Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 21: Staying Overnight

A subtle twitch marred the corner of the Shang family’s eldest daughter’s eye. She snapped her book shut, her voice carrying the chill of winter frost. “Thank you for bringing Xiao Lü back. I am Shang Yuan.”

The parrot, spotting Shang Yuan as if she were a descending goddess of salvation, frantically beat its wings to escape Lu Yang’s grasp. Lu Yang simply opened his hand, letting the vibrant bird flutter wildly toward the rafters.

“You ought to keep a tighter leash on him,” Lu Yang advised, a bright, easy smile on his face. “It’s a stroke of luck this little fellow only flew in circles around Taiping Township. Had he ventured any further, he’d be lost to the winds.”

Shang Yuan’s gaze swept over their crisp, practical attire. To the untrained eye, they looked every bit the part of seasoned wandering heroes, the kind who lived and died by the sword in the unforgiving jianghu.

This was entirely by design. Lu Yang and Tao Yaoye were wearing the exact outfits recommended by the Dao Seeking Sect’s Mission Hall for this precise purpose—to perfectly masquerade as righteous vagabonds.

“Xiao Lü has returned,” Shang Yuan said, her tone distant and guarded. “You two may leave.”

Tao Yaoye’s delicate brows knit together. She did not appreciate the young miss’s haughty dismissal.

Lu Yang, however, possessed a masterful ability to ignore hostility. “Oh, let’s chat a bit!” he said cheerfully. “The Shang family seems incredibly hospitable. I wouldn’t be surprised if they insisted we stay the night.”

Shang Yuan let out a cold sneer. “My family’s hospitality does not equate to my own. Leave. It would be best if you left Taiping Township entirely.”

“Taiping Township is perfectly devoid of demons and monsters. Why the rush?” Lu Yang countered. “Besides, you’ve been cooped up in this estate for ages. Don’t you want to hear a few tales from the outside world?”

Shang Yuan faltered. The blunt offer caught her off guard, and the ice in her voice thawed by a fraction. “Where do you hail from? I haven’t stepped past these gates in nearly a month. Tell me… what is the jianghu like these days?”

“We hail from the Dao Seeking Sect, one of the Five Great Immortal Sects. We are both at the Foundation Establishment stage. Our journey to Taiping Township began with rumors of a demonic bird harassing the locals…”

Lu Yang spun the tale with an unhurried, rhythmic cadence. His voice was warm and resonant, the mark of a natural storyteller.

At the mention of “Foundation Establishment,” a fleeting spark of genuine joy ignited in Shang Yuan’s eyes.

As the three conversed, Shang Yuan found herself utterly captivated by Lu Yang’s descriptions of cultivators soaring through the clouds and plunging into the earth. A fierce yearning to break free and witness the vast, boundless world took root in her chest.

“I want to walk the path of Cultivation,” she said, her tone laced with frustration. “But my father forbids it. He claims it’s too dangerous. He says if it weren’t for sheer, blind luck during an expedition into an ancient tomb, his bones would still be rotting in the dark.”

“I’ve begged him to tell me the story a hundred times, but he refuses to speak of it,” she added indignantly. She was a connoisseur of the strange and macabre, yet her own father hoarded his greatest adventure like a miser.

It seems the head of the Shang family is a man with a hidden past, Lu Yang mused silently.

“What is your father’s Cultivation level?” he asked.

Shang Yuan rolled her eyes, clearly picturing her father’s smug visage. “If you believe his bragging, he used to be at the ninth layer of Qi Refining. Then he met with some ‘great calamity,’ barely escaped with his life, and his Cultivation plummeted. Now, he sits somewhere around the fourth or fifth layer.”

“That is more than sufficient,” Tao Yaoye chimed in. “Cultivators are a rarity in Taiping Township. Even Mayor Huang, the strongest among you, is only at the seventh layer. A fourth or fifth layer Qi Refining cultivator can live like a king here, especially with the Shang family’s accumulated wealth.”

“But I refuse to be caged in Quhe County!” Shang Yuan sighed heavily. “I want to walk the martial world. I want to see the magnificent and the bizarre. We are of the same age, yet you stand at Foundation Establishment, while I haven’t even touched the first breath of Qi.”

Before Tao Yaoye could offer a word of comfort, a heavy knock echoed through the room.

“Young Miss, dinner is served,” Steward Zhang’s voice drifted through the wood. “And to our two young heroes, the Master insists that given the late hour, you must join us for the evening meal and rest here for the night before continuing your journey.”

“The Master, the Madam, and Mayor Huang are already waiting.”

“Excellent! We’ll be right there,” Lu Yang called back brightly.

Tao Yaoye opened her mouth to decline, but Lu Yang smoothly cut her off. “You see? I told you the Shang family was hospitable. It would be incredibly rude to reject such earnest kindness, wouldn’t it?”

