Within the side room, calm returned once more.
Gu Chengming slowly opened his eyes.
The second realm—achieved.
He turned his gaze inward, and saw that the gaseous spiritual power that had once filled his meridians had now wholly transformed into a thick, viscous liquid true essence.
It flowed slowly within the qi sea of his dantian, and at the very center of that qi sea, a wisp of golden-red breath—one not cultivated by himself, yet bound to his very bloodline—coiled quietly there.
That breath had condensed into form, and was, astonishingly, a tiny roaming dragon no more than an inch long.
It was no dead thing; rather, in time with Gu Chengming's every breath in and out, it inhaled and exhaled the surrounding true essence.
What struck Gu Chengming as even more peculiar was that each time this little roaming dragon breathed in and out, he could faintly sense that he, the earth beneath his feet, the heavens above his head—even the entire Capital of the Great Qian—had produced some resonance he could not quite put into words.
It was as if he'd been granted some sort of special privilege?
"What is this thing?"
Gu Chengming felt rather puzzled.
This dragon aura… no matter how he looked at it, it couldn't be separated from the imperial house of the Great Qian.
[Hundred Bones Resonance cried out in alarm: A dragon—why, that is the sign of an emperor!]
[It said gleefully: Congratulations, Heavenly Emperor Gu, you can proclaim yourself emperor now!]
[Qingxin Formula keenly sensed that this dragon aura might later bring no small amount of fun.]
[The Huiyuan Sword Formula is also quite happy for you.]
[Flowing Cloud Moon-Following gave a snort: already the second realm, eh—later go kill a few more sword cultivators to liven things up.]
Watching this lively scene before him, the trace of doubt in Gu Chengming's heart was washed away considerably.
He found it amusing. Rising to his feet, he straightened his slightly disheveled robes and pushed the door open.
"Creeeak—"
The long-shut door opened, and the autumn sunlight spilled without reserve upon his face, carrying a hint of warmth.
Gu Chengming was in high spirits, and was just about to report the good news to Yu Wenqiu, when he felt a faint, lingering gaze fall upon him, as though carrying a tangible resentment.
His steps halted, and he turned toward its source.
Beneath the osmanthus tree in the courtyard, Yu Wenqiu lay sprawled across a reclining chair. Though she still held a volume of a storybook in her hand, her mind was clearly not on the book at all; she was glaring fixedly at Gu Chengming with the kind of aggrieved, resentful eyes one might cast upon a heartless cad.
"…Elder?"
Gu Chengming felt a chill crawl up his spine under that stare, and instinctively took half a step back, saying with some hesitation: "What's the matter with you?"
Yu Wenqiu gave a light snort, her voice carrying a teeth-gnashing edge:
"Thanks to a certain someone."
She slowly sat up, her movements somewhat sluggish, as though tugging at some injury. Her brows furrowed in a way almost imperceptible, but she quickly concealed it.
"Broke through?" Yu Wenqiu sized him up from head to toe, her tone complicated.
"A fortunate breakthrough."
Gu Chengming nodded, then stepped forward and said: "But Elder, this breakthrough of mine seems to have hit a bit of a snag…"
"A snag?"
Yu Wenqiu's heart skipped. The commotion just now had been so great—surely he hadn't truly been hurt:
"Where do you feel unwell?"
"It's not that I feel unwell."
Gu Chengming hesitated, but decided to speak the truth after all—Yu Wenqiu was, after all, widely experienced:
"This disciple discovered, within his qi sea, a dragon-shaped aura-seed, and moreover this aura-seed seems to echo with the dragon aura of this Capital."
Hearing this, Yu Wenqiu's eyes went wide, and her mouth opened and closed.
Once she'd come to her senses, she seized Gu Chengming's wrist and sent a thread of divine sense probing within.
After a moment, she released her hand, her expression turning utterly remarkable—it truly was dragon aura!
"Elder, is this… a problem?" Gu Chengming asked tentatively.
"It's a problem, and it's not a problem."
Yu Wenqiu drew a deep breath and rubbed at her brow, feeling only that her skull ached all the more.
She thought about it for a long while but couldn't come up with any sense of it, and could only attribute it to the peculiarity of that 'Zhouli' heart-method, or to Gu Chengming's own fortune. She could only admonish him:
"Before that dragon-shaped aura-seed has fully stabilized, do not reveal it before others—especially not before people of the imperial house of the Great Qian."
"This disciple understands." Gu Chengming nodded in assent.
Yu Wenqiu admonished him a while longer, then once again forcibly drove the Clairvoyant Eye to seal off the aura-mechanism that the dragon-shaped seed might leak.
With the proper business done, that grievance of hers welled up again.
She recalled how, just now, in order to cover up this brat's commotion, she had nearly injured her very origin—how many good things would she have to eat to make that back?
The more she thought about it, the more she felt cheated.
And so, Yu Wenqiu stretched out one slender finger, and—heedless of any elder's dignity—jabbed it hard against Gu Chengming's firm chest, twice.
"I don't care what you cultivated."
Yu Wenqiu puffed out her cheeks, the very picture of a creditor demanding her due:
"In any case, for this seclusion of yours, I've taken a huge loss!"
She made no mention of being injured and coughing up blood, only lightly reframing that sacrifice into the complaints of a little maiden.
"You absolutely have to compensate me!"
Jabbed back half a step, Gu Chengming looked at this woman before him—at once mentor and something like a friend. Though he didn't know what had happened just now, seeing Yu Wenqiu like this, he guessed she must have covered up something for his sake.
"Yes, yes, yes, the Elder has worked hard. In the Elder's view, how should I compensate you?"
"Hmph."
Yu Wenqiu withdrew her hand, tilted up her chin haughtily, extended one finger and waggled it, then thought it over and found it insufficient—so she doubled it:
"One volume… no, two volumes! I want you to write that storybook all the way to the sixth volume in one go, and every single volume must have a satisfying side-plot ending."
