Chapter 210: So I’m the Protagonist After All (6)
Sui Yihuan, even after leaving with the food box, realized that she had never asked the lotus spirit’s name, even though they had met so many times.
Back at her temporary residence in the Hundred Flower Sect, the Lotus House, she saw several of her servants craning their necks and sniffing in her direction, looking very eager. “Miss, where did you get that food? It smells so good!”
She sat down by the scenic lotus pond and saw their expressions. She originally intended to share the food she had obtained.
But after smelling the extremely tempting aroma and seeing that there were only three to five buns and a bowl of white fungus soup inside, she immediately changed her mind. “Didn’t you eat at the dining hall before noon?”
Hearing her mention the “dining hall,” the faces of those who had gathered around changed, twisting in various ways. Only the leader sighed, “The food in the dining hall is indeed very nourishing, but it’s things like stir-fried spirit grass with fire peppers, bitter leaf and spirit fruit juice… In the mortal world, isn’t that just randomly juiced vegetables and stir-fried green vegetables with chili? Who would want to eat that?”
Fortunately, besides planting flowers, the disciples of the Hundred Flower Sect were also skilled at growing vegetables and fruits. They all relied on eating spirit fruits to fill their stomachs. If that wasn’t enough, they could also eat inedia pills.
In short, they would never torture themselves.
Hearing them say this, Sui Yihuan, who was already holding a bun and about to take a bite, hesitated for a moment. But because she was really too hungry, she bit into it with a do-or-die attitude. The juice that burst on her tongue almost scalded her. Then she couldn’t care less about the pain, because the delicious soup had touched every inch of her tongue.
It was so fragrant.
Sui Yihuan quickly ate three buns before stopping, pretending not to see the expressions of her servants who were about to drool. Instead, she asked, “Have you contacted Father?”
Compared to the One Sword and Four Sects, the Qiangshan Sect was more like a family-based sect, similar in nature to the Thirteen Schools. They were all people who made a living at sea. Cultivation and stronger physiques were only for the family to survive better.
Sui Yihuan’s biological father happened to be the leader of the Qiangshan Sect in this generation. Because he felt that the nine continents were vast and rich in resources, and Sui Yihuan was a girl, he couldn’t bear to see her follow in his footsteps and make a living at sea, spending her whole life on a boat.
So, when he learned about the Cultivation Conference, an opportunity to see the major sects, he found a way to send her here.
But not long after she left, she learned that her father had suffered a minor injury while at sea and needed to go into seclusion. If this opportunity to learn hadn’t been so hard to come by, and the children of the other elders in the sect either didn’t meet the standards or had already formed their cores, leaving her as the only option, she would have asked to turn back long ago.
“Not yet,” seeing Sui Yihuan’s worried expression, the servant comforted her, “Miss, don’t worry. With that elder protecting the Sect Leader, he will definitely succeed when he comes out of seclusion.”
“Hmm…”
After thinking about her father, Sui Yihuan thought about the long and boring books in the Winter Depository. For a moment, even her appetite was spoiled, and she listlessly drank the white fungus soup in one gulp, handing the remaining buns to them. “Pay more attention to this matter. Also, this Hundred Flower Sect is probably not peaceful. When you have time, cultivate more and don’t run around outside.”
“Don’t worry, Miss. We understand and won’t cause you any trouble.”
Sui Yihuan gradually became more familiar with the roads and finally adapted to the Hundred Flower Sect, a place full of spring scenery, dazzling and fragrant. She went straight to the Winter Depository.
Who knew that just as she was about to fall asleep while reading, she suddenly heard a soft voice nearby.
The voice was as delicate as an oriole’s, “But wouldn’t that mean the people from the Joyful Union Sect will be riding on our heads?”
“Since Huaxuan wants to take on those tasks, she naturally won’t disgrace our sect. Why should I steal her thunder?”
The voice of the person who answered was much more familiar to Sui Yihuan, carrying a lazy smile. Even from such a distance, it made Sui Yihuan unable to help but touch her ear.
“But I can’t stand it… That was clearly a task the Sect Leader gave you. Everyone knows that the people from the Joyful Union Sect are at odds with us. If we could suppress them this time, the fellow disciples would definitely be happy. Senior Sister, how can you do all the hard work in the beginning and give her the final glory?”
…Senior Sister?
Sui Yihuan, who had been somewhat sleepy, instantly became much more alert. She had thought that this woman was just an ordinary flower spirit, but it turned out that she had a high status in the sect.
But that’s not right.
The flashy woman earlier seemed to have said that this person was not favored by her master, which was why others dared to provoke her so recklessly and without restraint… Could it be because of her identity as a flower spirit?
