Chapter 279: Innocence

Seeing Miao Zhen smiled and said, "It seems Fourth Xiao Shishu also feels that Little Xiao Shishu did nothing wrong."

She paused before continuing: "Seemingly opposing viewpoints don't necessarily have to be judged right or wrong. The truth differs, the response differs, and so does right and wrong."

A trace of bewilderment flashed through Master Xuanmiao's eyes. "But the rules of Heaven's Dao are fixed — it cannot be uncertain, cannot be a matter of seeming so."

Seeing Miao Zhen: "Fourth Xiao Shishu, Great Xiao Shishu once said that the Dao is to follow what is natural, and the natural is formless. Since it is formless, it is not fixed."

She said softly: "Laws that are fixed are not the Dao of Heaven — they are rules that people, taking it for granted, have set down for heaven and earth."

"The lower tier is the laws of a nation; the middle tier is the moral standards set by humanity; and the higher tier is what Xiao Shishu believes to be — the laws of Heaven's Dao that you all have discovered."

Master Xuanmiao looked at her in surprise.

Seeing Miao Zhen said: "Little Xiao Shishu's heart is upright and kind. To go along with their wishes — what is wrong with that? Fourth Xiao Shishu, you set too much store by the laws of heaven and earth, and have lost your original heart instead."

Master Xuanmiao fell into thought.

Seeing Miao Zhen stopped at just the right point. She raised her head to look at the starry sky and murmured: "The stars are the most regular of things, but occasionally comets appear that fall outside the rules. Does that mean these comets are not within the rules of the universe?"

"I believe they are. It's just that we have not yet discovered or summarized them. The existing rules are merely summaries drawn from our limited understanding."

After a long silence, Master Xuanmiao said: "Miao Zhen, you may stay by your master's side to study. There is little more that your Great Xiao Shishu and I can teach you, and even less that the Academy can."

Seeing Miao Zhen, however, shook her head and said: "The Great Dao is important, but spells and Wu Gong are important too. Little Xiao Shishu said that pursuing the Great Dao still requires filling one's belly first."

Master Xuanmiao: "……What else did she say?"

"She also said that our cultivation should be the unity of body and spirit — even that cultivating the body should come before and above cultivating the spirit. Therefore, in cultivation, food and drink cannot be lacking, elixirs cannot be lacking, money cannot be lacking, and of course, tempering the body cannot be lacking either — so Wu Gong must also be practiced."

Master Xuanmiao: "She just said cultivation is cultivating the spirit……"

Seeing Miao Zhen, used to it as she was, said: "From my understanding of Little Xiao Shishu, she is most sincere when she speaks of the unity of body and spirit."

Understood — so earlier she was just stringing people along, wasn't she?

Master Xuanmiao raised a hand and rubbed her brow.

Seeing Miao Zhen said: "Fourth Xiao Shishu, don't worry yourself. Third Xiao Shishu is already making noodles for you. At worst, we'll go back to Mount Sanqing and find Great Xiao Shishu, and let Great Xiao Shishu keep an eye on them. They wouldn't dare play tricks in front of Great Xiao Shishu."

Master Xuanmiao: "No, I'm not worried about them now."

Being hoodwinked by Pan Yun like that — she hadn't even gotten the item yet, and just handed the cultivation method straight over. Such a rare cultivation method, sold for just two bottles of elixirs and twenty taels of silver……

Master Xuanmiao now felt a little guilty facing them.

The moment Master Xuanmiao entered the temple, a fox and a ghost both huddled together, looking at her with frightened faces.

Clearly, they both felt Master Xuanmiao was not someone to be trifled with, and did not dare provoke her.

Master Xuanmiao glanced at them and said nothing.

Tao Ji's noodles had just been fished out, and he quickly said: "Junior Sister, come quickly and eat the noodles."

Pan Yun was pondering the newly acquired cultivation method. Hearing this, she raised her head, glanced at him, and said: "Senior Brother, I am also Junior Sister."

Tao Ji ignored her.