Gu Chengming found it amusing, but agreed all the same.
"Now that's more like it."
Having gotten a satisfying promise, Yu Wenqiu's brows and eyes curved, like a cat that had just stolen a taste of fish.
"Alright then. Since you've come out of seclusion, that's a happy occasion."
She stood up from the reclining chair and gently brushed off the few flower petals clinging to her skirt.
She gave a great big stretch, her exquisitely curved figure laid bare in the lingering glow of the setting sun, exuding an indescribable languor and ease.
"These past few days I've been so busy watching over you that I haven't even had a single hot meal."
As she spoke, she casually gathered up her somewhat disheveled long hair and bound it loosely at the back of her head with a wooden hairpin:
"Even though you brat have entered bigu, this elder's mortal appetite hasn't gone anywhere."
"Let's go. Don't just stand there in a daze."
Yu Wenqiu turned and walked toward the courtyard gate, her steps brisk—where was there any trace of that weakened state from a moment ago:
"Today is a good day. Let's make a trip to the market district."
"I hear several boatloads of fresh spirit-beast meat have come in over at the Western Market, along with freshly picked spirit vegetables. Tonight we won't bother making those fussy osmanthus cakes—today we'll have hot pot! Consider it… a welcome feast to wash the dust off you, our new second-realm cultivator."
With that, she didn't wait for Gu Chengming to reply, and turned to walk out of the courtyard gate.
About half an hour later.
Beneath the somewhat aged old osmanthus tree in the small courtyard, a dim yellow wind-lantern had been hung from a branch, swaying gently in the evening breeze, drawing the tree's shadow long and dappled.
Beneath the tree a small red-clay stove had been set up, its fire blazing strong, licking at the bottom of the purple-copper pot above.
The milk-white broth within the pot bubbled and roiled, 'gurgle, gurgle.' A few segments of tender white scallion and bright red goji berries bobbed up and down on the surface, and as the steam rose, a rich aroma of bone broth domineeringly seized the entire little courtyard, suffusing the originally cold and clear autumn night with a melting warmth.
Gu Chengming had rolled up his sleeves and sat on a small folding stool to the side, a sharp little knife in hand, attending with focused expression to a slab of snowflake-marbled mutton on the chopping board.
His movements were unhurried, each cut full of method; slices thin as cicada's wings, rising and falling with the blade's edge, were laid out neatly piece by piece in a blue-and-white porcelain plate, glistening with a crystalline sheen.
Yu Wenqiu, meanwhile, reclined half-sprawled and entirely without poise upon the rattan chair across from him, a thick fleece blanket draped over her. Though she still held a volume of an unfinished storybook in her hand, those peach-blossom eyes that usually carried a touch of languor were not on the pages at all.
Her gaze rose and fell with the knife in Gu Chengming's hand, her throat occasionally rolling ever so subtly. And whenever the broth in the copper pot boiled a little too fiercely, she couldn't help but lean forward, tapping the rim of the pot lightly twice with her long chopsticks, as though urging it on.
Once the meat slices went into the pot, the originally clear broth instantly surged up with white froth, the mutton curling slightly and changing color in the rolling water.
Yu Wenqiu narrowed her eyes and, heedless of the heat, plucked up the mutton and brought it to her mouth, immediately letting out a satisfied sigh, her brows and eyes curving, her whole person sinking into that rattan chair.
Osmanthus fragrance and the breath of the stove fire intertwined; they sipped and drank slowly, and the whole night passed without words.
The next morning, just as the sky was dimly brightening.
When Gu Chengming once again stepped through the heavy gatehouse of the Night-Watch Bureau, built of black-obsidian stone, more than half a month had passed since his last visit.
Over this half-month, the three characters of 'Gu Chengming' had, within the Night-Watch Bureau, risen swiftly to fame.
Slaying a mid-second-realm evil entity against the odds at the ninth layer of the first realm, openly setting the workplace in order at the welcome banquet, and moreover speaking with eloquent ease before Director Zhou—all of this had long since made him a renowned newcomer within the Bureau.
Add to that the fact that he'd taken leave this half-month for closed-door cultivation—claiming outwardly to have had some minor insights—now upon seeing him again, the others needed only to sense a little to know that he had already broken through to the second realm.
"Brother Gu?"
Just as he passed through the covered corridor of the front courtyard, a startled, uncertain voice came from one side.
Song Qing, a meat bun clamped in his mouth, was at that moment staring wide-eyed at Gu Chengming, as though he'd seen a ghost.
As a technique-cultivator of the Tianding Sect, his perception of spiritual energy was the keenest.
Half a month ago, though Gu Chengming had been formidable, the aura about him had still been sharp and exposed—a sign of spiritual power brimming full but not yet fully transmuted in quality.
But the Gu Chengming before him now had an aura restrained and profound; were one not to deliberately probe, one might even feel he was merely a mortal with somewhat vigorous blood and qi.
"Returning to simplicity, true essence liquefied…"
Song Qing swallowed the bun in his mouth, his Adam's apple rolling with difficulty:
"You broke through to the second realm?!"
How long had it even been?! Half a month at the very most!
When an ordinary cultivator assaults the second realm of foundation-building, which of them doesn't prepare a whole heap of meridian-protecting medicinal pills, then adjust their condition for several months, and finally go into seclusion for a year or so—and even then may not succeed.
Looking at Song Qing in this state, Gu Chengming inwardly grumbled—where did this bumbling heroine straight out of some old-school anime, gnawing on bread, come from? Yet his face remained perfectly composed as he said with a smile:
"I had some slight insight, and by good fortune the work was completed."
"How is this 'good fortune'…"
Song Qing shook his head with a wry smile, the shock in his eyes gradually turning into a note of admiring congratulation:
"Brother Gu, with such talent, were you placed in our Tianding Sect, I'm afraid those several Grand Supreme Elders would all be scrambling to take you as a disciple. Congratulations, Brother Gu—one more step along the Great Dao."
