DS 09

Chapter – 09

The White Tiger Cub’s Gratitude

Morning.

Chen Ming awoke from his stupor, his entire body aching. His throat, the back of his neck, his chest, his back, his groin—pain radiated from every part of him. He struggled to get out of bed, his face filled with terror.

“Am I dead?”

The last memory in Chen Ming’s mind was his magical power being exhausted and the female ghost from the well possessing him. After that, he had lost control of his body.

In his daze, it seemed he saw his long-departed imperial grandmother coming to take him away.

Though he missed her dearly, he had no desire to leave with her just yet.

He was only twenty, hadn’t reached Foundation Establishment, and hadn’t ascended the throne. He still had so much life ahead of him. Just as his grandmother was holding his hand and leading him further and further away, a man suddenly appeared.

Li Yu!

In the past, Chen Ming had always hated that handsome, jade-like face. But at that moment, Li Yu’s face was his saving light!

Daylight had fully arrived. Squire Ren tentatively pushed open the courtyard gate and asked cautiously, “Honored Immortal Masters, are you still here?”

But what he saw was Chen Ming’s face, twisted in rage.

He had thought this would be a simple mission, yet he had nearly lost his life. Chen Ming was not about to let this slide. Ignoring the searing pain in his body, he summoned the officials of Fengzhou.

He suspected this whole affair was a conspiracy aimed at them.

If he had known there was a female ghost rivaling a peak Qi Refining Level One cultivator here, he would never have accepted such a mission. Chen Ming was a prince of Chen Country, so the Fengzhou officials naturally cooperated fully.

However, after interrogation, the Ren family knew nothing about it.

Li Yu wasn’t surprised. The Ren family didn’t have the guts to scheme against immortal masters. This was all the female ghost’s doing.

Driving those wandering spirits to haunt the Ren household and create the illusion of a haunting was merely a decoy. Her real target was cultivators’ souls.

For ghosts, a cultivator’s soul was a great tonic, capable of rapidly increasing their power. She just hadn’t anticipated that Baiyun Temple would send four Qi Refining cultivators for a simple ghost-expelling task, leading to her complete annihilation—dying once more and scattering from this world for good.

In just a few days since arriving in this world, Li Yu had already experienced firsthand how perilous the path of cultivation could be.

Even a seemingly insignificant mission could lead to one’s demise.

Upon returning to Baiyun Temple, the four went together to report to Elder Sun.

Elder Sun was a small, wizened old man with white hair and a face full of wrinkles, appearing to be in his sixties or seventies. But Li Yu knew he was far older—over two hundred years old, a genuine old monster who had lived for two centuries.

Although Elder Sun had already reached the late Foundation Establishment stage, he had little hope of forming a Golden Core in this lifetime. So he had come to Baiyun Temple to serve as a steward, contributing his remaining energy to the sect, nurturing reserve talents, and waiting for his final day to arrive.

Li Yu had never seen him cultivate. What Elder Sun did most was lie on a rocking chair and bask in the sun—all day long, motionless. Anyone who didn’t know better might think he had already passed into eternal rest.

“A female ghost at peak Qi Refining Level One?”

Elder Sun lay on his rocking chair, listening to Li Yu and the others recount the mission. He opened his eyes just a crack and said flatly, “Cultivating to that level means she had several decades of practice. You’re lucky she was just a crude, self-taught ghost who only knew possession and no real ghost arts. Otherwise, at least two of you would have died there…”

Elder Sun’s emotionless words sent another chill through the group.

He glanced at them again and said, “Consider yourselves fortunate this time. The cultivation world is fraught with danger everywhere. You’re just a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears kids. When you’re out in the world, keep your wits about you—don’t die without even knowing how. Every year, the major sects lose anywhere from eight hundred to a thousand disciples to missions…”

After admonishing the four, Elder Sun turned and walked into a hall with his hands behind his back. A moment later, he shuffled back out and handed Chen Ming a few gold-coin-like objects.

Chen Ming hesitated for a moment, then handed all ten spirit coins to Zhou Zixuan and said, “Junior Sister Zhou, I won’t take any reward for this mission. You can split these spirit coins among yourselves.”

Then he turned to Li Yu and Jiang Li, bowed his head, and said, “I was wrong about what happened before. I apologize to you both here and now. I hope you won’t hold it against me.”

Facing Li Yu and Jiang Li now, Chen Ming’s mindset had completely changed.

In the pursuit of immortality, who wasn’t striving for eternal life?

If not for Li Yu, his life would have ended yesterday. Forget about the path to immortality—compared to this immense debt of gratitude, those petty grievances from before meant nothing.

Jiang Li waved his hand generously and said, “Forget it, forget it…”

After all, in the two years of friction with Chen Ming, neither he nor Li Yu had actually suffered any physical harm.

Zhou Zixuan held the spirit coins and didn’t deliberate long before handing them all to Li Yu. “Junior Brother Li, you should take all these. I didn’t really help much on this mission either…”

Li Yu wanted to decline, but Zhou Zixuan was insistent, so he reluctantly accepted.

Ten spirit coins, each worth ten—so a hundred in total. Li Yu tried to split them with Jiang Li, but Jiang Li flatly refused. “I don’t want any. Spirit coins are useless to me—you keep them all…”

Li Yu understood Jiang Li. The kid had no real interest in cultivation—if he said he didn’t want them, he truly didn’t.

