Chapter 57: Master

The world was clear and bright, and the winter sunlight felt like a layer of golden pastry, the most warm and intoxicating. The courtyard where Ye Minwei and her companions stayed was located in the most secluded corner of the Canglang Villa, atop a mountain cliff. Looking out from the courtyard, one could see the rolling, undulating sea below.

However, Xie Yuzhu had no heart to admire the ocean view. She squatted on the ground, staring face-to-face with the dream-beast white rabbit, having maintained this posture without moving for half an hour, wishing she could turn into a stone sculpture in the courtyard.

Just as she sighed her thirty-fourth "How can this be possible" of the day, a blue figure dropped beside her, and her First Master squatted down next to her.

Ye Minwei asked with concern, "Yuzhu, what are you worrying about?"

Xie Yuzhu thought that it was quite an achievement for her First Master to actually see that she was worrying. But a normal person should also be able to see why she was worrying, which showed that her First Master was still somewhat lacking compared to a normal person.

Xie Yuzhu raised a pair of lifeless eyes and called out, "First Master, you're here. Where is Second Master?"

"Over there," Ye Minwei pointed to the corner of the courtyard.

Xie Yuzhu looked over and saw a long hanging chair suspended near the railing. The ropes swayed the chair back and forth, and Wen Ci was lying inside it. His long legs stretched outside the hanging chair, one arm draped over his eyes, and his other hand hung over the edge of the chair, the gold chain and bell on the back of his hand swaying against the ground.

In the warm winter sunlight, Wen Ci was draped in a blanket, catching up on his sleep.

Xie Yuzhu watched Wen Ci for a moment, nodded blankly, and said, "Fine, as long as Second Master can fall asleep, that's good."

Then she turned those lifeless eyes back to the rabbit in front of her and continued, "First Master, you say the dream-beast we wanted to find didn't come, but the dream-beast we didn't want to find came all by itself, and even if we tell it to run away now, it won't. How can things in this mortal world be so freakishly uncanny and go so completely awry?"

Ye Minwei opened her mouth and closed it again. She felt that although Xie Yuzhu had called her name, the content of her words sounded like she was talking to herself.

Sure enough, without waiting for her reply, Xie Yuzhu went on talking to herself, "What kind of mess is this? My dad is not my dad, my mom is not my mom, my brothers and sisters are not my brothers and sisters, and I am not Xie Yuzhu. I am Master Ceyu, my dad is my disciple, my mom is my disciple's wife, and my brothers and sisters are my... my grand-disciples?"

As she spoke, Xie Yuzhu couldn't help shouting out, "This is simply too absurd!"

Having shouted this, Xie Yuzhu seemed to exhale all the air in her body. She hung her head in dejection, her face dropping into the crook of her arm.

After a long silence, Xie Yuzhu sniffed and said wistfully, "When I was little, I always felt that my parents were too biased when naming us. What were my brothers and sisters called? Xie Yuxiang, Xie Yuning, Xie Yeqian, Xie Yujiao... every single one of them had a good meaning, except for me, who was just called Xie Yuzhu."

"My parents said the name came from the phrase 'precious pearl in the palm,' but I felt that being a precious pearl in the palm just meant being obediently pampered for a lifetime, what difference was there from the little birds and cats people kept? I wanted to cultivate the Tao, do business, keep accounts, read books, and travel the world, but they wouldn't let me do any of it. They said those things were too tiring and they were afraid I would suffer, and the only thing they let me do was throw tantrums whenever I felt like it. I used to wonder how parents could ever wish for their children to achieve nothing in life, but now I understand it all at once."

"Turns out I am Master Ceyu, I am my dad's master, how could he dare to discipline me? If I showed my face in public, I would be recognized, and if I accumulated spiritual power, it would conflict with Master Ceyu's cultivation level, so I was locked up at home, idling away every single day. Everything was done just so that one day I could smoothly transform back into Master Ceyu."

"Then in these seventeen years... did my parents ever really treat me as their daughter? They... said I was the precious pearl in their palm... were all these lies?"

Ye Minwei squatted beside Xie Yuzhu, listening as Xie Yuzhu's voice grew smaller and smaller, starting to tremble and gradually turning into sobs.

Ye Minwei lowered her eyes, reached out, and gently patted Xie Yuzhu's back, asking, "Are you unwilling to change back into Master Ceyu?"

