Chapter 20: My Lines

Chapter 20: My Line

"No, no, no!" Shang Yunduo quickly interjected, "Aren't we still discussing this? Why does a disagreement have to lead to killing?"

"I'm not unwilling to... you know... with you... ahem, but it's... too fast!"

We've only known each other for a few days! What proper person dual cultivates with someone they just met?

"Senior, I think we should get to know each other first. Everything should have a process, right? Can we take it step by step?"

"Step by step?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"How do you propose to take it step by step?"

Shang Yunduo thought to himself, *How would I know? I've never been in a relationship.* We'd skipped that step—the whole 'falling in love' step. So... "How about we start with introducing ourselves?"

"Hah." Pei Jie scoffed, "What do you want to know about me?"

Shang Yunduo froze, quickly saying, "No, that's not what I meant!" He didn't intend to pry into this person's background and secrets.

Pei Jie's response was to raise his hand and stamp a rune onto Shang Yunduo's body. Shang Yunduo's heart instantly jolted, and his entire body ached. Just once, and he nearly collapsed from the pain, sweat breaking out from the pain.

Pei Jie: "Either you dual cultivate with me, or you die. Do you want to die?"

Shang Yunduo clutched his chest and shook his head.

Pei Jie: "Good. From now on, we're cultivation partners."

"..." Shang Yunduo was in too much pain to speak, glaring at him furiously, cursing in his heart, *Who's your cultivation partner? I'm more like a slave forced into this!*

Pei Jie chuckled: "No need to be so reluctant. If there was someone more suitable, I wouldn't have picked you. In five years, if you can help me reach Core Formation, I'll naturally let you go. If not, I'll die in five years, and you can take all my magical treasures and pills. Except for five years of your time, you lose nothing. Understand?"

Shang Yunduo nodded.

Pei Jie placed a hand on his shoulder, and Shang Yunduo felt a cool spiritual energy seep into him, soothing the pain in his body.

"You, like them, should have died in that cave for discovering my secret. It's not that I'm forcing you to dual cultivate, but if you can't be useful to me, then you must die. Understand?"

Thinking of Niu Chengdian and the others, Shang Yunduo's heart trembled. He suppressed his defiance and grumbled to himself, *You force me, and I'm supposed to be grateful you didn't kill me?*

"Dual cultivation is mutually beneficial. I don't understand why you're so resistant. Don't you want to form a core?"

"I think this should be consensual."

"Of course I know that. The union of yin and yang, mutual acceptance—that's how you get twice the result with half the effort. I just don't understand why you're unwilling."

"..." *Because the love I want isn't like this!* The words stuck in his throat, his face red, but Shang Yunduo couldn't say them. He and Pei Jie were like speaking a different language. "Anyway, I'm unwilling. Forming a core isn't the be-all and end-all. Don't think you can bait me with core formation and ascension. If you push me, I'll just..."

Pei Jie looked at him, "Just?"

Shang Yunduo: "Just... Look, I won't breathe a word about what happened here or about you to anyone. You can rest assured. If you don't believe me, I can swear on it."

Pei Jie smiled, let him go and said, "Keep going."

"I swear..."

"Continue what you were doing here."

"Ah? Oh." Shang Yunduo quickly put his clothes back on, tied up his hair, and heavy-hearted, he conjured a fireball to blast rocks.

Pei Jie sat back down, not meditating. He picked up a few pebbles, tossing them in his hand, watching Shang Yunduo practice Flame Control. "At the rate you're training, core formation wouldn't tempt you at all, and ascension is a pipe dream."

"..." Shang Yunduo turned angrily, glaring in protest. *Would you just shut up?!*

Pei Jie laughed softly, "I never thought I'd come to this."

"..." *That's my line!*

Shang Yunduo grumbled inwardly, but hearing Pei Jie's desolate laughter, his pent-up frustration eased a bit, only to be replaced with a hint of aggrieved anger. *Why should I sympathize with him? He's insulting me through and through!*

*I'm just dumb, just untalented. Go find someone else! Go find a genius prodigy!*

*Blasting rocks? Me. Dual cultivation? Also me. He looks down on me and still forces me. What's the difference between this and those villains in TV dramas who snatch people off the street?*

Shang Yunduo angrily hurled fireballs, which actually had more force than before.

Just as he felt a bit satisfied, he heard Pei Jie sigh, then a pebble smacked his back, hitting him from his dantian all the way to his limbs, causing sharp pain.

After a dozen times, Shang Yunduo gradually realized that Pei Jie was teaching him how to circulate spiritual energy. After each hit, he would pause and think, following Pei Jie's guidance to control the flow through his meridians. Slowly, the fireball's power increased significantly, using even less spiritual energy than before. He also began to understand the fourth level of Flame Control, which he'd never understood before.

But his meridians were screaming.

