The Villainous Senior Brother Doesn't Want to Wash White [Transmigration] - Chapter 36

Being suddenly picked up by Ji Yanqing, Lei—the little fluffball—didn’t quite understand what was happening.

Before the white tuft could snap out of it, Ji Yanqing had already carried it across the plaza behind the gate and arrived directly outside the doors of the Main Hall’s Council Chamber.

This Council Chamber was where the Ji family head and core members discussed vital family matters, similar to the Tianshu Peak Hall of the Qingmen Sect.

Should I wait for them to arrive before going in?

“Meow~”

While Ji Yanqing was hesitating, Lei—as if sensing his uncertainty—gave a soft cry, leaped from his arms, and ran off toward the exterior of the Council Chamber.

At that moment, the previously tightly shut doors opened before Ji Yanqing’s eyes.

He couldn’t be bothered with the suddenly runaway Lei and instinctively looked up into the Council Chamber.

The chamber was exactly as he had imagined: a vast, empty hall with six prayer mats. Three cultivators, dressed in differently colored Daoist robes, sat upon three of those mats. As the doors opened, they turned in unison to stare at him.

The moment they saw Ji Yanqing clearly, their expressions shifted from initial surprise to blatant loathing.

Just as Ji Yanhui had said, there were quite a few people in the Ji family who harbored hostility toward him. The disciples he had met earlier merely feared him, but the three before him now directed pure, unadulterated enmity in their gazes.

Confirming that the person before them was not a hallucination, the younger cultivator on the leftmost mat stood up abruptly. He pointed a trembling finger at Ji Yanqing, looking as though he had seen a ghost. After a long while, he finally asked, “The person Ji Yanhui was looking for was actually you?”

The person on the right, a middle-aged cultivator in a deep blue robe with a goatee, was even more sarcastic.

Seeing Ji Yanqing, the goateed cultivator raised an eyebrow, stroked his beard, and drawled mockingly, “The Young Master has actually returned to Jingtian Prefecture. Could it be that you were kicked out of the Qingmen Sect and had to crawl back here in disgrace?”

Having finished, the goateed cultivator let out a few chuckles, assuming his words would leave Ji Yanqing speechless.

However, they didn’t know that when it came to being sarcastic and snide, no one could beat Ji Yanqing.

The only reason Ji Yanqing had remained silent was that he hadn’t yet confirmed the identities of these men.

While the two were speaking, Ji Yanqing was quietly observing them, recalling the records and plot points regarding important Ji family members.

The Council Chamber was used for major family decisions; only ten cultivators in the entire Ji family were qualified to be here. Since these men appeared to be the original host’s elders, the younger one was likely at the Soul Manifestation stage, the goateed one had a low-grade Golden Core, and as for the one in the middle…

Ji Yanqing looked at the cultivator on the center mat. He was a quite amiable-looking middle-aged man who had remained silent since Ji Yanqing’s arrival. His deep black eyes revealed no emotion whatsoever.

The more he acted this way, the less Ji Yanqing could fathom his identity.

Fortunately, he had already deduced the identities of the two on either side.

Ji Yanqing looked at the younger cultivator who had stood up. With a faint upward curl of his lips, he asked nonchalantly, “Fifth Uncle, it’s been so many years. I remember when I left the Ji family, your soul was already at the stage of perfection. How is it that you’re still stuck at the Soul Manifestation stage?”

The young cultivator’s face darkened instantly, and he glared at Ji Yanqing in a rage: “You!”

Being stagnant at the Soul Manifestation stage and unable to form a Golden Core had been a sore spot for the Fifth Elder of the Ji family for years. Having it brought up so ruthlessly now, he couldn’t help but be furious.

【Villain Points +20.】

The system notification chimed in his ear. With the points in hand, he decisively ignored the Fifth Elder and turned his gaze to the goateed cultivator on the right.

The goateed man had been gloating slightly at Ji Yanqing’s mockery of the Fifth Elder, but his joy didn’t last long. Ji Yanqing addressed him with a half-smile: “Is this not Third Uncle? I heard your lifespan has only three hundred years left. Have you still not found a spiritual artifact for reincarnation and re-cultivation?”