Xie Yuzhu sniffed and struggled to say, "This matter isn't up to whether I'm willing or not. Master Ceyu is the sect leader of the Fuguang Sect, the leader of the Taiqing Altar Assembly, and for many years the chaos of spiritual artifacts has turned the world upside down; the people of the world need her. What does my willingness matter..."

"What do you matter? Do you take your two masters for dead?"

A voice came from the swaying hanging chair, and Xie Yuzhu raised her head to look. Through her tear-stained face and misty eyes, she saw her Second Master lower the arm from his eyes and turn to look at her. He looked as though he hadn't been asleep at all, and at this moment he narrowed his eyes and spoke unhurriedly.

"We don't know any Master Ceyu. You are Xie Yuzhu. As long as you call us master, you are our disciple. Since you are the disciple of the Ancestral Sect and the Master of the Dream Abyss, then whatever you want to do, you can do."

After a pause, Wen Ci said, "If you don't want to do anything, you don't have to do it either, and if you can't figure something out, you can keep thinking about it. Anyone in this world who dares to force you—let them come and beat us first before we talk."

"Don't you agree, Xie Yuzhu's First Master?"

Ye Minwei patted Xie Yuzhu's back and said matter-of-factly, "That's right. Originally, if you were unwilling, the dream-beast couldn't be absorbed by you. Just as well, I retrieved several spiritual artifacts from Qin Jiaze; let me study them and I'll give them to you to use. Perhaps in the future, you will be even more formidable than Master Ceyu."

With teardrops hanging on her face, her eyes trembling, and her lips puckering, Xie Yuzhu actually swung her arms out to hug Ye Minwei and burst into loud sobs. This startled the white dream-beast rabbit, which hopped once and blinked innocently.

Just as Xie Yuzhu was hugging Ye Minwei and crying aloud, Mo Xiaowan happened to arrive in the courtyard, startled by the weeping Xie Yuzhu. The white rabbit dream-beast very consciously hopped into Ye Minwei's cosmos pouch, making sure Mo Xiaowan didn't see it.

Mo Xiaowan cast a few puzzled glances at Xie Yuzhu, then bowed to Ye Minwei, saying that the villa master invited Ye Minwei to discuss a matter.

"Please rest assured, Ancestral Sect Master, the meeting will only be between the master and the two of you, absolutely no outsiders."

When Wen Ci and Ye Minwei emerged from the underground palace of the Prince of Laiyang's Mansion, they only told Hui Nanyi that they had been tricked and deceived by Wei Jing and failed to retrieve Ye Minwei's dream-beast. Although Hui Nanyi was doubtful, seeing that Ye Minwei's cultivation truly had not recovered, she did not ask any further. By now, no one should know about Xie Yuzhu's situation.

Wen Ci rolled over and sat up from the hanging chair, rubbing his temples as if suffering from a headache, and said, "What is that old man calling you over for?"

Hearing this, Mo Xiaowan's expression turned displeased. "Is it not overly presumptuous for Mr. Wu to address my master in such a manner?"

Wen Ci lifted his eyes to look at Mo Xiaowan. His eyes were bloodshot as he smiled and said, "What you say makes sense. Come to think of it, our ages are probably about the same, it's just that he looks prematurely aged. Perhaps I should call him a young man."

"You!"

Just as Mo Xiaowan was about to get angry, a hand pressed down on her shoulder. Cang Zhu dashed out from the room at some point, his tattered strips of clothing fluttering in the sunlight, and stepped in to smooth things over. "Oh, young lady, don't be angry. Those two are both good people, it's just that they've never understood what politeness is. If you take them seriously, you'll only make yourself angry. What's the use of getting angry back and forth?"

Having followed the Ancestral Sect Master for more than three months, Cang Zhu had clearly accumulated a wealth of experience, and his skill at smoothing things over had reached perfection, with the timing and intensity handled just right.

Perhaps relying on his exceptional skill at playing the peacemaker, Cang Zhu was selected by Ye Minwei to accompany her to meet the master of Canglang Villa. Ye Minwei instructed Wen Ci to catch up on his sleep and rest first, saying, "I'm taking Cang Zhu with me. Whenever he wants to run away, he can always escape to report back to you. Besides, he still wants to use me, so before he finishes using me, he probably won't let anything happen to me."

With that, she and Cang Zhu left the courtyard with Mo Xiaowan. Xie Yuzhu silently watched their receding figures, pondering her First Master's words back and forth for a long time before turning her head to look at Wen Ci in confusion.

