Chapter 77: Ghost Cultivator, also a Demon Cultivator

Those who practice Cultivation are naturally sharp of hearing and sight; Ruan Xing lay on her bed, listening to the sounds of fellow disciples passing by on the nearby path from time to time, and felt very at ease.

Thinking about it carefully, she had changed her living quarters several times since arriving in the world of Cultivation; each time she paid the rent, she would have to move again before long. This time was better, as the Inner Sect residence was free, so perhaps she could stay for a longer time.

Ruan Xing practiced the Illusion Technique with peace of mind for a few days. Although the duration of the effect hadn't improved much, if she could see a progress bar, Ruan Xing could be certain that she had definitely increased it by a tiny bit toward the second level.

It was not until she received a message from Lu Jin that Ruan Xing came out of her room to bask in the sun.

"Most of the sect's trivial matters are handled by the Outer Sect's Sect Affairs Hall, but there are some that Outer Sect disciples cannot handle, so the Inner Sect's External Affairs Hall takes over," Lu Jin said. "You should have known while you were in the Outer Sect a few days ago that the Cold Mountain Secret Realm collapsed. It is said that Demon Cultivators infiltrated it, and many disciples in the External Affairs Hall were sent out to search for the traces of Demon Cultivators, so they are currently short-handed. I spoke to the Senior Brother there, and after obtaining the Elder's consent, I came to find you!"

"Thank you, Senior Sister Lu," Ruan Xing said sincerely. She took out a bottle of Naqi Pill. "I've troubled you, Senior Sister. Please accept this bottle of pills as a token of my respect; I hope you won't mind."

"Oh!" Lu Jin waved her hands hurriedly. "I gave up hope of forming a Golden Core long ago; you should keep this for yourself. I was just idle and saw that you were young, so I helped out on a whim."

Ruan Xing praised her happily: "Senior Sister is truly a good person."

Lu Jin's eyes flickered slightly; she turned her head and smiled: "Who told me I was born with a warm heart? It's nothing worth mentioning."

Ruan Xing caught a trace of abnormality in her expression, but she did not feel any malice from Lu Jin toward her.

Perhaps this was the consequence of her unwillingness to resist the Questioning Heart Stone... Lu Jin did not know which Elder or Sect Master had accepted the arrangement to approach her.

She had expected this long ago, but she was not a Demon Cultivator to begin with. Even if Lu Jin wanted to investigate, she wouldn't find anything unusual, so there was no need to fear anything.

Ruan Xing asked instead: "Senior Sister, are Demon Cultivators very powerful? Do we need to send so many Inner Sect disciples to deal with them?"

"That's not necessarily true..." Lu Jin thought for a moment and said, "I don't know if they are powerful, because there is currently no concrete evidence that such a Demon Cultivator exists. However, you don't go out much, so you might not know the reason."

Lu Jin said to Ruan Xing earnestly: "Demon Cultivators are all cultivators who practice Evil Methods, have no humanity, and stop at nothing. Many years ago, they were already rejected by many orthodox cultivators. After several great wars between the righteous and the demonic, under the joint suppression of several major sects, all Demon Cultivators were driven to the Northern Territory of Beizhou, where they only have a very small piece of land. Although our Nanzhou is barren and lacks resources compared to other provinces, it is the safest place. With Beizhou and Central Province in between, Nanzhou hasn't seen a Demon Cultivator for nearly thirty years. If traces of a Demon Cultivator are really found this time, it can be considered a major event."

"Is that so..." Ruan Xing lowered her eyes. So once Xie Huai was exposed, he would become a target for everyone, and all the sect cultivators in Nanzhou would hunt him down. "Then what about the Demon Cultivators from thirty years ago?"

Lu Jin scratched her head. "I had just started Qi Refining back then and didn't participate. But later, I heard from other fellow disciples that a small group of Demon Cultivators suddenly appeared within Nanzhou. No one knew how they got here; they hadn't been exposed at all in Central Province. As for what they came to do, I don't know. I only remember that those people were all killed by the seniors of various sects."

