Inherited 100 Million - Chapter 4

A paper lantern illuminated a small space.

Jun Yu was dressed in a pure white robe that was simple but not plain, with intricate silver threads embroidered along the collar and cuffs. The night breeze rustled the leaves and also stirred her light clothes and the dark hair that framed her face.

Jun Yu raised a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze still focused intently on Xue Yizhuo. “We meet again.”

Xue Yizhuo suddenly felt a little embarrassed.

The Jun Yu she knew was the eternal snow on a mountain peak, the unreachable moon in the clouds. She had never imagined that when Jun Yu paid attention to someone, her gaze would be this gentle.

Xue Yizhuo raised her round fan, covering half her face, leaving only her bright, autumn-water eyes visible.

Jun Yu saw the lantern’s light reflected in her eyes.

Xue Yizhuo’s voice was actually quite soft. She remembered her own voice differently, but perhaps because her body was younger, her voice couldn’t help but have a touch of a young girl’s immaturity.

“You remember me?”

Xue Yizhuo suddenly felt that she was standing too close to Jun Yu. With their height difference, she had to look up to meet Jun Yu’s eyes.

Jun Yu smiled. “You remember me too.”

How could anyone who has seen you ever forget?

Xue Yizhuo thought to herself.

“It’s late,” she said. “Aren’t you going to rest, Miss?”

Jun Yu gently shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to take a walk with my lantern.”

They were surrounded by houses, but all she could see were courtyard walls. She had no idea how long Jun Yu had been walking.

Xue Yizhuo had intended to offer some polite words, like telling Jun Yu to be careful, but then she remembered. This was the most powerful person in the cultivation world. What could possibly harm her in this small town? Xue Yizhuo swallowed her words and just nodded absently.

She was more worried that Jun Yu would ask her why she was out so late. Xue Yizhuo didn’t know how she would answer that.

Fortunately, Jun Yu didn’t ask. Instead, she said, “You don’t seem like you’re from around here.”

Xue Yizhuo tilted her head in confusion. “Why do you say that?”

Jun Yu replied, “Your words and demeanor are different from the people here.”

Xue Yizhuo felt a little lost. Perhaps being a participant made it hard for her to notice the difference herself. She considered that she was from another world and felt that what Jun Yu said must be true.

“And…” Jun Yu paused.

Xue Yizhuo asked, “And what?”

Jun Yu didn’t answer her question, changing the subject instead. “Does the young lady know where Qingping Town is located?”

Xue Yizhuo couldn’t quite remember. It was something that was only mentioned once during the beginner quest, so it was hard to recall. She thought for a long time before she could barely remember a place name, and said, unsure, “In… the west of the Wuqin Kingdom?”

“Wuqin Kingdom, Changming County,” Jun Yu said with a smile, nodding. “Then, where is the Wuqin Kingdom?”

This was beyond Xue Yizhuo’s knowledge.

It felt like a pop quiz in geography, and Xue Yizhuo, who didn’t know any of the answers, felt a bit panicked.

“The Wuqin Kingdom is to the east of the Yangsuo Desert, and the Yangsuo Desert borders the Great Yan Dynasty,” Jun Yu said. The place names she rattled off left Xue Yizhuo completely bewildered, her mind only grasping “north, south, west, east.”

“The westernmost part of the Great Yan Dynasty is the Liduan River. The Liduan River meets the Xun Sea to the north and the Tu Sea to the south, dividing the Mingxu Domain in half. The Mingxu Domain is the name of the land we are standing on.”

When Jun Yu got to this point, Xue Yizhuo finally understood what she was getting at.

Jun Yu was using Qingping Town as a starting point to tell her about the entire continent… and even the greater world that many mortals would never know about in their lifetime.

A thought suddenly popped into Xue Yizhuo’s head.

…No way, right?

She quickly suppressed the thought, her expression stiff.

Jun Yu continued, “We are currently in the Eastern Continent of the Mingxu Domain. The Eastern Continent is where mortals live. The folk tales here say that the other side of the Liduan River is where immortals reside, but in reality, it’s inhabited by both mortals and cultivators. Cultivators aren’t immortals; they are simply people with more power than mortals, whose goal is to ascend and become immortals.”

Xue Yizhuo moved her fan up, wanting to hide her face completely.

Jun Yu looked straight into her eyes. “You have immortal bones, young lady, and should not be confined to Qingping Town. Are you willing to join my sect and, when this is over, come with me to the Western Continent?”

Xue Yizhuo closed her eyes, afraid that her expression would give away her internal thoughts.

••••

Huangquan Mirror was a highly customizable game, and one of its well-received features was its apprenticeship system.

This wasn’t about players becoming apprentices to each other, but about players joining one of the sects in the Mingxu Domain. The development team put a lot of effort into this feature. A planner once revealed that there were currently forty-one sects that players could join, and this number would increase in the future.

However, players had only discovered fewer than ten sects so far; the rest were waiting for players to explore and uncover.

During a Q&A session, a player asked if the Shiwai Pavilion could be joined.

To this, the planner gave a clear answer: because the Shiwai Pavilion map would not be open for a long time, and for lore-related reasons, the Shiwai Pavilion would not be part of the apprenticeship system.

