Volume 4 Chapter 3 / Chapter 277: Senior Brother, Ye Tianchong
So, the item in the bottle doesn’t belong to this kid after all…
Zhuang Hu immediately lost interest. He poured himself a cup of tea from the teapot on the table, swirled it around, and said:
“Not yours? What a shame...”
“Huh?”
“What?” Ye Anping frowned. “Big Brother Zhuang, are you so eager for your Sixth Brother here to be childless? Don’t you want nephews and nieces anymore?”
“Supreme detachment from emotions—why worry about three thousand strands of gray hair? How many cultivators in this world are trapped by emotions? Severing descendants can smooth the path to immortality. Cutting it off would benefit your cultivation.”
Describing castration so eloquently and detachedly… Ye Anping rolled his eyes. But then, as if struck by a thought, his gaze shifted toward Zhuang Hu’s crotch.
Zhuang Hu felt a chill run down his spine under Ye Anping’s gaze. Since Ye Anping had brought someone else’s “item” for him to sell, would he start eyeing his too?
“Stop staring. Mine isn’t worth anything.”
“You still have it?”
Zhuang Hu pursed his lips unhappily. He glanced again at the glass bottle sealed with oiled cloth. After a moment’s thought, he mused to himself: tiger whips and ox whips are great supplements for mortals, and cultivators also value the whips of various demonic and spiritual beasts... but this human whip...
“Whose is this?”
Ye Anping glanced at the teacup in Zhuang Hu’s hand, thought for a moment, and pulled out a small oiled-paper umbrella from his storage bag.
Zhuang Hu was slightly puzzled about what he was up to, but then heard:
“It’s Yun Tianchong’s.”
—Yun Tianchong?
Isn’t he the notorious lustful Sect Master of the Shadowmoon Sword Sect?
Zhuang Hu hesitated for a moment and couldn’t hold back. The tea he had just sipped sprayed toward Ye Anping’s face but was blocked by Ye Anping’s unfurled paper umbrella.
“Pfft—”
Zhuang Hu stared at Ye Anping incredulously. If someone else had said this, he would’ve dismissed it as a con. But since Ye Anping said it...
How did he manage to do that to a late-stage Divine Transformation Realm cultivator—?
“You’re not joking?”
“When have I ever joked?” Ye Anping tossed the umbrella aside, shrugged, and smiled. “Do you have a channel to sell this?”
Zhuang Hu still had the Millennium-Old Mystic Stone Sword of the Young Mistress of Profound Star Sect in his storage bag. Now, on top of that, there was a pair of thousand-year-old balls of a Divine Transformation Realm expert... After a long silence, he asked:
“Why is everything you ask me to sell so weird? Aren’t you afraid he’ll come after you balls to bring his lineage back?”
Ye Anping spread his hands. “It wasn’t me who did it. Do you think I’m that ruthless?”
“Yes.”
“Huh?”
Ye Anping frowned, a question mark popping up over his head.
Zhuan Hu: “Then who did it?”
Ye Anping: “His daughter.”
Zhuan Hu: “Huh?”
Now it was Zhuang Hu’s turn to have a question mark floating over his head.
He glanced over at Zhuang Atin, who was hiding in the wardrobe. For some reason, he felt an uncomfortable tightening sensation below his waist. Black lines ran down his forehead as he stuffed the glass bottle back into a storage bag inside his storage bag and said:
“I’ll ask around later.”
“No rush. Just negotiate a price that works.”
When the bottle was in his storage bag earlier, it felt utterly repulsive. Now that it was out of his hands, Ye Anping let out a long breath, as though relieved.
“When I left last time, didn’t I ask you to find some capable people? Did you?”
“No. I posted a recruitment notice in the black market, but the ones who approached me weren’t worth my time. I doubt they’d meet your standards either.”
“Not a single one?”
Fearing Ye Anping might choke him again, Zhuang Hu put down his tea, crossed his arms, and replied:
“Not a single one. But I did put together a list for you.”
He made a sword gesture with his fingers, and a slip of paper filled with nicknames flew out of his storage bag, landing in Ye Anping’s hands.