Although the Hundred Flower Sect was tolerant of spirits, it was still an orthodox cultivation sect. Even if it could tolerate the existence of spirits, it probably still held the mentality of “not one of us.”
The person sleeping in the corner made a bunch of wild guesses. Not sure what she was thinking, the corners of her mouth curled into a mocking smile.
After a while, a disturbed Su Mingxiu came out. She casually stuffed the flamboyant clothes that Yan Miaomiao had forced on her back into her hands and stroked her little junior sister’s head.
“Be good. If you’re too idle, go water the herbs in your garden.”
She had come to the Winter Depository to look for information related to the protective formation, and to see if she could find any ancient scrolls related to the Demon Abyss, Heavenly Demons, and so on. But her little junior sister kept nagging her to uphold the Hundred Flower Sect’s reputation.
…The sect was about to be wiped out, what was the point of showing off?
“Senior Sister!” But the carefree little girl didn’t know this. The biggest conflict in her mind was the disagreement with the Joyful Union Sect.
If her Senior Sister’s face could suppress those disciples of the Joyful Union Sect, who relied on their beauty to seduce cultivators everywhere and looked down on those who were less attractive than them, she would be so happy that she could eat three more bowls of rice.
Su Mingxiu waved Yan Miaomiao and her clothes out of the Winter Depository. Then she took the white jade slips and scrolls she had just found and sat down opposite Sui Yihuan.
She didn’t know when she had started noticing her presence.
Sui Yihuan had been forced to listen to some things about the Hundred Flower Sect and the Joyful Union Sect. Now her eyes were round like a cat’s, and she seemed to want to explain something to Su Mingxiu. But the other person sat down, closed her eyes, placed the white jade slip on her forehead, and immersed herself in the sea of books.
She couldn’t even get a word out.
The Winter Depository was surrounded by greenery. At this moment, the soft light fell from the dome, casting a halo over the two of them. The mole at the corner of the eye of the woman in green seemed to shimmer in this light.
Sui Yihuan couldn’t help but stare at the person opposite her again.
Perhaps she stared for too long, because she became a little dazed. A scene suddenly appeared in front of her… In the scene, the woman lowered her eyes, looking at her sternly, holding a sandalwood ruler in her hand.
“Daoist friend Sui.”
The sudden voice shattered the blurry scene. Sui Yihuan raised her eyes and saw that the person opposite her had already put down the jade slip, raising her willow-leaf-like eyebrows, looking at her with a faint smile.
She instantly withdrew her gaze and looked down at the scroll in front of her. Her back broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that she had been unconsciously caught in some kind of illusion. But she couldn’t find any trace of it. Besides…
Fighting was prohibited in the Winter Depository, and there were protective restrictions everywhere. So she could only lower her voice, using her still-hoarse voice from just waking up, and asked Su Mingxiu:
“Have we, met somewhere before?”
Su Mingxiu didn’t expect her to stare at her for so long just to say this. For a moment, she found it a little funny.
Strictly speaking, in the previous timeline, she and Sui Yihuan should have met in the first class of the conference.
To be precise, Sui Yihuan was late and had to be punished. And she, as the enforcer, held the ruler and repeated the rules of the Hundred Flower Sect’s conference to her.
But now…
Su Mingxiu propped her chin on one hand, a faint smile on her lips. “Daoist friend Sui, this line hasn’t been used to strike up a conversation in the nine continents for many years.”
Being stared at by those eyes that seemed to see through everything, yet were unfathomable, Sui Yihuan understood the meaning. Her face suddenly flushed red, “I, I wasn’t trying to strike up a conversation…”
But she couldn’t say anything more. She could only bury her head and stare at the book, as if this could dispel the embarrassment on her face.
Jade slips had not been used for recording in the nine continents for many years, and the consciousness of cultivators who were just starting on the path was not strong. It was not easy to enter a jade slip to learn. Therefore, many basic books in the nine continents were still kept in the form of scrolls.
Su Mingxiu seemed to be imitating her. After she avoided her gaze, she openly looked at her. The intensity of her gaze made Sui Yihuan feel uneasy. Just as she was about to angrily tell this lotus spirit not to be so rude, she suddenly heard the other person say in a gentle voice, “This chapter is about how to prevent weeds from growing in the spiritual soil. Since I entered the Winter Depository, I haven’t seen Daoist friend turn the page. Have you encountered any difficulties?”
Sui Yihuan: “…”
Any embarrassment or anger she felt was now gone.
Only the shattered self-esteem of a poor student remained.
She instantly turned the page and said coldly, “No!”
