Phi-Fic Chapter 27 Promotion?
Chapter 27 Promotion?
Fang Yuancheng saw the little girl calm the white wolf down, and then he saw the white wolf transform into a white snake. How could he not understand the relationship between the two?
"You've subdued this celestial treasure!" Fang Yuancheng was briefly surprised that a child could possess such a treasure, but he quickly came up with a barely plausible reason for the little girl—she was probably the child of some powerful cultivator, and a very pampered one at that. Otherwise, she wouldn't have kept a celestial treasure as a companion just for protection.
Fang Yuancheng looked at the three children in front of him and still couldn't understand what they were doing running up the mountain so late at night.
Seeing that the two people behind her hadn't recovered yet, Caihua was the calmest one, her heart pounding like thunder—she had just opened her eyes and seen Xiaobai transformed into a wolf; if it weren't for the fragrance of lotus flowers, she would have run away long ago—she pressed her chest to calm herself down, returned the greeting, and said, "Reporting to the Immortal, we are newly recruited disciples of the Huaiyu Sect, and we are undergoing the Huaiyu Sect's entrance trial."
"Entrance Trial?" Fang Yuancheng's mind went blank for a moment when he heard this word. Was today the day for the new disciples' entrance trial?
Has anyone told me this? Oh, I think Senior Brother did. Fang Yuancheng awkwardly put away the pill bottle and Yaoshan pot, bent down to ask Caihua some questions, when he heard a loud shout from the distant mountains coming from Senior Brother Hong Lanying: "Junior Sister!!!! Are you alright!!!!"
The four people on the platform were startled by the loud shout and turned to find the direction from which the sound came. Then, a person also dressed in the Huaiyu Sect's robes stepped through the air and charged towards them, wielding a large iron hammer in his right hand.
Ayaka immediately recognized him as a celestial being. After the celestial being carrying the large hammer landed next to the celestial being with messy hair and inquired about his well-being before turning to Ayaka, Ayaka bowed and said, "Ayaka greets the celestial being."
Wen Meiying and Wang Li finally recovered and hurriedly came forward to pay their respects.
Lu Renkui slept with Caihua, and when Caihua woke up, she opened her eyes as well.
Through Caihua's eyes, Lu Renkui first saw a wolf, then realized the wolf was Xiaobai in disguise, and then saw a person with an afro, who was from the Huaiyu Sect and, judging from his clothes, probably held a high position. Then another person appeared; that person seemed to be one of the elders of the Huaiyu Sect.
What's going on now? The barrage of impactful news overwhelmed Lu Renkui's brain, and he turned to ask the system WQBYRZM.
The system WQBYRZM had already anticipated the question her predestined soul would ask and answered first: "Xiaobai turned into a wolf to protect Caihua, but the guy with the afro thought that Xiaobai, in wolf form, was going to hurt the three children, so he also took out a weapon and sent out a distress signal. Caihua woke up and discovered that the wolf was Xiaobai, and she explained it to the guy with the afro. Then an elder from the sect came to help."
"Didn't we just fall asleep a little while ago?" Lu Renkui was a little shocked. She felt like she had only dozed off for a short while. How could so many things have happened?
The system WQBYRZM brought up the task progress bar and said, "She didn't sleep for long. Even if you start counting from when Ayaka closed her eyes, she only slept for three hours. But look, the progress bar has increased again, by 5%."
"What plot point has this triggered?" Lu Renkui asked.
The system (WQBYRZM) searched the original text for similar plot points but found nothing. Finally, it discovered Fang Yuancheng and Hong Lanying during the sect competition.
Hong Lanying doesn't appear often in the story, but she is very important. She gave the original male protagonist, now dead Jing'an, many magical treasures and taught him many skills.
Hong Lanying's last appearance was in the Demon Realm. The male protagonist, Jing An, who wanted to assassinate the Demon King, failed and was pursued by the female supporting character, Zhang Chenmian.
Originally, the male protagonist Jing'an was about to be captured by Zhang Chenmian, but Hong Lanying suddenly appeared and saved Jing'an. After running away with Jing'an for a while, Hong Lanying was surrounded by Zhang Xi'an, who was playing a sadomasochistic game with Jing'an, with a large army.
Hong Lanying told Jing'an to run first and call for reinforcements. She gave most of her magical treasures to Jing'an and then self-destructed, taking a large wave of demons with her.
But Jing'an didn't go to call for help. Instead, he secretly ran away with the treasure. Hong Lanying died on the battlefield without anyone to collect her body.
Fang Yuancheng disliked Jing'an from the first moment she saw him. The text describes her as "cold" and "arrogant" towards Jing'an, which is "a huge uncontrollable factor".
