What a spendthrift little junior sister! Fighting shrimp demons whose strength was that of common mortals, she'd drained a full eighty percent of the poison powder he'd prepared — enough to bring down a hundred thousand mortal soldiers!
Staring at the thirteen nearly empty storage artifacts, Li Changshou's forehead bristled with black lines as he let out a low groan.
Blue Ling'e knelt before him on a cushion, two tears glinting at the corners of her eyes, trying to dodge his righteous judgment with a pitiful air. His mouth twitching, he held up a pouch: "Did you go fight some great demon of the East Sea?"
"Senior Brother... you said to use it if I met danger! Those shrimp soldiers nearly chopped me, so I flung it out on instinct!"
"Weren't you given nine jars?"
"So many times I nearly got chopped..." Her lips puckered, on the verge of tears: "Don't be mad. I know refining these takes effort, and I didn't mean to waste them."
Seeing her like that, Li Changshou couldn't truly rage; he only sighed: "The effort's minor — the materials are the trouble. Few in the Du Xian Sect refine poison pills; I bought these with my monthly allowance, bit by bit."
"Senior Brother, I thought of that." She blinked and produced more storage artifacts. "So I traded all my rewards from this trip for poison herbs and toxins available in the sect! Not a loss at all — I stand to profit handsomely!"
Caught between laughter and tears, Li Changshou studied her gem-like eyes, glimpsing a flicker of... evasion.
This little girl... "Anything else to confess? Spill it while I'm still in a good mood."
She drew a breath, raised both hands, bent over, and pressed forehead and palms to the floor, hair spilling on either side — a full kowtow of confession.
Eyes clenched, she shouted in one breath: "Senior Brother! Forgive me! Two senior uncles took interest in your poison powder and took several jars of the deadliest from me! I couldn't refuse, and your stupidly high poison skill has been exposed by me!"
The room fell dead silent. Her shoulders trembled. Raised by her senior brother, she knew his principles, and dreaded one thing above all: that he'd "abandon" her and cut all ties.
Why... so quiet... It was over; he must be utterly disappointed in her! Blue Ling'e, the moment you step out you lose composure — you just had to flaunt yourself and get marked by the sect's seniors... Her senior brother would hide ninety of every hundred points as hidden cards, keep a low profile, and never touch needless karma. Her only claim to his care was being his sole blood junior sister under the same master.
She choked out: "Senior Brother, even beat me, but don't ignore me from now on... I know I was wrong."
Feeling a big hand reach toward her, she squeezed her eyes shut.
That hand, which once had run through black-locked hair, came down straight — but didn't strike. It veered, caught her ear, and pulled her to her feet.
"Mn, Senior Brother, easy... it hurts... my ear..."
"Don't use that tone. If Master hears, he'll think I've done something to you."
He released her ear, placid: "Get up. This is nothing much."
She sat up at once, bewildered: "You're not hiding it anymore? Coming clean to the sect?"
"Coming clean about what? Nothing to confess." He was a little nonplussed. "I told you to show it off on purpose — there were layers to it. Now sit. Of those two seniors, was one Senior Wan Linjun of Danding Peak? The one with the lame left leg leaning on a copper-wrapped staff, face a bit cold yet always forcing a stiff smile?"
On purpose? Layers?
Ling'e was stunned: "Senior Brother, how do you know? Yes, he was there — didn't you just get back tonight? The first to take poison powder was Elder Ge, who led the training tournament. Then at noon, the day before yesterday, that old man with the staff came, gave me many herbs, and took those..."
"Senior Brother!" Realization struck. Grinding her teeth, she said: "You planned all this!"