…

The dining hall was a picture of provincial luxury. The head of the Shang family sat at the seat of honor, engaged in boisterous conversation with Mayor Huang. The atmosphere was lively, the food rich and plentiful. While it lacked the ethereal refinement of the Dao Seeking Sect’s spiritual cuisine, it possessed a hearty, undeniable flavor.

Steward Zhang and the maids stood like silent statues at the periphery, attending to every need with practiced grace.

With the feast concluded, Mayor Huang took his leave. Lu Yang and Tao Yaoye were escorted to the east wing, their assigned quarters separated by a single, thin wall.

Tao Yaoye sat on the edge of her bed, deeply unenthused. She was notoriously particular about her sleeping arrangements. Unless she was nestled in her own cave dwelling back at the Dao Seeking Sect—where sleep claimed her the moment her head hit the pillow—she usually spent hours staring at the ceiling.

She knew it was a flaw. A true cultivator was expected to sleep on jagged rocks beneath a canopy of freezing rain. She had tried to temper herself, but success remained elusive.

“Senior Brother Lu, on the other hand, could probably sleep standing up in a hurricane,” she murmured to the empty room. For some inexplicable reason, the thought made her chuckle softly.

Then, a heavy yawn tore from her throat.

“Strange. I’m actually tired tonight. Perhaps I’ll finally get some decent rest…”

Her eyes snapped open. The lethargy wasn’t natural.

Poison!

She lunged for the Thousand Illusions Umbrella to erect a defensive barrier, but her internal meridians felt like they were clogged with thick mud. Her spiritual power was sluggish, refusing to answer her call.

Cold dread pooled in her stomach. Someone had slipped a toxin past her heightened senses. Who?

This was no ordinary poison; it was specifically formulated to cripple a cultivator. The assailant knew exactly what they were dealing with, which meant the poisoner was a cultivator themselves.

But who in the Shang household fit the bill? Aside from the patriarch, she hadn’t sensed a single ripple of spiritual energy from anyone else.

Was it the Master of the house? Or was there a hidden expert whose Cultivation far eclipsed her own, masking their presence entirely?

What about Senior Brother Lu?

A torrent of frantic questions flooded her mind, but time had run out. The distinct, rhythmic soft thud of footsteps approached her door.

The wooden doors creaked open. Steward Zhang stepped over the threshold, his usual subservient posture replaced by a measured, predatory stride. A twisted, euphoric smile stretched across his face.

“You!” Tao Yaoye’s eyes widened in shock. Her heart plummeted.

If she hadn’t been able to sense Steward Zhang’s spiritual energy, it meant only one thing: his Cultivation was vastly superior to hers.

In his right hand, he gripped a skinning knife. Even from five paces away, Tao Yaoye could feel the suffocating miasma of resentment radiating from the steel. It was a blade that had drank deeply of human agony, its dark history screaming into the ether.

Moonlight spilled through the open door, catching the edge of the knife and turning it into a blinding, snowy crescent.

Steward Zhang licked his lips, his eyes raking over Tao Yaoye’s paralyzed form. He looked at her not as a person, but as a magnificent beast caught firmly in a steel trap.

“Such exquisite skin,” he breathed, his voice trembling with dark reverence. “In all my years, I have never laid eyes on a canvas so snow-white, so flawlessly contoured.”

He took a slow step forward. “I know you belong to the Dao Seeking Sect. Killing you is an immense risk. Your sect’s shadow covers the very sun. How could a lowly insect like me dare to provoke such a behemoth?”

A thick strand of saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving her face. “But your skin… it is simply too beautiful. It drove me to madness. I couldn’t resist the gamble. And when you so willingly agreed to stay for dinner? It would have been a sin against heaven not to drug your meal.”

The dinner!

Seeing the defiance still burning in Tao Yaoye’s eyes, Steward Zhang offered a patronizing smile. “Cease your struggling, little bird. Even at your peak, you would be no match for me. You have merely brushed the threshold of Foundation Establishment. I am at the late Foundation Establishment stage.”

Despite his arrogant words, Steward Zhang’s muscles remained coiled tight. He was no fool. A Foundation Establishment disciple from the Dao Seeking Sect was a different breed entirely. He spoke only to shatter her will to fight.

Experience had taught him a gruesome truth: the more the prey resisted, the tighter the flesh clung to the muscle, ruining the harvest.

“Relax,” he cooed, raising the blade to his tongue and tasting the cold steel. “It is only a moment of agony. The fear will pass quickly.”

He closed the final distance.

Without warning, Tao Yaoye exploded upward from the bed.

Her spiritual power, supposedly bound by the poison, roared through her meridians like a tidal wave. She gripped the hilt of the Thousand Illusions Umbrella and swung it with bone-shattering force directly into Steward Zhang’s face.

Steward Zhang, utterly convinced of his absolute victory, was caught completely off guard.

“How are you not poisoned?!”