Chapter 7: Record of the Past

Chapter 7: Chapter 7: Record of the Past

"Wait!"

The sword suddenly stopped. Ye Xuan turned to the side and saw a man arrive with three other people, all wearing white robes like the woman in front of him.

"Hold back your strength, Junior Sister Li!"

The woman shot a sharp glance, then sighed softly. She swung the sword into her bag of holding, as if declaring that the sword was now hers.

"It seems there’s been a misunderstanding here," said the man, who had long black hair and held a fan in his hand.

"It’s no misunderstanding. He deliberately tried to kill me and violate me," the woman said, pointing at Ye Xuan.

"Get up, Fellow Daoist."

Ye Xuan stood and wiped the blood from the corner of his lips. He said nothing, because he had already tried to convince the woman and it had gotten him nowhere.

"Can you explain everything to me?" the man asked.

He glanced to the side, at the sour face of the woman who had nearly put a hole through his throat. Then he nodded to the man.

He used the chance to explain everything, starting with shopping for fighting techniques and ending with practicing qi threads. Ye Xuan told it all without lying.

The woman named Li didn’t respond. She folded her arms and turned her face away in annoyance.

She refused to listen, because to her, what Ye Xuan had done was different from what he said.

The man listened eagerly and carefully, then went to Ye Xuan’s room and looked around. The woman named Li came along to look too.

They tilted their heads back and looked up at the ceiling of Ye Xuan’s room, where they saw small scratches on the walls, and not just a few of them.

"Th-That’s...?"

"He really was practicing qi threads. I can see the scratch marks. Only an amateur swings a sword around like he’s flying a kite."

"But how is that possible? He’s an 11th Layer Qi Gathering cultivator. Isn’t that something sect disciples are normally supposed to master by the 5th layer?" the woman named Li asked.

"True, but sometimes a disciple learns it faster, and sometimes slower," the man replied.

He turned and looked at Ye Xuan. He asked which sect Ye Xuan studied at, because the robe Ye Xuan wore looked very familiar to him from the cultivation sects.

"I’m a disciple of the Sky Cloud Sect, Senior," Ye Xuan said.

"The Sky Cloud Sect? It’s unusual for them to have an incompetent disciple like you," the man said, walking closer to Ye Xuan.

"I can see carelessness and negligence in you. The suspicion that you meant to kill or assault Junior Sister Li has been disproved."

"Thank you for your kindness—"

"That doesn’t mean you’re free of punishment, Junior Daoist," he cut in.

"You must make up for what Junior Sister Li went through. I can’t decide what that should be, so I’ll let her decide."

"As long as you obey what she says, I won’t hold this matter against you in the future."

Ye Xuan was silent for a moment, then glanced to the side at the woman named Li.

Her arms were still crossed and she seemed unwilling to look back at him, but she had clearly heard her senior’s words.

"I already took his sword. That’s enough!"

"Very well. You may keep—"

"Wait!"

"You said you’re a disciple of the Sky Cloud Sect, right?" the woman asked, finally looking at Ye Xuan.

"Are you an outer disciple or an inner disciple?" she asked again, her expression more eager.

"That... I’m a disciple of the Spiritual Beast Hall."

A wide smile spread across the woman’s face. She walked over to her senior and whispered something. They spoke so quietly that Ye Xuan couldn’t hear a thing.

Before long the man gave a short nod, then smiled and reached out to pat Ye Xuan’s shoulder.

"Junior Sister Li has suggested something that will surely benefit both of you," the man explained.

"You’re an inner disciple of the Sky Cloud Sect. The Yan family is affiliated with the Sky Cloud Sect, so you can use your inner disciple token to access the city library," he said.

He explained further that the woman named Li wanted to study some things there, not techniques or formations, but something related to pill refining.

The man added that the city library restricted access to deeper knowledge about pill refining.

Only inner disciples who showed a hall disciple token had a chance to access those scrolls.

So they’re trying to use my status for their own gain? That’s extortion.

"What do you think? You don’t mind, do you?" the man asked.

If I refuse, they might drag this out. I promised Elder Ming I wouldn’t cause any trouble while I was away.

In the end, Ye Xuan agreed to the proposal. To him, it was far better than having them take everything in his bag of holding.

