Chapter 4: Four Slashes
Luo Mingshu has always been someone who responds better to gentle persuasion than force. Originally, she hadn't planned to seriously help Lu Yaoyao track down Wei Qing's spiritual consciousness, but things changed when the banner was presented. She really liked the extravagant way the award was presented.
"You flatter me, you flatter me." Luo Mingshu accepted the banner with great composure.
"Senior Sister Luo, I heard that you actually helped Fuyun Peak find their missing disciple without asking for anything in return. The sect leader was very moved, which is why he presented you with this banner." A disciple beside her whispered a reminder.
"She's too poor; she can't even come up with 30,000 spirit stones. I'll just consider it a donation to help the poor." Luo Mingshu gently stroked the words on the banner with her fingers, very satisfied.
"Senior Sister Luo is beautiful and kind-hearted," praised the junior disciple sent by the sect leader.
Luo Mingshu knew he wasn't being sincere, but she liked this kind of insincere praise. She took out some spirit stones from her pouch and distributed them, saying, "This is the first time I've received a banner, so this is a red envelope for you."
The disciples left happily, and Luo Mingshu happily carried the banner back home. Afa also came over to take a look: "Oh, it's a banner."
"Is it pretty?" Luo Mingshu hung the banner in the center of the room. "Thanks to Lu Yaoyao for coming to find me, otherwise I wouldn't have had the chance to receive this banner."
"Doesn't Senior Sister like her?" Afa wondered. "When fellow disciples come to borrow some small magic items, you lend them out without asking why when you're in a good mood, and at most you charge a small rent. Although Lu Yaoyao is a bit silly and not very likable, I feel that you have some grudge against her."
Afa patted Luo Mingshu on the shoulder: "It's alright. If Senior Sister doesn't like it, I'll find a way to beat her up for you."
“There is indeed some past grievances.” Luo Mingshu casually said, tugging at the tassel on the banner that the sect leader had presented. “If I lend it out directly, everyone else will attribute the credit to her, since she dared to come and beg me for the sake of her senior brother.”
“If I make things difficult for her, the sect leader will step in, and I will end up looking heartless,” Luo Mingshu muttered. “Although I don’t care about these empty titles, I definitely won’t get this banner.”
"I'm going to lose either way, so I thought I might as well get something from her, like that green bracelet of hers. Slurp—all the masters in the human world who could carve such a pattern are dead. It's a rare item." Luo Mingshu licked her lips. She was born with a love for treasures and beautiful women, and she was genuinely interested in Lu Yaoyao's green bracelet.
"But she was incredibly stingy and made a fool of herself in front of the elder she herself had summoned. What could I do? I wanted to keep watching the show, so I could only lend her the Soul-Calling Bell." Luo Mingshu analyzed the situation logically. With her intelligence, she couldn't have come up with a scheme to outwit Lu Yaoyao; she was simply greedy.
"Lu Yaoyao has only been a disciple for a short time. Where did she get the resources to buy things that even you, her senior sister, would covet?" Afa was completely baffled.
"Maybe her family is rich." Luo Mingshu thought of the novel where she played the villainous female supporting character. This Lu Yaoyao, as the female lead, had endless good luck and might have some kind of magical treasure.
However, Luo Mingshu's analysis here is actually—
"I'm sorry, host, your mission to gain favor with the sect elders by requesting to borrow the Soul-Capturing Bell has failed." The emerald bracelet on Lu Yaoyao's wrist glowed, and a cold voice rang out.
Lu Yaoyao wiped away her tears: "Waaah, system, I can't help it, Luo Mingshu... she... she's greedy and lustful, she's shameless!"
"Is this your reason for using all the system reward points to buy the mother-of-pearl necklace?" the system reminded you.
"She wants you, System! It's because you have such a seductive appearance that you caught her attention. I'm doing this to protect you. If she takes you back and binds you to her, she'll definitely exploit you." Lu Yaoyao started shifting the blame.
System: "..." I'm fucking...
