I, the transmigrated villain, please wait, gentle master.

Chapter 194 The Truth Will Be Revealed Again (3)

Ren Ping is dead.

The cultivation world is in complete chaos.

The Taiji Hall was unusually quiet.

Everyone thought that Li Tingyun would cause trouble at this critical juncture, or at least take advantage of the chaos to launch a major attack on the cultivation world.

But he made no statement, and even the four city lords of the Four Symbols City rarely went out.

This isn't right.

The various immortal sects were initially on high alert for many days, truly preparing for battle and ready to fight at any moment. They were on high alert and ready to fight, but when they actually got to the battlefield, they found that the enemy was absent and had not come at all!

...I drew my sword and looked around, feeling lost and confused.

A deep sense of powerlessness arose spontaneously.

It’s over.

Not only was the Taiji Hall silent, but the Fengdu Ghost Realm was also eerily quiet.

The group of dead ghosts who fought to the death with the cultivation world back then and were dealt with by Ren Pingsheng for hundreds of years without recovering are now obediently staying in the underworld.

The Ghost King guards Hell, and the Ghost Emperor remains in seclusion, showing no signs of a "comeback."

They were like elderly people, half-dead and paralyzed, having finally outlived their nemesis, but they were also nearing their end. They had no energy to set off firecrackers to celebrate, but instead felt a sense of desolation, like the sorrow of a rabbit mourning the death of a fox or the grief of a fellow animal.

The internal turmoil within the cultivation world is far more serious than the external threats.

While they were in chaos and turmoil, Li Tingyun was leisurely lying on the floor tiles of the Taiji Hall, reading a book and newspaper with his legs crossed.

With a calligraphy brush dangling from his mouth, he read and annotated the book. At one point, he chuckled, sat up, and wrote four large characters at the top of the page: "utter nonsense."

Throw this book away, pull out the next one from the mountain of books piled up around you, and keep reading.

The scriptures sent by the Yantian Sect were of varying quality, some excellent and some inferior. A thousand volumes of false teachings are nothing compared to a single sentence of true wisdom; how could there possibly be so many genuine "heavenly books and divine scriptures"?

The Wenyuanlou in Zhenhai not only collects classics and stores sacred texts, but also houses a variety of other books, which is why such a large building looks so full and overflowing with books.

In addition, the Yantian Sect itself also prints tabloids and compiles miscellaneous books, so the Wenyuan Tower is naturally filled with many of their own low-quality publications, which are not popular and even tasteless.

If I had known, I should have had them screen the samples beforehand and only sent the best ones.

Li Tingyun could dismiss hundreds of utterly nonsensical and utterly worthless works in the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

A cursory glance.

One eye and a thousand lines.

As I looked at it, I got bored and pulled out an old ledger out of nowhere.

They brought up old grievances.

He truly holds grudges, writing them down stroke by stroke, clearly and distinctly in black and white.

But his memory was rather brief; he didn't write anything except the name, and if he eliminated someone, he would put an X on their name.

A perfectly good ledger has been turned into a book of life and death.

As you turn the pages, each page contains only three or five words: Fengdu Ghost Emperor and the Ten Kings of Hell lead the way, followed by Qingliang Sect, Lingxi Village, and Yantian Sect. Then there's Penglai Continent, Yunlan Sect, and Huachuan Valley. The rest is currently blank. To be continued.

Those he recorded in his account were roughly divided into two categories: those who had already been punished and those who were about to be punished.

Li Tingyun's next target was Yunlan Sect and Huachuan Valley, but this matter was not in a hurry. He flipped through the account book, and when he got to the last page, there was a short poem written on it: "How much leisure time is there? A river of smoke and grass, a city full of willow catkins..." That was it.

He doesn't remember when he wrote it.

I think it was one night when I was thinking about him, and I wrote it down without realizing it. As I was writing, I suddenly remembered that this was his ledger! It was for keeping accounts! I stopped in time, and that's how this half-finished poem with hidden beginnings and endings came about.

It's better to meet than to miss each other.

Li Tingyun put away the account book and decided to go to Daoxuan Sect for a visit.

Of course, it was still an undercover investigation.

But this time he didn't choose the middle of the night; he sneaked in during broad daylight.

The Dao Xuan Sect was more chaotic than expected. Ren Pingsheng's eldest and second disciples were fighting fiercely, and the disciples on the two peaks were also at odds.

From the foot of the mountain to the middle and then to the summit, an atmosphere of torment, anxiety, and restlessness permeated the air, as if even a falling leaf could ignite a dispute and cause a storm.

At such a tense moment, Hidden Sword Peak was very quiet. Firstly, there were few people there; secondly, the people were reclusive; and thirdly, they had no say. The master and disciple were still as usual, calm and quiet. Yuan Che practiced swordsmanship in the Sword Pavilion, and Mei Shiyu read books in the Taoist Hermitage.

