It’s crazy.
The more Dongfang Xiaotian recalled Xiao Yuanqing’s enthusiastic expression, the more he believed such a thing was possible.
In that instant, Dongfang Xiaotian couldn’t help but remember the “Jie Ge, don’t!” meme. It was funny when he saw it, but if it really happened, it would be tragic.
After all, in ancient times, there were so-called male courtesans—let alone these obviously overfed cultivators.
Dongfang Xiaotian took a deep breath, trying to calm the goosebumps all over his body.
Better to focus on the benefits of digging up these array flags.
Besides selling them, he could keep some to exchange for a higher-tier Spirit Gathering Array for his junior disciple, making the little junior owe him a favor and bringing himself closer to the ideal life of “more money, less work, close to home, high status with little responsibility.”
Of course, it would be even better if there was a beast-eared girl by then.
Thinking of this gave Dongfang Xiaotian renewed motivation to keep digging up the array flags.
Beichen Yue saw Dongfang Xiaotian’s emotions fluctuating and didn’t answer her own question. Instead, she tentatively asked, “Young Master Dongfang? The question I just asked…”
“You shouldn’t be fooled by his kindness just now. Back in the great battle of the Three Sects in Ling Tian City, he was the ruthless one who personally slaughtered an elder in the Foundation Establishment stage.”
Dongfang Xiaotian, thinking that each of these array flags was worth at least a few thousand spirit stones, was in a good mood and didn’t mind chatting with Beichen Yue while digging: “If you had half the city chasing you down, you’d understand why I’m so afraid.”
Beichen Yue was even more puzzled. “But why would Xiao Gongzi chase you?”
She was truly curious about what had happened to make Xiao Yuanqing’s image in Dongfang Xiaotian’s mouth so drastically different from reality.
“Brother complex.”
Dongfang Xiaotian shrugged, pulling out another array flag to stash in his spatial spirit tool.
Beichen Yue asked curiously, “It really wasn’t something the young master did wrong?”
“Wrongdoing? I just…”
Dongfang Xiaotian took a deep breath and then immediately realized, looking at Beichen Yue with a strange expression, “You, a Forgetting Dao disciple, listening to other people’s gossip—is that really okay?”
“You know your character’s falling apart, right?”
“Ahem.”
Beichen Yue seemed to realize her once aloof persona was crumbling.
“I just want to understand some of Ling Tian City’s past to help me comprehend Sword Intent and break through Foundation Establishment sooner. If you don’t want to say, I won’t ask.”
“Miss, I think he did something shady to someone else’s girl, that’s why he’s so secretive and scared of Xiao Gongzi beating him up.”
As Dongfang Xiaotian finished digging up almost all the array flags, Chun’er’s disdainful voice rang out beside them: “You say that, but isn’t it true?”
Beichen Yue immediately thought Chun’er was right and was eager to hear what Dongfang Xiaotian would say.
“I don’t fall for these provocations.”
Dongfang Xiaotian crawled out of the mud pit after digging up the last array flag.
“Whether it’s true or not, since you’ve recovered, help carry that girl. I’ll lead you to the Four Sages Academy’s camp.”
“Why don’t you carry her yourself?”
Chun’er, with her single-minded brain, was immediately distracted and complained, “I only suppressed the wounds, I’m not fully healed.”
“I’m a man, and she’s your young lady.”
Dongfang Xiaotian pointed to himself, then to Beichen Yue. “Are you planning to let your young lady carry her?”
“I—I obviously won’t make the young lady carry her!”
Chun’er hesitated but still grit her teeth and hoisted the unconscious female disciple onto her back.
Thanks to several pills sustaining her life, the female disciple’s breathing had stabilized, and she probably wouldn’t die easily.
Though the unconscious disciple was lucky, poor Chun’er was covered in injuries. Her wounds could only be stopped from bleeding with Golden Wound Ointment and wrapped simply with clean cloth strips.
The injuries wouldn’t worsen, but the pain was still there. Carrying the female disciple strained her wounds and made her expression sour.
Despite her pitiable state, she still faced her young lady’s displeased gaze. Though the look seemed normal, Chun’er, having served her lady for years, knew it was a helpless “looking at an idiot” expression.
Seeing Beichen Yue’s eager expression for gossip, Dongfang Xiaotian found it amusing.
Leading the way, Dongfang Xiaotian guided the two through the dense miasma. He guessed that without him, they would have gotten lost.
