Bao Gu sensed movement at the courtyard gate. A sweep of her divine sense revealed a group of disciples under her Grandmaster entering the courtyard. Their faces were filled with grief as they fell to their knees before Zi Tianjun, tears streaming down their cheeks. Some, eager to display their filial devotion, sobbed as they urged Zi Tianjun not to grieve or grow angry; others blamed themselves for failing, as senior disciples, to stop Jing Wenyuan and thereby allowing him to commit such a grave mistake in a moment of impulse. They made a perfect show of a kindly master and filial disciples.
Hearing them weep so sorrowfully and worry so deeply over Zi Tianjun, Bao Gu almost felt as if she had become the real culprit.
Zi Tianjun made a token gesture for them to rise.
“All of you, get up. I have decided to step down and hand the position of Sect Master to Yu Mi.”
“Master, you mustn’t!”
The courtyard erupted in wails again.
Another disciple threw himself before Zi Tianjun, wrapped both arms around the sect master’s leg, and sobbed:
“All of us were personally taught by you. The Young Sect Master has been away from Xuantian Sect for a long time, and also holds office in the Chop Gang. How could the Young Sect Master shoulder such a heavy responsibility?”
Bao Gu rose and bowed.
“Grandmaster, once the inter-realm portal is completed, Senior Sister will leave with me. She isn’t suited to the position of Sect Master.”
At Bao Gu’s words, the wailing of many people present faltered for the briefest instant before they resumed their performance of grief.
Though the pause lasted no more than a blink, it did not escape Bao Gu’s eyes. She sighed inwardly, bowed to Zi Tianjun, and took her leave before turning away.
Hua Sheng used the annual tournament as an excuse to get up and leave, so she would not interrupt the heart-to-heart between master and disciple. Once outside the courtyard, she sent Bao Gu a voice transmission through her divine sense.
“Our old fellow disciples haven’t gathered in years. If you’re free sometime, how about we have a little reunion?”
Bao Gu nodded lightly.
“Sure.”
She returned to the viewing platform, only to find that more than half of the enormous platform was empty. None of the disciples under her Grandmaster remained in their seats. Only some of the “old guard” elders and peak masters, led by Yu Mi and Feng Menglong, were still there. From the reactions of those disciples under her Grandmaster, Bao Gu realized that Jing Wenyuan’s affair had merely been the spark. A whole chain of events would follow.
If Jing Wenyuan’s affair had truly ended there, shouldn’t they have been sitting on the viewing platform now and keeping their heads down for at least a while? Instead, they had gathered around Zi Tianjun and put on that performance. Or were they genuinely afraid that Zi Tianjun would step down to take the blame? Afraid that Lingyun Peak, which had risen with Bao Gu’s return, would suppress them, had they seized hold of Grandmaster as a shield, hoping to use Grandmaster’s authority to keep Bao Gu down?
Yu Mi saw Bao Gu sitting there like a wooden statue, lost in thought. She took Bao Gu’s hand and gently patted it.
“Don’t worry. They won’t be able to stir up much of a storm.”
Bao Gu answered with a soft “Mm.”
She gathered her thoughts and focused on the matches in the arena. But after what had happened, she no longer felt as carefree as before. A heavy feeling weighed on her, and even the contests were affected by the slaughter involving Jing Wenyuan and Cheng Wu. With their peak masters dead on the plaza, the disciples of those two peaks were clearly in disarray. Once they entered the arena, their unsettled minds made it difficult for them to display battle strength commensurate with their cultivation realms, and they fell one after another.
The disciples of Lingyun Peak, on the other hand, swept forward triumphantly, rarely encountering anyone who could challenge them. Whenever they did, the clashes were exceptionally spectacular.
There were many promising young disciples in Xuantian Sect. Aside from Lingyun Peak, quite a few were outstanding in combat ability, aptitude, cultivation level, and magical treasures, while their experience in actual combat was even more impressive. Sometimes, one could tell from their reactions whether they had been trained through sect sparring or tempered in places where life and death hung in the balance.
Those who had only trained through sect sparring were not quite as precise when it came to the finest margins. More exactly, disciples forged in life-and-death situations were constantly forced to remain alert in moments of danger until their reactions became instinctive. Sometimes their minds had not even caught up before their bodies reacted on their own. When experts fought, that split second in which one did or did not have time to react could determine life and death, victory and defeat. The arena bouts did not involve fighting to the death, but the difference between winners and losers was immediately apparent.