"Was it a Teleportation Array?"

Lu Jin burst into laughter. "The Northern Territory is tens of thousands of miles away from Nanzhou. A Teleportation Array that can transmit a few hundred miles is already a top-tier high-grade Formation. Tens of thousands of miles? Even an Immortal Formation wouldn't dare to claim that."

"Then why can some Secret Realms build Teleportation Arrays? I heard that Secret Realms are born in Spatial Turbulence, so there shouldn't be any distinction of distance, right?"

Lu Jin was also full of confusion, but she didn't think too much about it. "This... I don't practice Formations, so I don't understand it well. It seems that it requires consistent nodes, but ultimately it depends on where the Spatial Turbulence appeared when the Secret Realm was generated. Otherwise, why would we have the Xuanbing Sect in Nanzhou? The gates of both Secret Realms might as well have been built with Teleportation Arrays opening in Central Province."

That was true; the Xuanbing Sect in Nanzhou was mainly established and continued because of the two Secret Realms and one Spirit Mine.

She had just been thinking that the Cold Mountain Secret Realm opens once every thirty years, and the previous batch of Demon Cultivators appeared thirty years ago—how could it be such a coincidence?

Moreover, Xie Huai had a Dharma Artifact related to Ink Marrow in his possession, which could allow him to enter the Secret Realm while ignoring cultivation restrictions.

Hiss... that's not right either. Xie Huai wasn't even thirty years old yet; he couldn't have come over thirty years ago.

She guessed she was overthinking it; it might just be a coincidence after all.

Ruan Xing withdrew her wandering thoughts. "Forget it, let's not talk about this. Senior Sister, what kind of position are you introducing me to? Tell me in advance; I'm afraid I won't be able to do it if it's too difficult."

"Oh, right, don't worry. You're still young, so they won't arrange any particularly difficult tasks for you. It's very leisurely, though the pay is also relatively low—fifty Contribution Points a month."

Fifty... that's fine. She would go and try it first. If it were truly leisurely, she could find time to draw talismans to earn some extra money, though she didn't know where she could sell them without leaving the Sect.

The two went to the External Affairs Hall, which was located at the foot of the Main Peak. After Lu Jin brought her there and gave a few instructions to the Senior Brother inside, she returned to the Treasure Pavilion.

Compared to the style of the Sect Affairs Hall, which resembled a township administrative office, the External Affairs Hall was smaller and looked cold and deserted, with few people inside.

"I didn't expect there to be such a small Junior Sister," the Senior Brother who received her said with a smile, leading her into the room. The tables and walls inside were covered with bamboo slips and Jade Slips.

He said half-jokingly to ease the atmosphere, "I'm really worried about whether you can recognize all the characters."

Among mortal children, six years old is the age for just beginning their enlightenment; being naughty, playful, and not loving to study is normal. They might not even be able to read a single Thousand Character Classic.

But it is not necessarily the same for cultivators. Because after possessing Divine Sense, the information a cultivator receives daily is much greater than that of an ordinary person, and their learning and memory abilities are also stronger than those of ordinary people. Therefore, cultivator children are usually more precocious than ordinary children, though most cultivators do not let their descendants enter the path of Cultivation too early.

Ruan Xing smiled shyly. "I have studied and can recognize them all. What are we going to do, Senior Brother?"

"These are all kinds of news about Demon Cultivators inside and outside the Sect, but most of them are groundless rumors; very few are real. For example, this one." The Senior Brother picked up a bamboo slip. "A minor official in a town always woke up in the middle of the night hearing the sound of a woman crying in the backyard, but he lived alone. He suspected that a Ghost Cultivator was driving a Yin Ghost to cause trouble. Later, after sending people to investigate, it was discovered that it was just a Qi Refining cat demon that hadn't amounted to anything."