"Was First Master actually saying that Mr. Cang Zhu is a good person, or was she saying he's not a good person?"

Wen Ci frowned and slowly said, "This fellow Cang Zhu is unfathomable. He knows us inside and out; I'm afraid that the very first time he met you, he already knew your identity. 'Those who are ignorant and unaware do not know, those who act recklessly lose their way'—that phrase refers to you."

Xie Yuzhu recalled Cang Zhu's behavior upon their initial meeting and the mysterious words about fate he had dropped today one by one, and she couldn't help feeling a chill run down her spine. Frowning, she said, "Still... Cang Zhu sees right through everyone and every destiny, what meaning is left in living like that!"

"No meaning at all, so I suspect he wants to change his fate."

"Change his fate? Then... does Mr. Cang Zhu want to restore his body? He has completely lost his hearing, one eye is ruined, and his body is also battered and torn. Does he want to restore his physical body to perfection?" Xie Yuzhu guessed.

The more she spoke, the more sense it made. "Look at how much Cang Zhu cares about maintaining his health, sleeping early and rising early, and seizing every opportunity to drink tonic soups—what I'm saying must be right!"

Wen Ci was noncommittal. "In any case, things have reached this point, and Daoist Ceyin of the Fuguang Sect, the number one diviner in the world, still hasn't found us. That's presumably thanks to Cang Zhu's help. A powerful diviner is the biggest variable in itself; with him traveling alongside us, Ceyin will find it very difficult to calculate our whereabouts."

As Wen Ci spoke, his shoulders sank. He rested his arms on his knees and gradually clenched his fists, as if enduring something.

Xie Yuzhu looked at Wen Ci's pale complexion, thinking of how he had just claimed he was catching up on sleep yet seemed not to have slept at all, and couldn't help feeling worried. "Second Master, you didn't fall asleep again, did you? Is your insomnia getting worse?"

Wen Ci replied in a low voice, "Mn."

After a pause, he calmly said, "It all depends on whether Ye Minwei finds the dream-beast first, or I lose my mind first. If I can't help killing myself, remember to tell Ye Minwei to find the most toxic curse to nail my soul to a spirit tablet, preferably for a hundred or a thousand years, so as not to let that old man in all living beings' sea of consciousness off too lightly."

Xie Yuzhu's face crumpled into a frown, filled with both worry and distress as she asked, "Why don't you tell First Master yourself?"

"By the time I go mad, where will I still have the energy to leave last words?" Wen Ci said casually.

Ye Minwei and Cang Zhu followed Mo Xiaowan upward along the mountain path, passing through layers of mountain mist and seas of clouds to reach the sun-drenched peak of Lingyun Peak. At the summit stood an exquisite small dwelling, constructed entirely without bricks or tiles, formed by several trees growing interdependently.

In front of the dwelling were two wooden stump stools, with a wooden table erected between them, upon which sat a chessboard.

An elderly man with white hair stroke his snow-white beard as he sat before the table, waving a hand to invite Ye Minwei to sit down. "I wonder how the Ancestral Sect Master's skill at chess is? Would you be willing to accompany this old man for a couple of games?"

The old man was none other than the master of Canglang Villa, He Yubai.

Ye Minwei accepted and sat down opposite He Yubai, while Cang Zhu stood to one side with his hands tucked into his sleeves, and Mo Xiaowan bowed to her master and withdrew.

Amidst the swirling clouds and mist, He Yubai dropped a Go stone and began, "People from the Taiqing Altar Assembly came to investigate the Prince of Laiyang's refining of Cang crystals, and they have already made some headway. The news was leaked by the Qianyu Sect."

"Back at Baiyun Que, Lin Xuege killed dozens of people to refine Cang crystals, and this old man was an eyewitness. Lin Xuege swore a solemn oath on the spot never to reveal this method to anyone, backed by a life-binding pact. After that incident, the Taiqing Altar Assembly quickly sealed off the news; only the sect leaders and vice sect leaders of Baiyun Que, Xiaoyao Sect, and Fuguang Sect, as well as those present at the time, knew about it, and the sect leader of Qianyu Sect was among them. In recent years, the Taiqing Altar Assembly has kept a tight watch, and since those in the know are few, even if someone wanted to attempt refining Cang crystals, they wouldn't dare to act rashly."