The two walked side by side toward the Hidden Dragon Court.
Along the way, Song Qing naturally didn't stay idle, vividly recounting to Gu Chengming all the fresh happenings in the Capital over the past half-month.
From which minister's household concubine had run off with an opera performer, to a newly opened tavern in the Eastern Market said to have a demon-clan background behind it, to the Ministry of Justice recently arresting several audaciously bold rogue cultivators—nothing too great or too small was left out.
Gu Chengming listened, occasionally chiming in. As they neared the courtyard gate, his steps paused slightly, and he asked as though casually:
"By the way, how has Fellow Daoist Feng Ya been these days? Is the team all present today?"
This time, emerging from seclusion with his realm stabilized and a few more trump cards in hand, he was thinking that if that senior sister from the Yunyue Sect still hadn't learned her lesson, he wouldn't mind helping her deepen the impression.
Who would have thought that, hearing this, Song Qing's expression instantly turned strange.
"Brother Gu, I'm afraid you won't be seeing her for these next few days."
"Oh?"
"Ever since that night when she was… ahem, when she was escorted out of the banquet by you, she went back and claimed illness."
"She probably felt it was too humiliating, and on top of that the injury on her face… ahem, ahem—though we cultivators recover quickly, an injury to one's pride doesn't heal so easily. She's already taken half a month of leave straight, saying she's going into dead seclusion, and won't come out the door until she breaks through to the mid-second realm."
"I reckon she's afraid of running into you."
Hearing this, Gu Chengming was slightly stunned, and then a sense of inexplicable disappointment welled up in his heart.
She'd given up just like that?
He'd thought that, going by the stubborn temper of that pack of sword cultivators from the Yunyue Sect, the first thing she'd do upon waking would be to take up her sword and come fight him to the death, or call in people from her sect to win back face.
He'd even worked out the whole script for how to counterattack, how to once again 'convince her with reason.'
And in the end, the other party simply chose to play dead?
"What a pity."
Gu Chengming sighed inwardly. The plan he'd prepared could only be shelved for now.
A moment passed.
Gu Chengming pushed open the great gate of the Hidden Dragon Court, and a faint medicinal fragrance wafted into his face.
Within the hall, Li Dujiang was cradling an ancient tome, while in the corner An Shan held a piece of some unidentified beast bone, carefully carving away at something with an engraving knife.
Upon seeing Gu Chengming enter, both of their movements paused at the same time.
As cultivators who had already stepped into the second realm, their perception of aura was naturally even keener.
There was no excessive verbal clamor; Li Dujiang merely gave a slight nod and raised the teacup in his hand in a distant toast, while An Shan flashed a row of white teeth and stuck up a thumb.
To walk the Great Dao alone, yet to witness a companion break through their realm, was in itself a joyous thing.
Once each had taken their seats, the topic naturally turned to the recent situation.
Though the several of them were stationed at the Night-Watch Bureau, behind each of them stood their own vast sect.
Over this past half-month, the major sects all seemed to have caught the scent of the undercurrents surging beneath the still waters of the Great Qian's Capital, and had each, through their own channels, sent warnings and news.
Li Dujiang, with a light cough, brought up that several enshrined elders of the Hunyuan Sect within the army had recently sent word, saying the Ministry of War had been mobilizing frequently of late—especially the Divine Mechanism Battalion responsible for the defense of the capital region, which seemed to have quietly swapped in a batch of new-style firearms. And the blueprints for those firearms had not come from the Ministry of Works, but rather seemed to originate from the ever-mysterious and unfathomable remnant lineage of the Mohist School.
An Shan also added a few words in his muffled, gruff voice, saying that while purchasing beast bones on the black market, he'd discovered that the market had lately been flooded with quite a few rare materials from the savage wilds of the northern frontier, and at prices absurdly low—as if someone were anxious to dump them, or as if it were a clearance before some great upheaval was about to arrive.
At the same time, within the imperial court, the Grand Preceptor—a man whose power overshadowed the entire court and who had never gotten along well with the major sects—had recently seemed to be frequently receiving several foreign monks from the Western Regions, his intentions unclear.
Every single matter, one after another, made clear that a storm was brewing over the situation in this Capital.
Gu Chengming sighed inwardly and set down his teacup.
But not long after he'd set it down, a personal guard clad in black armor hurried over, saying that Vice-Commander Liu requested his presence.
Gu Chengming's heart stirred slightly; he knew that case had reached a conclusion of some sort, and immediately rose, following the guard to the inner-hall office.
Within the office, Vice-Commander Liu was facing that thick case file with knitted brows.
Only upon seeing Gu Chengming enter did that solemn face squeeze out a trace of a smile. Without any of those empty, flowery pleasantries, he pushed the case file forward.
"Chengming, you've come at just the right time."
Vice-Commander Liu pointed at the case file, his expression turning rather grave:
"That third-realm evil entity, the Nightmare Roving Corpse, that attacked the Rain-Listening Pavilion that night—after the Bureau's Investigation Hall worked through the night to dismantle and examine it, we've at least gotten a handle on some of the workings. But the waters behind this, I'm afraid, run even deeper than we'd anticipated."
Saying this, his gaze turned toward Gu Chengming with pointed meaning:
"By the rules, a case like this—involving a third-realm evil entity, and possibly entangling forces within the Capital—ought to be taken over by a Squadron Commander of Chiliarch rank. But Director Zhou specifically gave word: since this case was aimed at you, and happens to coincide with your taking up the post, it's to be handed over entirely to you to investigate."
Gu Chengming understood at once.
"This subordinate will surely not fail the high hopes of the Director and the Vice-Commander."
The side hall of the Hidden Dragon Court.
