Chapter 56
Chapter 56: So It Runs in the Family
Leaving the dueling arena of Spirit Gathering Peak, Rong Shu and Cheng Bu Fan had no idea that, because of them, a wrongheaded fad would soon sweep the place: many disciples, holding a why-not-try attitude, would drag friends over every few days to imitate the pair’s make-believe sparring, hoping to glean some insight and use it to break through.
On the road back to the inner peaks, Rong Shu and Cheng Bu Fan sat on the back of a Red-crowned Cinnabar Crane. Cheng Bu Fan sprawled out with his hands pillowing his head, asking lazily: “Junior Sister Rong, we still have two challenge chances this month. Want to use them?”
Rong Shu shook her head, saying evenly: “No need.”
She added with a glance at him: “What we did before was just small-time fooling around. The sect has already amended its rules over it. If we keep messing about, that will be treating the sect rules with contempt and disrupting order.”
“Fair enough,” Cheng Bu Fan conceded, sensing that more antics would brush the sect’s bottom line, a crisis sense he had honed by bouncing around inside the sect for years. Then he grinned: “Anyway, we’ve already achieved our purpose.” Thinking how his so-called renown had spread beyond the sect, he could not help gloating inside, [Too bad the old man isn’t in the sect to hear about it…]
“Cheng, Bu, Fan!”
From the distant sky came a roar brimming with fury.
Cheng Bu Fan jolted; he sat up and looked back. The moment he saw a familiar figure arrowing toward them, panic washed over his face. He shot upright and shouted: “Crap! Junior sister, run! Make the Red-crowned Cinnabar Crane go faster!”
“Ah!” Rong Shu cried, instantly sensing trouble. She twisted around and urged the Red-crowned Cinnabar Crane to speed up.
Unfortunately, the middle-aged man giving chase behind them was even faster. The gap shrank at a rate visible to the naked eye. At last he flashed in front of the Red-crowned Cinnabar Crane and blocked their path, smiling coldly at Cheng Bu Fan, who was trying to hide under the bird’s feathers: “Run? You still want to run? Where could you possibly run to?”
Seeing there was no escape, Cheng Bu Fan tugged out a stiff smile, mumbling: “…Dad, you’re back so early? Weren’t you coming back in another month?”
A flicker of unsurprised comprehension passed through Rong Shu’s eyes. No wonder Cheng Bu Fan bristled; it turned out his father had come to settle accounts.
Cheng Xiao Feng, Peak Master of Spirit Nurturing Peak, was a late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator with a high-grade Variant Wind Spiritual Root, openly acknowledged as the third-strongest expert in Heaven’s Evolution Sect. The first was Jun Xiu Ran, at the Divine Transformation Stage. The second was Sect Master Ming Xuan, also late-stage Nascent Soul. However, because Ming Xuan and Cheng Xiao Feng had never fought formally in public, with their cultivation equal it was hard to say who was truly second and who was third.
“Hmph!” Cheng Xiao Feng snorted: “If I hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t even know about your ‘good deeds’! You little—” He stopped mid-scold when he noticed Rong Shu, then narrowed his eyes and asked coolly: “And this girl is who?”
Cheng Bu Fan opened his mouth to answer, but Cheng Xiao Feng sneered: “The Rong Shu who was in cahoots with you?”
“No, no,” Cheng Bu Fan shook his head rapidly: “Just a junior sister we ran into on the road. We’re not close.”
“Still trying to lie to your old man?!” Cheng Xiao Feng glared at the unfilial brat.
Seeing how things stood, Rong Shu had to bite the bullet and speak: “Disciple Rong Shu greets Peak Master Cheng.”
[We’re done,] Cheng Bu Fan thought.
With an outsider present, even if Cheng Xiao Feng wanted to beat his rebellious son, he had to leave him a shred of face. His ire, however, did not subside. He swept a cold gaze over the pair and said: “You two are really impressive. Heaven’s Evolution Sect hasn’t altered the sect rules in decades, and now, for the likes of you, it made an exception.”
Rong Shu offered a modest smile: “Truly honored.”
Cheng Bu Fan stiffened his neck and decided to lean into it: “So what?”
At that, the veins at Cheng Xiao Feng’s temples throbbed. [So the two of you actually think that’s something to be proud of?] he fumed. “Both of you are coming back to Spirit Nurturing Peak with me so I can settle this properly.”
