I Failed to Reform the Protagonist [Transmigration] - Chapter 15

Having escaped the snake’s jaws, the young disciple remained in a state of shock. His legs were so weak he had to brace himself against a tree trunk just to stand upright.

Pei Jing was quite happy to see Chu Junyu. He waved at him and, as the other approached, pressed for answers: “Where did you go? I’ve been looking for you for ages.”

Chu Junyu replied, “Something came up.”

Pei Jing continued, “What was it?”

Chu Junyu didn’t answer. His gaze shifted to the pale-faced young disciple.

His pupils were very light, giving him a naturally aloof and cold look when he stared at someone. The young disciple felt his scalp tingle under that gaze and let out a miserable cry: “Chu… Brother Chu.”

Chu Junyu extended a hand toward him and said coldly, “Give it to me.”

The disciple was bewildered. “What? Give you what?”

“The thing you took from beside that snake.”

Trembling under the boy’s gaze and not daring to hide a thing, the disciple pulled a palm-sized Lingzhi mushroom from his sleeve. He placed it into Chu Junyu’s hand with shaking fingers, explaining, “It’s this. When I went to pick it, the snake wasn’t even there. It only chased me after I’d walked quite a distance.”

Pei Jing went blank for a moment, then didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Brother, aren’t you basically a robber? If we wanted one, we could have picked it ourselves.” Anyway, I already found a free errand boy.

Chu Junyu ignored him.

Pei Jing leaned in, but as he saw the appearance of the Lingzhi clearly, his smile froze as well.

The Lingzhi lying in Chu Junyu’s palm was clearly something sinister. It was naturally a deep purplish-red, which looked even more vivid against his pale skin. The patterns on the mushroom were black, seeping into the flesh like a streak of dark energy running through blood and bone.

Pei Jing asked the disciple, “You actually dared to pick this?”

The disciple was even more confused. “Why wouldn’t I? Don’t all Lingzhi look like this?”

Pei Jing: “…Fine.” Whatever makes you happy.

They had been chased by that snake for a long time but still hadn’t made it out of the Yunlan Mountains; they were still in the middle zone.

The light was fading minute by minute. In a short while, it would be night. With the thick fog making the path impossible to find, the young disciple tried to scout the way but ended up walking in a literal circle, stumbling right back to where he started.

He dropped his compass in despair. “It’s almost dark. We can’t make it back today; the senior brother is definitely going to scold us.” But as he looked resentfully at the other two, he discovered to his further misery that he seemed to be the only one worrying about it.

Chu Junyu, finding the ground too dirty, had sat up on a tree branch. He held a black book, tracing something on it with a cold expression.

As for “Zhang Yiming,” he was even more outrageous. He was actually roasting the Lingzhi!

The disciple ran over. “What are you doing?!”

Pei Jing, who had just piled up some dry branches to start a fire, said matter-of-factly, “I’m hungry. Preparing dinner.”

The disciple was incredulous. “This is our mission! You’re planning to just eat it?”

Pei Jing: “I’m starving to death here. Who cares about the mission?”

The disciple was fuming. “Did you even ask Brother Chu’s opinion?”

Pei Jing grinned. Holding the branch with the skewered Lingzhi, he waved it toward Chu Junyu and shouted, “Chu Junyu, do you want some?!”

Chu Junyu didn’t even shift his gaze. He said flatly, “No.”

Pei Jing spread his hands. “Then I’ll eat it myself.” He turned back to the dumbfounded disciple. “See? He has no objection.”

“…”

The disciple broke down and lunged forward, trying to snatch the stick from Pei Jing’s hand. In the scuffle, Pei Jing almost lost his balance and fell backward. “What are you doing!”

The disciple gnashed his teeth. “Give that Lingzhi back to me!”

He grabbed Pei Jing’s sleeve, looking ready to brawl. Pei Jing, being worn down by this kid, lost his temper. Finally, Chu Junyu descended from the tree and spoke up to save him.

“Let him roast it.”

Still clutching Pei Jing’s sleeve, the disciple turned back in tragic indignation. “Don’t, Brother Chu! It took me all day to find that thing!”

Chu Junyu stepped closer, his black robes nearly merging with the night. In the faint red glow of the fire, his face appeared even more pale and cold. His eyes, light as glass and devoid of emotion, flicked over Pei Jing. He said sarcastically, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s see how long he can roast it for.”

The disciple was still very afraid of Chu Junyu. After a moment’s hesitation, he let go.

Pei Jing finally tugged his clothes back, thinking to himself that this kid was truly irritable. He placed the Lingzhi over the fire, turning it slowly. Snorting at Chu Junyu’s words, he said, “With my grilling skills, you’ll smell the aroma in half an hour.”

Half an hour later.

Nothing.

“…”

The fire blazed, but the purplish-red Lingzhi hadn’t changed at all. Even after being roasted for ages, the surface of the mushroom was still cold.