"Good," the man said, glancing at the woman named Li. "Stick to the agreement. He’ll help you, and after that, it’s done."

"Yes, Senior Brother Yu."

The man walked away, leaving the woman alone with Ye Xuan. She urged Ye Xuan to leave right away, worried the city library would close early.

The two of them left the place. Since the woman didn’t know exactly where it was, Ye Xuan would lead the way.

They walked in the evening, while the city streets were still busy with townspeople coming and going.

Ye Xuan looked ahead as he and the woman passed the Yue Family Pagoda and finally reached the city library.

It was the quietest spot compared to the places around it, which were packed with restaurants and shops.

The woman walked in, and a female staff member greeted her.

"Welcome to the Yanlong City Library."

The woman named Li turned and looked back at Ye Xuan. He sighed, took out his inner disciple token, and showed it to her.

"Oh, you’re an inner disciple of the Sky Cloud Sect. Of course, you can access up to the third floor of the library," the woman said, holding out a token for Ye Xuan.

He took the token and walked in, climbing the spiral staircase floor by floor.

As soon as he reached the door of the second floor, Ye Xuan pressed the token to the door.

Soon the door opened, and there was no one in the place except him and the woman named Li.

"I’ve brought you here. There are no fighting techniques, formations, or pill recipes on this floor," Ye Xuan said.

"I’m not looking for those," the woman explained, turning and pointing ahead to the spiral staircase leading to the third floor. "I want to go up to the third floor."

Ye Xuan let out a short sigh, then followed her and opened the door with the token.

When the door opened, he saw a small pond in the middle of the room with a little pavilion in the center.

The area around it was decorated with scroll shelves arranged neatly by category.

The woman looked excited. She followed the arrangement of categories until she reached the pill refining section.

The scroll she wanted wasn’t a pill recipe but deep knowledge about the art of pill refining.

Ye Xuan, meanwhile, was a bit surprised. He hadn’t expected a city library to have a place holding so much information in scroll form.

He strolled past the technique shelves, then cultivation, formations, sects, and past history, until what caught his attention was the spiritual beast shelf.

His steps stopped, and he looked at the titles written on the scrolls. Some explained spiritual beasts, their ranks, and lists of the spiritual beasts recorded throughout human history.

A list of spiritual beasts...?

Could Ling Qingyu’s race have been recorded there?

Ye Xuan reached out and drew the scroll over with his qi threads, then read what was written inside. He found that the list of spiritual beasts was split into several scrolls.

He checked the first scroll. There were records about snake races, but they were very different from Qingyu. He moved on to the next section and read it carefully.

By the time he reached the fourth section, he still hadn’t found anything related to Qingyu.

He searched every scroll for the keyword "Python," but none had a specific record of Qingyu’s kind of python.

Earlier, it had received a fragment from its ancestor, written clearly on the infinite return system’s panel.

If I remember right... Seven-Colored Lightning.

Ye Xuan searched even more carefully and specifically. But there was no record of the Seven-Colored Lightning Python in them.

Maybe I should look through past history instead. They couldn’t have erased it from history, could they?

"What are you looking for?" the woman asked, reading a scroll in her hands as she spoke.

"You have no right to know. It’s none of your business," Ye Xuan replied, arriving at the History section.

"You’re more arrogant than I thought. I should have killed you earlier."

Ye Xuan chuckled. "If you’d killed me, you wouldn’t be able to read that scroll."

The woman fell silent and went back to focusing on the scroll in her hands. Ye Xuan faintly heard her sigh.

"Huh... Master was right. To deal with the heavenly lightning that strikes the pill later, it still needs lightning essence."

Lightning essence...?

He worked up the nerve to ask, still reading the past-history scroll in his hands. "What do you need lightning essence for?"

"That’s none of your business," the woman snapped. "Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand."

"What if I told you I have a lightning essence gem?"

"HAHAHA!"

The woman named Li laughed loudly, her voice ringing through the room, and then she shook her head.

"Don’t lie to me. I really could kill you right now!"

"Don’t talk to me again," she said. "I don’t want to hear any more of your nonsense!"

Ye Xuan looked at her silently.

She doesn’t believe me?

He glanced at the bag of holding where the Heavenly Lightning Essences were stored.

Fine. I’ll show her.