Ji Wangshu closed his eyes and rubbed his brow. “I know.”
This disbanding before they even reached a full XX members felt all too similar to the cost-cutting and downsizing tactics of his past life. He had no idea where this bizarre rule in a matriarchal cultivation world had come from.
Could there be a second transmigrator who had proposed this brilliant scheme?
“We only have five thousand Spirit Stones left.” Mo Chuhua handed the ledger over. “Ten thousand went to them, and the sect’s daily operating expenses still need to be maintained…”
Ji Wangshu took the ledger and flipped through it.
It was only mid-morning, and the great hall had no windows to let sunlight in, so why did the numbers on this page sting his eyes so much?
For a cultivation sect to attract newcomers, it either needed a high-realm cultivator among its ranks, someone like the Snow Lotus Sword Immortal, or it needed rare heavenly treasures.
As for the current Yixiu Sect, neither approach worked, which was exactly why so many disciples had defected over the years.
He was silent for a moment, then turned his head. “Junior Sister, go to the market and buy a few Foundation Building Pills.”
Mo Chuhua was taken aback. “Foundation Building Pills? But we don’t have any Qi Refining cultivators right now…”
“They’re not for us.” Ji Wangshu handed the ledger back to her. “Go out and look around for any Qi Refining rogue cultivators with… mediocre aptitude who are stuck at the Foundation Establishment step. Give them one Foundation Building Pill in exchange for them registering their names under our sect.”
Mo Chuhua’s lively eyes flickered, and she blinked. “This… will that work?”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Ji Wangshu said with complete confidence. “They don’t have to pay a single coin, they don’t have to contribute to the sect, and all they need to do is show up once a year to get a free Foundation Building Pill. Where else are they going to find a deal like that?”
Mo Chuhua opened her mouth, seemingly about to say “Isn’t this just scamming people?” but when she looked at Ji Wangshu’s perfectly righteous expression, she swallowed the words back down.
“Then… Senior Brother, are you going?” she asked tentatively.
Ji Wangshu immediately leaned back into his chair, putting on a look of frailty.
“I injured myself training last night. I can barely walk right now. Next time, definitely next time.” With that, he patted Mo Chuhua on the shoulder and said with great sincerity:
“I trust you to handle it.”
Mo Chuhua lowered her head, silently thinking: her senior brother said this every single time, but that was fine.
This way, she could gradually mold her senior brother into someone who couldn’t survive without his junior sister.
She tucked the ledger into her sleeve and replied, “Alright, I’ll be gone for two days.” Then she stood up and walked out of the hall.
As she stepped past the hall doors, a gentle breeze swept by, lifting her waterfall-like hair to reveal her bright, spirited eyes.
Deep within her pupils, a profound yin-yang diagram slowly spun, vanishing in an instant.
All those troublesome female cultivators were finally gone.
Now, senior brother was hers alone.
A look of infatuation filled her eyes. She let out a soft chuckle, then took to the sky on her sword, disappearing into the clouds.
…
Back in the great hall, Ji Wangshu let out a long sigh.
The sect now had only himself left. Though he was free, he couldn’t exactly feel happy about it.
“The top priority is still raising my cultivation base. Otherwise, I don’t even have the confidence to scam people.”
He picked up the wooden box from the side table and examined it closely.
The box was small, with no lock on it, only a faint spiritual energy restriction.
It was something his master had left for him before departing, saying he could only open it after four years.
Counting the days, today was exactly the fourth year.
Ji Wangshu took a deep breath, bit the tip of his finger, and let a drop of essence blood fall onto the restriction.
Mountain wind swept through the hall, and with a “click,” the wooden box opened on its own.
Inside, quietly resting, was a pillow.
“What in the world is this?” Ji Wangshu picked it up and turned it over a couple of times.
The next moment, a mechanical voice rang out in his mind.
[Yellow Millet Pillow: With this pillow, the host may enter the Dream World and experience different lives. In each life, the host will receive a mission. Completing the mission grants corresponding rewards.]
[Use it now?]
Ji Wangshu’s eyes lit up. So his master had left him something this good.
The sect was about to disband anyway, so he might as well use this to try his luck.
