The Villainess Always Tries to Seduce Me - Chapter 18

“She’s likely not very happy about it,” Yun Chuanzhi thought guiltily, as she detected a trace of depression on the puppet’s crude stone features for the first time.

But the puppet still obeyed submissively: “Yes, Master.”

Black Egg was very well-behaved, which was perfect. Satisfied, Yun Chuanzhi nodded, placed Black Egg on her shoulder, and headed out for dinner. Under the moonlight that flowed like water, Yun Chuanzhi stepped down the stairs, chatting incessantly.

She talked about whatever came to mind: Wujian City, the Qianyuan Realm, Mount Buxi, telling the puppet everything. She didn’t dare speak of these things to others, but a puppet is loyal for a lifetime, making it a rare and reliable confidante.

Although Black Egg had a sweet voice, it was a creature of few words. Yun Chuanzhi would chatter for a dozen sentences before it offered a single reply, behaving with a steady composure that made one wonder who the true master was.

However, Yun Chuanzhi was content with simple joys. Having someone to listen to her was already a blessing. She talked until her throat was dry, only falling into a hoarse sleep when the moon vanished into the forest and all was silent.

Before she knew it, over a month had passed since Yun Chuanzhi arrived at Gundan Peak. Initially, the other immortal servants thought she was just a little slave for Bai Fenghe’s amusement and frequently excluded her. But seeing her now firmly established, they no longer dared to bring their hostility into the open.

However, behind her back, various scandalous rumors flourished, even reaching the point of being compiled into booklets and circulated in secret.

Mixing among the servants, Yun Chuanzhi heard a bit of this gossip. But since she never cared for reputation, she ignored it, focusing on eating well, sleeping well, and living a comfortable, carefree life.

Especially over the last few days of continuous drizzle, rain falling from dawn to midnight, then from midnight to dawn, the sound of the rain invited a heavy drowsiness. Since Bai Fenghe had been unwell for days and had dismissed all serving servants, Yun Chuanzhi’s days became even better.

She had very little to do, using the rest of her time for sightseeing and sleeping.

While others found the rainy days sticky and unpleasant, Yun Chuanzhi loved them. She often sat under an old tree at the cliff’s edge with a bamboo umbrella, gazing at the vast sea of clouds in the distance and the fresh greenery of the grass nearby, looking very much like a leisurely crane.

On this day, she slept until noon again. After eating, she took her bamboo-leaf umbrella to the cliff, found a rattan chair, and sat down lazily, with Black Egg silently holding the large umbrella for her.

It’s no wonder people say a relaxed heart leads to a plump body. After a solid month of eating and sleeping, Yun Chuanzhi’s originally gaunt frame had visibly filled out. Though still thin compared to average people, her chest now had contours, and her cheeks could be pinched for a bit of soft flesh.

Her skin, bathed daily in the mountain moisture, had become much smoother and fairer. Sitting on the rattan chair with her hair in a bun, she finally looked like a vibrant girl of sixteen.

She was dozing with her eyes closed when she suddenly heard a string of hurried footsteps. Her eyes snapped open, and she met the gaze of a soaking-wet woman.

“Dagou!” The visitor was Cheng Jinshu, whom she hadn’t seen for a month. She was still wearing her orange-red round-collared robe, though the sleeves were slightly frayed and she looked somewhat haggard.

But her voice was still as loud as a trumpet as she reached out to lift Yun Chuanzhi up: “How strange, you’re actually still alive!”

What kind of talk was that? Was she supposed to be dead? Yun Chuanzhi, lifted off her feet, had to pat the other’s hand to signal her to put her down.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen a living person in dozens of days, I got overexcited,” Cheng Jinshu giggled, letting go. She leaned her face close to Yun Chuanzhi’s. “I’m just shocked you could survive this long in my aunt’s hands.”

“Is your aunt a man-eater or something?” Yun Chuanzhi couldn’t help but ask.

“Pretty much,” Cheng Jinshu waved a hand, her voice tinged with fear whenever she mentioned Bai Fenghe. “Forget what she did in the past; just in recent years, not a single servant serving near her has survived past five days.”