Pan Yun then turned to find the red fox. "You mean to say you can also leave your body to cultivate this method?"

The three-tailed fox nodded obediently: "That's right. This way the soul-consciousness can grow increasingly solid and strong. This set of cultivation method is for refining divine consciousness — it's the method our red fox clan uses to awaken our intelligence. Once I cultivate it to Sun Dacheng, I'll become an incomparably clever fox."

Master Xuanmiao's chopsticks paused, and she couldn't help but look at her. After a moment she shook her head. "Then this set of cultivation method of yours must not be practiced all that well."

The red fox's eyes went wide. "How did you know?"

She frowned and looked at her suspiciously. "Could it be that during the fight just now you were still able to probe my divine soul?"

Little Red also stared fixedly at Master Xuanmiao.

Miao He at the side hesitated, wanting to speak, and finally said in a small voice: "It might be because you're still not all that clever right now……"

Pan Yun gave Miao He an approving glance and immediately changed the subject. "Alright, alright, none of that matters. What matters is — as beings with bodies, how do we get our souls to leave the body?"

Hong Yan: "Want to come out and you come out."

Pan Yun stroked her chin and said: "That's true enough, because I too can just come out whenever I want. But Miao Zhen and Miao He still don't seem able to leave their bodies."

Hong Yan glared. "They're going to practice this set of cultivation method too? Didn't I only sell the cultivation method to you?"

Pan Yun: "……Did you? But you transmitted the cultivation method right in front of the three of us."

Hong Yan: ……

Pan Yun said quietly: "Besides, since I bought the cultivation method, how I use it is my own business."

The dumbfounded Hong Yan suddenly came to her senses and immediately said: "That won't do. If you spread it all over the world, wouldn't everyone know my family's ancestral cultivation method?"

She looked at Pan Yun, then at Miao Zhen and Miao He, and gritted her teeth: "Only the three of you may learn it. No one else is allowed to learn it. Otherwise I won't sell this set of cultivation method to you."

Pan Yun: "If you won't sell it, you'll have to return the elixirs and money to me."

Hong Yan: "Return them, then."

Fortunately Little Red still had some brains. She hurriedly tugged at Hong Yan and whispered: "That won't do. The cultivation method has already been told to them — can you make them forget it?"

Hong Yan: "I have a spell that can erase their memories."

Little Red: "……Will they let you erase theirs? Can you beat them?" Hong Yan fell silent.

Pan Yun waited until they had finished their discussion, then smiled at the two of them and said: "Don't worry. I definitely won't spread this top-secret cultivation method around — I won't let your family's ancestral cultivation method become something everyone knows."

Unable to win a fight, and the goods already given away, Hong Yan had completely lost her bargaining chips and could only listen to her.

Pan Yun stopped pressing Hong Yan for cultivation experience, lest she recall more unequal terms and feel even worse about it.

She rose and righted the Earth Deity's statue, lit three sticks of incense anew, and silently recited a passage of the Dao De Jing for the old gentleman.

After acknowledging her fault, atoning, and giving thanks, Pan Yun and the others set out together for Mount Sanqing the next day.

Though winter was cold, the sunlight was also brilliant, and Little Red was not suited to traveling under the sun.

But Pan Yun and the others were well-equipped.

She took a large umbrella from her storage space, popped it open with a swish, and cast a patch of shade over Little Red.

Little Red stared blankly upward. "An oil-paper umbrella painted black? Who on earth would make an umbrella like this?"

"Long Hushan, of course. Every sundries shop selling talismans at Long Hushan has umbrellas like this," Pan Yun said. "It's also listed on our Academy's roster of essential items for travel and study tours. It can block the sun, shield from rain, serve as a weapon, and even assist in bone-gathering — a must-have High-quality item for capturing demons, catching ghosts, and righting wrongs."

!. Read

Xiao Hong gaped her mouth wide, and Hong Yan said disdainfully, "An umbrella, and it can be used as a weapon?"

"Sure it can, watch."

