ALL NOVEL 59. The coldness of Zhou Sheng’s past
In the morning of the next day, Wen Zhihao gave Sun Fuyu some more talismans and qi-infused stones before seeing him off, hoping that they would be useful and help him have a good sleep while out on the road.
It was a big mission, promising to pay out a lot of spiritual stones even after division. Senior Lin Yijun was part of the team...but luckily two of Sun Fuyu’s senior martial sisters were also going.
Since Wen Zhihao already finished his proper talisman quota for the month, he decided to treat himself to first a nap after Sun Fuyu left, which lasted till the afternoon, and then a trip out of the Sect to the nearby forest.
While he didn’t stumble across the hot springs, he was able to collect more materials ahead of time.
Recalling the fact that he was a Late-Stage Golden Core cultivator, Wen Zhihao thought that maybe it was time he paid attention to his cultivation level. But there was no convenient game-menu-type bar for him to look at, and the cultivation manuals he had didn’t explicitly say how to measure internal cultivation level—unless he accidentally skipped those sections, which wasn’t impossible…
It was really too much effort ba. It wasn’t as though Wen Zhihao needed to keep track of his cultivation level. Surely he would notice if he suddenly became a Nascent Soul cultivator!
His feet carried him to a familiar cliff edge, where he had first watched a sunrise with Sun Fuyu. He sat down, eyes gazing into the distance.
Sun Fuyu is a good young cultivator.
Over this last year, they shared many moments. While he still didn’t understand how he transmigrated here, Wen Zhihao no longer wanted to leave. He really wanted to continue spending time with Sun Fuyu, with Aunty Liu Jing and the other stuff, with all the kittens…
He must have accidentally zoned out because when he absently yawned, he realised that the sun was now touching the horizon as dusk fell.
Yawning again, Wen Zhihao decided to head back to the sect to sleep.
—Grrrrrr.
The low growling sound was accompanied by the patter of four feet.
Some of Wen Zhihao’s sleepiness dissipated. Did cats growl? Did Huang Jialing let some of them go into the forest for experience?
The sound of the approaching animal (cat?) grew louder. It was definitely coming Wen Zhihao’s way. Wen Zhihao examined his spatial rings and pulled out some leftover meat.
Something burst out of the trees, teeth glinting in the low light—
—and tumbled to a stop at Wen Zhihao’s feet.
“Awoo?”
It stared up at Wen Zhihao, eyes blinking as though confused.
...It wasn’t a cat. It looked more like a large dog. Wen Zhihao was a little disappointed, but it wasn’t the dog’s fault for not being a cat. “Do you want this?” he asked it, holding the meat out.
“...Woof?” The dog reached out and bit into the meat. It lowered its head, using its paws to help it eat.
...Cute, ba.
Wen Zhihao crouched down and scratched the dog under its chin. “Good.”
The demonic beast unconsciously squinted her eyes in enjoyment. The still thinking part of her was very bewildered. She was chasing something...searching for someone...Scent disappeared, but then she caught a different wisp of that scent...but suddenly the qi in the air became very comfortable? And suddenly there was delicious food? And suddenly there were chin and neck scratches?
“Here, I have some more food,” Wen Zhihao said.
“Ruff!” Food givers were good!
- Ahem...I’ll...return to my job...later…
Zhou Sheng watched this under the cover of a magical treasure that hid his aura and hid his image, his dark eyes hiding his thoughts.
That wolf-like demonic beast had been sent to track Zhou Sheng down. It was more skilled than all the beasts previous, forcing Zhou Sheng to activate the magical treasure.
Does Lin Yijun want to drag my corpse back to the Golden Sun Sect that badly? Zhou Sheng thought with a mocking sneer.
The beast had been successfully thrown off by the magical treasure. But rather than being completely confused, it turned in a different direction.
Zhou Sheng had become suspicious. Was there another demonic cultivator who had followed him here? If so, they had to be silenced—
Instead, he was faced with this: a golden robed righteous cultivator, Wen Zhihao, treating the hellish demonic beast as a puppy….and the beast acting like a puppy right back. Cultivator Wen was giving it belly scratches.
The aura that Zhou Sheng was familiar with filled the air, calm and with a hint of drowsiness. The qi gently soothed away a headache caused by erratic dreams that he had been having this past year.