"What we need to do is process these messages. If someone needs to be sent to investigate, we just issue a mission at the Sect Affairs Hall. Originally, there weren't actually this many; three or four a month was the limit, but they suddenly increased this month." The Senior Brother sighed melancholily.

"Is a Ghost Cultivator also a Demon Cultivator?" Ruan Xing asked, puzzled.

The Senior Brother said indignantly: "Of course! Ghost Cultivators are even more detestable than Demon Cultivators; everyone should kill them on sight. Look, after a cultivator dies, their body turns to decay to nourish all things, and their soul returns to heaven and earth to dissipate with the wind. This is the rule of the Dao following nature. But Ghost Cultivators seize the corpses and souls of others, leaving people unable to rest in peace even after death. Tell me, is that not terrifying?" Tsk, the original heroine is on a path to becoming an enemy of the world.

That's not certain either; after all, by the time she is twenty-three, Nanzhou will be the world of Demon Cultivators. Wouldn't the original heroine become a generation of demoness, like a fish in water?

Thinking this way, Ruan Xing nodded in agreement, clenched her small fists, and said in a crisp, impassioned child's voice: "Terrifying! Therefore, we must eradicate all Demon Cultivators from Nanzhou and return Nanzhou to peace and tranquility!"

"Cough, cough... that's not necessarily required... We don't have that many people; we only need to protect the few towns nearby that pay tribute to the Sect year-round." The Senior Brother covered his mouth and coughed a few times, pointing to a small pile of seven or eight Jade Slips on the table. "Here, I heard from Junior Sister Lu that you don't like to go out. You look at these. These are all messages from within the Sect. After processing them, just mark them with a seal and a timestamp and hang them on the wall. There is a Formation on the wall that will automatically store and arrange them."

Ruan Xing replied "Okay," sat at the table, and began to process the Jade Slips. She picked one up with both hands, probed it with her Divine Sense, and after reading it carefully, she found it both laughable and irritating. It was written by an Outer Sect disciple reporting another disciple for watering the flowers at his door to death while he was away, suspecting that the other party was a Demon Cultivator specifically sent to destroy the internal unity of the Sect.

Ruan Xing was a bit speechless. After asking the Senior Brother, she learned that this kind of thing didn't need to be processed. If the two of them made a scene in the Outer Sect, the Sect Affairs Hall would handle and punish them. Their External Affairs Hall didn't care about such trivial matters; if the word "Demon Cultivator" hadn't been added, it wouldn't have even reached their eyes.

She began to look at the next one, but the first line of text made her heart tremble.

Outer Sect disciple Qin Yi, Zhao Fengchun, and five others failed to return after the deadline for a sect mission. After investigation, it was found that they encountered a rampaging snow ferret pack; five died, Qin Yi was seriously injured, and Zhao Fengchun was unscathed. After examining the snow ferret corpses, it was discovered that they had mistakenly eaten Spirit Herbs with aphrodisiac effects. Conclusion: No abnormalities. (Crossed out)

Received an anonymous report from a disciple: Zhao Fengchun had participated in the maintenance mission for the Cold Mountain Secret Realm Formation and was suspected of colluding with a Demon Cultivator. After being discovered by other fellow disciples, he deliberately caused their deaths during the mission. After investigation, a Feather Letter used by Demon Cultivators was found in Zhao Fengchun's room, but the content had been destroyed by Magic Art and could not be identified. Conclusion: Abnormal. Zhao Fengchun is temporarily detained in the prison for interrogation.

Ruan Xing remained silent, squeezing the Jade Slip hard, and scanned it several times with her Divine Sense.

Why... didn't Xie Huai promise not to frame them? "What's wrong?" Seeing that she had been looking at one Jade Slip for a long time, the Senior Brother said enthusiastically, "If you don't know how to handle it, just ask me."

Ruan Xing pursed her lips and said, "This... should be considered concrete evidence of the existence of a Demon Cultivator, right?"

