My Green Tea Junior Sister Smells So Good - Chapter 9

Shen Qingyi, as a junior disciple, did not yet have the authority to take on apprentices, and the threshold for the elders to accept students was incredibly high.

If Du Yuanluo did not join the Yunyin Sect, anyone could drive her away. Moreover, since Du Yuanluo’s lifelong desire in her previous life was to join the sect, how could Shen Qingyi not fulfill it?

The easiest elder to talk to on Yunyin Peak was Elder Songhe, and Shen Qingyi was someone who rarely asked for favors. Despite this, she still paid the price of refining a whole batch of pills to convince Elder Songhe to accept Du Yuanluo as a nominal disciple.

The final step of alchemy required a cultivator to condense their true Qi into fire, a process that was extremely taxing on the spirit. Shen Qingyi stayed in the alchemy room for three days and three nights without sleep or rest before finally producing a batch of pills with pure quality.

Elder Songhe was very satisfied. He immediately handed over a jade pendant for an outer sect disciple of the Yunyin Sect, telling her to choose an auspicious day to bring Du Yuanluo for the formal apprenticeship ceremony.

Shen Qingyi was so exhausted that her steps were somewhat unsteady, but holding that jade pendant, her heart was filled with immense relief. She wondered how happy Du Yuanluo would be when she saw it. In truth, the girl was quite easy to coax, she didn’t even need much, just a little sweetness was enough to move her for a long time.

The thing Du Yuanluo wanted most had come to her three hundred years early. Heaven knew how much Shen Qingyi had wanted to personally acknowledge Du Yuanluo as a Yunyin disciple in her past life.

Upon leaving the alchemy room, Shen Qingyi felt as though something was missing. Du Yuanluo wasn’t waiting for her at the door. When she had gone in to refine the pills, Du Yuanluo had repeatedly nagged her to take care of her health, telling her not to get too tired or burn herself, going on and on. She had even said she would cook a large feast and wait for her to come out. Was she in the kitchen?

Shen Qingyi soon found her answer, because Jiang Linchuan was waiting there instead.

Shen Qingyi tried to walk past him as if he were invisible.

Jiang Linchuan stepped forward to block her. “Junior Sister, what exactly must I do for us to go back to the way things were?”

“We can never go back.” Thinking of Jiang Linchuan leading those monsters and ghosts to wash Yunyin Peak in blood, Shen Qingyi didn’t want to say another word to him.

“Are we really going to become this estranged over a mortal woman? I already sent her away. Why must you insist on bringing her back just to cause trouble? Do I have to kill her to resolve the rift between us?”

“You dare!”

Past events flashed vividly before her eyes: the sword piercing Du Yuanluo’s heart, the curse that shattered the souls of Yunyin disciples, the hellfire spreading across the mountains.

Shen Qingyi could no longer restrain herself. Her blade unsheathed, she swung toward Jiang Linchuan. Jiang Linchuan hadn’t expected her to actually get serious. Fortunately, his cultivation was deep, and since Shen Qingyi was exhausted from refining pills, he managed to narrowly dodge the strike.

However, Shen Qingyi seemed possessed, her moves all lethal, acting as if she wouldn’t stop until she took Jiang Linchuan’s life. Jiang Linchuan didn’t dare risk his life against her and was forced to retreat step by step.

Seeing the Eldest Brother and Second Sister fighting so fiercely, the other disciples didn’t dare intervene until the Sect Leader arrived to separate them.

Jiang Linchuan looked completely innocent. “Junior Sister, have you succumbed to inner demons during your practice? Calm down.”

Shen Qingyi’s eyes were bloodshot, looking truly as if she had deviated into madness. Staring at the Sect Leader’s furious face, she barely held back the urge to scream, “I’m going to kill you.”

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, everyone saw Shen Qingyi attack without provocation.

For fighting a fellow disciple, the punishment was twenty strokes of the cane.

Each heavy blow made Shen Qingyi’s mind clearer, she could not let Jiang Linchuan succeed. She swallowed the metallic taste of blood, but her exhausted body couldn’t withstand the heavy punishment, and she eventually lost consciousness, her hand still tightly gripping the outer disciple jade pendant.

