years ago, when I was 13. He was still at the Logistics Hall then."

Xi Huai kept a constant eye on her so he knew she was still hiding something. He had already guessed that Chi Muyao used formations and the Hui Dragon Flames in order to protect her.

According to his previous discreet investigations, that man who had his soul shattered harassed her. Additionally, she was slightly injured at the time something happened to him. No matter how clever the disguise was, you could still glean some clues.

The last time you two met was seven years ago, huh?

As expected of a He Huan Sect cultivator. Not a word of truth from their mouths.

"Little Shige is a slave to the bottle. He drinks all the time and goes about his days in a drunken stupor." Lou Qiongzhi started making up nonsense.

Xi Huai knew that Chi Muyao would have the occasional drink, but he drank only to quench his thirst. Calling him a drunkard was a bit much.

Xi Huai asked again, "He likes to drink a lot?"

"Yep. And he would often get rowdy and say all sorts of weird things. One time when we ran into ghost fires, he said it was 'a reaction between fire and potassium'? He also said that those with fire spiritual roots were at a disadvantage in this world because there's...um. What was it again...H2O! Right, there's H2O everywhere. He said that those with water spiritual roots were blessed by Heaven and Earth."

Xi Huai didn't believe it at first, but those strange words did sound like something A-Jiu would say.

He was immediately displeased. "So you're saying that he wants to find someone with a water spiritual root to be his furnace instead of a fire one?"

Lou Qiongzhi was surprised, "Where did that come from?"

"Hmph. He's the first person in the world to ever say that a single fire element spiritual root isn't good."

Lou Qiongzhi was a bit lost. This was the first time she saw someone get jealous over which spiritual root was more suited to being a furnace. She didn't even know if she should comfort him by saying something like, ‘A single element fire spiritual root furnace is pretty good too’.

Xi Huai asked again, "So those of you from the He Huan Sect like people like the Nuan Yan Pavilion's Yu Yanshu the most?"

"Uh...Technically yes, but it would be difficult to pull the wool over his eyes. Yu-shixiong's been raised too strictly by his family to have ambiguous relations with female cultivators."

"Then what about male cultivators?"

Lou Qiongzhi actually gave it some thought. That did seem easier…

Her pause made Xi Huai practically explode.

If Chi Muyao was A-Jiu, then he must be a genius since he took his time approaching Yu Yanshu, who also treated him in turn with care.

It seemed like Chi Muyao was about to land another big catch?

Was that why he didn't want Xi Huai to look for him anymore? Because he was about to obtain an even better furnace?!

Lou Qiongzhi didn't know why the few words she had said infuriated Xi Huai to this degree. The ground around them was trembling from his rage.

She panicked and waved her hands in front of her frantically. "No, no. Who's a better furnace depends on cultivation. As long as you cultivate hard, anyone with high cultivation can be a good furnace!"

"Should I thank you for your encouragement?"

"N-no thank you. I believe that you will one day become the best furnace in the entire cultivation world."

“...”

Zong Sichen and Song Weiyue, who were secretly listening in from the forest, burst into laughter at the same time upon hearing that.

They quickly shut up upon noticing Xi Huai's renewed displeasure.

"What else does he like?" Xi Huai asked again.

"Sweets like tanghulu."

"Anything else?"

Lou Qiongzhi began to think hard.

Chi Muyao's hobbies were super obvious: fishing, drinking tea, playing with birds, strolling about and gardening. If you really had to add one more, it would be formations.

But all these hobbies would make it obvious who he was if said!

Lou Qiongzhi continued to make stuff up. "Little Shige is skilled at singing and dancing."

"Singing and dancing?" That was the first Xi Huai heard of this.

"His waist is this slim!" Lou Qiongzhi illustrated with her hands. "Just imagine how sensual a turn of such a thin waist would be."

"Lies.”

"It's not!" Lou Qiongzhi latched on like a snapping turtle.

"If he knew how to twist his waist, he wouldn't be..." That bad at doing ‘it’.

Lou Qiongzhi played dumb. "I swear that's all I know! I'm not close with him, okay??"

Xi Huai glanced at her again before retrieving two items from his Myriad Treasure Bell and tossing them to her.

She subconsciously caught them, realizing after a moment that they were a heaven grade pill and a bottle of ointment.

By the time she looked up again, Xi Huai had already recalled his artefact and left.

That's it? He wasted so many artefacts just to ask her a handful of questions?

Or was he implying that because she and Chi Muyao shared a Sect and Chi Muyao protected her before, that he wouldn't make trouble for her?

She didn't dare to send a message to Chi Muyao in case Xi Huai's group was still observing her. That would really be letting the cat out of the bag.

And by the looks of the things he gave her, she doubted Xi Huai would do anything to Little Shige even if he found him.