"The next mission has been issued. Please read it carefully, host. You must personally rescue Wei Qing. He will be extremely grateful to you, and his favorability towards you will increase significantly." After a moment of silence, the system quickly added to the message.
"A brand new side quest has been added." The system itself panicked. "Please make sure to protect your system—that is, me. If you lose me, all your current cheat codes will be canceled."
"Okay." Lu Yaoyao thought to herself, "You've given me a cheat code," and gently bit her lip, agreeing.
Three days passed quickly. Lu Yaoyao packed her things and headed towards the stream.
At this moment, Ge You was lying on a cool chair in the courtyard, continuing his online argument with the anonymous cultivator from last time.
In the previous round, she was defeated by the opponent sending three messages in a row.
[Anonymous monk: . ]
[Anonymous monk: ...]
[Anonymous monk: ...]
For experts like them who are masters of the spiritual network, in the end, text becomes less important; whoever posts faster and can flood the screen wins. In this respect, Luo Mingshu narrowly lost to her opponent last time because she exhausted her spiritual energy.
After three days of rest and recuperation, she used the Spirit Network to upload the lavish breakfast she had that morning to the replies and launched a new round of message bombardment.
[A 300-year-old beauty with a water-elemental root is incredibly gullible: [Super luxurious breakfast photo.jpg] Do you think those guys in the Demon Realm can afford this?]
[A 300-year-old beauty with a water-spirit root is incredibly gullible: "I had to leave last time, come back if you dare."]
The other party replied instantly.
[Anonymous monk: ...]
[Anonymous monk: What the hell?]
For Xie Changming, replying to Luo Mingshu's message on the Spirit Network was merely a matter of a thought.
He glanced at the picture Luo Mingshu had sent. Luo Mingshu was indeed eating quite well. On the wooden table was peach blossom dew, made from peach petals from Dongyang Mountain, soaked in melted snow water transported from the extremely cold snow-capped mountains, giving it a sweet taste. Next to the peach blossom dew, there were two vermilion fruits, which had a jade-like color under the morning sunlight.
The Demon Realm is a desolate and impoverished place, so it's impossible for such brightly colored things to appear there. Xie Changming was stunned for a moment after seeing the peach blossom dew.
During his silence, Luo Mingshu had been sending messages one after another.
[A 300-year-old beauty with a "water spirit root" is incredibly gullible: "No way, no way, you guys really can't afford it?"]
[A 300-year-old beauty with a water-elemental root is incredibly gullible: Call me "sister" and I might consider doing some charity work in the game.]
[A 300-year-old beauty with a water-spirit root is incredibly gullible: Why aren't you replying to me anymore? Are you scared? Weren't you so arrogant a few days ago, you brat?]
Luo Mingshu received no response from the other party for a long time. She thought she had won this round of verbal battle, but soon after, the other party started sending messages one after another.
Because the other party was taciturn, even when arguing with Luo Mingshu in the Four Directions Water Mirror, he couldn't think of any new insults. Therefore, the anonymous cultivator's usual practice was to break a sentence into several parts before posting it.
"No. Good. Food. Too. Cold." The message, forcibly broken into more than a dozen sentences, fragmented Luo Mingshu's text output.
Thus began a new round of debate between the anonymous cultivator and the beautiful 300-year-old woman with a water spirit root who was easily fooled, regarding whether the breakfast was good or not, until Lu Yaoyao's arrival distracted Luo Mingshu.
Luo Mingshu needed to be fully focused to face Xie Changming, while Xie Changming could multitask. So this round ended with Luo Mingshu's early exit, and whoever failed to respond first lost.
Their lengthy exchange even attracted a group of onlookers who praised the anonymous cultivator involved, remarking that finally someone had put an end to the notorious trolls on the Spirit Network, which was truly cause for celebration.
The bloody storm on the Spirit Network was temporarily irrelevant to Luo Mingshu. She reached out her hand to Lu Yaoyao in front of her: "Give me the token that can summon your senior brother."