“You—you—you!”

The goateed cultivator’s beard bristled and his eyes bulged, but what Ji Yanqing said was the truth. He stammered “you” for a long time but couldn’t utter a single rebuttal.

【Villain Points +10.】

“Ji Yanhui, why did you let him… return to the Ji family?!”

The sound of the chamber doors opening again came from behind Ji Yanqing. The goateed cultivator finally found his opening and barked the question at Ji Yanhui, who had just appeared.

Ji Yanqing turned around; sure enough, it was Ji Yanhui’s group entering the chamber.

He didn’t know how the three of them had made it through the Gate of One Heart, but he could see that the faces of both Qi Ye and Ji Yanhui were somewhat grim.

…It shouldn’t have anything to do with me, right?

Ji Yanqing murmured to himself, though he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt.

At the sight of Ji Yanqing, Qi Ye’s expression finally softened slightly. He walked directly to Ji Yanqing’s side, looking for all the world like a pained puppy that had just been abandoned and then returned to its master.

Ji Yanhui shot a cold look at the goateed cultivator. Though he didn’t speak, the chill radiating from him was enough to drop the temperature in the chamber by three degrees. Even Ji Yanqing couldn’t help but rub his palms together, feeling the bite of the cold.

The goateed man felt the frigid aura from Ji Yanhui and shuddered. He hurriedly changed his tone: “Third Young Master, I merely wonder why you would allow someone already expelled from the family to return.”

His tone was significantly more respectful than before.

Noticing Ji Yanqing rubbing his hands, Ji Yanhui restrained his cold aura slightly. His thin lips parted as he replied: “Cloud Pendant.”

In front of others, Ji Yanhui was indeed a man of few words, matching his persona in the book perfectly.

But why does he become so talkative when it’s just me?

Ji Yanqing began to wonder if he possessed some innate skill that caused characters’ personas to go OOC.

Although Ji Yanhui’s response was only two words, the others were long accustomed to his way of speaking. Furthermore, upon hearing the word “Cloud Pendant,” the expressions of the three cultivators all shifted to varying degrees.

The goateed man snapped out of it first and spoke with considerable disdain: “If you are counting on nephew Yanqing to retrieve the Cloud Pendant, I fear there will be danger given his cultivation level.”

In truth, given his own level, he couldn’t quite tell which stage of Soul Manifestation Ji Yanqing was currently in. But thinking back to when Ji Yanqing left the family, he was only at the Initial stage. In a mere five years, surely he couldn’t have reached the Perfection stage?

Ji Yanhui had also considered this. He turned his head to survey Ji Yanqing and said, “His soul is already at the stage of perfection.”

Goateed Cultivator: “!!”

Ji Yanhui’s nonchalant statement caused the goateed man’s eyes to bulge in shock.

The other younger cultivator also looked quite surprised. He scrutinized Ji Yanqing again. After a short while, he retracted his gaze and nodded: “It is indeed Soul Perfection. The next step is forming the Golden Core.”

He had been stuck at the stage of Soul Perfection for nearly a hundred years, so he was most familiar with the state of that level.

However, looking at Ji Yanqing’s current state, while his soul had just reached perfection, his True Qi was full but not overflowing, showing faint signs of an impending Golden Core formation.

“Heh, can someone like him even form a high-grade Golden Core?”

No matter how dissatisfied the goateed man felt, he had no way to deal with Ji Yanqing. After hearing the younger cultivator’s words, he could only mock him resentfully.

As he spoke, he peeked at Ji Yanqing, hoping to see a trace of anger on his face.

To his disappointment, upon hearing this, Ji Yanqing’s expression remained arrogant and punchable, without a hint of displeasure.

When did Ji Yanqing’s state of mind become so stable?

The goateed man was startled, murmuring secretly to himself.

He didn’t know that from start to finish, Ji Yanqing never intended to form a high-grade Golden Core. Right now, he just wanted to get the Cloud Pendant quickly and fulfill his agreement with Ji Yanhui.

Now that everyone was present, the next topic of discussion was the Ji family’s Cloud Pendant.