Was this...love?

She first took the heaven grade pill, which had a light fragrance and melted as soon as it hit her tongue.

Next, she searched for a hidden place to apply the medicine. She was actually kind of looking forward to the moment when Xi Huai confirmed that Chi Muyao was A-Jiu.

Just imagine how surprised he would be to find out the person he was looking for was such a peerless beauty! It was a tide of good fortunes that other people wouldn't even dream of asking for.

Honestly, Chi Muyao's appearance was enough to move the hearts of anyone who took a second glance.

Now that she thought about it, Xi Huai must really be madly in love.

After all, he was this persistent even without knowing anything about Little Shige other than his poor qualifications.

Whether Little Shige was good looking or not didn't seem to matter too much to Xi Huai. He would be with Little Shige regardless. Beauty was only skin deep, after all.

Xi Huai was someone truly in love with Little Shige.

This time, it was three months into the expedition before the Mitian Tongyin Array reactivated.

Disciples dispersed from the Array like fish cast from a net.

They had varied, yet usually complicated expressions on their faces. They went in clothed in ambitious confidence yet left bedraggled.

After leaving the Array, Yu Yanshu went to the pavilion where the Nascent Soul stage Heavenly Venerables were staying and briefly described the events that had taken place inside.

The Heavenly Venerables were all shocked to hear what he had to say.

It was already surprising that Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolves appeared in the Array, but what shocked them even more was that three had been killed!

Immediately afterwards, Yu Yanshu went to Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable's side to give him an in-depth report on the situation alone. Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable nodded after listening with nary a change in expression.

When Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi were waiting for the results to be tallied after handing in the Jilingshou they hunted, two Nascent Soul stage Heavenly Venerables entered in the Array and tossed out their dumbass disciples without a moment's notice.

They seemed to be embarrassed, so they left the disciples to their own devices and left.

The disciples tossed out didn't even get a chance to hand in their hunted goods before being forced to leave in bedraggled states.

Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi smiled at each other.

Those disciples tossed out by the Nascent Soul stage Heavenly Venerables were the ones who hid in their own spiritual artefacts upon seeing the Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolf.

They hid so well that their fellow disciples couldn't find them, to the point where they didn't even know the Array had reopened and their Shifu had to go in and retrieve them.

Compared to them, the disciples who didn't hide performed admirably. Although reckless, Yu Yanshu bravely went to fight the Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolves. Even the demonic faction disciples saved everyone in the Array, becoming the true stars of the show.

Their disciples, on the other hand? The only thing to praise about them was their ability to escape and hide.

That other Golden Core stage cultivator actually looked better in comparison since he at least went to haggle over the Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolf corpses with the other Sects instead of hiding during the rest of the expedition like these few had.

Once the results were tallied, Chi Muyao heard one of the counters mutter, "The Yu Chong School actually killed the most this time?"

"They're the Yu Chong School, after all. Hunting spirit beasts is their specialty."

"But they were down to two people near the end."

"Well the other disciples were either hiding or in a large group. It would be more surprising if their scores were good."

"You're right.”

In the end, Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi split the scores evenly among themselves, ranking in third and fourth places respectively.

The team in first place was a five-person team from another Sect. They probably split the score based on effort, for the first two were slightly ahead of Chi Muyao's team and the other three were behind them.

Actually, this small team's experience raised a few eyebrows.

They didn't even know that Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolves came into the Array. They thought it was just another period of bad weather and took shelter temporarily. When everything cleared up, they resumed hunting without any major disruption. It wasn't until the results were being calculated that they found out the shocking events that happened in the Array.

Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi both chose a piece of Yunfei Jade as their prize in order to build a comfortable nest for the little deer.

The disciples ranking behind them breathed sighs of relief at their choice. They all chose battle artefacts. You could spend spirit stones to rent a good cave residence if you needed a place with plenty of spiritual energy to cultivate, but this was probably the only chance you'd get to obtain good battle artefacts.

However, people could still understand Chi Muyao's group's choice. After all, the Yu Chong School was based in a mountain with sparse spiritual energy, and its disciples often couldn't leave for long periods of time because they were taking care of spirit beasts. Thus their choice wasn't too out of the ordinary.

After collecting his reward, Chi Muyao prepared to leave with Tutu, who was wrapped in a blanket in his arms. The person next to him couldn't help but ask, "What's that in your arms? It has such a thick tail."

Chi Muyao smiled slightly and replied, "It's a spirit beast. I took it out for a stroll since it didn't like the climate inside the Array."

During the conversation, he noticed that many disciples were looking at him.

Because he ranked near the top, he got to collect his reward first and would pass by all these lower ranked disciples on his way back.

The Nuan Yan Pavilion disciples who used to be on his team had unsightly expressions when he passed them by.

