No matter what she really couldn’t bear to drink more of the tea, and even a whiff was enough to know the wine was certainly not a level she could tolerate. It was neither aromatic nor spiritual, and smelled of cheap spirits and improper storage. The greens in the dishes were wilted and oily, and she felt only the occasional peanut was just barely edible.
For a long time, she didn’t even need to eat, and when she did it was to taste the highest and most pure delicacies the world had to offer. Even when she was poor and did need to eat, her mother had been an excellent cook. Now, of course, the conditions weren’t the same, but she hadn’t quite fallen to this level yet. Where she didn’t need to suffer, she wouldn’t.
Besides, most mortal food, particularly of a quality like this, had heavy impurities that could get in the way of her cultivation. It wouldn’t have too much impact, but her foundation was currently unstable, and this was the most important time.
“Alright. Regarding the larks, how about the three of us lead you tomorrow? We can help you navigate the area, and it just so happens we were planning to go anyway.” Unwilling to give up, the Yun Sen continued to push. Beside him, Yun ZhuLi nodded his head rapidly which the remaining nervously began to eat.
“Hmm. Could you tell me more about their habits and living area?” Instead of refusing directly, He JiYang decided to press for information. Unfortunately, navigation was one of the weaknesses of both her and Mo Lin. When they were travelling previously, it had been someone else who took the lead in tracking various monsters or walking through dungeons. At this thought, she looked at the moon again. It felt as beautiful and lonely as always.
Listening to them talk, she chewed slowly on the peanuts. She occasionally chimed in, but mostly left the talking to the trio as they energetically shared information. They gave her countless pointers that she honestly didn’t need, as her group’s power was more than enough. Nonetheless, the sentiments were kind so she didn’t refuse the guidance. Hearing their cheerful conversations, the other customers in the restaurant kept looking at the men enviously, which caused them to life their chests and talk even more passionately.
“Alright. To be honest, my shixiong and I aren’t too good with directions. If fellow cultivators don’t mind, it would be great if you could lead us tomorrow.” They beamed at her words, hurriedly nodding to agree. She spoke a bit more, letting them know where she was staying, before getting up and bidding them goodnight.
In passing, she dropped enough silvers in passing to cover the whole table and leaving before they could protest. She was short for spiritual stones, but mortal fees could not be a problem. Even the lowest level 1 spiritual stone could be converted for 5 pieces of gold, which was each 10 pieces of silver. A normal family of four living in the capital city may need 200 silvers a month in total, and a meal like this was worth at most 3 pieces of silver. Like most cultivators, He JiYang didn’t even carry any coppers.
When she left the restaurant, rather than heading straight back to her inn, she walked towards the lake. As expected, she soon saw the figure of Mo Jin. She picked another spot before also sitting down to cultivate. For practitioners, time flew by quickly, and most didn’t need to sleep. They could practice all night and feel even more energetic the next morning. However, her body was unusually weak, so she only had time for one cycle of energy before feeling sleepy. She got up, giving one last glance to Mo Jin before heading back. From beginning to end, he never looked at her once.
The sun was already bright when she woke up the next morning, and as expected the room was empty. Likely due to her body, she wasn’t great with mornings, so it was often noon when she woke up. This was also because she generally cultivated better by the light of the moon, so she slept late as well.
After getting properly dressed, she pulled out some spiritual fruits and other foods from her storage bracelet to eat. It was a semi-transparent, milky white bangle made of a special type of jade and engraved with layers of defense and storage arrays. Even among storage accessories this was considered incredibly expensive. Not only did it have a large space, it was also able to keep spiritual essence quite well. Of course, expensive spiritual herbs still needed special storage, but for most spiritual foods it was more than enough to retain its goodness.
She stretched her spiritual sense downstairs to see if the cultivators from yesterday arrived. Cultivators at the Foundation Building stage didn’t have a spiritual sense, but He JiYang was different. She had passed the Mind Refining stage before, which was directly after the Foundation Building stage, and had even formed her golden core. Although she couldn’t use her spiritual sense too much in her current state, the distance to downstairs wasn’t far, and there aren’t any strong cultivators in the area.
They were downstairs, so instead she went to look for Mo Lin. He was much further away, but this time she was sensing the imprint previously left on him. Therefore, it also wasn’t too difficult. She quickly went to find him, explaining the situation before they arrived at the inn’s restaurant to look for the cultivators.
“When did you arrive? You could have asked the inn staff to call.” When they noticed she had arrived, the three stood up immediately from their table. In the morning, the restaurant didn’t get much business, so there weren’t too many other customers. Their table had a few almost-empty cold dishes and a pile of shells from sunflower seeds. It was clear they had been waiting from a long time ago.
“Not too long, not too long. It’s not a problem at all, we just happened to wake a bit early.” Yun Sen said eagerly with a flush. He was going to continue, but the words couldn’t come out when he met the cold eyes of the man behind He JiYang.