She gently stroked the soul-summoning bell lying in her palm and explained, "I can't control this thing as precisely as the elders, but what can I do? This soul-summoning bell is mine, so I need something that your senior brother keeps close to him. You'd better hand it to me through a handkerchief, because I can't stand seeing it dirty."
Lu Yaoyao raised her eyelashes and looked at Luo Mingshu gently, automatically ignoring her sharp words: "Thank you, Senior Sister Luo."
She took a small cloth bag out of her bosom. When Luo Mingshu took it, it felt light and flimsy, as if there was nothing inside.
"It's my senior brother's hair," Lu Yaoyao said shyly.
Luo Mingshu almost lost the cloth bag.
“He left this for me before he went to the trial, saying that if I missed him, I could look at this black hair and think of him,” Lu Yaoyao added.
Luo Mingshu held the thin strap that held the cloth bag, looking even more disgusted. The young couple's perverse sense of humor was truly terrifying.
She asked Ah Fa for a silk glove and took Wei Qing's hair out of the bag, but the hair was very short. She remembered that male cultivators usually tied their hair up, and she had never seen hair this short.
"Your senior brother's hair looks like this?" Luo Mingshu asked suspiciously.
"Mmm." Lu Yaoyao nodded repeatedly.
Luo Mingshu gently stroked the Soul-Summoning Bell in her hand, and the magical artifact emitted a melodious sound, clearly enjoying Luo Mingshu's touch. The little bell vibrated and kept nuzzling into Luo Mingshu's palm.
Wei Qing's hair was placed into the Soul-Capturing Bell. Luo Mingshu closed her eyes tightly, her whole body glowing faintly. Lu Yaoyao and Afa stepped back a little, not daring to disturb her.
They were all at the Golden Core stage, and the Soul-Summoning Bell was a high-grade magic weapon that they could not control. In addition, the spells for tracking and finding people required a lot of magic power, and if there was any interference from the outside world, the final result would be deviated. Therefore, they dared not interfere with Luo Mingshu.
Luo Mingshu sensed the source of the hair. Blue-purple light flickered around her, and then the light gradually converged to form a map of the human world. The Soul-Capturing Bell rang, and a thin purple thread extended from the bell.
The purple thread began to wander across the map, but its search route was somewhat strange, as if it was hesitating.
Ah Fa immediately realized something was wrong. Although Luo Mingshu was ridiculed by those who disliked her for her stagnant cultivation and being unable to break through to the Nascent Soul stage for over a hundred years, the spells she used were extremely exquisite, and her primordial spirit power was profound, even more powerful than most ordinary Nascent Soul stage cultivators.
Using the Soul-Calling Bell to locate the spirit of the token's owner was not difficult for Luo Mingshu, and the Soul-Calling Bell was very obedient and should cooperate with Luo Mingshu completely.
At this moment, Luo Mingshu frowned slightly. She was using the method of searching for human consciousness to find Wei Qing's location, but the purple threads searching on the human realm map were clearly blocked. No matter how much magic power she released to strengthen the search, it was as if the magic power had sunk into the sea and had no effect whatsoever.
But Luo Mingshu was a stubborn person; the more Wei Qing's consciousness tried to prevent her from finding him, the more determined she became to find him. She gritted her teeth, sweat beading on her forehead, and the sound of the soul-capturing bell hanging on her wrist grew increasingly urgent, "Ding-a-ling"—instantly, the purple silk threads moved several times faster.
The map of the human realm constructed by her magic began to extend westward, gradually unfolding a new landscape. Lu Yaoyao, who had been watching this place closely, suddenly stood up, because further west of the human realm lay the demon realm.
Finally, the purple thread stopped at a point near the border of the demon realm, shimmering faintly.
Luo Mingshu put the Soul-Capturing Bell back. After seeing the result it gave, she sighed lightly, with a hint of schadenfreude: "Oh dear, it's actually in the Demon Realm. It seems your senior brother has really been captured by a demon."
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