“They eat upper-tier demon kings? Do they have Spirit-Transformation cultivators of their own?” Shen Yi was somewhat surprised.
“Nothing like that — their culinary arts are simply extraordinary, and deeply beloved by many powerful figures. That demon king, for instance, was sent by Wutong Mountain’s Mysterious Sword Perfected Master. After Nie Jun had taken what he needed from it, the Eight-Direction Dining Hall held another banquet with the remainder — and several demon emperors from the Thousand Demon Den attended.”
Qinghua’s wording was tactful.
But Shen Yi arched an eyebrow anyway. Wasn’t this just eating someone else’s leftovers?
To have demon emperors willingly eating table scraps — the culinary skill was absurd enough on its own… but then there was also that Perfected Master, who apparently just needed his name attached to something to have a pack of savage demons happily accepting what he’d left behind.
Tsk.
Shen Yi shook his head with something like wry respect.
Here he was, not even daring to let anyone see his Mixed Origin cultivation, and someone else could already make a group of demons submit through reputation alone.
Still not enough of a fist on him.
“Master’s divine power knows no equal — given time, you will surely astonish the world. Even the Mysterious Sword Perfected Master will bow his head and attend at your side!” Lady Qinghua bowed reverently.
“If you dare say that outside, don’t expect to see the light of day again.”
Shen Yi looked at her quietly. The last thing he wanted was to go out and accumulate a pile of inexplicable enmities before he’d even left.
That said, the Eight-Direction Dining Hall was somewhere he’d definitely be going.
Qinghua’s grasp of the bigger picture was hazy at best.
Why cultivator cave estates appeared specifically in the Thousand Demon Den’s territory, what kind of cultivators had left these estates and where they’d gone, what stance the Thousand Demon Den and the immortal sects took toward independent wandering cultivators — on all of these, she had nothing.
But one thing could be concluded from all of it.
Even immortal sect disciples had to venture into cave estates in search of the path forward.
And as for compensating the War Temple — that didn’t necessarily mean sitting in Great Qian day after day. Building enough of a reputation out in the world might actually serve the purpose better.
Though before compensating anyone, making sure he himself was properly fed first seemed reasonable enough.
Shen Yi pushed open the door and walked out of the room.
He went up to the mountaintop and watched the busy Sect Master for a moment. “I’m heading back to the War Temple. Come back in a month to collect.”
“Rest easy, Commander Shen, the progress has been smoother than I imagined.”
Once Lin Jingyi got started on forging, his voice didn’t shake anymore. He glanced back at Shen Yi for a moment, gave the brief reply, and turned his head back around.
Great Qian’s imperial capital. The War Temple.
Deep into the night.
The Red Cloud settled lightly into the Jia section.
Shen Yi patted his sleeves on habit, about to head back to his courtyard, when he caught sight of a stooped figure.
A gaunt face regarded him without expression.
Then it pulled back its lips in a smile that didn’t reach the eyes. “Junior Brother Shen. Long time no see.”
“…”
Creepy, popping up like that in the dead of night.
Shen Yi muttered to himself, then gave a small nod. “Senior Brother Wu.”
Wu Dao’an looked at the young man for a long moment, then let out a sigh, and waved. “Come with me.”
Shen Yi was puzzled, but followed along as the old man walked toward the main hall.
The hall was empty, with only a single divine spirit drifting within.
Two boxes had been placed on the meditation cushions.
“Senior Brother Zhu.” Wu Dao’an sounded faintly bleak, and addressed him with only a casual word of greeting.
Zhu Jue gave a nod, then looked toward Shen Yi. “Junior Brother…”
He seemed to want to say something, but only sighed.
At that, Wu Dao’an gave him a faintly puzzled look — he’d never seen Senior Brother Zhu wear that kind of expression toward anyone, like he was… appealing for help?
Never mind…
Wu Dao’an turned back, managing a bitter smile. “Last time I told you to stop wandering off everywhere, and you wouldn’t listen regardless. This old man is tired of saying it. Take a look at this.”