Shang Yunduo gritted his teeth and persisted. Finally, a small hole was blasted through the blocked cave. Shang Yunduo withdrew his spiritual energy, wiped the sweat of pain from his forehead, and spoke with a pale face: "Senior, shall we climb out?"

Pei Jie said nothing.

Shang Yunduo sighed and resigned himself to moving more rocks. When the opening was barely enough for a person to stoop through, he didn't care what Pei Jie did and first moved Yan Jia and Wang Ming's bodies out. He found a tree outside and started digging a pit.

"You want to bury them?"

Shang Yunduo didn't answer. *Oh, so you deigned to bend over and crawl out, huh?*

Pei Jie chuckled, "Then you better dig deeper."

Shang Yunduo kept digging, baffled.

Though his physique was good, lacking proper tools, digging with a sword for ages still didn't make the hole big enough. Looking up, he saw a wild fox in the distance watching him.

"..."

Further away, deeper in the grass, there seemed to be several pairs of beast eyes.

"..."

Now he got what 'dig deeper' meant.

Shang Yunduo climbed out of the pit, walked to the tree where Pei Jie was meditating, and after a moment of silence, said awkwardly, "Senior..."

Pei Jie opened his eyes, "Not mute anymore?"

Shang Yunduo pretended not to hear, "What should I do?"

Pei Jie: "They are just flesh. Eaten by worms and ants, torn by wild beasts, in the end, all become white bones and turn to dust. What difference does it make?"

"..." Of course there's a difference. Bones on the surface weather away, while bones underground decay.

Shang Yunduo puffed out his cheeks. "How is that the same? You want to kill me and force yourself on me, but if you died, I definitely wouldn't leave your body out in the wild..."

Seeing Pei Jie look at him, Shang Yunduo cleared his throat. "If I die, I'd want a proper burial too."

He crouched down next to Pei Jie, not caring whether Pei Jie wanted to listen or not, and rambled on, "I'm digging too slowly. By the time I'm done, those bodies will already be rotting. The Golden Scale Beasts and those wild beasts might... Senior, should I burn them? But the temperature of my Flame Control doesn't seem high enough..." Tossing a Fireball onto someone's corpse and not being able to burn it all at once wouldn't be cremation—it would look like revenge and venting anger.

He turned his head and called out gloomily, "Senior... Senior... Senior..."

Pei Jie was reminded of that noisy bird that had once built a nest not far from his cave dwelling. "I don't have time to babysit a child."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Pei Jie: "Two options. Either go search their storage pouches for a Strength Talisman, stick it on yourself, and keep digging. Or, the Zhang siblings—the brother has a Wood Fire Pearl. Go find it and use that to burn them."

"Oh!" Shang Yunduo stood up and ran toward the cave, but after two steps, he turned back, took out a Glow Pearl, placed it beside Pei Jie, and then ran back inside.

A moment later, he reached Zhang Yan's corpse, holding up the Glow Pearl, he picked up six beads from the ground, ran out, stood by the pit, and tried to use them.

The Wood Fire Pearl had already recognized its master, so he couldn't use its full power. He fumbled around cluelessly.

Pei Jie sighed. Since the kid was considerate enough, he came over and taught him how to erase the mark on the artifact.

Fortunately, Shang Yunduo wasn't too stupid. After a moment, the Wood Fire Pearl flickered, and the flames surged fiercely, even stronger than when Zhang Yan had used it.

Shang Yunduo was stunned.

Pei Jie was unimpressed. "You naturally have higher Cultivation and better talent than him. Why make such a fuss? If you were like him, why would I keep you for Dual Cultivation?"

Shang Yunduo automatically ignored the "Dual Cultivation" part, swallowed a Qi Recovery Pill, and ran back to the cave to continue hauling out corpses and burning them.

After the remains were burned, the artifacts and storage pouches from the rogue cultivators were usually left behind. Shang Yunduo rummaged through them looking for anything that could identify them. Originally, he wanted to set up simple headstones, but most people's storage pouches didn't have anything with their names written on it. In the end, he just placed a stone on each small pit.

Finally, Shang Yunduo picked a handful of wild fruits, took out four roast chickens from his storage pouch, and hesitantly entered the cave again, now wearing several artifacts he'd taken from others' pouches.

Pei Jie sighed deeply watching him.

Inside the cave, the four Golden Scale Beasts woke up from their sleep and stared at him. They locked eyes in a staring contest.

"These taste better!" Shang Yunduo tossed the roast chickens and fruits to them, nervously picked up Zhang Yu's white silk, wrapped her remains in it, gathered the bones of the others, and hurried out.

The first time worked. On the second try, he was bolder and carried out two corpses. This time, three little Golden Scale Beasts also ran out after him, scaring Shang Yunduo badly. But they just went off to hunt in the valley.