Yun Sen’s words were loud enough to be heard by the workers in the kitchen. They scoffed, muttering about how these men were so eager to please the beauty they arrived before the sun even came up and sat spitting sunflower seeds all morning. These words weren’t heard by the Cloud Running sect disciples, but He JiYang and Mo Lin’s sharpened senses could easily catch them. She was surprised by their sincerity and felt apologetic. Originally, she was just going to give them some spiritual stones as thanks, but now she decided to offer a small bottle of foundation stabilizing pills as well.
“This is my shixiong, OuYang Jin. Sorry to keep you waiting. Shall we go now?” She saw them leave money for the food and knew they would refuse if she offered to pay again. Anyway, they would be rewarded generously, so it didn’t matter.
They flew through the forest on their spiritual swords. Honestly, the speed was slow, but she knew it was likely the limits of these cultivators. Fortunately, they each had a spiritual sword, albeit of a low grade, otherwise the group may have had to run. However, these cultivators were a bit overeager, incessantly chattering. Even for them, voice transmissions over the winds weren’t difficult.
Out of politeness, He JiYang occasionally hummed or replied a word, but truthfully, she was feeling annoyed. She had just woken up, and the noises while flying were giving her a headache. She rubbed lightly at her temple. Meanwhile, Mo Jin’s face was dark.
“Shut up and focus.” This was the first line Mo Jin had said all morning, and it made the Cloud Running sect disciples flush in the face. They wanted to retort indignantly, but also didn’t dare.
“Sorry, my shixiong speaks a bit roughly. Shall we quiet down a bit?” Helpless, He JiYang tried to smoothen the atmosphere. Inwardly, she was a little glad. The others could only agree embarrassedly, secretly gritting their teeth.
Considering the duo’s power level, which were unknown but should easily be able to handle the area, the Cloud Running sect disciples led them to the centre. It was most dangerous, but sightings would be more frequent. On their own, they certainly would not dare to come.
“Leave them when we arrive.” Mo Jin sent a private voice transmission.
“We can’t, they’ll die.” He JiYang replied privately.
“Three foundation-building cultivators, they should be able to escape at least and fly back.”
“You’re pushing them to their limits right now, they won’t have any more spiritual energy when they arrive. The larks tend to group together, and the tougher mobs can get to rank 3. They definitely wouldn’t even be a match for a rank 2 mob, and they would not be fast enough to run away.”
All kinds of people were on the path for the Dao. Clearly, these cultivators had not seen much bloodshed or betrayals. Otherwise, they would not have exhausted themselves in a dangerous territory for strangers. This was probably a gamble for them; the rewards for helping could be great, but there was a risk they could be discarded in their weakness.
Nonetheless, someone experienced would never leave their fate so completely in another person’s hands. In both the righteous and demonic factions, greed was the most frightening, and other people were the least trustworthy. Appearance was a façade. Even now, the Cloud Running disciples couldn’t hide their nervousness and worry about the monsters in the environment, as they flew around searching for larks. But they hadn’t considered the possibility that the people behind them could leave them for death after using them. Only after experiencing something like that would they learn how treacherous others could be.
However, this was not a lesson He JiYang wanted to teach. Not today, not ever.
“We can let them follow us. Besides, this is not the only area in the region to see the larks. It won’t be difficult to protect them, and more eyes would be good.”
Mo Jin didn’t reply, but she knew he accepted it. Although he would do the things he said, he wouldn’t do anything to harm them if she disagreed. He would find it easier to just go along with her ideas.
Very soon, they saw a group. The birds were small but couldn’t escape the sharp eyes of a cultivator.
“This is the largest area to find them. This entire expanse is their land.” Yun Sen said, glancing at them nervously. “What do fellow cultivators plan to do next?”
“Thank you for leading us, here are some tokens of our appreciation. We will probably be staying in this area for a while. If you have other things to do, there’s no need to continue following along with us. Otherwise, I would appreciate some further help. To be honest, we’re looking for a special type of herb.” He JiYang took out some level 1 spiritual stones and a bottle of foundation building pills before explaining their task further. They weren’t anything too valuable to her, but the Cloud Running sect disciples’ eyes gleamed.
After symbolically refusing a few times, they happily received the rewards. She made sure to give rewards that could be perfectly split in three ways. After all, even friends and family may break down in front of greed.
As expected, they eagerly volunteered to keep helping them.
The group swiftly landed by the larks. The only way to tell the difference between the Darlings and the normal larks was to look at the underside of their wings. Normal larks would have brownish fluff, but the Darlings would have crimson fluff. Finding the area with the most Darlings would help them locate the Green Lantern Fruit.
“We need to be careful. Each individual lark may not be too strong, but this group together looks like a strong rank 2. A cloaking or invisibility spell would be very useful to track them.” Yun ZhuLi just said this as Mo Jin stepped directly into the clearing. Within seconds, the larks all fell dead off the trees, but his blade didn’t even move.
The Cloud Running disciples were dumbfounded.
Author's Note: Small goal is to show character development. Medium goal is to set up my own comedy show (in the author's notes). Large goal is to get people to cry. Fighting! I'll cheer myself on.
Fighting! I just started reading and I really like it so far!