“Every one of you is a direct disciple of this master and Divine Lord Yinze. Therefore, from now on, your conduct and speech when outside, your intentions and dealings, must all be conducted with the utmost care. Remember, upon entering my Cangying Sect, the foremost matter is…”
At this point, Master Uncle stroked his white beard, his gaze—nine parts similar to Yinze’s—quietly sweeping over each of us: “Before coming of age or completing your training, you are forbidden from romantic entanglements or private betrothals. Those who violate the sect rules will, at the lightest, have thirty years of cultivation destroyed, and at the heaviest, be expelled from the sect. Have you all heard this?”
Dozens of disciples answered in unison: “Disciples respectfully follow this teaching.”
Thirty years of cultivation—that’s truly ruthless. These immortals do have long lives and many affairs. I don’t have many thirty-year periods in my entire lifetime; if it were to be destroyed, wouldn’t I have to start from zero? Moreover, after truly entering the sect, the master who would be teaching us most of the time was Master Uncle, this white-haired venerable before us, whom I had initially thought was the Divine Lord’s person.
I thought as much—given our master’s temperament, how could he possibly have the patience to teach us hand by hand? However, as the son of an old friend, he had the blind luck of a chicken pecking at rice—only Fu Chenzhi could frequently go and spar alone with Yinze.
This day, after reporting to Master Uncle and practicing some basic skills at Mount Baidi, Yinze happened to be away again, so Fu Chenzhi took me to stroll around Tianshi City while helping Yinze purchase some items to bring back to Cangying Hall. Tianshi City was different from Qinghong Mountain—it was surrounded by towering, dangerous peaks, yet it wasn’t built upon continuous rolling mountains.
Everywhere here had immortal qi, jade springs splashing, painted bridges with azure willows, silver-void formations, multi-story high platforms—all built within the clouds and mist. Even the largest stone steps were suspended in mid-air. With the spiraling water flows, the entire capital city seemed as if soaked in a shallow azure sea, with mist like ripples and flying birds like swimming fish, creating undulating waves of countless households throughout the city.
This was also the governmental hub of the Azure Dragon Heaven, with markets lined with pearls and jade, households filled with silk and brocade. After strolling for an entire day, many things truly opened my eyes wide.
Here were immortal qi pavilions for people to rest, inside which grew undying trees transplanted from Kunlun Mountain—just sitting around the trees in quiet cultivation could quickly relax one’s spirit and enhance magical power. Here were water-smoke buildings where, after entering, attendants would offer three cups of fragrant wine, and in a half-drunk, half-awake state, one could smoke jade pipes while soaking in lotus ponds, feeling blissfully content. Here was a plant garden covering eight acres, selling plants and seeds from all realms.
This was my first time learning that the same seed, when placed in the Six Realms, would grow differently. For example, roses bloom in summer in Jiuzhou, in autumn in the demon realm, produce blue-green flowers in the ghost realm, have particularly large flowers in the immortal realm, are not only large but also luminous in the divine realm with stems and leaves slightly wrapping the flower buds, while in the demon realm they don’t bloom at all but instead grow dark azure thorns.
So in the plant garden, we could buy original ecological seeds, or we could buy otherworldly flowers that had been planted and cultivated by flower immortals. Of course, the latter were particularly expensive and required regular bringing the plants back for care. Besides this, we also saw many specialty plants of the Azure Dragon Heaven, such as Heavenly Flow Bamboo.
This bamboo was only one meter tall, with azure bamboo joints, lustrous and smooth like jade, growing only in water. The bamboo shoots were pitifully small. I held back for a long time, but still had Fu Chenzhi buy it. As a result, just after leaving the plant garden, it was eaten by a customer’s pet pixiu…
We also went to Dragon’s Chess Palace. This was the place old immortals most loved to visit. They only needed to sit on clouds, close their eyes, cultivate, and could spend several days and nights inside.