He was reading a book too. Li Tingyun thought shamelessly: We have common interests, so we're a perfect match.

Outside the window, red plum blossoms provide shade, and a small black "snake" with horns on its head coils among the branches, peeking out from the dark and damp place.

Mei Shiyu knelt by the floor-to-ceiling window, the lattice doors wide open. Sunlight streamed through the carved window frames, casting playful shadows on his body and face. He lowered his eyes, his gaze fixed intently on the book in his hands.

I don't know what kind of incomprehensible book he was reading, but he didn't turn the page for a long time. Instead, he kept drinking tea, one cup after another.

Is it hot today? It's clearly a late spring cold snap.

Some people may seem perfectly fine, but they've actually been gone for a while.

Mei Shiyu appeared to be concentrating intently, but in reality, she was already absent-minded and her mind was wandering.

"Master." Yuan Che's voice came from outside, but there was no response, so he kept calling, "Master, Master?"

Mei Shiyu seemed to wake from a dream. She put down the book in her hand, hurriedly hid the teapot and teacups on the table under it, and then got up and went outside. Looking at her disciple waiting not far away at the steps, she asked, "Che'er, what is it?"

Yuan Che bowed and said, "Master, our eldest grandmaster has issued a new assessment task to his disciples. They are to form teams and go to a perilous place to find specific rare and precious materials and bring them back to the sect. My junior sister came to find me, hoping that I can go with her. I... may I go?"

Yuan Che's senior uncle is naturally Mei Shiyu's senior brother. As for the "junior sister" he mentioned, she is the youngest disciple and the only female cultivator under his senior uncle's tutelage.

Mei Shiyu hasn't taken on any other disciples besides Yuan Che. Yuan Che is quite lonely on Hidden Sword Peak. If any of the other peaks organize a group to go down the mountain to fight monsters, even if Yuan Che doesn't volunteer, Mei Shiyu will still send him along to get some training. These kinds of challenging activities are rare opportunities, so of course he should participate as much as possible.

"Are you going to travel with your junior sister again?"

The word "again" is used cleverly.

Although Mei Shiyu and his senior brother didn't get along very well, his only disciple was very close to his senior brother's youngest disciple.

According to Mei Shiyu's observation, whenever Yuan Che participates in training, his closest junior sister will also participate, and vice versa.

Moreover, when Yuan Che teams up with others, he never leaves out his junior sister. Their names are always recorded one after the other on the same form. This little detail can be easily discovered by simply flipping through the sect's past assessment forms.

Yuan Che blushed slightly, lowered his head, and stammered, "Yes, yes."

Mei Shiyu said "Oh". Even though he noticed this strange detail, he didn't think it was wrong. He just felt that Yuan Che and his junior sister had a really good relationship. How could such a deep brother-sister relationship not be touching?

So he said, "Go ahead, and make sure you get along well with your junior sister."

Yuan Che: "...I will obey my master's orders."

Every word was spoken with resounding force.

Mei Shiyu instructed, "Times have changed. It's not peaceful outside. If you encounter any danger, contact the sect immediately."

As usual, he pulled a piece of blue feather from his sleeve and handed it to his apprentice: "It may save your life in a critical moment."

He was being modest.

It's not "possibly", but "certainly".

This blue feather fell from the tail of the divine bird Qingluan, sealing away a portion of its spiritual consciousness and cultivation. Yuan Che could obtain a feather every time he went down the mountain for training. He had accumulated many feathers, but he had only used them once. In that one time, he directly razed the entire "dangerous realm" to the ground. The danger was gone, but the treasure they were looking for was also gone.

The assessment results are reset to zero.

Yuan Che finally understood that since Mei Shiyu said it was for saving lives, then it could only be used to save lives.

Unless it's a near-death experience, it's best not to use it. He'll have to bear the other minor troubles on his own.

On the branch, the little snake with horns hung down in an upside-down hook, staring intently at the fluffy and beautiful feather in Yuan Che's hand.

He really wants one, not too many, just one will do. If he can't have one, he'll at least let him touch it.

It must feel very soft and comfortable, right? If I could, I'd love to roll around on it.

Yuan Che took the feather and left.

Withdrawing from its unrealistic fantasies, the "little snake" coiled itself back on the branch, resting its head on the heart of a blooming plum blossom. It took a deep breath, pressed its nose against the blossom, and inhaled deeply, trying to fill the strange, empty feeling in its heart.

Even the coolest and most delicate fragrance becomes intensely strong and pungent after he smells it.

It was as if he had been punched in the head.

He was so captivated that he was completely mesmerized.

I'm intoxicated by the smell.