Finally, he dealt with the bodies of the Foundation Establishment cultivator and Niu Chengdian.

Compared to the others, their corpses were the most intact, which caught Shang Yunduo off guard.

"Senior, why didn't the Golden Scale Beasts bite them?"

"They were wearing sachets made of Black Sword Vine and had their clothes soaked in grass juice. If you want to fight for those people, just dig a shallow pit and bury them. It's not like every beast hates the smell of Black Sword Vine."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Hearing Pei Jie's eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth romantic speech, Shang Yunduo mumbled, "Better burn them."

Pei Jie: "Oh, so you prefer your enemies to be ground to dust."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Pei Jie laughed. He searched the storage pouches on them, taking only the Foundation Establishment cultivator's pouch and tossing the rest to Shang Yunduo. "They're yours."

Shang Yunduo didn't look carefully. Seeing the Giant Sword inside, he suddenly remembered. "Ah! Fellow Daoist Tang!"

He found a spot with poor soil and hastily burned and buried Niu Chengdian's group—no stones, no separate graves. Let them rot together and improve the soil.

Then he quickly took a Sword Flight to search for Tang Huan and Li Wuzi. Near the restrictions, he found several more rogue cultivator corpses, at only the sixth layer of Qi Refining.

Shang Yunduo guessed they either left the cave immediately or never entered it, just wanting to leave this troubled place. They never expected the restriction itself to be a trap—you could enter but not leave. They were killed here.

Looking at the wounds, it was once again Niu Chengdian's people.

He regretted letting those surnamed Niu off so easily.

Shang Yunduo buried those rogue cultivators on the spot, bringing only Tang Huan's and Li Wuzi's bodies back.

He buried Tang Huan next to Bai Li and Daoist Yuqiu. The pair hadn't been able to make it from the cave entrance back inside and had died halfway. Their bodies were covered in vines, untouched by the Golden Scale Beasts, still in decent shape.

From Tang Huan's storage pouch, he found a flask of wine. He didn't know if it was the plum wine Bai Li and the others had mentioned, but he opened the lid and poured it over the three grave stones.

Then he buried Li Wuzi near Yuezhang Fairy. He didn't know how close the two were, but he figured they definitely wouldn't want to see Niu Chengdian again.

Finally, Shang Yunduo returned to Yan Jia's and Wang Ming's graves. He picked some wildflowers and placed them in front of the tombs.

If only he hadn't come to this mess.

If he had slipped away earlier, they might not have ended up here with Niu Chengdian.

"...Your little pet is buried next to you too... I'll share some dried fruit with you. Since you don't need to cultivate, no more diet restrictions. I caught you two secretly watching me eat several times... If there's a next life and we meet again, let's play together."

Pei Jie came out of the cave and saw him still crouching there, murmuring. He looked down at the two flower bouquets and secretly sneered at his blindness. "They're from the Taiyuan Sect."

"Huh? Oh..." Shang Yunduo scratched the tip of his nose.

Pei Jie: "I hate the Taiyuan Sect more than anyone. I'll kill any of them I see. Stay away from Taiyuan Sect disciples from now on. Don't let me see you associating with them again."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Seriously, was this guy crazy?

First he cursed their disciples for never achieving Ascension, now he wants to kill them all on sight. What deep hatred was this?

Hey?

Suddenly, something felt familiar. He remembered from the novel's later stages a character who absolutely detested the Taiyuan Sect and nearly killed Xiao Chi just because he was a Taiyuan Sect disciple.

"Sen... Senior..."

"Speak."

Shang Yunduo swallowed hard and tried to ask calmly, "I still don't know your esteemed surname."

"Pei."

"Pei?"

"Pei Jie."

"Pei Jie...?!" It's really Pei Jie?!

Everything went black for Shang Yunduo, and he almost fell to his knees right there.

Pei Jie stared at him: "You know me?"

"No, no, no, it just sounds nice, hehe." Shang Yunduo laughed awkwardly, screaming inside—how could the big boss who was supposed to destroy the Taiyuan Sect in the later part of the novel appear here?!

What the hell is wrong with this place?!

Pei Jie stared at the flustered Shang Yunduo and suddenly smiled: "Are you a Taiyuan Sect disciple?"

Shang Yunduo shook his head violently: "No! No! No, no, no, no!"

Pei Jie: "Good. Then say something bad about the Taiyuan Sect for me."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

What kind of deep-seated hatred is this?

He blankly tried to think of anything, but couldn't come up with anything, so he forced out dryly: "Taiyuan Sect... stingy and petty... it'll go bankrupt sooner or later."

Pei Jie: "Continue."

Shang Yunduo: "...Everyone from top to bottom is crazy."

"Continue."

