Oh No, Senior Sister Cultivates The Heartless Dao - Chapter 3

Qin Zhiyue threw herself to one side, dodging the gray figure’s sword energy. At the same time, she flung a golden talisman back at her attacker.

The talisman collided with the second slash of sword energy. The force that spilled past it struck Qin Zhiyue, and her expression changed drastically.

So strong!

The talisman she had thrown could withstand a full-strength attack from a late Golden Core cultivator, yet this person still had power to spare. Her attacker had to be at least at the Nascent Soul stage. Not even the inner disciples had reached that level…

Qin Zhiyue leaned against a corner, her back aching where it had struck the wall. She kept her fingers clamped around her storage pouch, swallowed the taste of blood rising in her throat, and watched the gray figure approach.

Just when she thought the figure would attack again, the hand gripping the sword gave a tiny tremor.

How could a sword cultivator have trouble holding their own sword? Qin Zhiyue narrowed her eyes slightly and put her hand back on her sword. If this person was not at full strength, perhaps she could…

Boom!

Qin Zhiyue scrambled out of the way. The corners of her mouth twitched as her heart pounded. Forget it. She would be lucky just to escape!

A huge hole had been blasted through the spot where she had stood. Mountain wind howled into the room, chilling Qin Zhiyue to the core.

Damn it, her room! How much effort and money would it take to repair that?

All right. Now she was genuinely angry. Two sparks of fury lit her eyes, while darkness obscured her delicate features.

She raised her sword, but before she could strike back, the gray figure abruptly dropped to one knee in front of her, one hand still gripping the sword’s hilt. Qin Zhiyue could not see the person clearly, but she could feel the killing intent pouring off them. It even felt a little familiar.

Qin Zhiyue said, “…It’s too late to kneel and beg for mercy now!”

A sharp slash of sword energy was her answer. The figure’s hand was still trembling, barely able to hold the sword steady.

Qin Zhiyue dodged aside. She caught a glimpse of tiny white flashes along the silver hilt, and her scalp prickled. In her panic, she nearly dropped her own sword. Pain tore through the web of her hand, twisting her face.

Then, to her astonishment, the figure vanished. The barrier around the room disappeared at the same moment. Qin Zhiyue stood in her room with its enormous hole, as cold and miserable inside as she was outside.

It was only a love gu. Did Xiao Weimian really have to kill her over it?!

After shivering in the wind for a long while, Qin Zhiyue unhappily pulled materials from her storage pouch to patch the wall. The little spiritual energy left in her dantian dwindled further.

She had recognized the sword she had designed at a glance.

Heaven knew she was only at the Qi Refining stage, and she still had an early shift tomorrow. Qin Zhiyue felt like crying. What a miserable situation.

Then something clicked. Her spiritual energy surged for an instant.

Of course! She was still at the Qi Refining stage!

Easing the effects of the love gu required three drops of blood from her heart. Taking that blood directly from a Qi Refining disciple could damage her foundations at best and kill her at worst. The First Sword Sect would never openly do something so unconscionable.

But Xiao Weimian would probably rather kill her than be at someone else’s mercy.

The mountain wind made Qin Zhiyue shiver. How foolish of her. She should have thought of that sooner.

By the time dawn began to lighten the sky, Qin Zhiyue stood beside her repaired wall with dark circles under both eyes. Luckily, her cabin was secluded, and the surrounding land was hers. None of her fellow disciples had noticed her spending the entire night on repairs.

More fortunately, her vegetable plot was unharmed. Since she was already up, Qin Zhiyue tended it as usual, then cast a spell on herself.

That was one good thing about the cultivation world. In her previous life, no matter how much sleep she skipped, she could never save the time it took to bathe. With this spell, she looked fresh and radiant again in a second.

Sunlight gradually broke through the clouds and spilled across the peaks, bathing Qin Zhiyue’s Lengxue Peak as well. She yawned and stretched, her eyes still watery with sleep. Time for class and work.

She took a deep breath and felt that the spiritual energy in her dantian had recovered to about seventy or eighty percent. Tossing her storage pouch into the air, she joined two fingers and traced a golden sigil. A sword wrapped in golden light shot upward.

Qin Zhiyue sighed with a pained expression. She put her pouch away and reluctantly stepped onto the sword, which was still rusty.