As he spoke, he bent and opened both wooden boxes.
Cushioned inside on soft gold-colored cloth, each held a small jade figurine.
“You may not know what these are—”
“How did they die?”
Shen Yi walked slowly over to the boxes and cut the old man off.
These jade figurines were unmistakably the path infants of two fallen Mixed Origin Grandmasters.
“Uh.” Wu Dao’an opened his mouth, startled that the young man recognized them. But this made things easier — saved a great deal of explaining.
He closed his eyes. “We don’t know how they died. Because we don’t deserve to know.”
When Wu Dao’an referred to this group of people ordinarily, he always called them crude martial ruffians.
But now, he drew a slow, deep breath, and crouched beside the wooden boxes, the sparse hair on the top of his head making him look somehow desolate.
His voice had gone hoarse, the vitality in it worn down a few degrees more.
None of it — not the colleagues talking behind his back, not the utter absence of progress in his own cultivation — hurt quite as much as watching this junior brother treat his own life as something to gamble with every few days.
“Shen Yi. This old man has given you everything he has to give. Stop frightening me. Can you do that?”
“I’m asking you.”
The old man looked slightly pitiful. Zhu Jue hovered beside him, insubstantial, and reached out to smooth the few sparse hairs on his head.
“Get your hands off my hair!”
Wu Dao’an glared at him, displeased. Zhu Jue clicked his tongue — and a thread of golden light surfaced quietly from between his brows.
He pinched it between his fingers and gave it a casual wave in the old man’s direction.
“…”
Looking at that one faint, unremarkable thread of golden light — and yet it lit up his entire field of vision.
Wu Dao’an’s mouth fell open. Both eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.
Senior Brother Zhu, silent for three thousand nine hundred years, had finally broken through to understanding?!
While he was still standing there in stunned incomprehension, he felt someone tap him on the shoulder.
Wu Dao’an turned in bewilderment.
And looked straight into a pair of brilliant golden eyes. A seven-foot golden dharma form was crouching behind him, touching the tip of one finger lightly to his hair.
To forestall any reaction from the Ancestor, Shen Yi had simply taken over Qinghua’s consciousness himself this time.
“Happy now?”
The golden dharma form spoke in a resonant, full voice.
Zhu Jue, holding his thread of golden light, suddenly felt awkward. He quietly tucked it back between his brows.
He hadn’t expected the junior brother to be willing to let Xiao Wu have a look at the golden dharma form.
With the golden body not yet fully condensed, revealing its exact stage of progress was a significant act of trust.
“Quick — quick, put it away!”
Wu Dao’an came to his senses abruptly, and urged him anxiously.
The golden body dissolved back into a pearl and returned to his qi sea.
Shen Yi opened his eyes.
Revealing his cultivation level wasn’t something he made a habit of.
The reason he’d called out the golden body tonight was that, in all likelihood, after today, this wouldn’t be his cultivation level much longer anyway.
“…”
Wu Dao’an sat down on the floor, his strength gone out of him. He’d meant to give Shen Yi a lesson tonight with the deaths of two Mixed Origin Grandmasters.
It hadn’t occurred to him that the young man would turn it around and give him a lesson instead.
An ordinary person really ought to stop concerning themselves with the affairs of the extraordinary…
A golden dharma form — one step away from a true Spirit-Transformation realm.
When that step was taken.
Next time… Xuanguang Cave might actually need to provide a believable cause of death, rather than sending a body back without so much as a word of explanation.
Wu Dao’an sat in silence, looking at the two wooden boxes.
His emotions defied any simple description.
Then something else seemed to occur to him. “Since Junior Brother Shen is already at… wouldn’t that mean there’s even less reason to go out yourself?”
Send the golden body, keep the physical form in the War Temple.
Even if something went wrong, at least the divine spirit would come back — another path of retreat.
“That won’t do — I still have to go in person.” Shen Yi said without much thought.
Not only Wu Dao’an, but even Zhu Jue scratched the back of his head at that, neither of them finding anything to say.
(End of Chapter 249)