Ye Anping looked at it. The paper looked like something from a teenage notebook, filled with fanciful names like "Sky-Cleaving Moonblade—Xia Bai" and "Windwalker Yin-Yang Eye—Cao Zhizhi," which gave him goosebumps.
However, some of the names were familiar to him: “Pill Sage Daoist—Lu Chengyun,” “Immortal Thief—?”...
As for the Pill Sage Daoist, because his spiritual root aptitude was poor, he tried to pursue the path of longevity through the Jiawu Puppet Technique, replacing half of his body with spirit iron.
Ye Anping could appreciate his “mechanical ascension” concept, even though such practices were considered heretical and abominable in the immortal world.
But he couldn’t accept how the man collected “volunteers” everywhere for live experiments.
It’s fine to be a little mad, but too much madness would only cause trouble. Bringing someone like that onboard would create more problems than benefits.
As for the “Immortal Thief”...
Ye Anping thought for a while, pursed his lips, and asked:
“Did you try contacting this Immortal Thief?”
Zhuang Hu rolled his eyes. “You think so highly of me? Guess why there’s a question mark after the name?”
“Wait—you didn’t manage to find any information about them?”
“The Seven Killers Sect once placed a bounty on them—a very high one. But after decades of investigation, they still don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman, let alone their name or location...”
Ye Anping felt this was tricky. He had thought about the Overclear Sect plan on his way back.
He did need someone skilled in thievery—someone capable of sneaking in and out of the Overclear Sect’s treasury, sealed with the Four Symbols Formation, and smuggling out a massive pure gold statue weighing tens of thousands of pounds without a trace.
He could pull off the heist himself with enough planning, but it would be better to leave professional work to professionals.
In the game, the Immortal Thief’s debut also occurred during the Overclear Sect chapter in the Central Region. When the sect are in the middle of negotiation with another faction, she stirred the pot, stealing here and there, profiting off the chaos, and turning a perfect plan into a complete mess.
“Hmm...” Ye Anping rubbed his chin and nodded. “Big Brother Zhuang, how about taking a trip to the Central Region’s Overclear Sect?”
Central Region’s Overclear Sect… When Zhuang Hu heard this term, his brows furrowed slightly:
“Overclear Sect?”
“There’s something I need your help with, Big Brother Zhuang. My junior sister and I will definitely head there eventually, but I need you to go ahead and make some preparations.”
“What kind of preparations?”
“Infiltrating the Xing Tian Division of the Overclear Sect. You’ll go as a disciple of the Hundred Lotus Sect, become an officer, and prepare to assist me, my junior sister, Feng Yudie, and others when we arrive. I have a plan for the specifics.”
“… …”
Zhuang Hu stared at him intently, unable to respond for a long time.
At this moment, a thought arose in his mind—could it be that Ye Anping already knew about his origins?
After all, he came from the Xing Tian Division. He had thought that after so many years, the karma between him and the division had long been severed. Now he was supposed to go back?
Seeing Zhuang Hu remain silent for so long, Ye Anping’s expression steadied.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, he asked,
“Big Brother Zhuang, are you originally from the Overclear Sect?”
Zhuang Hu came back to his senses and replied,
“So what if I am?”
“Nothing much.” Ye Anping shrugged slightly. “Whether you are or not, I’ll always be your sixth brother. But I think I’ve got a clue about your past identity, Big Brother Zhuang.”
“Heh…” Zhuang Hu let out a cold laugh. “Oh? Then tell me what you’ve guessed…”
The Overclear Sect holds a secret history, which in the game was merely background lore to enrich the worldbuilding:
—When the second princess of the Overclear Sect was born, the heavens underwent a sudden and drastic transformation, and spiritual anomalies ran rampant, draining the spiritual energy from much of the Central Region’s land and turning it into desert. To quell the wrath of the heavens, the emperor of the Central Region offered the second princess as a sacrifice to the Region-Stabilizing Divine Beast, thereby calming the anomalies.
—In truth, a nameless guard escorting the second princess up the mountain, driven by passionate fervor, secretly swapped her with a decoy and saved her. He escaped with the princess, and the two disappeared without a trace.