It was so ugly. Even if it was only a means of transportation, did her sword have to look that shabby? How was it any different from a piece of scrap metal? Never mind. Qin Zhiyue almost wanted to cry. The sword did not look down on her for being poor, so she would stop complaining about it. Once she had money, though, she would definitely replace it!

As if it had sensed her thoughts, the rusty sword jerked twice. Before Qin Zhiyue could steady herself, it shot away like an arrow from a bow.

Aaaah! Qin Zhiyue went pale and channeled her energy to keep her balance. The fierce wind nearly distorted her face. That petty sword—she ought to melt it down and make a new one!

Her scream streaked across the sky. Qin Zhiyue had no idea how many outer disciples she passed as she raced ahead of them all. She gritted her teeth. Since when was this damned sword so eager to get to work? Had it gone mad today?!

Thud—

The rusty sword threw Qin Zhiyue off from above. She had to summon spiritual energy to land on her feet. When she collected herself, her delicate, pale face was marked by exhaustion and confusion.

“Well, if it isn’t Junior Sister Qin?”

The familiar woman’s voice made Qin Zhiyue groan inwardly. When her luck turned bad, even a drink of water seemed likely to get stuck in her teeth.

She had always tried to get along with people. Of the ten thousand outer disciples, she had nothing to do with seventy or eighty percent of them. She was at least on greeting terms with most of the rest. Only Senior Sister Zhong disliked her, and Qin Zhiyue still felt she had been unfairly drawn into that grudge.

“Long time no see, Senior Sister Zhong.” Qin Zhiyue greeted her awkwardly.

“Who? Which Junior Sister Qin?” one of the disciples beside Zhong asked before she could speak.

“Who else? That useless lazybones who was assigned to tend the spiritual fields with us last time!” another said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, her! She got a top-grade evaluation at the end and jumped ahead of Senior Sister Zhong! Elder Liu even praised her…”

“Stop talking. Senior Sister Zhong was so angry about it that she got sick…”

It was not really the evaluation, Qin Zhiyue thought. The real problem was Elder Liu’s praise, even though it had only been a single sentence. Qin Zhiyue had learned her lesson. From then on, she had kept her mouth shut, minded her own business, and avoided drawing attention to herself.

“Hmph. The outer sect has over ten thousand disciples. What does it matter if someone with utterly average aptitude and cultivation gets a top grade by chance? As if she could ever become an inner disciple.”

Utterly average Qin Zhiyue brushed off her backside and stood up. She gave the group a strained laugh, ducked into the crowd, and promptly disappeared.

“That woman! She slipped away fast.”

…

The outer disciples’ mornings followed a strict routine. After signing in, they began their assigned work. Qin Zhiyue, however, was an exception. She seemed to have been born knowing how to look busy while doing very little.

With a solemn expression, she repeated the same motions over and over. In truth, the spiritual fields around her were still full of weeds.

But Qin Zhiyue was moving. She blended into the crowd without drawing notice. Besides, most cultivators had little notion of taking shortcuts. To sword cultivators, pulling weeds, carrying water, and cleaning were simply forms of training.

Slacking off? The thought would never occur to them.

“That woman. I’m going to teach her a lesson today!” Zhong Yunyue could no longer bear watching Qin Zhiyue pretend to work. She put down what she was holding and headed straight for her.

“Wait, Senior Sister Zhong!”

“Yunyue!”

Her face twisted with anger, Zhong Yunyue reached out to stop Qin Zhiyue as she wandered past. “Qin Zhiyue, can you still call yourself a sword cultivator when you behave like this?”

Caught off guard, Qin Zhiyue noticed the dirt on Zhong Yunyue’s hand and quietly stepped back twice, looking disgusted. She tilted her head. “I don’t understand what you mean, Senior Sister Zhong.”

She did not understand? Zhong Yunyue could not help rolling her eyes. Looking at the innocent, indolent woman before her, she felt anger rise from her dantian. She drew her sword and pointed it at Qin Zhiyue. Wisps of dark energy seemed to seep from her body.

“Senior Sister, I didn’t do anything to you, did I?” Qin Zhiyue looked stunned. She wrapped her arms around herself in alarm and took another big step back.

“Yunyue!”

Zhong Yunyue’s two friends rushed forward to stop her. If she caused trouble during morning duties, the elder would certainly punish her!

