It stands to reason that the harmonious relationship among disciples is enough to comfort the teacher.
However, when Gaocang and his friends reached the top of the mountain with smiles on their faces, they found their master wearing a black wooden mask standing in the middle of the mountain road, looking at them with a grim gaze.
The joyful atmosphere suddenly disappeared, and they quickly bowed to greet the Master.
However, Su Yishui's mouth seemed to have melted as well. He stood in the middle of the road and didn't speak for a long time.
Gao Cang and Bai Baishan looked at each other secretly, wondering if their master was angry.
Xue Ranran stood behind his two senior brothers and could only tiptoe and look at his master over their shoulders.
The master no longer wears a veil, but he always wears a dark mask that covers most of his face. His tightly pursed lips make it impossible to tell whether he is happy or angry.
Just as the disciples were getting anxious, Su Yishui slowly asked the two male disciples, "Xue Ranran is going down the mountain to visit his mother. Why are you going with him?"
Gao Cang said frankly: "We were afraid that our junior sister would get tired, so we specially helped her carry the things."
Su Yishui nodded: "My fellow disciples are helping me... that's great, but if you were diligent in your studies, you should have some basic skills by now. Why are you walking up the mountain so slowly, stopping and starting? Go, change your bags to 20-jin sandbags, and do this up and down 20 times."
After hearing what the master said, the two brothers wailed together.
Although the West Mountain is not high, it is very steep and it takes a lot of effort to climb up and down. But the master now asked them to carry sandbags up and down twenty times, and they might die of exhaustion halfway up the mountain.
Xue Ranran was listening at the side, and always felt that the unexpected misfortunes of the two senior brothers were related to helping him get things.
So she pleaded quietly, "It's my fault. I asked two senior brothers for help..."
Although the two senior brothers came uninvited, they had good intentions but were so miserable. Ranran wanted to plead for them.
However, Su Yishui said calmly, "Oh. And you, you spend more time in the kitchen than in the alchemy room. I remember that I accepted an apprentice, not a cook. Go! Copy the alchemy prescription three times. If you can't finish it before you set out, bring paper and pen with you, and write while you are on the road!"
It would take three days to copy the thick volume of Danxiu's prescriptions.
Now the three disciples all shut up, went up the mountain in shame, and then each went to receive their punishment.
Although Xue Ranran was depressed at first, after thinking about it carefully, he felt that what his master said made sense.
Senior sister Qiu Xier has already begun to refine a higher level of Anqi Pills, but she can't even touch the alchemy furnace!
Thinking this way, he was willing to accept the punishment. While copying and reciting the prescription, he could review his lessons and practice calligraphy at the same time, so as he wrote, his mood improved. When Yu Tong was packing his bag and passed by Shuzhai, he heard the little girl humming the Jueshan tune.
The clear and soft voice is so sweet that it makes people's ears taste sweet.
Yu Tong smiled and looked out the window, but the sight of the girl holding her chin with one hand and writing with ease made her feel dazed for a moment. She felt that the scene before her was familiar, but she couldn't figure out which part of her memory it was from the past...
At dinner time, the two brothers who had been climbing the mountain stumbled into the dining room with their lives intact and struggled to climb onto the dining table.
Xue Ranran wrote too much and felt her wrist was a little sore when she picked up the chopsticks. Luckily, her second uncle Yu Tong was the chef today, so she had no regrets even if she ate less. She just closed her eyes and swallowed a few mouthfuls of rice to fill her stomach.
Unfortunately, some people can't seem to compromise.
Since returning from his retreat on the mountain top, Master Su Yishui has not yet recovered from his cultivation and has been eating with them for several meals in a row. Moreover, each meal is quite large and the dishes are very particular.
For example, fish should not be eaten with other fresh food, and when cutting meat, one should not cut along the texture of the meat.
But today it was not Ranran who was cooking. Yutong's amazing cooking skills made him fry a plate of vegetables until they turned into a burnt color.
When he was not fasting, Su Xianchang was also very coquettish. After taking only one bite, he refused to try the dishes on the plate. Looking at the dishes on the table, he asked Ranran: "Which one did you make?"
Ran Ran bit her chopsticks and said timidly, "Master, aren't you disgusted by my lack of effort and won't let me into the kitchen?"
Su Yishui paused for a moment when he was reminded by his young apprentice. The black mask that covered most of his face made it impossible to tell whether he was sad or happy. Then he put down his chopsticks, stood up and strode out of the restaurant.
Yu Tong was very upset and said to himself, "What should I do? I don't know how to cook. If the master doesn't fast, the three meals a day will not be smooth. What should I do?"
Xue Ranran now suspects that the reason why Su Yishui practiced fasting in the past was because of Yu Tong's cooking skills.
However, seeing that Second Uncle Master was so sad, Ran Ran still comforted him softly. Maybe Master was thinking about going to Jueshan to fight the evil cultivator Wei Zhen, and he was worried, so he had no appetite.
Yu Chen, who was standing by, snorted coldly and said, "If the master had not used the Dan-Jie Soul-Guiding Technique, he would have wasted twenty years in vain. Even ten Wei Yans would not be able to compare to him!"
After hearing this, Qiu Xier asked nervously, "That means Master can't beat Wei Yan now, so... wouldn't it be like sending ourselves to die if we go there?"
Yu Chen slammed the table and said, "How can you not defeat him? You are looking down on my master. This is treasonous! He is a genius who has reached the state of Dan at the age of sixteen! Moreover, the correct way of cultivating immortals is to exorcise demons and save the world! How can you be so greedy and afraid of death in front of evil spirits?"
