Don't Pick Up Disciples Randomly by the Roadside - Chapter 5

The sun had yet to rise, and the long street was sparsely populated, appearing rather empty. The bluestone slabs along the road had been polished to a glossy sheen by countless footsteps, making every tread sound crisper than usual.

The woman walked at a leisurely pace, draped in a lavender cloak that was loosely fastened at the collar, revealing beneath it an elegant and simple attire—a green robe over a white inner garment, wide sleeves, and a plain ink-splattered skirt. On her head, she wore a veiled bamboo hat, its gauzy curtain nearly obscuring her entire face, leaving only a faint silhouette visible.

As she moved, a long sword could be vaguely seen pressed against her right side, its scabbard engraved with the flamboyant characters “Water Strings.”

Shen Chunyi turned slightly. The woman seemed merely to be passing by and hadn’t noticed him. Shen Chunyi promptly fell silent, fearing she might recognize him.

However, while he kept quiet, others did not. The shopkeeper’s wife, seeing someone awkwardly standing at the entrance and not wanting to neglect a potential customer, quickly wiped her flour-dusted hands and called out warmly, “What would you like, esteemed guest?”

Shen Chunyi felt a twinge of helplessness. The hawkers who had been doing business along the street for years had voices honed by at least a decade of practice. The woman was indeed halted by the call and naturally assumed it was directed at her. Wondering how the shop might try to force a sale, she glanced sideways and incidentally caught sight of Shen Chunyi standing nearby.

She lifted her right hand, which had been resting on the sword hilt, and slightly lifted the veil, revealing half her face as she looked at Shen Chunyi with mild surprise. “Senior Brother.”

Hearing this address, Shen Chunyi immediately gave up on hiding. As if nothing were amiss, he placed a few copper coins on the counter and said gently to the shopkeeper, “One serving of soy milk, one serving of cow’s milk with extra sugar, and two portions of pan-fried buns, to go.”

Only then did he slowly turn his head, wearing a strained smile as he spoke with feigned nonchalance, “Ah, Shi Yun, long time no see. Would you like a portion as well?”

Shi Yun swept her gaze over him, her brow twitching slightly, followed by a faint curl of her lips. After studying Shen Chunyi for a moment, she slowly shook her head.

Shi Yun was Shen Chunyi’s junior sect sister, and they had known each other since childhood. When Shen Chunyi was ten, Shi Yun had already become a disciple under their grandmaster, Dongfang Zhen, of the Taiwu Mountain Sect. Compared to Shen Chunyi, Shi Yun was as normal as one could be—the kind of child neighbors would weepingly hold up as a model example.

From the moment she entered the sect, she devoted herself diligently to learning and training, honest to a fault, proper to the core, and hardworking beyond measure. What was even more frustrating was that Shi Yun possessed a natural talent for the art of herbs and plants. Measurements like how many grams of water or how many ounces of grass—once they passed through her mind, they were etched as firmly as characters carved in stone.

With talent and effort combined, she had naturally become a master of medicine, earning the deep satisfaction of their master, Dongfang Zhen.

As her senior brother, Shen Chunyi was quite different. Although his innate aptitude and talent were exceptional, and the sect leader held him in high regard, personally mentoring him, Shen Chunyi had a penchant for delving into all sorts of peculiar pursuits in his spare time—such as gu and poison.

But as they say, a prodigy remains a prodigy wherever they go. Even when he ventured into these frowned-upon and unorthodox paths, he achieved remarkable success. Shen Chunyi’s Jixue Sword was renowned as the foremost poisonous sword of its time, lethal upon contact with blood. There had never been a living creature that could survive its strike.

If he were utterly incompetent and achieved nothing, his master Dongfang Zhen could at least point a finger at his nose and scold him thoroughly. But even paddling a boat in a sewer, he could still make a name for himself, leaving others with nothing to say and only a splitting headache. This was especially true since Shen Chunyi had always been on good terms with Shi Yun, making the contrast all the more stark.

But life is unpredictable. In recent years, Shen Chunyi had been tirelessly pursuing his various whims and fancies, only to end up half-dead from his own efforts. When he began his three-year seclusion, both his mental and physical states were deeply concerning. Fortunately, he recovered well over those three years and was eventually able to resume his previous duties. Everyone thought that once he emerged from seclusion, life would return to normal. But just as he had finally healed and was ready to leave seclusion, before his junior disciples could even visit him, he vanished without a trace.

Since nearly half of the sect’s important affairs were under his charge, his sudden disappearance without a word threw the Taiwu Mountain Sect into chaos.