"What planning between fellow disciples? It's goodwill's protection — the more you know, the heavier the burden." He waved airily. "My poison powder was all about herb pairing and toxicology, no advanced technique. Even noticed, it's no matter — the formulas sit in the Dao Scripture Pavilion's outer hall, open to all peaks, the herbs swappable at the Hundred Mortal Hall. The sect, and most Five-Continent sects, despise the art of poison as unseemly; its practitioners face ostracism and prejudice. So if anyone finds I can refine poison well, they'll just think an unremarkable disciple wandered off the path." A subtle smile crossed his lips. "Besides, several exotic poisons among them come from a manual I copied in the Dao Scripture Library — authored by none other than Wan Linjun, our sect's deepest master of the poison way. With this opening, I might win a bond with him and gain his guidance on refining."
"Senior Brother," Ling'e complained, "do you have to scheme even me into it! If it were that, why not just tell me? Arranging your own gentle, adorable junior sister — it's simply... too much..."
He glanced at her: "Don't change the subject. We're discussing your wasted pills. You need a little hardship to learn. Tomorrow you're punished: go to the rear mountain, fell timber, clear new ground — and no Dao arts or mana."
"Felling timber, what's the big deal," she answered, eyes lowered, her face reading "do as told." She couldn't help asking: "What are we clearing ground for?"
"To build a pill chamber for refining pills and poisons. Through you, the sect's management now knows I'm skilled at poison, so I can work openly on our Xiaoqiong Peak — no more hide-and-seek."
He rose, gathered the medicine pouches, and stretched: "After my midday meditation I'll scout the spot."
"Senior Brother, you clearly just want to laze about — has anyone made such a delicate junior sister chop wood!"
She made a face at his back. At the door he paused, pulled a jade box from his sleeve, and tossed it to her.
"A gift?" She forgot her sulk at once — but, cautious, floated it a few zhang away with mana before opening it.
A faint fragrance drifted over: a small white flower with six petals resting within.
Grass, huh. And I thought it might be jewelry. She was about to gripe, but he'd already left, only his tired voice lingering: "Put it in warm water before your next bath. It will open your meridians, purge toxins, nourish your looks, and make your skin glow. See you tomorrow."
"Fine, thank you, Senior Brother. See you..."
*Whew —* Ling'e collapsed in the round chair, then smiled smugly. A clean escape! He doted on her after all — she'd expected a scolding for all that poison, yet got only an ear-twist. Still, this tournament affair, start to finish, had been arranged around her by her senior brother, and that did nag at her — somehow he never quite trusted her...
Ah, never mind. That was just how he was. He burned his cut hair to ash with true fire, melted away even his trimmed nail clippings in poison liquid, and had once bound his deliberately-drunk junior sister to the bed with an Immortal-Binding Cord before tucking her in...
Er, she seemed to have let something slip — that time last year did NOT count as deliberately drunk!
...
Back in his own cottage, Li Changshou sat to meditate, the pill chamber's layout taking shape in his mind. Until now he'd refined poison with a small portable cauldron, no longer adequate; to brew the Immortal-Dissolving Pill and stronger poisons, he'd need a larger one. He'd ask the familiar uncles and aunts at the Hundred Mortal Hall, though a good cauldron was rare — pure luck, and perhaps a salvaged discarded one might yield a miracle...
The pill chamber he'd mulled over for thirty or forty years, yet he'd always hesitated. Ordinary was the best camouflage. From the isolating array over their quarters, to the arrays outside his and his junior sister's cottages, to every stream and tree of Xiaoqiong Peak, all was utterly plain — and to raise such a chamber, he'd need arrangements inside and out lest anyone spy his "little tricks" while refining. He'd known from the very start: when cultivation is nascent, any deliberate disguise only invites lofty seniors' scrutiny — being noticed rarely brings good, while going unnoticed keeps disasters far less likely.
"The chamber can't sit too close to my dwelling; I don't want any poison gas seeping out..." Muttering, he drew from his bosom the storage artifact that held books and jade tablets, and produced a thick stack of sheepskin scrolls, covered with array diagrams and architectural blueprints — every sheet scarred by repeated revisions, and on the oldest few the drawn marks had already grown very faint.