With a "thud," the "little snake" fell off the branch and landed on the ground.

Mei Shiyu was on his way back to his hermitage when he heard this faint sound. He stopped under the plum tree, bent down and rummaged through the fallen petals, and finally found the one that had fallen from the tree...

A dark, unremarkable "bird egg".

Without much thought, Mei Shiyu picked up the egg, looked up and circled the tree. Sure enough, she found a bird's nest. She used her spiritual power to lift the egg and put it back in the nest. Her movements were extremely light and careful, without even a sound of collision.

The "little snake" disguised itself as a bird egg, escaped unharmed, returned to the tree, and immediately used its horns to break the eggshell, hanging on the edge of the nest to look down.

A cool breeze blew by, scattering fallen petals all over the ground. Mei Shiyu looked down at the petals covering the ground, and even the bluestone path leading to the Taoist temple was submerged. In the past, Yuan Che would clean the courtyard for him every day, but now that his apprentice was gone, he had to do it himself.

He summoned Qing Shuang, the sword blade trembled slightly, and moved with his body, flying through the air like a silver snake leaping, like a dragon soaring in the sky. The sword energy was fierce and powerful, but it could also be considered gentle and tender. After all, it was just sweeping away fallen flowers. In a short while, it cleared a path and then stopped.

The tip of the sword touched the ground, gleaming with a cold, icy light. His robes, hanging low, partially concealed his hand holding the sword.

It's a bit of a shame, but the swordsman's hands were actually more impressive than the sword in them—long, powerful, and with distinct knuckles. Whether holding a book, serving tea, or wielding a sword, they exuded an imposing air of nobility. Even being slapped hard by that hand would probably feel pretty good—someone's peculiar thought process always produces some abnormal ideas.

The "little snake's" burning gaze never left the person standing under the tree.

Mei Shiyu suddenly looked up, and the "little snake" quickly retreated back into its den.

Li Tingyun was more vigilant than anyone else; once he withdrew, he never stuck his head out again.

After waiting for a very long time, until the sun set and the birds returned to their nests, he jumped down from the branch and boldly revealed himself.

Mei Shiyu had already fallen asleep leaning against the tree trunk.

Do cultivators crave a moment of peace? Of course not. Even when they rest at night, they are still circulating their energy and diligently cultivating.

But Mei Shiyu did indeed fall into a deep sleep. Li Tingyun knelt beside him, leaned closer, and smelled a very distinct aroma of wine. It seemed that what he had been drinking, cup after cup, was not tea, but wine.

Like his master, he had a habit of drowning his sorrows in alcohol, and he had a good tolerance for alcohol. He didn't show it on his face at all, and his words and actions were all normal. You couldn't tell he had been drinking just by looking at him.

Li Tingyun touched his forehead with the back of her hand; the bright red cinnabar mark there was a little hot.

I cautiously probed his consciousness, and when I was sure he was really asleep, just asleep, I felt relieved. I sat down beside him, rested my chin on my hand, and looked at him carefully for a while. I did nothing and thought nothing, but I just felt very happy, very... blissful. Haha, those two words are really hard to say, but if I use another word, it can't accurately describe my feelings.

He had to admit, somewhat embarrassed, that he did feel very satisfied at that moment.

Looking at Mei Shiyu's sleeping face, he couldn't help but want to laugh. His laughter was so pure that his expression changed.

From dark and damp to sunny and cheerful.

A fine, cool sensation washed over him. Li Tingyun touched his face, then looked up at the sky. A thin mist hung in the air, and fine, sand-like snowflakes began to fall.

He used his spiritual power to create a barrier, enveloping Mei Shiyu within it, and then moved over to stand close to him, closing his eyes as well.

Not long after, Mei Shiyu suddenly turned over, changed her position, and rested her head on his shoulder. Li Tingyun opened his eyes instantly, and his first reaction was to dissipate his form. But when he realized that Mei Shiyu was not awake, he sat there stiffly, without moving.

Mei Shiyu seemed to be feeling very uncomfortable. After a while, he changed his position again. Li Tingyun was afraid of waking him up, so she didn't dare to move too much. She touched the red mark between his eyebrows with her finger again, trying to "soothe" him with her mental power.

This is simply unbelievable. In addition to brutally using mental power to attack, manipulate, crush, and torment others, he also knows how to change his approach and style, and offer people spiritual comfort in an exceptionally "gentle" way.

He also used this opportunity to peek into Mei Shiyu's dreams.

Unexpectedly, in the other person's dream, they saw familiar scenes and heard familiar conversations.

Mei Shiyu dreamed of gold ingots.

This dream becomes richer and more complete because of the addition of the "protagonist".

It's also more realistic.

Li Tingyun dreamt of the day he fell off a cliff when he was twelve years old.