Chapter 451: Senior Brother, the Hook is Baited with a Scented Worm
Between mountains and ravines, the Nine-Bend River meandered from west to south. The river surface was flat as a mirror, shimmering with ripples. Suddenly, with a “plop,” a severed hand tied to a silver thread sank into the river, creating a gentle ripple that spread outwards. Ye Anping, clad in a straw cloak, sat by the front of his small boat, rod in hand. His deep purple eyes were fixed on the bobbing fishing float not far ahead, his expression one of utter weariness. His empty fish basket beside him told the whole story. He had been “empty-handed” for three consecutive days.
Pei Lianxue, who sat beside him watching him fish, was now bored. She dozed, her head lolling and then resting against his shoulder. Ye Anping, with a hint of helplessness, reached out to brush aside his junior sister’s bangs. He then glanced at the sun descending at the mountain peak and sighed, “Why isn’t anything biting yet? I’m getting tired of waiting…”
“Huh?” Pei Lianxue groggily lifted her head, rubbing her eyes. She glanced at the distant, bobbing float and seemed to think her senior brother was quite unskilled. She pouted, “Senior Brother, you said you’d make fish soup three days ago, but I still haven’t had any.”
“Don’t rush it. The bait is out, something will bite eventually.”
“We might as well go find a town and buy a fish.”
“Is a fish I buy as delicious as one I catch myself?”
It was rare for Pei Lianxue to see her senior brother struggle with something. She couldn’t help but smirk playfully, then looked down at the river water by the boat’s edge. She saw a few fish swimming up and gently stirred the water with her right foot. Ye Anping glanced at her, “Junior Sister, your foot is scaring away my fish…”
“Whoosh—!”
Before he could finish speaking, Pei Lianxue suddenly lifted her right foot out of the water. Along with her foot, a black-scaled, plump fish, about twelve inches long, clamped onto her big toe. With a gentle shake of her foot, the big fat fish arced through the air and landed in the fish basket beside Ye Anping. Ye Anping looked at the amorous fish gnawing on his junior sister’s toe in the basket. After a moment of silence, he looked back at Pei Lianxue, who grinned triumphantly. “Hee hee~”
“Sigh… Senior Brother concedes defeat.” Ye Anping shook his head and sighed. He decided to stew this amorous fish later. Then, he looked at the fishing float a bit further away and began counting the days with his fingers. It had already been fifteen days since he and his junior sister left the Xuan Xing Sect. For these fifteen days, they had traveled, visiting almost every small town and village along the way. While they had indeed seen much of the local customs and his junior sister had enjoyed herself, sightseeing was secondary. His main purpose was to “cast the bait.”
Now, countless eyes were on him throughout the Four Domains. Before, when he was holed up in the Xuan Xing Sect, the owners of those eyes didn’t dare to scheme against him. But now that he was out, and in a mountain forest far from the Xuan Xing Sect’s jurisdiction, rogue cultivators from the black market, demonic cultivators, and various sects and forces like the Taibai Sect would definitely send people to approach him if they found out.
And just as Ye Anping had predicted. In the past few days of fishing by the abyss, his junior sister had already sent about seven or eight cultivators with malicious intent to feed the fish at the bottom of the river. But the person he was waiting for was like a fish that refused to bite his hook, and he had no idea where she was now… “So slow, that girl from the Taibai Sect…”
Hearing the word “girl,” Pei Lianxue’s eyes immediately narrowed. She quickly asked, “Who is that girl?”
“The chief disciple of the Taibai Sect, and also the grand-nephew of that old man Zu Yuan, Zu Lingzhi.”
—*In the game, a girl who Feng Yu Die had tormented.*
Ye Anping added this to himself. Seeing his junior sister’s serious and seemingly angry face, he quickly smiled and pinched her nose, saying, “Don’t worry, Senior Brother isn’t interested in her. I just need her to act as a ferrywoman.”
“Senior Brother also said he wasn’t interested in Yunluo before… Tianchong!”
“Hiss—” Ye Anping gasped at those two words. “Junior Sister, who told you that?”
“A’ting heard it from Brother Liang, and I heard it from A’ting.”
“…” Ye Anping was silent for a moment, then shook his head and smiled, “Senior Brother swears, Senior Brother will not ‘chong’ her.”
“Mmm…” Pei Lianxue’s orange eyes rolled. She crossed her arms and replied, “I’ll believe Senior Brother for now! Hmph~”
Ye Anping gently flicked her nose before leaning on his arm with his elbow on his knee, supporting his chin and looking back at the river. The green floating indicators trembled slightly. Suddenly, a breeze blew, creating circles of ripples. *Pfft~~* The fishing float, which had been bobbing, was suddenly pulled underwater. A force traveled up the fishing line, pulling the long bamboo rod into a crescent moon shape as if it were falling into the water.