"...The sect rules are twisted and perverse!" Shang Yunduo gradually became sincere—this damn sect won't even give you food! Entering the library required paying spirit stones by the hour, books were sold in bits and pieces, borrowing a magic tool for sect tasks required a huge deposit of spirit stones, the sect's pills were outrageously expensive, and disciples weren't allowed to trade privately—even a capitalist would be taking notes!

"Continue."

"Hypocritical on the surface, total posers!" Combining Xiao Chi's experience, this sect really hadn't given him any benefits, just a pile of rules.

Pei Jie grinned more happily: "Keep going."

Shang Yunduo recalled the few lines Pei Jie had taught him, and repeated: "Not fit to be called a sect, stealing fame and glory, and still wanting Ascension—dream on!"

Pei Jie stared at him, pronouncing each word slowly: "That the Taiyuan Sect disciples will never achieve Ascension. Get it?"

Shang Yunduo's eyes went wide as he nodded.

Pei Jie: "Say it."

Shang Yunduo: "Taiyuan Sect disciples will never achieve Ascension."

No, he had to get out of there.

This guy's crazy. Mentioning the Taiyuan Sect is like pressing a button. If he finds out that Shang Yunduo is a Taiyuan Sect disciple, then he's dead for sure.

Shang Yunduo awkwardly changed the subject: "Senior, where are we staying tonight?"

A moment later, Shang Yunduo was sitting inside Pei Jie's carriage.

There were no horses, just the carriage itself. It was lavishly decorated, with incense, cushioned seats, floor carpets, and a protective array on the ceiling to keep out wind and dust. It didn't feel like a carriage, more like a cozy little room, and it flew in the sky much more smoothly than he could run on the ground, and was way faster than his Sword Flight—except it ate up a ton of spirit stones...

There was a table at the front, with a box bearing a coiled Golden Dragon design. Pei Jie poured a full box of spirit stones into it, and before long, a quarter had already been consumed, like the golden dragon had clawed them to bits.

Even eating spirit stones wouldn't go this fast!

Pei Jie: "Why are you sitting so far away?"

Shang Yunduo sat diagonally opposite, the farthest spot in the carriage. "I just… want some air. Senior, aren't you going to turn that formation back on?"

Shang Yunduo raised the window to watch the valley shrink away below.

Pei Jie had used a compass to break the restrictions and didn't seem inclined to restore them.

Pei Jie: "That's a dead giveaway. Why would there be such an obvious formation in a place like this? If you don't want anyone to set foot there, you shouldn't set up anything at all."

Shang Yunduo nodded, like a good student putting the principle into practice: "The best place to hide a leaf is in the forest."

Seeing him cooperate, Pei Jie went on: "Midnight Lotus grows where yin and yang are in balance. If you were looking for it, you should have looked on the mountaintop, not in the valley. This place is surrounded by yin-cold trees, with yin energy far outweighing yang energy. No wonder you got fooled."

Shang Yunduo: "..."

Actually, he hadn't bought it, but saying that now would only sound like he was making excuses after the fact.

Pei Jie: "Take out the techniques you've been practicing."

"Oh." Shang Yunduo obediently took out his Flame Control, Sword Flight, and Singing Wind Sword techniques, thinking to himself that at least the manuals didn't say "Property of Taiyuan Sect" anywhere.

"We still have a few days to go. First, refine those Wood Fire Pearls."

"Oh."

"Sit beside me. Closer. I need to dual cultivate with you. Don't sit so far away in the future."

"???" Shang Yunduo nervously and reluctantly moved to sit beside Pei Jie. Knowing his identity, he dared not refuse, but asked with resistance and embarrassment, "Right… here? Dual cultivation?"

Pei Jie: "Where else would you want to go?"

Shang Yunduo kept his mouth shut and didn't answer, thinking at least there should be a bed? Was this carriage sturdy enough?

He braced himself for the worst, ready to put up a fight if Pei Jie tried to pin him down. Instead, Pei Jie quickly flipped through the technique manuals, tossed them aside in disgust, and said, "You've only practiced these?"

Shang Yunduo nodded.

Pei Jie: "Don't practice them anymore. They're useless to you."

Shang Yunduo nodded again, bewildered.

Then, Pei Jie sat next to him and began meditating with his eyes closed, as if resting.

Shang Yunduo: "???"

This is dual cultivation?

He hesitated and couldn't help asking, "Senior..."

Pei Jie didn't even open his eyes, saying impatiently, "Speak."

Shang Yunduo didn't dare to say it, so he just asked, "Where are we going?"

Pei Jie: "Guyuan Secret Realm."

"Guyuan... what?!" Shang Yunduo leaped up, banging his head on the carriage roof. Seeing stars, he shouted, "I'm not going!"

Author's note:

Doggy shocked, doggy aggrieved, doggy collapsed.gif

Yunduo: Then what was the point of me running all this way?!