“That’s enough. Don’t trouble your maid. Forgetting Dao should act like Forgetting Dao…”
“Fifty spirit stones.”
Chun’er suddenly snapped out of her daze under Beichen Yue’s gaze and immediately demanded a high price of fifty spirit stones!
That was a high price for an outer disciple of Four Sages Academy—equivalent to five months’ salary for a regular outer disciple!
Context.
“But then again, broadening one’s horizons does help stabilize the mind and cultivate the heart method.”
Dongfang Xiaotian took the fifty-spirit-stone card Chun’er handed him. While leading Beichen Yue and Chun’er, he started recalling the whole story.
Actually, the matter was simple.
In short, it was when Dongfang Xiaotian had just started roaming chivalrously that he happened upon the Three Sects War.
The so-called Three Sects were two sects from outside Ling Tian City—the Four Sages Academy and the Xiao Sect—and Ling Tian City’s native power, the Iron Blade Sect.
The three sects fought over control of a spiritual pill ruin, leading to a sect war.
“The war’s result was the destruction of Iron Blade Sect, and both the Xiao Sect’s sect master and the Four Sages Academy’s dean—both Golden Core stage—were severely injured. So Ling Tian City was left with only the Four Sages Academy and the Xiao Sect.”
Dongfang Xiaotian couldn’t help but sigh—such a large sect wiped out just like that, with no one from the Court coming down to investigate.
But that was understandable. It was a tacit understanding between the Court and sects. A person slaughtering a sect was completely different from sect wars.
The former usually gets hunted; the latter is mostly ignored by the Court.
After all, sect conflicts that don’t harm the Court’s interests are generally left alone.
It was just a change in which sect paid taxes.
But if a person slaughters a sect, it obstructs the Court’s revenue. If unrecovered, that person becomes the Court’s enemy.
“You must have played an important role in that, Young Master Dongfang?”
Beichen Yue’s ice-blue eyes fixed on Dongfang Xiaotian like a child begging for a story.
“Heh~ I thought so too back then.”
Dongfang Xiaotian gave two dry laughs, his eyes tinged with a trace of hopelessness. “Now I realize it was just one of life’s three major illusions.”
“What are life’s three major illusions?”
“That she likes me, that I’m special, and that I still have time…”
Recalling his dark past, Dongfang Xiaotian really wished he could travel back to give himself a couple of slaps.
“I thought I could pick up treasures while those big shots fought in the ruins. But I was chased out half the ruins, beaten nearly to death, and then pursued through several streets after exiting.”
“What did you do that was so unforgivable to make them hate you so much?”
Suddenly, an untimely voice came from the side—Chun’er.
Since Dongfang Xiaotian had rambled so much without getting to the point—why he was so afraid of Xiao Yuanqing, and why Xiao Yuanqing’s attitude changed so drastically after chasing him through half of Ling Tian City.
“I told you, he’s a brother complex. Brother complexes don’t care about reason!”
Dongfang Xiaotian said, “Back then, I just saw a few big men grabbing a young girl, so I helped. I brought Xiao Yuanxiang with me to evade the Iron Blade Sect’s pursuit.”
“I’d just started cultivating then and wasn’t very strong, couldn’t beat Foundation Establishment opponents, so I had to carry the unconscious Xiao Yuanxiang.”
“Then I treated her illness. I admit I crossed the line a little, but it was all to save her!”
Beichen Yue frowned slightly. “Young Master, what exactly was this ‘little bit’ of crossing the line…”
“Artificial respiration and bathing her…! Listen, she was covered in blood! I have a clear conscience!”
Dongfang Xiaotian looked completely self-righteous, showing no remorse. “Then that girl cried that she couldn’t get married now, so naturally Xiao Yuanqing chased me.”
Chun’er was about to say Dongfang Xiaotian deserved it, but thinking about how, during the Blood Refining Formation, he didn’t take advantage of her or the young lady—even though they were two beauties and his spiritual energy was being drained—she only gave a disdainful smirk and quietly muttered that Dongfang Xiaotian definitely had bad taste.
Beichen Yue glanced at Chun’er, knowing what her little brain was thinking. Though she agreed, she understood even more deeply that this man was truly different from others.
Especially when Dongfang Xiaotian broke the array earlier, releasing that pure Sword Intent—it was undoubtedly worthy of the title Sword Immortal!