Gu Chengming carefully examined the case file he'd brought back from Vice-Commander Liu.
The record in the file was extremely detailed, from the material of that paper figure to the residual baleful-qi components within its body—all of it was laid out.
Gu Chengming read ten lines at a glance, his fingertips tapping lightly upon several pieces of key information.
Yellow-Paper Bones, Corpse-Oil Soul—these were the typical methods of an evil cultivator.
Gu Chengming's gaze condensed slightly as he began to unravel the threads in his mind.
This yellow paper was not the ordinary coarse paper used for sacrifices, but rather gold-flecked paper mixed with golden-thread nanmu wood shavings.
This item was expensive, and was sold only by a few of the large paper-effigy shops in the Capital, generally used to make funerary articles for high officials and nobles.
Then there was this corpse oil.
Gu Chengming looked toward an inconspicuous note on the file—
[The corpse oil is slightly red in hue; within the resentment is mixed an extremely faint, sweet fragrance of rouge and powder, and the baleful-qi attribute leans toward obsessive resentment rather than pure savagery.]
Ordinary evil cultivators refining corpses prize ferocity and malice, and mostly take the corpse oil of those who died violent deaths—the heavier the resentment the better, and the smell is often rank and foul. But this roving corpse, though third-realm, was driven at its core not by a resentment of heaven's injustice, but by an extremely twisted craving that could not be fulfilled.
Lovesick men and resentful women; love, hatred, anger, obsession.
A flash of sharp light gleamed in Gu Chengming's eyes.
To be able to refine this kind of obsessive resentment so purely, and moreover to leave behind in the corpse oil a high-grade fragrance of rouge and powder that lingered long without dispersing—this was absolutely not something those feral evil cultivators hiding out in mass graves could accomplish.
This meant that the raw material used to refine this corpse oil must, in life, have dwelt amid silk and splendor, and in all likelihood was itself a cultivator practicing some 'lust-and-desire' method, or else a discarded husk drained dry of essence, spirit, and soul, used as a cauldron by such cultivators.
The gold-flecked paper showed this fiend's financial resources were no small matter, concealed amid the bustle of the marketplace; the peculiar corpse oil showed it was connected to the path of lust and desire.
In this Capital, a place that has both financial means, masters the way of lust and desire, and can dispose of large amounts of obsessive-resentment waste material without a soul knowing or a ghost noticing…
"The Harmonious Joy Sect?"
Gu Chengming muttered to himself.
Of course, this wasn't to say it was the Harmonious Joy Sect's doing—after all, the Harmonious Joy Sect nowadays walked the orthodox path.
But this clue must point to some enterprise under the Harmonious Joy Sect's banner, or to some degenerate operating under the guise of the Harmonious Joy Sect's name.
Just as Gu Chengming was calculating which of the Harmonious Joy Sect's enterprises he should start from, he saw a figure marked with azure-cloud flowing patterns drift leisurely over.
It was none other than Song Qing. He looked to be in quite a good mood, the treasure-pearl in his hand spinning rapidly. Seeing Gu Chengming come out, he immediately sidled up in a mysterious manner.
"Brother Gu! Finished with your business?"
Song Qing said with a smile: "Just now I saw you summoned away by the Vice-Commander, so I knew there must be serious business. But still—serious business must be done, and balancing work and leisure is also a must."
As he spoke, he drew from his sleeve a gilt-edged invitation card and waggled it before Gu Chengming's eyes.
The invitation was exquisitely made; before it was even opened, an intoxicating, faint fragrance assailed the nose. On the cover was painted a blooming pink peony, and in the corner was stamped a tiny, extremely discreet mark of the Harmonious Joy Sect.
"What's this?" Gu Chengming raised an eyebrow.
"Yayuan's flower-appreciation gathering!"
Song Qing lowered his voice:
"Brother Gu, the other day during our idle chat, I saw you were quite interested in the cultivation philosophy of the Harmonious Joy Sect. Well, as it happens, Yayuan is today holding its annual grand flower-appreciation gathering."
"I hear that tonight there'll even be an inner-gate senior sister of the Harmonious Joy Sect personally demonstrating the exquisite methods of the Classic of the Plain Maiden, with the aim of exchanging insights with the Capital's talented young men."
"This is a rare chance for study! It wasn't easy for me to get my hands on two invitations. Brother Gu—are you in or out?"
Song Qing's eyes were full of anticipation.
Though this fellow loved to have fun, going alone always felt as if it lacked something, and he was a bit timid about it.
If he could drag Gu Chengming along, it would both bolster his courage and, should any trouble arise, provide someone to look out for him.
Gu Chengming looked at that invitation, and his heart stirred slightly.
Yayuan—that was one of the Harmonious Joy Sect's largest enterprises in the Capital, and also the place with the best-informed gossip and the most mixed, motley crowd.
He'd just deduced that the clue pointed to the Harmonious Joy Sect, and now this opportunity had delivered itself to his door.
He could both investigate the case and, along the way, examine the mechanics of the Harmonious Joy Sect's cultivation methods, making preparations for the future construction of his system—two birds with one stone.
"With Senior Brother Song's gracious invitation, would refusing not be failing to know what's good for me?"
Gu Chengming took the invitation:
"Perfect—I, too, would like to see just what is so uniquely special about the cultivation methods of this Harmonious Joy Sect."
The Capital beneath the curtain of night was as bustling as daytime.
Yayuan, located in the eastern part of the city, was not festooned with lanterns and streamers like ordinary pleasure houses.
On the contrary, it was built beside the water, with soaring eaves and upturned corners, glazed tiles flowing with a warm, mellow luster under the moonlight. Within the courtyard, the strains of strings and pipes drifted melodiously, and faintly one could see soft silks dancing.
"Brother Gu, this place isn't bad, eh?"
Song Qing was clearly a regular here; the moment he stepped in, that air of familiarity showed through.