"Hmm?" Hearing this, the Senior Brother's expression changed. He took the Jade Slip from Ruan Xing's hand and read it with his own Divine Sense. He said with a grave face: "Indeed, we cannot handle this matter privately; we need to report it to the Elder. I will go find the Elder; you wait for me here for a moment."

The Senior Brother ran out the door with the Jade Slip. Ruan Xing stayed there quietly, deep in thought, and then activated the Real-scene Simulation.

She sent a message to Xie Huai using her Sect Jade Token.

【Where are you?】

Xie Huai seemed to have been waiting for it, and he replied in seconds as always.

【Sect Affairs Hall.】

Ruan Xing flew her Sword directly to the Sect Affairs Hall. Before she even entered the main gate, she saw Xie Huai, whose moon-white robes were spotless, standing in the corner by the wall, beckoning to her with a gentle smile on his face.

She took a deep breath, walked over, and said in a low voice: "Why? Didn't you promise?"

"I am very sorry, I did promise, but there is a small chess piece who doesn't listen." Xie Huai's tone was somewhat pleasant. When a chess piece goes out of control, it is difficult for the chess player to determine whether it was intentional or accidental.

Xie Huai leaned down, reached out to pull Ruan Xing's head toward him, and led her toward the back of the Sect Affairs Hall; Ruan Xing did not resist, following his lead.

The entrance to the Sect Affairs Hall was bustling with people coming and going, indeed not a good place to talk.

Yet she did not know that the Sect Affairs Hall also had a back door.

"This is the door leading to the Sect Affairs Hall prison," Xie Huai explained, smiling as he said, "Actually, you didn't know, but Zhao Fengchun returned two days ago. It's just that this matter was my responsibility, so I suppressed it for two days. I haven't rested for a single moment in these two days, but Zhao Fengchun's mouth is quite tight; she hasn't said a thing. I originally thought that for a foolish woman like her, wanting to engage in Cultivation was just a waste of resources, but I didn't expect her to have even a shred of merit."

The passageway continued downward, with faint candlelight hanging on the walls; Ruan Xing followed behind him, her voice calm, revealing neither joy nor anger, "She has nothing to do with me, so it is useless for you to interrogate her."

"Haha, is that so?" Xie Huai's clear laughter echoed in the passageway; he stopped, turned around, and with two fingers pinched a familiar Talisman, waving it in front of Ruan Xing, "Then tell me, isn't this Talisman something you gave her?"

Ruan Xing's heart sank; that was the 【Speed】 Talisman she had left for Zhao Fengchun to save her life.

Demon Cultivators had been suppressed for many years and were rare, and Ghost Path Cultivators existed only in legends; every Cultivator in Nanzhou might not recognize this type of Talisman, but Xie Huai would not fail to recognize it—he was a Demon Cultivator, and a Ghost Path Cultivator... was also a Demon Cultivator.

"Although Zhao Fengchun does not admit that this is something you gave her, I can still guess. Rest assured, only I know about this; besides interrogating her, the reason I kept it hidden for two days was precisely to cover up this matter."

Xie Huai was full of smiles, his voice like warm jade, "Now, the agreement between us needs to be renegotiated."

The dungeon of the Sect Affairs Hall was dark and damp, and the nasal cavity was filled with a musty smell mixed with dust, as if it hadn't been used for many years.

It was very quiet here, with nothing but the sounds of footsteps and talking.

Disciples who committed errors were punished by the Sect Affairs Hall, and the prison only held traitors and Demon Cultivators, so right now, there was only Zhao Fengchun alone.

Ruan Xing brushed past Xie Huai's side, slamming into him hard, but Xie Huai stepped aside, unconcerned.

Walking a little further ahead, there was a prison cell surrounded by iron chains; through the gaps, Ruan Xing saw Zhao Fengchun's deathly pale face, her tattered and blood-stained disciple robes, and her whole person lying there disheveled and lifeless.

It was unclear whether she was asleep or unconscious.

Ruan Xing stared steadily for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "How do you want to talk?"

Thanks to Shujia Xiaokexing for the monthly ticket~(End of this chapter)