Beichen Yue was confused. Not only was his Sword Intent so pure, but even his initial understanding of sword qi must have been honed over many years.
Yet after paying such a price, why did he give up the sword path he had painstakingly cultivated?
Part of why Beichen Yue wanted to hear Dongfang Xiaotian’s gossip was to understand the past of the man who could unleash such a sword.
She felt her heart restless. Using the Forgetting Dao’s heart method was already hard to suppress it; otherwise, she wouldn’t have shown so many unbefitting Forgetting Dao expressions earlier.
But seeing Chun’er, she immediately pushed down her doubts.
This matter might be related to Dongfang Xiaotian’s lost cultivation. Such a painful past was not something he was willing to speak of openly.
Though she was a Forgetting Dao disciple, forgetting did not mean forgetting to think.
Beichen Yue decided to wait until they were somewhere less crowded to ask more, and just endure a bit longer.
Before long, Dongfang Xiaotian brought Beichen Yue and Chun’er to the Four Sagess Academy camp.
The camp’s perimeter was protected by a third-rank array that blocked the miasma. In case of external invasion, it could activate defense mode and resist Golden Core stage attacks.
It was a costly array arranged by a top expert invited from another city.
The array covered a circular area one to two kilometers in diameter, but the permanent population was less than two hundred—not very crowded.
Because Dongfang Xiaotian was the senior brother of the outer disciples of Four Sagess Academy, he had guaranteed authority.
He reserved a temporary spot near the medical tents for Beichen Yue and Chun’er to prevent Chun’er from suddenly dying.
Although Chun’er’s injuries were suppressed by the pills Beichen Yue gave her, she had single-handedly held off an evil cultivator six sub-levels higher at seventy percent Foundation Establishment. Her injuries wouldn’t recover easily.
She definitely needed a long rest.
After settling them, Dongfang Xiaotian summoned a few junior brothers and sisters to ask if there was any information about his junior disciple or the conspicuous female disciple.
Unfortunately, after the Third Elder arrived with reinforcements, he never returned to the Four Sages Academy camp, so no one knew where the missing second junior sister or the main junior disciple were.
With no information from the ever-reliable NPCs, Dongfang Xiaotian could only wander around hoping to get lucky.
Anyway, since he was already searching, digging up some Blood Refining Array flags was a good way to earn money. Each array flag could bring in thousands of spirit stones—it was very profitable.
Of course, Dongfang Xiaotian wouldn’t bring Beichen Yue along for such a moneymaking venture.
Just as Dongfang Xiaotian stepped out of the Four Sages Academy camp, Beichen Yue’s voice suddenly called out behind him.
“Young Master Dongfang, do you have time to discuss Dao?”
“No!”
Dongfang Xiaotian turned without hesitation. What discussion?
He’d rather continue trying his luck finding his junior disciple or digging up a few array flags to make a Spirit Gathering Array for the junior disciple.
So-called discussing Dao was basically exchanging experiences in the same field.
Simply put, it was comparing answers to see who was right.
The moment made Dongfang Xiaotian remember his tough high school days.
“I’m rushing to the restroom, don’t come near me!”
If Beichen Yue wanted to join in, he might not even be able to collect enough array flags to make the Spirit Gathering Array for his junior disciple!
Beichen Yue didn’t expect to be rejected. Her chest heaved slightly, and she even felt her heart somewhat uncontrollable.
—Is this what being ignored feels like? Such a strange feeling.
“Young Master Dongfang, please hear me out.”
Seeing Dongfang Xiaotian trying to escape, Beichen Yue grabbed his wrist and bit her red lips. “Can you teach me that sword from before?”
“What sword?” Dongfang Xiaotian asked in confusion.
“The one that broke the array. What kind of immortal technique is that?”
Beichen Yue’s eyes gleamed brightly. If she had held back earlier because of her persona, now she was openly glowing.
She recalled Dongfang Xiaotian’s sword that shattered the array. Purely in terms of power, she had seen many stronger than him—even her own sword qi was stronger.
But that unparalleled, piercing Sword Intent made her body tremble with excitement the more she thought about it!
That was resonance, that was longing!
“Please, Young Master, teach me! If you teach me, I’ll do anything for you—even marry Chun’er off to you as a concubine maid!”
Dongfang Xiaotian’s face immediately showed a look of mockery. Sister, your persona is seriously broken!
Do you know you’re one step away from becoming the embarrassing female supporting character who gets expelled from the sect in those novels?
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