Zhou Sheng had seen Wen Zhihao with the young cultivator named Sun Fuyu. He had seen him be truly kind.
If Wen Zhihao had been there, maybe things would have turned out differently.
At first, the Golden Sun Sect had seemed like a beautiful, glowing place in Zhou Sheng’s eyes, and Lin Yijun was his wonderful saviour. Suddenly, Zhou Sheng was no longer a slave grovelling in the dirt. Instead, he was a bright young cultivator of the great Golden Sun Sect. He had a place to live, food to eat, satisfying training to grow his strength, and no one would treat him cruelly again—
—But he was soon proven wrong.
Zhou Sheng realised that the Golden Sun Sect cultivators were still human, no matter the airs that they liked to put on. They had their hierarchies and their biases, and Zhou Sheng, a pitiful person picked up from outside, was no one.
He was promptly excluded from the groups of outer sect disciples.
His friendship with Lin Yijun, the genius young sword cultivator of the sect, did not help. If anything, it made things worse.
They thought he had climbed into Lin Yijun’s bed, that he had carried in the filth from outside into the sect and was trying to corrupt their Lin Yijun.
Zhou Sheng was not weak-minded. He knew that he had to become strong, and so he became even more diligent in training. Lin Yijun became even more pleased with his progress.
But then he stalled.
He couldn’t get around the mental block that was the Golden Sun’s sword cultivation style. It was, ironically, due to his enlightenment that the Golden Sun Sect was not as good as it made itself out to be. The sword cultivation style became like dry ash in Zhou Sheng’s mouth instead of fragrant osmanthus. He needed a different style, but all the styles available in the sect were not right.
Zhou Sheng confided to his only friend.
“The Golden Sun Sect is not right for me.”
“You just need to work harder,” Lin Yijun had replied. “If this particular sword cultivation technique is not suitable, then I have many more.”
Zhou Sheng had bowed his head. “I have tried others—”
“I am an inner sect disciple, of course, I have more sword techniques available to me. I will let you borrow them,” Lin Yijun responded.
So Zhou Sheng gritted his teeth and tried out each of the styles but to no avail. He couldn’t advance to Golden Core. When the Intra-Sect competition came around, he failed to pass.
Despite still being an outer sect disciple, Lin Yijun nonetheless took Zhou Sheng on some sect missions.
It didn’t help. Instead, it reminded Zhou Sheng of the cruelty of people.
When Lin Yijun had saved him, he had killed some of his captors, wounded the others, and Zhou Sheng completely agreed with this. Those people should never get the opportunity to enact cruelty again.
But then, on those sect missions, Zhou Sheng saw Lin Yijun’s sword move again...
“Those people, you should have killed them.”
“Those people, why did you kill them? It wasn’t their fault!”
Why were the servants killed instead of the masters? Those servants may have become bloodthirsty demons, but whose fault was it?
Why didn’t Lin Yijun try harder to save the innocent? Were they really collateral? Was saving Zhou Sheng an accident?
Outside the sect, Zhou Sheng saw Lin Yijun and the others deal with rampaging monsters and demonic cultivators and cruel people and innocent people. Inside the Sect, Zhou Sheng was treated like a piece of cannon fodder to make the other disciples shine brighter.
Righteous cultivators may cultivate in a righteous form. But the sword was made for killing: Zhou Sheng’s disgust for these two-faced cultivators deepened.
Zhou Sheng searched for more and more cultivation methods.
“Lin Yijun, I think this cultivation method might be better—”
“No! You’re not allowed to touch that!”
“I know my limits, I have my bottom line—”
“I said no and that’s final! Go back to the sect and try again!”
“It doesn’t work for me—”
“Don’t argue!”
“Lin Yijun, do you ever think that you don’t know everything?! Do you really think I can’t see that you don’t believe me? A sword is a cold-blooded weapon, just like any other! What’s wrong with using my own blood that others have spilled for me?!”
Zhou Sheng couldn’t stand it anymore. Lin Yijun was really the peak of two-faced cultivators. They fought, and Zhou Sheng left for the demonic Blood Sect.
On the topic of soothing auras, the MCs in Cub Raising Association and After I Livestreamed Raising Cubs I became the Wealthiest in Interstellar also seem to have the ability to calm the cubs around them~