That exaggerated? Yun Chuanzhi widened her eyes.

“Why would I lie to you?” Cheng Jinshu talked rapidly, continuing before Yun Chuanzhi could speak. “My aunt is famously fierce and cruel, so I’m curious: how exactly have you lived this long?”

This question stumped her. Yun Chuanzhi pursed her lips and shook her head: “I don’t know either.”

Cheng Jinshu looked at Yun Chuanzhi, her bright eyes curving as she smiled. “Or is it true? The forbidden secrets about you and her that are circulating in the sect?”

“What forbidden secrets?” Yun Chuanzhi froze. She took the small booklet Cheng Jinshu handed over and looked down to flip through it.

After just two pages, her neck turned completely red. She shoved the booklet back into Cheng Jinshu’s hands and shook her head repeatedly. “Stop joking! Hide that away quickly. If the Sect Leader sees such lewd poetry and prose, she might just wipe out everyone on Gundan Peak.”

“Don’t worry. The cultivators on Mount Buxi have all sorts of tricks. There are countless secret booklets like this; they disappear once they’ve been read, so they definitely won’t be discovered.”

As Cheng Jinshu spoke, she opened her hand. The booklet in her palm instantly turned into a flame shaped like a butterfly and quickly burned away.

Only then did Yun Chuanzhi feel relieved. Though she hadn’t written the stories, if that woman saw them, it might very well implicate her.

Yun Chuanzhi sat back down. Black Egg, holding the umbrella, shook its short arms, and the rain accumulated on the umbrella fell like a curtain, drenching Cheng Jinshu until she looked as if she had just crawled out of a pond.

“Um, would you like,” she began.

“Thanks!” Before the words were even out, Cheng Jinshu ducked under the umbrella. Having no chair, she sat on the tree roots, wringing water from her clothes.

This person was an optimist; even in this state, she was smiling, appearing not to fear the cold at all. Yun Chuanzhi signaled Black Egg to tilt the umbrella slightly to block more rain for her.

The surroundings went quiet, with only the sound of the rain and the rushing water below the cliff. Yun Chuanzhi closed her eyes to sleep again.

But just as her mind grew hazy, Cheng Jinshu, unable to endure the loneliness, spoke up again: “Oh, is this a puppet? Since my grand-master passed away, no one on Mount Buxi anymore knows how to refine puppets.”

Yun Chuanzhi caught the key point. Her sleepiness vanished, and she asked in surprise, “Sect Leader Mingcun also knew puppetry?”

“Puppetry? That’s underestimating my grand-master. Back then, she was the world’s most proficient cultivator in tool refining. It’s just that the art of tool refining declined later, so no one knows about it anymore.”

Cheng Jinshu continued talking: “You’re often by my aunt’s side, so you should have seen that iron puppet of hers. Grand-master made it for her with her own hands when Aunt first joined Mount Buxi.”

The woman gazed at the rolling mountain ridges covered in rain and mist, her smile faint and her expression dazed. “Back then, I had already joined under my master. Aunt came even later than I did. She didn’t like the generational titles cultivators usually follow, so I called her Aunt.”

“She had excellent potential and was brilliant; she could master any mental technique or spell at a glance. Moreover, her personality was soft, bright, and charming, very likeable. She coaxed Grand-master into treating her like a treasure, holding her carefully for fear she’d break, protecting her for fear she’d melt. To outsiders, they might as well have been mother and daughter. My master was often jealous back then and was unbalanced about it for years.”

Soft, bright, and charming? Bai Fenghe? Yun Chuanzhi stared at Cheng Jinshu for a long time to confirm she hadn’t misheard.

That scum Sect Leader who killed and beat people at the drop of a hat and was deeply calculating, could she have had that kind of personality in her youth?

“Thinking back now, that appearance of hers was likely mostly an act. Otherwise, how could she have done something as treacherous as killing her master?” Cheng Jinshu said as if reading her mind, her face showing hatred. “It’s just a shame her acting was so good that her true nature was only exposed now.”