Navigating the front hall with practiced ease, he even turned back to introduce things to Gu Chengming:
"The layout of this Yayuan secretly accords with the five-elements formation. Not only is the scenery pleasing, but the density of spiritual energy is no less than that of an ordinary blessed grotto-heaven…"
However, before he could finish his words, he stopped awkwardly.
Because he discovered that those gauze-clad outer-gate female cultivators of the Harmonious Joy Sect who had come up to greet them let their gazes linger on him for only an instant, before sweeping uniformly past him to fix, fast and clinging, upon the Gu Chengming behind him.
Gu Chengming had today worn a well-tailored black brocade robe, a long sword hanging at his waist, his bearing upright as a pine.
Adding to that the touch of sword intent about him, interwoven with that handsome, otherworldly face of his, brought the advantage of his twenty-five points of Charm into full and incisive display.
"This young master… looks ever so familiar."
"Is the young master here for the first time? How is it this maidservant has never seen so handsome a figure?"
"Aiya, don't shove me! Young master, this maidservant has just learned a tune, 'Phoenix Seeking Its Mate'—would you be willing to come listen with me?"
In a flash, there came warbling voices and fragrant breezes wafting against his face.
Those female cultivators, one and all, gazed at him with melting, lingering eyes, wishing they could hang their whole selves upon him. Song Qing, on the other hand, the supposed regular, was mercilessly squeezed to the outer ring of the circle, still awkwardly holding up that invitation, his face full of astonishment and envy.
Just as Gu Chengming, finding this excessive enthusiasm a little hard to fend off, was pondering whether to use spiritual power to shake them loose—
"What's all this commotion in here? No manners at all!"
A charming yet faintly imperious light reproach came.
Following it, a wave of mid-second-realm spiritual pressure rippled out, gently pushing aside those clustering outer-gate female cultivators.
The female cultivators, who had been chattering away, instantly shrank back their necks. Though they cast a few reluctant glances at Gu Chengming, they obediently dispersed, bowing and withdrawing:
"Greetings, Senior Sister Yun."
Gu Chengming raised his head to look, and saw a woman in a violet cloud-brocade long dress leaning by the railing of the second floor.
She appeared to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age—precisely the time when a woman's charm shows most. Her hair was coiled high, a vermilion-gold dangling hairpin inserted in it, and between her brows and eyes she carried an air of shrewd capability, yet without losing her allure.
"So it's Young Master Song."
That woman, fanning a round fan, let her gaze sweep past Song Qing to land on Gu Chengming, a flicker of amazement likewise passing through her eyes, before she covered her lips and laughed lightly:
"This young master is quite unfamiliar to me—but anyone who could make the girls of our Yayuan lose their composure so must surely be no ordinary person."
Only then did Song Qing straighten his crowd-rumpled attire, cupping his hands with a wry smile:
"Senior Sister Yun jests. This is Brother Gu—Gu Chengming, an outstanding disciple of the Wenjian Sect. He's come today especially to take in the splendor of Yayuan."
"The Wenjian Sect?"
The woman called Senior Sister Yun—her eyes grew even brighter, the round fan in her hand pausing slightly. Then her figure swayed, and like a butterfly weaving through flowers she drifted gracefully down the stairs, coming before the two of them to dip into a graceful curtsy:
"This humble woman is Yun Wan, one of Yayuan's stewards. Since you are honored guests of the Night-Watch Bureau, how could you be seated down here in the noisy hall? You two, please, come upstairs."
The private seat on the second floor had an excellent view.
It was located precisely to the upper side of the central stage—affording a full view of the song and dance below, while a beaded curtain partition ensured privacy.
The three took their seats, and serving maids naturally presented spirit tea and fruit confections.
"Young Master Gu has only just arrived; perhaps you may not be aware."
Yun Wan personally poured Gu Chengming a cup of tea, pointed to several seemingly ordinary landscape paintings hung around this private seat, and introduced with a smile:
"Every blade of grass and every tree within this Yayuan, in truth, secretly accords with the way of formations. Take these few paintings, for instance—they're drawn from the conception of 'rain and clouds over Wushan.' If the young master settles his heart and concentrates his spirit here, he'll be able to feel the spiritual energy within his body circulating a few degrees more lively than outside, most beneficial for regulating blood and qi and unblocking the meridians."
Hearing this, Gu Chengming sensed it for a moment, and found that it was indeed so.
"Your esteemed sect's ingenuity is indeed quite distinctive."
Gu Chengming offered a word of praise, while inwardly he was calculating whether the clue to that third-realm evil entity might be hidden beneath this formation.
After several rounds of idle chat, cups were passed and exchanged.
Though Yun Wan was speaking with the two of them, that pair of lovely eyes remained, all the while, faintly and elusively clinging to Gu Chengming.
An inner-gate disciple of the Wenjian Sect, second-realm cultivation, with looks that were top-grade among top-grade, and his primal yang as yet undischarged, his blood and qi pure yang—
To a female cultivator of the Harmonious Joy Sect, how was this any different from walking medicine?
After three rounds of wine, Yun Wan seemed to feel the timing was about right.
She waved away the attendant maids to either side, leaned her body slightly forward, and stared straight at Gu Chengming with those beautiful eyes, her voice turning sweet and soft and cloying:
"Young Master Gu, this humble woman observes that your blood and qi are pure and upright, your sword intent restrained—you must surely have reached a bottleneck in the way of the sword?"
"I won't hide it from you, young master—in my own cultivation of late, I too have a certain barrier I find hard to cross. If the young master would not disdain it…"
Her gaze flowed about, the suggestion within it already so thick it could not be dissolved:
"Would you be willing to… explore the Great Dao together with this humble woman?"
As she spoke, she extended a jade-white hand and held up three fingers as slender as scallion stalks.
Gu Chengming was taken aback. 'Exploring the Great Dao together'—he understood that; it was a special-route invitation, just like in a Galgame.