The brilliant bouts lifted Bao Gu’s spirits considerably. Even if the beam above was crooked, a sect with enough disciples would still produce a few good seedlings. With more people came more competition. Not everyone was skilled at flattering and currying favor, and not everyone could win the favor of their peak master and personal master, obtain abundant cultivation resources without lifting a finger, and simply bury themselves in advancing their cultivation.
The sky grew darker, but the matches continued.
The annual tournament ran day and night. As its presiding host, Yu Mi was stationed there and, barring some other matter, hardly ever left.
When Bao Gu saw the sun sinking toward the western hills, she lowered her voice and said to Yu Mi:
“Senior Sister, I’m going back to Cloudsea Forest.”
Yu Mi stood.
“I’ll see you back.”
Bao Gu smiled.
“Do you really think I’ll get lost?”
She glanced at the dozen or so peak masters who had gradually returned to their seats during the afternoon, waved Yu Mi off, and left without another word.
The moment Bao Gu stepped into Cloudsea Forest, she heard voices coming from the courtyard. She listened for a moment and was surprised to discover that Qingying and Bao Nianhui were talking. Weren’t those two always at odds? Had they started arguing again?
She pushed open the courtyard gate and walked around the screen wall. At a glance, she saw a cauldron suspended in the air. Beneath it, a Tribulation Transcendence-stage artifact burned with roaring flames. At first glance, the flames seemed frozen in place, but a probe with divine sense revealed an especially violent aura. Focusing more closely, Bao Gu realized that they were Solar True Fire.
As a Tribulation Transcendence-stage treasure, it was extraordinary—and it had to be, since Solar True Fire was so searingly hot that ordinary treasures could not contain it. Yet in another sense, it was ordinary. Apart from holding the Solar True Fire and releasing it slowly, it seemed to have no special function. If one had to name a use for it, it was probably a stove. At that moment, it was placed beneath the Heaven-Refining Cauldron, releasing Solar True Fire to cook food. Bao Gu could tell at a glance that the artifact was the work of her Little Martial Aunt, and was probably made for her Senior Sister. Only those two could use exceptionally rare, precious materials capable of gathering and storing Solar True Fire to make a stove-shaped treasure.
The cauldron set above that Solar True Fire artifact was no ordinary cauldron either. It was Qingying’s Heaven-Refining Cauldron.
Qingying held a pair of Great Luo Scarlet Gold spoons, her sleeves rolled up as she stirred the contents.
Beside her, Bao Nianhui held a plate of freshly picked spiritual rarities and precious medicines, adding them to the pot.
Judging by the way the two fellow disciples were acting, both of them were staring into the cauldron and drooling.
Bao Nianhui stared into the cauldron, quickly tossed all the spiritual rarities and precious medicines from her plate inside, then craned her neck to take a look.
“I still think we haven’t added enough. Stewing this Earth Immortal meat is incredibly wasteful of ingredients.”
Qingying smiled sweetly and glanced up at Bao Gu. Her eyes flickered, betraying her guilt.
Bao Nianhui had her back to the gate. With her cultivation so weak, how could she sense that her master had returned? Her master had gone to watch the sect matches and probably would not be back for at least three to five days—perhaps not until the tournament ended. At that moment, all her attention was on the Earth Immortal meat. Earth Immortal meat naturally deserved the finest seasonings and ingredients.
After seeing the broth Qingying had been stirring, Bao Nianhui decided that too few ingredients had been added. She scurried back to the little kitchen in the rear courtyard and rummaged through the cabinets, pulling out the ingredients her Martial Uncle usually prepared and stored. Then she went to the herb garden in the back and carefully searched through it, secretly uprooting several ten-thousand-year-old precious herbs. Hugging a huge pile of things, she hurried back to the cauldron.
She was just about to add them when she saw her master standing there. Her entire body jerked, her mouth fell open, and she stared blankly at the master she had thought would not be returning—yet who had suddenly come back as if she had specifically returned to catch the two of them. Her hand trembled, and every spirit pill, precious herb, and ingredient in her arms landed with uncanny precision in Qingying’s cauldron.
Judging by Bao Nianhui’s movement, Bao Gu felt that the contents had less fallen in than been deliberately poured in under cover of a trembling hand.
