Chapter 123
Chapter 123: A Demonic Cultivator Appears
As Rong Shu was thinking, she felt the cloth bag in her hands move. Little Hamster was stirring. He poked his head out groggily and looked up at her. She cupped the bottom of the bag with her right hand, reached out with her left, and rubbed his head: “I will buy you some things and make you a nest, all right?”
Hearing this, Little Hamster nodded and kneaded the cushion unconsciously with his tiny paws. A nest, a place to sleep.
Rong Shu found a shop that specialized in pet supplies. After picking through a variety of items, she bought a whole set for Little Hamster.
She stroked one of the soft fabrics on display and felt it was nicely plush, then asked the shop staff for permission to try a nest. After receiving confirmation, she took Little Hamster out of the bag to let him experience it personally.
Set down on the counter, Little Hamster did not pounce on the cloth with excitement. He lifted his head slightly and glanced at Rong Shu. She understood immediately and laid several types of fabric before him like a miniature selection court. He circled the options, did not flop down right away, and instead pressed each one with his paws. In the end he placed his paw on one particular fabric and looked at her in silent indication. She chose that one.
Besides the bedding, there were other small items, and she had him select each of them as well. When it came time to pay, she scooped him up and smiled with crescent eyes: “These things cost a lot of Spirit Stones. Do you have any?”
Little Hamster froze, then wore a blank look. Spirit Stones? What Spirit Stones?
Her voice floated up again: “Without Spirit Stones, you cannot take these home.”
Little Hamster grew anxious at once. He wanted his nest.
“But there is a way to take them,” she said with mock gravity, watching his troubled little face. He looked up at her at once, asking wordlessly for the solution. “Let me pet you thirty times a day, and I will buy all of this for you. How about it?”
He went completely still, every hair on his body standing in shock. Thirty times?
Seeing his worried expression, she nearly laughed, then relented: “If fifty feels like too much, then thirty. How about that?”
After a struggle, he decided that thirty did indeed sound less than fifty, and he nodded. She paid the Spirit Stones cheerfully, though with a hint of regret. The little fellow was proud and did not like being touched. She should have asked for more, perhaps a few hundred times. No matter, there was time.
By the time she left the shop, night had fully fallen, and she headed back. Along the way she whispered to Little Hamster: “When we get back, I should change your bandage. In a few more days, it should be fully healed.”
Little Hamster instinctively opened his mouth, but before a sound came out, he remembered his current identity and closed it again. She continued softly, “What else did we need to buy? I think we covered most of it, right? Yan Yan, do you want toys? Other people’s pets all have toys.”
As she walked, she suddenly sensed that something was wrong. She turned to look behind her. The street was crowded, everyone busy on their way, nothing out of the ordinary. But when she faced forward again, that feeling of being watched returned.
She confirmed it at once. Someone was tailing her.
Keeping her breathing and pace steady, she calmly tied off the mouth of the cloth bag and cinched the drawstring tight. The stitching of the bag was not dense, and she had poked several air holes before going out, so even with the top tied, Little Hamster would not have trouble breathing.
After securing the bag to her waist, she began to leave the main thoroughfares. She did not rush into an empty alley; she wanted to gauge the stalker’s strength first. When there were fewer people around, she finally pinpointed his position. The moment she sensed his cultivation, her expression flickered with surprise. [That cannot be right.] [Only sixth-layer Qi Refining?] [How could someone at sixth-layer Qi Refining be so adept at concealment that I did not notice at first? Feng Lin once sent three cultivators at the tenth layer of Qi Refining and they still could not kill me. He would not be foolish enough now to send a sixth-layer, would he?]
She probed carefully several times and caught a faint anomaly, as though there were a ripple of dark spiritual qi. [In a time like this, a dark-spirit-root cultivator appearing so inappropriately can only point to a Demonic Cultivator.]
Suppressing the thought, she turned into a pitch-black alley. The stalker followed. Right under her eyelids, he instinctively used Shadow Escape, a technique only dark-spirit-root cultivators knew, to meld into the darkness.
He muttered under his breath as he slipped along the wall: “Where did that little lass go? Damn it, did I lose her… no, wait.”
He had not gone far before he realized he had lost the target. Just as he sensed something was off, Rong Shu was already behind him. Without hesitation, the sharp blade in her hand pierced his heart from the back. He had no chance to resist, and died on the spot. After stabbing his heart, she decisively severed his head. A Qi Refining Stage cultivator with a ruined heart and severed head was beyond saving.
After finishing him, she sheathed her knife, crouched, and searched the body. She found two Storage Pouches. Death had erased their restrictions, so she could examine them freely. One glance, and she pulled out something startling: a waist token carved with Soul Severing Sect, several Soul Summoning Banners, and jade slips engraved with Demonic Cultivator techniques.
“It really is a Demonic Cultivator,” she said, though she had already been ninety percent sure. Even so, she was surprised that a Demonic Cultivator would suddenly attack her. At first she had assumed Feng Lin had sent someone yet again.
She quickly dismissed that, not out of faith in his character but because she had investigated him before. Over his decades in the sect, the missions he had taken most often were to exterminate Demonic Cultivators. He had taken over a thousand such missions, and the Demonic Cultivators who died under his sword were beyond counting. On the demonic side, he had made their must-kill list, with a bounty of a million Spirit Stones, once ranking above several of the sect’s power-wielding elders. Righteous sect members commonly opposed Demonic Cultivators, but Feng Lin treated them as a never-ending blood feud, killing any he saw. That usually meant a personal vendetta. As for what enmity lay behind that, she did not know and could not find out.