As for Shen Chunyi himself, he seemed to have evaporated. There was no news of him within the entire sect, nor had he ever sent word of his safety. Whether he was alive or dead remained unknown. Given his condition when he first entered seclusion, some of the more soft-hearted junior disciples were already preparing to erect a cenotaph for him in the back mountains.

Shi Yun never expected that their reunion months later would unfold like this.

Shen Chunyi changed the subject, asking, “You came down the mountain so early to take on a ghost report? Didn’t Tong Che come with you?”

Tong Che was Shen Chunyi and Shi Yun’s junior disciple brother and the strongest swordsman among their peers.

When commoners sought the help of cultivators to subdue demons and monsters, they would bring payment and submit a request known as a “ghost report,” which essentially served as a letter of commission. After accepting such a report, cultivation sects would dispatch their own cultivators to resolve the issue, exchanging services for payment—an important source of funding for many sects.

Whenever Dongfang Zhen sent disciples down the mountain to deal with demons and monsters, he made it a habit to pair a medical cultivator with a swordsman, ensuring at least one of each. Tong Che was Dongfang Zhen’s most outstanding swordsman, wielding the Cold Birch Sword with unmatched sharpness, capable of slaying demons, subduing monsters, and even splitting mountains and filling seas.

Tong Che’s relationship with Shen Chunyi was complicated, but he got along well with Shi Yun. Typically, ghost reports requiring a medical cultivator of Shi Yun’s caliber were more challenging to resolve, so Tong Che usually accompanied Shi Yun down the mountain.

Back when Shen Chunyi was still serving in Taiwu Mountain, he was used both as a medical cultivator and a swordsman, depending on who was unavailable that day. As a result, medical cultivators were rarely dispatched alone. Dealing with minor ghosts and monsters was manageable, but encountering dangerous beasts alone was far from safe.

Shi Yun withdrew her hand, adjusting her veil tightly. Her voice betrayed no emotion as she replied, “Just a minor issue. He’s been busy lately, so I came down alone.”

Shen Chunyi let out an “oh,” accepting the fried buns and bamboo tube, which felt heavy in his arms. He added, “Are you sure you’ll be fine alone? What kind of ghost report is it? I happen to have some free time and could go with you.”

Shi Yun didn’t seem keen on having him accompany her, or perhaps she sensed Shen Chunyi’s attempt to change the subject. She gave him a complicated look before finally saying, “No need.”

She rubbed the scabbard with her right index finger, hesitating as she asked, “Where have you been all this time?”

Shen Chunyi finished tying the hemp rope on his own, picked up the breakfast in his hand, and sighed helplessly at Shi Yun’s question. “Ah. Your timing couldn’t be worse. I don’t even know how to answer.”

Shi Yun watched him for a moment longer but didn’t press further.

However, Shen Chunyi knew that wasn’t what she really wanted to ask.

Even if she didn’t ask, Shen Chunyi felt compelled to answer. He forced a smile and said, “Just wandering around aimlessly, dealing with any demons or monsters I happened to come across along the way.”

He paused, then smiled slightly again. “I wasn’t in despair, don’t worry.”

Shi Yun looked at him, her already complicated expression growing even more tangled. Shen Chunyi, on the other hand, appeared utterly carefree, as if none of this concerned him.

She wanted to ask more but suddenly froze. It was as if she had seen a ghost—no, she had seen plenty of ghosts before, but her expression now was far worse than if she had seen one.

Blood surged from the depths of her heart to her head, pooling into a chaotic mix of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, then receding from her head to her feet, leaving her pale and cold.

Shen Chunyi felt uneasy under her strange gaze, thinking that although he had been haggard these past few days, he shouldn’t have turned into some unspeakable monstrosity. “What’s wrong?”

Shi Yun moved her lips silently, mouthing, “Turn around, quickly.”

Shen Chunyi turned his head to follow her gaze. The long street remained sparsely populated, with nothing out of the ordinary—no demons, no monsters, nothing terrifying at all. Unless, of course, the youth who should have been lying in the inn counted as something terrifying.

Xuan Shuangxu stood two steps behind Shen Chunyi, his expression neither dark nor bright, but overall barely maintaining a blank face. A strikingly bright strand of golden hair was woven into his high ponytail, which he twirled around his finger. Noticing Shi Yun had seen him, he lifted his chin and revealed a sinister smile.

He was originally slightly taller than Shen Chunyi, and when he lowered his head slightly, it felt like a whisper in the ear: “Master, why have you been gone so long?”

The faint chill of dusk settled in, and the morning light cast a mottled, even colder glow on the youth’s slightly pale face.

Shi Yun was rendered speechless, stammering “He, he, he…” for a long time without managing to form the rest of her sentence.

Xuan Shuangxu smiled and finished the sentence for her: “How is he still alive—right?”

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