Qin Zhiyue was bewildered. The next moment, someone shoved her into the mud. Feeling what lay beneath her hand, she froze. That spot had been… occupied by a spiritual plant.

“You’re finished,” Qin Zhiyue said coolly. This was Elder Lu’s medicinal plant!!

Sure enough, a familiar fluctuation of spiritual energy appeared overhead. Qin Zhiyue’s face fell.

“What is all this noise?” An elder in pale blue robes flew over. When she saw the spiritual plant crushed beneath Qin Zhiyue, her eyes widened in fury. “My Blood-Coagulating Grass!!!”

The disciples around Qin Zhiyue fell silent, hardly daring to breathe. Qin Zhiyue alone looked helplessly skyward. Could someone please help her up?

In the end, Qin Zhiyue and Zhong Yunyue were sentenced to clean the Scripture Repository for three days after their morning duties.

For outer disciples, it was miserable work. It could hardly even be called cultivation.

The Scripture Repository had separate inner and outer sections. With their outer disciple jade tokens, Qin Zhiyue and the others could only enter the outer section to clean. The manuals in the inner section were beyond what they were permitted to study at their current level.

Idly leafing through an obscure book she had found in a corner, Qin Zhiyue thought this must be the difference between core employees who had signed nondisclosure agreements and everyone else.

Zhong Yunyue had been checking the book list with a cold face, going through the motions. The elder had sealed her spiritual energy. Seeing Qin Zhiyue still so relaxed brought every old and new grievance rushing back, but all she could do was glare.

Neither of them could use spiritual energy, so they had to check the books one by one. It was a pure waste of time. The repetitive sorting made Qin Zhiyue’s temples throb.

The person responsible was standing beside her, even bumping her arm with her shoulder. Qin Zhiyue gritted her teeth and forced a laugh. “Senior Sister Zhong, why put yourself through this?”

She did not understand it. They were both old enough to know better. Was a single word of praise from a superior really worth falling out with a fellow disciple over? That only played into the superior’s hands.

“Hah.” Zhong Yunyue slowed her work. “I have nothing to say to a petty person.”

Qin Zhiyue’s eyes widened. She raised a trembling finger toward herself. “Me?”

The lack of an answer was answer enough. Qin Zhiyue’s mouth twitched. Fine. She would not bother arguing with a fool.

Once she decided that, Qin Zhiyue felt much better. She started walking in the opposite direction. The second-floor corridor of the Scripture Repository was dim, and she failed to notice a sword manual Zhong Yunyue had left on the floor. She tripped over it and pitched forward.

Fortunately, there was a wooden railing ahead. Qin Zhiyue was not too worried. She expected to catch herself on it and turn around. But the instant her hand touched the rail, it creaked—and the wood split apart!

Qin Zhiyue’s eyes widened in terror. Directly below was the lethal formation separating the inner and outer sections. Momentum carried her forward and over the edge. The drop was about seven or eight meters. With no foothold and a lethal formation protected by restrictions beneath her, she would be badly hurt even if she survived.

Qin Zhiyue clenched her fists as she fell rapidly. She closed her eyes, trying to gauge how far she was from the formation. Just as she was about to touch the spiritual energy rippling from it—

Smack—

Her waist slammed into something cold. Qin Zhiyue’s face contorted. It felt as though all her internal organs had shifted. She wanted to throw up…

There seemed to be a sword beneath her. Cold seeped past her sash, through her flesh and into her bones. She shivered and looked up.

A tall, straight figure descended slowly to the spot where Qin Zhiyue had fallen. The familiar disciple’s robes with their cloud patterns looked especially elegant and distant on her. Beside Zhong Yunyue, she gazed down at Qin Zhiyue, her face frosty. Her jade-white fingers came together and lifted slightly. Qin Zhiyue shot upward, carried by the sword beneath her until she stopped where she had fallen from.

Sprawled awkwardly across the sword, Qin Zhiyue met Xiao Weimian’s eyes. Or rather, Xiao Weimian looked down at her.

The noble and upright Senior Sister never seemed to have room for anyone in her eyes. Now Qin Zhiyue’s disheveled figure was reflected in their clear, dark depths.

Xiao Weimian’s enchanted robes stirred faintly with the movement of spiritual energy. Her black hair was neatly bound, just as it had been in the cave that day. Everything about her seemed perfect and unapproachable.