“Oh~ it bit.” As Ye Anping stood up, a fifteen-foot-long white-scaled river fish leaped out of the water, as if a dragon passing through the gate. It emerged from beneath the sun in the sky curtain and then landed precisely into the bamboo woven fish basket on the small boat. *Thump, thump…* Ye Anping’s face lit up with joy. He quickly looked down into the fish basket, only to see a black and a white river fish struggling, their tails slapping each other’s mouths. After a moment of silence, he sighed, “It seems there’s more than one fish on the hook…”
He murmured, then removed his right hand, the one with bulging veins named Gu Ming Xin, from the end of the fishing line, patted the back of his hand as if to comfort it, and then hung it from his waist…
…
The sun set in the west. On the street of a small town built by the river, crowds bustled, and shouts of vendors filled the air: “High-quality magical artifacts, honest prices…” “Freshly baked roasted chicken!” A woman in a black and white Daoist robe walked slowly along one side of the street, her gaze sweeping over the stalls and vendors. Her amber eyes held a look of arrogant condescension. The woman looked like a mortal girl of sixteen or seventeen, her long black hair tied up with a jade hairpin into a horizontal “8,” which bounced on her head with her steps.
Zu Lingzhi looked at this small town, a mix of mortals and cultivators, with a face full of reluctance. She then looked at the buxom woman a head taller than her beside her and complained, “Elder Cao, don’t you think the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect realizes his current predicament?”
Elder Cao smiled and asked, “Hmm? Little Zu, why do you ask?”
“Doesn’t he know that the Four Domains are watching him? Yet he dares to openly come to this remote mountain area to sightsee. Great-Grandfather even asked Elder Cao and me to watch him to prevent any accidents.”
“Heh heh… Who knows? But playing is in his nature.” Elder Cao chuckled playfully, gently flicking the whisk in her arm. “The fact that he dares to come out and sightsee under these circumstances means he has his own confidence and isn’t afraid of being watched.”
“Confidence? In my opinion, he’s simply ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth. He’ll only regret it when something happens.”
“Little Zu, you shouldn’t say that. I’ve heard that the Young Master Ye of the Hundred Lotus Sect reached the late Core Formation stage in his early twenties, and his Golden Core is a Heavenly Dao Golden Core at that. It’s also rumored that he possesses ‘Spring Aspect Spiritual Energy’…”
Zu Lingzhi sneered, interrupting her, “I reached late Core Formation at seventeen, and didn’t I hear he has dual spiritual roots? Hmph~ What’s so amazing about that.”
“And he’s very handsome too.”
“So what if he’s handsome? Are there any ugly immortal cultivators? Face Sculpting Pills aren’t expensive.”
Elder Cao sighed slightly at this and said no more. About half a month ago, Zu Yuan had asked her to take Zu Lingzhi to the Xuan Xing Sect to meet the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect. Zu Yuan had said it was to invite the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect to visit the Taibai Sect, and he could also offer some guidance on his cultivation… But in reality, Elder Cao understood that the fundamental reason was the rumored “Spring Aspect Spiritual Energy.” She also found it quite normal.
The Taibai Sect and the Xuan Xing Sect were both major immortal sects. Stealing disciples from each other was not a big deal, and sometimes they even poached each other’s elders. Moreover, the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect had “Spring Aspect Spiritual Energy” and was already in the late Core Formation stage at a young age, with limitless potential. Sending an Elder like her to poach him was understandable. As for why she had to bring Zu Lingzhi along? She felt it was a bit of a “honey trap.”
Zu Lingzhi had been arrogant since she was young, and her sharp tongue could take on half the Taibai Sect. However, people’s preferences were strange. If she could charm that Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect, that would be great… One willing to fight, one willing to be beaten…
However—according to rumors heard on the road, this “honey trap” was likely to be ineffective. They had originally planned to head straight for the Xuan Xing Sect, but they heard on the way that the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect had brought his Dao companion to this place for sightseeing. Since he already had a Dao companion, how could he possibly fancy a girl like Zu Lingzhi?
Elder Cao looked at the “∞” on Zu Lingzhi’s head and suddenly felt a bit weary. With that girl’s temper, how could she ever find a Dao companion?! “Sigh…”
“Huh? Elder Cao, why are you sighing? Are you going through menopause?”
“With your mouth, if you can find a Dao companion in this lifetime, I’ll kowtow to you three times myself.”
“Dao companion? What’s the point?” Zu Lingzhi shrugged slightly, spreading her hands. “It’s better to just buy a jade turtle from a marketplace, heh…”
? “Jade turtle? Have you bought one?”
“I’m not interested in such degenerate items that corrupt the Dao heart.”
“Then how do you know they sell such things in the marketplace?”
“Elder Cao, what kind of question is that… If you haven’t ridden a pig, haven’t you at least seen a pig run?”
“Hiss— Such foul language!” Zu Lingzhi smirked, reaching up to tuck her ear hair behind her ear. “Heh~ What foul language, this is called common knowledge.”
