Chapter 3
After ten years in seclusion, I had formed my Nascent Soul.
During that time, I was fortunate enough to inherit the true teachings left in the cave residence of a senior cultivator of the Way of Detachment.
It was said that this senior had eight cultivation partners, all of whom cheated.
Through those betrayals, the senior ascended.
The method left behind went as follows:
To cultivate the Way of Detachment, one must regard the intimate as ordinary and treat all beings equally. One must be cheated on and remain calm through the betrayal, looking upon every person and every creature without distinction.
Only then would expectation, love, hatred, and other such emotions disappear.
Looking back on my time with Rong Fei, he had indeed toyed with my feelings, and my cultivation had increased as a result.
Senior, I understood now!
My cultivation had stalled again.
Clearly, it was because my feelings had merely been toyed with. I still had not been cheated on.
After much consideration, I decided to leave seclusion and seek an opportunity to be betrayed.
Opportunities truly did favor the prepared.
To ensure I would be cheated on, I drew up detailed requirements for my next cultivation partner.
He needed to have lots of close female friends.
The Joyous Union Sect actually fit that requirement quite well, but I had some history with its eldest senior brother.
To avoid damaging relations between our sects, I decided it was best not to provoke them.
I posted a partner-seeking notice on 58 Sects. No one responded.
Sword cultivators of the Way of Detachment had always had a terrible reputation.
Only one fellow cultivator bombarded me with messages.
“ProudLordUnstoppable”: Where are you? Why aren’t you at the sect?
“ProudLordUnstoppable”: Shen Shuang, are you planning to love me and leave me?
“ProudLordUnstoppable”: Shen Shuang, you… [garbled] me… dual cultivation… [garbled] lose all sense of heaven and earth, and now you… [garbled]
The administrator muted this fellow cultivator for inappropriate language.
I paid him no further attention and set out for the demon realm.
I had heard demon cultivators were open-minded. Perhaps I could find a suitable partner there.
Two days after arriving, I found an injured little red fox.
It lay in front of my cave residence, a smear of blood on its fluffy tail.
Against its completely red fur, the stain was almost impossible to see.
When I approached, it looked up at me with moist amber eyes.
I stopped.
It gave a weak whimper, tipped its head to one side, and fainted.
…
Sword cultivators aren’t idiots, all right?
I had no idea why this fox wanted to attach itself to me.
But I did belong to the Adorable Spirit Beast Protection Society, and I liked adorable spirit beasts.
So I took the fox home.
The little creature had barely been bandaged before it lost patience.
With a pop, it transformed into human form.
It now looked like a boy of seventeen.
He had a mop of fluffy red hair, slightly upturned eyes, and a dimple in his right cheek when he smiled.
“Thank you for saving me, Big Sister. My name is Shi Xi.”
I had been about to ask whether he had many close female friends and needed a cultivation partner.
But once I saw that he still looked like a boy after taking human form, the whole idea felt rather immoral.
So I changed my question.
“You’re welcome. By any chance, do you have an adult, single older brother with lots of close female friends whom you could introduce to me?”
Shi Xi: “…?”
His smile froze on his face.