Without hesitation, he chose to begin.
The next moment, his consciousness was instantly pulled in.
[In the Dream World, time flows at one hundred times the rate of the real world. When the host’s consciousness departs, the dream will pause.]
[The dream begins now.]
As his consciousness gradually recovered, Ji Wangshu slowly opened his eyes.
At the same time, the system’s voice came from beside his ear.
[The female lead, Mu Zhiming, has lived in a small mountain village since childhood with her childhood sweetheart Ji Wangshu, leading a carefree life and often playing deep in the mountains.]
[Until she turned ten, when a passing immortal discovered she had a Heavenly Spiritual Root. She was taken into a immortal sect for training. Before leaving, she and her childhood sweetheart pledged themselves to each other under the moon among the flowers.]
[Time flew by, and a few more years passed. The small mountain village was brutally slaughtered by the Demon Sect. When Mu Zhiming learned of this, she was grief-stricken and swore to slaughter every demon in the world.]
[Fortunately, her childhood sweetheart managed to escape into the deep mountains and didn’t die at the hands of the Demon Sect.]
Ji Wangshu absorbed this information and nodded.
Classic childhood sweethearts. Classic one side being exceptionally gifted and joining an immortal sect. Classic village massacre.
So many classic elements. What a cliché plot.
So that means I’m supposed to play the childhood sweetheart?
[But due to the severity of his injuries, the childhood sweetheart still died in the deep mountains.]
Ji Wangshu: “???”
Wait, I’ve never heard of this plot twist.
The system’s voice continued:
[Deep in the mountains lies a secret realm, and within that realm grows a rare heavenly treasure: the Wood Spirit Three-Needle Flower. It has grown for a thousand years and has just begun to develop its spiritual awareness.]
[It happened to witness the past memories between Mu Zhiming and her childhood sweetheart. Looking at the sweetheart who died before its eyes, it transformed into his likeness to fulfill his unfinished regrets.]
[Mission: You will play the role of the heavenly treasure disguised as the childhood sweetheart, and complete the promise made under the moon among the flowers.]
[Mission Duration: Ten years.]
[After ten years, the higher Mu Zhiming’s affection toward you, the greater the reward the host will receive.]
Ji Wangshu: “…”
A heavenly treasure disguised as a childhood sweetheart? What in the world?
Wow, so I’m not even human?
He was beyond complaining at this point and could only silently accept everything.
At the same time, scenes flashed through his mind like a movie.
Moments of the past as a Wood Spirit Three-Needle Flower, “watching” Mu Zhiming chat and play with her childhood sweetheart, surfaced one after another, as if everything had truly happened.
“Gotta say, this dream is pretty realistic.”
Coming back to his senses, he found himself surrounded by darkness.
Ji Wangshu looked around and discovered he was in a room.
He looked up and spotted a small window high above. A few strands of moonlight slipped through, cutting a small patch of light onto the pitch-black floor.
He lowered his head and, using the faint light, made out his own condition.
Shackles on his feet. Two long chains binding his hands. Tattered rags on his body.
And most critically, something shaped like a fruit was stuffed in his mouth.
He stood there, bewildered in the moonlight.
“…”
Another wave of speechlessness washed over him.
“System, what kind of opening is this?”
[After the host transformed into the childhood sweetheart’s likeness, you were captured by the Demon Sect that arrived on the scene. Since you happen to possess a Four-Element Spiritual Root, your cultivation speed is slow, but you’re more than suitable for human experimentation.]
[And so, you were locked in a room within the Demon Sect, where for over a decade, the female cultivators of the Demon Sect “tormented” you at will.]
The system’s voice paused there.
Ji Wangshu’s mind was forcibly flooded with all sorts of unspeakable images.
…That can’t be written.
[Fortunately, after Mu Zhiming joined the immortal sect, she trained with relentless dedication. In just over a decade, she broke through to Foundation Establishment, becoming the youngest late Foundation Establishment cultivator in the sect.]
[The elders were overjoyed. At the same time, she received news that the village had been destroyed and that her childhood sweetheart, you, had gone missing.]
[She then applied to descend the mountain for training and destroy the Demon Sect. Her sect master and master was worried, so they dispatched an elder to protect her.]