When we first entered to observe, I only saw white-haired old immortals floating everywhere in the sky. They sat motionless like a bunch of stakes, and I thought I had mistakenly walked into an ancestral shrine, almost fleeing in terror. Later, looking carefully, I realized that on the chessboards before them, the pieces were indeed moving back and forth, and some irritable old immortals would even use magic to blast their opponent’s pieces flying.
In Tianshi City, there was also the largest exotic beast tower among the Eastern Heaven’s Seven Mansions, specializing in selling or exhibiting all kinds of exotic beasts and eggs of various sizes. One could also, within a limited time, transform uncultivated exotic beasts into human form. Personally witnessing a beast trainer transform a green-eyed tree spirit into a green-eyed beauty, I felt a cold glint flash in my eyes as I looked at Xuanyue with a villainous smile.
Xuanyue was so frightened he quickly flew out, but before he could escape through the door, he had already been transformed into human form by the shape-shifting master Fu Chenzhi had invited: a red-haired little boy fell from the air to the ground, with a pair of small wings on his back. He was still pawing at the ground with both hands like a tiger. After pawing for a while and seeing something was wrong, he turned his head around.
I saw his hair was fluffy, tied in a small braid, with a pair of bright large eyes; the corners of his eyes turned upward, his small mouth open, revealing a pair of sharp little fangs. Looking at us, he called out pitifully: “Aowowo…”
So this was what Xuanyue looked like when cultivated into human form…
So cute, truly a beautiful child! I was enchanted by Xuanyue’s little appearance, happily wanting to go pamper him, but the shape-shifting master looked at his own hands in confusion: “Strange, why does this white tiger retain red hair after transforming into human form? Even his eyebrows are red? It seems my immortal technique has a problem. This transformation won’t cost you anything.”
After Xuanyue was transformed back, I quickly grabbed Fu Chenzhi, hugged Xuanyue, and fled.
After coming out, we strolled on the street and saw a row of golden, radiant ranking boards at the entrance of Azure Dragon Hall.
According to Fu Chenzhi, each beautiful jade carved with names on these ranking boards was formed from five-colored jade that grew on the Literary Jade Tree. Most prominent in the center was the Divine Realm Honor Roll, with “Heavenly Emperor” written at the top of the uppermost row, with jade below it carved with “Haotian.” The second row had “Divine Lord” written above, with ten jade stones below, the first of which was inscribed with “Yinze.”
“Our master is so amazing,” I said, hands clasped to my heart as I gazed at the Honor Roll. “Look, he’s actually in the second row of the Honor Roll—doesn’t this mean he’s the second-ranking god among the Six Realms?”
Fu Chenzhi said, “The demon realm’s ranking board isn’t placed here, so we can’t say that. But to say he’s second in the divine and immortal realms—that’s certain.”
I then looked at the adjacent “Divine Realm Military Merit Roll,” which didn’t include the Heavenly Emperor, so Yinze was first. Looking at the next “Demon Subjugation and Devil Suppression Roll,” I wondered: “Eh? This roll has almost the same names and rankings as the previous one, but why isn’t our master on it?”
“No, he’s here.” Fu Chenzhi pointed to the second-to-last row.
“Why is this? Doesn’t our master like subjugating demons and suppressing devils?”
“He doesn’t. Master feels that privately suppressing devils is just small-scale fighting, while privately subjugating demons is immortals’ work, so he’s not interested. And also…” He opened his mouth, then only said, “Nothing, let’s go look elsewhere.”
Next, we arrived at a rather interesting place—the servant marketplace. Called a servant marketplace, it was an exotic beast market, transformed into human or semi-human form, demon beasts. Ninety-nine percent of the servants here were domesticated demons, with only a small portion being wandering immortals or spirits.
While Fu Chenzhi went to the adjacent spice shop to make purchases, I poked my head out and snuck into that marketplace.