This response caused a wave of disappointment in the comments, and countless players who wanted to become apprentices to their “wife” Jun Yu were heartbroken.

And now, the very thing that players desperately wanted but could not have was being offered to her?

For a moment, Xue Yizhuo even wondered if she had heard wrong.

But Jun Yu’s gaze and expression told her that she hadn’t. Jun Yu wasn’t joking.

The invitation from the Shiwai Pavilion was incredibly tempting.

And the fact that the invitation came directly from the master herself, Jun Yu, made it even more alluring.

Xue Yizhuo smiled helplessly.

She put down her fan and politely but apologetically declined. “Yizhuo is just an ordinary person. I don’t long for the path of immortality, nor do I seek eternal life. It is enough for me to live a simple life in Qingping Town.”

She had only just made up her mind tonight not to get involved in the main story. Xue Yizhuo knew her own limits. Playing the game behind a computer screen was one thing, but getting entangled in the complicated and chaotic events of the game world was something she couldn’t handle.

Xue Yizhuo looked up at the moon. The moon was beginning to set. She said to Jun Yu, “I should return home now. Immortal, you should also rest soon.”

Jun Yu didn’t get angry at Xue Yizhuo’s refusal, nor did she try to make her stay.

She remained where she was, watching Xue Yizhuo’s figure disappear at the end of the alley. Xue Yizhuo walked a long way before she finally felt that the light behind her was gone.

Xue Yizhuo got home just before dawn, fell into bed, and slept until late morning.

She was startled awake.

A hazy thought came to her in her sleep—How is Old Li?—and the question immediately jolted her fully awake.

She had forgotten to check on him first!

Her sleepiness vanished instantly. Xue Yizhuo scrambled out of bed, threw on a random robe, and ran to Old Li’s house. Her heart sank when she saw that she hadn’t even closed his courtyard gate last night.

“Please don’t let anything have happened, Old Li…” Xue Yizhuo muttered. “I don’t even know if I put any skill points into ‘resurrection’…”

Xue Yizhuo ran quickly and almost tripped over something in the middle of the courtyard.

She stumbled and took a few awkward steps before regaining her balance.

When she looked back at what she had tripped over, Xue Yizhuo’s face went pale.

It was the severed fingers she had cut off the blood-robed person last night.

The realization of what a brutal thing she had done hit her belatedly. Her hands began to tremble, and she felt a phantom pain in her own fingers.

She stiffly turned and walked, one step at a time, to Old Li’s room.

Great. I didn’t even close his door. What was wrong with her?

When she saw Old Li sprawled out on his bed, sleeping soundly, Xue Yizhuo let out a massive sigh of relief and sat down right on the doorstep.

Xue Yizhuo clutched her chest, feeling that her decision from last night was truly a wise one. With her psychological state, how could she possibly cultivate immortality? She was already overwhelmed by what happened last night.

After calming herself down for a long time on the doorstep, Xue Yizhuo suddenly realized something was wrong.

Old Li’s breathing… why was it so heavy?

Xue Yizhuo got up, her expression serious, and walked to Old Li’s bedside. She gasped when she saw his flushed face and reached out to feel his forehead.

He had a cold!

Xue Yizhuo shook Old Li awake. He was so sick he could barely open his eyes. After waking him, Xue Yizhuo fumbled through her inventory, found some medicine, and tried to pour it into his mouth, but it was useless. Her inventory had all sorts of medicines, but none for a simple cold!

She didn’t even dare to give Old Li some of the other super-powerful medicines, fearing that, as often happened in novels, a mortal person would explode after taking an immortal pill.

Xue Yizhuo gritted her teeth and helped Old Li off the bed. “Just hold on, I’m taking you to see a physician!”

The courtyard they bought was in an excellent location, not far from a medical clinic. Xue Yizhuo helped Old Li walk there. One was too short, and the other was hunched over, but they managed to support each other. Old Li tried to walk on his own, so Xue Yizhuo didn’t have to bear all of his weight.

But Xue Yizhuo could feel that Old Li was dangerously light. The first time she met him, Old Li already looked half-dead. Xue Yizhuo didn’t even dare to speak loudly to him, wondering who would be responsible if this person who looked like he could be blown away by a gust of wind suddenly dropped dead.

Although she later found out that Old Li’s health wasn’t as bad as she had thought, Xue Yizhuo didn’t think it was much better, either.

Based on her experience in her previous life, a simple illness could be enough to kill an old person.

Xue Yizhuo was worried about Old Li and didn’t dare to walk quickly, but her heart was so anxious she wished she could teleport to the clinic. When she finally got there, she saw that the clinic was surrounded by a large crowd.

“What’s going on?” Xue Yizhuo was bewildered.

She found a person she knew on the edge of the crowd, asked him to look after Old Li, and then squeezed in. She grabbed a dejected-looking apprentice and asked, “What happened? Is the physician still seeing patients?”

The apprentice sighed. “You’d better go to another clinic, miss. We’re closed for the day.”

“Why?” Xue Yizhuo tried to peer through the slightly ajar clinic door. She could see people moving inside and heard the sound of a woman crying.

The apprentice looked at Xue Yizhuo with a troubled expression, hesitated, and then whispered, “My senior brother was found dead in his room this morning… all the blood in his body was drained!”