“…” Elder Cao had nothing to say. It was at this moment that they arrived in front of an inn with a plaque reading “Gu Xiang Ju.”
“This must be it…” Elder Cao murmured, looking up, and then stepped over the threshold, walking inside. However, just as her right foot crossed the threshold, a woman in purple happened to be coming out of the inn, brushing past her. Elder Cao glanced sideways and saw that the purple-clothed woman’s charming eyes also looked her way. The moment their eyes met, Elder Cao quickly raised her left hand to pull Zu Lingzhi, who was behind her, to her side while tightening her grip on the whisk hanging from her left arm. After the purple-clothed woman gave her a slight smile, she walked away down the street without looking back.
Only after she knew the person had completely disappeared from her sight did Zu Lingzhi speak, “Elder Cao, that person is a demonic cultivator, right? And quite powerful.”
“Early Nascent Soul stage, with a charming aura. It appears she belongs to the Hehuan Sect, or is a demonic cultivator who practices Hehuan techniques.”
“Heh~” Zu Lingzhi immediately rolled her eyes. “I knew it. That Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect really doesn’t consider the current situation. He even brings his Dao companion to this place to wander around. Now look, he’s attracted demonic cultivators, and a Nascent Soul stage demonic cultivator at that. Isn’t that asking for trouble?”
Before, Elder Cao hadn’t thought much of it. After all, this was still the Western Regions, and it wasn’t a big deal for Ye Anping to bring his Dao companion out to play. But now that she had encountered a charming cultivator at the Nascent Soul stage, she had to admit that the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect was too bold. He didn’t even bother to hide his identity while traveling, openly flaunting himself. Now, anyone could find out where he was with a little inquiry. Elder Cao sighed with a troubled expression, “Alas… this is troublesome.”
“What can we do about it?” Zu Lingzhi continued to nag, “We still have to go save him. Great-Grandfather insisted that we invite that surname Ye to the Taibai Sect~”
“You know that too…” Elder Cao shot her a look and turned to chase after the demonic cultivator. However, at this moment, the shopkeeper of Gu Xiang Ju, rubbing his hands, bowed and approached them, asking, “Are you two seniors from the Taibai Sect here to inquire about the whereabouts of the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect?”
Zu Lingzhi looked at the shopkeeper, her brow furrowed slightly. “Speak.”
“Ah~ Many people have come inquiring about this matter recently. As a humble businessman, naturally…”
“You want spirit stones for such trivial matters.” Zu Lingzhi’s face twitched, but she still took out ten spirit stones from her Storage Bag. “Here~ Go on.”
“Not enough.”
“Then how much do you want?”
“Five thousand spirit stones. The senior in purple who just left paid the same. For two esteemed seniors from the Taibai Sect… I’ll give you a discount. How about three thousand spirit stones for both of you?”
Zu Lingzhi’s forehead veins bulged, and she retorted, “Why don’t you go rob a bank? You’re charging three thousand for just this piece of information…”
But she was interrupted by Elder Cao, “If you charge three thousand spirit stones, then you must know the exact location of the Young Master of the Hundred Lotus Sect?”
“Naturally…” The shopkeeper smiled slightly and nodded. Ye Anping had specifically come to the town a while ago and told him that he would be fishing on the Qinshui River for the next few days, asking him to sell this information and to sell it at a higher price, promising a seventy-thirty split later.
Elder Cao pondered for a moment and nodded, “Lingzhi, give him the money.”
“Hiss—” Zu Lingzhi bared her teeth and took a sharp breath. After a moment of hesitation, she still took out the small bag containing three thousand spirit stones from her Storage Bag and threw it over. “Here! Give me back those ten spirit stones from before…”
The shopkeeper thought she was rather stingy but still exchanged the spirit stones for the bag. Then, cupping his hands, he said, “About fifty li southwest of the town, at the third bend of the Qinshui River, there is a small boat. Young Master Ye is fishing on that boat.”
“Qinshui River…” Elder Cao frowned. She remembered that place was the nesting ground for the Qinshui Flood Dragon raised by the Xuan Xing Sect… And fishing? She suddenly felt that she and Zu Lingzhi were like “fish” right now…
Zu Lingzhi knitted her brows and cursed, “If I go there and don’t find him, believe it or not, I’ll make sure your crappy inn goes out of business!”
“My humble establishment’s profits are thin, and I would never utter a falsehood. Esteemed seniors, I shall not see you out.” The shopkeeper pocketed the money and hurried back to the counter. Zu Lingzhi, looking at Elder Cao, who was now frowning deeply, hesitated for a moment and asked, “Elder Cao, have you gone senile? Let’s go, we’re going to save him.”
“…” Elder Cao snapped out of her daze, shot her a look, and then turned to walk out of the inn, taking Zu Lingzhi with her as they flew towards the Qinshui River on their swords.
…