Since her rebirth, she had hardly had a peaceful night’s sleep, today, she was forced into one. But even in sleep, she was restless, hearing the faint sound of Du Yuanluo crying in her ear.

Shen Qingyi didn’t know if Du Yuanluo was made of water, how could she have so many tears to shed? She cried at the slightest thing. In the past, Shen Qingyi thought her crying was a calculated tactic, but now it seemed she just really loved to cry.

It seemed she would have to give her the jade pendant to win a smile from the beauty.

Shen Qingyi’s fingers twitched slightly, wanting to hand the pendant to her, but her eyelids were too heavy to open, and a mouthful of blood was stuck in her throat, preventing her from speaking. Her hand, clutching the pendant, was enveloped by another pair of hands. Soon, Shen Qingyi drifted back into a coma, unaware that those hands were being peeled away from hers, bit by bit, until they let go completely.

The punishment had been severe. When Shen Qingyi woke again, the sun was high in the sky. Fortunately, the Sect Leader had excused her from three days of lessons to recover and reflect.

Shen Qingyi searched the small room. In the past few days, she had grown accustomed to waking up and seeing what new sleeping posture Du Yuanluo had invented. If Shen Qingyi didn’t sleep in the bed with her, Du Yuanluo refused to sleep there alone. She would either meditate with her and fall asleep on a cushion or prepare the bed for Shen Qingyi and fall asleep leaning against the bedside.

She reached for the side of the bed, nothing. She looked at the floor, it was empty. The entire room felt hollow. Her room had been like this for hundreds of years, but after Du Yuanluo stayed for just a few days, the sudden absence made the space feel cold and desolate.

Is she cooking?

Looking at the shadows outside, it was clearly late morning. Du Yuanluo never had a habit of sleeping in; if she were making food, it should have been done long ago.

A terrible thought flashed through Shen Qingyi’s mind. Ignoring the pain from her injuries, she forced herself up and rushed to the mountain gate. She searched the perimeter, but there was no sign of Du Yuanluo.

She had been asleep for a while, in the mortal world, ten days or half a month might have passed. If Du Yuanluo wasn’t on Yunyin Peak, who knew what could happen?

Panic set in. Shen Qingyi recklessly barged into Jiang Linchuan’s room, but he had heard she was looking for trouble and had already fled. Shen Qingyi trashed his room, leaving it in a shambles.

Since Jiang Linchuan didn’t show his face, Shen Qingyi carried her sword and hunted for him aggressively. Her Third Junior Sister, fearing she would cause more trouble, quickly blocked her way. “Second Sister, please calm down! If you have a grievance, the Sect Leader will handle it. You’re injured, this rampage will only hurt your body and you’ll have no defense when the Sect Leader hears of this.”

“Where did Jiang Linchuan take Du Yuanluo this time?” Shen Qingyi’s eyes were red, startling the Third Sister.

“Second Sister, you’ve really misunderstood Eldest Brother this time. Du Yuanluo… she really left on her own.”

“Why would she leave?” Shen Qingyi didn’t believe it. In her memory, Third Sister had never lied to her, but because she had defected to the demonic sect at the last moment in the previous life, Shen Qingyi couldn’t trust her as she once did.

Third Sister couldn’t answer the question and froze for a moment. “Second Sister, it’s better for everyone that she’s gone. Just let it go. Let’s go back to practicing like we used to.”

“All of you were pressuring her.” Shen Qingyi didn’t want to hear another word and pushed past her, only to be blocked by Fifth Junior Sister.

“Second Sister, it’s true. Miss Yuanluo really left of her own accord. She asked me to give this to you, saying you should live well and act as if she never came.”

She handed over a simple pouch made of coarse mortal cloth. Though the embroidery was exquisite, it couldn’t hide the poor quality of the material. Shen Qingyi opened it to find a lock of hair tied with a red string, a “love silken thread.”