[Several more years passed. The Demon Sect was destroyed, and she arrived here—the place where you are imprisoned and tormented.]
Ji Wangshu made a motion to sigh, but the fruit stuffed in his mouth blocked it, producing a muffled, garbled sound.
“Hm? What’s that noise?”
An older woman’s voice came from outside the window.
Ji Wangshu could tell the voice was very close to him.
He immediately tensed his limbs and lips at the same time, and the iron chains clattered loudly.
“Zhiming, there seems to be someone in one of the rooms nearby. Go check it out. I’ll keep searching for any stragglers.”
“Be careful, given your eyes… ah.”
“Mm.”
Another woman’s voice spoke up, but her volume was much softer than the previous one, and her tone carried a hint of cold detachment.
Ji Wangshu’s heart leaped with joy, and he perked up his ears.
Footsteps sounded from outside the room, stopping just past the door a moment later.
The pitch-black iron door creaked open.
A tide of moonlight rushed in, flooding the dark room and paving a silver-white path that stretched all the way to Ji Wangshu’s feet.
He instinctively squinted, adjusting to the sudden brightness, then looked at the newcomer.
The moonlight outlined the figure in the doorframe:
Blue-white robes, a graceful and slender figure, skin like white jade in the moonlight, long hair cascading like a waterfall over her shoulders, a Plum Blossom Hairpin tucked askew in her hair.
Her features were exquisitely beautiful—willow brows, phoenix eyes, a delicate nose, and cherry lips. Even the thick night couldn’t hide her breathtaking beauty.
But Ji Wangshu’s pupils contracted sharply.
Because the person who looked like a celestial maiden descending to earth had pupils that were a murky gray-white, completely unfocused.
Beneath her eyes, two dried trails of blood ran from the corners down her cheeks, clearly old scars.
This female lead… was blind?
His heart tightened. There was no time to be shocked, so he hastily recalled the scenes of Mu Zhiming and her childhood sweetheart playing together.
What did the childhood sweetheart usually call Mu Zhiming again…
“Woody?”
Ji Wangshu spoke after a moment, calling out to the newcomer the way the childhood sweetheart did in his memories.
Only, the sound was blocked by the fruit, coming out as a muffled whimper.
He struggled a few more times, found it useless, and stopped.
The room fell silent instantly.
Only the breathing of the two, the rustling outside the window, and the long, drawn-out cicada calls from the distant forest remained.
Mu Zhiming stood at the door, a dharma sword in hand, her gray-white pupils facing in his direction.
A strange floral fragrance drifted from that spot, slipping into her nose.
She sniffed, then her pupils widened slightly as she froze in place.
This fragrance could only be found in the mountain woods beside her village when she was a child.
Could it be…
She took a few deep breaths, leaned her treasured sword against the threshold, and walked toward Ji Wangshu with graceful steps. Her footfalls were light, yet clearly audible in the silent room:
“Tap, tap, tap.”
Each step landed on Ji Wangshu’s heartbeat.
Mu Zhiming stopped before him, slowly raised her hand, and her fingertips touched his cheek. They were ice-cold.
Ji Wangshu held his breath and didn’t dare move.
Mu Zhiming’s fingers slid from his brow bone to the bridge of his nose, then to the back of his ear, as if searching for some kind of trace.
Suddenly, they stopped behind his left ear.
There was a small raised bump there—a scar left from when Ji Wangshu fell from a tree as a child and hit his head on a rock.
Her fingertips gently traced over the scar, then moved back to his face, stopping again at his lips.
Her willow brows furrowed slightly, as if she had encountered something unexpected. A moment later, she slipped her fingers in and pried the fruit out.
“Cou—cough.”
Ji Wangshu greedily breathed the fresh air, casting a grateful look at the fairy before him. He wanted to say something, but feared that saying too much would give himself away.
So the room fell into silence once more.
Then, Mu Zhiming suddenly spoke, her voice very soft, carrying a hint of rawness, like someone who rarely spoke forcing out words:
“…Wangshu, big brother?”
Ji Wangshu swallowed hard and held his breath.
“Found you.”