After learning of this, the emperor of the Central Region sealed the information and refrained from pursuing the matter, allowing it to be forgotten naturally.
The timeline, Zhuang Hu’s pairing with the little girl Atin, his cultivation level, and his reaction upon hearing “Central Region” all seemed to support this conjecture.
In the game, there was no follow-up to this story. Yet, through some twist of fate, Ye Anping had stumbled upon it.
If the Hundred Lotus Sect had been destroyed by Wu You back then, the Poison Gu Sect wouldn’t have issued a bounty to the Seven Killers Sect, and Zhuang Hu wouldn’t have taken the bounty to capture Feng Yudie…
What a strange twist of fate… Ye Anping smiled faintly and said,
“For instance, a young guard eloping with a princess. Could it be that Atin is the princess?”
Hearing Ye Anping’s teasing tone, Zhuang Hu’s furrowed brow relaxed:
“You’ve got quite the imagination.”
“Forget it, forget it.” Ye Anping waved his hand and sighed. “Whatever you were in the past doesn’t concern me. But regarding the Overclear Sect, I can only rely on you, Big Brother Zhuang. I’ll prepare the identity badge, ensure your safety, and all you need to do is support us from the inside—and while you’re at it, capture that little Immortal Thief girl and bring her to our side.”
“The Immortal Thief? A girl?”
“Yes, a lively little lass~”
Zhuang Hu rolled his eyes at him but didn’t immediately agree. After thinking for a moment, he said,
“I’ll consider it.”
“My junior sister and I will stay for two days and then return to the Profound Star Sect. Before we leave, let me know your decision.”
With that, Ye Anping stood up, turned to leave, but stopped at the library’s doorway and asked,
“How has Atin been during her half-year at the Hundred Lotus Sect?”
“…She’s doing fine. Why ask?” Zhuang Hu’s eyes narrowed slightly, and his gaze turned sharp. “Old Sixth, let me make myself clear…”
Ye Anping raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes at him.
“What do you take me for?”
His junior sister, the silver-haired girl with the Immortal Emperor blood, the Young Mistress of the Profound Star Sect, the current Mansion Lord of the Chi Dragon Mansion—
The names of four stunningly beautiful young women flashed through Zhuang Hu’s mind. He pursed his lips, took out the glazed bottle he had just received from his storage bag, and tapped it twice with his finger, saying,
“Ye Tianchong.”
?
Ye Anping blinked, took a deep breath, and replied with a smile,
“Big Brother Zhuang, do you want me to find Atin a mother?”
“Heh, no need to trouble yourself.”
After watching Ye Anping leave, Zhuang Hu let out a long sigh, glanced at the nearby bookshelf, and called out,
“Atin, they’re gone. Come out now.”
Creak—
The bookshelf door slowly opened, and Zhuang Atin peeked out cautiously before carefully stepping out.
She had eavesdropped on the entire conversation between Zhuang Hu and Ye Anping.
She quickly approached and tried to snatch the glazed bottle from Zhuang Hu’s hand. However, Zhuang Hu was quick to react, immediately returning the item to his storage bag within a storage bag.
“What are you doing?”
“What did Uncle give you? Let me see…”
“Atin, this is adult business. Why are you meddling?”
“Let me see!!” Zhuang Atin clung to Zhuang Hu, shouting, “See! See! See!!!”
“If you yell any louder, you’ll alert your—”
Whoosh—
Before Zhuang Hu could finish his sentence, a white shadow flashed into the library from outside.
Pei Lianxue entered swiftly, pried Zhuang Atin off Zhuang Hu, and said,
“Atin, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“Huh?!” Zhuang Atin immediately shrank her head and reached out to Zhuang Hu for help. “Father!!!”
“Big Brother Zhuang, please carry on. I’ll take Atin to the training grounds.”
“… …”
Zhuang Hu wanted to stop her, but Pei Lianxue was faster, taking Zhuang Atin with her and flying off on her sword.
After a while, Zhuang Hu shook his head and sighed:
“Sigh—this Hundred Lotus Sect is truly something.”
Then he buried himself back in handling the endless stack of trivial documents on his desk.
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