Su Mingxiu looked at her meaningfully. After a moment, she shook her head, withdrew her gaze, picked up another jade slip, and placed it on her forehead, roaming freely in the sea of knowledge.
This time, she did find something related to the protective formation. However, the formation was too complicated. Even though Su Mingxiu was not unfamiliar with this path, it took a lot of her energy to remember the movements of the formation. When she came out of this jade slip, she found that the person opposite her had fallen asleep on the book at some point.
Staring at the person’s sleeping face, Su Mingxiu couldn’t help but smile again.
—The book was upside down, and she was still pretending.
But thinking about the child’s reaction earlier, she was afraid that if she told her the truth, she would run away in anger.
Su Mingxiu originally wanted to take off her outer robe and put it on Sui Yihuan, but thinking about the sensitivity of cultivators, she finally just raised her hand and waved the scroll in front of her silently to the top of the other person’s head, where it hovered, blocking the starlight-like light falling from above.
When Sui Yihuan woke up, she realized that something was wrong.
She secretly opened her eyes, wanting to see the reaction of the person opposite her, but saw that she was still in the same posture, with the jade slip on her forehead.
So she breathed a sigh of relief, got up, and slipped away, using her hunger as an excuse to go to the dining hall.
It was mealtime. Sui Yihuan thought about the buns and white fungus soup she had eaten at noon, and felt that the so-called dark cuisine was just the result of her subordinates’ bad luck. As long as she was careful enough, she could definitely find something good to eat!
Fifteen minutes later.
She looked at the sparsely populated dining hall, carefully examined the dinner menu, saw the dishes with strange colors being served, and stood in front of the table, speechless for a moment.
A disciple from the outer sect who was helping in the dining hall rarely advised, “During the conference, disciples can only eat in the dining hall and are prohibited from going down the mountain. Since it hasn’t started yet, you should go down the mountain to the Hundred Flavors Restaurant and try something good. You don’t have to rush to suffer.”
He seemed to be advising her not to rush to reincarnate.
Sui Yihuan was silent for a moment, and then, in a tone of serious inquiry, discussed with the other party, “Daoist friend, when I came at 3 PM, I tasted the spirit beast meat buns from the dining hall. They were indeed delicious. I don’t have any other requests, as long as I can have that dish—”
“3 PM? The dining hall stops serving lunch before noon. What meat buns did Daoist friend eat? It must have been other disciples using the dining hall to have a snack.”
“Uh…” This time, Sui Yihuan was completely silent.
Because she really didn’t have the courage to taste these strange medicinal meals, she finally left the dining hall with an empty stomach. Thinking of her embarrassing behavior in the Winter Depository, Sui Yihuan went to the spiritual garden instead.
She decided to first identify the plants that she had knocked down earlier and figure out how to save them, then return to the Winter Depository to look for solutions.
Because she had the talisman Su Mingxiu had given her, she wouldn’t be treated as an unknown intruder this time. Sui Yihuan relied on her memory to find the places she had affected last time. She found that apart from the carnivorous plant that had chased after her and scared some timid plants into wilting, the other plants that had looked miserable earlier were now back in the soil.
Sui Yihuan squatted on the ground and looked for a long time, just as she bumped into a disciple who had come to look after his own spiritual garden. Both of them were startled.
After a while.
“So it was you who scared my thousand-year-old spirit ginseng and broke three of its roots? Do you know how much each of its roots is worth— Okay, thank you for your patronage. Just be more careful next time.”
Holding a small bag of high-grade spirit stones, the Hundred Flower Sect disciple smiled so widely that his teeth were showing. His attitude towards Sui Yihuan was much more friendly.
Especially after learning that she could enter and exit this place because of Su Mingxiu, he was even more willing to answer her many questions.
“Oh, you’re talking about the Jiangyou grass in the Third Senior Sister’s garden… It’s fine. This grass is precious and timid. When something happens, it will create an illusion of its own death, but it actually hides underground and comes out when it’s safe.”
“Although the spiritual plants growing here have not yet developed intelligence, they already have the instinct to protect their lives. They will either break their tails to survive or fight back. They will not be easily harmed.
For example, there is a carnivorous plant in the Second Senior Sister’s garden. It is even more ferocious. Once it discovers an intruder, it will chase them out of its territory, regardless of their identity.”
…So the owner of the carnivorous plant that chased her was someone she had met.
With the help of this disciple, Sui Yihuan spent a little over half an hour using her spiritual power to restore the wilted plants to their original appearance, and then left compensation for the owners of the other gardens. She found that this task was a little easier than she had imagined.