But what did these three fingers mean? Three hundred spirit stones?
His heart was immediately struck speechless.
Setting aside that he'd come tonight on a mission to investigate a case and had no mind whatsoever to mess with all this nonsense—just this asking price… three hundred spirit stones?!
Back at his sect, fighting for his life to slay a single second-realm demon beast, the official reward, converted, came to only fifteen hundred spirit stones.
And moreover, most importantly…
Gu Chengming glanced at the top of Yun Wan's head—no chat box, no favorability bar.
By the logic of a Galgame player, an NPC without a favorability bar was just a passerby.
It had to be one of those named heroines with maxed-out favorability to trigger a special CG.
You, a passerby NPC, come up and demand to enter a special route with me, and charge me three hundred spirit stones on top of it—dreaming, are you?
Gu Chengming's expression didn't change; he lifted his teacup and took a sip, just about to open his mouth to refuse.
Seeing him fall silent and say nothing, Yun Wan gritted her teeth and held up one more finger—four hundred!
Raising the price too? This Harmonious Joy Sect really had no scruples in doing business!
Seeing that Gu Chengming still gave no reaction, Yun Wan steeled her heart, and that jade hand abruptly spread wide open.
Five hundred spirit stones!
""
Beside them, Song Qing finally noticed something was off about the atmosphere. Looking at the gradually cooling gaze in Gu Chengming's eyes, and then at Yun Wan's all-or-nothing expression, he suddenly came to a realization—
Brother Gu had misunderstood!
"Ahem, ahem!"
Song Qing hurriedly raised his wine cup to cover for himself, while at the same time a voice-transmission urgently rushed into Gu Chengming's ear:
"She's giving you the spirit stones!"
"The dual cultivation of the Harmonious Joy Sect, though it stresses mutual willingness, is at its essence an art of gathering and supplementing. Even in dual cultivation, they draw the pure yang energy from your body to aid their own cultivation—this counts as… uh, you could say, borrowing your cultivation for a use."
"Since it's borrowing, naturally compensation must be paid."
"This is the rule of the Harmonious Joy Sect—if a female disciple wishes to find a male cultivator she fancies for dual cultivation, she must pay spirit stones or medicinal pills as compensation."
"Five hundred spirit stones… that's a sky-high price—it means Senior Sister Yun has truly taken a fancy to you!"
Gu Chengming: "…?"
This founder of the Harmonious Joy Sect really was a divine genius—to think they could come up with this kind of model?
"Fellow Daoist Gu?"
Seeing Gu Chengming's expression shifting uncertainly, Senior Sister Yun thought there was hope, and leaned in, her eyes full of yearning:
"These five hundred spirit stones—I'll settle them on the spot…"
Gu Chengming came back to himself, looking at this NPC before him who, though she had no dialogue box, was generous in her dealings. Though he was a little surprised at this business model, principles were, in the end, principles.
"I truly came here today only to listen to the music and discuss the Dao."
Hearing this, the light in Senior Sister Yun's eyes instantly dimmed.
She looked at Gu Chengming, then at her own five outstretched fingers, and finally heaved a heavy sigh, her whole person slumping into the chair like a deflated ball.
Her face was full of regret and dejection—she looked, frankly, even more pained than if she'd lost five hundred spirit stones.
Beside them, Song Qing watched this scene and silently raised his wine cup.
At that very moment.
"Aaah—!!!"
A shriek abruptly tore through the originally tender, ambiguous strains of strings and pipes within Yayuan.
That sound was too piercing, even carrying a trace of spiritual-power oscillation; in an instant it penetrated the soundproofing beaded curtain of the second-floor private seat, stabbing straight into everyone's eardrums.
Following it came the dull thud of a heavy object crashing to the ground, and the shattering clatter of porcelain. The hall downstairs instantly fell into chaos—cries of alarm and the toppling of tables and chairs rose one after another.
Yun Wan's expression changed abruptly, the round fan in her hand snapping shut.
"What's going on?"
She gave a low cry, her figure darting out of the private seat like a purple swallow, vaulting straight over the railing to leap down to the first floor.
Gu Chengming and Song Qing exchanged a glance—both of them were veterans of many battles, and their reactions were extremely swift. They immediately rose and followed close behind.
The site of the incident was an upper-class private room on the eastern side of the first floor.
At this moment, the door of the private room hung open, and several outer-gate female cultivators clad in nothing but thin gauze undergarments were collapsed sitting at the doorway, their faces drained of color, their whole bodies trembling like chaff in a sieve.
The surrounding guests—those scholars who normally fancied themselves romantic, or potbellied wealthy merchants—were at this moment all shrinking back at a distance, craning their necks, wanting both to look and not to look, their faces written all over with terror and morbid curiosity.
Gu Chengming landed soundlessly and, without any show, parted the crowd.
An extremely thick aura of death, mixed with a certain nauseatingly sweet, cloying, fishy odor, rushed into his face.
Within the private room, the red candles burned high, the warm bed-curtains hung low.
Upon that broad, carved rosewood bed, a corpse lay face-up.
It was the corpse of a man, withered like dry kindling, mere skin over bones.
The man still had a half-stripped official robe hanging on him; judging from the dark-red rank-badge, he ought to have been a fifth-rank Vice-Director of the Ministry of Works.
His eyes were wide open, the eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets, and within the pupils lingered extreme terror and ecstasy.
Two diametrically opposed emotions twisted together upon that withered face, appearing especially ferocious and horrifying.
His mouth gaped wide, as if in his final moment he'd wanted to draw in one last breath, only to have all his vitality forcibly drained dry.
And by the bedside, a Harmonious Joy Sect female disciple who looked no more than twenty was slumped on the floor, her clothes in disarray, her hair-bun loosened.
