Chapter 232

Chapter 232

In the end, those two fellows still failed to change my mind.

I forcibly sent them home…

Before leaving, both wore pitiful, aggrieved expressions. They made me promise to tell them the exciting rest of the story the next morning, or they would not even sleep well.

Only after I promised repeatedly did they leave with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Whew…

I let out a long breath, watched their departing backs, and said helplessly,

“At last, I can travel light without any worries.”

Something about Wang Xinren’s death was deeply strange and sinister!

I was not afraid. With my current cultivation, I was confident that investigating the abandoned grave would not be too dangerous.

But bringing two “burdens” along would make matters troublesome. I would have to devote at least half my attention to protecting them.

The dormitory had been all right. With so many strong young men living together, its yang energy was intense. No matter how fierce an evil entity might be, it could not cause much trouble there.

Most of its power would be suppressed!

That was why I had not worried about letting the two of them come watch the excitement.

But in the mountains, the more ruined and abandoned a grave was, the harder it was to say what might happen!

Some vicious fiend, savage corpse, or vengeful ghost might be hiding inside, perhaps one especially skilled at concealing its aura.

Roundy flapped its wings beside me and said impishly,

“Wu boy, that underling of yours named Wang Dachun actually has decent talent for cultivation. He certainly can’t compare with you, but if he entered the esoteric world, he should still be able to make a name for himself.”

I shrugged with a bitter smile.

“The esoteric world… You know how dangerous it is. An ordinary person might live a peaceful life without facing mortal danger even once.”

“But once someone walks the path of cultivation, they may face a life-or-death crisis at any moment. Even if they don’t make a living dealing with the dead or earn money from such things, if they encounter demons, corpses, ghosts, evil cultivators, or wicked men, won’t they still have to intervene at least a little?”

“Even if they hide their identity and stay out of everything, once they possess magical arts, they become entangled in karmic burden and are no longer as uncomplicated as ordinary people. One careless step can mean death and the destruction of one’s cultivation. I had no choice. Dachun and the others don’t need this.”

Roundy rolled its eyes.

“You’re only their classmate, yet you worry about this and that like you’re their elder.”

I laughed and waved a hand.

“Those are real concerns in my heart, but the immediate reason is that I haven’t even completed my own apprenticeship. How could I casually teach others without Master’s permission?”

“That makes sense! You humans just have too many ridiculous rules. Even thinking about them is troublesome. We don’t have so many rules. If Wang Dachun wants to learn magic, he can come to me. As long as he buys me fresh fish every day, I’ll teach him.”

“Oh, give it a rest! Humans and demons are different. Even I can’t learn those abilities of yours, much less Wang Dachun. You only want to swindle him out of his allowance to buy fish.”

I mercilessly exposed the damned fat bird’s “wicked” intentions.

Roundy spread its wings like human hands in resignation.

“That’s why I don’t like dealing with people who are too clever…”

Chatting along the way, Roundy and I reached the school’s side gate, a small wooden door secured with a lock.

Lianghe District Middle School was built against the mountain, so a wall had been constructed around the outer area bordering the hills to separate the campus from the mountains.

But the builders had probably considered that some older relatives of faculty members living in the staff compound could not give up their rural habits and would want to cultivate small vegetable plots near the wall.

Thus, a side gate had been installed beside the staff compound. It remained locked most of the time, and only those older relatives who farmed the plots had keys.

This kept mischievous students from running into the mountains to play and suffering accidents or encountering danger.

Of course, a flimsy wooden door and lock could not stop me.

I circulated the qi within me and lightly pointed through the air.

A stream of pure qi immediately curled outward, and the lock opened with a click.
The wooden door creaked.

Beyond it lay rolling mountains, which resembled crouching beasts in the darkness of night.

A cold wind blew through the doorway, carrying the distinctive chill of the mountain forest and the mingled smells of soil, grass, and leaves. As a country child, I knew that scent intimately.

But from a supernatural perspective, the yin energy in that cold wind was at least several times stronger than on this side of the gate!

Separated by a single door, the difference was immense.

That was because the wall around Lianghe District Middle School provided more than a physical division. After more than half a century of teaching, even this ordinary wall had invisibly come to separate the yang-filled school from the yin-breeding wilderness.

I raised a leg, stepped through the wooden gate, and entered the mountains.

“Let’s go. We need to move quickly because we have to make a wide circuit. Fortunately, the three mountains forming the Three Stars Attending the Moon feng shui configuration aren’t very large, and people often farm here, so the mountain paths aren’t too difficult.”

The damned fat bird burst out laughing.

“Wu boy, have you misunderstood something? You’re the one who needs to move quickly! Your big brother can fly there in less than half a minute. I’m off! I’ll wait for you beside the grave.”

Roundy beat its wings and rose into the air. Then it made an almost right-angle turn and sped into the darkness like a streak of white lightning.

“Damn… Flying is wonderful! I wonder whether humans can learn to fly through cultivation and magical arts. Even flying slowly or for short distances would be enough.”

Muttering, I used the light-footwork technique Eight Steps to Catch a Cicada and chased in the direction where Roundy had vanished.

Five minutes later,

I reached the mountainside behind the boys’ dormitory and stood before the abandoned grave visible through the window from Wang Xinren’s bed.

The damned fat bird stood unconcernedly atop the grave mound, wings planted at its sides like hands on its hips, looking at me with unbearable smugness.

“Oh, Wu boy, are you a snail? You’re far too slow! Your big brother has been waiting forever. I was so bored that I would’ve gone to sleep if you’d taken any longer.”

Me: “…”

An ordinary person would need at least half an hour to cover this route. Someone unfamiliar with mountain travel or in poor physical condition might even take an hour.

I had arrived in five minutes, and it still had the nerve to call me slow?

Normally, I would have seized the stupid bird, pulled it into my arms, and vigorously kneaded and tormented its belly and head.

But we had serious business to handle, so I only rolled my eyes without saying more.

“Behave yourself. Get down and stop standing on the grave. I’m going to use a spell to open it.”

Open the grave?

Roundy’s eyes lit up in surprise.

“Wu boy, have you already become that powerful? Without digging by hand or using a shovel, you can use talisman arts or magic to open a grave directly? This mound might be small, but opening it would require moving at least several hundred, perhaps over a thousand jin, of grave soil.”

One had to understand that cultivators’ magical arts were extremely powerful against evil entities, but not nearly as strong against normal matter.

For example, the talisman flame I ignited could burn ghosts, scorch corpses, and sear demons. But against an ordinary person, it was about the same as a burning sheet of paper. It might frighten them or singe their hair, but it could not cause much real harm…

The same applied to a ritual blade. It was extraordinarily powerful against corpse-fiends and ghosts, but to a living person, it was merely a small, blunt, unsharpened knife that could not even cut skin.

Only when one’s cultivation in magical arts reached a certain depth could offensive and defensive techniques affect living people and ordinary matter with the same suppressive and destructive force they exerted against evil entities!

I clearly had not reached that level yet.

That was why Roundy was so surprised.

But I smiled slightly and said,

“It certainly wouldn’t work under normal circumstances. But don’t forget that last Chinese New Year’s Eve, I finally succeeded in absorbing both pure and turbid qi and merging them together. After half a year of practice, the methods I can use on earth, stone, and mountains are somewhat stronger than my current overall strength. Watch carefully!”