Now only the small garden where mortal flowers grew remained.
The disciple following her saw the floating sign outside light up. He had wanted to tell her more about the flowers in Su Mingxiu’s garden, but when he saw this sign light up, he stopped in front of it. “Huh? Since Senior Sister is here, there’s no need for me to show off. Even though she has thunder spiritual power, which is incompatible with wood spiritual power, when it comes to taking care of these mortal flowers, no one in the sect can surpass her.”
Su Mingxiu discovered that there was a spiritual vein corresponding to the protective formation beneath her little garden.
She wanted to see if she could repair this protective formation, which was actually useless, so that the Hundred Flower Sect wouldn’t be completely defenseless when the demons invaded later.
But the rules of the formation’s operation were very strange. It wasn’t stagnant, but rather it was operating in reverse. It didn’t provide protection or defense, but… when she tried to stop it, it actually had an attacking property?
She knelt beside the rose bushes, and the moment her fingertip was cut, she withdrew her hand. Her movement was so fast that only after a moment did a drop of blood appear on her fingertip.
Even so, her rash action just now probably alerted the person behind her.
Su Mingxiu lowered her finger, thought for a moment, and then laughed to herself. So what if she alerted them? Was there anyone in the nine continents that she needed to fear now?
“You…”
Sui Yihuan, who had entered the garden at some point, saw her by the fallen rose bushes. She thought that this person couldn’t wait for her to tidy up this rose bush. But… how weak was this little flower spirit to be cut by a mortal flower?
No wonder that arrogant Second Senior Sister looked down on her.
Seeing the sharp thorns on the stems of the roses, Sui Yihuan walked over quickly, handed her handkerchief to Su Mingxiu, and said, “Let me do it. Since I promised to restore this spiritual garden to its original state, I will never go back on my word.”
Hmm?
Su Mingxiu turned her head and saw Sui Yihuan’s sincere expression, as well as the handkerchief she was holding out. She was silent for a moment, realizing that she seemed to have misunderstood something.
But if someone was willing to help, why not?
So she took the rose-colored handkerchief, pressed it to her wound, and watched Sui Yihuan’s movements. She saw that she quite skillfully cut off the completely broken stems, and then took out a stone engraved with a wood spirit pattern, activating the spiritual power within, causing the remaining plants to grow. She watched with great interest.
“Who taught you this?”
“A fellow disciple of yours that I met outside earlier.”
Su Mingxiu got her answer and nodded thoughtfully. But Sui Yihuan, who was facing away from her and looking at the growing roses, didn’t know. She suddenly asked, “Others who have spiritual soil plant either valuable medicinal herbs or rare spiritual plants from the outside world. Why do you only plant mortal flowers?”
“Are they not beautiful?”
Sui Yihuan turned her head and looked at Su Mingxiu with a puzzled expression for a moment, then replied, “They are beautiful…”
Then there was no more sound.
In the quiet garden, only the faint wind blew from the river. Just as Sui Yihuan thought she wouldn’t get an answer to her momentary curiosity, she suddenly heard the person nearby slowly say, “Mortal flowers have their own value. The person who planted them wanted to tell herself that she didn’t have to grow into a precious spiritual plant. She could be an ordinary rose, a sleeping lotus, or a sunflower. If she wanted, she could just be a nameless little flower, and that would be fine too.”
In the past, Su Mingxiu didn’t understand why she couldn’t get her master’s favor. She once doubted her value in the sect. It was only after she went down the mountain and saw the mortal world that she gradually saw things more clearly.
So she brought the spring scenery of the mortal world here, constantly reminding herself not to fall into vain obsessions, and to focus on her own value.
Later, this garden full of spring scenery also repaid her.
Suddenly, from the rose bushes in front of Sui Yihuan, a cluster of deep red flower essence flew into the air. From all directions, monthly roses, sleeping lotuses, daisies…
Countless flowers that she could name and couldn’t name all condensed into various essences, which finally turned into a pure hexagonal snowflake in the air. As the moonlight fell, it refracted different lights.
The hexagonal snowflake split into two, one large and one small, connected together, forming the shape of an earring, and flew to Sui Yihuan.
“This rose bush was the first thing I planted in the garden. Later, a unique rose grew—”
The person casting the spell smiled, with a usual lazy tone, as if joking, “Now you have also planted seeds here. To prevent Daoist friend from waiting too long for a reward, I will first give you a garden of spring scenery. From now on, no matter where you are in the nine continents, as long as you want to see spring scenery, you can take it yourself.”
The flower essence condensed in this earring would allow Sui Yihuan to see the most beautiful spring scenery, even in the cold winter of the north.
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