She clutched fiercely at her own collar, tears and snot smearing her whole face, sobbing incoherently to the just-arrived Yun Wan:
"Boo-hoo, it wasn't me, Senior Sister Yun, it really wasn't me…"
"I'd only just fed him a cup of wine and was about to begin the practice, when he suddenly started convulsing, and then he became like this…"
Yun Wan looked at that dried corpse, her face exceedingly grim.
This was a typical death by yang-depletion—what's commonly called being killed by gathering-and-supplementing.
On the Harmonious Joy Sect's own turf, a court-appointed official had died, and died in so wretched a state, looking as though drained dry of essence by some evil art.
If word of this got out, the ruin of Yayuan's reputation would be the small matter; if the court were to use this as a pretext to demand accountability, even implicating the sect, that would be enormous trouble.
"Shut up!"
Yun Wan gave a low cry, a spirit-light flicking from her fingertip to seal off the disciple's sobbing. Then she swiftly turned, forcing out a trace of a smile toward the onlooking crowd, and was about to open her mouth to soothe them and lock down the news.
At that very moment—
"Bang!"
Yayuan's heavy vermilion gate was rudely slammed open from outside.
A bitter, biting cold wind, rolling with a killing aura, instantly poured into this warm-as-spring den of gilded vice.
"The Demon-Catching Bureau is handling a case! All idle persons, get out of the way!"
Accompanying a thunderous, furious roar, a squad of officers clad in dark-red flying-fish robes, regulation long sabers at their waists, charged in like a pack of wolves.
They moved extremely fast, their division of labor clear—some swiftly guarding each exit, some directly dispersing the onlooking crowd. At their head, a black-faced burly man, exuding the spiritual pressure of the late second realm all over his body, charged straight toward the private room where the incident had occurred.
Gu Chengming stood in the shadows of the crowd, his brow furrowing in a way almost imperceptible.
He instinctively glanced at the Night-Watch Bureau waist-token at his belt, which had given no reaction whatsoever.
Too fast. From the moment that shriek rang out to these people breaking down the door and storming in, the whole thing had taken no more than a few dozen breaths.
The Night-Watch Bureau's Night-Patrol Token hadn't even had time to sense the abnormal fluctuations here, yet this Demon-Catching Bureau—subordinate to the Ministry of Justice and ordinarily often at friction with the Night-Watch Bureau—had arrived in an instant, as if they'd been crouching at the door all along?
Moreover, from the look of their posture, they didn't even need to ask any questions; they'd directly locked onto the scene of the incident.
"You're the steward here?"
That black-faced burly man strode into the private room, not even sparing a glance at the corpse, and shoved a token straight into Yun Wan's face, his tone overbearing:
"Someone reported that a demoness within Yayuan committed murder, gathering and supplementing from a court-appointed official! Now that the culprit and the evidence are both caught red-handed, what more is there to say?"
"Men! Seal off the scene! Take this demoness away! And this steward too—bring her back together for interrogation!"
"Hold on!"
Though Yun Wan was alarmed in her heart, she was, after all, a steward of one side, and did not immediately submit.
She forced down her anger and shielded the slumped disciple behind her, saying coldly:
"My lord, to catch adulterers you catch them as a pair; to catch a thief you catch him with the loot. This man has only just died, the cause of death is unclear, and you haven't even examined the body—yet you've decided in one breath that it was my Yayuan disciple who did the killing? Isn't that rather too hasty?"
"Hasty?"
The black-faced burly man gave a cold laugh and pointed at the dried corpse on the bed:
"This man's been sucked into a human husk—besides your Harmonious Joy Sect's gathering-and-supplementing art, who else in this Capital has this kind of method? What, do you want me to summon his soul back to confront you face to face?"
"Seize her for me!"
At his command, the two officers behind him moved to step forward and forcibly bind her.
Yun Wan's spiritual power surged all over her body, and she was just about to resist, when she saw a cold gleam flash in the black-faced burly man's hand—it was a soul-locking chain specifically designed to suppress cultivators' spiritual power.
"You dare resist arrest? Then you're an accomplice! Your crime is compounded!"
Just as the swords were drawn and bows bent, and the people of Yayuan were at a loss—
"One moment."
A voice came abruptly from the rear of the crowd.
The black-faced burly man's movements paused, and he whipped his head around, his gaze sweeping viciously toward the source of the voice:
"Which blind fool dares to meddle in the Demon-Catching Bureau's business?"
The crowd parted like a receding tide.
Gu Chengming walked out, Song Qing following behind him.
Gu Chengming paid no heed to that burly man's bellowed challenge, but walked straight to the doorway of the private room.
First he glanced at the dried corpse, then his gaze swept over the two Demon-Catching Bureau officers who were about to act, and finally landed on that black-faced burly man. He reached into his robe, drew out that waist-token, and casually flashed it.
"Night-Watch Bureau, Night-Patrol Guard."
Six simple words made the originally menacing black-faced burly man's expression shift slightly.
The Night-Watch Bureau and the Demon-Catching Bureau, though both organizations of the Great Qian for handling extraordinary cases, had never gotten along.
The Demon-Catching Bureau was subordinate to the Ministry of Justice; though it had the advantage in numbers, in rank it was always pressed a notch lower.
Seeing that waist-token, the black-faced burly man's pupils contracted slightly, his arrogance dropping by three points at once. But then he stiffened his neck again and said:
"So it's a colleague from the Night-Watch Bureau. But this case occurred in the market district and involves a demonic gathering-and-supplementing—by rights it ought to fall under the jurisdiction of my Demon-Catching Bureau. Are you trying to overstep your bounds?"
Gu Chengming did not answer, but instead extended his hand, gathered a faint wisp of true essence at his fingertip, and pressed it lightly upon the brow of that dried corpse.
This was precisely the anomaly he had seen earlier when he activated [Piercing Insight].