Just as I was being dazzled by the mountain and sea of demons before me, a pair of slender hands reached over and scraped under my chin. I quickly stepped back, only to see a black-robed young master with azure-tinged eye corners and pale purple lips appear before me, his smile cold and sharp: “Miss, are you shopping alone?”
I waved my hands repeatedly: “No no no no no, I came with someone else!”
But he acted as if he hadn’t heard at all, pressing closer step by step. Just as his hand was about to touch me again, another hand knocked his away, and then a red-cloaked young master turned around and smiled gently at me: “Don’t scare people like that. Miss, are you alright?”
This smile was truly completely different from the black-robed young master’s—pitiful yet enchantingly beautiful.
Looking at that face, I was immediately intoxicated. The red-cloaked young master unhurriedly walked over, supporting himself with his hands on his knees, winking at me. His small face was simply more gorgeous than flowers: “Miss, if you live alone, do you feel lonely? Take me with you. I absolutely won’t cause you trouble, letting you spend spring nights in painted towers without foundation, daily dissolving Lanzhou dreams…”
I couldn’t understand what he was saying, only held my face and foolishly admired the beauty’s face, laughing: “Yes yes yes!”
Just as the red-cloaked young master was about to take my hand, there was a “bang” sound, smoke rose everywhere, and both he and the black-robed young master vanished in smoke. What appeared on the ground was a red fox and a black scorpion.
Then, someone grabbed the back of my collar and dragged me backward.
Fu Chenzhi lowered his head and pinched my cheeks: “At such a young age, instead of learning proper things, you’ve learned to flirt with fox spirits and lute spirits. Fortunately, you don’t have money, otherwise, you planned to buy these two back to relieve loneliness?”
I waved my hands in anguish: “It hurts! Brother! Brother! Big brother! I was wrong…”
“Come back with me! Today’s strolling ends here!”
On the way dragging me back, I discovered that my brother was the one with real beauty. In just half a street, the demons who came to flirt with him reached seventeen, thirteen of whom were female, four male, and ten of whom said they were willing to sell themselves cheaply to him, to work like oxen and horses for him.
Of course, as I expected, Fu Chenzhi ignored them all. No matter how they displayed their bright eyes and charming smiles, their dimpled cheeks and rosy lips, their vermilion lips and white teeth, he never wavered, always looking straight ahead like a man with cut sleeves.
Of course, although his attitude was stern, my brother still doted on me very much. After returning, at my pleading, he once again took the blame for me and helped me copy the “Essential Techniques of Meditation Medicine” that Yinze had assigned.
A few days later, the task was completed, and Yinze had just returned from the lower realm. I took the thick results to find him. Learning that he was resting in his bedchamber, I thought this was a perfect opportunity—I could leave the materials at the door and slip away, so he wouldn’t incline to check and probably wouldn’t discover someone had copied for me.
Arriving at Yinze’s room door, I pushed open a crack to see if he had already gone to sleep. Unexpectedly, inside, there was light smoke curling, fragrant incense scattered, and on a pearl platform formed from shark tears, firefly lamps flickered. Yinze was reclining sideways on a lounge chair, lowering his head to sip fine wine bought by the earth spirit.
Beside him sat a red-clothed woman on his side, her red fur dress spread fully on the ground. Under the yellow flower ornament on her forehead, a pair of seductive fox eyes constantly sent him amorous glances.
Having been seduced by that red fox spirit once before, those enchanting eye waves had remained unforgettable to me, so in just a moment, I realized this was a female fox. Her eyes stared straight at him while her fingers coquettishly tugged at her collar, occasionally revealing fragrant shoulders and collarbones before quickly covering them again.
This scene was so alluring that ordinary men seeing it would probably lose six of their seven souls and immediately pounce over. But Yinze only smiled with hooked lips, gentle yet cunning, as if seeing through this little trick. However, the first sentence he spoke wasn’t directed at this female fox: “Have you seen enough?”
I hunched my shoulders and stammered: “M-Master, I-I finished the punishment copying.”