The disciple sneered, “Where’s the aroma?”

Pei Jing: “…”

He knew this Lingzhi was sinister and had intended to use his Dan fire (core fire) to burn it and see if he could reveal its true nature. He hadn’t expected it to be so sturdy; even the core fire of a Golden Core cultivator couldn’t leave a mark on it.

…Is this thing a sentient spirit?

Pei Jing bullshitted calmly: “Have you ever seen a Lingzhi that smells aromatic when cooked? I was just using a metaphor. You have no common sense. I see that its color is vibrant; it must be cooked through and ready to eat.”

Chu Junyu said, “You eat it then.”

Pei Jing: “…” Eat it my foot. This thing felt like a rock; one bite would probably shatter his teeth.

Pei Jing took the Lingzhi off the stick and said, “Who said I was going to eat the Lingzhi? It was just for flavor. What I’m eating is this stick. I peeled and shaved it carefully before roasting—it’s the main course.”

The young disciple didn’t give him any face and burst into loud laughter.

Chu Junyu offered an unreadable compliment: “Then you truly are impressive.”

“I’m alright, I guess.” Pei Jing snapped the branch, which had become very brittle after being tempered by the fire, and held it out, trying to change the subject. “Are you guys hungry? Want a bite?”

The moment he handed it over, a sudden demonic wind swept through the woods.

As the wind passed, the sound of ghoulish infants giggling echoed through the air: Hee hee hee.

The disciple shuddered where he sat. “What was that!”

The wind howled incessantly but didn’t approach. Using the campfire as a center, it circled around them. The sharp, eerie laughter of the infants was ear-piercing, continuing without pause. The moon in the center of the sky was tinged with red, like a blood-mist. The firelight was also a faint red. Shadows shifted in the fog, and they could vaguely see several short, red silhouettes. They were holding hands, forming a circle, and bouncing like leather balls.

Pei Jing could see them clearly: no whites in their eyes—just empty sockets—bloated faces, blood-red skin, and wrinkled all over. They looked exactly like newborn babies. However, they were currently just low-intelligence evil spirits with little power to harm; they usually waited for people to become mentally unhinged from fear before crawling inside a human body to parasitize it.

What made Pei Jing’s heart sink was: did all these infants die here?

One of the little ghosts hit a tree while jumping. Its neck was thin, and with that single impact, its head snapped off. Caught by the wind, it rolled right to the young disciple’s feet. The skull was bleeding from its seven orifices and emitted a thick stench of rot. Its eyeless sockets stared straight up.

The disciple screamed his head off: “AAAAAAHHH—!” He kicked the head away and ran to hide behind Pei Jing, covering his ears and shouting in a breakdown, “What are these things?!”

Pei Jing calmly added some wood to the fire. “You’re already a cultivator, and you’re still afraid of ghosts?”

Disciple: “If a head suddenly dropped in front of you, could you not be afraid?!”

Pei Jing: “I actually wouldn’t be.”

Just then, the gale rose again. Along with the hee-hee-hee of the ghost infants, the cries of women were mixed in. By the moonlight, several female silhouettes suddenly appeared behind the circle of red-skinned babies. Their hair was disheveled, their faces pale and blue, and they wore bizarre smiles.

The disciple broke down again. “Are we going to die here?”

Pei Jing comforted him kindly: “No, they should be afraid of the fire. They won’t dare come over.”

The disciple exhaled, looking dejected. “That’s good then. Let’s just wait for dawn. The senior brother should come looking for us.”

Pei Jing put on a troubled expression. “Dawn? That might be a bit difficult. This wood isn’t enough to keep the fire going.”

The disciple’s eyes widened. Looking down, he saw the wood was indeed almost gone. He cried, “Then what do we do?!”

Pei Jing thought that teasing him was truly fun. After pondering for a moment, he said, “Waiting here to die is worse than striking first. They’re just low-level demons; we can definitely beat them. Why don’t we send someone to test them out? If we can’t beat them, we’ll think of something else.”

“Then, who goes?”

Pei Jing said seriously, “You go. The most handsome one goes.”

The disciple shook his head like a rattle, wailing, “No, no, no! It should be you, Brother Zhang!”

He’d even started calling him “Brother.”

Pei Jing: “Why?”

The disciple was driven mad by him. He didn’t dare talk to Chu Junyu, so he could only close his eyes and start flattering: “Among the three of us, you are the most handsome! No—in the entire Yunxiao Sect, I can’t find anyone more handsome than you! You’re good-looking, so you go!”

Pei Jing felt refreshed and satisfied. He had just been made a laughingstock by this disciple earlier, and now he had finally gotten his revenge.

He stood up and brushed the grass off his clothes, his tone particularly obnoxious: “It’s always us good-looking people who have to do the hard work. Can’t you ugly people be a bit braver?”

Chu Junyu, who had witnessed the entire thing: “…”