The Yu Chong School disciples they had dismissed as more than useless ended near the top of the ranking, while they, elite disciples of the Nuan Yan Pavilion, only ranked near the middle.

It was laughable now how cautious they had been inside the Array.

Especially the team's Mu Ren. He ranked at the very bottom.

He didn't hide until the end like those disciples who were taken out by their Shifu, but he only came out a few days before the Array opened. He wanted to check if it was safe only to realise everything had gone back to normal a long time ago.

His battle merits however...were really pitiful.

Just now, his big brother had kicked him and stormed away in front of everyone.

Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi originally planned to leave when they noticed the unrest to one side.

He looked over and saw Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable blocking Xi Huai's way.

Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable always looked cold and aloof. He slightly inclined his chin at Xi Huai and said, "I heard my disciple speak of what happened in the Array and appreciate what little friend has done. I would like to invite you to visit the Nuan Yan Pavilion. What say you?"

Xi Huai didn't want to go because he had other things to do. He flatly refused, "I don't want to go."

Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable wasn't known for his patience. He immediately drew his sword. "Then I will invite you myself."

Xi Huai smirked. "This is how you treat guests?"

"Consider it my way of showing hospitality."

At this time, another group of people came with Cheng Yu Pavilion's Sect Master at their head. "Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable, this demonic faction disciple harmed a disciple of our Cheng Yu Pavilion! He must answer to us today! Could you please—"

Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable interrupted him before he could finish.

"My invitation comes first."

"But Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable, this matter concerns someone's life—"

"Yes," Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable interrupted him again. His patience was limited and he was disinclined towards idle chit chat. "But he killed the Golden-eyed Heavenly Wolves inside the Array and saved the lives of all the disciples within, proving there is kindness inside him. I will take him back to the Nuan Yan Pavilion to admonish him. Take it as punishment on your behalf."

With that, Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable disappeared with Xi Huai's group with a flick of his sleeves.

An instant transport spell.

The Cheng Yu Pavilion people all slumped over and regarded each other with awkward looks. They knew that this debt was now considered settled.

Xi Huai did hurt one of their disciples, but the number of people he saved far outweighed that. And since the Nuan Yan Pavilion's Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable intended to protect him, there was no way for them to pursue the matter.

Chi Muyao watched for a while. Noticing Yi Qianxi's puzzlement, he transmitted an explanation to her, "I think Yu-shixiong helped speak on Xi Huai's behalf in front of Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable. Otherwise Xi Huai would definitely start fighting the people from Cheng Yu Pavilion. Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable intervened since he had saved many people, but he had little patience and used force to take them away."

Since that was the case, Chi Muyao could relax.

Yi Qianxi asked curiously, "Then wouldn't Xi Huai and the others fight Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable instead?"

"They won't. Xi Huai knew what was going on, that's why he was so cooperative when leaving."

"So Xi Huai's going to be kept at the Nuan Yan Pavilion for a while?”

"Probably for at least a month.”

"So he'll be at the Nuan Yan Pavilion when we take the Exam?"

Chi Muyao was holding Tutu and making sure the blanket completely covered it from the sunlight. He suddenly came to a halt after hearing her question.

The Exam!

How did he forget that?

The Exam was basically a standardised test in the cultivation world.

All the disciples of the major sects that were the same cultivation level headed to the Nuan Yan Pavilion to take the Exam. There was tutoring available before the test and many good prizes available afterwards based on your rank.

The content was all stuff like cultivation theory, formation basics, the five element rules, hunting practice etc.

Chi Muyao thought he could run back to the Yu Chong School and continue living his carefree life. However, it seemed like...he was going to see Xi Huai again?

"Which branch of Nuan Yan Pavilion is hosting this exam?"

"Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable's, ah. It's their turn. Recruiting, training and the tests themselves have all been left for Guan Nan Heavenly Venerable to oversee. But since he doesn't have the patience for it, it's actually Zhi Shan Heavenly Venerable in charge."

“...”

Chi Muyao started praying that Xi Huai would've left the Nuan Yan Pavilion by the time he went to take the Exam.

Hao Xia rushed over cursing as soon as Chi Muyao and Yi Qianxi stepped out of the crowd. His voice was sharp and panicked. "Tutu's sensitive to light! Why did you two bring it out?"

Tutu lived most of its life underground and only came out at night. Its eyes weren't that great and sensitive to boot. Excessive stress would hamper its ability to move around at night.

Chi Muyao couldn't just say that the one in the gourd right now was the little Colourless Yunni Deer, so he said he would explain everything back at the Sect.

Hao Xia thought it was because Tutu had been injured, so he cursed Chi Muyao out the entire way back.

Author’s Corner 

Xi Huai: There’s no better furnace than me in this world!