Bao Nianhui recovered and said:
“Master, Senior Sister Qingying said she was inviting you to have some Earth Immortal soup.”
Qingying nodded along.
“Master, the cauldron still needs some ninth-grade spiritual rarities, ten-thousand-year-old precious medicines, and the like.”
Bao Gu understood perfectly. One had been eyeing the other’s spiritual rarities and medicines, while the other had been eyeing the first one’s Earth Immortal meat. They had hit it off beautifully. Bao Nianhui was practically the little mistress of Cloudsea Forest by now, wasn’t she? Bao Gu could easily imagine that with these two sisters together, the spiritual rarities and precious medicines in Cloudsea Forest would soon be stripped bare.
Bao Gu said nothing and walked straight toward the study. As she entered, she heard Bao Nianhui dash back into the kitchen and paid it no mind.
This courtyard was exactly the same as the one at Two Realms Mountain. Even the jade slips arranged in the study were the ones she had engraved while researching formations in the past. Back then, she had thought Yu Mi might find them useful, so she had engraved many formation diagrams onto jade slips and refined a great many formation flags as well. Not many formation flags remained in the study; nearly all of them were gone. The jade slips she had engraved, however, filled the bookcases to overflowing, not a single one missing.
Hearing movement behind her, Bao Gu turned and saw Bao Nianhui standing at the study door with a tray. On it sat a small bowl made from top-grade white jade.
“Come in.”
Bao Nianhui nodded, entered, and placed the bowl on the little table by the window.
“I originally stewed almost half a pot, but Senior Sister Qingying ate most of it before I knew what was happening. Only two bowls are left. Little Martial Ancestor is in seclusion, so I can only give her some next time. One bowl is for Master, and I’ll leave the other for Martial Uncle.”
Bao Gu asked:
“What about you?”
Bao Nianhui replied matter-of-factly:
“I’m waiting to eat the Earth Immortal meat!”
Bao Gu lifted the lid and looked inside. The soup had been made with a seventh-grade ice lotus and several spiritual rarities. It looked like celestial nectar and precious liquid, and a penetrating coolness rose from it.
“You made this?”
“Yes! Martial Uncle said you don’t like meat, that you were born under the Rabbit sign, and that you’re picky, so I had to make soup for you. Take your time drinking it. I’ll come back to collect the bowl when you’re done.”
She waved her hand and turned around impatiently. Then she remembered that she had forgotten to salute, turned back, bowed, and said:
“Your disciple takes her leave.”
She hurried back into the courtyard, rose onto her tiptoes, and gazed longingly into the cauldron. Unable to wait any longer, she snatched the spoon from Qingying and stirred the pot.
“You stupid lazybones, how long will it take to stew an entire leg? Listen to me—chop it up before you stew it! Wouldn’t that be faster? It’s been stewing all afternoon, and the sun has already set! Hurry up and finish!”
This was Earth Immortal meat, something most people had never even seen, and she actually had a chance to eat it. Just thinking about it made her drool. Hurry up and cook!
Qingying stared at the cauldron, looking troubled.
“That Naughty Little Fox didn’t have to stew it this long back then! Could my cauldron be inferior to hers?”
Bao Nianhui asked:
“Who is the Naughty Little Fox?”
“The one from the Demon Realm—the pure-white one with three eyes and nine tails!”
Bao Nianhui thought for a moment, planted her hands on her hips, and said to Qingying with a solemn expression:
“Auntie Ling’er isn’t bad!”
“Ling’er? Wasn’t she called Xue Qing?”
She thought for a moment, then continued:
“The one you’re talking about is the little one. I meant the big one! Wait, no—the Naughty Little Fox seems to be the smaller one after all. She’s merely at a higher cultivation level, and she even has Golden Immortal bones. Ah, forget it. She’s awful. Let’s not mention her!”
Bao Gu sat by the window, watching the two sisters huddle together, their heads almost touching as they stared longingly at the Earth Immortal meat in the cauldron. She extended her divine sense into the cauldron and saw that the meat was still raw.
After finishing her soup, she carried the little bowl over to Bao Nianhui and returned it to her.
“At this rate, you must have spent quite a while just getting the water hot, didn’t you?”
Bao Nianhui nodded.
“We waited an hour, and the cauldron was still cold. Later, Senior Sister had to use her magical power to draw Solar True Fire into the cauldron before the water would boil.”