After learning that his senior brothers Chongxiang and Hong Lanying had died because of Jing'an, Fang Yuancheng launched a long-term assassination attempt on Jing'an. In the end, upon learning that Jing'an had become a god, his Dao heart shattered, and he died from exhaustion.
"Did Jing'an absorb all their good luck? Otherwise, I really can't understand why such a scumbag can become the protagonist of this world, while others who have been close to him either die or become appendages for him to show off his status." After reading the plot, Lu Renkui once again cursed Jing'an as a scoundrel.
The system WQBYRZM said calmly, "Maybe that's it? If we hadn't come, Ayaka would have been dragged down by him and then stabbed to death by him out of resentment. Because of the mistakes of other transmigrators, that guy died."
“Since that guy died, Ayaka’s luck has been pretty good overall. You know, in just over a month, our mission progress has already reached 35%. I guess all the bad luck in her life has come from meeting Igigi.”
Lu Renkui nodded in agreement.
On Caihua's side, Hong Lanying stared blankly at the three extra children in front of her for a moment before realizing that they were the disciples they had newly recruited this year who were undergoing their initiation trials.
The one with the white snake wrapped around her neck should be the young girl with dual spiritual roots that Chongxiang mentioned, who had subdued a spiritual creature of heaven and earth at a young age. As for the other two, Hong Lanying sensed them and they should be a top-grade wood spiritual root and a top-grade metal spiritual root.
"Why aren't you asleep so late?" Hong Lanying tried to talk to the children.
Upon hearing this, the three children and Fang Yuancheng all fell silent.
Fang Yuancheng couldn't very well say that she was mistaken for a bad guy by the spirit of heaven and earth, and then the spirit of heaven and earth turned into a white wolf, scaring them all, and that she almost got into a fight with the spirit of heaven and earth.
"Why...why are you all silent?" Hong Lanying scratched her head, thought about it carefully, and realized that she shouldn't have said anything wrong.
Finally, it was Ayaka who spoke up to explain—after all, Shiro was with her: "Reporting to the immortal, the evening breeze is a bit chilly, it woke everyone up."
“I heard that wild animals have appeared on this mountain.”
“My daughter’s spirit creature saw her shivering in the cold wind and couldn’t bear it, so it transformed into a white wolf and used its own body to warm her up. Just then, another immortal saw this,” Caihua said without changing her expression.
"I see." Hong Lanying nodded, accepting the explanation.
Then Hong Lanying beckoned to Fang Yuancheng, who understood and summoned his Yaoshan Pot to sit on, flying into the air.
Hong Lanying jumped to the same height as the city walls, looked down at the three children, and said, "At your current speed, you can reach the sect in another day and a half. Keep it up! We'll be waiting for you at the sect gate!"
The two elders quickly departed, leaving the three children standing on the platform in the wind, watching their figures grow smaller and smaller.
Seeing that the two had gone far away, Caihua prepared to continue sleeping. When she looked up, she met the eyes of Wen Meiying and Wang Li.
Ayaka, not understanding why the two were staring at her, asked, "Aren't you going to sleep?"
Upon hearing this, Wang Li and Wen Meiying seemed to wake from a dream and turned around to tidy their blankets.
Then the two of them, carrying their blankets and mats, lay down next to Ayaka.
Ayaka didn't care; the three of them were warmer huddled together. Closing her eyes, Ayaka ignored the questions Wen Meiying on her left and Wang Li on her right asked her—after all, Ayaka was exhausted after what she'd just experienced, so exhausted she didn't want to care about anything. The noise around her, though as incessant as flies and mosquitoes, didn't stop Ayaka from closing her eyes and letting the feeling of falling pull her into sleep.
Fang Yuancheng jumped down from the Yaoshan Pot, grabbed the handle, and put the Yaoshan Pot back in its place.
Hong Lanying also put the hammer away and led Fang Yuancheng toward the council hall.
"You know what? When you sent the signal talisman saying there were wild animals on the mountain, it really startled me," Hong Lanying said with a smile. "I almost thought you'd gotten into trouble or injured."
"Stop talking. If you had reminded me that today is the sect's initiation trial for disciples, I wouldn't have drunk any more alcohol, so I wouldn't have caused such a big blunder when I went down the mountain." Fang Yuancheng looked up at the sky. Although she didn't want to take on disciples, she still had to maintain her dignity in front of her senior brothers, sisters, and disciples. Today, those three little brats saw her drunkenly causing a scene down the mountain and then falling asleep before waking up. She wondered if those three kids would tell the other children.
If I were to tell, well...