Xue Ranran was stunned as she listened: she became an apprentice just to save her life. If she had known that cultivating immortals would require risking her life, she should have thought carefully before becoming an apprentice.
Mother said that she would go down the mountain and get married in the future!
Unfortunately, although Su Yishui abandoned the old rules of Lingxi Palace, he emphasized one point when he became a disciple: it is easy to enter the West Mountain gate but difficult to leave.
Once you become a disciple, there is no reason to give up halfway unless you are expelled by the master.
As for the consequences of backing out halfway, the master didn’t tell them, but when they were meditating under a tree in the thatched cottage, a poisonous snake suddenly crawled onto the straw mat. The master flicked his finger and the poisonous snake instantly turned to dust and disappeared in the breeze…
Therefore, Xue Ranran felt that if she wanted to change her mind and defect from her master halfway, she would probably end up like that snake, without even the chance to make a bowl of snake soup.
No matter what, no one can retreat on the road to exorcising demons.
Su Yishui seemed to be aware that he was like an egg against a rock, so he was not in a hurry to die, and he waited until almost the end of the month before setting out.
I don’t know where all the money he spent on medicine went. When he traveled, he didn’t even have a donkey cart.
As if considering the two female disciples' weak bodies, when passing through a village, he finally bought a horse and let the two female disciples sit on the horse's back to rest their legs.
As for the others, they all carried their bags and wore straw hats, and moved forward in the wind and rain.
The big water bag that Ran Ran carried with her was filled with the tree root tea that her master had brewed for her, the same kind that cost one or two ounces of gold per cup when she first arrived at Xishan. Every morning when she woke up, her taciturn master would remind her to drink the medicine in time.
Ran Ran couldn't help but be moved. She felt that although her master was usually strict, he was still considerate of his disciple. If he was outmatched in a duel in the future and something happened, she, as his disciple, would definitely take care of him by staying on his sickbed, pulling weeds in front of his grave, setting up a memorial tablet and burning incense, and would never leave him!
Su Yishui seemed quite leisurely, not like he was going to exorcise demons, but more like a Feng Shui master exploring dragon caves and tombs. From time to time he would take out a rusty compass to look at it along the way.
Later, when they passed by a locust tree forest, Su Yishui stopped and let them set up camp by the forest and rest for the night.
At night, after Su Yishui took a walk in the woods, he called Ranran, who was roasting sweet potatoes by the fire, to come over.
Then, he took Ranran back into the locust tree forest shrouded in darkness.
Listening to the strange cries of the night owls in the forest and watching Su Yishui who refused to stop, Ranran still felt a little scared.
After all, it was inappropriate for a man and a woman to go into the forest together at night, even if they were a master and his apprentice. Just as Ran Ran was thinking about how to tell his master, Su Yishui stopped and turned around to take off his mask.
At this time, the full moon was high in the sky, and the clear moonlight poured in through the woods. Looking at his handsome face, Ranran suddenly felt relieved, and at the same time sighed: It turns out that good looks are useful. At least when you commit crimes, people will think you are not so hateful.
As she stared at her master and lost in thought, Su Yishui took out a golden bag and said to her, "Plant these seeds in the forest for me."
Ranran took the bag and poured dozens of flat, round seeds into her hands, but she couldn't tell what plant they came from.
But she just followed her master's instructions.
After Su Yishui told her to plant them under eight trees, he picked up a big rock and sat cross-legged, as if he was going to absorb the essence of the moonlight.
But he did not close his eyes. He just watched the girl muttering to herself as she dug holes with branches and planted seeds.
"Sleep well and drink water, you need to grow up quickly!" There was a sweet smile on the corner of his mouth, and he looked very serious, as if he was taking care of a group of helpless children.
Just when Ranran had buried the last one and just stood up, she suddenly found that her master, who had been sitting, was standing behind her.
As a result, when she turned around, she bumped into her master's broad chest, and the tip of her nose felt a little sore.
"Master..." She rubbed her nose and called softly. Su Yishui looked down at her red eyes and was silent for a while. His eyes were so focused that they seemed to be about to burst out something, but in the end, he said nothing and turned away.
On the morning of the second day after they buried the seeds in the forest, they set out again.
Because they stopped and walked along the way and were not in a hurry, it took them five days to get back to Juefeng Village.
The village, which is usually quiet, has recently become as bustling as a town.
In addition to the three major sects and Wei Yan's disciples, many people from other large and small immortal sects also came.
Back then, Mu Qingge caused a huge stir in both the immortal and demonic worlds. Now that the female demon has been reincarnated again, it naturally stirs people's hearts. All the powerful people want to know whether the reincarnated spirit fruit has turned over a new leaf and turned over a new leaf.
If she chooses to go along with Wei Yan after she lands on the ground, she will truly be wasting the chance of reincarnation given to her by God, and all the righteous people will surely work together to bring her down.
Perhaps the fruit was ripe and about to fall off the stalk, and the Immortal Terrace on the Mountain automatically formed a very domineering shield. No one could get close to it, and no one knew when it would fall, so they could only wait at the foot of the mountain.
But there were only so many houses in the village. Although many powerful people had no shortage of money, there were too many of them and they were divided into different factions and were unwilling to live in the same house. Those who came later could not rent a house to stay in and had to sleep in the open air, sleeping on the ground.
However, Su Yishui's apprentice was from the same village. In addition, Qiaolian left in a hurry and the house had not been rented out. So they naturally went to live in Xue's house.
But when she arrived at the door of her house, she found that the locked door was opened, and it seemed that someone had moved into her yard.