Her thoughts returned to the corpse before her. “Was this an opportunistic ambush, or a long-planned move?” she murmured. “If it were planned, they would not send only one Demonic Cultivator at the sixth layer of Qi Refining to attack a personal disciple.” Even someone like Feng Lin, who looked down on her, had sent three cultivators at the tenth layer of Qi Refining. “So it was opportunistic?” Even so, she did not relax. This was Cloud Link City, and the sect grand competition was being held here. Everyone in the cultivation world knew it. How bold did a lone sixth-layer Demonic Cultivator have to be to attack a sect disciple in Cloud Link City, unafraid of being hunted down?
Just as she finished dealing with the body, a Nine Palace Mirror inside the other Storage Pouch lit up and delivered a message: “By order of the sect master, all disciples at Foundation Establishment and below are to assemble at Hidden Fragrance Pavilion within one day, without fail.”
Her expression sharpened. [Hidden Fragrance Pavilion… why does that sound familiar?] [Two days ago, when I was strolling the city with Cheng Bu Fan and Fu Yong Kang, we passed a place by that name.] Hidden Fragrance Pavilion was a restaurant, and a distinctive one at that, with handsome men and beautiful women singing and dancing at the side. The ambiance was elegant and refined, more like a place for lofty conversation than for meals. It looked nice, but the three of them had been looking for somewhere more casual and did not go in. Now that she thought about it, a chill crept up her spine. [Hidden Fragrance Pavilion might be a Demonic Cultivator stronghold. Otherwise, how could they so boldly and comfortably gather so many disciples? Only on their own turf could they hide it.]
[This message should not be fake. It is unlikely they knew this unlucky man had been killed by me and then crafted such a message to lure me in.] [If the message is legitimate, the implications are huge. The Demonic Cultivators who infiltrated Cloud Link City are not alone, and there are quite a few of them.] She pushed the thought further. [Hidden Fragrance Pavilion gathers those below Foundation Establishment. Could there be other places in Cloud Link City gathering Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, or even Nascent Soul Demonic Cultivators?] [With so many Demonic Cultivators assembling in the city, they are not here for nothing.]
How to handle this? She had killed this Demonic Cultivator and only then obtained his Nine Palace Mirror. She could not simply report to the sect without arousing questions. [How would I explain that a fourth-layer Qi Refining cultivator like me killed a sixth-layer Demonic Cultivator? I could say I used the Talisman Jun Xiu Ran gave me, but that Talisman is powerful enough to counterkill a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Against a mere Qi Refining target, it would blast him to ash. How would a Storage Pouch remain?] [Qi Refining cultivators are not highly valued in any power, so they usually do not have Soul Lamps.] She did not know if this dead Demonic Cultivator had family or friends. Hopefully not. If he was a loner, his death could be concealed for a few more days.
Unconsciously, she had already returned to her lodgings when a stray thought surfaced. [Should I simply use this Demonic Cultivator’s identity and go take a look at Hidden Fragrance Pavilion?] In the sect, if Demonic Cultivators made trouble outside but it did not touch her, she was disinclined to invite trouble. Now, however, she was in Cloud Link City. If the Demonic Cultivators were truly planning a big move, it was clearly aimed at the grand competition. And her current identity was Immortal Venerable Ze Yu’s personal disciple, the weakest among them. Obviously, she was an easy target. Rather than sit and wait in fear, it would be better to seize the initiative and learn their plan early. She was not sure if there would be special identity checks there that could expose her. With a one-day deadline, she still had time to consider.
[The Demonic Cultivators in Cloud Link City must be plotting to sabotage the sect grand competition. For the next while, except for trips to the Alchemists’ Branch, I should avoid wandering.] This time she had encountered only a Qi Refining Demonic Cultivator who acted on impulse and happened to pick the wrong target. If she ran into someone stronger, escaping on her own strength would be nearly impossible.
Back in the room, Little Hamster grew lively. After she set him on the bed, he rolled twice by instinct. Realizing how silly he looked, he scrambled up as if nothing had happened. Seeing her deep in thought, he cocked his head and sat obediently to one side, watching.
Her mind wrestled with the choice. [Do I go to Hidden Fragrance Pavilion or not? If I go, I risk exposure and even my life. If I do not, I will be forced to react passively when the Demonic Cultivators make their move, groping in the dark.] The decision did not trouble her for long. Both paths held danger. Better to keep the initiative in her own hands.
Having decided, she took out her Nine Palace Mirror and sent a message to Senior Brother Lin Dao. She briefly outlined the situation and told him her plan, though she only reported that she had killed a fourth-layer Qi Refining Demonic Cultivator. Lin Dao did not reply immediately, perhaps occupied. She was in no rush. She set the mirror aside and began assembling Little Hamster’s sleeping nest.
“How about here?” she asked as she adjusted the bedding. “And like this…”
After a bit of fussing, the nest was ready. Satisfied, she glanced at Little Hamster. He trotted into the nest and rolled twice. In addition to the nest, she had bought a small rocking cradle chair and a running wheel. She had chosen the wheel herself, but he disliked it and preferred the cradle. Anything to do with sleeping, he seemed to adore.
When she finished, she dragged a small table to the bedside and arranged everything on top, then let Little Hamster patrol his domain to his heart’s content.