"The disciples' foundations are all quite good this year. I want the one with the top-grade wood spirit root, and your fifth senior sister wants the one with the top-grade metal spirit root. Junior sister, you are an alchemist, and your second senior brother said he just found a top-grade fire spirit root. Would you like to take him as your first disciple?" After only a few words, Hong Lanying's purpose in wanting Fang Yuancheng to take on disciples was revealed.
Fang Yuancheng didn't answer Hong Lanying's question, and said lazily, "I told you, I mainly consider fate when it comes to accepting disciples. I haven't even seen that top-grade fire spirit root, so how can I accept him as a disciple? Besides, a fire spirit root should be learning weaponry, right?"
“You can’t always be this lazy.” Chongxiang appeared out of nowhere and looked at Fang Yuancheng with a pained expression. “You drink to drown your sorrows every other day. After drinking, you go on a drunken rampage up and down the mountain. I’ve already gone through three batches of calligraphy brushes this month because of you.”
Fang Yuancheng tried to defend himself: "Then don't come and urge me to take on disciples when I'm already annoyed by the failed pills I've burned. Wouldn't that just make me even more annoyed?"
“Yes, we were wrong,” Lin Yuqing said, emerging from behind the tree. “But you really need an apprentice to keep an eye on you. You’ve stormed into my music room eight times this month! You’ve carved eight characters on each of my instruments! You did this after you’ve been drinking. Before you drank, the shards from the medicine you were making in the alchemy room had already punctured countless holes in my instruments! What do you mean by this?”
Fang Yuancheng's momentum weakened somewhat: "I, I, please lock the door to the music room. That way, it will be an extra obstacle for me to go in and carve the words."
"And the weapons I forged for my disciples." Nan Moqu appeared behind Fang Yuancheng at some point, his face grim. "You've already thrown all the explosive pills at me three times because you got drunk. My weapons are almost burned to ashes."
"Uh..." Fang Yuancheng tried her best to find the right words to defend herself, but unexpectedly, her master, Xing Er, walked directly in front of her and looked down at her: "You must take on a disciple for me this time, otherwise you will have to move out of the sect! Last time you were so tired of refining pills and cooking that you got drunk and almost set my study on fire. Luckily you lit my beard as a fuse, otherwise I would have to collect all the books in my library."
"I'll accept him, I'll accept him, okay?" Fang Yuancheng completely gave up resisting, and then put forward his conditions, "But you can't force me to choose a disciple I don't want. I will only accept one, and only one."
Qin Ping suddenly appeared and said in a low voice, "Why don't you take on another disciple? If you only take on one disciple, I'm afraid your little disciple won't be able to keep an eye on you."
"Get lost." Facing Qin Ping, who was about the same age, Fang Yuancheng's temper was noticeably more volatile. "You've taken in so many disciples, you should be able to argue with them first."
"Tch." Qin Ping was dissatisfied, but he felt embarrassed to fight Fang Yuancheng in public, after all, he was already so old and had five disciples.
"It's decided then. After I take on one disciple to help me manage the sect's food and medicine, you all stop urging me to take on more disciples. One is already my limit." Fang Yuancheng seemed afraid that her senior brothers, sisters, and master would pretend not to know and use this as an excuse to urge her to take on another disciple next year, so she quickly took out a recording stone and recorded her words and the scene.
Seeing that Fang Yuancheng had finally agreed to take on a disciple, Xing'er decided not to press her any further—forcing a child too much would backfire—and waved her hand, saying, "You should go back to sleep tonight. Prepare the apprenticeship gifts for your disciples in the next few days."
"Yes," the disciples who were alert responded.
In the city of Chuiyang, on the border between the spirit world and the mortal world, Cheng Menqin looked at the first place's progress of 35% and unconsciously gripped his cup tightly. He had never been so far behind anyone. Since he became a transmigrator, he had always been first when completing multiplayer missions—unless Melissa was there—and seeing that his progress had been 11% since a month ago made him feel even worse.
"This is really weird." Cheng Menqin realized that she was still holding a cup, so she loosened her grip, but her thumb was still rubbing against the cup in frustration. "Melissa, what kind of luck did she have this time? Did she pick up some kind of lucky person?"
"What's Cheng Menqin doing? He's progressing way too fast. Is that all the important plot points and characters he's covering?" In the Demon Realm, Melissa kept rubbing the pages of the book between her left thumb and forefinger until her fingers were hot, but she still hadn't stopped.
Melissa looked at her 11%—that number hadn't changed in the past two weeks, and now Ma Meiyun seemed to be about to break through that level; she wondered how much it would rise.
Melissa felt even more upset at the thought.
At the same time, in different places, the two rivals had the same thought: expand the search area and look in the spirit world. Maybe Melissa/Chengmenqin is there.