Shen Qingyi didn’t understand the meaning, so Third Sister explained: “This is a memento used by mortal women to express their feelings. Second Sister, let it go.”

Shen Qingyi didn’t trust Third Sister, but she trusted Fifth Sister. Even when they had been at odds over Du Yuanluo in the previous life, she never doubted Fifth Sister’s character, she only hated that Du Yuanluo’s schemes had supposedly deceived everyone.

But even if Du Yuanluo had left voluntarily, she couldn’t just let it go. Ignoring their pleas, she broke through the barrier and headed for the mortal realm.

The mortal world was vast. Where would Du Yuanluo hide? She had said that as an orphan girl, she couldn’t survive alone, so she must have returned to her former masters.

Shen Qingyi arrived at the town where the Eldest Brother had last slain the demon. Amidst the bustling market crowds, she found no trace of Du Yuanluo.

Eventually, a teahouse owner called out to her, “Young lady, why are you out here all alone? Come in and have a cup of tea.”

Though Shen Qingyi maintained a calm exterior, the cane injuries and her journey had left her exhausted and in pain. She followed him in. After a cup of hot tea, her fatigue eased slightly as she listened to the owner nag: “In these times, it’s really scandalous for young girls to be running around everywhere.”

Ignoring the social commentary, Shen Qingyi asked, “Manager, is there a woman named Du Yuanluo in this area?”

The owner perked up. “Du Yuanluo? Everyone around here knows her! Her name is famous or rather, infamous.”

Even with her lack of social grace, Shen Qingyi could hear the disdain in his voice. Though uncomfortable, she asked patiently, “What happened to her?”

Du Yuanluo had promised not to lie to her, but she had still kept many secrets. Shen Qingyi wanted to know her past.

Sensing a chance to gossip, the owner grew excited. “You have no idea. This Du Yuanluo is a total jinx! Anyone who touches her meets with misfortune.”

This was exactly how Shen Qingyi used to describe Du Yuanluo. Hearing it come from the mouth of a vulgar, worldly man made Shen Qingyi feel a strange sense of disgust, though she wasn’t sure if it was for the owner or her former self.

“Why do you say that?”

“That Du Yuanluo has a ‘hard’ fate. She was born and immediately jinxed her whole family to death, leaving her an orphan. The Great Philanthropist, Member Li, took pity on her and kept her as a maid. Things were quiet for a few years, but as she grew, she turned into a real fox spirit. She seduced the masters and young lords, turning father against son and brother against brother. A perfectly good household was ruined. It was only the Madam’s kindness that she wasn’t sold to a brothel, instead, she was sent to serve the young mistress.”

“Then, when the Li family’s daughter was chosen to be the bride for some ‘Mountain King’ demon, the girl at least had some conscience and went in her place. You’d think she’d get a good reputation for that, but a fox is a fox. All the other brides never came back, but she? She not only came back, but she brought a man with her, said he was an immortal master. Since he was an immortal, he should have been honored by the people, but she insisted on hogging him to herself, following him even if he didn’t want her.”

“We thought she was going off to be a celestial lady, but who knew? Less than half a year later, she’s back alone. Clearly, she must have caused chaos in the immortal realm until they couldn’t stand her anymore. Her return has even ruined the young mistress’s reputation. Miss, if you’re a decent person, don’t associate with her, lest she drag your name through the mud too.”

Shen Qingyi’s hand gripped her sword so tightly her knuckles turned white. It was unclear if she was angry at the owner’s slanderous words or at her own past self.

Nearby, the owner’s wife, who was clearing tables, spoke up: “Old man, keep a civil tongue. She’s just a poor, suffering woman. Say less.” She then turned to Shen Qingyi. “My husband has a big mouth, but he’s right about one thing, don’t go looking for Du Yuanluo. A girl’s reputation is everything. Words can kill.”

The owner argued back, “What did I say wrong? Everyone says it! You’re just being sentimental…”

Shen Qingyi slammed her hand onto the table. The corner of the wood cracked under the force, cutting off their bickering. Without a word, she stood up and left.

Du Yuanluo could absolutely not stay here.