If it was an act, that makes sense, Yun Chuanzhi nodded in agreement. The two were silent for a moment before Yun Chuanzhi broke the silence: “Where have you been lately? Why do you look like this?”

And as a cultivator, she wasn’t even using a water-repelling spell, allowing herself to be drenched by the rain.

A flash of embarrassment appeared on Cheng Jinshu’s face. She reached out to touch her frayed sleeve and said sheepishly, “Last time, I got into a fight with my fellow disciples for bringing you to Mount Buxi, which resulted in a junior brother losing decades of his cultivation. His master, Peak Master Liao, was furious and punished me by sending me to the Demon Melting Cave to refine demons.”

“I just came out after a month. I’m so tired I can’t even use my spiritual power.”

It was actually because of her. Yun Chuanzhi felt guilty. Just as she was about to say something, she saw Cheng Jinshu giggling again: “It’s fine. I was the one who wanted to find some fun by sending you there anyway. Who knew I’d run into those jerks?”

“You’ve known for a while that I’m not Liu Dagou, haven’t you?” Yun Chuanzhi looked at her.

“I’ve even read your forbidden secret booklets; how could I not know what your name is?” Cheng Jinshu shook her head indifferently. “Besides, Liu Dagou or Cui Ergou, there’s not much difference.”

Both are terrible names, Yun Chuanzhi lowered her eyes, secretly vowing to find an opportunity to change her name back to her own.

However, regardless of the names, Yun Chuanzhi felt a damp sense of guilt, like the rain. She considered herself a mortal; she would pay back those who were bad to her a thousand times over, but if someone was good to her, she didn’t know what to do.

Tomorrow, I’ll steal some more blood-healing pills from Bai Fenghe to give to Cheng Jinshu as an apology, Yun Chuanzhi thought secretly.

“But since you are a disciple under Sect Master Xiaochen, why have you fallen to this state?” Yun Chuanzhi asked directly.

The smile on Cheng Jinshu’s face froze. After a moment, she rubbed her hands together and laughed, touching her cheeks to change the subject: “I wonder how long this rain will last. It’s truly cold.”

Since she didn’t want to talk about it, Yun Chuanzhi didn’t ask further, looking up at the curtain of rain falling like thousands of needles.

“It has rained for twelve whole days without stopping.” Although Yun Chuanzhi liked rainy days, she also liked the sun. With continuous drizzle every day, she was starting to find it hard to endure.

“Twelve days?” Cheng Jinshu turned to look at her in surprise, a strange look in her eyes. “But look, the main peak of Mount Buxi has no rain.”

Yun Chuanzhi looked toward the golden roof of the main hall in the distance. Although it was shrouded in dark clouds, there was indeed no rain, and one could even see glimpses of sunlight squeezing through.

This is truly bizarre. Yun Chuanzhi sensed something was wrong and cast a questioning look at Cheng Jinshu.

Cheng Jinshu blinked, a look of understanding appearing on her face. She smiled and said, “It seems you don’t know: every peak on Mount Buxi has a mountain spirit, and every mountain spirit recognizes a master.”

“So the climate of these five peaks is tied to their respective Peak Masters. If there is continuous heavy cloud cover, it means the master’s heart is clouded.”

“So,” Yun Chuanzhi pointed at the sky and asked, “since it’s raining now, does that mean the Sect Leader is crying?”

Bai Fenghe is crying? What is she crying about?

Cheng Jinshu nodded and was about to speak when a bolt of lightning suddenly split the sky. Sensing danger, Yun Chuanzhi reacted quickly and pulled Cheng Jinshu away from the old tree.

The lightning tore through the sky and the rain, striking the tree squarely. With a delayed rumble of thunder, the lush old tree was instantly turned into a piece of charred black wood.

The two were still in shock. Yun Chuanzhi stood dazed for a long time before speaking softly, “Then this lightning and thunder, what does that mean?”

Cheng Jinshu was silent for a long time before she replied, “I think Aunt must have,” she paused.

“Cried herself unconscious.”

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