Though they were still in midair and the area was bustling, Cheng Xiao Feng clamped down on his temper and herded them into the Peak Master’s Hall on Spirit Nurturing Peak. By the time they arrived, the fires on his face had noticeably cooled. What was done was done; even if he broke this unfilial son’s legs, nothing would change. What mattered now was the aftermath.
Inside the hall, he looked at the two kids hunching their shoulders and waiting for a tongue-lashing, gave a short snort, and said: “Since the rules have been amended, you are not to fool around like this again. The sect hasn’t stated anything openly, but some of the high-ranking sect elders are already displeased.”
Rong Shu and Cheng Bu Fan nodded in unison; they had planned to stop anyway. But Cheng Xiao Feng’s next words stunned them on the spot.
“Since your reputations are already like this, then make them even bigger!”
Both of them went blank. [What?]
[Didn’t Peak Master Cheng just come storming in like we’d done something that enraged Heaven and offended the people? How is he suddenly changing his face and encouraging us to keep it up?]
“Why, Dad?” Cheng Bu Fan ventured. “Didn’t you just say the sect elders have an issue with us? Why are you telling us to keep causing a stir?”
“You’ve already stirred it up; if you don’t extract some tangible benefit, wasn’t it a stir for nothing?” Cheng Xiao Feng shot back.
In Cheng Xiao Feng’s eyes, the two kids’ tactics were still shallow. After he returned to the sect and learned the whole story, he had exploded with anger, then abruptly realized this was a perfect chance to hoodwink his unfilial son into working hard. So he had secretly added fuel to their fire.
At the moment, Rong Shu and Cheng Bu Fan knew nothing of this; they were simply struck speechless. Rong Shu felt a dazed realization dawn: Cheng Bu Fan’s unreliability and free-and-easy attitude were inherited from the family after all.
Cheng Xiao Feng habitually glared at his disappointing son, then turned to Rong Shu: “Rong Shu, you must cultivate diligently. In a little over half a year the great competition among the major sects will begin. When other sects actually meet you, the momentum you’ve created outside will be punctured with ease.”
He shifted his eyes back to his son: “And you, Cheng Bu Fan. Before the sect grand competition opens, by any means short of shameful demonic-path tricks, you must advance to the Foundation Establishment Stage.”
“Ah?” Cheng Bu Fan froze, then immediately protested: “That’s not fair! Why do I have to break through to Foundation Establishment while Rong Shu only needs to work hard?”
Rong Shu blinked, [Um… even if I wanted to reach Foundation Establishment, there is no way I could do it in such a short time, right?]
“Ah what?” Cheng Xiao Feng’s cold look swept over, and Cheng Bu Fan shrank his neck. Then Cheng Xiao Feng chuckled twice, eyes holding a ready-to-watch-the-show glint, and said: “If you don’t want disciples from other sects to gang up on you at the grand competition, challenge you one after another, slap you in the face, and step on your head to make their names, then you had better cultivate.”
“The rumors you spread only fool ordinary people. Those young disciples, still green and proud, won’t care how strong the rumors claim you are. They’ll have to meet you head on to know. If you make a fool of yourself then, that will be on you.”
The moment Cheng Bu Fan pictured that scene, his whole body sagged.
Cheng Xiao Feng looked at Rong Shu again: “As for you…” Given Rong Shu’s middle-grade dual spiritual roots, he truly could not ask this little girl to break through to the Foundation Establishment Stage within half a year. Besides, she was neither his child nor his disciple; strictly speaking, he had no need to manage her at all. But in light of the mess these two had made, he softened his tone and said: “Before the sect grand competition, you must at least reach Qi Refining seventh… no, the fourth layer.”
Cheng Bu Fan bristled again, certain his old man was singling him out: “Why does Rong Shu only have to reach the fourth layer of Qi Refining while I have to reach Foundation Establishment?”
“Isn’t Rong Shu your ‘defeated opponent’?” Cheng Xiao Feng countered. “As the victor, you can’t possibly be slower than her in cultivation speed, can you?”
“That is not the same thing at all…” Cheng Bu Fan grimaced. Breaking through to Foundation Establishment was hard. Rong Shu only needed to go from the second to the fourth layer of Qi Refining.
“Don’t agree?” Cheng Xiao Feng lifted a brow. “Then I’ll throw the two of you onto the Cliff of Reflection to face the wall right now…”
“I agree, I agree, I agree!” Cheng Bu Fan’s face went dark, yet his expression was rigid with fear.