Suddenly in possession of a hundred spirit coins, Li Yu wasn’t sure how to spend them. A hundred coins could buy a few low-level talismans from Elder Sun for protection, or some pills to replenish magical power…

All of these were useful for Qi Refining cultivators. If Chen Ming had had a single Qi Restoration Pill last night, he wouldn’t have been possessed by that female ghost.

However, Elder Sun said that if they became official disciples of Kunlun Sect in three months, the sect would provide such things. Buying them now would be a waste, and he advised Li Yu to save the coins instead—spirit coins would be far more valuable once he entered the sect. If he didn’t make it in, then he could exchange them for these items.

Li Yu felt Elder Sun’s advice was sound. For now, the entrance selection in three months was more important.

The selection criteria weren’t fixed—it mostly depended on the preferences of the selecting elder. However, reaching Qi Refining was a hard requirement. Those at Qi Refining Level Two or above could enter directly. Those at Level One still faced uncertainty, depending on the number of acupoints they had opened.

Although Li Yu had already reached Qi Refining Level One, he couldn’t guarantee he’d be selected. There were still Level One cultivators in the temple who had been eliminated last time.

He had to make the most of these final three months to raise his cultivation further.

Early morning, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, Li Yu got up, washed up, and left Baiyun Temple.

The concentration of spiritual energy in the surroundings could affect cultivation speed. With over a hundred people gathered on one mountaintop, all cultivating and competing for energy, the results weren’t ideal.

There was another reason—Li Yu wanted to pet that little tiger again.

He had to admit, its fur felt amazing.

Before long, Li Yu reached the stream where he had gathered spiritual energy last time.

This spot was nestled in a valley—not only were the surroundings beautiful, but the spiritual energy was abundant, and no one competed with him. Facing the rising sun, Li Yu sat cross-legged on a large boulder by the stream, guiding the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to begin opening the second acupoint on his right hand.

This acupoint was named “Shaofu”—the second of the seventy-two acupoints on the Fire Spirit Vein.

Li Yu’s Shaochong acupoint on his right hand was already filled with spiritual energy. He guided the energy within his body along his meridians to assault the Shaofu acupoint. But each time the energy struck, it felt like hitting an unbreakable, impregnable wall.

Cultivation was tediously monotonous. Li Yu had lost count of how many times he had tried, yet that wall showed no sign of breaking—not even the faintest tremor.

The sun had already climbed to its zenith. Li Yu was about to head back to the temple for a meal when a joyful roar reached his ears.

He recognized that roar. Opening his eyes, he saw the little white tiger bounding toward him from a distance. With a light leap, it jumped onto the boulder and rubbed its little head against Li Yu’s body.

Li Yu scooped it into his arms and couldn’t resist petting it again. After his undercover days ended, he had once adopted a cat named Xiao Bai as an emotional anchor. This little tiger was bigger, but its fur felt even better.

After rolling comfortably in Li Yu’s arms, the little white tiger jumped off the boulder, turned toward a certain direction, and bobbed its head at Li Yu.

Caught off guard by such a human-like gesture, Li Yu froze for a moment, then asked uncertainly, “You want me to follow you?”

The little tiger didn’t wait to see if Li Yu understood. It dashed into the thicket ahead, then looked back after a dozen paces and bobbed its head again, signaling him to follow.

Intrigued, Li Yu followed. The tiger ran on the ground while he flew behind. Before long, they arrived at a cliff.

Li Yu was puzzled. “What did you bring me here for?”

Standing on the cliff, Li Yu noticed something odd. The area within ten zhang around him was barren, bare of anything. But beyond that, the vegetation was lush and thriving.

It was then that he noticed the little white tiger standing at the edge of the cliff, bobbing its head downward at Li Yu.

It seemed there was something below the cliff.

Li Yu walked to its spot and looked down. There, on a protruding rock beneath the cliff, grew a plant that was entirely red—like some kind of dwarf tree. At its very top, it bore a single fist-sized, fiery-red fruit.

The moment he saw that fruit, Li Yu was stunned, then burst out in delight. “A Vermilion Fruit!”

Li Yu had spent ten years as an apothecary’s apprentice. He knew plants inside and out and recognized in an instant that the plant growing beneath the cliff was called a “Vermilion Fruit”—an uncommon spiritual herb, incredibly hard to come by. It was sought after not only by mortal pharmacies willing to pay high prices, but even Kunlun Sect had demand for it.

Mortals who consumed a Vermilion Fruit could extend their lifespans. When refined into pills, it could increase a cultivator’s magical power. A hundred-year-old Vermilion Fruit had a purchasing price of five hundred spirit coins at Baiyun Temple.

“Roar, roar…”

The little white tiger kept growling softly. Li Yu looked into its eyes and read something in them—it left him utterly astonished.

“This is… for me?”

Those large tiger eyes sparkled with intelligence. Li Yu’s heart stirred—this little tiger had remarkably high spiritual awareness. He had never seen such a look in an animal before. Could that Qi Gathering Pill from last time have awakened its intellect?

Was this its way of repaying his kindness?