"If this were truly gathering-and-supplementing, the dead man's body should have its primal yang fully drained, yet the divine soul would have a remnant left behind."
As Gu Chengming's fingertip swept across, an extremely faint, ash-black smoke that carried a nauseating aura slowly rose from the corpse's seven orifices.
"But within this corpse there is not only no primal yang—even the divine soul has been devoured utterly clean."
Gu Chengming raised his head, his gaze blazing like a torch: "Even if it were death by gathering-and-supplementing, what would be left behind is an aura of desire and lust—absolutely not this kind of cold, gloomy death-qi."
"This doesn't look like the work of a person gathering-and-supplementing; rather, it looks like an evil entity."
"Since it's an evil entity's doing, naturally it ought to be handled by my Night-Watch Bureau."
"Utter nonsense!"
The black-faced burly man's face couldn't quite hold up. He had naturally noticed some of the clues himself, but if tonight's case were classified as an evil entity wreaking havoc, it would have to be transferred to the Night-Watch Bureau.
If it were classified as a sect disciple committing murder, then it would be the Demon-Catching Bureau's merit—and they could take the chance to scrape a layer of oil off this fat sheep that was the Harmonious Joy Sect.
"The facts are all here, and this female cultivator is right beside the body. If it wasn't her, who else could it be?"
"Men! Take her away!"
Gu Chengming's eyes narrowed slightly. These Demon-Catching Bureau people were even more eager for quick success and instant profit than he'd imagined.
"I said—hold on."
Gu Chengming's voice turned cold, and a spiritual pressure belonging to a second-realm cultivator, accompanied by the official authority granted under the 'Zhouli,' instantly enveloped the entire scene.
"This matter is riddled with doubts. If you arrest the wrong person and let the true culprit escape, causing this evil entity to keep wreaking havoc in the Capital—this responsibility, can you bear it?"
"And to trace the matter to its root, a single probe is all it takes to know true from false."
With that, Gu Chengming paid no further heed to the Demon-Catching Bureau's black-faced burly man. The Wave-Listening Sword in his hand slid slightly from its sheath, its sword intent locking onto the wisp of aura lingering above the corpse.
At the same time, atop a teahouse across from Yayuan.
A figure concealed in the shadows was staring fixedly at Gu Chengming through the gap in the window.
"How could there be a Night-Watch Bureau man present at a time like this?"
"And an expert at that…"
He absolutely must not be allowed to cast his spell and trace it back!
The mastermind formed a seal with his hands, a flash of ruthlessness passing through his eyes.
Since this couldn't be settled amicably, then he'd strike first and seize the advantage!
Within Yayuan's main hall.
Just as Gu Chengming was about to cast his spell, a sudden change erupted.
The faint black qi that had originally emanated from the corpse's seven orifices, without any warning, surged violently, instantly transforming into a stream of pink, decadent mist. Carrying a dizzying, head-spinning sweet fragrance, it shot straight at Gu Chengming's face!
"Look out!" Song Qing cried out in alarm.
But this mist came too fast, and it ignored spiritual-power shields, boring directly into Gu Chengming's brow.
Gu Chengming's figure abruptly stiffened, his eyes instantly turning dazed.
Atop the teahouse, the mastermind was overjoyed at the sight.
"The spell succeeded!"
This was the innate divine ability of that third-realm evil entity, the 'Pink Skeleton.'
This divine ability was extremely domineering, able to forcibly drag the one struck by it into an illusory realm constructed of desire.
But this art had one limitation: it was a 'two-slot' illusory realm, which had to be entered jointly by both the evil entity and the one struck by the spell; within the illusion, it would drain the other's divine soul through 'coupling.'
So long as the evil entity went in, then with a third-realm entity's suppressive power on the level of the divine soul, killing off an early-second-realm sword cultivator would be as easy as turning a hand, wouldn't it?
However.
The next instant, the smile froze on that mastermind's face.
He had sensed the position of that evil entity.
"…?"
That ball of pink mist was at this moment floating outside Gu Chengming's brow—it had not vanished, nor had it entered Gu Chengming's sea of consciousness.
"What's going on?!"
The mastermind was dumbfounded.
The illusory realm had clearly already been triggered!
He could clearly feel that Gu Chengming's divine soul had already been pulled into an enclosed illusory space, and the connection on that side had been established.
But… since the illusory realm needed 'two slots' to support it before it could open, and the evil entity was still hanging outside right now…
Then inside the illusion, the 'second slot' who was together with Gu Chengming… who was it?!
Before he could even figure out this spine-chilling question—
A powerful sense of backlash suddenly surged over.
Because the evil entity, as the caster, had to enter its slot to preside once the illusion opened. Now that it had been 'squeezed' out by some unknown force, yet still had to maintain the operation of the illusion, it ended up jammed in an extremely awkward 'post-casting recovery' rigid state.
And as the mastermind manipulating the evil entity, in order to maintain this high-intensity spiritual-power output, he too was forced to keep a high-intensity divine-soul link with the evil entity.
The evil entity couldn't move.
And he couldn't move either!
"I've been hard-CC'd?!"
The mastermind held his seal-forming posture, his eyeballs bulging round, cold sweat pouring down, yet unable to move so much as a finger. He could only watch helplessly as the situation in Yayuan across the way unfolded.
What in the hell kind of situation was this?!
Who the hell hijacked my account?!
Within the illusory realm, where the flow of time was completely different from the outside world.
Gu Chengming looked at the black-haired little girl before him—surprised, and a little bashful—and fell into deep thought.
"The Huiyuan Sword Formula?"
He asked, somewhat uncertain.
"Mm!!"
The little girl nodded. She wanted to reach out and touch Gu Chengming, but for some reason her hand passed straight through him.
Gu Chengming looked at her, then at the few large characters that lit up on the pure-white space behind the little girl.
A Room You Cannot Leave Until You ___.
He sank into deep contemplation.
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