“Phew, that feels good!”
Feeling the warm winter sun on his body, Feng Xue adjusted the position and orientation of his solar power bank. He felt completely refreshed and continued on his way. He had to admit, the female ghosts’ service was thorough, and with the memory wipe, the night had completely released all the pressure and pent-up frustration he had accumulated since his Transmigration.
Seeing Feng Xue like this, the White Snake finally couldn’t hold back and asked,
“How exactly did you do that?”
“Do what?” Feng Xue saw the White Snake, who had been withdrawn since turning into a ring yesterday, suddenly speak up. He was happy to have someone to chat with and casually replied while searching for traces of a road that should exist near the dilapidated temple.
“Those two evil ghosts! They clearly succeeded in possessing you, but not only did you not exhaust your Yang Qi, you didn’t even lose a bit of your original Yang. Your Qi and blood are normal, and you didn’t set up a magical altar. Are you some ancient great Yao? No, that’s not right! If you were a monster, the mouth seal shouldn’t have worked… Wait, I knew there was a reason you could turn into a ring! This isn’t a mouth seal; this is a Demonic Technique!”
“Hoh!” Feng Xue’s eyes lit up as he listened to the White Snake’s increasingly agitated muttering. The reason he risked offending monsters to create such an absurd mouth seal was precisely to gain a portable Cultivation guide, wasn’t it?
Now it seemed this White Snake really did know a lot of things!
“Qi and blood, magical altar… Is this the system of human Cultivators in this world? I wonder if this little snake has detailed Cultivation Techniques.”
A strong sense of joy welled up in Feng Xue’s heart, but he immediately suppressed it.
While the mouth seal experiment just now had indeed achieved the multiple effects of testing the Golden Finger and the mouth seal system, and giving a show of force, it had also created enmity. If he were to ask now, even if it knew, it probably wouldn’t tell him, and even if it did, he wouldn’t dare to practice it.
After all, with something like Cultivation Techniques, a few wrong characters, or even if the text was completely correct but there was a slight error in understanding, could lead to devastating consequences.
Fortunately, the half-month of living with a countdown after his Transmigration had greatly improved his Heart-Nature. A moment later, he calmed the impatience and desire in his heart and said,
“I’m not a monster; I’m just an ordinary person.”
“Liar!” The White Snake didn’t believe a single word of Feng Xue’s very sincere statement:
“How could an ordinary person withstand the entanglement of two evil ghosts for an entire night?”
“They were too greedy. If they had only intended to take a sip of the soup, they might have succeeded. But who told them to aim for my life from the start?”
The White Snake was utterly unconvinced by Feng Xue’s incoherent answer but didn’t retort further. Seeing her silent, Feng Xue, however, asked in return,
“Alright, I’ve answered your question. Shouldn’t you answer one of mine?”
“My life is in your hands, why so much nonsense? Just ask what you want!” The White Snake spoke very directly, but even she didn’t realize that the tone of her words was exactly the same as the stubbornness she had shown yesterday when Feng Xue had her by the collar.
Feng Xue didn’t think too much about that at the moment; he just slowly spoke while examining the ground in front of the dilapidated temple:
“About evil ghosts, magical altars, Qi and blood, and such things, who did you hear about them from? Your elders at home? Or ancient scrolls left by predecessors? It couldn’t be Legacy memories, could it?”
“I’m not from the Yao Race. I heard these things from other monsters.” The White Snake didn’t feel there was any need to hide such a thing, but it made Feng Xue hear another key term—
“Yao Race.”
“Sure enough, this world has a complete Cultivation system. The Yao Race should be the kind of monsters born as such, while the White Snake is probably the kind of monster that gained sentience and Cultivated later, an Acquired monster.”
Quickly analyzing in his mind, Feng Xue’s eyes darted around, but he didn’t continue to press for the source of the monster Cultivation Technique. First, he didn’t know if it would be useful to him, and more importantly, the White Snake probably wouldn’t be willing to reveal something that related to fundamental interests.
They were still in the early stages of communication, so it was best not to ask sensitive topics.
Thinking this, he temporarily closed his mouth and continued his act of picking at the weeds on the ground. From common sense, there should have been a road in front of such a dilapidated temple, at least before it fell into disrepair.
At the time before his Transmigration, many young people born in cities might not understand what a rural dirt road was—not a broken concrete road, nor a gravel road paved with stones, but a path formed entirely by the constant trampling of pedestrians.
And such a road, if no one passed through, would quickly be covered by weeds. But no matter what, the compacted ground from long-term trampling was ultimately less suitable for weed growth than soft soil. As long as too much time hadn’t passed, some clues could still be discerned.
And this world also seemed to be within the scope of common sense. Before long, he found a path among the weeds that was barely discernible as different.
“Hey, do you know how this road became desolate?”
When Feng Xue asked this question, he originally thought the snake demon would reply with something like “First, I’m not called ‘hey’,” but she seemed to not care about being called that at all and responded naturally:
“That was originally the road for a village to the north to go to the county town for market. Later, that village disappeared, so fewer people walked on it. Then, those two evil ghosts came, and some more people died, so no one came over at all.”
“North… so the county town is to the south?” Feng Xue took out his compass and compared it, not asking redundant questions like why the village disappeared, but asking a more fundamental question:
“How do you know about human affairs?”
“That temple was originally called the Fox Spirit Temple. A Fox Immortal lived there and would tell the monsters in the nearby mountains stories about the human world… She also taught the methods like seeking mouth seals.”
The White Snake’s tone carried a hint of recollection. Feng Xue was sensitive to the word “Immortal,” but seeing the temple now occupied by evil ghosts, he couldn’t help but frown and say,
“Did those two evil ghosts drive the Fox Immortal away?”
“How could that be!” The White Snake immediately let out a sound like a cat whose fur had bristled, saying in a very loud voice:
“Fox Immortal Grandma is a monster Immortal who Cultivated from a great Yao! How could two newly formed evil ghosts be a match for her? It’s just that a few years ago, Fox Immortal Grandma was invited away by humans to become a family guardian Immortal and enjoy blessings, which is how those two evil ghosts took over the place.”
“Family guardian Immortal… Immortal Ascetic? Well, that’s a lower class!” Feng Xue thought to himself, but at the same time, he was very interested in the four words “great Yao Cultivated.” He then said,
“The monsters in this mountain benefited from her; didn’t anyone come out to drive away the evil ghosts?”
Hearing Feng Xue ask this, the White Snake, however, lost her previous loud volume and simply replied very calmly: “Monsters who have achieved success in Cultivation have long gone to enjoy themselves in the human world. The mountain is full of those who haven’t yet taken human form. Evil ghosts can’t harm us, and we can’t harm evil ghosts. The temple itself isn’t particularly miraculous, so who would bother with the effort?”
“Evil ghosts and minor demons can’t harm each other? Those two ghosts also seem to only have abilities like hypnosis and entering dreams, unable to affect reality. So, monsters are immune to ghost illusions? Speaking of which, the White Snake’s grammar was a bit off when mentioning evil ghosts, so it shouldn’t be a common term for ‘ghost,’ but rather a Realm division similar to Foundation Establishment or Golden Core?”