The Cliff of Reflection was, in the eyes of Heaven’s Evolution Sect disciples, the most detestable and terrifying place of all. It was dark and cold, desolate and remote. Disciplinary stays ranged from a few days to several decades. Other than the clothes on one’s back and a bottle of Fasting Pills, nothing else could be brought up. If you were at the Foundation Establishment Stage and could subsist without food, it was still bearable. But for disciples at the Qi Refining Stage who had not yet learned fasting, once the Fasting Pills ran out, you had to dig for wild greens and roots across the mountain. With luck you might encounter small animals; without it, you ate dirt and drank the western wind, with not even wild greens to find. There was also a frightening rumor: at midnight, ghostly monster sounds would rise from the base of the cliff. Disciples punished there too long might come down later with their minds unsettled.
Rong Shu, curious, asked in a small voice: “Senior Brother Cheng, aren’t you a regular at the Cliff of Reflection?”
“Ahem,” Cheng Bu Fan coughed twice, then glared at her: “I was only worried your scrawny arms and legs wouldn’t endure it!”
“Wait?! What do you mean regular? Who told you that?”
Rong Shu looked innocent: “Everyone says so. Senior brother, your renown is recited by the entire outer sect.”
Cheng Bu Fan stared at her, and she stared innocently right back.
“Enough.” Rarely seeing the brat eat dirt, Cheng Xiao Feng’s mood brightened a touch: “In short, whatever means you use, before the sect grand competition you must reach Foundation Establishment and the fourth layer of Qi Refining.”
“…Understood.”
In the end, both had no choice but to agree.
After they left the Peak Master’s Hall, their moods differed. Cheng Bu Fan looked like a cabbage struck by frost in the night, all shriveled up, while Rong Shu remained placid, her face calm as if nothing had happened.
“You… you don’t feel your hairline receding?” Cheng Bu Fan asked, seeing how unfazed Rong Shu seemed.
Rong Shu blinked: “No. Do you?”
Cheng Bu Fan instantly felt he had asked the wrong person. [She only has to reach the fourth layer of Qi Refining, easy as can be. I, on the other hand, have to leap to Foundation Establishment, a whole major realm apart.]
“Come on, you can do it,” Rong Shu said at last, perhaps feeling a twinge of conscience for gloating and not being a proper bro.
“By the way, for the next month I won’t go to Spirit Gathering Peak to attend lectures,” she added matter-of-factly. “I plan to enter seclusion and cultivate.”
“Seclusion? You’re not actually doing what the old man said and working hard, are you?” Cheng Bu Fan curled his lip. “Not to put you down, but with only middle-grade dual spiritual roots, wanting to jump two minor realms in half a year is very difficult.”
“Don’t worry. Even if, when the time comes, you haven’t reached the fourth layer of Qi Refining, the old man won’t do anything to you,” he said, assuming she was worried.
Rong Shu shook her head: “No. Whether Peak Master Cheng asked me to reach the fourth layer or not, I would still cultivate. The whole reason I had you act with me was to buy some quiet time afterward. I’ve attended lectures for over a month; it’s time to shut myself away and train properly.”
Seeing how orderly her plan was, clearly long decided, Cheng Bu Fan felt a little guilty. He had squandered his high-grade metal spiritual root wantonly, or else he wouldn’t have been stuck at the ninth layer of Qi Refining for two full years. “Alright then,” he shrugged.
Since Rong Shu was working hard, as the one who had supposedly defeated her, he couldn’t keep rotting away. More importantly, while he couldn’t take everything the old man said at face value, seven or eight parts of it were probably true. His reputation was out, but hearing is unreliable and seeing is believing. Those prodigies from other sects, eyes higher than the heavens, might come to the grand competition either to see how strong the ‘genius who defeated a personal disciple’ really was, or simply to crush him and use him as a stepping stone, scrambling to challenge him like sharks scenting blood.
If he did not want to make a public fool of himself then, he could only cultivate desperately now and raise his realm.
After a few more words with Cheng Bu Fan, Rong Shu took her leave.
The sect’s secret realm would open in about a month. Although those entering were all fellow disciples, and unless there was great enmity both sides would hold back in a fight so lives were not usually at risk, the secret realm was not only strewn with opportunities; it also hid countless dangers. One careless step and you could die on the spot, never walking out again.
Rong Shu needed to keep cultivating without pause, striving to raise her strength a bit more before entering the secret realm.