Bao Gu said:
“The cauldron is an Upper Realm Emperor Artifact. Refine the meat directly with it; it will be done in no time. Solar True Fire merely gathered by a magical treasure cannot roast Earth Immortal meat.”
Qingying suddenly came to her senses and slapped her forehead.
“Oh, how stupid of me!”
Bao Nianhui was so angry that she wanted to hit someone. If Qingying had not been her Senior Sister, she would definitely have smacked her with the spoon. They had waited all afternoon for nothing!
Bao Gu left the courtyard and went to the formation core, then entered Xuantian Library. She inspected it carefully, floor by floor, and found it just as it had been before. Not a single book or scripture was missing. When she came out, she sealed Xuantian Library, made a few modifications to the mountain-protecting formation, then summoned Yu Jianming back to Cloudsea Forest and gave him a few instructions. After that, she returned to the little courtyard and watched the two sisters stew the Earth Immortal meat.
After roughly another hour, the Earth Immortal meat had stewed down until it melted completely into the soup.
When Qingying saw that the soup was nearly ready, she took out bowls, chopsticks, and a small soup spoon and began ladling it out. After a moment, she called out to Bao Gu, who was holed up in the study, pulling out jade slips and working.
“Cheap Master, the Earth Immortal soup is ready.”
She set out Bao Gu’s bowl and chopsticks as well, then said without raising her head:
“Serve yourself.”
Bao Nianhui noticed that Qingying had not set out a bowl for her. She ran to the kitchen and brought out a pile of little bowls that had been refined into magical treasures. Standing on tiptoe beside the Heaven-Refining Cauldron, she filled them one after another and stored each in a storage treasure.
Qingying was startled.
“I invited you to eat Earth Immortal meat, so why are you packing it up?”
Bao Nianhui began counting on her fingers.
“The Demon Saint Patriarch gets one bowl, Little Martial Ancestor gets one, Martial Uncle gets one, Senior Brother Jianming gets one, Master… Master is here, so there’s no need to pack hers. Auntie Ling’er gets one, Auntie Yue gets one, Benben…”
Seeing Qingying’s face darken, she hurriedly held up the bowl in her hand.
“Mine is very small.”
She looked pleadingly at Qingying.
“Then… then I’ll eat less and split… split my share among them!”
She added:
“Although you provided the Earth Immortal meat, the spiritual rarities and precious medicines in this courtyard were all grown by me, Martial Uncle, and Senior Brother Jianming. We deserve a share of this soup too.”
Qingying was stunned. After thinking it over, she truly could not find anything to say back to Bao Nianhui, so she silently lowered her head and continued drinking the soup. As she savored its delicious flavor, her eyes narrowed in contentment. From now on, she would not need that Naughty Little Fox anymore; she could stew Earth Immortal meat soup herself!
Bao Gu’s gaze fell on Bao Nianhui, who was busy packing up the soup and preparing to deliver it while it was still hot. She called her back.
“Give it to them after they return. The Earth Immortal soup is sealed inside the treasure, so it won’t grow cold or spoil.”
Bao Nianhui thought about it.
“But when there’s something this good, I want to send it to them right away so they can be the first to taste it.”
“Sit down. They’re busy. Wouldn’t sending it out now make you stand out?”
Bao Nianhui thought that made sense and sat back down. She was about to serve herself when she realized she had forgotten to bring her own bowl and chopsticks. Once again, she used a lightness technique, riding the wind beneath her feet as she dashed toward the kitchen.
Qingying could only despair at the intelligence of this junior sister, who clearly possessed a storage treasure yet kept running back and forth to fetch things.
Bao Gu, on the other hand, smiled in good humor. She took out a bowl and chopsticks and served Bao Nianhui a bowl. Then, worried that Bao Nianhui’s cultivation was too low to withstand the meat’s powerful nourishment, she drew away a large amount of its vital energy, leaving behind only the life essence and the aura of the Heavenly Dao laws branded within it, at a level Bao Nianhui could withstand.
When Bao Nianhui returned with her bowl, Bao Gu said casually:
“Your cultivation is too weak. Just finish the bowl in front of you. When you’re done, go back to your room and refine what you’ve absorbed.”
Bao Nianhui saw that her master had already served her portion and froze for a moment.
“Oh.”
She obediently set the bowl and chopsticks she was carrying aside, then lowered her head and began eating the Earth Immortal soup.