Pan Yun gave her wrist a twist, and with a crack three sharp blades glinting cold shot out from the tip of the umbrella; with another twist, three more blades flashed out from inside the umbrella, nearly stabbing into Xiao Hong's head.

Of course, she was a ghost now, so it couldn't actually pierce her, but she still got a fright.

A chill ran down her spine, and she said loudly, "Who is so perverted as to make an umbrella like this?"

Pan Yun said happily, "I don't know. The senior brothers and senior sisters at the Academy all use them, so we bought three too. So, did I scare you?"

Master Xuanmiao: "Why did you buy the lowest grade? A superior-grade umbrella should also have talismanic patterns inscribed on it and can be used as a magic artifact — that's the real tool for capturing ghosts."

Pan Yun: "Too expensive. An umbrella like that costs twenty taels of silver — enough to buy a horse. Anyway, I'm good at drawing talismans, so I can just paint them on myself later."

Seeing Miao Zhen and Miao He thought the same, and nodded together.

After a pause, Master Xuanmiao asked, "How much does this umbrella cost now?"

Pan Yun: "On the market it's nine taels, we haggled it down to eight. The mechanisms and blades are mainly what cost the money."

Master Xuanmiao gave a slight nod.

Only then did Tao Ji say, with a share of the pride, "This umbrella was invented by Fourth Senior Sister."

Pan Yun and the other two: "……"

Xiao Hong: "……"

Xiao Hong shrank her neck and silently said nothing more.

Hong Yan looked at one, then at another, felt the atmosphere was a little odd, and simply stopped caring. She climbed over Pan Yun's legs, lay down at the back of the cart, and didn't move.

The sun could reach her here — warm and cozy, quite comfortable.

The silence didn't last long before Pan Yun suddenly remembered, "If Fourth Senior Sister invented it, why are the Academy and the Zhang family the ones selling it? Even the eldest senior nephew has to buy stock from the Zhang family to sell."

Master Xuanmiao said, "I made it when I was twelve. I handed it over to the clan and the Academy at the time, and the business has always been run by the clan and the Academy."

Pan Yun: "Do you have a patent?"

Master Xuanmiao glanced at her. Although the word was a new one, she still understood it, and without needing Pan Yun to explain she said, "No. But outsiders can't figure out the mechanism inside the umbrella — the moment anyone dares to take it apart, the mechanism is instantly ruined, so no one can replicate it."

After a pause she said, "Since Cong'er is interested in this, I'll draw up the blueprints for him later."

She glanced at the umbrella in Pan Yun's hand and said, "If I hadn't seen it today, I'd almost have forgotten I was the one who made this umbrella. Besides this umbrella, I invented quite a few magic artifacts in those years."

Pan Yun's eyes sparkled as she said loudly, "Senior Sister, Cong'er says he's interested in all of them."

The corner of Master Xuanmiao's mouth curved up slightly. She glanced at her and said, "Is he interested, or are you interested?"

Pan Yun waved a hand and said, "Definitely him. I'm only interested in money."

Master Xuanmiao gave a hum of a laugh. "Once we're back I'll draw up the blueprints. You can pick whichever ones you like and make them. If you're worried about the cost, just make them yourselves from now on — no need to give other people your money."

Pan Yun: "Fourth Senior Sister, you're still thinking too small. What's the fun in making them ourselves? If we're going to do it, we have to do it big, do it strong. We can just hand it over to our own shops to handle."

Master Xuanmiao shook her head and said, "You're thinking too simply. Cong'er has martial-arts Jianghu people under him, but no cultivators. Crafting these magic artifacts requires people who understand spells and talismans."

"The Celestial Master Mansion can make them because they have Zhang family disciples behind them, and the Academy backing them."

Pan Yun tapped the umbrella in her hand and said, "Does a basic model like this also need spells and talisman-drawing?"

Master Xuanmiao fell into thought. "Actually, no — you just need to understand mechanisms…"

The corner of Pan Yun's mouth curved up slightly. "That's all we need."

Eldest Senior Nephew, this Xiao Shishu has prepared a little surprise for you!

Good night

(End of chapter)