NOVEL ONLINE FREE 11: Isn't This Rope for Tying Up Pigs?
“Sixth Senior Brother, you’re such a sucker.”
Showing off cost him 100,000 spirit stones down the drain, truly a loss.
Mu Chihuai didn’t understand, “It’s just 100,000 spirit stones. I can earn it back by refining a furnace of pills in a few days of seclusion.”
“…” Speechless, Chu Sang turned to look at Tantai Ming, “Is pill refining that profitable?”
She wanted to change careers.
Tantai Ming looked envious, “If my spirit root allowed it, I’d want to change too.”
She had always thought sects were poor, but it turned out only she was poor.
Seventh Senior Brother, a poor sword cultivator without family background, and she, a fallen cannon fodder expelled from her sect, matched well with the penniless Lingqing Sect where even the sect leader had run away.
However…
“How did such a rich young master like Sixth Senior Brother join our sect?”
“Who knows.” Tantai Ming shrugged, “He joined the sect a month earlier than me. I heard the master brought him. I was also picked up by the master from outside. I heard the other senior brothers and sisters were all brought by the master too… I’m not very clear on the details, you can ask him.”
Chu Sang turned to ask Mu Chihuai, “Sixth Senior Brother, how did you join Lingqing Sect back then?”
Mu Chihuai leaned back in his lounge chair, head resting on one arm, eyes closed, “I was tricked into it.”
“Huh?”
He lazily yawned and said, “As the direct descendant of the Mu family, one of the four great pill-refining clans, and the most talented of my generation in the family, I should naturally have joined the Huadan Sect, one of the Eight Great Sects. I could have directly become a disciple under one of my Mu family ancestors, becoming a true disciple.”
“But on the night before the disciple-accepting ceremony, the Lingqing Sect leader came to my home and even divined my fate.” He paused, then continued, “Said there was a death calamity in my fate, that I would die young, and only by joining Lingqing Sect could I resolve this death calamity…”
“But in my opinion, my parents and I were purely deceived by the master back then. I’ve lived smoothly for seventeen years without any problems. Where’s the death calamity?”
The more Mu Chihuai thought about it, the angrier he became. When he was young, he thought he had been kidnapped into a poor mountain village and tried to escape from the sect more than once.
But for some reason, his parents, who had been smart all their lives, believed this matter deeply. As a result, every time he escaped back home, they would beat him up and send him back to Lingqing Sect.
Gradually, as he grew up, Mu Chihuai felt it didn’t matter anymore. With his talent and strength, he could thrive in any sect anyway.
Chu Sang felt a hint of surprise in her heart. In a sense, the Lingqing Sect leader’s prediction back then wasn’t wrong.
Mu Chihuai indeed had a death calamity in his fate.
In the original story, he died at the hands of the male and female protagonists at just twenty years old. Wasn’t that dying young?
She wondered who this master was.
To even be able to divine such a thing.
“Would the three honored guests like something to eat after your long journey?” Since receiving the money, the innkeeper had become extremely enthusiastic, even personally attending to the three.
Chu Sang was used to eating spirit beast meat and spirit fruits in the sect and wasn’t very interested in mortal food. She inquired, “I heard that the innkeeper has been doing business in the city for several years. Many cultivators have come to the city in recent days, and I believe the innkeeper must have heard something. Is it because a secret realm is about to open nearby?”
“How much does the innkeeper know about this secret realm?”
Having received 100,000 spirit stones, the innkeeper had no intention of concealing anything and told them everything he knew about the inside story, “It’s not anything rare. This secret realm opens once every ten years, but previous years have never had such a grand occasion as this year.”
Chu Sang pricked up her ears to listen. So there was a hidden story?
“I don’t know where the rumor came from, but it’s said that a legendary phoenix has appeared in the secret realm. Once this news came out, it not only attracted nearby Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment cultivators, but even Golden Core and Nascent Soul stage cultivators have come from afar…”
The innkeeper looked left and right, waving away the waiters, and lowered his voice, “I see that you three guests are also here for the secret realm. Are you looking for that phoenix egg?”
Phoenix egg?
The three looked at each other. Actually, they hadn’t known about this at all.
Chu Sang coughed lightly, covering her mouth with her fist, “That’s right.”
The innkeeper smiled knowingly, “Since I’ve met you three guests by fate, I won’t hide anything.”
He took out a scroll map from his sleeve, “I happened to obtain this secret realm map a few months ago. I originally planned to auction it at a high price during this opportunity. If you three guests need it, I can give you this map for free.”
“What’s this stone?”
Chu Sang took the map and noticed a dull reddish stone hanging from the scroll’s rod. This kind of stone looked like a common crystal that could be found anywhere by the roadside. Looking carefully, there was nothing unusual about it, but it also wasn’t suitable for decoration.
The innkeeper said, “Coincidentally, I also happened to obtain this stone from the secret realm.”
“As you saw earlier, I’m not an ordinary person. Because my lifespan was exhausted and I couldn’t break through, I’ve been hidden in the mortal world for many years. When the secret realm opened ten years ago, I wanted to seek a way to break through, so I planned to venture into the secret realm like other cultivators.”
“This stone is what I happened to obtain in the secret realm.”
“At that time, I don’t know what a group of people were fighting over, battling to the death, both sides suffering heavy losses. To avoid getting involved, I secretly hid. After the battle subsided, I came out and found this stone among the corpses strewn everywhere.”
“I originally thought it might be a treasure, but after all these years, I haven’t discovered any use for it. Not wanting to throw it away, I simply framed it as a decoration.” The innkeeper sighed, his eyes showing regret.
Chu Sang’s fingertips lightly touched the stone, and she immediately felt a mysterious energy. But this strange sensation disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, as if it had never been there.
After the innkeeper left, Tantai Ming withdrew his gaze from the door and looked at Chu Sang, “Is there really a phoenix in this secret realm?”
“The innkeeper wouldn’t deceive us.”
In the original story, the female protagonist did indeed obtain a precious fire phoenix egg in a certain secret realm. Chu Sang recalled the man in bamboo-green robes from earlier, who should be Shen Rufei, the head disciple of the Beast Taming Sect.
In the original story, it was he who helped the female protagonist tame that fire phoenix.
Three days later, when the secret realm opens, the female protagonist’s arrival and the phoenix’s appearance are destined to make this secret realm far from peaceful.
Even small secret realms are filled with spirit beasts, illusion formations, miasma, and poison mists… full of dangers that are hard to guard against.
Mu Chihuai took out pre-prepared pills and distributed them to the two, including things like Qi-drawing pills, spirit-replenishing pills, and antidote pills. The market prices for these were all high, the kind that Chu Sang couldn’t afford even one bottle with all her savings.
Ah, this is the benefit of having a pill-refining senior brother!
They needed to hurry to the secret realm, lest the female protagonist beat them to it.
“Hold on tight, I’m taking off!”
Chu Sang swung her sword and soared straight into the clouds. Before the other two could react, they were whoosh-dragged into the secret realm.
A passing cultivator, “Did you just see three big birds fly by?”